A Tribute To Jim Gillette

My brother, despite being 8 years my junior, has spent most of his life as a connoisseur of Things That Suck, or Things That Are Funny For the Wrong Reasons. During my recent trip home, he enlightened me on the rawk awesomeness that is Jim Gillette.

For those who don't know (I didn't) Jim Gillette was the vocalist for mid-card hair metal groups TUFF and the slightly more famous Nitro. He was known for his incredibly wide vocal range (4-6 octaves it is speculated) and high squealing pitch, which he would often demonstrate by using to break glass.

Here is Mr. Gillette demonstrating said high voice. Two things also need to be taken into consideration here, and that is a) my brother recorded this as his phone ringtone, so when you call him this is what you get; and b) my brother can do a pretty fucking close impression of this, enough so I've encouraged him to put it on YouTube, as it's eons better than the crappy "Jim Gillette Tribute" videos that fall way short.



Next, we have a video from Gillette's band Nitro, which you truly only need to watch about the first 60 seconds of if you value your sanity. Nitro, despite having Gillette's vocal range, and a true virtuoso guitarist in Michael Angelo Batio, never really blew up to the level of many of the hair bands that were popular on the radio at the time. I would speculate it was because they weren't pop enough to be a good hair band, and not metal enough for the metal folks to respect them.

In this cover of the crappy-from-the-beginning-so-what-were-you-hoping-for "Cat Scratch Fever", pay attention to the following moments of Crappy/Awesomeness.

0:15 - Jim Gillette apparently attempts to emulate Ultimate Warrior
0:18 - The drummer, who appears to be short-lived WWF mid-carder Brachhus
0:25 - The greatest hip gyrations of the music video era, which I will DEFINITELY be adding to my stage show



Mr. Gillette is currently married to Lita Ford. Pray to God, Allah, Jehovah, Joe Pesci, whomever that their offspring do not enter the music industry. We might not be prepared for those genetics.