Episode 42: Steampunk

Durango-Silverton RR Dec 01 | 24 bit (1:33)

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.  A bunch of the songs this week have vocals, but there are also a bunch of instrumentals, too.  So let's get started!

The Watchmaker's Apprentice (5:41)
Fig Leaf Rag - distressed (3:29)
Battle In The Sky - A Steampunk Orchestra (3:01)
Eighteenth Century (1:51)
"Epic" Orchestral Piece (3:00)
The Clockwork City (12/14) (1:55)
Frost Waltz (2:18)

That was a chunk of Durango-Silverton RR Dec 01 | 24 bit by BoilingSand, which is available from FreeSound and is licensed under an Attribution license.  If you ever get a chance to ride the Durango and Silverton, it is an excellent ride and well worth it to go see.  After that was The Watchmaker's Apprentice 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 Fig Leaf Rag - distressed by Kevin MacLeod, which is available from incompetech.com and is licensed under an Attribution license.  Next up was Battle In The Sky - A Steampunk Orchestra by Walid Feghali and Eighteenth Century by Niklas Stagvall, which are both available from SoundCloud and are licensed under an Attribution Noncommercial license.  After that was "Epic" Orchestral Piece by Steven O'Brien and The Clockwork City (12/14) by David Cordero Chang, which are both available from SoundCloud and are licensed under an Attribution license.  And finishing up was Frost Waltz by Kevin MacLeod, which is available from incompetech.com and is licensed under an Attribution license.

Although I'm a big fan of open licensing, I also very much enjoy music from artists who are either independent or are on labels which kind of buck the trend of seemingly the majority of the mainstream music industry and actually like the fact that they have people listening to their music.  And with steampunk music, although I can't play it on here, there is a lot of really good stuff either direct published or on small labels.  A few songs I can heartily recommend listening to include:

- Airship Pirate by Abney Park
- Steph(v)enson by The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing (who actually released a version of that album on wax cylinder)
- All Hail the Chap by Mr. B The Gentleman Rhymer
- I Want Only You by The Cog Is Dead
- Just Glue Some Gears On It (And Call It Steampunk) by Sir Reginald Pikedevant, Esquire
- Roustabout by Beats Antique
- and Lament for a Toy Factory by Dr. Steel

Most of this week's music was chosen more for a mechanical sound than for anachronistic style combinations.  Stuff that just sounded to me like it went well with a slow speed reciprocating engine.  Not everyone considers the same things "steampunk music", since it's not a particularly well-defined genre, but this kind of thing falls pretty squarely into that category for me.

Steam Train Interior (2:16)
Railroad (1:42)
Atom Hub Toolshed_contextual_demo (0:36)
Tim Reed - Four Miniatures for Violin and Cello Duo (excerpt 1) (1:01)
Clockwork Symphony (2:30)
04 A Garden in Italy - The Archive Box - Stereochemistry (4:10)

That was a chunk of Steam Train Interior by allh, which is available from FreeSound and is licensed under the CC0 license.  After that was Railroad by Jake Tickner and Atom Hub Toolshed_contextual_demo by Walid Feghali, which are both available from SoundCloud and are licensed under an Attribution license.  Then we had Tim Reed - Four Miniatures for Violin and Cello Duo (excerpt 1) by Tim Reed, which is available from SoundCloud and is licensed under an Attribution Noncommercial license.  Next up was Clockwork Symphony by Psarius and finishing up was 04 A Garden in Italy - The Archive Box - Stereochemistry by stereochemistrymusic, which are both available from SoundCloud and are licensed under an Attribution license.

Today's app-of-the-day is OpenTTD, a transportation network simulator where your job is to build a system of road, rail, air, and ship routes to connect together towns and industries to move people and goods around the map in the most efficient way possible.  It's a little like if you took just the transportation components of a city simulator and extended it into its own game.  For example, not only do you build train stations and tracks, but the terrain of the tracks will slow down your trains if they hit a hill.  You also have to do regular maintenance on your vehicles and even build their routes and schedules.  I'll admit I'm pretty terrible at playing it, partially due to my propensity to overuse trains instead of other forms of transportation, but I still have a lot of fun playing it.  It's available for Linux, BSD, OpenSolaris and OpenIndiana, AmigaOS and MorphOS, BeOS and Haiku, OS/2, RISC OS, Android, PalmOS, Symbian, Nintendo DS, Wii, PSP, Apple iOS, Mac OS X, MS-DOS, and Microsoft Windows.  Download it today at openttd.org

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

20000 Leagues under the Seas
Tower Bridge old machine room (1:00)
CONCERNS (3:36)
Monomental (3:20)
Prelude No. 7 in A major, Op. 2g on a crappy old, out of tune, upright piano (1:44)
Shine On, Harvest Moon (1:55)
Ain't Nobody's Business (5:44)
Steampunk Girl (3:56)

That was Tower Bridge old machine room by The London Sound Survey, which is available from SoundCloud and is licensed under an Attribution Noncommercial license.  After that was CONCERNS by AKAJULES and Monomental by aledjones_musics, which are both available from Jamendo and are licensed under an Attribution Noncommercial Share-Alike license.  Then we had Prelude No. 7 in A major, Op. 2g on a crappy old, out of tune, upright piano by Steven O'Brien, which is available from SoundCloud and is licensed under an Attribution license.  Next up was Shine On, Harvest Moon by Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth and performed by Bill Kramme singing with himself, which is available from SoundCloud and is licensed under an Attribution Noncommercial Share-Alike license.  After that was Ain't Nobody's Business by Porter Grainger and Everett Robbins and performed by Cryindtbuffkin, which is available from SoundCloud and is licensed under an Attribution license.  Finishing up was Steampunk Girl by John Anealio, which is available from his website at johnanealio.com and is licensed under an Attribution Noncommercial 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 celtic music.  See 'ya!

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