As heard over the aether (courtesy of The Clockwork Cabaret) this sums it up nicely -

“Upon first listen, I got maybe three – probably two – tracks into it and then skipped ahead a couple tracks and skipped ahead a couple tracks and then took it out and threw it underneath a chair… and then I picked it back up about a week and a half later and I listened to it and I thought, “This is one of the most amazing pieces of work that I have ever heard.” It gets its hands dirty and greasy with all of the steampunk aesthetic. It’s very rare that you find a piece of music that just floors you. I think it’s pretty brilliant what he’s done.”

The Clockwork Cabaret

Give there new album “In the City of Dreadful Night” a go here : http://www.sundaydriver.co.uk/album.htm

In the City of Dreadful Night

They look as good as they sound

The band

http://www.myspace.com/sundaydriverinuk

There music is just wonderful and a fantastic example of Steampunk music and style.
-Evelyn

The PhonoVault

(submitted via email by TinkerGirl)

I am aware of how popular the portable communication device is with people today, personally I find them to be an appalling concept, (the device not the people …)

Should one have the misfortune to find ones self in the thrawl of such an item the least one can do is to make it a little more socially acceptable…

Why not use this portentous piece of whimsey as your message alert…?

I am told (by a young person) that it is an mp3 file….

Now tell me…

What exactly was wrong with the wax cylinder….?

OSM

This Sunday (25th of May) there is going to be a bit of a ‘perfect storm’ of Steampunk in LA – Abney Park (one of the best known Steampunk bands in existance) will be playing at The Edison bar (possibly the most beautiful Steampunk locale in the world) and are rumoured be accompanied by two of the brightest and best loved Steampunk creating celebrities around.  (I’m not sure I’m allowed to mention who the gents are, but I know they’ll probably tell me off for calling them celebrities!  Sorry, Sirs.)  There’ll also be high-flying aerialists and the highly regarded DJ Imagika.

Abney Park, Live at The Edison, then – it sounds fantastic.  I’m told there are still tickets to be had, and that it’ll be strictly age 21+ (that’s Earth years), and that this will hopefully be just one of many future Steampunk events held at The Edison in future.  I know in previous posts we’ve wondered if the clientele at The Edison could be as wonderful to look at as the event, but I can very quickly cast that doubt aside knowing the lineup as I now do!  To those who go – I am quite envious, please report back and do take photies!

Odd as it may seem, this video is surprisingly catchy – it shows the irrepressible Mr Elemental waxing lyrical about his preferred beverage, tea. Clad in his pith helmet and more than a little wide-eyed from rather a lot of caffine, and accompanied by a gyrating lady and his phonograph-spinning butler, he comes across as a little strange, but well – he’s just very keen on tea. Around the world in 80 brews – herbal? No thanks. Thanks instead go to Mr Alexander Edmund Clough for his excellent taste in videos.

I’m not dead!  I apologise for being absent so, but it’s back to pleasure as usual and I’d first like to mention that when I was in New York (for the Dances of Vice festival, more on that later) I was fortunate enough to get tickets to see the musical Wicked on broadway.  Oh, such a beautiful show!  Telling the tale of the Wicked Witch of the West, the Good Witch Glinda and many more non-Dorothy characters from Oz, and I honestly hadn’t gone there with the expectation of anything Steampunk.  However, I was very pleasantly surprised – from utterly delicious pseudo-Victorian Emerald City costumes (that you can see blurrily in the video above) to the ominous and threatening influx of dangerous science and more cogs than I could shake a magic wand at!

The sets featured sillouetted iron bridges, giant backlit gothic clockfaces, and a wooden clockwork dragon overseeing the whole beautiful affair.  The Wizard of Oz’ mechanical giant head is also has to be seen to be disbelieved!  I’d heartily recommend seeing it if you can (New York, Chicago, LA, London, Tokyo, Stuttgart, and Melbourne) and if you don’t come away with a hankering for green lensed glasses/goggles, I’ll be somewhat surprised.

And novel it is indeed! La Mécanique du Cœur, by the French rock band Dionysos, is both a novel and an album of accompanying songs, telling the tale of a young boy from 19th Century Edinburgh, born with a heart so cold that his witch-midwife replaced it with a clockwork one, so that he may live.  A sad tale of Steampunk, then.
The video above is what clinched this for me, however, beautiful animation with a faint “Nightmare Before Christmas” feel to it, with the unfortunate young man finding that a clockwork heart can break just as easily as a real one.  More animated cogs than you can shake a beautifully designed pagoda parasol at, and a particularly sad ending to this miniature narrative.  I do not know what they’re singing, but I do not mind terribly – it’s perhaps even more lovely because of it.

Thank you so very much to Mr Martin for pointing this out – and you can read much more about it at the Filles Sourires blog.

Mr AndyW wrote to point out the works of musical circuitsmith, Tim Kaiser of AtomicSonic.  While the majority of the works are themed too late for Steampunk, there are a few (such as the ones above) that I wouldn’t mind having sat in a bakelite enabled (1908-ish) electrically focused laboratory!

The items above are ‘FX Boxes’, and there are a few styled for wooden cases, as you’ve seen above.  Others fit inside retrofuturistic geiger counters, or have big warning lights on them, and brushed steel rollcages – so for the most part, the ‘atomic’ part of the name is very well earned indeed!  Still, lots of fun and you can hear samples of some of these custom items – quite peculiar.  Do take a look at such treasures as the Solar Theramin (also wooden encased) and the Monterery Fun FX Box!  Many thanks, Mr W!

loan mortgage 500 scoresupplemental alaska loansapplications 1003 loanand loans store accounts access softwarecash loan application advance payday application2007 limits loan conformingloans agri100 loans subprime stated Map

Well now, Ms Yayanos is a quite the fan and friend of the music group Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, and wrote to inform me that they’re on tour at the moment. The above image, as well as this one here, are apparently stills from their recent music video shoot, and they’ve got quite a lovely Victorian visual style working for them in these! However, they seem to do a little of quite a few things, and the review that Ms Yayanos sent me said that they were “equal parts punk, prog rock and opera” – but the few track snippets I listened to on their official site came across to my inexperienced ears as quite unusually tempo’ed industrial.

Not my thing (yes, I’m still looking) but again – music being so subjective, I’m sure some people here will find them quite enchanting!  Thank you, Ms Yayanos – your affection for this distinctive group of musicians is very heartwarming.  *grins*