BtS Goes to Dragon Con!

Hey all you steampunks! No, we haven’t dropped off the face of the earth or gotten trapped in a time loop. As always, life, work, and tons of exciting developments are keeping the gals at BtS plenty busy! But we’re planning to stay on the map with events and projects that celebrate our love of steampunk and music!

So we hear there’s this little shindig going on called Dragon Con, and Alyssa is lucky enough to be there! (She’d better come back with pictures.) Along with the awesome lineup of big names in the geekery community, attendees should run into more than a few familiar faces from the steampunk world.

Among them is, of course, our old favorite Nathaniel Johnstone, who is set to perform with his band on Thursday the 28th. Someone special is rumored to also be making an appearance, so don’t miss it! If you can guess who, you get a cookie. A virtual cookie. Or a thumbs-up, or something.

More Squee-Inducing News

Achievement unlocked! Kristin finally got the great news she’s been hoping to hear for years! No, Jack Sparrow still doesn’t know she exists, but this is even more exciting. Cobalt, a young adult steampunk dark fantasy, is being published!! Kristin, who unashamedly has a passion for young adult and middle grade fiction, is now working on another dark fantasy about sea zombies and plotting Cobalt’s sequels. Check out her blog post about the memorable day she got her acceptance letter. Also, like her author page on Facebook, because now she has a page and stuff.

Lots of thanks, love, and kisses for visiting Behind the Steam! Don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes! Also find us on Facebook and Twitter.

Cheers!

Alyssa, Kristin, and Laura

What a Kicker! A review of Good Co’s new album

Hello friends!

This week Laura and Alyssa sit down for a chat about the toe-tapping new album from Good Company- “The Kicker”.

The sophomore effort from this Seattle-based group, Good Company is quickly becoming an electro-swing powerhouse up and down the west coast and is soon heading out on their first ever east-coast tour!  We at Behind the Steam wish them luck!

The Kicker is a wonderful eclectic mix of music.  As usual, Laura and Alyssa demonstrate that while tastes may vary, all can agree that “The Kicker” is going to get you up out of your seat and onto the dance floor. For a detailed review, check out the podcast below!

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For more information on Good Company, check out their website, Facebook, and Twitter!

And as always, thank you for visiting Behind the Steam! Don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes! Also find us on Facebook and Twitter.

Cheers!

Alyssa, Kristin, and Laura

A Fanciful Interview with Escape the Clouds

A little while ago we talked with Mark Rossmore, the multi-talented frontman of Escape the Clouds, who shared his fascinating views and experiences with steampunk and music.

Need an instrumentalist, singer, videographer, writer – or even pilot? Mark is your man! Yes, that’s him piloting the small plane and filming the video entirely himself in Escape the Clouds’ music video “Until the End.”

Like many steampunk music artists, Mark’s music loses the listener in storytelling, with a great deal of spoken word and instrumentals to spark the imagination. In his most recent album, Until the End, he collaborates with renowned steampunk performers Unwoman and Eli August.

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Mark is also involved every year with Dragon*Con, and runs the popular site Steampunk-Music.com. This is a man who not only loves steampunk music but is doing a fantastic job giving it a wider voice and showing it off to the world.  (He’s also a Neil deGrasse Tyson fan!  Score!)  Give our interview with Mark a listen here:

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For more information on Mark Rossmore and Escape the Clouds, visit his band website, find him on Facebook, or follow him on Twitter at @EscapeTheClouds.

And as always, thank you for visiting Behind the Steam! Don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes!

Also find us on Facebook and Twitter. Cheers!

We’re Alive! Behind the Steam Relaunches!

Hey all you beautiful listeners!

Surprise, Behind the Steam hasn’t dropped off the map – not by a long shot. The past few months have been full of many changes for us, and life got quite full for a while, with Alyssa’s wedding and Kristin finishing a manuscript.

However, we are back for the new year and ready to get the gears moving again, for a bigger and more exciting Behind the Steam. We have lots of plans hidden up our sleeves, from album reviews to band interviews to just plain old steampunk geekery. And our most exciting recent development is the addition of a new gorgeous BtS babe, the amazingly wonderful Laura Oz-burn.

We sat down the other night for a fun and casual podcast to welcome Laura into our cozy and crazy little group. Hailing from the Bay Area like Alyssa, Laura is a ball of energy and one of the essential driving forces behind Clockwork Alchemy and many other steampunk events in the area. In our podcast, Laura tells us some fun tidbits about herself and adds some useful info such as her own techniques on how to give a good hug – always a plus with the super-friendly steampunk community – and even how to get a proper snuggle, if you feel so inclined.

So hop right over and enjoy our first podcast of year, and look forward to hearing a lot more from us in the upcoming months! As always, thank you so much for visiting Behind the Steam, whether you’ve been with us a while or if you’re new fans. Cheers, and here’s to a wonderful and exciting steampunk 2014!

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Note from Alyssa:  Below are a few wedding pics including the wedding reception dress that Kory Doyle HAND MADE for me and my bridal headpiece and veil by Wicked Smileys (Sarah Lyons)!! (Photo credit: Nicole Marshall)

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And in case you’ve lost us, you can find us on Facebook and Twitter, or subscribe to us on iTunes.

We love you guys!!!

Steampunk Music Summit — DragonCon 2013

Hi listeners and steampunky friends!

Alyssa takes over the blog again!

My apologies for the time between these podcasts.  I’m getting married in 3 WEEKS!  And so life is pretty hectic right now and the podcastery has been getting a little left in the dust.

So look for a much more regular Behind the Steam podcast schedule in October and thanks for sticking with us!

However, all this wedding planning didn’t stop me from traveling to Atlanta for my very first DragonCon!!  It was absolutely epic and I had an amazing time!  I have to thank Doc Q. for putting together a fantastic Alternate History track!!  I took my 15 year old cousin with me, a burgeoning little steampunk, and, while initially I think she was pretty skeptical and cynical about the whole thing, by the end she was totally into it!  We broke through teenage cynicism!!!  Well done D-con steampunks!  I also got to hang with friends I haven’t seen in years and make brand new ones!  I love con families!  Oh, and I got my picture with John Barrowman!  Whovians, you can be jealous now.  And I danced, oh how I danced!!  It was glorious my friends, and I cannot wait to go back next year!  (Yes Q, sign me up!)  In fact I’d like to put together a couple of BtS panels/events for next year…oh how the gears are turning….

What also made the con absolutely fabulous was seeing tons of friends there.  Abney Park, Professor Elemental, and Unwoman were all performing at various times throughout the con and just totally killing it!  Unwoman was the darling of the steampunks, keeping an entire floor of the con enraptured with her song.  Professor Elemental charmed us all and Abney Park were their rockin’ selves and had a massive ballroom jumping!  Jody Ellen joined me, my cousin, and friends for some late night wanderings where she ran into a Zoolander cosplay and almost knocked them over, she went running up to them so fast!

So why was I there at all?  Well, I had the distinct pleasure of co-hosting the Steampunk Music Summit with Emmett Davenport of the Clockwork Cabaret podcast.  Unwoman, Professor Elemental, Robert of Abney Park, and Mark Rossmore of steampunk-music.com and Escape the Clouds made up a stunning panel of musicians and creators.  Lots of good questions and great audience participation.  Emmett played Steampunk-Oprah, running all about the room and I tried to keep the panel more or less on track.  It was a really fun hour and I’m so excited to present it to all of y’all who weren’t able to attend.  I highly recommend for next year!  And then you can come give me a hug!  Yay!

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As always, thank you so much for listening!

If you’d like to keep up with us, you can find Kristin and I on Facebook and Twitter.

To take us on the go as a download, find us in the podcast section of iTunes by searching Behind the Steam!  Or click here to Subscribe!

Cheers!

~ Alyssa

One night in London…with Sunday Driver!

So today I (Alyssa) am going rogue and taking over the blog!

I recently went to London for a trip and while I was there, I had the great fortune of being able to see Sunday Driver play in Camden!!  Now, I’ve been listening to and loving Sunday Driver’s music for years so I was beyond excited when they agreed to an quick backstage interview!  Chandy, Kat, and Chemise, the most talkative of the members we wrangled, were just delightful, hilarious, and exquisitely off-color.  It was a quick chat as they needed to get ready and eat something before wowing the crowd.  For some reason the last 30s or so  got cut off but you missed nothing I swear! 😀

**PG-13 warning!**

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It was a small intimate show, but I must say, Sunday Driver does not disappoint.  They are an incredibly talented band and just really awesome people in general.  I’m including a clip from their show taken on my iPhone.  So if the quality sucks, that’s my fault, because they were magnificent!

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I highly recommend you head over to the Sunday Driver website to get their music, or find them on Facebook and Twitter.

Oh, and you can find Kristin and I on Facebook and Twitter too!

As always, we hope you enjoy listening to our podcasts here.  To take us on the go as a download, find us in the podcast section of iTunes by searching Behind the Steam!  Or click here to Subscribe!

Cheers!

