The 2009 U.S. Air Guitar Championship comes to the Nation’s Capital this Friday, May 29th. The competition (motto: 25 Cities, 1 winner, 0 Guitars”) will be conducted by U.S. Air Guitar, “official air guitar association of the United States.” Fantasy Fender-benders of DC take note: the bandstand at the 9:30 Club is almost full, so email your awesome air-rock videos now, or pick a different regional head-butt battle — the tour runs through June 27th, with National Finals in August. The US champ goes to the World Air Guitar Championship in Finland (August 19-21).
Thrill junkies can warm up for the air guitar gynmastics with the breathtaking competition of the National Spelling Bee. The Semis begin Wednesday at 1 PM and the Finals are Thursday, and broadcast by sports cable ESPN. The edited 2009 Finals will be broadcast Thursday at 8PM on ABC-TV.
But whatever you do, don’t confuse the Air Guitar Championship with the American Sign Language Spelling Bee.
Image (Stratocastrian Man, after Leonardo da Vinci and Leonardo Fender) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
Tags: education, humor, music, Washington DC
NotionsCapital 
May 27, 2009 at 5:40 pm
[…] from: Air Guitar Gladiators! « NotionsCapital Social Bookmarking Tags: almost-full, cities, fantasy, official-air, take-note, […]
May 29, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Update: 13-year-old eighth grader Kavya Shivashankar of Olathe, Kansas won the 2009 National Spelling Bee.
Final word: “Laodicean.” More on the Biblical resonance of the word here.
Breathtaking Air Guitar results: DC marked the first tie in official U.S. Air Guitar competition history. SANJAR THE DESTROYER and THE SHRED share the DC title.
June 1, 2009 at 1:15 am
I’m certain to have studied Stratocastrian Man and our man Leo in college. Now I want to know how a certain blogger is doing and why you let me buy a dreadnaught when I should have a 000.
There will be no electrics in this house. I started lessons four weeks ago and am terrible. I was probably better at age 12 with a crappy beginner guitar that was stolen in college.
It just seemed the right thing to do up here in the mountains, along with birdwatching. We moved to Utah. Temporarily. Hey, you go where the gigs are.
If you’re quick, come visit. Don’t worry, I don’t even know “The Hills are Alive.” And no-one will ever solve the problem called Maria. Dee
June 1, 2009 at 8:15 am
pawsindc wrote: why you let me buy a dreadnaught when I should have a 000
Moi? The Martin dreadnaught (“D”) and 000 (“OM”) are both noble boxes, good for different tasks. The D is a must for Bluegrass and rhythm-strumming; the OM makes for brighter lead lines and is preferred by many fingerpickers. Electric guitars are a different breed of axe.
Guitar tone qualities offer a wide spectrum: nylon-strung, arch-tops, lute-backed Ovations, twangy Martins, bassy Gibson Jumbos, mechanically-amplified guitars (Nationals, etc.), hollow-bodied electrics, Fender and Gibson LP mark the “primary colors.” There are many tiny amps these days which allow electrics to play with acoustic guitars successfully, but on-board “electro-acoustic” guitar amplification really has a color of its own.
Air Guitar performances, on the other hand, is Heavy Metal rock interpreted for the deaf, a good thing since HM music adds people to the deaf population on a daily basis.
August 5, 2009 at 1:12 am
[…] an end Friday here in the Nation’s Capital (9:30 Club at 8 PM). As you may recall from the local preliminaries back in May, 2009 has seen a hotly-contested 25-city U.S. […]