STEAMPUNK ARTISTS:
Abney Park comes from an era that never was, but one that we wish had been. An era where airships waged war in the skies, and corsets and cummerbunds were proper adventuring attire. They’Äôve picked up their bad musical habits, scoundrelous musicians, and anachronistically hybridized instruments from dozens of locations and eras that they have visited in their travels and thrown them into one riotous dervish of a performance. Expect clockwork guitars, belly dancers, flintlock bassists, middleastern percussion, violent violin, and Tesla powered keyboards blazing in a post-apocalyptic, swashbuckling, Steampunk musical mayhem.
During Tampa’Äôs MetroCon, I had the opportunity to meet up with Abney Park. What is steampunk you ask? According to wikipedia, steampunk is a sub-genre of fantasy and speculative fiction that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used’Äîusually the 19th century, and often Victorian era England’Äîbut with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date. Other examples of steampunk contain alternate history-style presentations of ’Äúthe path not taken’Äù of such technology as dirigibles, analog computers, or digital mechanical computers (such as Charles Babbage’Äôs Analytical Engine); these frequently are presented in an idealized light, or with a presumption of functionality.
Now that we are all on the same page, lets continue.
Im sitting at home, having been denied press credentials to the show from MetroCon organizers. They claim they have given out all the press passes and there isn’Äôt room for media...at the Tampa Convention Center. Hmmm...last time I was there it wasn’Äôt standing room only. I check my email and there is a message from Captain Robert, lead singer of Abney Park. The band wants to meet before sound check, which at time of reading the email, was an hour away. To the Batmobile! I jump in the car and speed to downtown. I mentioned to the Captain that I was denied press passes and he agreed to meet me outside and get me in. Seemed he was none-to-thrilled with the organizers.
As I sit in downtown traffic, I see remnants of the Con. Young adults dressed as Anime (Japanese animation) characters walking to and from the direction of the Center. I park. I call. I meet.
As i walk thru the throngs of cosplay characters, I am looking for Captain Robert. I know him from photos and from his feature on G4 TV’Äôs Underground segment. As we swim through the crowd, he appears on the horizon. I’Äôm shocked by how tall he is, and how normal he looks compared to everyone else in the room besides myself. We shake hands, and then hurry off to the green room...remember the clock is ticking down to sound check.
Once the doors to the green room close, the noise and mania in the Convention Center is silenced. The male members of the band are all present. The two females are manning the merch booth upstairs.
So which came first, the music or the image? hailing from a little known music city called, Seatttle, Abney Park was formed in 1997 by ’ÄúCaptain’Äù Robert Brown. Initially the band was more goth than steampunk both musically and visually. Over the next few years the band released several albums with various members. In 2006, after the release of their album The Death of Tragedy, the band again went through a line-up change. It was during this time Abney Park reinvented itself as a band, creating fictional identities for the members complete with a background story that describes the fictional history of the band as the crew of an airship named the Ophelia.
As you can see from their photos, Abney Park are a very visual band. Embracing the art, style and culture, Robert and crew have become full-on spokes persons for the steampunk movement. Most obvious is their gear. The blending of old-world futuristic styling is at the heart of steampunk, and I sat staring in wonder at these guys. I was not sitting down with performers in costumes, I was in a room with Air Pirates from future past. Don’Äôt get me wrong, once the interview began there was no character playing going on. Robert, Nathaniel and Daniel didn’Äôt speak in some medieval or swashbuckling pirate dialects. And thank god because just outside the doors there was plenty of that mess going on. No, these were just great, down to earth guys who love doing what they do and expressing themselves both musically and visually. ’Ä¢’Ä¢’Ä¢
