Seeking Recommendations

[Vincent Ursus]

Well, I have all three of Seanan's CD and have listened to them repeatedly.

But there is more filk in the world.

I've picked up Shadowbeast and Thirteen.

I've also picked up a small batch of Heather Dale CDs.

I desire more. I'm thinking Tom Smith. But I am stymied by the large number of Tom Smith albums to choose from.

Can anyone recommend a Tom Smith album? Or perhaps two or three?

[TheKate]

Well, I have all three of Seanan's CD and have listened to them repeatedly.

But there is more filk in the world.

I've picked up Shadowbeast and Thirteen.

I've also picked up a small batch of Heather Dale CDs.

I desire more. I'm thinking Tom Smith. But I am stymied by the large number of Tom Smith albums to choose from.

Can anyone recommend a Tom Smith album? Or perhaps two or three?

I like Heather Alexander's Midsummer too, you might look at that.

Tom Smith... I can't recommend an album per se, but you should make sure you get "A Boy and His Frog," "307 Ale," and "Desert Storm" -- those are my favorites, and "A Boy and His Frog" is classic.

[Hsifyppah]

Ooh, I'd go with Digital Acoustic Compilation, which is basically the greatest hits from his tapes, and The Last Hero On Earth, his totally brilliant filk opera about superheroes.  It reminds me a lot of Seanan's Velveteen stories, actually.

[autographedcat]

I second Digital Acoustic Companion.  This is a great place to start for diving into Tom's work.

[Vincent Ursus]

The Digital Acoustic Composition was not available on Tom Smith's website (though I did later find it on his CD Baby site).

I ended up buying the downloadable version of The Last Hero On Earth, which I enjoyed. Despite having heard most of the songs during the several weeks I spent listening to Death Sheep Radio. Getting the songs in order does improve them.

I have also ordered Midsummer, though that is still forthcoming.

[Seanan]

Sadly, my favorite Tom Smith albums are still his first two, Domino Death and Who Let Him In Here?

[rocketsong]

I'm going to recommend Heather Alexander's Festival Wind.  It's a live album.  I LIKE live albums, others don't though.

[hms42]

If you are looking for a good filk sampler, an east coast collection that I do recommend is "Balticon Tapes".  Its a 2 CD set of about 45-50 songs that samples 25 years of filk performances in the Baltimore area.   It has people from all over including Leslie Fish, Frank Hayes, Kathy Mar, Tom Smith, Clam Chowder, and many others.   

Its a great way to hear lots of voices and get a start of an idea who you might like.   Also, any Worldcon album (on CD or if you can find an old tape) will give you an idea of various performs.   Filk convention albums tend to have GOHs on them plus a good sample of the locals to that area at that time.

And if you have not found it yet, 3 other areas for online filk music -
Virtual Filksing at http://www.prometheus-music.com/eli/virtual.html
High quality filk recordings

Filk Archive at http://www.filkarchive.org.uk/  (Free membership required to download the mp3s).   The site has a mixture of high quality recordings and recent convention recordings to a couple of voices that are very rough.
and
Filk.com's radio station via live365.com where he plays a mixture of what is available in his store and out of print tapes.