Electric Swing Circus

The Electric Swing Circus is a six-piece electro swing band based in Birmingham, UK. Organized as a cooperative they became a You Tube sensation with their video performance of ‘Everybody Wants to Be a Cat’. While the dieselpunk community has adopted Electro-swing music as "Dieselpunk Music", ELC certainly fits within the definition of Dieselpunk. As they say at their web site, the band “fuses cool 20′s swing with fiery electro beats”.

Electric Swing Circus has a well-earned reputation for their outstanding live shows in which they mix live music with dance and circus acts. In fact, ELC received the award for the ‘Best Live Act’ in the Electro Swing Peoples Favorite Awards 2011.  All of this adds up to make their highly anticipated newly released self-titled debut CD so exciting. I’m going to review just a few tracks from their new CD that I consider outstanding. Trust me; it was difficult for me to limit myself to just these.

Swingamajig
Swingamajig is a high-octane song that add layers and layers in such a creative manner. If this song doesn’t make you want to get up and dance then you must be dead. Sheer fun!

Valentine
This song is wonderfully creative. There are several haunting moments in the song where it breaks from the electro-swing sound and briefly goes into an alternative rock style that’s reminiscent of Evanescence.

Harvey
Electric Swing Circus makes a strong left turn in their style with this song. The song is a fantastic Dark Cabaret song that pays tribute to the Diesel Era movie classic ‘Harvey’.

Minnie
Minnie is a wonderful reimagining of the Diesel Era classic Minnie the Moocher. Though it starts with traditional lyrics, they rewrote the rest of the lyrics in such a way as to provide an intriguing twist to the song. In addition, the song has a wonderful mix of horns with an electronica sound. It’s very creative and well made.

Put Your Smile On
Put Your Smile On is another break in the style of the CD and it works perfectly. It’s wonderful in its simplicity that really shows off the vocal talents of the singers.

Everyone Wants to Be a Cat
I’ve heard several remakes of this song and this has to be the best. It starts out teasing you and then breaks out into a full-blown dance song that incorporates a wonderful mix of horns, drums, electro-swing electronics and guitar. When it hits its climax near the end I found myself singing along and wanting to dance. Meow!

Every track on this CD is great and I could go on and on about each one. In my opinion, Baz Luhrmann didn’t need Jay-Z to create his soundtrack for the Great Gatsby. He should have turned to Electric Swing Circus, which would have created a much better soundtrack for his movie. My advice is don’t waste your money buying the official Great Gatsby soundtrack. Instead, download Electric Swing Circus’s new CD. You’ll be glad that you did.

You can visit their official web site here: http://www.electricswingcircus.com/

You can purchase their new CD here: http://electricswingcircus.bandcamp.com/

The Great Gatsby Movie Review

I doubt that there’s anyone reading my blog that hasn’t heard of Baz Luhrmann’s Dieselpunk version of The Great Gatsby. With an event as big as this, I thought I needed to post a review as soon as possible after seeing it.

There’s so much good stuff to say about this movie that it’s hard to know where to start. First, fans of the novel, which I’m one, should be pleased. The movie is true to the novel. The settings and the portrayal of characters in the movie were exactly as I imagined them in my mind’s eye back when I read The Great Gatsby. I thoroughly enjoyed DiCaprio’s portrayal of Jay Gatsby and Tobey Maguire was the perfect choice for Nick Carraway. Maguire was very believable as the one person who could see the true greatness of Jay Gatsby when no one else could. In addition, Gatsby drew me in the way he drew Carraway. When Gatsby (DiCaprio) smiled into the camera welcoming Carraway into his world I felt the same draw.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s followed the development of the movie. According to Penn State web site, the Penn State literary scholar, James L. W. West III, who is the university's Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English, played in important role as a consultant to the Luhrmann and cast of the film. In addition, Luhrmann drew on "Trimalchio: An Early Version of ‘The Great Gatsby’”, which was published in 2000 to fill in some of the gaps of the novel and to flesh out several of the characters such as Gatsby himself. According to the scholar, Jay Gatsby in the movie as portrayed by DiCaprio was truer to Fitzgerald’s vision of the character then it was in the final published version.

Then there was the giant billboard with the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg in the Ash Heaps watching over everyone. Luhrmann used this prop wonderfully just as Fitzgerald would have wanted it in that it gives a sense of condemnation to the decadent society that people had built. As George Wilson screamed in a fit of rage, "God knows what you've been doing, everything you've been doing. You may fool me but you can't fool God!...God sees everything".

In addition, the fashion in the movie worked perfectly. One certainly knew you were in the 1920s however it was revised just enough that I felt like I could wear most of the outfits as a dieselpunk.

While keeping true to the work of Fitzgerald, Luhrmann also succeeded at creating a unique Dieselpunk vision of the 1920s. Luhrmann created a Dieselpunk Manhattan, which when I saw it on the screen I wanted to step in and travel to this alternate reality.

