JOIN ABNEY PARK AT THE BAD FAERIES BALL- SPECIAL DISCOUNT FOR ABNEY PARK FANS

In a rare all ages show, Abney Park will headline the Bad Faeries Masquerade Ball at the Faerieworlds Winter Celebration on January 31 in Eugene, OR.  The classic 1920's style venue, the McDonald Theater, is the ideal venue to showcase your best and most outrageous steampunk and faeries attire and release that very bad faerie that lives inside you.  Come and dance to Abney Park and the vintage stylings of Beats Antique featuring internationally acclaimed tribal belly dancer, Zoe Jakes. The Bad Faeries Ball last year at the McDonald and at FaerieCon on the east coast are the stuff of legend, spawning the saying: "What happens at the Bad Faeries Ball, stays at the Bad Faeries Ball."  So join Abney Park and see for yourself. And special for Abney Park fans: take 15% off the Winter Celebration Passport or Bad Faeries Ball tickets. Use this code: ABNEY2010 - when you order your tickets now at http://www.faerieworlds.com/winter

"The entire album is thrillingly infectious from start to finish"

ROCK'EN NEW SHIRT:

We have an awesome new shirt out, brown stripes on black, with a gold Jolly Rodger. This is our nicest looking shirt yet, and its especially hip under a jacket or with a vest! (thats how I wear mine)

This shirt ranges in size from Small to 3 XL! No, Kato is NOT wearing a 3XL in that photo. Yes, it looks this sexy on a guy. Okay, well, maybe not THIS sexy, but it depends on the guy!

- Captian Robert

3 really important things to tell you about. The long version is below, the short version is: Abney Park will be playing The Edison this New Years Eve! We fixed international shipping costs on the site, in fact, they are now SUPER cheap. Plus, we got new stuff, like Zombie Killing Certification patches! If you are going to SteamCon, you still have to buy tickets to our show! Details are below. Abney Park will be playing the Edison this New Years Eve. If you were there last year, you know this event is the most glamorous, immersive, and beautiful New Years Eve party you've ever been to. The Edison is the worlds premier steampunk destination. Its an underground victorian era power plant that has been polished and sculpted into what could only be described as Steampunk heaven. The stage is solid copper, you can have drink at the puff organ INSIDE the machines boiler tank...no square inch of this place is not beautiful Last year tickets were $175 a piece. This year tickets are only $75! Get Tickets Here . (these videos were both shot at The Edison) Chloe is a girl scout, and I'm the one who irons things on her uniform. I instructed her, "If anyone asks about the Zombie Killing patch, tell them you earned it in a special program...that your not allowed to talk about." Speaking of patches, we are starting a series of collectable patches. They are pretty awesome: Oh, and one last shopping thing, our international shipping used to have a glitch, so if you were in the UK, or Japan, or someplace, shipping would cost a fortune. I fixed it. Its currently TOO cheap, but I figure you guys were due a break. This friday is SteamCon! Its in Seattle, and its a three day Steampunk Festival. We will be playing two shows, the first is a small acoustic sing along on friday, and on Saturday we are playing a great big fancy no-holds-bared Abney Park concert! Now, to go to the concert, you have to buy tickets here: http://registration.steam-con.com/tickets They are only $16, but as I understand it, you need these IN ADDITION to tickets to the convention. And finally, I leave you with a history lesson: Doctor Klawncus P. Elmsworth invented the ultimate zombie killing weapon, The Elmininator. Buy filling the barrel of this weapon with compressed air, Elmsworths gun could thrown any projectile -rocks, tire irons, rail road ties - through the very soft flesh of the Zombie. One shot through the torso will slice the vile creatures in half. Line up three, and take them all out with a single shot! Early versions of this weapon where large and cumbersome (see below) but eventually Elmsworth created his Elmininator in a convenient hand held size. As the zombie threat spread, the name "Elmininator" referred to the user of these guns. They were armed and sent out: lone warriors who wandered the wastes, thinning the zombie hordes or dying in the attempt. ;

In the ongoing effort to keep from the band from starving to death, Abney Park will soon be selling new patches! I think I will make these collectable, and put out a new design every month an not make more then a few of each. Here are the first four:





Granted, I got a little silly with that last one. But anyone who's hung out with the band will understand how important that roll is for any of us.

