Not exactly two words I thought I would have been putting together in the Title area, but true none the less. So lets check out a few small but intense examples… and the fact that they are from radically different parts of the world tells you this is an art form that is well appreciated. These are the best examples I have found to date.
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.
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.
I can’t get terribly excited about Devil, a film about some people trapped in an elevator who decide that a demon is in the metal box with them scheduled to come out Friday. I think the currently playing Resident Evil: Afterlife would be a lot more fun and certainly a lot more action. Perhaps a good Klingon Opera might do the trick instead. There is some footage of it on the BBC News, and it looks like a lot of fun.
PAX, the Penny Arcade Expo, happens this weekend in Seattle to counterbalance DragonCon on the East Coast. PAX is a major Gamer Con and festival put together by Penny Arcade (the WebComic), but more than that it is the premiere Nerdcore event each year. Nerdcore artists from all over North America converge on this event, and put on a show that has to be seen to be believed. I need to be there next year.
What is Nerdcore? Just like Steampunk is what happens when Goths discover Brown and the technology to develop it, Nerdcore is what happens when Computer Programmers discover Rap and record a video. These are a few good Nerdcore examples. But first, the explanation; which of Us are Nerds?
Pac-Man Paranoia is the name of the first song, by the Swedish band Bondage Fairies. This Giant Robot Kills follows it, the new MC Lars tune, from a Tweet by MC Frontalot. The next song is Galvanize the Empire; I got the link for that one in a tweet from @_mcchris. And then comes the theme song: Penny Arcade itself, where the lyrics give you the password. If you are a true classic gamer, you will have no problems recognizing the original MMO game, Zork, in the following song (You Might Get Eaten By A Gru).
I just feel like watching some Anime Music Videos today, so I thought I would share a few good ones with everyone. I particularly liked the use of Code Monkey in an AMV.