Miss Susan Boyle

You probably seen this floating around the internets the past few days.  If you haven’t watched it, you should take the time to do so, it will put a real smile on your face.

Susan Boyle, a contestant on ‘Britain’s Got Talent’

Open Mic Night with Chris Cornell

A cover of Michael Jackson’s Bille Jean.

Not just Abba

Classic pictures of 1970’s Swedish Dance Bands.

For once I decided that I should learn a bit about that which I mock. I googled about a bit and learned that Dance Bands (Dansbands) are still a big thing in Sweden.  The matching outfits are the result of a tax code that only allows deductions if there are ‘Fantasy Costumes’ involved.

My favorites:

• ake Lindh’s
• Teddy Boys
• Saints
• Hick
• Skip’z

Hopefully my friend Kristofer will eventually stumble across this post and enlighten me on Swedish Dance Bands.  After spending 30 minutes or so reading about them, now I want to go see one.

Open Mic Night

“Shaft” by the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain.  It gets interesting about 1 minute in.

*No, I do not have a thing for Ukuleles.  Bagpipes maybe, but not Ukuleles.

(h/t, John Cole at Balloon Juice)

Open Mic Night

With Ingrid Michaelson on Bob and Tom.

Open Mic Night…

…with Jake Shimabukuro.  A great version of My Guitar Gently Weeps, on Ukulele.

Open Mic Night

During a recent lunch with two friends at a local pizza parlor, the band Slade came up.  My friend Adam, a Scottish chap, was a bit surprised (in a dry, British Isle sort of way) that Denny and I, two Americans, knew as much as we did about Slade, a Scottish band.  Unfortunately, our knowledge came from the band Quiet Riot, who rose to fame on the back of two Slade cover songs.

In honor of Adam.

Open Mic Night

Aha!

But not Aha.

Take Me On with new, more ‘literal’ lyrics.

Open Mic Night

Wow, is that really Todd Snider?

Open Mic Night

In honor of the late Richard Wright.