Lover's Lane — Squirrel Nut Zippers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4ssP8Uy0QI

Senior year, midtown, 34th street and eighth avenue, maybe — industrial area, near the bus terminal and the subway junctions, old shipping docks and new porn stores, there's a little swing dance place two flights up with a view over the nighttime Hudson. I'd just begun to do swing dance in public, coerced and convinced and encouraged and finally broken through the fear and apprehension into social dance, thrilled, walking to the subway, riding home with a joy in my heart, listening to SNZ, dancing all along the street, a thursday night with school the next day, it's 1am, but I didn't care — I'd found it.

Ghost of Stephen Foster — Squirrel Nut Zippers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sxFyu_U2go

Genres don't always stay dead.

Swing died off after about the 50s, but, like the Cat in the Hat, it came back. The musical subculture, accompanied by dance, made a resurgence in the late 90s in places like L.A. and New York, as neo-swing — mostly pioneered by bands like Squirrel Nut Zippers, with some modern work done by bands like Caravan Palace, who do electroswing, which is absolutely wonderful.

Enjoy the above video, (action starts at 0:34) done in the style of Minnie The Moocher, the famous 1930s Betty Boop cartoon with music by, and starring a rotoscoped, Cab Calloway. Note the scene in which three ghosts voluntarily electrocute themselves, as well as the dancing walrus.

Thanks, 1930s.