Under My Thumb given the "legion of rock stars" treatment

More fun from the "legion of rock stars" which takes classic rock song videos and adds in their own horrendous versions of the songs.

[#1 posted by Anonymous, May 25, 2009 2:46 PM]

I've been a big fan of the LRS for a while, though they seem to be mired in obscurity. Their version of "Mother" is terrific.

[#2 posted by Anonymous, May 25, 2009 2:55 PM]

Wow. That was like listening to the
"siamese cat" getting tortured. Awful.

[#3 posted by diy danna, May 25, 2009 3:01 PM]

Apparently there is no cure for being tone deaf.

[#4 posted by Jake Bullet, May 25, 2009 3:04 PM]

Amusing, but not as funny as the Eric Clapton overdub post from last year.

[#5 posted by Antinous / Moderator, May 25, 2009 3:05 PM]

Apparently there is no cure for being tone deaf.

There's a palliative measure - laryngectomy.

[#6 posted by Antinous / Moderator, May 25, 2009 3:06 PM]

Their YouTube account appears to be suspended.

[#7 posted by zuzu, May 25, 2009 3:14 PM]

Their YouTube account appears to be suspended.

How many times must we go through this before it finally sinks in that there might be a downside to hosting all our videos at one central choke-point of failure?

Intel's Atom processor makes it cheap to do now with an Asus EeeBox what used to cost several thousand dollars a decade ago using a Cobalt Qube: host regular MPEG-4 video files yourself, from your home broadband connection. Or mirror them 24x7x265 with public BitTorrent trackers (which even allow for web seeds); not to mention Dijjer and the Coral Cache.

[#8 posted by Ian70, May 25, 2009 3:47 PM]

BoingBoing:
A Directory Of Torturous Things.

[#9 posted by Anonymous, May 25, 2009 4:05 PM]

I laughed and laughed and laughed. I was actually crying I was laughing so hard. The Legion is marvelous, wonderful, amazing, and perfect. If I was a girl I'd be a groupie fer shur.

[#10 posted by Anonymous, May 25, 2009 4:12 PM]

GENIUS

[#11 posted by IPFREELY, May 25, 2009 4:23 PM]

Subdimensions are clearly the only explanation for this bizarre phenomenamena... doooo doooo do do do.

[#12 posted by Anonymous, May 25, 2009 5:30 PM]

word. I see little difference between some of these and the real thing :P

[#13 posted by Anonymous, May 25, 2009 6:03 PM]

I can't believe LRS is on Boing Boing! I used to be friends with one of the band (since lost touch), and when he explained the concept to me, I couldn't believe how brilliant and deranged it was at the same time. Of course, it sounds awful - but in some ways you can only meta enjoy it. If you haven't checked out the site, the idea is that the band listens to the original song via noise-blocking headphones. They can't hear each other... or even themselves. They just play their heart out to the music. So what you get isn't perhaps aurally pleasing, but what they are giving you is totally from the gut - possibly moreso than any other band.

[#14 posted by sum.zero, May 25, 2009 6:05 PM]

awesome. and i second the comment above about their cover of danzig's mother.

[#15 posted by Anonymous, May 25, 2009 6:50 PM]

Bizarre Karaoke ! ASCAP paying members are not amused !

[#16 posted by reginald, May 25, 2009 7:29 PM]

"Horrrendous" is putting it nicely...

[#17 posted by AliasUndercover, May 25, 2009 7:33 PM]

It's beautiful...

[#18 posted by Anonymous, May 25, 2009 7:54 PM]

this was done ages ago by a st sanders! all posted to youtube. he did a whole "shreds" series, where he takes amazing guitar players and sometimes full bands, and makes them sound delightfully awful. this was almost two years ago now, probably longer ago. not a new idea, and not their own, but i like the LRS series

http://billherb.blogspot.com/2009/04/st-sanders-shreds.html

http://www.cracked.com/forums/topic/28303/st-sanders-shreds

[#19 posted by friendpuppy, May 25, 2009 7:57 PM]

"Apparently there is no cure for being tone deaf"

Yes there is--play a fretted instrument by rote.

[#20 posted by tubesoda, May 25, 2009 8:44 PM]

Legion of Rock Stars has been around for a while. Probably at least as long as the St Sanders "shreds" videos. They are similar ideas, but distinct, and there are several other interesting ways that people have remixed the audio of pre-existing music videos, many of which have been covered by BB.

There is LRS, like this and the above mentioned cover of Danzig's Mother where the audio is created spontaneously by people who can hear the original audio but nothing else, including themselves.

There are the "shreds," where the original audio is thrown out completely and the new audio is created by carefully syncing it to the precise actions in the video. Good example, Creed Shreds

There's "songsmithing," where an isolated vocal track is played into Microsoft Songsmith at the correct tempo just to see what kind of chords it comes up with, like this country ballad version of Eye of the Tiger

There's the very simple idea of just replacing a music video's audio with a completely different song with a similar tempo and length, just to see how it syncs up, like here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a_i6GbPntE

In all of these cases, the concept seems most effective when it's an ultra macho rock band being knocked down a peg.

Can anyone think of any other similar examples?

[#21 posted by Anonymous, May 25, 2009 8:49 PM]

Yowza!
Soundtrack to a bad trip!

[#22 posted by cadecc, May 25, 2009 8:54 PM]

Reminds me of The Residents http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CFTFIcvz6o

[#23 posted by trimeta, May 25, 2009 10:49 PM]

Wow, the quality of their singing is making me nostalgic for cute girls with ukes. I didn't think that was possible.

[#24 posted by Anonymous, May 25, 2009 11:10 PM]

Love it. Reminds me of the sub-genii musical movement of years ago. Bob would approve.

[#25 posted by Anonymous, May 26, 2009 1:08 AM]

Oh man that was good. Good, loud belly-laugh.

[#26 posted by jackie31337, May 26, 2009 4:16 AM]

I don't quite get it... even after anonymous @13's explanation.

[#27 posted by Hellosluggo, May 26, 2009 6:55 AM]

This is the best stuff since King Uszniewicz! The choice cuts for me are their versions of Journey's "Any Way You Want It" and The Barney Miller Theme, both of which contain come clear homage to King U's cover of "Doo Wah Diddy."

[#28 posted by Anonymous, May 26, 2009 9:59 AM]

find the story of LEGION OF ROCK STARS on their myspace page

myspace.com/legionofrockstars

read the bolg

[#29 posted by Anonymous, May 26, 2009 2:22 PM]

Thanks everyone for the nice comments! @out of touch friend: get back in touch.

LRS was founded in 1998. We performed live around Los Angeles off and on for several years but are currently a recording project.

Lots of videos on YouTube under fibboxx:
http://www.youtube.com/user/fibboxx

and we're up on MySpace:
http://www.myspace.com/legionofrockstars

Nice to see King Uszniewicz get a shout out ... I'm a fan, although I don't think anyone else in band knows his stuff.

[#30 posted by Anonymous, May 26, 2009 10:33 PM]

Go, go, go LRS. Few have the courage to sing the way you do...Semper Fi.