jump, jive it, lindy hop it, balboa, any way you wanna swing it till you've got it
Some period-appropriate links:
So apparently there is going to be a stage production of Top Hat in London this spring. It looks good! Different, given that there isn't a cast of thousands and a set that spans acres, but at least they kept the feather dress? They've done previews in various smaller cities in the UK, and it's had decent reviews.
Speaking of the 1930s: Color photos of the US from 1939-1943. Back when color film cost the equivalent of seventy dollars a roll, ZOMG. No wonder only people working for the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information could afford it.
But color is really an amazing thing. Not to knock B&W photography at all, because it can be wonderful, but the color in these photos makes them insanely more real. The color just removes all the distance B&W has.
The Library of Congress has a bunch more like this in this Flickr set, but for perhaps obvious reasons, a lot of them are of people working in fields, and that got a little old. The link above does a good job choosing a representative sample. The LOC has a bunch of sets like this on Flickr, actually, in addition to their own searchable online photograph archive, where I've whiled away many an hour.
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And some period-reminiscent music recs:
I think I mentioned the Puppini Sisters back when iTunes had their doo-wop version of " Walk Like an Egyptian" as a free single. It's a lot of fun, but I figured that gimmick wouldn't take them far.
I was not quite right. As technically excellent as their arrangements and harmonizing skills are, the songs don't all quite work. Oddly, their covers of jazz standards seem to suffer the most: "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" and "It Don't Mean a Thing" are kind of terrible. However, their original stuff is largely quite good, swingy versions of songs like "I Will Survive" and "Heart of Glass" are fun, and at least one of their older covers is amazing. So here's the good stuff:
"I Got Rhythm." This is the best cover of this song I've ever heard, and I've heard several. Not only is the arrangement really peppy and fun, but they've added a new middle section that's really good. There's a riff on all the French in the American in Paris version, and then a totally new bridge in English from which I pulled the subject of the entry. I'm kind of in love with it.
According to NPR, "' Jilted' sounds like a confessional column from a Swing Era edition of Cosmo." This is not a bad way to describe it. This is my favorite of their few original songs; it's definitely a post-women's-rights-movement interpretation of a typical 40s-era song about being lovelorn.
"Soho Nights" is another good original offering, though I mostly like it for the beat. I would love to choreograph something to this.
Finally, a cover of "Mele Kalikimaka," from last year's Christmas album. They didn't do a whole lot to personalize this one, but I like it anyway; it was kind of made for their style. Plus, ukelele!
Completely unrelated to any of the above, have Iron & Wine's "Boy With a Coin," which has more of a beat than they usually manage. I like it a lot.
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Finally, I, er, may have a couple lines of a potential Beckett-and-Castle-in-the-1930s ficlet. *cough* Anyway...
So apparently there is going to be a stage production of Top Hat in London this spring. It looks good! Different, given that there isn't a cast of thousands and a set that spans acres, but at least they kept the feather dress? They've done previews in various smaller cities in the UK, and it's had decent reviews.
Speaking of the 1930s: Color photos of the US from 1939-1943. Back when color film cost the equivalent of seventy dollars a roll, ZOMG. No wonder only people working for the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information could afford it.
But color is really an amazing thing. Not to knock B&W photography at all, because it can be wonderful, but the color in these photos makes them insanely more real. The color just removes all the distance B&W has.
The Library of Congress has a bunch more like this in this Flickr set, but for perhaps obvious reasons, a lot of them are of people working in fields, and that got a little old. The link above does a good job choosing a representative sample. The LOC has a bunch of sets like this on Flickr, actually, in addition to their own searchable online photograph archive, where I've whiled away many an hour.
*
And some period-reminiscent music recs:
I think I mentioned the Puppini Sisters back when iTunes had their doo-wop version of " Walk Like an Egyptian" as a free single. It's a lot of fun, but I figured that gimmick wouldn't take them far.
I was not quite right. As technically excellent as their arrangements and harmonizing skills are, the songs don't all quite work. Oddly, their covers of jazz standards seem to suffer the most: "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" and "It Don't Mean a Thing" are kind of terrible. However, their original stuff is largely quite good, swingy versions of songs like "I Will Survive" and "Heart of Glass" are fun, and at least one of their older covers is amazing. So here's the good stuff:
"I Got Rhythm." This is the best cover of this song I've ever heard, and I've heard several. Not only is the arrangement really peppy and fun, but they've added a new middle section that's really good. There's a riff on all the French in the American in Paris version, and then a totally new bridge in English from which I pulled the subject of the entry. I'm kind of in love with it.
According to NPR, "' Jilted' sounds like a confessional column from a Swing Era edition of Cosmo." This is not a bad way to describe it. This is my favorite of their few original songs; it's definitely a post-women's-rights-movement interpretation of a typical 40s-era song about being lovelorn.
"Soho Nights" is another good original offering, though I mostly like it for the beat. I would love to choreograph something to this.
Finally, a cover of "Mele Kalikimaka," from last year's Christmas album. They didn't do a whole lot to personalize this one, but I like it anyway; it was kind of made for their style. Plus, ukelele!
Completely unrelated to any of the above, have Iron & Wine's "Boy With a Coin," which has more of a beat than they usually manage. I like it a lot.
*
Finally, I, er, may have a couple lines of a potential Beckett-and-Castle-in-the-1930s ficlet. *cough* Anyway...