In Search of Airness
A few weeks ago, Kurt and I were headed for New York and the 2007 Air Guitar US National competition. We had booked our flights (his being paid for by the US Air Guitar organization…yes, this org. does exist) in early July after the friendly takeover of the San Jose Regional Air Guitar Championship by Shred Nugent a.k.a. Kurt Brown.
At the time of the booking, a red eye had seemed like a great idea. Arriving at the Oakland airport an hour and a half before our midnight flight, we were near panic. ATA computer systems were down, the line stretched nearly to the door and the check-in counter was hand-writing boarding passes at a painfully slow pace. After about 30 minutes, the line had not moved an inch. We had originally been scheduled to arrive in New York five hours prior to the competitors 'call' and now we feared the worst. After checking with every other airline for available/still scheduled flights to NY, to no avail, all we could do was wait. 45 minutes into it the systems were back up and the line began to move. Phew. The flight left only an hour delayed.
We arrived at the official US National Air Guitar 2007 hotel (read: HoJo) in SoHo and were immediately nearly run over by Erin "McNallica" McNally - in full make up --rushing to get to the Rolling Stone press conference that had been moved to an earlier time slot, unbeknownst to most participants. Ok, so Kurt missed that one, but we had reached our destination. "Skeety Jones & the Skeety Jones Band" (one man) from Chicago and "The Shred" from DC were checking in at the same time, as were the parents of "Airisol" the current champ from the Twin Cities. The atmosphere was already full of chummy competitiveness. Clearly, everyone had studied their competition online.
Despite the increasing nervousness (that I felt…not so much Kurt), we managed to get lunch at the famous Katz' diner, only blocks away from our hotel. We were met by Kurt's parents, his 15-year old cousin, and some friends from the East Coast who had all come to cheer him on.
After lunch, we dropped Kurt off at the Fillmore (East) at New York's Union Square area. They were headed for another press conference. It went something like this:
MSNBC: How did you spend your time training for the competition?
Ricky Stinkfingers (SF Champ): By drinking as much as possible, I've been trying to build up my tolerance.
Outside the Fillmore, a line was already forming to the sold out show. It took me only minutes to rid myself of the two extra tickets we had ended up with.
The warm up act (with actual instruments and Yay! to earplugs) was a somewhat questionable Jersey based band called 'Satanicide". My favorite thing about them was their back up 'dancer', a last minute addition to the evening's performance. I've never seen a man dancing in a bikini with such conviction. It took a few minutes for the stage hands to take down the set, and to clear the stage for the main performers of the night…and finally the 'air' was on.
The emcee (the only professional US Air Guitarist) Björn Türogue, introduced the judges (Jason Jones of The Daily Show, Rachel Dratch of Saturday Night Live, best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell and ACLU lawyer Ben Wizner) and gave the packed hall a run down of the rules & criteria:
"The contestants participate in two rounds: in the first, each competitor performs with a 60 second edit of a song of their own choosing, in the second, the top five competitors from round one compete by performing with a surprise song. In each round the contestants are judged on technical merit, stage presence and the somewhat obscure quality of "airness":
Airness = the extent to which the performance transcends the imitation of the real art form and becomes an art form in and of itself.
Also, as you may have noticed, one of the key elements to air guitar greatness is the stage name. It definitely is more than just a name, it becomes their alter-ego.
There are other, un-official, guidelines to great air guitar-ing, as well. One of the most revered to seems to be the "three-beer-rule". Apparently, any deviation from it and you may find yourself in trouble on stage.
The main prize, and Kurt's motivation for participation: a free trip to Oulu, Finland (my hometown) to represent the U.S. at the Air Guitar World Championships. Since 1996, it has been a yearly event in Oulu. It began as a peace movement with the idea "if you are playing air guitar, you cannot hold a gun in your hands at the same time." Today, representatives from 17 countries come to Oulu in the hopes of bringing home the trophy - an actual electric guitar called the "Flying Finn", hand-made by a Finnish guitar maker Matti Nevalainen.
The first round was filled with great performances by all; stage dives, mid-performance costume changes, back flips, hand stands and flying liquids of all kinds. My main goal was not to get the camera drenched, being at the front of the stage I had given up on the rest.
In an air guitar competition, the performance order is everything. Going first is a kiss of death, or so I'm told. Kurt got #4 in the hat draw, which wasn't terrible, but could've been better. He had edited Ozzy Ozbourne's latest hit "I Don't Wanna Stop" to the required 60 seconds, gave it his all, but that night and for that panel of judges, it just wasn't enough of the right kind of 'airness'. His response to the 'judging' was in a form of spidey boxers…a kinder version of the reactions that the judges drew from many of the competitors. There seems to prevail a certain kind of love-hate relationship that air guitar competitors & judges, and for that matter, audience & judges have…and cherish. It really is not for the faint of heart.
After a fierce first round, five competitors proceeded to the second round, to improvise to Darkness' "Get Your Hands off My Woman." The five finalists were:
Andrew " William Ocean " Litz (NY)
Fatima "Rockness Monster" Hoang (LA)
Craig "Hot Lixx Hulahan" Billmeier (Defending US Champ, from Alameda )
Randy "Big Rig" Layman (Houston)
Erin "McNallica" McNally (Boston )
Some crushed beer cans and many stage "surfings" later, William Ocean emerged as the victor of this year's US Nationals. His fans, the 'Wave Riders', filled the room with noise…and more flying liquids. By this time I was wishing I'd brought a rain coat…uhm…and some boots.
As is the tradition, anyone in the audience hoping to get a taste of 'airness' was invited to join the competitors on stage for the final number of the official part of the evening to play along to 'Freebird'. To see it makes one wonder about the load carrying capacity of these stages, and hope for the best.
But the night was not even close to being over. The entire entourage (or at least 200 of the main enthusiasts) packed a nearby Beauty Bar for an after party that lasted till the wee hours of the morning. Of course, many more air performances were seen throughout the night.
-Mari Marjamaa
Mari's Pics from the event: Shred Nugent Slide Show
Here's a sample of Kurt's performance:
Other Links:
MSNBC Zeitgeist article: Greatness Stinks at the Air Guitar Championships
Rolling Stone article: Air Guitarists Wail...
US Air Guitar (Movie)
World Championships, Oulu Finland
History of Air Guitar
