Awesome Talents

The always incredible Poppin John teamed up with dancer Solto to turn in this mindbending (and bodybending) street performance set to Revolvr & Genisis and Splitbreed’s track Unstoppable. The gimmick at the end is worth the price of admission.

Impressionist Brock Baker returns with another round of hilarious vocalizations, this time taking on a variety of classic cartoon characters from Mickey Mouse to Hank Hill. His Zoidberg is so spot on, he could have stood in for Billy West.

Who knew mixing mud and water could result in such beautiful and shiny spheres? We sure didn’t. Artist Bruce Gardner shows a brief glimpse into the Japanese tradition of Hikaru Dorodango, in this short film by P2 Photography. Learn to DIY on Instructables.

Forgive the “shot with a potato” quality video, but this clip is all about the audio anyhow. Listen as Zac and his daughter show off their talents with a brief beatbox improv. We’re sure that someday she’ll show her dad who’s boss. (Thanks Carlos-David!)

Musician Stephen Campbell lets his fingers fly across the frets in this mesmerizing bass guitar performance of his original composition. Grab the studio recording from Soundcloud. Be sure to check out his pal Robert White’s trance guitar performance as well.

An absolutely insane performance from Ukraine Got Talent, as Gennady Tkachenko-Papizh demonstrates his unreal ability to replicate the sounds of not just creatures, but to hit operatic notes, producing a new age sound that would be the perfect backdrop for a visit to the spa.

Can a video of a man hammering nails be compelling? It is when the late carpenter and teacher Larry Haun’s doing it. Watch him sink metal into wood like a freakin’ magician in this excerpt from his instructional video Framing Walls. Skip to 5:15.

By all accounts, a bass guitar is pretty much useless without its strings. But that didn’t stop YouTuber Davie504 from giving it the old college try. Watch as he uses the bass’ various parts – including the buzz from its audio jack – to make some music.

YouTuber T-Man shows off his ability to hit a precise location with a table tennis ball in this compilation of trick shots. Like most trick shot videos, we have no idea how many attempts these took, but the fact that he could nail most of these at all is impressive.

San Francisco musician Jordan B. Wilson (aka “Lone Sound Ranger”) sings, plays guitar, keyboard, bass, and an entire set of drums. His blues/garage sound is reminiscent of The White Stripes – and he plays drums better with his feet than Meg White did with her hands.

She might look like a darling little 11 year-old girl, but Lisa-X is a serious rocker. Watch as she gets the whole room going by shredding a speed metal rendition of Schubert’s Lullaby on her electric guitar in this commercial for JNB Visa Debit cards.

The accordion may not have the range of an Electone, but accordion virtuoso Alexandr Hrustevich shows us that it’s enough to stand in for a string section in this 2013 performance of Vivaldi’s Summer and Borodin’s Petite Suite.

Funk bassist Davie504 visited Google Translate and nabbed a couple of its mechanical sounding voice samples, then turned them into the backbeat for one of his impressive slap bass solos. Sing along! “bschk z pv! zk pv zk!”

Pianist D Wave mashed up two seemingly mismatched tunes, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee and John Williams’ Imperial March from Star Wars into a single cohesive track. There’s a hint of ragtime jazz in there for good measure too.

While digging around YouTube, we stumbled onto a true talent. Musician Christian Cuevas has a smooth and powerful voice that will pierce you to the soul, and won’t let go. Seriously folks, this guy deserves a major record deal. Check out more of his tracks here.

Guitarist Billy Watman turns in a fingerstyle rendition of Queen’s magnum opus which would be impressive if played by anyone, but it’s even more amazing that he’s just 14 years old and can play like this. More on Billy’s YouTube page. (Video by Tony Goode)

Filmmaker Sebastian Linda hypes up the impressive dance skills of The Saxonz as they take their B-boy moves from the city to the country and everywhere in between, exhibiting a level of joy and energy that typically requires a quadruple espresso.

Artist Jake Weidmann possesses a truly special craft – he’s the youngest of only a handful Master Penmen in the entire world, with the hard-earned ability to create insanely intricate illustrations and calligraphy from the tip of his fountain pen.

Musician Ian Ethan Case previews a bit of his new album Run Toward the Mountains, as his fingers fly across all 18 strings of his double-necked guitar. At times, his hands were moving so fast, we thought he was Doc Ock. The 92-minute double album drops 11/24/15.

Musician Lucjan Drewicz lets his fingers fly across the keys and buttons on his instrument, turning in an insanely fast performance of a Brazilian track called Tico-Tico no Fubá. He’s not as fast as this guy, but his performance is more nuanced.

A master glass blower in Italy shows how to take a blob of molten glass and transform it into a detailed sculpture in seconds, massaging the searing hot material into a prancing horse with tongs and scissors. Skip to 1:00.

Artist Heather Rooney shows off her incredible talent for drawing photorealistic portraits using Caran d’Ache Luminance colored pencils. Her work is so good that some of her subjects look better than they do in real life. Check out her YouTube channel for more.

A man demonstrates a useless, but somehow still captivating skill, as he manages to use samurai-like skill with a credit card to fling 15 individual coins out from a stack without knocking them over. We’d like to see the slow-mo replay now.