This week at Stuck Between Stations: Rickrolling Yngwie (me) on StSanders’ sublime video overdubs of guitar gods Yngwie Malmsteen, Eric Clapton, Steve Vai and Eddie van Halen with his own obviously skilled but painfully bad guitar solos.
Already we’re seeing spin-offs. It’s one thing to watch Eric Clapton’s face and fingers scrambling after bad college-level jazz, but what do you do with real jazz? Check the great Oscar Peterson quartet ripped to shreds by an equally talented pianist calling himself Tibenham:
The best of the StSanders stuff (for me) was this Steve Vai video.
Having always been torn in equal parts between sheer amusement (see some of his live videos and the classic White Snake – Fool For Your Lovin) and actual respect for his technical abilities, I found this to be the perfect melding of both. As you wrote, it takes a special kind of skill to make bad sound so perfectly bad. Any sap can wank on the guitar, but StSanders actually understands what they are trying to accomplish and turns it into a subversive send-up, taking all the machismo and sex out of their sails in the process. Every time I see this, it starts me off with a slow chuckle and ends in the eventual watery eyed LOL. Genius!