We at SIR would just like to give a little shout-out to a new, 21+ convention starting up this year, Nauticon.

Although not being run by SIR staff, we do feel that some of our attendees may enjoy this new, 21+ experience, happening May 18-20, 2012.

Check them out at www.nauticons.com

New England Steam-Fashionista Redfield sheds some light on what she sees as Steampunk fashion, Cosplay, and what she’s looking forward to at this year’s event!

1) How do you define “Steampunk?

If history and the information age had a child and it was raised by the Victorian age

2) Is there a difference between Steampunk Costuming, Steampunk Fashion, and Steampunk Cosplay? Can they live harmoniously?

I don’t think there is a difference between Steampunk Costuming and Fashion. In mainstream culture there is but in the case of Steampunk there is no difference. In the mainstream costuming is what you wear every now and then, to get a point across, whereas fashion is worn every day. Cosplay is another strain. Wikipedia says Cosplay is:
“short for “costume play”, is a type of performance art in which participants don costumes and accessories to represent a specific character or idea. Characters are often drawn from popular fiction in Japan, but recent trends have included American cartoons and science fiction such as Disney. Favorite sources include cmanga, anime, tokusatsu, comic books, graphic novels, video games, hentai and fantasy movies”

Most Steampunks, while working on a base that is from Pop culture do not take 95% of their ideas from one character that someone else has come up with. Person 1 will say I like this, this and this from here and this from here, but I really like Frankenstein and that would look like this. Person 2 who is a cosplayer would say I like Wonder Woman but if she was Victorian she would look like this. Person 1 only takes parts, but person 2 takes larger chunks and sticks closer to the original character.

Can all these people live together? Of course, I find that most cosplayers will try to Steampunk a Pop Culture character and start to really like steampunk. For them it is way in.

3) What do you see as popular trends in Steampunk fashion?

From the mainstream now I see it working the opposite way where Steampunk is influencing main stream. In the Steampunk world there are very few changes to clothes and bigger items. The mainstream sewing world has given us a pattern that came out recently… you can find is everywhere and as much as I like the look very few people have changed the pattern enough for me to find it interesting. At Cons you can’t throw a rock without hitting someone wearing this pattern.

In Steampunk I find that accessories are the things that hold trends. The mono Goggle is in this year and though I hate them, goggles on top hats will always be in.

4) What are you most excited about this year?

I am excited about all the new projects that I will be involved with in the upcoming year

5) What do you expect from the theme “Year of the Dragon?”

Awesomeness

If you would like to see a retrospective of some of her work feel free to Click Here to see last year’s line, featuring Multi-Culturally influenced attire, hosted on fellow guest of the Revolution, Beyond Victoriana!

Nigel of the musical group Platform One expounds on his band, Steamgoth (It’s a thing!), and his… quite famous look-alike!

1) How do you define “Steampunk?

Dictionary.com defines it as such:

noun
1.a subgenre of science fiction and fantasy featuring advanced machines and other technology based on steam power of the 19th century and taking place in a recognizable historical period or a fantasy world.
2.a subculture inspired by this literary and film subgenre: the fashions and gadgets of steampunk. … I would have to agree, people like to toss in Edwardian, Victorian, and airships.

2) You are some of the pioneers of the “Steam Goth,” Movement. What is Steam Goth?

Steampunk doesn’t have an actual musical genre… it’s constantly adapting itself and bands are in a continual state of melding into it… We’re a Dark pop band that loves the aesthetic and found ourselves immersed. Steamgoth is the convergence of two Subcultures we hold so very dear.

3) What would you say defines Platform One as a band?

We’re a Darkwave band by default. Esssential a Pop band but having our roots deeply planted in Goth. We’re defined most by our upbeat tempos and thoughtful lyrics. We try not to take ourselves too seriously, but at the same time we do want people to get something worthwhile out of our music.

4) Be honest…. You’re not REALLY the villain from Die Hard, Professor Snape, or The Metatron…. Are you?