Before I saw the movie, one of my major concerns was not that Luhrmann had chosen a hip-hop artist, Jay-Z, to be the executive producer of soundtrack but the reports that I had read in which they compared hip-hop to Jazz. Then I saw a trailer and my fears were at the time eased. However, I downloaded the soundtrack the day it was released and once again, my concerns returned because the soundtrack seemed to lack any decodence to most of the songs. Ultimately, I am very pleased with how they used the soundtrack in the movie. The modern musical styles were used primarily for Carraway’s flash back scenes while the few times a real life scene included a song the music was, while not exactly true to the age, close enough to feel appropriate.

Unfortunately, the movie isn’t perfect. First, Luhrmann’s use of 3D was so over the top that when viewed in 2D at times it was blurry and gave me an uncomfortable sense of vertigo. Far too many scenes were so obviously shot for 3D, which harmed the look. Second, some elements to the movie seemed unoriginal when compared to Luhrmann’s earlier work. Just as in Moulin Rouge, it begins with a black and white opening. In this case, it was a silent movie style rather than the nickelodeon of Moulin Rouge but it was still the same concept. Along with this, Carraway tells the story in the movie by writing a book, which also reminded me of Moulin Rouge.  Was Luhrmann in a creative rut that he couldn’t break? Then again, maybe that’s giving him too much credit and maybe he’s jaded with the opinion of, “Hell, it worked for my last movie so I’ll just do it again.”

Here’s my bottom-line about the movie: Is it a great movie? Yes. Will I buy the inevitable 2-disk, super-deluxe, platinum, Blu-Ray version with a million extras? Yes. Should you go see it? Yes and if you haven’t then what the hell are you waiting on, old sport?

Oh Brother Where Art Thou

Oh Brother Where Art Thou has to be one of my favorite Dieselpunk movies. Written and directed by the great Coen brothers, George Clooney plays Ulysses Everett McGill who breaks out of prison and leads two fellow jailbirds on a hilarious road trip to recover hidden treasure while all the time being chased by the devil in the form of a lawman. The Coen brothers did a wonderful job of capturing Southern culture of that time and it’s simply amazing.

Some might say this is actually just a period piece but let me make the case for it being classified as Dieselpunk.

Starting with the basic story line, the Coen brothers took Homer’s "The Odyssey" and placed it in Mississippi during the 1930s. It has a Cyclops who was wonderfully played by John Goodman, Sirens, Ulysses misleading his men about the treasure, a prophet who warns of trouble, humans being cursed into animals (well kind of) and metaphorical scenes of forgiveness by Poseidon along with the circular axis heads.

If that’s not enough, the Coen brothers Punk'd history. The governor of Mississippi in the movie, Pappy "Pass the Biscuits" O’Daniel, was loosely based real Texas governor W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel who did have his own radio hour and made his wealth through the O'Daniel's Hillbilly Flour Company. The real O’Daniel even had his own band called the Light Crust Doughboys. The name Soggy Bottom Boys was taken from the real-life Foggy Mountain Boys while the character Tommy Johnson was based on a combination of blues players Tommy Johnson and Robert Johnson who both had the legend of selling their souls to the devil at the crossroads.

I would close with this quote from a scholarly paper by Margaret M. Toscano with the University of Utah, "The Coens humorously remake both Homer and the American folk tradition in a way that protects any of the originals from over-reverence. They keep putting new mustaches on the past, thus creating an on-going dialogue between the past and the present, the ideal and the mundane, to keep us questioning what is good and real, but always indirectly through humor so that we hardly realize the questions have been asked."

Yes, Oh Brother Where Art Thou is Dieselpunk.

Texas Cries

A few days before this post, on April 18, 2013, a small town just south of Dallas, Texas named West was rocked by a massive explosion that annihilated a fertilizer plant. The horrifying blast destroyed a nursing home, fifty homes and killing at least fourteen people though the final death toll isn’t known yet.

West, Texas Destruction

Sixty-six years ago nearly to the day, Texas suffered a disaster that bore a haunting similarity.

Texas City is a port town not far from Galveston, Texas. On April 16, 1947, the harbor was busy. The SS Grandcamp that had once been christened the SS Benjamin R. Curtis had been reactivated after World War II as part of the Marshall Plan in rebuilding Europe. Docked not far from the SS Grandcamp was the SS High Flyer.

When one looks at the manifests of the two ships one can see that together these were a recipe for disaster. The SS Grandcamp carried highly volatile ammonium nitrate along with small arms ammunition. The manifest of the SS High Flyer also contained ammonium nitrate as well as sulfur. If the contents of the two ships weren’t dangerous enough, a short distance from the two ships was a warehouse full of fertilizer.

Around 8:00 a.m., smoke was spotted in the cargo hold of the Grandcamp. Repeated attempts to put out the fire failed. When they thought they had it under control, a red glow returned. In an attempt to put out the fire while preserving the contents the captain had steam piped into the cargo hold shortly before 9:00 a.m.

As one might expect, a crowd of spectators began to form along the shoreline. The spectators noticed that not only was the water around the ship beginning to steam from the heat while the cargo hold and deck began to bulge as the pressure of the steam increased inside.

