Well, we’re offically swungover. What a weekend! We have SO many great memories to share with the world, but here’s just one to get you started…

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Metallica - Extreme Swing

Ever fancied swinging out to Prince? Or perhaps a bit of Metalllica? Not for the purists but allow me to introduce The Swinger. A bit of python code that takes any song and makes it swing!

For the technical geeks among you, it stretches the first half of each beat and shrinks the second half, giving you what? That’s right, a Swing style rythym for just about  any song. Don’t believe me…check it out. Amusing swing suggestions on a digital postcard please

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Just when you thought it was safe to bust it out…along comes another version! Yes, here you have three of the many many ways to Shim Sham. Enjoy

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If I was a guy, I’d be Al Minns. As I am a girl, I’d just like to know where he gets his shoes from. If you watch this extract from The Spirit Moves you’d be hard pushed not to be amazed by his Solo Charleston. Yes, I know…we’ve gone a bit solo Charleston crazy of late, but this guy is the true legend.  His knees are heading for both exits while his feet glide around effortlessly . All topped off with that HUGE grin…just to remind us what dancing is really all about. Enjoy….see you in the solo charleston round at the London Swing Festival

Every seen a lindy punch up? Or maybe a lead almost strangle his follow to death? It’s murder on the dance floor in this clip from 1945 move Twice Blessed. Some square cats try their best in a swing dance contest. Let’s hope there’ll be no such horror at the London Swing Festival eh?

So, I was acquainted with a the phrase ‘white and upright’ recently, it’s a great phrase.  How many times have we been told in class to bend our knees a bit more? I often feel that there’s a tendency to forget lindy hop’s african dance roots for and a preference for dancing it like your gran. Which is why I love the story of the Cakewalk. It’s often claimed that the Cakewalk was the first American dance to cross over from black to white society in America. But what’s best is that it’s thought to be a mockery of the ‘white and upright’ formal dancing preferred by white slave owners back in the day. Satirical dancing? Now you’re talking.

The dance was usually performed as a competition and the winners were said to receive a massive cake, hence the name Cakewalk. During the 1890s, the Cakewalk was one of America’s most popular dance styles. However its popularity died out between 1915 and the early 1920s, when it was replaced by other the Charleston and Black Bottom.

Dancing + Cake = Winning combination, time for a revival methinks.

Ain’t Nothing But… Soho, W1B 5PZ

Thanks@Janet - one of our Swing Patrol teachers for forwarding this great post from super London blog agreatlittleplace.com. Knowing where to go and what’s good is always difficult in this massive city so to make it that little bit easier they’ve given us a list of 10 of Londons best Jazz venues. Bless their cotton socks they’ve even broken it down into Central, East, South and the rest, which they describe as North(ish).  See you on the dance floor, or at least at the bar….mine’s a London Pride

Nice socks

OK so rewind, back to the days before he became a weird  Scooby Doo villain to when Michael Jackson was just cool. Does anyone remember that? At the risk of making anyone feel old, I remember when we all use to don our fluorescent towelling socks and watch the boys in the playground trying to Moonwalk. Inevitably they looked a bit silly and wore the soles of their school shoes through 15 times quicker…but let’s not dwell on the failures.  The Moonwalk, it was cool. End of.

So, who invented the Moonwalk? It wasn’t MJ that’s for sure. The Moonwalk is basically a backslide and it’s a move that’s been around for decades. Cab Calloway was moon walking in 1932. It has to be said that the internet is a wonderful thing,  full of people with far too much time on their hands. As we were moon walking around that corner they call Youtube we stumbled across this little gem; a compilation of clips that include The Nicholas Brothers, The Berry Brothers, The Four Step Brothers, and Pops & Louis, proving that cool is not a new concept. Enjoy.

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If you thought the Shim Sham was hard…try it underwater.  OK, dont, but witness the mildly eccentric London Swing Festival instructor Dax Hock and Doug Silton doing it in Thailand. This is exactly 2 minutes and 36 seconds of madness but it’s really quite funny. Doug, we are just loving your underwater swivels, no really we are.

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So here’s a littl ebit fo randomness to get your weekend going…don’t ask me how I came accross this, because I just don’t know. This starts out as a fun little number…then it all goes a bit crazy…

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