I don’t post a lot of music videos or songs or what have you on this website, because I don’t have very interesting taste in music and mostly just play “If You Could Read My Mind” over and over instead of finding out new bands to listen to. But I could not hold myself back from this. This guy is the Tambourine Guy of singers. I have been watching this video at least twice a day for the last two weeks, ever since my friend Ben sent it to me with the caption “May you live every day of your life like this.”
Please note the following things:
1. He dances as if his knees were magnetically attracted to the floor and he can only move them laterally. This is fantastic.
2. He looks like Edward G. Robinson, and also growls like him.
3. He has a square head and he dresses like the budget dude who slept with Liz on that episode of 30 Rock where she had to save TGS by giving up her top front quadrant. This is fantastic.
4. When he pounds his chest, overcome with emotion, you can hear the sound of his fist hitting his ribcage because he strikes it so close to the microphone.
5. He kind of reminds me of Stephin Merritt from The Magnetic Fields.
6. He gets David Letterman excited, that’s how great he is. “Wow!” Dave exclaims. “Hey! How about that! I’ll take all of that you got! Future Islands! That was wonderful!” Do you know how hard it is for the music act to impress Dave? To bring a smile to his withered and hate-furrowed face? DAMN NEAR IMPOSSIBLE is how hard it is.
7. The camera has trouble keeping up with his dance. His dance! HIS DANCE!
I have nothing more to say to you right now. Leave me, laddie. Leave me to my fried egg.
Tags: dancing, david letterman, music, your best life
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WHOA.
……. that is all I can say.
He looks like the exact midpoint between Marlon Brando and a fetus.
I’m getting a weird Marlon Brando + John C. Reilly vibe
I’ve always seen him as more of a Brando / Jack Black hybrid.
YESSSSS. I AM SEEING FUTURE ISLANDS TONIGHT AND I AM SO PUMPED.
Ah, tambourine guy may have met his match.
I’m totally going to steal this guy’s moves for Karaoke Night.
Don’t know if I can match those sudden plummets into the Cookie Monster vocal register, though.
We call that the “lower voice” in my family. All the kids learn to talk like this when they’re little because in my family the children love to try to scare the crap out of the adults. 🙂
“he dresses like the budget dude”
budget dude is maybe going to replace “basic” in my vocabulary
Cop: “What did the perp look like?”
Witness: “He was very budget dude”
Budget Rent-a-Dude
he’ll pick you up
I’m skiiiiiing! Seriously this is how I want to look when I ski. Yes, the knees bent, side-to-side lateral flow, and also the chest thumping cause I have emotions when I ski.
Oh, wow. “The band met and formed while studying art at East Carolina University” & [their first band] “lasted from February 2003 until fall of 2005.” – that guy does not look like he went to college in the early naughts.
Ohhh, Future Islands. I’ve seen them live twice: the first time, I (unwisely) stood in front of the stage: the whole front row got gently misted by the singer’s sweat throughout the whole show. The second time, I escaped unscathed, but he left behind a large sweat puddle. Those moves are quite a workout, apparently.
It’s the lights, too.
Will Laren posted this on his tumblr a while ago. It’s a really fantastic live performance.
Marlon Brando
damn i said that too, but after you. artistic fail.
His face is so expressive. With those eyes, I think he might be a burlier Joseph Gordon Levitt. Does anyone else see that?
I see it now that you say that. They’re both very expressive and sincere. Something in his voice reminds me of Jack Black if Jack Black wasn’t so goofy.
Yesss. Thank you for having the moral courage to point this out.
burlier is always better
He does look like the lovechild of Edward G. Robinson and Joseph Gorden Levitt.
I am rather torn. I find this singer magnetic, but also, he reminds me very strongly of the assassin Felix La PuBelle from _Grosse Pointe Blank_.
I’m mesmerized by the young Marlon Brando head on this strangely gyrating body.
I’m just saying that all of Future Islands is great and you should get their album, and now this makes me love them even more.
I LOVE THIS MAN, I LOVE HIS HAIRLINE AND HIS COOKIE MONSTER GROWLING
Now I’m delaying my lunch an hour to listen to the whole album.
Letterman also LOVES Kathleen Edwards. He’s got pretty decent taste.
Thumbs up to all the Marlon Brando comments, plus maybe a li’l dancey Black Irish Gene Kelly thing happening?
He has a distinctly Kermit-like timbre to his voice. I dig it.
There is a touch of Morrissey in there too.
He came to my school some time ago,and play for us and all of the girls were crazy about him.
I love this band! And the singer’s charisma is a huge part of it. I’m seeing hints of Russell Crowe & (an even more emotionally bare) Brando.
Their whole new album is great, but my favorite song of theirs is an older track called “Long Flight”. Anyway, I’ve watched this video about 50 times since it came out and it makes me exceedingly happy that all of you loved it too.
Seriously, Russel Crowe crossed with William Shatner …
If you want to write a post or series of posts about “If You Could Read My Mind,” Mallory, I’m seriously all for it. Gordon Lightfoot is a North American treasure.
So….I’m the only one who thinks he’s a dork?
Yes. We’re all about the awesome dorks on The Toast.
(My husband, the high school music director, has a t-shirt his kids made him that says “dorchestra” and it is The Best Thing Ever.)
Wha-wha-what whas THAT? His face was giving me deranged stalker intensity, the spasmic jerky steps made even me feel off-balance, and I won’t even go into his voice. I just hope I don’t have jacked up dreams for watching this at night. Jeebus be some rhythm.
not ashamed to admit that I’ve watched this video AT LEAST 20 times this weekend.
baby-faced Brando going agro.
I've always seen him as more of a Brando / Jack Black hybrid.
Yes. We're all about the awesome dorks on The Toast.
(My husband, the high school music director, has a t-shirt his kids made him that says "dorchestra" and it is The Best Thing Ever.)
When this video was making the rounds last week I hesitated, not sure whether it would live up to the hype, but then someone described it as “like a repressed P.E. teacher finally allowed to direct the school play” and there was no way I’m going to deny myself that singular pleasure. Have listened 3x day ever since.