I am Dr. Lazarus… I played Richard III. There were five curtain calls. I was an actor once… Now Look at me!

5) What do you expect from the theme “Year of the Dragon?”

Fire… A cleansing of the stone. Lets raze the music industry and start fresh.
“There are those who move cloouds…” Howard Jones.
Let’s all move something… an Idea, a mountain, a dancefloor… let’s show them what DIY fashion and imagination can do. Let’s recreate the mainstream.

We’re almost finished announcing our guests…  ALMOST…  So without further adieu here’s the Time displaced Bagpiper Pitts Carnegie, Japanese Historians and piratesses The Comiku Girls, and Maine’s own Vaudvillains Dark Follies!

We had the pleasure of asking Folk Fusion Multi-Instrumentalist Matt DeBlass a few questions, and this is what he had to say…

1)  How do you define “Steampunk?

How do I define “Steampunk?”
That’s an interesting question, and one that will probably give purists a headache for years to come (and let the rest of us have a lot of fun). One of my favorite aspects of the Steampunk aesthetic is that it covers such a broad range of ideas and, indeed, time periods.

My own take on Steampunk, and this might be a minority view, is that it’s not so much “Science Fiction set in the late 1800s” as “the 21st Century viewed through Victorian eyes.”

Not only does it circumvent the “period/not-period” arguments and make it perfectly OK to incorporate a smartphone sheathed in wood and leather into your garb, but it means that Steampunk is NOW, a world we can to some degree make a reality. In fact, when you think about it, the modern world is run on electricity, most of which comes from coal, gas or nuclear-fired generators, which work by super-heating water to spin the turbines.
Our world, right now, perhaps more than the world of 1890, runs on STEAM!

2) What do you expect from the theme “Year of the Dragon?”

The Year of the Dragon?

Well that conjures up a lot of interesting possibilities and visions. Obviously there should be a strong multicultural element associated with a Steampunk event drawing on Chinese symbolism.

The relations between China and Britain, and China and the United States were going through a lot of changes during the Victorian Era, with wars being fought over trade (notably the Opium Wars) on one hand, and a growing population of Chinese immigrants starting to influence the American West on the other. This follows with the modern day where America and China are at once a world apart and increasingly intertwined in ways that a mere armchair historian like myself can’t even begin to comprehend.

But the serious thoughts aside, I’m hoping the blending of genres and cultures is going to result in some amazing costumes!

3)  How do you find your style of music mixes in with the Steampunk aesthetic?

How does my music fit in with the Steampunk Aesthetic?

Well, first off, let me once again point out how happy I am that nobody has come up and defined exactly what “Steampunk Music” is. I think if we’re looking at a whole alternate reality, there’s room for as many different styles of music as there are in the real world.

As for my own folk-oriented mish-mash, I think there’s a certain willingness to blend time periods and genres that fits right in with the Steampunk vibe. If left unsupervised I’ll end up wandering through Irish fiddle tunes, Jimmy Buffett covers and Bach minuets without too much discrimination. In fact, I like to find common ground between some of the different genres, such as folk and Baroque music, that may have been there all along (many classical composers drew from traditional and popular music) but might not be obvious to the casual listener.

Also my instruments fit pretty well, I think. The mandolin was an extremely popular instrument around 1900, before giving in to the ubiquity of the guitar, and is experiencing a minor revival in popular music. And the harp, well, it’s a harp, they’re always cool.

Not to mention, in keeping with the Maker ethos that is one of my favorite things about Steampunk, I’ve built or modified most of what I play somehow. My main stage instrument, my blonde mandolin, was built and heavily modded from a kit, and I often bring some oddball cigar-box creations along as well.

4) Do you find yourself listening to more Steampunk music lately? If so/not what are you listening to?

Do I listen to “Steampunk Music?” Ah, that goes back to the whole “what is Steampunk Music” question. If you mean “bands that frequently perform at Steampunk-specific events,” there are a few in my collection, but they’re not the majority. If, on the other hand, you mean “bands that cross genres and blend instrumentation in exciting and interesting ways” then I’ve got a ton of fun stuff.

