Richard Metzger is the current Boing Boing guest blogger.
Meet Mike Long, a Canadian performance artist from Hamilton, Ontario. Mike freaky danced and taped himself doing so for 366 days straight, mainly in his hometown, but he includes NYC, SF and various European locales in his work. He has great taste in music and some of these videos are hysterically funny, reminding me a lot of Spike Jonze’s classic Fatboy Slim video. Here is his interpretation of the lover’s rock classic “Uptown Top Ranking” by Althea & Donna:
Althea & Donna – “Uptown Top Ranking” from Mike Long on Vimeo.
Mike says “I made a dance video, almost always in public places, every single day for an entire year. I am only here to make you smile and hopefully change the way you think about ‘genres,’ and show you what honest reactions to music look like.’ He added “And to do something new.”
Mike told me that he next plans on releasing twelve books in one year. Three are already complete. When asked what he’s writing about, Mike says, “Everything and nothing. Being and living. Wit and lowbrow culture. I will write about every topic I can think of.” He seems to have a lot of energy! I believe he’ll do it.
Thanks Tara McGinley!
Black Sheep “E.F.F.E.C.T.” (NSFW, but hilarious)
Captain Beefheart “Zig Zag Wanderer”
Toots & the Maytals “Pressure Drop”
Brainiac “Nothing Ever Changes”
Screamin’ Jay Hawkins “I Put a Spell on You”
UPDATE: Some evil troll at YouTube narc’d on Mike and he got his account yanked. I changed the videos here to ones hosted on Vimeo, let’s hope they’re cooler than YouTube. I mean, what this guy did is truly hilarious. He meant NO DISRESPECT to any of these artists. Clearly he LOVES the music he danced to… but someone had to go and be a jerk.
Here’s a link to Mike’s Etsy page