WORLD AIR GUITAR CHAMPIONSHIPS

Just days to go until the World Air Guitar Championships to be held in Finland and the competition is hotting up. It’s been a breakthrough year for female finalists, from Germany comes Tomaschek, aka Leni Krawitzkowsky, and New Zealand’s champ is Giesela “Gizzy Guitar” Visser. They’re up against joint 2004 winners, Tarquin “The Tarkness” Keys from New Zealand and yet another fabulous rock chick Miri "Sonyk-Rok" Park from the US, scroll down for a pic of Sonyk doing her thing here.

In the US, the winner is Fatima Rockness Monster Hoang, who played Marilyn Mason’s “The Beautiful People” and got an unprecented perfect score at the recent American championships. Here’s a blow by blow description of the event in which Chicago finalist William Ocean took to the stage with firecrackers coming out of his shoes.

Dan Crane aka Björn Turok, was pipped to the post for another year, here’s his take on representing New York in the championships. He’s full of fantastic advice for the would-be air guitarist, such as “perch yourself on the monitor and flutter your tongue”. Here’s his blogspot, for news on aireoke. Oh yes, karaoke is history.

Australian champion is Darrin ‘Jimmy Dangles’ Smith from Wollongong NSW, LIZ represents the UK, and too late for this year, but there will soon be the first China Air Guitar Championships to be held in ShangHai on 3rd September, 2005. No sign of a South African air guitar champion, which is outrageous considering the length and breadth of talent we have in this country, but there you are.

On the air guitar book front, there’s Turok’s book To Air is Human, How to Play Air Guitar and Air Guitar, by Dave Hickey is available on Amazon, it’s called Essays in Art and Democracy, so don’t expect to find moves and plectrums or useful hints on essential air guitar amps and speakers For a personal view you can read The True Life and Daggy Times of a Lounge Room Rock Star.

Aargh, shock horror, I’ve just found out that Tom Cruise’s turn in “Risky Business” was the first instance of air guitar playing in the movies. He played a poker in his underpants and so in a sense he is the one who brought the notion that air-guitar playing was sexy into the global consciousness. This makes him the icon of air-guitar playing.

Hmph, probably hasn’t touched an air guitar since 1983.