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More Steampunk!

Steampunk is always fun, so to start today we have The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing doing their song GOGGLES, which as far as I know is the only song to be released on wax cylinder since 1922 (although They Might Be Giants recorded a song on an Edison cylinder in 1996, but it was released on CD). Most of Steampunk is home made DIY projects, so it should be no surprise that if you want to listen to the cylinder, you will have to build the player. While nowhere near on a par with the technical precision of the Edison cylinder phonograph with electric pickup built by Norman Bruderhofer and Matthias Menz, it is a bit more true to the technology of the times that never were.

Next up we have the video for Vernian Process’s Crime of the Century, and interesting piece that embraces 1980s Glam Rock with 1880s stylistic sensibilities. And since Steampunk is what happens when Goths discover brown, I felt the need to include The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello, a wonderful little 2005 Australian film set in a world of airships and steam driven computers. The first true computers were steam driven, mechanical devices built by Babbage and programmed by Lovelace.

Steampunk Swing

Abney Park is one of my favorite Steampunk bands, as I have mentioned here before. They have a new CD coming out soon, The End Of Days, so I am using that as my excuse to post about their music once again. The first video is their lead singer, Captain Robert, taking a joyride over Seattle in the Airship Eureaka. I am sure it will be no surprise that the audio backing is one of their own songs. The second video is a live version of their signature song, Airship Pirates. Following that, we have The Death of the Cog, a song from another band called The Cog is Dead, singing against the invention of the digital watch which killed Clockpunk. The final band, Sunday Drivers, I could not find a decent video of in their Steampunk style, so I had to make do with an interview clip. To pull it all together, we have the Song vs. Song vs. Song initial presentation from Changing Habit; he may not be able to dance, but he does have a unique appreciation for nonstandard (i.e., non-boring) music.

Media History Archival Goodies

There are a few Geek-friendly archives that have just gone online and are worth bringing to your attention here. The first is YouTube Time Machine, or YTTM. Set your category toggles and click on a year, and you will get presented with a bit of history that matches your configured interests and timeline. You can then either repeat the process, or click the Play Another Vid button to see another match from the same year. The archive is somewhat limited when you narrow down your topic and date ranges, but still manages to deliver some fascinating videos to watch. The collection begins with the 1860 entry First Sound Ever Recorded, and goes through the subsequent media milestones since then.

The other archival project just rolled out that I find fascinating is the Variety Archives, with 105 years of Variety issues to browse or search through. They include not only articles, but every other entry aspect, including classifieds and advertisements. This is a serious glimpse into the history of recorded media, and will be mined by many scholars both amateur and professional over the forthcoming years.

Metropolis: True Version

As I have previously commented here, they have found the missing 25 minutes of Metropolis in an obscure museum (virtually a private collection) in South America, restored them, and released them to the public. Being a 85 year old movie you wouldn’t expect it to get a major distribution deal, and it didn’t, but the places you can go see it are all over. One of the best is the Austin Cinema Drafthouse presentation, shown (and original score performed live in) an Art Deco Powerhouse, so the setting for watching the movie is a match for the setting in the movie. To see it on the big screen my best option is to go for the next time around at the AFI Silver, one of my favorite movie hangouts, and the place where I just finally got to see the original Day The Earth Stood Still on a screen large enough to contain it.

New Season Trailers!

The new Game of Thrones trailer, the George R.R. Martin series from HBO, premiering in 2011; The new Fringe trailer from Fox, with the new season kicking off the 23rd of September. The new season 4 trailer for Chuck on NBC, with a season that promises to be the best one yet. From Syfy, Stargate Universe and Caprica. There are a whole lot more, but get ready, because the majority of the new season starts next week!

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