Suddenly disaster struck at 9:12 a.m. when the ammonium nitrate exploded. The blast leveled nearly 1,000 buildings on land. The Grandcamp explosion destroyed the Monsanto Chemical Company plant and resulted in the ignition of refineries and chemical tanks on the waterfront. Falling bales of burning twine added to the damage while the Grandcamp's anchor was hurled across the city. All 6,350 tons of the ship's steel was blasted away, some of it travelled at supersonic speed. Sightseeing airplanes flying nearby had their wings shorn off, forcing them out of the sky. The blast was so extreme that ten miles away, people in Galveston were forced to their knees, it shattered windows in Houston, Texas, which was 40 miles away and people as far away as Louisiana felt the shock.

However, the horror wasn’t over. The explosion of the Grandcamp ignited the ammonium nitrate stored in the nearby SS High Flyer. The crews desperately attempted to save the ship but failed. Smoke had been pouring out of its hold for over five hours, and about 15 hours after the explosions aboard the Grandcamp, the High Flyer blew up. The explosion of the High Flyer demolished the nearby SS Wilson B. Keene, killing at least two more people and increasing the damage to the port and other ships with more shrapnel and fire. The blast of the High Flyer was so severe that it blew one of the propellers almost a mile inland.

The effects of the explosions devastated Texas City. The number of casualties from the blast of the Grandcamp is estimated at 567 however, it was likely more since many were obliterated into ash or vaporized. More than 5,000 people were injured, with 1,784 admitted to twenty-one area hospitals. Over 500 homes were destroyed and hundreds damaged, leaving 2,000 homeless. The seaport was destroyed and many businesses were flattened or burned. Over 1,100 vehicles were damaged and 362 freight cars were obliterated.

Texans are a strong people and the people of Texas City rebuilt. Today Texas City is a busy deep-water port on Texas' Gulf Coast, as well as a petroleum refining and petrochemical manufacturing center. As of 2010 census, the population was 45,099.

Just as the people of Texas City overcame the disaster of 1947, so will the people of West. If you would like to help the people of West, Texas you can contribute to the American Red Cross of Central Texas.

Lamplight News

Unfortunately, the discontinuation of publication of the Gatehouse Gazette, except as occasional special issues, has left a void in the English language Dieselpunk communities. It’s also a shame that the attempted restart of Steampunk Magazine failed after one issue since it was stretching out to include Dieselpunk.

However, to the rescue has comes Lamplight News published by the Steampunk Illumination Society. Not only does this excellent newsletter cover Steampunk material but also has a regular article each month on Dieselpunk, which I have the honor of writing.

So check it out.

Dieselpunk ePulp Showcase

Back in February of this year, a fantastic e-book titled Dieselpunk ePulp Showcase was released. This anthology contains four excellent Dieselpunk short stories written by Dieselpunks. It’s free and you can download it from here a variety of formats. It’s a great anthology and I highly recommend it.

Following is the official press release:
Do you need more gritty, hard-boiled noir in your life? Do you feel the urge to drag on your beaten coat, tip your fedora to just the right angle, and slum it in a smoky speakeasy? Do the grimy streets of another age call to you from deep within your blood? If so, then do I have the book for you.

Featuring works by Grant Gardiner, John Picha, Bard Constantine, and Jack Philpott, the writers of Dieselpunks.org would like to present the very first Dieselpunk ePulp Showcase.

These four tales embody the spirit of another age and are absolutely free to download.

For young hoods, the Aether Age streets of mob-plagued Chicago present a world of opportunity. And Mack and Mickey are headed straight for the top in "That Sort of World: a Tale of the Aether Age" by Grant Gardiner.

It's class-warfare in Citadel City as Pandora Driver and her Car of Tomorrow deliver rough justice to the elites and a douche named the Gooch in "Who are the People in your Neighborhood?" by John Picha.

"The Wise Man Says" by Bard Constantine introduces Mick Trubble: a hard drinking, chain smoking charmer who bites off more than he can chew... then chews like hell. The Troubleshooter takes the grit and slang of a hardboiled detective and drops it in a dystopian setting that mixes Fedoras, trench coats, flying cars and android policemen.

Our last tale is set in the World of Mañana by Jack Philpott… The dirty streets of Roanoketown were his home and his only family, until he met HER. Now he'll follow HER into hell, tamahaak held high, and fight as a proud Indian against the Anglo Oppressors. He'll wager his life to be a true "Friend of the Spirits."

DFW Costumers Guild Costumers' Lost Weekend

The DFW Costumers Guild are looking for dieselpunk panelists for their upcoming Costumers' Lost Weekend! The Costumers’ Lost Weekend is a weekend where costumers can meet and share knowledge as well as relax and have fun. In the tradition of Costume College and Dress U, we will offer informative panels and workshops as well as social gatherings.

The Costumers’ Lost Weekend this year will be June 29 - 30 at the Crowne Plaza in Addison, Texas.

If you’re in the North Texas Area then visit their web site, http://www.dfwcg.org.