The sedated condition of contemporary pop music needs something to resuscitate it before it flatlines. Anyone for a dose of steampunk-flavored vaudeville performance art?
Steam Powered Giraffe is damnably difficult to pigeonhole. Which does much to explain why this trio of robots are performing daily at the San Diego Zoo while Katy Perry sells out arenas around the world. Something has to explain such malevolent cosmic incomprehensibility. No time enough to explain the influence of steampunk subculture, but a mention must be made regarding Steam Powered Giraffe’s unique backstory involving their invention by Col. P.A. Walters in 1896 as musical automatons.
Behind the distinctive physical appearance that combines creatively applied makeup and a sharp sense of fashion lurk three talents ready to lead a retrofitted music revolution from the aesthetic wasteland that is today’s music scene.
Twin brothers Christopher and David Bennett are joined by Jon Sprague. You don’t want to address them by those names, however. Henceforward, they are Rabbit, the Spine and the Jon respectively. By these names do the members of Steam Powered Giraffe present themselves as dysfunctional metal men each with their on singular personality. The Spine has a Data-like android appearance that lends him a bit more humanity. Rabbit is a malfunctioning clockwork robot that would be right at home in Gregory Maguire’s Oz. The Jon is suspender-wearing throwback to the world of Art Deco fueled by Crystal Pepsi. Live performances are not limited to musical expression as the members of the troupe exhibit a talent for everything from pantomime to the excessively long repetitive gag. If you don’t know what that means, do a search for Steam Powered Giraffe like Bobby Darin.
But what of the music? Search all you want, but you will not find Autotune behind the soaring high notes and artfully blended harmonies in a song like “Honeybee.” That particular song features nothing but voice and a guitar, but the creative structure in which theose elements interact makes it sound like nothing you’ll hear on top 40 radio. Other songs from Steam Powered Giraffe transport you to another time and another place, such as “Brass Goggles” which would feel right at home in a 1930s British musical hall. Rabbit, the Spine and the Jon may be musical automatons, but their musical is anything but soulless, cold and mechanicals.
It may be a sad testament to the Era of Gaga that a musical act so independent from the necessity of gimmickry is forced to make a name for itself with the most inventive stratagem of the day. Or, perhaps, Steam Powered Giraffe’s convoluted thematic conceit is less a sad testament to our times than a brilliantly conceived and executed example of Irony as Performance Art.
For more from Timothy Sexton, Yahoo!’s first Writer of the Year, check out:
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