So this is what drumming on speed looks like

H/t: Deadspin

Take it away weekend...

Nothing funny today. To take you into this beautiful weekend, here is a classic Backstreets (likened by Rolling Stone to a musical version of The Iliad) performance by The Boss from the legendary Darkness tour. This performance is particularly noteworthy because it includes the rare "Sad Eyes" portion, which he has not performed since the late 1970s.

Please stop believin' the sequel

Sting hosted a charity concert last night in New York for rainforests or something. We don't know what else happened but there is now documentary (albeit poor quality) evidence that Lady Gaga, Sting, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Shirley Bassey, Debbie Harry and a partridge in a pear tree sang Don't Stop Believin' together. In other words, some of the world's top musicians decided to do karaoke. This should never have happened.

Look, the Tao is a fan of every one of the performers individually (yes, even you Shirley), but we also like pizza, steak, bubble gum, Snapple, and hot dogs but we wouldn't suggest eating them all at the same time.

Two Shining Moments

Is there any other time it's acceptable for married men to say "honey, I'm staying up late to hear Luther Vandross?" No, no there is not.

Folks, we're only 5 short days away from Gus Johnson's head exploding... again.

With March upon us, The Tao will count down to the Madness by featuring a "One Shining Moment" video every day that we aren't too lazy to post one. Lets get things started with last year's rendition. Hit it Luther:

Rube Goldberg with paintballs

We have our doubts this was all done in one long take, but we do love ourselves a good Rube Goldberg machine.


Impressive. However, in terms of aesthetic presentation, we still prefer the old Honda commercial.

H/t: DZ

Vintage Prince video surfaces

An old video of Prince rehearsing When Doves Cry from before he was a big deal has surfaced on YouTube here (embedding is disabled for the video). It's an interesting piece of rock memorabilia.

Kick it, VIP.

The Toronot Raptors had a fan vote for who should perform yesterday's halftime show. The winner was Vanilla Ice:

I find this strangely awesome. I don't know who the other nominees were but I probably would have voted for him too. It's also reassuring to know that even in this economy Mr. Ice is still gainfully employed. Hopefully Suge Knight didn't come to his hotel room afterward.

If The Tao ever has some sort of get together or convention for our loyal readers we are totally hiring Ice for entertainment. Him or William Zabka. If anyone knows how to reach William Zabka, send us an email.

UPDATE: Per DanTheMan's comment, and apropos of the recent posts on In Living Color and Vanilla Ice (glace à la vanille, for our French fans), here is Jim Carrey doing Vanilla Ice:

This makes me want to choose UConn

Yale put out this video for prospective students. I like the production value. I still think it's incredibly unappealing. Also, New Haven is a hole and no amount of singing or choreography can convince me otherwise. Yeah, that's the reason I didn't go to Yale.

Please stop believin'

Watching this High School band utterly demolish Don't Stop Believin' is one of the best things I've seen in a long time. I've watched it five times and it's still just as funny.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

It's like those Coors commercials, only creative

DJ Steve Porter is at it again:




H/t Deadspin

New Jersey: Land of Gremlins and Song

This video is a double whammy for The Tao. It has both (1) a funny speech, and (2) a Bruce Springsteen performance (sort of). Both are pretty good.

Happy 60th to The Boss

Here's a classic early Springsteen performance of Prove It All Night:



UPDATE
Here's a clip from the time Bruce Springsteen stopped to play with a street performer in Copenhagen:


SECOND UPDATE
OK, one more. Here's Bruce performing Thunder Road at the Capitol Theater in 1978, a concert generally regarded as one of his finest:

Another day in the books

Have a good night

Let's go with Michael Jackson one more time. Although he's quite clearly lip-synching, this performance is historically notable for being the first time he publicly performed the moonwalk:

Toodles

Sorry about the lack of posts of late. Nothing has particularly tickled me. In the meantime, here's some more music:

Another day in the books

Here's a great find of Bruce, from long before he was famous:

Goodnight (or "I still have no idea what the whole 'teenage wasteland' thing is about")

I guess this kind of explains how Townsend went deaf:

Obligatory Michael Jackson tribute

Since every self-respecting blog is having some sort of tribute to Michael Jackson today, here's my earliest memory of Michael, from Free To Be You And Me:


I like that they're singing about being satisfied with their appearances and not desiring to change. Because if there is one thing Michael Jackson would never have done, it's change himself.

That said, he could dance -- even (especially?) when wearing gold onesies:

Goodnight everybody!

It's good to be back. Here's some music for the evening. You may recognize it from The Big Lebowski.