He’s stocked his band - drummer, guitarist, bassist, keys - with attractive women (well, not sure about the bassist, although she strikes a pose from a distance well). (Sorry if the title isn’t clear - they don’t play the Palmer song, just have a similar look onstage). The guitar player is** Sharon Aguilar **- she’s also in a vid for the Musician’s Institute, formerly the Guitar Institute, too (she doesn’t play in this video). She does a solidly competent job on the guitar on Kimmel, but nothing particularly difficult is required for the song. But she’s very pretty, carries herself well and apparently already has an endorsement deal with Fender. Sounds kinda similar to Orianthi, who played with Michael Jackson’s last tour - decent player, and decently pretty (not as pretty as Aguilar, IMHO) but nothing from a talent standpoint compared to Jennifer Batten, MJ’s first woman guitarist who is a VERY talented player…
Either way, Cee-lo seems to be having fun getting his Palmer on…
“Solidly Competent” is about the best you can say about her. From what I saw in that clip, her playing sounds very stiff and rigid. There’s no feel to it - and her vibrato is almost absolutely nonexistent, IMO. She does at least hit the right notes, though. Still, I’m not really that impressed…
Cee-lo on the other hand - I love that dude’s voice. I’m just not a big fan of his music. Could you imagine if he was around during the heyday of Motown/Stax in the 60’s!!! His voice would’ve fit right in…
And if yet another singer asks me to “put my hands in the air, and waive them like I just don’t care,” I’m going to go fucking mental…
No hijack at all - thanks. Ah yes, a guitar wanker song - every wannabee hero has to try to replicate Surfing with the Alien, don’t they? She does a good job - obviously much better than Aguilar. I am not sure it is in Orianthi’s best interest to force a comparison with Steve Vai’s playing by putting their hands side-by-side in the video but she’s got chops.
How fun is that?! Very cool - tell me your recipe for the Van Halen brown sound on the rhythm work - sounds very Marshall-y with a distortion, not an overdrive in the mix, but I am just guessing ;). Very thick and tight - no mush. Either a PAF-style humbucker or a Tele bridge with the tone rolled off to 5 or 6?
And yeah, you are clearly giving Orianthi a run for her money - and I mean that as a compliment; she has chops - but again, if she didn’t look like she did she wouldn’t be in a vid with a ninth-degree black belt like Vai. How do you look with highlighted hair, thigh-high leather lace up boots and a come-hither look
Nicely done and thanks for sharing - am I right that the drums are human, not programmed? I like the basic groove.
Are you playing with one of your homebrew guitars?
The rhythm tracks (there are two tracks - slightly different yet similar lines) were done with my '72 Les Paul Deluxe. Although the early 70’s Deluxes had mini-humbuckers in them, my '72 had them ripped out by the previous owner (who I’ve come to call “The Idiot”) and he replaced them with D’marzio full size humbuckers. I took those out and put in some proper PAF’s after I bought it from The Idiot for $300…
That guitar was plugged straight into a kranked Marshall 2550 Silver Jubilee head which I modified by taking out the negative feedback loop. I mic’d it up with an SM57 and a cheap ribbon mic and blended the two in mixdown. It’s a great sounding head which I loan out on occasion to a few studios here in town when they’re looking for “that” sound. Definitely kind of a one trick pony, however. The clean sound is kind of meh…
The lead work was on one of my homebrew guitars - a super strat - with a Pearly Gates in the bridge, through a vox modeling amp, believe it or not.
Actually, the drums are programmed. No loops. Just a really nice set of samples and careful MIDI work…
Thanks for the compliments - you’re too kind, really…
I enjoyed the song in the Jimmy Kimmel video, so I went out and bought the track from the album on iTunes. I was a bit disappointed that the original track sounds quite a bit different – you can only really hear a few guitar licks. The lead melody is almost entirely keyboards and (probably synthesized) strings.
BTW, Cee Lo really needs to drop a few pounds. He’s always been round, but man, he looks like a bowling ball now.
ETA: Looking at the Wikipedia entry for the song, it contains samples from John Barry’s You Only Live Twice (a James Bond theme song)…I’d thought it sounded like that! And, it doesn’t look like Ms. Aguilar plays on the original at all.
but she’s got chops.
My attempt at guitar wankery:
