I have legions of minions (both cybernetic and meatiform) so if you say 'steampunk' anywhere on the interwebs I'm liable to pop up in UR LJ or UR Flickr within hours.  Such was the case this morning when I discovered this marvellous machine built by banjo player Will Segerman for a musical group aptly named The Clockwork Quartet.

Will's Flickr stream is here (be sure to check out the Blunderbuss and Transparent Armour!) and if I were you I would sign up to the Clockwork Quartet's Facebook page. If these folks musicianship match Will's craftsmanship - they are going to be awesome indeed!

More pics after the cut!

Produced by Chicago Tribal Bellydance Troupe Read my Hips, this show looks like it was a lot of fun! 

I'm really excited that the fashions are not purely neo-Victorian, there is some definite punk in there as well as some middle Eastern influence.

Have a look at pictures from the event here and please note that some are NSFW.  XD

MTV has a piece on Steampunk that's a little different then we've seen before.  There's naturally a greater focus on music and fashion but the intarwebs get a mention too.

My only real criticism is that they didn't pick up on some of the more serious aspects having to do with sustainability and social change, but altogether not too bad even if they did misspell my name.

[Note: there are several videos strung together with commercials in between including vids of Dr. Steel and Abney Park]

On Saturday morning the inestimable Molly Friedrich dropped me a note with a link to an MP3.  I was entirely unprepared for the awesomeness that lay behind that link, Professor Auerbach's Attack of the Steampunks Rap:

Meeting the opposition like a hammer on an anvil
Conquering the culture like a visionary vandal

Buckle up your boots and adjust your brass goggles
Check the meter, pull the level
Activate the power toggles
Hold your head up high
Let your flag unfurl
The steam pressure power punks are taking over the world

The Professor asked me to note that the beats used are Creative Commons samples from Freesound.org and just in case here's an alternate source for Attack.

I'm not sure how to categorize these two - also, I'm not a music critic so I just don't have the language.  Think Squirrel Nut Zippers with some Goth influence.  It's neat stuff, old timey but with a nice edge.

Have a listen here

It is my understanding that they have been bitten hard by the Steampunk bug and that an upcoming release in aught-nine will contain a bit of mad science!

Captain Robert  of the band Abney Park talks to Rebecca Firth about their music and Steampunk in an Interview at YouFINDit.

[For some reason they've chosen to stream the mp3 with the horrible Micro$oft Media Server so if you can't listen from the above page, gank the mp3 from Here ]

Abney Park are true DIYers in every sense of the word and are all great friends of the Steampunk Workshop. We wish we were able to see them tonight at DragonCon!

Continuing the tale of my long and busy weekend . . .

So a crew from PBS's new show Make:TV spent the weekend with me in the shop filming me at work.  I re-created a couple of projects and made a coach lamp for the car, start to finish.  That turned out to be really hard as I was creating from scrap brass and found objects a whole new piece that needed to be completed while the crew was still there.

When Make:TV was blocking out the schedule for their visit to Boston they asked me if there were more 'steampunk' people in the area doing big projects.  I pointed them in the direction of M@ (Matt) and Holly and HUMANWINE.

. . .

I get a great deal of email these days, I try to answer it all but I'm afraid the day I will not be able to fast approaches. I am grateful for the pics of cool stuff and links to net Steampunkia, and I really do enjoy answering thoughtful questions about making stuff.

It was just such a question that put me on to the music of Michael Scott Parker .  The question I received was signed "Michael the girl" which caught my eye and caused me to click through to her website listed in the .sig . . .

It makes me happy when people write me about things they've made, and when they've been inspired or have adopted techniques they've learned from the Steampunk Workshop it makes me very happy indeed!

Peter wrote me a while back with some pictures of his latest project, a Jules Verne inspired analog synthesizer with etched brass control panels.  Now, I cut my teeth on a vinyl copy of Switched-On Bach and I've been a fan of analog synth heroes Tangerine Dream since High School.  So I was very excited to see this.

. . .