2012 Jurors
Fan Jurors
Anthony “A‑Log” LoGatto
Since first hearing of Dr. Demento in middle school, Anthony LoGatto dreamed of playing funny music on a radio show of his own someday. Several years, and a nickname better than “Tony”, later, that dream was achieved when he entered the College of Staten Island in 2004. After a year of on-air work on “normal” alt-rock, he was given a chance to bring some much needed humor to Staten Island. And on June 22, 2008, “A‑Log on the Airwaves” premiered! After graduation, A‑Log continued to do the show as a podcast on the Internet, garnering new fans along the way, every Saturday night on Mad Music and Archive.org. Let the weirdness consume you!
John Heering, Jr.
John Heering, Jr. has been a mailman for twentysomething years and a nerd since birth. His interest in funny music started when he heard his parents’ old 45 of “The Battle of Kookamonga” as a toddler. He has been interested in comic books since before he could read and has amassed a collection of thousands of Superman comics. Dr. Demento has described him as “the most prolific song requestor” on The Dr. Demento Show, which is probably why he was asked to be on this jury. Johnny’s friends say he sing a great karaōke version of “Monster Mash”.
James Ford “Butch” Allen
James Ford “Butch” Allen, a.k.a. the “God of MarsCon”, became involved with his namesake con in its infancy and has helped to keep it alive for over twenty years. He recently chaired his fifth straight MarsCon, and under his watch its music program has grown to become one of the strongest con music programs in the Mid-Atlantic, drawing such eclectic performers as Tom Smith, The Boogie Knights, Devo Spice, Power Salad, Rob Balder, Danny Birt, Jonah Knight, and Coyote Run.
MarsCon is only part of Butch’s claim to Fandom Fame, though. He began working on SF conventions in 1982 when he joined HaRoSFa (The Hampton Roads Science Fiction Association) and at Sci-Con 4, walked into the Con Suite to volunteer, and was hooked evermore. During the years of Sci-Con he was instrumental in improving many areas of the con, as well as chairing Sci-Con 8 and serving as vice-chair on three others. Over his lifetime, he has assisted many other local cons by helping them fill voids in whatever area needed help. During his active years in HaRoSFa, he served several terms as President and Vice-President of the club, and revived the clubs fanzine “The Liberated Quark”, where he split the duties of editor and writer, and is best known for his “Redneck’s in Space” short stories.
Musician Jurors
Jonah Knight
Jonah Knight is a Paranormal Modern Folk Singer. After years floundering as a garden variety singer/songwriter, Jonah began writing about ghosts in 2009. He has since completed four albums featuring songs about monsters, clones, superheroes, steampunk, and space travel. Since 2010 he has been performing at Cons throughout the mid-Atlantic region averaging one per month. In March, 2012 he was the Musical Guest of Honor at Madicon. His recent kickstarter campaign was funded at 214% in support of an album of creepy Christmas music to be released in October. Jonah has performed on the same bill with many members of The FUMP, often following very funny (and crazy) people with a set of Lovecraft-inspired, supernatural creepiness. He finds this hilarious.
Mikey Mason
Born in Kentucky and dragged throughout the south before settling in Indiana to be raised in a trailer, Mikey Mason has a diverse background to draw material from. With his abnormal childhood, five siblings, two marriages, two children, multiple pets, college experiences, and many career changes (ranging from fast food, to working at a funeral home, to teaching middle school, high school and college, as well as working with at-risk youth,) he’s got a lot to talk—and sing—about. Mikey went from performing in bands and sketch and improv comedy troupes to performing standup over the last 15 years. He’s performed at Crackers, the Comedy Caravan, Wiley’s Comedy Niteclub, Snickerz Comedy Bar, Mason City Limits, Go Bananas, and One Liners, and has performed with Todd Yohn, John Fox, Rob Haney, Lord Carrett, Steve Iott, Troy Davis, Chris Speyrer, Tracey Tedesco, and Tim Rowlands, among others, and has made multiple regional television and radio appearances. Mikey draws the audience in with his saucy, irreverent blend of storytelling and outrageous songs. No subject or musical style is off limits. From country to rock, pop to rap, religion to relationships, politics to childhood insecurities, Mikey is unabashed, unafraid, and unquestionably funny.
