From the moment I walked up to the Key Club in Los Angeles for the final regional qualifier for the U.S. Air Guitar Championships, I knew this night would be amazing. What tipped me off was my first glimpse at a few of the contestants making their way into the venue before the doors opened to the public. Some made me shrug, some made me laugh, and some actually made me want to puke. But as my press contacts ushered my photographer, Timothy “Bono Mullet 87” Norris and I around, we started to get a little more comfortable—and uncomfortable—with the situation and pretended like we were on a treasure hunt in search of the 16 contestants for photos and interviews.
Interviewing an air guitarist is a lot more difficult than I thought it would be, so I just tried to ask general questions about how the hell they got into air guitar in the first place, rather than try to get all deep and grill them about the impressionistic arts of instrumental mimicry. Out behind the venue was where we were introduced to our first contestant, Jeannete “Meticulous” Stojevski. It turned out she’s the lone female performer of the evening, but her tough, confident demeanor made me feel that she wouldn’t end up in last place. “This is my first time,” she admits. “I’m a personal trainer and we always listen to rock on the radio and I kinda do it [air guitar] every now and then and people would laugh. Then someone told me that there are actual contests and that I should join. So they egged me on and I signed up this year.”
Standing around upstairs was a mix of people smoking cigarettes and people on the phone, so I basically had to ask around, “Are you performing? Oh, ok. Are you performing tonight? Oh, ok.” Some contestants, like Don “Broccoli Spears” Mancuso, were a little more under the radar, dressed in a hat, jeans and an orange/yellow camo t-shirt similar to the one Bill Murray wore in Lost In Translation. When asked about how he got into air guitar, he explained that he was known as the “air guitar guy,” so it was a given. Unknowingly, his friends signed up him, his brother picked his name and even picked his song, Ted Nugent’s “Stranglehold,” which wouldn’t have been his first choice. “I would’ve ended up picking Ministry or something and freaked everybody out.” After seeing some of the other contestants, such as a guy dressed as a baby with a bloody diaper, it’s hard to believe Ministry would’ve freaked anyone out.
Walking back inside the venue I caught back up with Tim and saw him walking out with one of the more festive contestants of the night, who turned out to be a really nice guy, but looking at him you might expect to find a few frozen heads in a freezer in his dungeon. After Tim got a few shots for his grandmother, it turns out this contestant’s name was “Crusher,” who recently moved to Southern California from Ft. Myers, Florida to be a part of the action, pun intended—he recently auditioned for Who Wants to be a Superhero. He was here to win, that’s for sure. “Everything I do I try to do to the 10th power and I’m a very theatrical person so I wanted to give a theatrical show.” Well, a guy with a leather “gimp” mask, huge muscles and a chain around him that looks like it would sustain a castle’s drawbridge, might fall into the category of “theatrical show.”
So it’s off to find more contestants. I walked into a room downstairs that I never knew existed, but from what I can tell it’s one of ten secret rooms in the joint. This is where I get a chance to talk to Jordan “The Next World Champion” Cook, who also goes by other pseudonyms as well. “I sometimes go by ‘Air Jordan,’ or ‘Airoin Junkie,’ and that way my groupies are known as ‘Airoin Addicts.’” After casually talking to a guy in a leather mask about my girlfriend and living in Costa Mesa, having a conversation with a skinny white kid in red, white and blue underwear, no shirt and a cape was a breeze. I asked a few other contestants if they played guitar and most said no, but “TNWC” and I waxed philosophical on the advantages and disadvantages of guitar-playing air guitarists. “For some people it’s a disadvantage because they’re too technical and they look really static and not really enjoying themselves,” he explains, not really caring that his balls are like 1cm from popping out. “But for other people it’s an advantage because they actually look like they are playing guitar. Last year I didn’t know anything about guitar so my air guitar looked really weird because I had no concept of what an actual guitar chord sounded like. So now it’s a lot better.” He said he was performing to a Guitar Wolf cover of “Summertime Blues,” which I thought was an interesting choice considering the way he was dressed.