I should have these for sale at our market and at concerts in a a couple weeks.

So, currently Abney Park is working like this: the five of us fly around the world playing shows with Me and Jody singing (god shes good), Nathaniel playing his weird assortment of musical instruments, Daniel wailing on Bass and Guitar, and Kristina trying her best to keep the rest of us from sucking by running the whole thing from her keyboard-helm.

Then, when we get ware we are going, we hire local tribal women to dance. At the last show we had three, and they brought not only them selfs, but snakes and swords! When I've got more pictures of the show I will post them.

Abney Park Song Meanings, Volume 3: The Darker Songs


The Change Cage One of our oldest songs was also one of our first Steampunk songs, at least in lyrical content. It was something like 17 years ago, and I was a teenager in a band with Kristina (still in Abney Park) and Robert Hazleton (Deadly Nightshade Botanical Society). I wrote this wild song, and asked the band, "Hey, am I allowed to do Sci-Fi MUSIC!?". Rob said something like "Sure, Death metal bands do it all the time!" Read the lyrics, and then I'll tell you what the heck I was thinking:

If you look at the evolution of mankind, you see that our true advancements occur whenever cultures collide. When boats started sailing between Egypt and Greece, that part of the world evolved at a yet unheard of place. Meanwhile, it seems like societies seem to really fear, if not villainize any cultural changes or advancements. Thinking about this one Saturday afternoon made me picture a future world that feared change and decided to lock everyone into a walled block of the city based on how physical appearance. No new ideas could emerge (which is why this city is still powered by steam) and if anything new DID pop up, they would lock it into a 2 mile high building in the center of the town.

Big Mistake: I chose to sing the story of this song from the perspective of one of the guardians of The Change Cage. This proved horribly uncomfortable for me, and it still is today! You see, anyone with that job would have to be: A. racist B. a segregationist C. an asshole. When you write a short story, first person from the perspective of a bad guy, no big deal. But a song you have to SING. In front of people! Still to this day when I sing this song I squirm a little bit, because that's ME up there singing about taking everyone from different races and throwing them behind bars. (shiver) That's ME singing that we need to imprison Erotic artists. Am I supposed to announce I'm "In Character" while singing it? I guess I will never no if anybody ever took this song literally or not.

The Root Of All Evil

 

The root of all evil was actually one of my first parenting songs. The subject matter is child abuse. Often people abused as children become abusive parents. This plays havoc with your sympathies when you hear of a child abuse case, because its quite likely the abusive parent was abused as a child. Who is the most guilty, Grampa? He likely was abused himself. "we're the children of children, and we're handing down their pain. the root of all evil, is the sanity left to gain?" Is saying our abusive parents were children themselves, and we are transferring their pain into ourselves, and possibly on to our children. The line ends with the question "Is it possible to break this cycle?" Here are the full lyrics

(Lets see if anybody notices I just gave away a free, rough, unfinished track from the new album.)

Virus
 

I'm not anti-religion, but I'm not a devote church goer either. One day years ago I was visited by Jehovahs Witnesses, Mormons, a guy selling a Pyramid Marketing scheme all in the same day. A week later I was at a wedding between a jewish man, and his non-jewish-but-converting bride, and the Rabbi made a statement that, "Judaism is the mother of Christianity, but unlike Christianity we don't go out and try to convert people. In fact, if you want to convert, its going be a lot of work, and you might not make it!" It never occured to me that there could be religions not activly seeking to convert. In fact, most religions don't look for new followers.

All these things sort of clicked in my head. "Huh, Christianity...or at least a lot of the varieties I have seen this week...sort of spreads like a zombie virus! They go out walking the streets looking for people to convert. When converted, those converts start looking for new people, and then next thing you go you got this whole army of people walking this streets talking about the blood of christ (nom nom nom)!" Throw that in with the post-easter-undead-Jesus rising from the grave, and you've got a pretty good argument for: "christians=zombies".

