U.S. Air Guitar Championship

[digamma]

So, I'll be in attendance on Thursday night when MiRi "SonykRok" Park goes for her third consecutive US Air Guitar Championship.

I'm sure we'll be able to literally cut the tension with a knife when she goes for this unprecedented achievement, the likes of which the air guitar community has never seen.

Full report on Friday.

http://www.usairguitar.com/index.html

Here's a thread on the USAGC from a couple of years ago...
http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~fof/foru...ad.php?t=10468

[BrianD]

Originally Posted by digamma

So, I'll be in attendance on Thursday night when MiRi "SonykRok" Park goes for her third consecutive US Air Guitar Championship.

I'm sure we'll be able to literally cut the tension with a knife when she goes for this unprecedented achievement, the likes of which the air guitar community has never seen.

Full report on Friday.

http://www.usairguitar.com/index.html

Here's a thread on the USAGC from a couple of years ago...
http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~fof/foru...ad.php?t=10468

[TazFTW]

So did she win on skill or just by being a Korean woman in a school girl outfit?

[Ksyrup]

- The instrument must be invisible and must be a guitar, i.e. air drums are not permitted but air bass is permitted
- Personal air roadies are allowed, but they must leave the stage before the performance begins
- Back-up bands (air or real) are not allowed


Air bass!
Air roadies!!
Air back-up bands!!!

"I'm sorry, you've been disqualified for having an air back-up band."

[MikeVic]

I don't want to read the site... but is it possible that they actually look for proper technique, and whether they'd be playing the song correctly if a guitar WAS in their hand? I would imagine some skill would be involved then...

[Ksyrup]

JUDGING CRITERIA

1. TECHNICAL MERIT
You don't have to know what notes you're playing, but the more the judges believe your fretwork corresponds to the music they're hearing, the better your score.

2. STAGE PRESENCE
Anyone can do it in the privacy of their bedroom. Few have what it takes to rock a crowd of hundreds or even thousands ­ all without an instrument.

3. "AIRNESS"
The last criteria is the most difficult to define yet often the most decisive one of all. Airness is defined as "the extent to which a performance transcends the imitation of a real guitar and becomes and art form in and of itself."

[Ksyrup]

Most people air guitar in their own houses, but I have to imagine that anyone who makes it far in this type of competition would probably be among my least favorite people to be standing next to at a concert. Don't you hate those people who have to air guitar/drum to every song?

[Hurst2112]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Most people air guitar in their own houses, but I have to imagine that anyone who makes it far in this type of competition would probably be among my least favorite people to be standing next to at a concert. Don't you hate those people who have to air guitar/drum to every song?

Like going to a Rush concert. Course, I can be included with the guilty parties for air drumming.

[Ksyrup]

I don't mind it too much, except when I'm the high hat.

[Flasch186]

this is stupider than this woman:

[digamma]

In a word: Wow.

We got to the USAGC at the Key Club (which was jam packed) about 9:15, just after the twenty Los Angeles regional contestants had been narrowed down to five finalists. The winner of the LA regional would then compete against the other regional winners from across the nation for the US championship and the free trip to Finland to compete in the world finals.

In the preliminary round, approximately 20 wannabe air guitarists had performed to a song of their choice and scored by the judges (more on them in a minute) on a 1-6 scale according to technical merit, stage presence and airness. The five finalists would now have to perform a "compulsory song." They would all get the same song and everyone would listen to the song together before the first performance.

The song ends up being the Stones version of Route 66.

What is strange is that the judges are somewhat legitimate. We have the drummer from Matchbox 20, the guitarist from Evanescance, a singer named Nina Gordon and the Asian dude from Harold and Kumar go to White Castle (John Cho).

So, the five LA finalists (in order of their performance, but in reverse order of their score in the preliminary round):
Some chick in a short skirt and boots. Not attractive. Not good at air guitar. No rhythm. No beat. I'm guessing very little airness. She actually gets booed. The Ryan Seacrest-wannabe host tries to prop her up as he asks the judges for their scores. She gets 5.4's and 5.5's, which my buddy, who has been there since the beginning, are pretty low scores.