***
The lights finally dimmed and my girlfriend and I got a booth-of-honor upstairs because it was absolute pandemonium downstairs, plus we wanted some delicious Key Club cuisine. The “Master of Airemonies” for the evening was retired air guitarist Björn Türoque (pronounced Bjorn to Rock), who has dedicated the last five years of his life to the Air Arts. He gave a quick demonstration of Aireoke, "playing" a Sabbath song with an air band, stated some rules and reiterated why we were all there. “What's on the line,” Türoque explains, “is the winner of the U.S. Air Guitar Championships regional in Los Angeles would go on to New York and then to Oulu, Finland, to represent the United States of America in the World Air Guitar Championships.” That actually got the crowd super pumped up and patriotic, as if Carl Lewis was on stage talking about the 1984 Olympics.
The judging is based on a 4.0 to 6.0 Olympic figure skating scale and the judges are looking for three things:
Technical merit: How you are playing guitar.
Performance: How much rock do you bring to the stage.
“Airness”: When your performance transcends the imitation of guitar and becomes a performance unto itself.
And the judges for the evening:
Judge 1: Roy Trakin, HITS Magazine
Judge 2: Joshua Glazer, URB Magazine
Judge 3: Comedian Jeff Davis
After some more B.S. about ending the war with Air Guitar or something, the show finally begins.
To really explain what the overall performance was like would be like trying to explain a Renoir painting. I will let the judges do most of the explaining, because they were almost as entertaining as the performances themselves.
“Meticulous” is first—go figure—and she rocked Tesla like a mad woman. Her technical skills were spot on and the judges agreed.
Judge 1, “If this is the quality we’re gonna see all evening, we are in for a very long evening. 5.5.”
Judge 2: 5.4.
Judge 3: “I thought that rocked, especially the 40-second vagina solo. I’m gonna give her a 5.4.”
“The Next World Champion” was up soon after. Five seconds in, his pants come off and he starts to rock out almost with his cock out. Being the “up for anything” guy he claimed to be earlier on, he does a proverbial stage dive, but is off stage for a good 20 seconds, as he had to shake off the fact that no one was there to catch him. Shaky, that’s for sure, but the judges felt like he still pulled off an impressive performance.
Judge 1: “You have perfected Air cock guitar, and if I’m gonna give the chick a 5.6… You could be huge in this town. 5.6 my friend.”
Judge 2: “You literally achieved ‘Airness.’ But, this is air guitar, not air gay stripper. 5.8, man.”
Judge 3: “Where was the fucking guitar man? I’m giving you a 5.4.”
#9 was “Broccoli Spears.” Considering I knew what song he was planning on “playing,” I thought this was going to be a great performance. He casually walked onstage, tuned his “guitar” with sound effects for 40 of 60 seconds then leaped into the Nugent classic. The crowd was warming up and as Judge 1 explains, it felt like premature ejaculation.
Judge 1: “That felt like coitus interuptus—Air Interuptus. I was just getting started and he pulls the plug. 5.5.”
Judge 2: “5.3.”
Judge 3: “4.9! What if you tuned it for 60 seconds and that was it? That would’ve been fucking bad ass, but you chickened out.”
Contestant #12 was easily one of the more bizarre performers of the night, "Axebert Grindstein," who was dressed as Albert Einstein—white wig, fuzzy ’stache and a lab coat complete with E=MC2 insignia, just in case we were as confused as Judge 3 was. He performed Sabbath’s “Children of the Grave,” and about three head-bangs in, the wig comes off and revealed his true identity: a dude with white hair. After the 60 seconds was up, he was greeted with a complex equation, consisting mostly of boos. The judges didn’t seem to enjoy the performance much either, especially judge 3 who said, “I don’t know if you were trying to be Doc Brown from Back to the Future or Albert Einstein, but that sucked 1.21 jiganuts. That’s a 4.2, man.”
