AdamConover.net

I couldn’t bear to let these sit in the linkblog; they’re the fucking funniest thing I’ve seen all month.

YouTube user StSanders takes videos of famous “guitar gods” and overdubs them with his own instrumentation. The trick, though, is that he makes them sound terrible. His ability to perfectly synch his playing to the performer’s is what makes the effect so satisfying (and hilarious) — the videos trick the part of your brain that unconsciously associates motion and sound, and as a result you simply can’t imagine that Eric Clapton could be playing anything other than that dreadful noise you hear. And oh, the faces he makes while he’s doing it!

The videos are also a rare example of truly musical musical comedy, in which the jokes are made by instruments rather than language. The drums in the Clapton video act as a terrific background joke, and the entrance of the saxophone at a minute and half in is hilarious.

Below is my favorite: Jake E. Lee’s bizarre theatrics are funny enough, but Ozzy Osbourne’s constant, enthusiastic clapping is what pushes me over the edge here.

Here’s a link to the rest of StSander’s videos — this one, of Steve Vai playing a triple-(I’ll say that again, triple)-necked guitar is particularly good.