Why so serious, Mister Steampunk? A Short Discourse by Emmett Davenport

Steampunk music is the least defined and most often overlooked aspect of steam-culture, we knew when we started The Clockwork Cabaret that it would be a challenge. I originally approached Klaude with the idea of a steampunk radio show on our local community radio station, WCOM 103.5FM, in the winter of 2007. Klaude responded pretty quickly with "Hey! Let's do it like an old style radio program! Let's have little sketches, radio plays, funny little characters, but also play music." We had no idea what we'd do or how we'd do it. We walked in to a meeting with the Programming committee with our silly idea. We didn't have the Calpurnia, the Davenport sisters, CLANNG, nothing! And they loved it! We were both a bit shocked. That's the beautiful thing about steampunk, it appeals to such a wide cross section of people.

The Clockwork Ball, the dance party we deejay and host is really fascinating. I’m not sure we expected it to work the way it has, partly because steampunk music is so hard to define (and that's how we like it). We were worried folks would stand around the edge of the dance floor like it was a middle school dance and we'd be stuck in the DJ booth wondering if this was a big mistake. The event itself is nebulous, changing each time we have one; It's part dance party, part costume ball, part theatre, part concert, part dance lesson, part photo shoot and I suppose there's a smidgen of role playing in there. A big drive behind the Clockwork Ball was our own strange musical tastes. We were frustrated that there were huge chunks of our musical collections that we’d never get to play out in public. We wanted to present an opportunity where you didn't have to worry about whether something fit in with your image of goth, indie, punk, or whatever. We can play all those things because steampunk music hardly exists, it's a cobbled together Frankenstein monster. It's really beautiful to see how the steampunk genre allows for someone who may usually identify straight indie or goth to dance to really great music without worrying about their street-cred. Can you really drop the Decemberist’s “Mariner’s Revenge Song” in the middle of a goth night and expect anyone to keep dancing? No. But if you play that song at our steampunk night, even if most of the attendees are the same people you see out at a goth night, they'll dance so hard they break the floor! It's wonderful to watch.

And with all of that in mind, I keep hearing about people trying to make hard & fast rules to what being steampunk should & shouldn’t be. I find this ridiculous! Why does there have to be defined subgenres – dieselpunk, gaslight, etc? Why can’t we just use steampunk as an all-encompassing word to describe any anachronistic elements? How can you take something that is so enjoyable due to its lack of boundaries & try to stick it in a box (granted it would be a very cool box, probably modified with all sorts of doohickeys on it)? How can you take steampunk so seriously, when we dress up in goggles, modified rayguns and pretend to be in an alternative reality where dirigibles rule the skies? This is make-believe & meant to be fun.

Everyone should be allowed to have his or her own interpretation of it, just because you're doing it differently then I'm doing it, doesn't make it wrong. If you don’t allow folks to explore steampunk to their own satisfaction, the scene will quickly go the way of the dodo. If you place constraints or rules, soon no one will want to participate or join in the fun & you will find yourself alone in your finery reading Jules Verne in an empty room, wondering where everyone went…