Dr. Carmilla and The Mechanisms

Dr. Carmilla and The Mechanisms are the 7-piece bastard brainchild of two dieselpunk cabaret bands- Dr. Carmilla and, unsurprisingly, The Mechanisms (number of members subject to sporadic change). They formed in Oxford, UK sometime during 2010.

The current roster is:

• Dr. Carmilla: The Captain. A lesbian vampire and mad scientist who created the band in order to offset her lonliness. She is most often seen providing vocals, guitar and/or piano for live shows.
• Jonny d'Ville: Carmilla's First Mate and an unloveable traitor. His main goal in life seems to be finding as many different ways to a) throw Carmilla off the ship and b) get as many people to hate him as possible. He usually provides vocals and occasionally a touch of harmonica.
• The Toy Soldier: A battered, old, very British robot the band found one day. It tends to offer vocals, glockenspiel and sometimes mandolin.
• Nastya Rasputina: A princess from the Empire of Cyberia. She serves as the ship's engineer and also provides the band with delicious viola and synthesizer melodies.
• Ivy Alexandria: An Archivist for the crew who has no recollection of her life beforehand and seems to have joined the crew because, Sure, Why Not? She's the band's woodwind section, offering flute, oboe and penny whistle thusfar.
• Ashes O'Reilly: Former mobster and the crew's Quartermaster. Ashes provides the band with bass guitar and silent judging. Also, cake (although none of the band seem to have been adventurous enough to try it).
• Steampunk Jesus: Brings some delicious beats to the music and wine to the afterparty.

Dr. Carmilla and The Mechanisms provides examples of the following tropes:

• Concept Album : Concept Band, more like.
• Dieselpunk
• Evil Feels Good : Jonny, at the very least, seems to enjoy being an unredeemable asshole. We're still on the fence with Ashes.
• Being Evil Sucks : The story of Dr. Carmilla's life.
• Grief Song : Loreli (Pt. I & II)
• Heavy Meta :
• "I Am Becoming" Song : The Alchemist, Loreli II, Homesick, Alive I Cried. All of these songs are about Carmilla. No one is surprised.
• I Hate You, Vampire Dad : Most of the band seems to take this stance when dealing with Dr. Carmilla.
• Just for Pun : If puns can happen, they will happen. (See: ALL tropes on puns.)
• Living Ship : The Aurora is some kind of biomechanical vessel
  • For a bonus point, the crew's engineer is also in a relationship with said ship.
• Lonely Together : It differs between members how much any of them actually cares about this, though.
• Neoclassical Punk Zydeco Rockabilly : The band is known to mix Folk, Classical, Punk, Electronica, Swing, Jazz and various other genres.
  • They have also classified themselves as Dieselpunk cabaret, Space Folk and Dr. Carmilla has been known to describe herself as a Visual Kei artist.
• Rhythm Typewriter : Interlude
• Robot or Spaceman Alter Ego
• Sanity Slippage Song : Homesick
• Space Pirates : Effectively the whole concept behind the band.
• Spoken Word in Music : The band seems to really enjoy this one.
• Post Modernism
• Rule of Cool : Cyborg pirates lead by a vampire captain on a biomechanical ship. In space.
• Vocal Tag Team : Carmilla, Jonny and the Toy Soldier
• Who Wants to Live Forever? : Strongly invoked in Carmilla's story.

Tropes featured by The Mechanisms

• Beard of Evil : Jonny D'Ville. Just look at him.
• Clone Jesus : Close enough.
• The Irish Mob : IN SPACE! Ashes' backstory.
• Murder Ballad : One Eyed Jacks is Jonny D'Ville's origin song in which he murders his father. And then proceeds to kill everyone else too.
  • Fantasia, also a song about Jonny, features him being stalked and murdered by some kind of creature in a dream sequence. He dies on the moon.
• Quintessential British Gentleman : There are many jokes in their stage performance relating to The Toy Soldier, including references to tea and heavy use of the British accent.