--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eagle Bytes
The Electronic Newsletter of Prometheus Music
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Volume 9 August 2006 Issue 3
==========================================================================
Hi, there!
Welcome to the "Off to Graduate School!" issue of Eagle Bytes.
In this issue:
1. Leigh Ann Hussey memorial
2. Julia Ecklar updates
- SEEKING YOUR HOME TAPES OF JULIA!
- Traveller still available
- More "Divine Intervention" T-shirts found in closet
- Other stuff
3. Random News
- NASA-published book quotes "To Touch the Stars" songs
4. Pandora's Soapbox
1. LEIGH ANN HUSSEY
-------------------
As most of you already know, Leigh Ann Hussey died in a motorcycle crash on Tuesday, May 16th. I did not know Leigh Ann well, but admired her tremendously as a musician and songwriter.
If you own Roundworm, you've heard her and her band Annwn perform a parody of Leigh Ann's song "Red Queen".
A testimony to her life and her accomplishments is available at:
You can also find free MP3 downloads of every album she recorded with Annwn at:
2. JULIA ECKLAR UPDATE
----------------------
* Seeking your home tapes of Julia!!!
Many of you may have fond memories of catching Julia Ecklar in an impromptu hallway concert at conventions in the 1980s. Some of you even kept tapes that you made of these concerts. We know there's countless forgotten songs Julia never recorded, but perhaps *you* did.
Dr. Adam Puche has been collecting and cleaning up these recordings for preservation. We will also be making Julia's favorites of these "attic tapes" available as a commercial CD set, or more likely, for free download to Eagle Bytes subscribers.
Just to be clear, we're not looking for copies of commercial tapes - just the one-of-a-kind recordings you made of Julia at conventions. Adam will digitize your tape(s), and (eventually!) return them to you, most likely with a digital copy.
If you have such tapes and are interested, please let me know, and I'll put you in touch with Adam.
* Traveller still available!
Half of the limited-edition reprint of Julia Ecklar's teenaged "Traveller" recording is now sold out. If you wanted one, act soon. Prometheus will never reprint this CD.
If you're new to Eagle Bytes and have never heard of this album, you can read more at:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.music.filk/browse_frm/thread/88a4446995ecfa02
Or, to purchase a copy, click:
http://www.prometheus-music.com/pre-order/traveller.html
(I haven't updated that link, so you'll still receive the special pre-order pricing.)
* Divine Intervention T-shirts discovered in my closet
While packing to leave for graduate school, I found a forgotten box of 20 Divine Intervention t-shirts in nearly all sizes.
If you had wanted one the last time they sold out, you can find them at:
http://www.prometheus-music.com/di-shirt.html
* Other Stuff
Divine Intervention was the most expensive filk album reprint in history. In total, we spent an astonishing $16,187.68 on professional studio time, packaging consulting, locating the masters, media restoration, bonus materials, high-end printing, and so forth.
Lots of people told me I was nuts when we did it - and, yeah, they probably were right. Three years later, though, I am very proud to announce that the Divine Intervention CD release is now in the black and profitable!
Thanks to all of you for making it happen with your spreading the word about the album and your patronage. Of course, all of the profits will be set aside for more Julia Ecklar CDs, whenever she's up for recording them.
On a related note, you can find a neat illustration inspired by the "Ladyhawke" song from Divine Intervention at:
http://www.deviantart.com/view/34743234/
3. RANDOM NEWS
-------------
* NASA-published book quotes "To Touch the Stars" songs
Dr. Roger Launius (National Air & Space Museum space history chair) strikes again!
The new NASA-published anthology "Realizing the Dream of Flight" features an essay by Dr. Launius, quoting songs by Cynthia McQuillin, Mary Jean Holmes, and Bill Roper.
The book was edited by Virginia Dawson and Mark Bowles, and is available for purchase from NASA.
You can find the entire book in PDF format at:
http://history.nasa.gov/sp4112.pdf
(NASA also sells a nice printed hardcover with DVD.)
4. PANDORA'S SOAPBOX
--------------------
In ten days, I leave Silicon Valley after a decade to move to Seattle -- I'll be doing a masters degree in Technical Communications at UW. This issue is being typed amidst a sea of boxes.
Most exciting (and terrifying!) is that I will be teaching workplace technical communications to a class of 27 undergraduate engineering students, on top of a full-time graduate course-load.
That's why on September 25th, I expect that I will vanish into a black hole, for all practical purposes.
--
The past few months have been a whirlwind. I spent most of April and May re-learning Hebrew. In June, I had the opportunity to travel to Israel for two weeks, just before Hamas and Hezbollah kidnapped three Israeli citizens, and you all know the results.
While in Israel, I enjoyed meeting several members of the nascent Israeli filk community. The parallels to American filk in the late 1970s were striking: the Israeli filkers were a young, enthusiastic, and growing group of college-aged-ish people who valued fun and fellowship over rote musical mechanics.
They don't have much access to American recorded filk -- a single CD costs as much as $30 after customs and shipping. Israelis also have much less material wealth than Americans: a third of the nation earns minimum wage. They spend 2-3 years after high school in the Israeli Defense Forces, during which you receive a negligible stipend. So, Israeli filkers are often limited to what is downloadable over the Internet.
There's now a bit more American filk in Israel: I brought with me about 30 filk CDs and songbooks from DAG Productions, Harpy Music and Prometheus. They were sold directly at a heavily-discounted, wholesale price, so that they were financially affordable to the average Israeli.
(Advice to the RIAA: Honoring, respecting, and sincerely caring about your prospective customers as intelligent human beings works better than threatening them.)