Next up is Psycho Dave--I don't make this up, that's how he was introduced. Psycho Dave is a sort of metal looking dude with long hair and an all black, partially leather outfit. He's better than the chick and he has a dedicated group of fans who yell and chant "Psycho Dave. Psycho Dave." throughout his "performance." The crowd, as a whole, is less than enthused. He racks up a few 5.6's and takes the lead into the clubhouse.

Third is Old Man Metal. OMM is, as his name would suggest, an older guy with a large mustache and white long hair. Now, Old Man Metal had a bit of a chip on his shoulder as he entered the final round. When Seacrest, Jr. asked everyone what they thought of the compulsory song, OMM said flat out, "I hate it." OMM manages to put his ill feelings aside and gives a solid performance. A smattering of 5.5's, 5.6's and 5.7's put him safely into the lead.

Power is next. Yup, Power. Power was perhaps the most divisive performer of the night. He was dressed in a circa 1970s (maybe early 80s) tennis outfit, compelte with short shorts, white top and a white headband. He starts his routine with a serve of a tennis ball with his guitar and races to the "net." Who knew the serve and volley was a winning tactic in air guitar? Power definitely has his fans. He's energetic, his technical merit isn't bad and I think he's the first guy who has any "airness" about him. However, he's just so weird, he fails to win the crowd or the judges. His scores put him neck and neck with OMM.

The last LA finalist had been the leader after the first round. I didn't see his first performance, but evidently it was the best by far. It involved some sort of slow motion guitar playing. He is: The Rockness Monster. Rockness is just an ordinary looking Asian-American dude with longer hair. No real schtick other than a couple of wristbands on. He comes out, tunes his guitar, takes his position and the song begins. It's clear why he was the leader after the first round. He's just simply in a different league. Technical merit. Stage presence. Airness. AIRNESS. The Rockness Monster had it. The crowd goes wild. The judges go wild. 6.0. 6.0. 6.0. 6.0. Rockness wins the LA regional in a walk and advances to the national finals.

We take a short break, but before long, Seacrest is back to introduce the national finalists.

They are:

Boston regional winner: Boston Rob Brown
Asheville, NC regional winner: The American Breeder
Austin regional winner: Never really got his name
New York regional winner: Bjorn Turock
Chicago regional winner: William Ocean
Denver regional winner: Big Rig
And the newly crowned LA regional winner: The Rockness Monster

Notice a name missing? Yup, that's right. Two time defending national champion and defending world champion MiRi "SonykRok" Park would not be competing. She had been spotted in the Key Club earlier in the evening, but no one's sure whether she failed to advance out of her regional or if she had just hung up her air guitar for good. It's a stunning development.

In the first round of the national finals, the contestants were allowed to pick their own song for their performance. I've got to apologize because I don't remember everyone's song.

First up, was Boston Rob Brown. BRB is wearing a Slayer t-shirt and has long hair. His song is by....Slayer. He simply stands in the corner of the stage playing his air guitar and waving his hair around in a circular motion. Sure, he has good technical merit (if you're into that sort of thing), but we had just been spoiled by The Rockness Monster. BRB had to bring more than that. He doesn't get booed until Seacrest Jr. and he start talking in horrible Boston accents after his performance. The judges aren't impressed either, giving him middling 5.5's and 5.6's.

The American Breeder is up next. He won the Asheville, NC regional--which of course begs the question: why did Asheville, NC have a regional? The breeder is the first contestant to take advantage of the rule which allows you to have one roadie come on stage to help set up. He proves to be the only contestant to take advantage of this rule. His roadie helps him tune his guitar and his performance begins. The Breeder is doing some sort of ZZ Top medley. He's wearing only denim overalls. Check that. He rips off his denim overalls and he's wearing only tighty whities. The crowd is more appalled than anything else. I mean, come on, there's a 6'4" skinny white guy on stage in his underwear playing the air guitar. When you think about it, I'm not sure there are many things more appalling than that.

The Breeder gets scores slightly higher than BRB.

