AlI went to the Music Is Art Festival this weekend. I went both Saturday and Sunday to promote my podcast and network with the bands playing there. It was a good weekend in that respect.

I took my recorder and got a few interviews with some people – bands, mostly. I also got a great interview with Robbie Takac, the organizer of the whole MIA thing and member of the Goo Goo Dolls. I hope to get a podcast out soon about the festival with the interviews and some songs of featured bands there.

A number of bands I have already featured in podcasts were playing there and I felt it was important to show up, say hello and show support for them. I wish I could do more, but there are so many great musicians I have to move on to others too.

In fact, it was such a good weekend, networking-wise, that if I did a podcast of every band I talked with and introduced myself to, I’ll be booked solid until sometime in the next decade. Okay, don’t hold me to the math, but it seems that way.

It was gratifying that so many musicians were receptive, enthusiastic even, about my project. There are always a few who aren’t tech-savvy enough to understand what a podcast is. Heck, there are still bands without a web site, much less a MySpace page! But they will come around someday.

I realised that not only is there a tie between music and art, but many musicians are artists. Rob Lynch – a prolific Buffalo drummer – was there selling his paintings (when he wasn’t on stage.) Even Robby Takac had some photographs for sale in a friends tent. Buffalo music legend Mark Freeland (The Fems, Electroman) had his artwork for sale too. Z. Mann Zilla, besides selling his art and playing in several of the bands (Anal Pudding, The Worlds Largest Trio, etc. ) was also featured doing live art during the festival. Probably more I don’t realize…

But the wildest co-incidence was when I stopped by a caricature artist’s booth to have myself immortalized in ‘toon form. As I was chatting with the artist, Adam English, I mentioned I had a podcast. He mentioned he played in a filk band called Ookla the Mok. “But I probably hadn’t heard of it.” Not so!

Just goes to show the connection between art and music.

I have, of course heard of filk music and Ookla specifically. I first heard filk explained in the Signal podcasts, about the TV show Firefly and the movie Serenity. I’m a big fan of both. Not big enough to have gone to any conventions, or “cons” as they are called, but I was aware that there was a type of music devoted to those meetings and had been since they started with the Trekkies.

I was also familiar, by coincidence, with Ookla the Mok. Actually, I had met another member of the band (Rand) at the Greg Klyma show I recorded, although I didn’t realise it was him until later. He is a friend of a Buffalo blogger I read frequently, Erin-Go-Blog.

Incidentally, guess who designed the Ookla website? Answer: Z. Mann Zilla. Small world and getting smaller!

Anyway, I now have a way cool ‘toon of me to work into the website somehow…