Tom Smith
Tom Smith is a singer-songwriter from Ann Arbor, Michigan, who got his start in the filk community. He is a fourteen-time winner of the Pegasus Award for excellence in filking, including awards for his “A Boy and His Frog”, “307 Ale”, and “The Return of the King (Uh-huh)”, and was inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame in 2005. Smith has written songs in many musical moods and styles, from dramatic to silly to romantic, and from operatic to hip-hop to Klezmer. In performance, he tends towards comedy folk-rock, usually with many references to films, literature, popular culture and politics, frequently using puns.
His nickname, “The World’s Fastest Filker”, comes from numerous instances of “instafilk”, i.e., quickly-written or improvised songs. He has improvised entire concert sets, performs frequently at conventions across the United States, and has also performed in Canada and England. He has been featured frequently on Dr. Demento, Public Radio International’s Sound & Spirit, and other radio programs. In 2007, he joined with comedy musicians such as Rob Balder, The Great Luke Ski, Sudden Death, Worm Quartet, and others in The FuMP (The Funny Music Project). Smith has appeared in concert with Dr. Demento. (excerpted from Wikipedia)
Permanent Juror
Dr. Demento
Dr. Demento is the on-air name of Barret Hansen, the longtime host of The Dr. Demento Show, a syndicated radio show in the U.S. that features novelty and comedy records. Hansen studied music at Reed College in Portland, Oregon and at the University of California at Los Angeles. He first used the Dr. Demento moniker in 1970, in his early days as a Los Angeles disc jockey. By 1974 he was nationally syndicated, playing rare novelty songs from the past and present, from Spike Jones and Tom Lehrer to Frank Zappa and Weird Al Yankovic. Hansen is also an avid record collector and expert on the history of recording who has produced several compilations, mostly for Rhino Records. He was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2009. (from Infoplease.com)
The Dr. Demento Show is radio’s weekly two-hour festival of “mad music and crazy comedy” available for streaming on the internet. It is a free-wheeling, unpredictable mix of music and comedy. Along with legends like Spike Jones, Tom Lehrer, Stan Freberg, Monty Python, and Frank Zappa, the Doctor plays new funny songs sent in by amateur and professional singers and comedians. (from Dr. Demento.com)
Chairperson
Danny Birt
A tremendous(ly small) battle rages amongst the Fans of Fandom as to whether Danny Birt is better-known for his authorial/editorial contributions to SFF literature, or for his musical compositions and parodies. On one side of the argument, for example, his most recent fantasy novel “Between a Roc and a Hard Place” has won several national awards – believe it or not, even from outside of fandom. On the other side, at SFF conventions Danny’s live filk concerts always draw larger crowds of fans than his readings (wherein Danny often has to speak VERY LOUDLY to drown out the crickets’ chirping). Perhaps the fact that he has a Master’s Degree in Music Therapy tilts the balance in the latter half’s favor. Perhaps the fact that almost nobody in the world can explain exactly what the heck Music Therapy is tilts the balance back. Who knows? Maybe this battle will last until after Danny is dead… which is probably right about the time that all this writing and composing will start to make him enough money to live on. In the mean time, Danny has settled in eastern North Carolina where he is a faculty member at a local college. In his spare time, Danny’s hobby is finding new hobbies. (Danny’s website is DannyBirt.com – which shows just how creative of a guy he is.)
Founder
Rob Balder
Rob Balder is a professional cartoonist, singer/songwriter, game designer and web entrepreneur. Most of his time is consumed writing and producing Erfworld, an epic fantasy/comedy comic about an obsessive strategy gamer who is summoned to fight a real war. Erfworld was co-created in 2006 with illustrator Jamie Noguchi, and continues now with the talents of illustrator Xin Ye. Time magazine named Erfworld one of its top ten graphic novels of 2007, and Wired.com called it “Geekiest Comic Ever.” The first physical book of the series, “Erfworld: the Battle for Gobwin Knob,” was published in February of 2011.
Rob also writes and sings comedy songs, and has recorded two solo CDs. The title track from his first CD, “Rich Fantasy Lives” was co-written with Filk Hall of Famer Tom Smith. It won the Pegasus award for Best Filk Song of 2007. In 2009 he collaborated with -=ShoEboX=- of Worm Quartet on a CD called “Baldbox: the Dumb Album.” Rob’s songs have often been heard on the Doctor Demento Show. In January 2007, he and six other comedy music performers founded The Funny Music Project, where they present new songs every single day, released under a Creative Commons license. The FuMP won the 2009 Parsec Award for Best Speculative Fiction Music Podcast.
