Unextraordinary Gentlemen | |
---|---|
Background information | |
Origin | Los Angeles, California, United States |
Genres | |
Years active | 2007-current |
Members | Eric "Malcom" Schreeck Richard "Professor Mangrove" Pilawski Jennifer "J. Frances" Pomerantz |
Website | Official website |
Unextraordinary Gentlemen (UXG) is a musical project formed in Los Angeles in 2005 by bassist/keyboardist Richard Pilawski (previously with the surf punk band Sex with Lurch) & vocalist/lyricist Eric Schreeck to "...explore our love for post-punk, synth-pop, industrial & experimental music combined with the literary genre of Victorian fantasy." The project went public in early 2007, joined by Jennifer Pomerantz (of Demonika & The Darklings) on violin. The band's name is a tongue-in-cheek nod to Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen .
UXG has been called one of the "foremost of the musical assets of... steampunk" [1] and has been interviewed by or featured in several genre and local scene publications. [2] [3] Their first CD, 5 Tales from God-Only-Knows received positive reviews from several sources, [4] [5] most notably ReGen magazine, [6] Mick Mercer [7] and Sepiachord. [8] Mick Mercer called their second release, No Hands To Guide Us, "most impressive". [9] In December 2011, the 2010 version of their song, "Open Arms, Empty Air" was a Track of the Week on the UK review site, "Keep Pop Loud". [10]
The band has created a back-story set in a fictional area based on a mixture of Victorian England and American Old West, with the band members taking on alternate identities that relate to that back-story. In character, the band members are time travellers who have come from that past using one of Professor Mangrove's amazing inventions. Most of their songs are set in and tell stories about this fictional 19th century place, sung from the points-of-view of characters like "Clive the Barker", "Dread Penny" and "Elwood Lovekraken". [2] A page on their website contains "The Unextraordinary Encyclopedia", a list of names, places and events in this fictional world that are referred to in their music.
UXG has performed in notable venues such as the CIA, the Knitting Factory and the Derby, and have performed at major goth and steampunk events including Eccentrik Festival, Bats Day and The Edwardian Ball. They can often be heard on a number of steampunk radio broadcasts that stream worldwide, such as The Clockwork Cabaret, [11] and were recently featured in the SmallWORLD podcast's focus on steampunk. [12]
Festival appearances have included:
Open Arms, Empty Air (2-songs, digital only - Mar. 2011)
Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and aesthetics inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the Victorian era or the American "Wild West", where steam power remains in mainstream use, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam power.
Republic of Loose were an Irish funk rock band from Dublin. Formed in 2001, the band formerly consisted of lead vocalist Mick Pyro, bass guitarist and vocalist Benjamin Loose, keyboardist Deco, guitarists and vocalists Dave Pyro and Brez and drummer and percussionist Coz Noelen.
Top Shelf Productions is an American publishing company founded in 1997, originally owned and operated by Chris Staros and Brett Warnock and a small staff. Now an imprint of IDW Publishing, Top Shelf is based in Marietta, Georgia.
Jill Tracy is a composer, singer, pianist, storyteller and "musical evocateur" based in San Francisco.
Abney Park is a steampunk band based in Seattle. Their name comes from Abney Park Cemetery in London, England. Formerly a goth band, Abney Park have transformed their look and sound and have been called the "quintessential spokespeople for the steampunk subculture."
Ben Dunn is an American comic book artist and publisher.
Wondermark is a webcomic created by David Malki which was syndicated to Flak Magazine and appeared in The Onion's print edition from 2006 to 2008. It features 19th-century illustrations that have been recontextualized to create humorous juxtapositions. It takes the horizontal four-panel shape of a newspaper strip, although the number of panels varies from one to six or more. It is updated intermittently, with the frequency of updates declining from multiple strips a month for many years, to fewer than one a month since mid-2021.
The Eccentrik Festival was an annual 3-day Goth and industrial music festival held in the Raleigh, North Carolina area and had in some years been spread out between several different venues. The festival started in October 2004. Musical styles typically featured at Eccentrik included deathrock, psychobilly, gothic rock, industrial, post-punk, dark cabaret, steampunk, synthpop and other related genres. The festival was also notable for its party-like atmosphere, the pre-festival meet n' greet, art show, and a dancefloor featuring goth, deathrock, industrial, steampunk and post-punk djs from around the US.
