I know . . . I’ve been posting a LOT on Steampunk music and culture of late, well, much more than on hypnosis and trance which really is what this blog normally focuses on . . . but when I explore things or find them of interest they often go here as this blog isn’t just about hypnosis, it is my sounding board . . . in any case, this bit is worth sharing . . . well, worth sharing to me and since it’s my name on the blog, there you go . . . Abney Park (http://www.abneypark.com), the cosplaying Steampunk band is getting a tabletop RPG based upon the band’s fictional backstory and all of the songs in their steampunk library . . .
See more about the project at http://airshippirates.abneypark.com . . . it’s due for release in August . . . I know a certain young musician who has recently discovered them who will wonder why it has to take so long. Now, while table top RPG is all well and good, I would love to see either a LARPing section in the core rules or at least a supplement but that may just be me . . . or not just me, depending upon the folks one is speaking to.
What are Airship Pirates? Well, slam your plane into a timetravelling dirigible and find out. The band Abney Park underwent a change in direction from its gothish roots into a full-fledged steampunk band in the midst of a series of personnel changes and a desire to find a niche that more fully suited their music and aesthetic as well as the artistic expressiveness of founder and front man Captain Robert Brown and they found Steampunk right there waiting for them and the fit has been very very nice indeed. When taking on their steampunk identity they not only changed costumes but created a delightful backstory and fictional personae to go along with the comfortable science fiction and fantasy feel of the genre. Ostensibly, or in reality, depending upon which parallel reality one lives in, the band are not only a musical group but a band of airship pirates who ply the airways and airwaves of an alternative steampunk future in their dirigible the HMS Ophelia where they live, rehearse, and do all those other cool things musical airship pirates might do.
Airship Pirate the song is from the Lost Horizons album by Abney Park and is absolutely wonderful . . . well, it’s certainly one of my favorites.
If you search the interweb you can find a whole slew of live concert performance pieces of the song which the band plays quite regularly with a special conceit being to ask someone from the audience to come up and hold a violin . . . see the video below to see why . . .
Airship Pirate (Abney Park), Dragoncon, 2008
The video isn’t that great but you get the idea.
Of course, their performance style is maturing all the while and they’ve got some amazing performances out there as well. I particularly like this edit:
Airship Pirate (Abney Park), Edison, 2008
Of course, the band continues to evolve . . . here, you can see Jody Ellen has joined the lineup with another of my favorite performances . . .
Airship Pirate (Abney Park), Tim Burton’s Wonderland Ball, 2010
The girl dressed as Alice is holding the violin in this one as it’s both a steampunk event and an excuse to promote Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland film.
Of course, it wouldn’t be Abney Park if the performance didn’t have some fun along with the powerful and engaging music. Sometimes things go wrong and they just play with it and other times they just simply play. Here’s a performance where Jody invites others to sing along and note Captain Robert’s reaction.
Airship Pirate (Abney Park), Fairieworlds Winter Celebration, 2010
Lots of jumping up and down indeed.
Gee, you think maybe I might actually like that song? You would be correct if that were indeed your assumption.
In any case, I actually discovered the band while looking for performers who Kaye might find resonance with as I was following a line that went from SJ Tucker (who Kaye absolutely adores and cannot fathom why she is less “popular” than a whole slew of musicians who Kaye considers to have not even a fraction of the talent – she seemed quite offended to discover that Kanye West is a multimillionaire and Sooj is far from such success, I mean she was shocked and pissed, and she can’t fathom why Justin Bieber is popular in the United States . . . but then Kaye’s musical preferences tend toward the classical with Chopin and Beethoven toward the top of her musical interests) . . . in any case, I searched for folks who perform with Sooj (who we would love to see live but realistically know it will take a lot of synchronicity at work to get that outcome at this point) and found Vixy & Tony and then that led me to a random hit on Heather Dale and her Arthurian corpus and for some reason that led us to Abney Park and their cosplaying steampunk goodness which has just the right mix of classical instruments, a whole slew of ’em, cosplay fun, narrative backstory, and just good ol’ solid fun.
Regular readers here are familiar with Kaye’s own compositions, or at least a few of her performances, so they know she writes in a very classical vein. She is in a band where she plays drums but they neither practice often nor perform much and they are pretty much a high school cover band where it is her original music and at keyboards that Kaye truly shines. As part of her training in the music specialty high school program where she is enrolled, she is learning to compose for multiple instruments and she is drawn to working with the more symphonic or chamber instruments than simply a classic rock four piece so seeing a group like Abney Park use violin and mandolin along with other instruments speaks to her powerfully . . . a bit more than other groups such as they symphonic metal groups she briefly explored as this is steampunk which captures narrative, fantasy, science fiction, and a cosplay sort of feel (sure, we can call it steampunk fashion but it has the playful fun of cosplay which Kaye’s been doing since she was four years old . . . well, her parents might have started her on that road but she’s a full fledged cosplayer herself now and now that she’s turning seventeen very very soon she’s striking out in her own directions with a whole lot of interesting things going on).
In any case, it’s great to see Airship Pirates the game is on the way . . . as is Robert Brown’s upcoming novel based upon the materia of Abney Park . . . yes, artistic design and aesthetic and narrative expression . . . more of Kaye’s characteristics to resonate with this group.
This has been long and rambling . . . but, there it is.
All the best,
Brian
http://www.briandavidphillips.com
