Filk

Filk is a rare genre of music associated with fans and fandom, especially that of science fiction. The genre has been around since at least the early 1950s, and was performed at sci-fi conventions wherever the performers found comfortable. This music is sometimes thought of as the music version of fan fiction.

History

For almost as long as there have been science fiction conventions, there were people in whatever places they could find singing about fantasy and science fiction, usually in a folk style. In the early 1950s, an article was written about how science fiction has influenced American folk music. The word "folk" in the title was mistyped as "filk." Because of this, science fiction fans' indie folk-like music was referred to as filk. Filk continued to be performed at science fiction conventions for many years. In the 1980s, fan conventions specifically for the music, called filkcons or filk fests, such as Ohio Valley Filk Fest (OVFF) were set up. The Pegasus Awards were set up in 1984. They are an award show specifically for filk songs/artists, given at the Ohio Valley Filk Fest. Filk has a little presence on the internet (see external links), but, for the most part, it's just like it was in the 1980s; performed at sci-fi conventions, as well as conventions just for filk. Now that the new filk websites exist, it is a little bit easier to discover filk.

Availability

Even though a lot of popular songs with a sci-fi theme have been called filk by the fans ("Weird Al" Yankovic's songs "Yoda" and "The Saga Begins," David Bowie's "Major Tom," and Elton John's "Rocket Man"), these artists have never attended fan fiction or filk conventions. Therefor, their specific songs have been called filk, but they haven't been called filk artists. Most filk artists write and/or sing exclusively filk songs, and perform at fanfic/sci-fi/filk conventions. Filk albums are almost never available in music stores, or even Amazon.com. They are usually available only through the filk artist's website. Before the internet (and this is often still the case), sci-fi/filk conventions may have a filk dealer where you can buy a filk CD. Most filk on the internet is in lyric form, rather than audio recording, though small portals like Filk Archive do contain user-uploaded audio files. Sites like Filk Archive can potentially be used to become part of the filk scene through the internet, though most filk artists get their start at conventions.

External links

• Filk website, the go-to place for filk beginners, including a songbook with lyrics. There used to be a music store on this site, but it was shut down.
• Filk Archive, a place to download MP3 files of filk songs, and just maybe become part of the filk scene without attending a fan convention.
• Interfilk, a fan fund to send a selected guest to a filk convention.