So with all that spinning in my head, I wrote the lyrics to Virus. Bare in mind this was YEARS before that album came out. I sat on this song for years, and like 4 albums, fearing the consequences of releasing it (or telling people what it was about in a blog post *cringe*). I have a lot of very good friends who are VERY Christian, and some of the best people I have ever known I was more then a little worried I'd offend them (or worse: hurt their feelings). Also, I hear God can throw lightening bolts...even at atheists! (You don't have to be a believer to be struck by lightening!) And that's not the worst of it, do you remember that climax of Indian Jones?

 

So, in retrospect, no that song is not about Christians at all. Its about...um, Zombies. Yeah, that's it!

Anyone who has ever been to Dragon*Con will tell you that one of the big challenges there is just finding out when and where everything is happening. This year, they've changed the room we are performing in, so we need some help getting the world out! So I'm mustering up a Steampunk Army on Friday to help us hand out the 1,000 postcards I just ordered, telling everybody we are playing FRIDAY NIGHT AT 1:30am, IN THE ATRUIM BALL ROOM IN THE MARRIOT!! Want to be a part of our army? Stop by our booth on Friday and we'll give you some cards. Hand them to any one and everyone you think is capable of staying up that late!

 

A while back I posted a blog about the origins of a few Abney Park songs, and people said they really enjoyed it, so I'm doing it again.

Today's theme is Lullaby. I once had the idea of making a whole compilation CD of lullbys, since Traci and Krystof (Of Abney Park and Sinforsa) had just written the beautiful Gypsy Girl (which would make anyone cry to hear right now)...and because I always loved Voltaires Goodnight Deamond Slayer.

Here are two Abney Park Lullaby's:

Sleep Isabella
Sleep Isabella is a lullaby, although not a very effective one the way its recorded, since it tends to make everybody dance. But in its original ah capella version it is very effective, and I sing it to Isabella every night. In fact I've been known to phone Bella from the greenroom of whatever club we are playing that night to sing her to sleep. (for those worried parents please note we hardly play more then one show every two weeks, so 99 percent of the time I'm sing to her while holding her hand).



The lyrics aren't deep, no. In fact they are derivative of something even sillier. One of her favorite books is a book call "Little Fur Child" about a little family of furry creatures that lived in a tree, and the adventures of the littlest of the family (pictured above). At the end of the book the parents sing a song to their fur child:

Now, I had to read this book to her every night, and after a while I started making up a melody to it. Eventually she asked me to sing it to her at bed time, and I started putting "Isabella" in place of "My little fur child" since Bella is not overly furry (except for the curly stuff on her head, which smells like a hug). So the song evolved into:



In our heads Isabella had a little crib shaped like a carosel that we called her "Carosella", and it revolved as she slept. I didn't make up the word, but the only other place I've heard it spoken was in the song "Carosella" by In The Nursery (Awesome song). When I pictured a "Carosella" from their song, I came up with the whole "spinning crib" thing.

The line "Sleep Through the spinning, Just like your beginning" is in reference to how much she spun and squirmed in the womb.

Admittedly, after a while Bella got tired of Sleep Isabella, and had me singing what she called "My Pirate Song", which is an old sea shanty about the guy who invented Beer. An odd song to sing to a three year old girl, but a father does what is asked of him, provided it doesn't wreck the house or ruin the child. Here are lyrics to Bellas "pirate song": http://hoss88.xanga.com/331713999/item

This Dark and Twisty Road



This song is sort of a Little Red Ridding Hood + The Woodsmen metaphor for my relationship with my Daughter Chloe (now 6).


This song is from a father to a daughter, pledging to protect and look after her her whole life. I'm tearing up as a type, honestly, as its a very emotional theme to me. And yes, she did have a "Dress Of Snow White". It was lacy, and white, and she wore it, and danced in it, and played in it, until it was sepia, and torn, and all the more beautiful for the happiness that it soaked in from a tiny little girl with long rose colored hair.