Vernian Process is an American band formed in San Francisco in 2003. Taking its name from the works of 19th century author Jules Verne, Vernian Process is a band that creates music themed around Victorian scientific romance and its modern counterpart steampunk. Their sound is a fusion of modern and old-world styles including gothic-rock darkwave, progressive rock, neoclassical, trip hop, ragtime, and other related genres. The band consists of vocalist Joshua A. Pfeiffer, and multi-instrumentalists Martín Irigoyen, Steven Farrell, and Vincent Van Veen.
FreakAngels is a post-apocalyptic webcomic created in 2008 by Eagle Award-winning writer Warren Ellis and artist Paul Duffield, and published in book format by Avatar Press. The plot focuses on twelve 23-year-old psychics living in Whitechapel six years after civilization in Great Britain is destroyed. The webcomic has received various awards and has been collected in a series of six volumes.
Paul Roland, is a singer-songwriter, author, journalist and paranormal researcher.
Gaslamp fantasy is a subgenre of both fantasy and historical fiction. Generally speaking, this particular realm of fantasy employs either a Victorian or Edwardian setting. The gaslamp fantasy genre is not to be confused with steampunk, which is often set in the same historical era but usually has more of a super-science edge and uchronic tone. Nor is it the same as fantasy of manners, which is typically low-tech, often comedic, and involves social conflicts. Gaslamp fantasy also differs from classical Victorian/Edwardian faerie or pure fantasy in the J. R. R. Tolkien or Lewis Carroll style or from historical crime-novels in the Anne Perry or June Thomson style by the supernatural elements, themes, and subjects it features. Many of its tropes, themes, and stock characters derive from Gothic literature—a long-established genre composed of both romantic and horrific traits and motivated by the desire to rouse fear, apprehension, and other intense emotions within the reader—and could be described as an attempt to modernize literary Gothicism.
Insomniac Folklore is an American rock band from Portland, Oregon. The group is made up of Rev Tyler Hentschel, Adrienne Michelle and Amanda Curry with other members joining them from time to time. Hentschel is the project's only consistent member since he founded the group in 2001.
Sunday Driver are a Cambridge and London based band that fuses English folk and classical Indian influences. In 2009 they became popular within the UK steampunk scene.
Dieselpunk is a retrofuturistic subgenre of science fiction similar to steampunk or cyberpunk that combines the aesthetics of the diesel-based technology of the interwar period through to the 1950s with retro-futuristic technology and postmodern sensibilities. Coined in 2001 by game designer Lewis Pollak to describe his tabletop role-playing game Children of the Sun, the term has since been applied to a variety of visual art, music, motion pictures, fiction, and engineering.
H.U.M.A.N.W.I.N.E. is an American Vermont-based band with early roots in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 2002 by Holly Brewer and Matthew McNiss, HUMANWINE has had a long history of rotating lineups of supporting musicians. In recent years, the band has primarily performed and recorded as a duo, as heard on their 2016 four-volume release "aether".
Veronique Chevalier is a France-born American mistress of ceremonies, singer-songwriter, music producer, comedian and parodist popular in the steampunk community. She produces live cabaret in Southern California and is an emcee of steampunk events nationwide.
Chap hop is music originating from England that mixes the hip hop genre with elements from the Chappist or steampunk subcultures and stereotypical English obsessions such as cricket, tea, and the weather.
Frenchy and the Punk are a Euro-American Acoustic Alternative post-punk cabaret duo based in New York City. They were listed in the top 25 duos in May 2012 by Yahoo Music Blog's List of the Day. Punk guitarist Scott Helland, originally from the bands Deep Wound and Outpatients, formed Frenchy and the Punk with singer Samantha Stephenson in 2005. The group was originally called The Gypsy Nomads. They adopted their nickname Frenchy and the Punk prior to their first European tour in 2011.
For the foremost of the musical assets of our steampunk realm, there are... The Unextraordinary Gentlemen with their cool, yet minimalistic postpunk-like tones.[ dead link ]
In short they could be the best band that you've yet to hear.
Guest Musicians: Malcom Schreeck - Vocals (The Alchemist's Vision, Crime of the Century)