Today we will feature designs for modern, underground bunkers. Live out the end of the world in the bunker of your dreams. Hell, some of these are nicer than my house. Natural lighting might be a bit of an issue…

I think there are many tropes atompunk has to offer, from space exploration to “homes of the future” to surviving a holocaust. Well today, let’s look at how to survive a holocaust forever. Should you be lacking that special someone to survive the coming apocalypse there is actually an online site for you to find someone or even a group of someone’s to plan to spend Armageddon and even the post Armageddon repopulation with. It’s called Survivalist Singles.

He is looking to get his 6 year old son into a new school, one trying something outside the public school method. Schools in the states with that damn No Child Left Behind bullshit… oh Lord, don’t get me started.

He’s a working musician like myself, actually maintaining a living solely based on music, and thus money is usually tight. He made all his friends, family fanbase an offer, donate $50 or more and he will make a cover of any song you request. ANY song, no matter how crazy.

As someone who lives in a similar situation, i can relate, and there are often times i could not send this $50. However, you are kind enough to buy my albums, so i in turn can send it along to my friends in need.

He mentioned he would post it even if it’s utterly humiliating.

He’s got a baritone voice and really dry delivery.

Dude. When a good buddy says he will cover any song, no matter how ridiculous, i’ll be honest. My first temptation is to make him cover this:

That’s the evil choice. But it is SOOOOOO perfectly evil.

Of course, what about a song that seems like the last thing he’d ever cover, but who knows? Might pull some crazy version of that totally redefines and surprises.

Thus i thought of having him cover this:

But in the end i went the high road (i suck). I requested a song i love and would be dying of curiosity to hear his take on:

So. Let’s see what happens…

We interrupt our regularly scheduled broadcast to listen to Kayleigh McKnight sing some more. Because when is that not a good idea?

We interrupt our regularly scheduled broadcast to listen to Lauren Osborn sing some more. Because when is that not a good idea?

So perhaps you’ve noticed each New Albion that opens each album has a latin themed tint from the era. Steampunk has the tango, Dieselpunk has a cuban thing going (the horns could have been more cuban but i ended up really liking that tinge of game show theme). Indeed, throughout the SO the narrator’s music usually carries that tango feel in some way.

The AO will have a singing Narrator again and she will need her own music. We’re continuing with the latin tinged theme (you know i originally thought of setting New Albion as Buenos Aires in a parallel universe where the British colonized South America with the same ferocity as North America?), and thus the clear choice for music style is Bossa Nova.

Bossa nova was born in and its great heyday was the 50s and 60s. Perfect Atompunk era.

We’ll get more into Bossa Nova in future posts (to be honest, i have a deadline and can’t do a long or researched post). But for today, here’s some bossa nova for your evening. (One note: i hate The Girl From Ipanema. HATE that song. Please do not bring it up or assume i will use it as reference. That song annoys the living **** out of me.)

Karen Souza here. She’s awesome and these covers are awesome. So i’m posting three. Because three is an awesome number.

On the subject of Atompunk, here is an old sci-fi masterpiece.

Made in 1973 using cut out stop motion, directed by René Laloux,production designed by Roland Topor, written by both of them and animated at Jiří Trnka Studio.

It’s beloved by stoners around the world, but it’s much more than just old, trippy animation (which does appear pretty damn outdated, and yet still works). The movie is actually stellar, with some incredible concepts. The premise is simple enough: on an alien world, humans have become pets of giant aliens. The alien culture is where the really interesting details lay.

Seriously, it’s a classic.  Didn’t you see this in college? I really wish i could find a proper full version on the net, but alas, no full original version exists. Here’s the first 9 minutes. If you’re a little intrigued, go check out the whole film.

For something even MORE trippy, here is a LIVE staged version of the film. Yes, a film that many would argue cannot be performed live has. Here is roughly the same part of the movie you just watched in a live, stage show. (kudos to the band for actually playing the original score)

For more you can find her blog here

and her etsy page here

In the meantime let’s take a munch on a little visual treat, shall we?

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It’s a wheel house! it’s a performance art piece steampunky weird thing.

Look, just watch the video. It’s kind of really, really cool.

“Beckett meets Heath Robinson meets The Wombles meets The Road… A gently comic dystopia, set in different time where everything has a new value, and survival relies on sharp eyes, quick hands, and, above all, friendship. Join these traveller-gatherers on the road to nowhere: treading lightly, enduring quietly, and always, always moving onwards.

An acrobatic performance which unfolds inside and around a rolling house. Original design, choreographed acrobatics, and breath taking moments of risk, all housed within a hand-built structure. A moving piece of visual theatre from Acrojou.”

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This is the sound of me in love.

This is one from the vaults. I made this awhile back, just after The Coffee Cellar.

I was in love. I was so in love.

It was unrequited.

When men are in love they often do big, romantic gestures to demonstrate the epicness of their feelings.

So, i did what you might think i’d do.

I wrote her an entire album.

Her absolute favorite story of all time was The Little Mermaid (the original Hans Christian Anderson version.) So i made her an album that told the original Hans Christian Anderson version of The Little Mermaid using music and narration.

My suggestion is if you want to skip just to the highlights, start with The Ball. That was where i poured all of my… it’s the song where i said as clearly as i could with all my young raging hormones and emotional…. AWK: “GAwdDAMMIT.  i. WANT. YOU.”

