GUITAR ZEROS: THE MUSICAL PARODIES OF SANTERI OJALA

These videos crack me up. It's a simple premise: Finnish guitarist Santeri Ojala has taken live performance videos of famous guitarists (Clapton, Santana, Vai, Eddie Van Halen, Malmsteen) and overdubbed his own intentionally awful playing. The results are hilarious, and expertly synched up as well.

However, some of the targets of the parodies aren't laughing at these as hard as I am: three of the humorless guitarists have allegedly threatened to sue, and his account on YouTube was suspended due to "copyright infringement" (god I'm so fucking sick of lawyers). Vai and Malmsteen are thought to be the likely whiners.

Anyway, since Wired has decided to host the videos, I've decided to post two of my favorites. I couldn't choose just one, so let's start with Eric Clapton at MSG:

Shredded to a Pulp: Eric Clapton (opens in a new window)

Even the overdubbed drums and sax on that one are perfect. However this is the piece de resistance, as Ojala dubs pretty much every instrument (and voice) during an Yngwie Malmsteen performance with the Japan Philharmonic in 2003:



The "Close Encounters" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" interludes had me rolling.

Also check out the Rob E. Lee/Ozzy Osbourne (whose overdubbed clapping is priceless) and Carlos Santana clips from the Wired Video site.