Greetings Dear ‘Fiends’ & Fan(g)s!
New excitement has been added to the froth that’s already being generated around The Steampunk Bizarre! Behold the Official Press Release:
Internet Dating with a Comedic Twist, Weird Val Croons a New ‘Toon!
The new animated comedy music video by Veronique Chevalier (aka Weird Val) is a lively lampoon of contemporary courtship. Part social satire, and part homage to her Dark Cabaret & Steampunk roots, her original song “Internet Date” is a cleverly packaged tour of the netherworld that is “Cyberian” (online) dating.
Los Angeles, CA – July 3, 2010 — Veronique Chevalier, the quirky, aristocratic French-American cabaret artist whose Halloween record “Polka Haunt Us” was an Official Entry on the 51st Annual Grammy Ballot, is at it again this time with a new, animated cartoon music video, created for her humorous original song “Internet Date.” With online dating already a well-entrenched method of modern courtship, Ms. Chevalier’s cheeky wit serves her well, as she skewers the practice.
The narrative commences as a lament, and ends with one woman’s triumphant solution to her earlier dating travails. Chevalier openly acknowledges the video is also an homage to the song “Coin-Operated Boy” by one of her favorite Dark Cabaret musical duos, Dresden Dolls.
“Internet Date” features the cartoon artistry of director Kyle A. Carrozza (a storyboard revisionist on Nickelodeon’s “Fan Boy and Chum Chum”), whom she initially met online, via TheMadMusicArchive.com. It was their mutual love of demented music (not of each other) that brought them together.
Animator on the project was John Berry, who co-creates “Frog Raccoon Strawberry” strips with Carrozza for DummComics.com. ARIA (Australian Grammy) nominee, Jann Castor, who was chief recording engineer, sound designer and producer for “Polka Haunt Us,” contributed foley and sound design for “Internet Date” as well. Castor and Chevalier also met online, via an ad she placed on Craigslist, seeking music collaborators.
The “Internet Date” video will premiere on Sunday, July 11th, 2010, at The Second Annual Steampunk Bizarre, at ArtSpace in Hartford, Connecticut, and will be available on YouTube one week after the live premiere. The Steampunk Bizarre, curated by Joey Marsocci, and presented by DrGrymmLaboratories.net, is a week-long exhibition, running July 9th – 16th, exploring various aspects of Steampunk, which is a term that has been coined for “The Scholar’s Science Fiction.”
Born from the imaginations of H.G. Welles, Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, Nikola Tesla and others, Steampunk offers a melding of late 1800’s aesthetic with scientific discovery and other-worldly technology. Though Steampunk reached a tipping point recently, it is not just a current trend. The Steampunk aesthetic has been woven through our media and consciousness for more than a century in books, film, music, fashion, and art. Today, the Steampunk movement is alive with artistic creation and ideas to bring “a world that never happened” into reality.
The Steampunk Bizarre Exhibit will be alive with sights and sounds of ingenious and strange contraptions set in a themed atmosphere. Dr. Grymm’s EXPERIMENT is to bring together 23 international artists, some from the Steampunk community, some professional artists trying their hand at Steampunk for the first time.
Chevalier, who also found Marsocci online, is the only performance artist who has been invited to participate in The Steampunk Bizarre, and in addition to screening the “Internet Date” video, she has written two song new parodies and a spoken word piece entitled “I Am Steampunk” that she will perform live.
Highlights of the exhibition will be filmed for a documentary by Neurotic Films, tentatively entitled “I Am Steampunk: The Making Of A Bizarre World,” which will premiere in the Fall of 2010.
When asked if any of the narrative in “Internet Date” is based on her personal experiences, Chevalier will only say that she prefers to focus on how effective a tool the Internet has been for locating people with whom to work in a professional capacity.
“Internet Date”producer/writer/singer Veronique Chevalier is known as The “Weird Val” of Cabaret, for her hilarious parodies and side-splitting covers. (Imagine if Jim Morrison and Elvira had a twisted, Edith Piaf-like love child). She is the recipient of The Unanimous Choice Award for Best Independent Cabaret Artist by the Los Angeles Music Awards for her benefit recording Cabaret4Choice. Deemed “too extreme for Simon” she was gonged off the first season of America’s Got Talent, after only 20 seconds, proving that her gifts are wasted on the masses.
WEBSITE
http://www.veroniquechevalier.com
YouTube (The video will be uploaded to YouTube on July 16th)
http://www.youtube.com/user/VeroniqueChevalier
PHOTOS
Veronique Chevalier Red Velvet Curtains Photo by Justice Howard
http://veroniquechevalier.com/PR/VeroRedVelvetNOcrosses.jpg
Veronique Chevalier as “Hell-ga The Devil’s Beer Maid” Photo by Justice Howard
http://veroniquechevalier.com/PR/BeerMaidinHell-final.jpg
###
What: Steampunk immersion experience for all ages, July 9-16th
Veronique’s Appearance: Sunday, July 11th (Steampunk Meet Up)
Time: 5 to 9 pm
Venue: Hartford ArtSpace
Address: 555 Asylum Avenue, Hartford CT, 06103
Telephony: 860 – 548 – 9975
Event URL: http://www.drgrymmlaboratories.net/Steampunk-Bizarre.html