Humphrelia

One of the great things about YouTube is the incredible diversity of music videos that one can find. I figured I would share links with some of my favorites.

We’ll start off with an amazing guitarist that I remember seeing on YouTube several months ago: Andy McKee. When I first heard of him, his record label – CandyRat – had taped recording sessions with lots of their artists and posted all of the videos to YouTube. This guy was definitely the most impressive. Below are links to four of his tunes that happen to be my favorites:

• Drifting
• Africa (written by Steve Lukather’s band, Toto)
• Art of Motion
• The Friend I Never Met

His style is very similar to Michael Hedges. If you’re not familiar with Michael Hedges, then you can see him play here.

I just recently ran across another cool artist, thanks to a long time friend of mine, Keith Groover (Keith and I were next door neighbors for several years in Taylors, SC). One of his websites had a link to an awesome video by Kaki King. She is an amazing guitarist whose technical style shares a few things in common with Andy McKee. Below is a link to that video followed by a couple of other videos of hers:

• Playing with Pink Noise
• Gay Sons of Lesbian Mothers
• Yellowcake

While we are on the topic of awesome guitarists, how could we possibly forget the un-freakin’-believable Stanley Jordan. The links below are videos of live performances by this phenomenal virtuoso (after seeing him play, you can easily forgive his cheesy choice of costume):

• Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven
• The Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby

How about something completely different? Like some Wierd Al? Some skateboarding? YouTube has it all!

Here is a neat tune from a European pop group named Bloc Party. And here is an even cooler video for it, created using an addictive Flash application named Line Rider. And while we are talking about Line Rider, who can forget this one? (featuring a song named Tank! by Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts – also featured during the opening sequence for the animé show Cowboy Bebop).

Finally, I will share another facet of YouTube’s greatness: the availability of bizarre Japanese television programming.

Treadmill Madness:

Our big US television networks need to seriously consider hiring the guys that come up with this stuff – pure genius! (and way better than Deal or No Deal).