Beth Kinderman IF

Beth Kinderman began her long and circuitous journey into filk when a friend suggested that fandom might provide a more receptive audience for her weird folky songs about Star Wars than the increasingly perplexed and dismissive bar and coffeehouse crowds she'd been unsuccessfully courting. At her first convention (MarsCon 2007 in Bloomington, Minnesota), she met her future musical collaborator and producer Dave Stagner and discovered a thriving universe of other nerdy creative people waiting to welcome her. She poked around the edges of the filk community until Eric Coleman finally dragged her along to OVFF in 2015 ("it took me too many years to come, but I'm where I wanted to be..."). Ever since, she's been proud to call filk her musical home. To be nominated for a Pegasus Award by her peers is an immense honor for which she is profoundly grateful.

In the years since that fateful con, Beth has released six albums full of her prog-influenced folk-rock original compositions, covers of found filk, and the occasional song parody. (A seventh album, Sisyphus: ten songs about hope, will be released at OVFF in 2024.) Several of her works have won or placed in the songwriting competitions at OVFF and FK-NO. Her songs draw their themes and imagery from SF and fantasy literature, genre TV and film, video games, anime, mythology, philosophy, pagan spirituality, the trials and tribulations of her RPG characters, and her own life. No matter the topic, she aims to write thought-provoking music that connects emotionally with any audience while also containing enough clever references to delight those listeners who happen to be as geeky about a song's source material as she is.

Beth regularly performs at conventions around the Midwest with her band, the Player Characters (consisting of Elizabeth Greenberg on violin and vocals, Justin Hartley on percussion, Dennis Maddix on bass, and Dave Stagner on guitar). She also maintains close ties with the comedy music scene and contributes humorous songs to the Funny Music Project, one of which was nominated for a Logan Award for excellence in comedy music in 2019.

Beth lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with her husband (game designer Eric Zawadzki) and their two awesome kids. By day, she works as a data analyst in the health insurance industry. When she isn't nitpicking SQL code, parenting, or filking, she heads the music tracks at two of her local conventions (CONvergence and Minicon), runs RPG campaigns for her friends, and spends much less time playing board games and video games than she would ideally prefer.

Website: www.bethkinderman.com
Bandcamp: bethkinderman.bandcamp.com

Representative Work for the 2024 Pegasus Awards

The Ones Who Walked Away (mp3)

Copyright © by Beth Kinderman
All Rights Reserved - Used by Permission

(chorus)
you can ask me why I stayed there
but don't assume I didn't see it
don't assume I didn't care
cause I will not cede this city
to the ones who looked the other way
by walking with the ones who walked away

I have seen the boats in harbor
I have heard the bells that ring
felt the joy of all the people
as they celebrate & sing
I have been down in that basement
I have seen the child in chains
& I've justified my actions
in the face of so much pain
so I can't say that I blame you
if you leave & don't return
it's just I never could accept
that every one of us should burn

(chorus)

so I went up to the monster
& I said, let us break bread
& I sat there at his table
slept uneasy in his bed
I said, what a lovely family
I said, what a lovely home
mine is burdened, mine is fearful
not so different from your own
& it isn't satisfying
doesn't deal in awe or shock
to be that steady nagging trickle
slowly wearing down the rock

(chorus)

& of course I hate this place
as the minutes turn to hours
& of course I hate myself
as the hours turn to days
but I can't convince myself
the ones who started this aren't human
& I can't convince myself
the right road only runs one way

you may say I've grown complicit
I'll allow you may be right
I have asked all these same questions
in the middle of the night
through reform or revolution
either way, lives will be lost
& there's not a simple answer
when we calculate the cost
so come back here with an army
do your duty, it can't wait
& I will greet you with my banners
when I open wide the gate

(chorus x2)

at least that's what I tell myself