One of recent favorite albums that fits in the latter category is “The Goat Rodeo Sessions” featuring Chris Thile, Edgar Mayer, Stuart Duncan and Yo-Yo Ma. These guys come from Bluegrass, Jazz, Classical and Folk backgrounds and get together and do something that completely defies being pigeonholed. It’s complex as any formal classical music, but it’s fresh sounding and a lot of fun to listen to in a way that gets lost too easily in some of the more institutionalized music. Maybe that’s what a classical quartet from an alternate timestream would really sound like.

5)  Tell me one thing we should know about Matt DeBlass that we don’t already?

Something you should know about Matt DeBlass that you don’t already?

This is, of course, the hardest question for me to answer. I think I’m a pretty boring guy, offstage. When not duded out in my tweed and bowtie, I’m usually in cargo shorts and sandals (I’ve got big hobbit feet and hate to wear shoes, is that an Official Fun Fact?) and tinkering with something, sometimes even successfully.
Like I said, I’m pretty quiet, I’m a single dad (with an 11-year old daughter who quotes Doctor Who at me) and go for some of the more contemplative hobbies, like hiking, trail running, bicycling and I’ve recently gotten into Tenkara, which is a Japanese style of minimalist fly fishing.

Hey folks we want our ads to be fun and funny!  We want you to like them and to tell your friends!  So here’s our first official ad. for 2012:

Here’s the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vPOh2W1yN4

Post it on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, or your blog!

Special thanks to Nerd Caliber for producing the commercials and Modvic for letting us film in your wonderful home!

Ladies and gentlemen, what do a Mad Scientist, a Mad Hatter, a Maker Extraordinaire, a Monkey, and Medieval Ecclesiatical Ottoman Gypsy Fusion have in common? They are the list of Fantastic guests we have now officially announced!

Our friends in the MHS Hysteria and Rupert Cornelius will be here and you can see their videos on our Videos Page!

Still not big enough?  How about fusion band and dancers Zyguneh and the return of Jake von Slatt?

Still not satisfied?  WOW!  Well fine then how about us announcing our official guest of honor:

Dr. Grymm!

We still have a few more guests to announce but we hope you’re as excited as we are!

Hey Revolutionaries, thought we should update and let you know a few things;

First, sorry we haven’t updated with all the guests who will be making the event the spectacle we all know it will be!  We’re simply releasing them a few at a time so everyone can have the time to get to know each of our guests a little better.  We’ll have a number of guests to announce within the next few days however,  So hang tight!

Second we’d like to congratulate Ayleen The Peacemaker who was named Best Multicultural Steampunk by The Steampunk Chronicle’s Reader’s Choice Awards!  Voting is still open, and the Steampunk Industrial Revolution as well as Don Higgins (The artist who designed our official logos) are nominated!

Third, we have a brief interview with Ayleen below!  Enjoy!

1)  (In a Nutshell) How do you define Steampunk?

Seeing old friends at the con, since I’ve done a lot of New England-based conventions, but also hanging out with the rest of the guests, since they’re all familiar faces and great people.

The vendor application is now available. Like our first year, we will be hand-picking vendors and artists – it is not first come, first served.

Prospective vendors and artists fear not! Due to popular demand, Spanner Ave will be moving this year. It will be located in a different part of the hotel, much closer to the action. In addition, all vendors will have a small table at in a shared vendor space to use as you like – advertising, small object sales, what have you.

Please download (right-click and select Save As) and review the vendor application. You can fill it out digitally or by hand and then send it by mail or e-mail to the addresses at the bottom of the form.

The solo, multi-instrumental, Celtic songster Matt Deblass will be returning to The Revolution this year along with New England’s own Go-to Steampunk costumer and Fashionista Redfield! Check out our Guests Page to learn more about them as well as our Videos Page to learn see Matt Deblass perform a 70s political classic!