This is actually amazing.

I have mixed feeling about symphonic metal, metal acts playing with orchestras, and string covers of metal tracks (which are usually Metallica tracks). But this? This.  THIS.

These guys are Luka Sulic and Stjepan Hauser of Croatia, known as 2Cellos.

When I was about six years old, my school put on a show. I sang a song with my boyfriend at the time, Matthew Jolly (at least, I think it was with Matthew that I sang. We were a cute couple. We used to play Wonder Woman and Superman. I was Wonder Woman. I sometimes wonder what happened to him, and whether he ever got over me). The song was “A Boy and a Girl in a Little Canoe.” We sat in a makeshift canoe made out of a box, and when I sang “Get out and swim!” he jumped out and pretended to swim on the floor.

I also played Goldilocks in a school production of “The Three Bears.” For a costume, my mother cut strips of yellow construction paper, curled them with scissors, and taped them to my head.

I’m telling you this not to show off but to put being six in perspective, so you can appreciate this kid even more. Because holy fark, he’s six! And look what he’s doing!

This was posted on Youtube over a year ago but I just saw it now when someone posted it on Facebook. I can’t remember who already, so, whoever you are, props.

(via Shock Mansion)

I’m not one of those people who hate new country. I like it sometimes. And I don’t think music has to be deep all the farking time.

People love to go on about how lyrics were so great in the good old days and how now it’s all “baby baby baby oooh, yeah,” but have you ever listened to Love Me Do or I Wanna Hold Your Hand? Not exactly Blake, is it? Or how about ALL THE BLUES? Muddy Waters wasn’t much of a lyricist, but we don’t use that to illustrate a lack of worth, do we?

That being said, this supercut video, put together by EW’s country music writer Grady Smith to demonstrate how all the country music of 2013 sounds exactly the same is pretty great. Trucks, girls, girls in tight jeans, and girls being invited to get in trucks. In the moonlight. By the river. Brilliant.

(via Laughing Squid)

It’s Friday. So, let’s watch Benedict Cumberbatch reading R. Kelly lyrics on Jimmy Kimmel.

“Bodies so freaking soft. I can’t wait to turn you on….You got me like, la la la la la, baby. Is how you make me feel, baby. I can feel your body flowers, while I’m kissing on your thighs…”

I just happened to have the “Otters who look like Benedict Cumberbatch” pic lying around, so figured I might as well use it.

Anyhoo. Enjoy.

This is almost the most fun I’ve had all day. It would be the most fun I’ve had all day but I went to the park and put a six month old on the swings, then I had delicious tacos at this place called La Carnita, which seems like a bit of a hipster douche hangout but we were there early so it was pretty empty and the food was awesome.

Anyhoodle, this was still pretty fun. Take this quiz! Is it an Ikea item or a death metal band? I scored 10 out of 20. Can you do better?

http://ikeaordeath.com/

This is great.

I know this will be considered some form of blasphemy by real Metallica fans but Metallica is my favourite Metallica album. I’m not crazy about speed metal and everything up to that point was a little esoteric for me.

But this record? Loved it.

And a bluegrass version of “Enter Sandman” is EXACTLY what the world needed, in my opinion.

These guys are called Iron Horse.

(Via Blame it on The Voices)

Here is a guy dressed as Darth Vader and playing the Star Wars theme on flaming bagpipes while riding a unicycle.

Pfffft. Whatever. The shoes are all wrong.

His name is Brian Kidd and he’s known around Portland as The Unipiper. Just doing what the sign says.

(Via Laughing Squid)

Somewhere out there is a video of me winning an Air Guitar championship in 2000. No, really. It was in Montreal and it was called the Canadian Air Guitar Championship – so I assume either they didn’t know about the actual World Air Guitar Championship, of which this was not a part and which probably includes a Canadian Championship,  or it didn’t exist yet.

Whatever the case, the sport, if I may call it a sport, has come a long way since then, kind of like how figure skating at the Olympics is way more difficult now than it was in 1984 when Katarina Witt won the gold after shocking everyone with her crazy controversial outfits and rock music. There’s no way I could compete against these guys.

Here’s video of this year’s champ, Eric “Mean Melin” Melin, of the United States (no, that’s not Dave Grohl), and some pics of the other finalists. The championships are held each year in Oulu, Finland.

ALL PHOTOS BY HEIDI RISTO/AIR GUITAR WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

Corentin ”AirGus” Fermont, Belguim

Christian ”Heart Buckboard” Sweep, Germany

Doug ”The Thunder” Stroock, US

Kereel ”Your Daddy” Blumenkrants, Russia

I love this. Twenty-six musical genres in one song, in alphabetical order.

And I learned new genres, like Xoomi (A type of Tuvan throat singing) and Zouk (“a fast tempo carnival style of music originating from the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, popularized by the French Antilles kassav in the 1980s,” says Wikipedia.)

Here are the lyrics to the song, worth the price of admission, right there:

oh my god!

my bleeding heart bleeds blood for you, woah, woah

traveling down this lonely road, woah

facing my hurt, hurting my face, yeah yeah yeah

i chainsaw your face off, watching your brains rotting, kid
drain your veins raw, straining your esophagus

위하여, 음악에 미친 널 [we-hah-yeo, umage michin null]
위하여, 술잔에 비친 널 [we-hah-yeo suljane bichin null]
[translation: "cheers to you who are crazy for the music! / cheers to you who are reflected on the (wine) glass!"]

finding the truth
take it back
finding the truth
it’s nothing
change
and tesselate
as we fight to the death

il mio amore è corrisposto

we all dance to the polka
for it is so fun
still dancing to the polka
with my accordion

love is everywhere
smoke is in the air

pick it up, pick it up!
oi! oi! oi! oi!
pick it up, pick it up, pick it up, pick it up!
oi! oi! oi! oi!

a to z, z, z
a to z, z, z
a to z

as we cross the open seas
twoards the call of war
our axes we’ll free
guided by the hand of thor

yeah yeah yeah
and our love will never end

(Via Neatorama)