~ Alyssa

What a Doll! An Interview With The Clockwork Dolls

Neo Vintage…what a lovely alternate description for steampunk! And that’s exactly the description The Clockwork Dolls use on their Twitter page. Most of us know the Dolls as the lovely trio of ladies from Baltimore – Allison, Colette, and Trinket – with their guitar maestro Christopher, and also none other than Vernian Process’s own Martin Irigoyen pitching in with the mastering and other occasional work. 😉

Now with their second album When Banners Fall, heavily inspired by the music and culture of the WWII era, some fans are saying they’ve taken a definite dieselpunk turn. This seems to be a recurring question among the steampunk community lately: Are steampunk and dieselpunk interchangeable? Can you consider a band steampunk with one album, and dieselpunk the next? And is Kristin writing posts again after staying up much too late, and starting to not make any sense?

Well, since we love all things vintage from the Victorian age to the decades beyond, we’ll leave those questions to the ones who love debating them and just enjoy the music! And now we leave you to enjoy our interview – where, believe it or not, the question of dieselpunk actually does come up during the music discussion – as well as the usual fun and nonsense.

A teensy disclaimer: The dainty, delicate Dolls also have a bit of a raucous and naughty streak, so this interview is PG-13, but still very much fun!

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Now all the links for The Clockwork Dolls’s online goodies:

Official website

Facebook page

Twitter

Bandcamp site

As always, we hope you enjoy listening to our podcasts here and you can always find us in the podcast section of iTunes by searching Behind the Steam!  Or click here to Subscribe!

And of course follow us on Facebook and Twitter!

Cheers!

~ Alyssa and Kristin

Music! Musicians! Opinions! Clockwork Alchemy 2013!

Hello lovely steampunks!

We forgot to make a big deal about it, but Behind the Steam is over 1 year old!  Whee!

To celebrate, we bring you a double whammy of podcasts!

This year Clockwork Alchemy hosted two steampunk music panels!

The first one features a spirited discussion about the state of steampunk music between Unwoman, Nathaniel Johnstone, Lee Presson, and Poplock Holmes.  Controversial comments, debate, jokes, slips of tongue, this panel had it all!

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And then Steam Powered Giraffe was kind enough to sit down for an extended fan Q&A.  All questions asked were answered and much hilarity ensued! 🙂

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As always, we hope you enjoy listening to our podcasts here and you can always find us on in the podcast section of iTunes by searching Behind the Steam!  Or click here to Subscribe!

And of course follow us on Facebook and Twitter!

**A quick note: Behind the Steam may be moving to iTunes permanently as Alyssa is not made of gold and Soundcloud is expensive.  So if you want to stay connected to us through the transition, please subscribe to Behind the Steam on iTunes!  Also, Behind the Steam will be posting old podcasts (ones Alyssa has had to delete off of Soundcloud due to space restrictions) on iTunes in the near future.**

Thanks for listening!

Cheers!

Alyssa and Kristin

Live! Steam Powered Giraffe at Fanime 2013!

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Hi patient listeners to Behind the Steam!

So sorry for our long silence!  Life has been crazy for Alyssa and Kristin and has resulted in a huge backlog of podcasts we need to churn out!  Alyssa went to London, graduated, and ran the Special Events for Clockwork Alchemy 2013, which had kept her from getting the audio up.

That being said, Alyssa ran three music panels at Clockwork Alchemy, two featuring the con’s Guest of Honor: Steam Powered Giraffe!  Below is the recorded audio from the panel Alyssa hosted at Fanime Central.  The first part of the hour was spent talking to the robots while the second half, we met the creators behind the machines!

Podcast!

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Or even better, find it on iTunes!

And of course you can always find us on Facebook and Twitter!

As always, thanks for listening!

Alyssa and Kristin

More British! Metropolis from the UK

Since steampunk has such strong roots in the English Victorian era, it’s really no surprise that we’re interviewing quite a few British steampunk artists these days. It also helps that we’re total suckers for the accents. Few things quite catch the authentic steampunk vibe as a lovely refined accent. (Don’t ask to hear Kristin’s attempt to duplicate it.)

Today we bring you our interview with the steampunk prog-rock band Metropolis, from the UK. We were a bit bummed not to be able to see their outfits that they’d taken great care to polish up for our Skype session – the podcast recording would have suffered – but you can see some pictures of their look on their Facebook page. They’re very nice and polished indeed.

Metropolis’s take on steampunk music is an edgy sound with deep roots in 70s/80s punk and industrial. A little bit of Vernian Process, a little more of The Clash. For more on their sound, and all their thoughts and opinions on steampunk in England as well as the rest of the world, go ahead and listen to the podcast! 🙂

Disclaimer:  We had a few sound hiccups within the podcast recording but the content was too good not to share anyways!

iTunes

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We’d like to thank the lovely gents from Metropolis for their time talking with us. And thank you, our listeners, for visiting! Click below for more information on Metropolis’s music and events.

Myspace Music

Facebook

Twitter

As always, keep up with our latest podcasts and posts on Twitter as @BehindTheSteam, and on Facebook!

~ Alyssa and Kristin