Filk Discography Wiki

So you want to learn more about filk or the filk community? Here are some pointers.

Getting in touch[]

Apart from right here, the two main gathering places for filkers online are Facebook and Discord.

On Discord, you can find FilkHaven. It is a popular and active server, and also serves as a place to discuss this wiki. Other filk-specific Discord servers include Let's Filk About (German language, centered on FilkContinental), Filkerei (German language, general), OVFF, and NEFilk.

On Facebook, there are plentiful groups dedicated to filk, but the two most important ones are F Is For Filker (a private group) and Filk Marketplace.

On Bluesky, the filkwiki has its own account, known simply as filkwiki. Sunnie Larsen maintains a comprehensive list of Filkers and Related Accounts. Gary McGath maintains Filk News.

If you want to find a local group, feel free to ask in any of the above spaces. Good spaces to find filkers are at Filk cons and filk-friendly Gencons.

Listening to filk[]

If you want to find filk to listen to there are several ways to get started.

Online concerts, festivals, and circles[]

Online concerts, festivals, and circles are usually announced on the places linked above. Two other services also deserve special mention: Filkstreams (maintained by Eric Distad of The Faithful Sidekicks) and Friends of Filk (maintained by Cecilia Eng).

Some of the regular online filk activities are the Festival of the Living Rooms, Eurofilk, and Filk Bytes.

Podcasts[]

Eric Coleman and Lizzie Crowe make FilkCast, an hour-long biweekly (currently weekly during the pandemic) podcast on filk and other fannish music. Each episode is annotated with links to participating performers and other resources.

Geekspin is a podcast dedicated to filk, nerd, geek, fannish, and comedic music. It is published biweekly, and usually interviews and showcases a single artist or band each episode.

Recordings[]

There are a few known dealers for filk on physical media.

In Germany, there is Filkshop. To our knowledge, they only ship to Germany.

In the USA there is Wôks Print.

Most other filk dealers are only active at conventions or only do business face-to-face. Filk can also be found on Ebay, but especially filk cassettes tend to be absurdly overpriced there. Some individual artists or labels also have online stores.

However, modern recorded filk is largely released digitally, via services like Bandcamp, Spotify, or Youtube. Digitisation efforts of older filks are also starting to turn up on these services.

Generally, Bandcamp holds the best selection of modern filk, and is also a good way to support musicians directly. Their filk tag is a good start.

Music services like Spotify, Apple Music, and Google Music also have filk for streaming or purchase. Spotify users can find the playlists Filk Sampler (with a curated introduction to filk, no longer maintained) and the Spotify Filk Compendium (which intends to collect all filk on Spotify).

Youtube provides the most varying selection. Generally speaking, personal video recordings are not that common among filkers, but there are some filkers who use the format. However, Youtube holds plentiful digitisations of mainly older filk, though the quality can vary widely. The Vintage Filk Preservation Channel is systematically adding new music of good quality.

Albums that are documented here might have links to online music providers, but adding this is relatively new, so don’t let the lack of a listening link deter you from looking. And feel free to add the link on the artist or album page, if you find one!

History and lore[]

This is for you of scholarly bent. Perhaps the most important resource is Tomorrow’s Songs Today, a free e-book written and published by Gary McGath, which covers the filk community and its history from the beginning up to 2014. The revised edition updates it to early 2023.

There are two large encyclopedic wikis about fandom that covers filk as well. The first is Fanlore, run and maintained by the OTW—the same organisation that stands behind Archive of Our Own. It has a multi-fandom perspective. The second is Fancyclopedia 3 (F3), run and maintained by the Fanac Fan History Project. It has a stronger focus on the specifics of science fiction fandom—where filk got its start—and its history. You will find plenty of links to both throughout this wiki.

And if you’re hardcore about research, the Harold M. Stein Memorial Filk Archive contains a huge collection of material.