#vaudeville

[prokopetz]

The Joker's iconic look is a fun little pop culture fossil. Like, he's not a circus clown or a birthday clown or a rodeo clown or any other kind of clown you might bump into today: he's specifically a vaudeville clown. We don't have those anymore, so that specific type of clown is now just "the Joker".

[iridessence]

GIFs from a performance clip of my act “Black and Tan Fantasy” at the 2025 Toronto Burlesque Festival.

[simplyvintagexx]

The amazing Cab Calloway 🌹

He was an American jazz singer, songwriter and bandleader, whose mixing of jazz and vaudeville won him acclaim during a career that spanned over 65 year!

Calloway had several hit records in the 1930s and 1940s, becoming the first African-American musician to sell one million copies of a record!

[toughtalkers]

Anna May Wong born January 3, 1905

🕳 American actress, considered the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood, as well as the first Chinese American actress to gain international recognition. Her varied career spanned vaudeville, silent film, sound film, television, stage, and radio was born in Los Angeles, California (d. 1961)

[gifs-of-puppets]

Muppets Tonight (1996-1998)

[sparkbirdmusic]

Sparkbird - SPACE!!! (I'm So Negative)

Choose your preferred music service

My song SPACE!!! (I’m So Negative) has landed! Or launched, never to return? I wrote this song in 2016 and infused it with some of my favorite sci-fi.

For a long time I thought I’d never record it, or that I’d release it only as an instrumental—I didn’t think anyone would want something so theatrical and densely packed with weird niche references and birds. I’m deeply grateful to my listeners for being here for my me-ness, and to my producer Josh Frigo for seeing and magnifying the vision for what this song could be.

Every element of this project exceeds my most whimsical expectations, from Josh Plotner’s arrangement to Rebecca DeMoss’s artwork and the animated music video by @silveradash and Peirranha (premiering on YouTube at 2PM Eastern). I’m giddy over all of it and so thrilled to share it with the world (and any other worlds that might happen to intercept it).

full credits:

Music and lyrics - Stephan Nance

Produced by Josh Frigo

Piano, vocals, backing vocals - Stephan Nance

Keys, guitars, ukulele, programming - Josh Frigo

Acme siren, clarinet, kazoo, slide whistle - Josh Plotner

Trumpet - John Lake

Trombone - Jimmy O'Connell

Bass - Sean Murphy

Drums - Jon Truman

Arrangement - Josh Plotner

Vocal recording engineer - Annie Elise

Mixing - Josh Frigo

Mastering - Alex Dobbert

Artwork - Rebecca DeMoss

Graphic design - Chad Lowe

Animated music video - Silveradash and Peirranha

[uptownlowdown]

black theater performer, 1920s.

source: black history album / flickr

[ghw-archive]