Episode 29: Steampunk Music

Carica05 (0:04)
music box loop 29 (0:15)

Hi, and welcome to the Open Licensed Music Podcast, the show where we highlight music from artists who let you share their music.  I'm Ralph Wacksworth, and today's episode is featuring steampunk music.  We've got a few songs with vocals this week, but without further ado, let's get started.

The Doctor's Wife (5:47)
London, 1856 - A Steampunk Orchestra (3:41)
Remember The Name (Fort Minor) (Sinister Strings Mix) (4:52)
Rom Bart-Insomnia [Soundtrack] (1:36)
Wooden Rocks (1:05)
steam engine at museum (0:59)
wrenches_thrown_or_dropped (0:21)
Ratchet1 (0:20)
construction metal lumber (0:56)
Metal Hammer on Metal on Wood Impact Collision Bang 44.1kHz (0:52)

So, starting out the episode were two sound effects from FreeSound - Carica05 by melarancida and music box loop 29 by klankbeeld, which are both licensed under the CC Zero license.  After the introduction was The Doctor's Wife by The Clockwork Quartet, which is available from their website at clockworkquartet.com and is licensed under an Attribution Noncommercial Share-Alike license.  Then we had London, 1856 - A Steampunk Orchestra by Walid Feghali, which is available from SoundCloud and is licensed under an Attribution Noncommercial license.  Next up was Remember The Name (Fort Minor) (Sinister Strings Mix) by tekp, which is available from ccMixter and is licensed under an Attribution Noncommercial license.  After that was Rom Bart-Insomnia [Soundtrack] by Rom Bart, which is available from SoundCloud and is licensed under an Attribution license.  Then we had Wooden Rocks by Christiaan Bakker, which is available from Jamendo and is licensed under an Attribution license.  Finishing up was a mix I put together of a few industrial sound effects from FreeSound: steam engine at museum by 3bagbrew, which is licensed under an Attribution license, and wrenches_thrown_or_dropped by vibe_crc, Ratchet1 by orestes910, a chunk of construction metal lumber by cognito perceptu, and Metal Hammer on Metal on Wood Impact Collision Bang 44.1kHz by qubodup, all four of which are licensed under the CC Zero license.

I've been a big fan of steampunk for years.  I love the visual style, I love the dedication to craftsmanship, learning different construction techniques, and in general making things that not only function but look nice doing what they do.  As long as I can remember, I've been a big fan of steam-powered devices and gears anyway, mainly because you can see how things work, and steampunk brings those together into an awesome aesthetic.  Plus there's the element of classic literary influences mixed in, and as I'm sure you can probably tell from the audio books advertised on this podcast in the noncommercial breaks, I'm quite fond of that.  It's just an all-around cool movement, and I'd love to see more people really taking part in it in not just a trend way, but in a paradigm way.  Do what you do with quality to last.  Fix things if you can.  Take a pass on the throwaway society we've developed and learn the cool stuff your ancestors and predecessors knew.

With that said, with the wide variety of people who have gotten into steampunk over the last few years, there's quite a bit of variation in what people do and do not consider steampunk music.  I tend to think of it more as music that sounds very mechanical or which blends elements of old and new musical styles, and there's plenty of open licensed music out there which fits that.  So much that I had to split the episode up so I could keep this at about an hour and do another episode later.  Speaking of which, this episode's going to be long enough as is, so let's get back to things.

traction engine x2 (1:31)
Getaway (otra vez rmx) (voiceless mix) (4:19)
BEAUTY FULL - sidecar tommy (3:06)
Jester's Tear (2:43)

That was another sound effect from FreeSound named traction engine x2 by NLM, which is licensed under an Attribution Noncommercial license.  The first song in the set was Getaway (otra vez rmx) (voiceless mix) by gmz, which is available from ccMixter and is licensed under an Attribution Noncommercial license.  After that was BEAUTY FULL - sidecar tommy by sidecartommy, which is available from SoundCloud and is licensed under an Attribution license.  Finishing up was Jester's Tear by Celestial Aeon Project, which is available from Jamendo and is licensed under an Attribution Noncommercial Share-Alike license.

Today's app-of-the-day is Emberwind, an HTML5 side-scroller game where you play as a gnome and run around helping people and whacking things with a stick.  Pretty much a basic classic side-scroller, but it runs in a browser, and runs quite well.  Try it out today at http://operasoftware.github.com/Emberwind/ with a capital E or take a look at the source code from https://github.com/operasoftware/Emberwind/ with a capital E.

Now for a short noncommercial break from one of our nonsponsors followed by more music.

20000 Leagues under the Seas
Untitled 4 (ft. The3amAssociation, audiotechnica) (6:22)
Pieza pequeña (1:01)
Conjuring Steam (3:02)
Roll Jordan Roll (2:19)
The Guava Rag (1:04)
Spirit of St. Louis (3:18)
Live recording of In the jail house now (4:08)
End of a story (2:29)

That was Untitled 4 (ft. The3amAssociation, audiotechnica) by teru, which is available from ccMixter and is licensed under an Attribution Noncommercial license.  After that was Pieza pequeña by BrunoXe, which is available from Jamendo and is licensed under an Attribution license.  Next up was Conjuring Steam by MLucas, Roll Jordan Roll by The Joy Drops, and The Guava Rag by Brettstuff, all three of which are available from SoundCloud and are licensed under an Attribution license.  Following that was Spirit of St. Louis by Lena Selyanina, which is available from Jamendo and is licensed under an Attribution license.  Then we had Live recording of In the jail house now by Sid Qualls, which is available from SoundCloud and is licensed under an Attribution license.  Finishing up was End of a story by zero-project, which is available from zero-project.gr and is licensed under an Attribution license.

So, that's all for today.  Remember - piracy of commercial music only proves your dependence on that model and justifies further censorship and restriction.  So don't pirate it - replace it with something better.  Listen to open licensed music, donate to the artists behind it, go to concerts, and buy music from artists whose record labels don't see you as their enemies.  Support artists where your support actually counts.

This episode was made using Gentoo Linux, Xubuntu Linux, Audacity, Audacious for organizing playlists, and Leafpad for notes, and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial Share-Alike license.  Feel free to give it to your friends, or if you didn't like it, your enemies.  Links to the songs in this podcast are available on the website.  Listen in next time for some traditional Christmas music.  See 'ya!

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