The Austin guy is next. This dude is just weird (which I know is a relative term when people are competing in an air guitar championship). He's dressed in a tuxedo, but he has glitter all over his head and shoulders (I don't think he had just been to a gentlemen's club). I can't remember what song he played, but his performance was actually pretty good. He also won portions of the crowd by frequently throwing the Horns symbol with each stroke of his guitar. He received better scores than the Breeder or BRB, but the door was still open for improvement.

Bjorn Turock stepped right through that door. Bjorn was dressed in some sort of pseudo-genie/professional wrestler get-up. It was basically a purple and black sequined unitard. Bjorn is aptly named. He rocks. He throws in some skipping rope with his guitar and playing it behind is back, before perfectly timing a jump back over the guitar to play it in the front. The crowd goes wild. The judges go wild. Perfect score.

The LA contingent was somewhat shaken by Bjorn's impressive performance. It meant The Rockness Monster would have to really raise his game to win the national title.

But, we still had two more contestants before Rockness was back out there. The first of those was William Ocean. In introducing Ocean, Seacrest, Jr. astutely points out that he thinks the name is a play on Billy Ocean. I can totally see why Seacrest, Jr. got this gig. They don't call him the best Air Guitar announcer in the biz for nothin', folks. Ocean has on Daisy Dukes, a denim vest complete with Anthrax patch on the back and Adidas high tops. Solid gear. I didn't get to see much of Ocean's performance because I was trying to get a beer. I did turn around long enough to see that he finished it with a jump, guitar strum, land in a split on the floor move that had to hurt. The judges are impressed. He is comfortably in second behind Bjorn.

Big Rig, the Denver champ, is next. Big Rig comes out on stage and starts putting up a banner on the stage that reads "Big fuckin' Rig." Seacrest, Jr. says he's never seen anything like this in the world of air guitar. His peformance is uninspiring. The Matchbox 20 judge says it best: "Dude, when you're a star, you don't hang your own banners."

And, finally, we get to Rockness. I have to say that Rockness's next performance (his third of the night) is the stuff Air Guitar legends are made of. Absolute technical precision. Creativity. Energy. Presence. And, oh yeah, Airness. Tons of it. At one point he throws his "guitar" in the air and catches it, smoothly in rhythm for the next note. Stunning. He finishes with a flourish and a perfectly timed stage dive into the mosh pit. You guessed it. Another perfect score.

Three performers advance to the compulsory round, but everyone knows this is a two man race. William Ocean is the third finalist, but everyone knows this is Bjorn's and Rockness's world and Ocean's just passing by. The compulsory song will be the Scorpions Rock You Like a Hurricane.

Ocean is up first, by virtue of his third place finish in the preliminary round. He's solid, adding some more splits and ending it with a slide across the stage on his bare knees. He's got to be sore this morning. He gets respectable scores, but again, it's just the appetizer.

Bjorn is up next. He's lost the straps on his unitard and is shirtless. Again, though, he doesn't disappoint. More jump roping. Some playing behind his head. Great technical merit. The crowd loves him, despite their allegience to Rockness. The judges agree. It's 5.9's across the board. He's left a slight opening for Rockness.

Rockness comes out. He's also now shirtless, but he's featuring some sort of stick on chest tattoo. Judge John Cho makes a crack about Asians having to tattoo on chest hair. Rockness tunes his guitar again and cues the music. I'm going to be honest. Rockness was good, but I thought this was his weakest performance of the night. He was still technically sound and he brought his usual presence, but I don't know if it was enough to beat Bjorn. Luckily for Rockness, I wasn't a judge. They huddle and decide to reveal their scores all at the same time. 6.0. 6.0. 6.0. 6.0. Rockness is the national champion! Rockness is the national champion! Rockness is the national champion!

But wait. What's this? It's MiRi "SonykRok" Park. She runs up on stage. Is she challenging Rockness to a duel? One could only hope. Instead, she simply congratulates him and presents him the trophy. The crowd is chanting "USA USA USA" to inspire Rockness for his world competition in Finland.

Seacrest, Jr. then invites all of the contestants on stage for a final group performance to "Rockin' in the Free World." I really don't know how to describe 20+ strangely dressed adults playing air guitar on stage to a jam packed audience. Bizarre may be a start, but it's only a start.

digamma out.

[rkmsuf]

I was actually riveted to your account of the event and wish I had been there.

