the "[famous guitarist] shreds" videos on YouTube

the hip hop equivalent would be a clip of someone considered to be "one of the greatest MCs ever" but overdubbed with someone with really amateur skills/flow...

but maybe the genius of these clips is that the guy is actually a good musician pretending to be a bad musician...

kind of like in a movie about acting and the actor has to "act" (Mulholland Drive deconstructs this well), and the viewer can tell the difference.

OK, I guess it might be bad form to post this here, but it so brought this wonderful thread to mind:
http://warmowski.wordpress.com/2007/10/05/jump-in-pitch/

their genius rests in how well everything is synced up - LOOKS LIKE THEY COULDNT BE PLAYING ANYTHING ELSE LOLOLOLOLO

well yeah that too... but it's the amateur quality of the playing which initially made me laugh.

My favorite shredder is the guy with Santana on the timbales.

for me, the appeal is the starkness of the audio setting. the background accompaniment and the audience roars are just reduced to feet shuffling and canned polite applause audio looped from a cheap sound effects cd. It's a bit like that first Neil Hamburger single "Looking For Laughs" except these videos are even better. Even better are the low key or abstract vocal submissions.

The guitar playing sounds like Paul Leary minus effects which I doubt was intentional.

It's great that he's started adding the other instruments, the ones where you only hear the guitar but can see a full band playing aren't quite as awesome. plus, more jokes!

"maybe this is only funny to musicians?
-- chaki, Monday, 22 October 2007 20:13 (Yesterday) Bookmark Link"

I think it really helps that the sounds are exactly what come out if I try to play. The way the amp makes some rubbish noise, the notes sound off and there's loads of dicking round, yet still the audience are treating them with reverence.

That and Vai's face, which is also hilarious in the real video.

I love it when, like Slash, they stop playing for a moment and run to a different part of the stage.

And Bruce Dickinson going "It's the monster!" made me lose it.

yah u guys it is all of those things what make them funny - lets not fight ever again

oh man

i... i never knew about this

I should have alerted you on the Tracer Hamd thread.

That Jump in Pitch thread was great.

These videos make me sad. Why? Because I find them kind of amusing but not laugh-out-loud funny. To be honest, I started with the Clapton one, and figured out after a minute or so that the music wasn't what he was actually playing. But I didn't understand that the music was supposed to sound COMICALLY AND CATASTROPHICALLY WORSE than what he was actually playing. And that made me feel it must be the case that I don't actually understand what makes music work at all, and maybe I should just stop listening to it, even though I think of myself as liking and appreciating it.

Hetfield & Lars in "Uno" slay me every time.

Hetfield's vocal especially.

And the x-files section in the Maiden one!

Basically I love these.

guys i watched vai first and didn't figure out it was a parody til like halfway through.

compare to

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbAi7fa2yZo

the guy that taught me how to play guitar told me i needed to "follow steve vai's advice" and practice my facial expressions in the mirror.

BIG HOOS aka the stevefacer

Subsequent to being hired as a transcriber, Vai did overdubs on many of the guitar parts for Zappa's album You Are What You Is. Thereafter he became a full-fledged band member, going on his first tour with Zappa in the Autumn of 1980. One of those early shows with Vai on guitar, recorded in Buffalo was released in 2007. While touring with Zappa's band, Vai would sometimes ask audience members to bring musical scores and see if he could sight-read them on the spot. Zappa referred to Steve as his "little Italian virtuoso" and was listed in liner notes as "stunt guitar" or "impossible guitar parts."

Now somebody needs to find some videos that could be mistaken for these "shreds" vids but is actual concert footage.

Ask and ye shall receive...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XE2N4mxeRw

have you heard stevie's spanking? its funny.

true story about a famous old mothers groupie names 'laurel'

His name is Stevie Vai,
And he's a crazy guy
Last November, I recall,
He needed a spanking

He decided then
A female specimen
Would be exciting for a night
To give him a spanking

Laurel was her name
She came to Notre Dame
He told me just the other night
He oughta be thanking
Her for the spanking

She was large and soft
And she beat him off
Made him drool upon his dork
And gave it a wanking
After the spanking

Hair brush!
Oh! What a hair brush!

Then did she exclaim:
"There's another game
That we can play with this device,
And then a banana!"

It was slightly green
Vapors in between
Rising up to fill the room
And COOK the banana

Later in the dawn,
Laurel carried on
Got right up and dressed herself and
Ate the banana

I prefer stun guitar to stunt guitar.

^^^ YES. E Bloom ftw!!!

Also, xpost nickalicious, I think the answer to yr request is the very recent footage of the reunited Van Halen trying to play "Jump" along with a malfunctioning pre-recorded synth track. Someone link it, it's amazing.

Speakin' of Vai - you dudes remember when he lost a guitar duel with...wait for it...Ralph Macchio in Crossroads? Well, here 'tis:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idb2dUtTpuU

that's on ship arrive too late to save a drowning witch, right? i can remember exactly how the tune goes, anyway.

"haiirrr bruuuuushh... oh what a haaaaaiiirrr bruuussshhhh...."

these videos make me love life

Øystein already linked to that Van Halen fiasco on this very thread:

OK, I guess it might be bad form to post this here, but it so brought this wonderful thread to mind:
http://warmowski.wordpress.com/2007/10/05/jump-in-pitch/

-- Øystein, Tuesday, October 23, 2007 6:58 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

van failin'

Only pitch will tell if we can stand the test of pitch.

Speakin' of Vai - you dudes remember when he lost a guitar duel with...wait for it...Ralph Macchio in Crossroads? Well, here 'tis:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idb2dUtTpuU

-- JN$OT, Thursday, October 25, 2007 5:44 PM

lol I was gonna link to that

I taped it off my television when I was 7.

Found this while searching for the Sanatana shredding:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=uZyB9i5cRB4

I taped it off my television when I was 7.

I picked up a copy at FYE when I was like 16 and resold it for 60 bucks later :D

Someone needs to overdub that Derek Bailey footage with plank spankin' widdletasticness, and make it look authentic.

That "Crossroads" clip was hilarious.

Not the same thing, but: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evTTHS9hwvU

"small mammals are good for the hands" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pJ1ccnC1GI

StSanders's santana video made me think of rené lussier when he did some musique actuelle "comic" sync to moving images . there are not many videos of him on youtube but 50 seconds into this one he does a bit of shredding http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmnxIRyCk0g

nonkertomph (1 hour ago) Show Hide Marked as spam
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Look a bit closer people. This isnt Eddie playing.

This is someone at home on their computer with a guitar and some samples, overdubbing their own audio to the video.

It doesnt even sound like Eddie.

OK wow how did I miss this thread earlier. I am in hysterics at my desk.

I think the Slash one may actually be my favorite. I was watching it with my brother a few weeks ago and we nearly passed out laughing. The Ozzy/Jake E. Lee one is great as well, especially when Ozzy picks that thing up off the stage and whips it out into the audience.

New one just posted:

Satriani: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nwFKkV9r6A

hahaha, the whistling!

Teaflax (1 hour ago)
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These are all great. My only complaint - and it's a minor one, all told - is that all other players are heard *only* when on-screen. Kind of works against the suspension of disbelief that makes these videos so wonderful.