*snif*

The line "Long ago and far away I hunted my deamonds down" is to mean that I have strengthened my self as a person, corrected my issues as much as a could, so that I could be a strong father to Chloe (as opposed to a selfish father who spends his time dealing with himself more then his family). In typing this I wonder if I'm drifting away from that focus...perhaps I should re-evaluate our touring schedule a bit, and perhaps how much attention I pay to on-line Abney-Drama. My Family should be my first priority, and my Art second, and all else should hardly enter in to the equation.

The final verse is a realization that eventually all daughters leave their fathers and go off into the world. I end the song by saying "Although I can't ask you to stay, know that I will always be here waiting to take care of you should you ever need me.

And on that note I'll end this and go off and have a sentimental cry. Daughters grow up, and they change as they grow, and although you love every incarnation of them you get, you only get each incarnation for a brief flicker of time.

You should go call your dad, or better yet, find him and give him a hug.

Through the years we've had many female vocalists. Abney Park has been around for years and years an years...somthing like 15 years...and it seems the singing girls have about two or three years to give us before life, love, family or art takes them else ware. I thought it might be interesting to newer fans to see a little discography of the female vocalists we've had:

Jennifer Savage: When Abney Park first changed names from the original band I started when I returned from music school in London (The EaTeN), we auditioned and brought Jennifer into the band. She is beautiful and taleneted, and currently is a singer song writer in Seattle for her own project, Six Foot Savage.
Currently available songs you can hear Jennifer on:

The Wake (i think...its been a long time!)




















 Alisa Marrow. Unfortunatly I can't find any pictures of her. Shes is a GREAT singer, and a very good freind. Sorry about the photo, its the only one I could find.

Currently available songs you can hear Alisa on:

Twisted and Broken (I think)

Breathe (I think. I know she recorded on it, can't remember if that's her in the currant version)




















 Madame Archel (photo by Micheal Woodward) came complete with her own fan club, an was just a blast to be in a band with. She used to fly in a sleep on our sofa, and we'd just hang out and make music. She was there when we first started playing aroudn the country, and help make our first shows in Hollywood and Vegas so much fun.

Currently available songs you can hear Archel on:

Breathe (vocals and flute)
Black Day
Thornes & Brambles
Holy War (flute)
Breathe Accoustic Dead Silence


















 Traci Lee Nemeth Abney Park would be blessed indeed if we ever got another vocalist with the magic that Traci had in her voice. Something would happen when that shy little girl opened her mouth, the sparkling sad-fun-brilance that would come out, completely void of any ego yet bristling with genious. She sang on the majority of the Abney Park songs you have heard, becuase we couldn't get enough of her voice. If you've heard Traci sing, I don't have to say any more. She was amazing. She was also amazing at writing her parts. When she first joined our band we had a dicussion about how her voice would fit in musically, and we decided on a "Peter Gabreil + Kate Bush" blend of 70% male, 30% female, but in a very dual sololist sort of way. Anyway, I can't say enough about what she brought musically to the band. Its a shame how life changes people, if I was to hazzard a guess I'd say hers has taken her to a place were she might not sing publically again...but I hope thats not true.

You can hear Traci on: The Shadow Of Life (live)
The Root Of All Evil (live)
The Only One (live)
Stigmata Martyr
The Wrong Side
Dear Ophelia
Sacraledge
All The Myths Are True
The Death Of The Hero
Downtrodden
False Prophecy










Kristina !? What Kristina sings? The keyboard player/pianist that has been in Abney Park longer then anyone but Robert himself ...also sings? Well, get enough booze into her and throw her into the recording booth and she sings! (although she will never admit it sober).

You can hear Kristina singing on: Child King
&
Hush
and all the remixes of Hush, including the one where the remix artist muted me, and just featured her! (Which might have been Vernian Process come to think of it! Josh, if your reading, was that you who remixed Hush oh so many years ago?)









So that represents the story so far. The next chapter is still up for grabs, but I have faith another amazing girl will bless our stage and albums. In the mean time, we have some award winning dancers lined up...not to mention a great list of candidates auditioning I'm dying to show you but can't! (damn this whole "respecting privacy" thing!)

If you or any one you know wants to audition, here is the ad: http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/tlg/1317929177.html