Oops... I just read the rest of that page and noticed that you referenced Weird Al. So, I guess you didn't take that as an insult!

No, definitely not. Weird Al is the man. Thanks for the compliments.

Although he does song parodies, his stuff doesn't count as Filk. Filk is about fandom and related geeky topics, his stuff is broader, more about pop culture. And song parodies are only a sub-category of Filk- most filk is original material.

As a parodist, I definitely try to follow his model. For instance, he gets an extra level of humor out of his pieces when he can set it up so that certain lines get "left in" from the original song for strategic effect. For instance, I left in "that was just a dream" in Losing My Connection, or the line about "king of crap" in Buggy Software (where the original was "crap is king").

And yes, that's me singing in those MP3s. I'm a little nervous on those recordings and manage to screw up in a few places. There's also some embarassing high notes I don't quite hit. But it's a good learning exercise for any artist to mix down his own stuff. One learns a lot about one's own performances that way.

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Tony Fabris