[Ksyrup]

Money well spent...




Academic takes PhD in art of air guitar
By Amy Iggulden
(Filed: 02/08/2005)
The first academic study into the sweaty pursuit of air guitar playing is to use the work of French philosophers to explain why men and women do it differently.

Doctoral research has begun under the supervision of Britain's first professor of pop music, who is also overseeing a PhD into the art of "moshing", the vigorous head-shaking dance popular among concert crowds.

	The study will try and answer why men and women play differently

For the next three years, Amanda Griffiths, 32, a dance teacher from north Wales, will attempt to explain, in 60,000 words, why the attractions of an invisible guitar are generally overlooked by women, and how the girls who get involved do it differently.

To do so, she will use the complex arguments of French post-structuralist theorists such as Michel Foucault and Marxists such as Roland Barthes.

Miss Griffiths, who is funding her research at a cost of about £10,000, said: "The time seems right for a cultural study of phenomenon, because there is a very hardcore air guitar scene that has been bubbling away for years. But as a feminist I am interested in why there are so few women at events."

Her work, one of the subtitles of which is "air guitar: celebrating the fakeness of the inauthentic", has come to the attention of the organisers of the World Air Guitar Championships, and she has been invited to address a training camp for competition entrants in Finland this month.

Britain created the first world record for an air guitar ensemble when more than 4,000 people flailed along to Sweet Child o' Mine by the heavy metal band Guns 'n' Roses at the Guildford Festival in Surrey last month.

But Miss Griffiths's interest grew after she entered a regional air guitar competition on the eve of her 30th birthday two years ago.

Her unusual PhD was suggested by Prof Sheila Whiteley, chair of pop music at the University of Salford, whom she met on Radio 4's Woman's Hour, who has also overseen PhD studies into "post-anarcho punk" and heavy metal music.



-----------------------------------

A PhD in the art of moshing? Please. All of us worth our salt in the community gained our PhDs in the pit, not in a classroom.

[digamma]

unfortunately this year's competition was in New York, so I couldn't repeat last year's effort--but it looks like many of last year's heroes were back.

This year's wrap up:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060627/...sic_air_guitar

Air guitarists live out rock dreams

By JAKE COYLE, AP Entertainment Writer Tue Jun 27, 6:35 PM ET

NEW YORK - The Bowery Ballroom was packed. The hip downtown Manhattan music hall had been sold out for weeks and fans stood outside begging for extra tickets. Inside, the raucous crowd waited for the show to start, chanting for the performers backstage.

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The concert, though, was created purely out of thin air — because this was the U.S. Air Guitar Championships, where last week 15 contestants with such stage names as The Godfather of Air and Thunderpants the Destroyer took to a barren stage, bereft of ... instruments.
"It's as close as you can get to being a rock star, without shlepping gear," said master of ceremonies Bjorn Turoque (pronounced "Born to Rawk").
The rules for air-guitar competition are simple:
• The guitar (which can be acoustic or electric) must be "invisible."
• "Air bands" are not allowed.
• "Air roadies" are OK.
• You can use a real pick.
The rest is an exercise of imagination — and for many, it's serious business. Thirteen of the 15 contestants have won their respective regional contest; one qualified from a VH1.com contest and another was the collegiate champ. The winner is sent to the world championships Sept. 6-8 in Oulu, Finland — a place spoken of with hushed reverence in air-guitar circles.
A panel of four judges score the air guitarists on an "Olympic figure skating scale" (6.0 being best) based on technical prowess, stage persona and a more opaque quality known as "airness."
Bjorn, whose real name is Dan Crane, explains to the crowd: "Airness is like pornography. You know it when you see it."
Each guitarist, in turn, eventually gets a chance to shine, and for 60 seconds, can become

