Interview with Lee Gold

Lee Gold is the editor of Xenofilkia, a bimonthly filk fanzine started in October, 1988. Each issue contains approximately 20 pages of filk songs. Her History of Filk essay is a well-known reference text in the filk community. Lee lives in L.A. with her husband Barry.

How did you get involved with filk?

There was a filk program at the first SF convention I attended, Westercon XX, 1967, with Ted Johnstone and Bruce Pelz singing songs, most of them from Pelz's Filksong Manuals.

My first filksong, "Oh, What a Beautiful Martian," appeared in my group's fanzine, The Third Foundation, published in August, 1967. I remember selling a copy to Barry and hearing him sing my song later that evening.

How did Xenofilkia get started?

I decided that Philk-fee-nom-ee-non (edited by Paul Willett) seemed to be permanently defunct and that it would be nice to have a current filkzine. So I started one. That was in the autumn of 1988.

How many subscribers do you have at present?

Currently, my first printing of an issue is 150 copies. Of course, I reprint issues as the number of spare copies gets too low. All issues of Xenofilkia are still in print. The webpage with the indexes is at http://theStarport.com/xeno/.

How is each issue prepared?

I get songs, some hard copy, some emailed, and put them into a computer file, using Word97. My husband Barry does sheet music if it's needed, using MusiXTeX. Then I print the masters on a laser printer, and photocopy them on the Mita photocopier in my kitchen.

What is the FILKER UP series?

The first FILKER UP was published in 1986, containing what I considered my best filksongs and those of some of my friends. Originally this collection was going to be published by Eric Gerds as part of his FANTASTIC series (the first two feature Chris Weber and Karen Willson), but when I realized that his other priorities would prevent this from happening, I decided to go ahead and publish them myself.

There are now five FILKER UPs, each of them 44 pages of songs, with about the same mix as the first one. (Well, except for the fact that #5 is rated as for Mature filkers of all ages, because it contains a few songs like Leslie Fish's "I Beat Bottoms" and Jan Kelson's "Marquis de Sade." Future FILKER UPs will be less bawdy.)

How did you and Barry meet?

We met at LASFS, were friends for a year or so, and eventually started dating, marrying two years after we'd first met, the night he sang my filksong.

What conventions do you and Barry tend to go to every year?

Arisia or Boskone for a taste of Winter and to see our East Coast friends. Consonance in March in the Silicon Valley. Sometimes Westercon. Conchord in the LA area. Worldcon. Loscon in the LA area.

Do you have any upcoming projects/events?

Continuing to publish Xenofilkia and FILKER UP. And of course also continuing with my roleplaying game activities (where I'm actually a professional writer). I'm also going to be running filk for the 2002 Westercon.

I've also agreed to help Random Factors (John and Mary Creasey) in their publishing project: THE BASTARD CHILDREN OF ARGO, a collection of songs using the tune of or commenting on "Banned from Argo." And, of course, publishing songbooks for ConChord (see http://www.conchord.org/ and http://www.conchord.org/songbooks.html).

Have you seen any trends in filking and the filking community over the years that you would like to comment on?

Some trends are technology-driven.

Development of the cheap and lightweight cassette recorder (as opposed to the expensive and heavy reel-to-reel) has made convention taping much easier.

Relatively cheap costs for publishing by cassette or CD have also allowed commercial filk recordings, which in turn has encouraged writing songs to original tunes because people are able to learn the tunes from recordings rather than having to puzzle them out from sheet music.

I'm sure that the Web and the various pieces of software allowing using to be posted on webpages will have similarly far-reaching effects.

Other trends are social, such as the development of various sorts of Bardic and Chaos circles (with various regions having their favorites) as opposed to the earlier form in the 1960s which was rather more like what we'd nowadays call a hymnal sing or a performers circle.

Back in the 1960s, filk was the common heritage of all trufen. Nowadays it's often considered a fringe activity. I don't think this is because most fen have gotten less musical. It may be an inevitable effect of fandom's getting so much bigger. There are very few things these days that unify all of fandom. You can't even count on all fen having read the same basic library of Asimov, Heinlein, Doc Smith, etc. any more, and some fen don't read books at all, just go in for movies and TV shows and anime. Similarly, many of the old filksongs are now forgotten, as we found out at OVFF when Barry sang the Silverlock songs (to tunes that Myers gave permission to Pelz to publish at the start of the 1960s).

This may be because those old songs aren't available on cassettes and CDs. I hope that some filk publisher will do something about this before the heritage becomes lost. I've tried to publish the old filksongs, some in Xenofilkia and FILKER UP, some in the Conchord songbooks. (I published songbooks for Conchord #8, 9, 12, 13, and 14, and will be publishing a songbook for Conchord #15. These songbooks will be kept in print, just like Xenofilkia and FILKER UP.)

What advice do you have for new filkers?

Feel free to request songs that you've heard about. (Yes, even "Banned from Argo.") Many filkers will be pleased to let you leaf through their songbooks and request songs from them. Singing an old song to someone who's never heard it before can make it seem new again (just like watching an old movie with someone who's never seen it before). If you've written lyrics to a known tune but aren't confident about your voice, feel free to ask if anyone would be willing to help you sing them. Filk is a social group, not just a musical one; let's be friends.