In the original story, the Little Mermiad not only cannot speak, but every single step she takes with her new legs is agonizing pain. She has no way to tell the prince how she feels or that she had saved him and loves him. She walks with him although each step is tearful torture. Finally, at the big ball,  when she sees how much the prince is intrigued by these dancing girls, she steps up to dance for him, her only chance in the entire story to express herself, even though each step is unbearable pain.

And DO listen to the one after it, Waiting For The Sunrise. This track was a defining moment in my learning to tell stories.

This album was important on a musician’s level because i found i could tell stories using narration, which became a big tool for me. This album was in fact key for me as for the merging of music and story ( and as a side note, clearly i was still in my electronica phase).

I would add, i must have done SOMEthing right, because she married me and our 4 year old is running about my feet as we speak.

Congratulations to Yaser Latef for correctly guessing MacGuffin.

A MacGuffin is a desired object that serves to drive the plot.

It was first used by Alfred Hitchcock who coined the term. And if you think about it, most of his movies revolve around MacGuffins. (Before MacGuffin an earlier term was weenie.)

Thank you for playing. That was quite fun.

Yaser it is. (Could you please make clear the pronunciation? YA-ser…?)

The story behind it is thus:

I had the first two acts all worked out. I hadn’t recorded the 2nd Act, but its plot was sort of written and the MCG already present, (and named) although i had NO idea what it did, or if i was even going to bother getting around to explaining it (hence the name). I also had no 3rd Act.

The idea for how the MCGuffin would actually work i got when i came up with the idea that there would be this hypnotic song of the dead that could just take over your brain upon hearing it. I got THIS idea from….

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Follow me here:

I’m sitting one night dicking around on the net and i stumble across Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat on YouTube. Now, this little musical is immensely responsible for my becoming a musician. See, back in 6th grade, i was sort of taking piano lessons, whatever, not really all that interested in them. A music teacher (Mr. Lloyd, a name i say with reverence) from the high school would come done and he pulled a bunch of kids to be in the junior high school choir. He filled a room with us. He then passed out Joseph books to each of us and preceeded to play the whole thing on the piano,, singing along with it at the top of his lungs and making us sing along with him. Even though we didn’t know it, had never heard it, and i’m sure it sounded like… dear Lord is shudder to think.

But here’s the thing…. something clicked in my head. I LOVED it. I went home and proceeded to spend 2 hours sitting and plunking out every melody i could remember from that day. I did this every day. I began trying to figure out OTHER songs i liked. Soon i was actually playing piano. The rest is history.

The reason i tell you this, is because when i find something like J&TATD on YouTube, starring Donny Osmond, after all these years, I have to watch it.

So i’m sitting there watching it when they get to this part that just creeps me OUT.

So the idea is that we’re in a school (junior high) and all the kids come in to an assembly. A woman gets up on stage and begins singing J&TATD (i am NOT writing that fucker out anymore) and through the magic of music and imagination the story comes alive. But every now and then, we go from the story being acted out in front of us, back to the school room to see the bright shiny faces of the lovely children.

So there’s this song A Pharoah’s Story. Instead of being in the world of the musical, for this number we cut back to the kids in the assembly room. And they are singing along to the song. BUT they are SINGING ALONG to lyrics THEY HAVE NEVER HEARD….. AND….. they are singing IN PERFECT FUCKING HARMONY. To a SONG THEY HAVE NEVER HEARD IN THEIR LITTLE LIVES!

Dude, it was creepy as FUCK. Seriously.

All i could think was: how can they sing along in perfect harmony to a song they’re hearing for the first time? There’s no WAAAAAAY. WTF IS GOING ON HERE????? What is with their glassy EYES?!?!  IT WAS CREEPY. AS. FUCK.

And then it hit me.

It’s a fucking voodoo song. And I have a voodoo cult i need to use. A hypnotic song of the dead!!!! OMFG! Thank you, Jospeh!

In my original conception there was going to be this big music number in which Constance would try to battle the song of the dead with another song (The Soiree song) and the two vie for musical dominance. It was gonna be this HUGE, intense number, the songs going back and forth, building in intensity until Constance’s song won.

However, once i started putting together the 3rd Act it became clear (and this is where a discussion with Kevin Hulburt was invaluable), that this is a key moment not just in the plot, but central to the entire theme i’ve been exploring the entire opera: that every one and every group of people assembles a Narrative in their mind, which guides their reasoning and their actions. Everyone, even large organizations, lives according to a Narrative. And most of these Narratives are bullshit. And yet, these bullshit Narratives have very real consequences on people, the world and the propagation of suffering.

While a song battle would be a blast to compose, the moment might be better served with something more profound, using like a Buddhist type of Meta-narrative to draw attention to the fact that it’s all just stories within stories and taking the soldiers, as well as the listener  out of the Narrative through that. Plotwise, it was more awkward, but it was a chance to really nail a deeper moment, and the awkwardness of such a strange plot point might draw attention and cause more interesting reflection on why the fuck the composer would do something so ridiculous. (those of you who have surmised that the Storyville Station song is just a metaphorical recap of  Constance’s life and the show itself, are right on the money.)

And thus Buddhist moment of Zen won over Epic Song Battle.

GawDAMN i ramble.

Okay. So, there you go. The MCG stands for the MacGuffin.  Yaser Latef gets a character named after him. It originally served no purpose other than… well, as a macguffin, but i did eventually get a purpose for it once i saw a really creepy scene from Jospeh.

See y’all next time.

The following is like a horror movie to me: