Chris 'Minstrel' Malme

There has been music in my life for as long as I remember - both parents were self-taught on the piano, and encouraged my brother and I to have lessons.

I had really wanted to learn to play the guitar, so when I went to University, I persuaded a friend to teach me. My technique was rough and ready, but I learned how to knock out a song. Within a term, I found myself helping to run the college folk club. I was probably the worst instrumentalist to play there, but built up a repertoire of funny songs and parodies, which I think were a welcome release from the earnest young students who suffered for their music.

After college, I lived and worked in London for a year, but eventually returned to my university town of Brighton and Hove. The area is rich in folk clubs, and I found plenty of opportunity to play. During this time, my technique improved and I started to write some serious songs. However, after a few years, my interest turned to other things, and for a while, the guitar was forgotten, in the back of a cupboard.

Then I encountered filk at Follycon, a British Easter convention, in 1988. The circumstances will no doubt sound familiar - I was walking along a hotel corridor and heard voices singing, somewhere. I tracked the music down, and sat in on a wonderful filk session. That night, I was filled with enthusiasm, and stayed up late, in my room, writing - I desperately wanted to have a song I could perform in the next day's session.

The following day, I sat in the filk room, nervously waiting my turn. When it came, I started to sing my first real filk song - "Where Do You Get Your Ideas From", to the tune of Peter Sarstedt's "Where Do You Go To My Lovely":

"You are a best selling author
And I but a poor lowly fan
I've got some questions to ask you
The committee have said that I can..."

What I didn't know was that Gordy Dickson was also in the room - as I sang this song, he picked up a chair, and sat down right in front of me, so I was serenading him:

"I want you to tell me your story,
Of just how you came to be here,
Tell me your innermost secrets,
And for this I will buy you a beer"

That was my baptism into filk.

I have been writing and performing ever since - my material is a mixture of filk and non-filk, and serious and comedic. Much of my inspiration is taken from the cinema, which I love, but I also write from novels, comics, and everyday life.