Pictured: Judges of the 2006 US Air Guitar Finals Leigh Lust, an A&R man for Atlantic Records; former international champ Miri "Sonyk-Rok" Park; “Daily Show” correspondent Jason Jones; and Gavin McInnes, founder of Vice Magazine.
Last night, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart showed three short clips from the US Air Guitar Finals the Moment of Zen. Since air guitar is considered by many to be "instant Western meditation," it is not surprising, then, that Stewart chose these shredolicious clips for the segment.
Featured in the clips are Psycho Dave of Miami (formerly of LA), Justin "Nordic Thunder" Howard of Chicago, and Mike "The Godfather of Air" Torpey of Chicago. Nice work, gents.
Here are a TON of great photos from the US Air Guitar Finals at the Bowery Ballroom - all by Alexandra Lipsitz -- director of Air Guitar Nation
In other news, SCANDAL hits the UK air guitar scene!
Zac "The Magnet" Monro, two-time world champ from the UK decided that it was high time the UK had a "proper affiliated" competition. So he decided to set one up. Now there are two rival competitions - one which operates according to its own rules, and one which follows International Standards and Practices for Competitive Air Guitar. Can you guess which Björn supports?
We applaud you Zac for taking air guitar to the next and proper level in the UK!
A statement from airguitaruk.com (Zac)
We knew the road would strew with rock-hewn obstacles, and here's our 1st.
The guy who's been making money of UK Air Guitar for the last few years and refusing to send his champions to Finland is up in arms about our new Championship, I expect lost of slating and insults and threats from him.
From us you can expect no such thing, I still think what he does is great.
But remember its:
www.airguitaruk.com
Not
www.ukairguitar.com
And its still on so post in on your myspaces and link it to your sites!
Love
Z
A statement from ukairguitar.com
the website for this competition is www.ukairguitar.com . on march 28th, 2006 www.airguitaruk.com was registered by zac monro and from the sound of it SJM concerts to do a rival competition. there isn’t much difference is there? please stand by as we try to get this mess sorted out. as some of you know i refused to pay the finnish people money so the UK could compete on the ‘world’ stage - for the following reasons - 1. the audience not judges should decide the winner; 2. the finals were always on the same weekend as reading and leeds which i always dj / go to / play at ; 3. now the finns have decided not to have their finals at the festival and instead have moved from august to september and also have moved to a club setting [which the airguitaruk.com site criticises] also and this is the biggest point - i didn’t want to pay someone for an idea that was [as first air guitar posts point out] are a massive cultural phenomenon.
Zac's Reply:
We have tried to set up a meeting, but he would rather send-off angry e-mails and has threaten legal action against the promoter, threatening to set up a rival World Championships and threatening to squash us the way he squashed coca-cola!?! The promoter who has agreed to run this at a loss, with charity donations and in accordance with World Championship rules, was not much please with this behaviour but has remained calm and peaceful, in accordance with the philosophy.
