Spring 2013 - D'Youville College

STAYING INFORMED - our faculty and staffBELLAVIA: BY DAY A COLLEGE LIBRARY DIRECTOR, AND BY NIGHTA WELL-KNOWN “FILK” MUSICIANAn esoteric and little known form of musicknown as “Filk” is growing in popularityintrigued by new creative musical sounds.Filking is a musical culture, genre and a It has been around since the early 1950s,and played primarily since the mid 1970s,according to Wikipedia. “Filk has beenis not exact,” Bellavia notes.of folk music in an essay by Lee JacobsModern American Filk Music.” It caughton and is used today for the genre. comic book conventions.One of the best internationally known director, Rand Bellavia, who just wonthe 2012 Pegasus Award for Excellencein Filking for his composition, “TiberiusRising,” written with long-time fellowWhen away from the D’Youville library,Bellavia and his writing and band mateEnglish, head up the musical group Ooklathe Mok, a rock band performing andand music has been used by Walt DisneyTelevision Animation as the theme for theABC-TV show Fillmore and their work hashas performed throughout the U.S. and hasmade a number of recordings.He and English also won a Pegasus Awardin 2004 for the Best Comic Book Song titled“Arthur Curry,” and the group was namedBest Performer in 2000 and Best Composerin 1997. The Pegasus Awards were foundedin 1984 by the Ohio Valley Filk Fest “toThe duo has written and produced astring of compositions well-known in theFilk community. The band has releasedmany songs about more universal topicslike relationships and lost love, but are(l to r) Band members: Wolfram Neff, Rand Bellavia, Joe Pepper and Adam Englishbest known for their genre creations. TheStar Wars song “Tantric Yoda” from their“Nerdvana EP” was the most requestedsong of 2012 on Dr. Demento’s nationallysyndicated radio show.Ookla the Mok is named after a characterfrom the Ruby-Spears Productions cartoonThundarr the Barbarian, created by SteveGerber.Bellavia and English met at HoughtonCollege in 1988, and shortly thereafterstarted performing their songs about StarTrek and Super Heroes, largely to thebefuddlement of audiences in the Buffalobar scene. Some years later, they wereintroduced to the Filk community and therest is history.Ookla the Mok were the internationalguests of honor at the 2009 British FilkConvention in Grantham, Lincolnshire,England and musical guests of honorat the 2007 installment of MarsCon inBloomington, Minn.The band is coming off a brief hiatus andwill be playing and touring in 2013. Theywill be releasing their tenth album “vs.Evil” in March at Consonance in San Jose,Calif., where they will be the guests ofhonor.14