The last two performers pretty much stole the show. Contestant #15 was introduced by Türoque as follows: “The 2006 Los Angeles Champion. Give it up for the Rocknessfuckingmonster!” His song of choice was “New Noise” by Refused, and just as the first note hit, he jumped like 6 feet off a speaker and proceeded to school the previous 14 contestants on what air guitar truly is. He rocked hard, grooved when it was time to groove, and then rocked some more. When he was done the crowd was freaking out like Axl Rose walked out onto the stage circa 1987. And just in case “TNWC” wanted to blame the crowd for not catching him, when “Rockness Monster” did a stage dive, his beloved crowd caught him like he was a bride's bouquet. Needless to say, at least two of the judges were more than pleased with his performance.
Judge 1: “How is it that Asians are so good at eating hot dogs and playing air guitar? This guy is world class! 6.0!”
Judge 2: “I didn’t see him play much guitar? 5.6.”
Judge 3: No words, just “6.0.”
Last, but most definitely not least, was the final contestant of the evening, “The Prince of Bel Air.” His roommate told me earlier in the evening that he was going to win for sure. I mean, isn’t that the right thing to say when your buddy is onstage? Well, he was almost right. “The Prince” walked out with a surprising confidence, especially having to go after “Rockness” and all those 6.0s, but he was unfazed and just ruled the stage. The crowd’s blood level was already boiling and “The Prince” got them even hotter as soon as he threw his imaginary axe up in the air, caught it and jammed right on cue. He was looking all risky business style, with boxers, white socks and a robe, but the book was not judged, only his performance. The judges handed out: 5.7, 5.9, 5.8, landing him squarely in the final round.
Now here is where the final six contestants—should be five, but “Meticulous” got in as a wild card—compete to a compulsory song that is exclusive to the city. With the final contestants on stage, the first note blared over the speakers and I started to laugh. “Metal Health (Bang Your Head)” by L.A.’s own Quiet Riot. So it begins.
The finals showed a less desirable side of the judges, as they were way harsher on the scores, handing out low 5s left and right. Perhaps the novelty wore off and all they wanted was a good ol’ fashion air guitar performance. For example, judge 1 told “The Next World Champion” that he’s got a future at Chippendale’s maybe, but not as an air guitarist. Ouch.
When it came down to it, “The Prince of Bel Air” was “Rockness’” only competition at this point. It makes me wonder if he had on tight, ripped jeans and a sleeveless shirt, would he have won over the judges? Was a robe and skin-tight boxers too much?
Judge 1: “There has to be an easier way to get chicks than this. He was the best so far, I’m gonna give him a 5.7.” Judge 3 ruined his chances and gave him a 5.6, which the audience far from agreed with, inciting him to say, “I invite you to all take a big sip of my nuts later on.”
When "Rockness" came out, it was like he was on Quaaludes and had never felt pressure before in his life. He barely moved at first, just strumming his “guitar” standing up straight like the bad ass he is. But when he took that first step out into the audience and stood ON the crowd while he soloed like rock ‘n’ roll Jesus, the judges really had no choice but help this guy represent the US and A at the World Championships in Finland. It was all but certain, but Judge 1 said it best when he called his performance, “Zen and the Art of Air Guitar.” After the tallies, it was confirmed that “Rockness Monster” will be heading to New York City to compete in the national finals on August 8th.
***
After the show, er, during the 15-minute, everyone’s invited “Freebird” jam session, I had a chance to talk to the co-founder of the U.S. Air Guitar Championships, Kriston Rucker, who said, “I’ve never been to a night of Air Guitar where nobody sucked. The L.A. show was the best show of all.” I then told him that I would be competing next year as “Airy Balls,” which, according to him has never been used. He told me that no winner has had the word “Air” in their name, but I kindly let him know that I would be the first. I got a few looks that made me think otherwise, but you never know. This night just happened to be one of the best nights I’ve had in a long time, so perhaps the only way to top it would be to compete, right?
More on U.S. Air Guitar
More on the Air Guitar World Championships
Video of "Rockness Monster" in action. Please keep in mind, this is air guitar. Imagine if this dude was in a real band…
