Paul Gilbert - Fly Me To The Moon

More palate cleanser. Video quality is asstacular, but screw it -- it's a fun one. Gilbert clearly enjoys himself, no matter what he's doing, and that's most of the battle right there.

As a guitar player, I started out as a Blackmore fan, but quickly grew tired of the endless scowling. Dude, you're playing guitar on a stage, for lots of money. There's an ice cooler of beer waiting for you after the show, and five or ten thousand chicks in the crowd who literally want to fuck your brains out. That's a pretty good gig. Gilbert has always seemed to recognize that he was having fun, first and foremost. And his chops are amazing.

I've met Gilbert several times, once at an end-of-tour party at the San Jose Radisson back in '92, and the guy is the real deal -- very funny, willing to hang with fans and bullshit for a while, that sort of thing. No attitude. Obviously, he had this Sinatra chestnut in the arsenal, waiting to unleash it, which makes it even better. The actual song starts about 1:12 into things.