This afternoon we had our monthly Orillia Folk Society concert. Sophocleese, one of the founding members of the folk society I believe, worked the concert as both soundman and master of ceremonies.

The concert came alive when hespiris sang, Ophelia, a Goth song about death. Accompanying herself with funeral sounding arpeggios on keyboard, her opening song seemed apt for this weekend before Halloween. She followed Ophelia with two oppressive love songs. Hessy seemed very comfortable on stage. You'd think she had been born with a mike in her mouth. She even looked good from the back of the room. Hesperis ended her set with a bright, complicated, impressive instrumental piece on the piano, North Mountain Pass.

Sophocleese then introduced David Zub, a United Church minister who played slide on a twelve-string guitar and fingerpicking on a six string. He opened with 'Son Don't go Astray,' played songs by James Gordon and David Essex, and then one of his own with advice like, 'Never eat anything you can't lift.' Zub finished his set with a courageous rendition of Richard Thompson's difficult song, '57 Vincent Black Lightening.'

The feature act, Newmarket's Rick Hoyles played a variety of percussion instruments with bass and a variety of flutes and recorders. He was able to do this mainly by recording drums and bass on echo loops then accompanying his loops with flutes and other instruments like toy robots that made Frampton like noises, finger pianos and birdcalls.

The ads for the show suggested that people bring rhythm instruments to play along with Rick. Hesperis brought a couple of rotting twigs. They made a pathetic muffled sound when Little Hawk banged them. Hesperis resorted to whacking me on the head with a book on Feng Shui to get a booming hollow sound. Sophocleese arrived with a number of percussion instruments including a tunable head brodhran (sp?, It's not only difficult to play well, it's nearly impossible to spell.) At one point Hoyles invited Sophocleese on stage to play recorder improvisations to his drumming. She barely had time to catch her breath when she had to tear down the sound system and pack it up.

By the way, Jennifer printed an edited version of my mudcat message 'Rick Fielding Plays Crop Circle Country' on the front page of this month's newsletter with a picture of Rick and his autoharp.