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Eddie Van Halen or

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Jimmy Page or

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Brian May.
Air guitar is growing in popularity (the U.S. competition has steadily grown in size since 2002) and is coming closer to a viable occupation for some. Crane has written a memoir titled "To Air is Human: One Man's Quest to Become the World's Greatest Air Guitarist." Cedric Devitt and Kriston Rucker, the competition's organizers, have produced "Air Guitar Nation," a documentary that has played at various film festivals.
Not everyone is a believer. After a TV segment on air guitarists several years ago, CNN anchor Jack Cafferty declared: "That's the dumbest thing I've ever seen."
It's a familiar gripe to air guitarists.
"It's funny, but it's not a joke," says Dave Roberts, a 26-year-old graduate student from Miami. "It's like circus clowns; they're funny, but they take what they do very seriously."
Psycho Dave (as he calls himself) is one of the most dedicated air guitarists, though his performance of Motorhead's "Ace of Spades" went south when his black wig fell off during his first jump kick. He says he wasn't blessed with the ability to play music, only the ability to love it.
"Every kid who grew up listening to rock music — actually, any form of music — they close their bedroom door, put on their favorite album and pretended they were in their favorite band," he says.
Matthew Schwartz — aka Count Rockula — advanced to the second round thanks to a

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Michael Jackson-esque performance of Alien Ant Farm's cover of Jackson's "Smooth Criminal."
"Everybody's got a little rock star inside," the 29-year-old from Seattle said backstage before the show.
At the Bowery, which packs in about 600 at capacity, the audience was mostly composed of ardent air-guitar fans (there are even "air groupies") and friends and family of competitors. Perched in the balcony were four judges: "Daily Show" correspondent Jason Jones; former international champ Miri Park; Gavin McInnes, founder of Vice Magazine; and Leigh Lust, an A&R man for Atlantic Records.
"You are all nerds!" Jones displayed on his dry-erase board, meant for scorekeeping.
The various acts can be quite outrageous. Common techniques include stage-diving, shirt-tearing and knee-sliding. It can come close to descending into a male strip show.
Many of the acts were planned spectacles of performance art.
Nordic Thunder, a 22-year-old named Justin Howard, was led on stage in chains by his handlers while an air roadie pulled an imaginary guitar from a real guitar case and proceeded to tune it.
Before performing, all contestants were asked to sign a legal release that included a clause vouching for one's mental health. Howard's performance didn't appear to prompt any concern among the organizers.
"I usually don't remember or can't really think while I'm air-guitaring," said Fatima Hoang, a 26-year-old artist and former ceramics teacher.
Hoang, whose stage name is Rockness Monster, was the 2005 winner. But the defending champ's self-described "Tasmanian Devil" style failed to take the trophy this year.
Mike Torpey, a 23-year-old from Nashua, N.H., who "played" Pink Floyd's "Young Lust," explained that his style was "a little more conservative ... I'm more technical."
Did this mean he really knows how to play?
"No, I don't play guitar, but I've been around guitar my whole life," he answered.
No women made it to this year's contest, but several have in years past. The oldest air guitarist was 43-year-old Scott Gilbert, who traveled from Phoenix with one of his five kids.
Calling himself Mid-life Crisis and describing himself as a metalhead from the '80s, he said air guitar was his "little Everest." Win or lose, he said this would be his last competition — but after a lambasted performance of Van Halen's "Eruption," he stood sweating backstage and declared he'd be back next year.
Instead, the night belonged to Hot Lixx Hulahan, a 32-year-old from Alameda, Calif., named Craig Billmeier.
Billmeier wore a black sombrero and began his routine seated, playing a reserved Spanish acoustic part — though he soon leapt into more frenetic playing.
In the second and final round — when six finalists air-guitar to 60 seconds of the same song — Billmeier took things a step further than the rest. When his turn came, he ran through the crowd, up the stairs to the balcony and gyrated directly in front of the judges as plastic cups of beer flew in every direction.
His win, though, was disputed. The hometown hero from New York, Andrew Litz (stage name: William Ocean) was considered the winner by most, largely because of a stage dive where he crushed a beer can with his back. He also had "A-I-R" shaved into his chest hair.
After the judges and organizers briefly considered an "air-off" between the Billmeier and Litz, order was restored and Billmeier, whose combined score from both rounds beat Litz, was declared the U.S. champ.
He pledged to "slay" all comers in Finland.
As an encore, everyone in attendance was invited on stage to air-guitar to

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Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World." Nearly 40 people bunched together, individually doing their best Young impression, each living out a small piece of rock 'n' roll dreams.