AUDIOGRAPHY -- n. a description of a musical landscape

Musical Meanderings by Michael Kube-McDowell

I've been an amateur guitarist and keyboardist for thirty years, and at times a semi-professional violist as well. I studied under Lyman Bodman and played with the Michigan State University Symphony Orchestra as a non-major.

In the course of attending some 80+ conventions since 1982, I became well acquainted with the world of filking and with most of the leading singer-songwriters. I used Kathy Mar's song "Give My Children Wings" in my novel Enigma. Later, she solicited me to play and sing on the first of her Thor recordings. That session led to a number of other recording projects. Those listed below are the ones completed and commercially released.

Before the babies intervened, Barry and Sally Childs-Helton, Mary Ellen Wessels, Gwen Zak, and myself were rehearsing and occasionally performing and recording at conventions as The Black Book Band. We still hope to find ourselves in the studio, possibly to record a terrific song cycle/filk opera Barry has been writing.

These Tapes Did Not Self-Destruct In Ten Seconds...

• Sideman (viola, vocals, and Roland D-20 synth) on Kathy Mar's Plus Ça Change (Thor Records, 1988)
• Sideman (viola, vocals, keyboards) on Kathy Mar's Plus C'est la Même Chose (Thor Records, 1989)
• Sideman (Roland D-20 synth) on Barry and Sally Childs-Helton's Paradox (Space Opera House, 1989)
• Performing with Barry & Sally Childs-Helton [Roland D-20 synth, uncredited, on "Small Designs"] and the Green Hills Choir at OVFF V on the anthology Sound OVFF (Wail Songs, 1990)
• Performing with The Black Book Band at Chicon V on the anthology Mists of Memory (Wail Songs, 1994)
• Performing with The Black Book Band at Marcon 26 on the anthology Asteroid Ore (Wail Songs, 1994)
• Performing with The Black Book Band at Marcon 28 on the anthology The Pegasus Winners: Collection 1 1984-1993 (Love Song Productions, 1994)
• Sideman (acoustic guitar) for "Thanksgiving Eve" on Mary Ellen Wessels's Current Obsessions (Love Song Productions, 1997)
• Performing with The Black Book Band on the album First Contact (Dodeka Records, 1995)
• Sideman (viola, synth, piano, vocals) on the CD reissue of Kathy Mar's Plus Ça Change and Plus C'est la Même Chose (Dragonsgate Music, 2000)
• Sideman (synth) on Barry and Sally Childs-Helton's Tempus Fugitives (Dodeka Records, 2001), a CD reissue of material from Escape from Mundania and Paradox.

Interested in a listen? Most SF conventions of any size will have at least one music dealer in the huckster room. For direct orders, one source is Mary Kay Kare's catalog Prekarious; another is John and Mary Creasey's catalog Random Factors. Both carry most of the recordings listed above (though the original cassette releases of the Thor titles and the Space Opera House titles are out of print and may not be available). You can e-mail Mary Kay or e-mail the Creaseys with a query, or visit the Random Factors catalog home page. Tell them K-Mac sent you.

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Last Revised: March 04, 2014