2005
US Air Guitar Championships
The
title Turoqe missed went to “Rockness Monster” (née
Fatima Hoang); a lithe Silverlake native whose demonical slow-motion
air solos on “Rock You Like a Hurricane” earned him
perfect scores. But the whole contest was a cheeky, boozy mess
with a few frighteningly serious contestants and some moments
of stage presence more compelling than half of what passes for
rock and roll theatrics in 2005. The
night’s MC, a pale nobody comedian, tried to spark the crowd
with a cutting-edge mix of Asian-stereotype humor (always a winning
strategy in West Hollywood) and complaints about Scientology.
He was met with tumbleweed silence and sporadic catcalls of “you
suck!” But once the rock got underway, the vigorous and
kinda-creepy spirit of the whole production emerged. “Airly
Legal” jammed while wearing a Thomas the Tank Engine cape
that gave off an unsettling vibe of him wanting to touch kids
rather than rock them, and “Cherry Lane,” the night’s
lone female contestant, gyrated like she wanted to touch everybody
in the room. Last year’s LA champion, “Krye Tuff,”
was slathered in enough hair grease to earn him an OPEC membership,
though his Travolta-meets-emo schtick wasn’t enough to get
him in the finals this year. The
most harrowing moment came when “Heavy Thundar,” fresh
off a performance of Wasp’s “On Your Knees,”
stopped the show and pointed furiously at judge and Matchbox 20
drummer Paul Douchette. “Your girlfriend smashed my motor
home!” he shouted. Silence.
“I don’t even have a girlfriend, dude,” said
Douchette, looking helplessly towards the security staff. “She
did, man. She crashed into my motor home.” After
Thundar was politely forced off, Hoang took the stage with the
cool concentration of somebody about to solve an algebra problem.
But the instant the slashing riff of Marilyn
Manson’s “The Beautiful People” came on the
PA, Hoang was an entirely different beast. His performance stayed
true to the ethos of guitar shredding, but he did so while darting
across the stage like a panther and lifting his air axe in exaltation
to the gods. He even remembered to tune his air guitar. “I
wish I had his stage presence,” said judge Nina Gordon,
co founder of nineties alt-also-rans Veruca Salt. “I’m
impressed. These people have real spirit.” After
Hoang was crowned LA champion, the regional winners from New York,
Boston, Asheville, Austin, Chicago
and Denver all did their best to justify taking a week off of
work to fly to LA and play air guitar. By far the strangest was
Asheville winner “American Breeder,” whose overalls
and moustache suggested he’d rather be playing air-banjo
in Deliverance 2. Then, of course, he took his pants
off, and the crowd collectively beelined for the bathroom. Then
came Dan Crane, Bjorn Turoqe embodied. Turoqe is somewhat of a
legend in air-guitar circles, and he’s currently finishing
his memoir, To Air is Human. The training showed in the
cocky way he pulled from an air joint during his performance of
Sweet’s “Set Me Free.” The
finals came down to Hoang, Crane and Chicago’s “William
Ocean,” who took the stage with fireworks erupting from
his shoes. Turoqe used Ocean’s set to change into what looked
like Macho Man Randy Savage’s art-school alter-ego, costume
and the Rockness Monster simply took his shirt off, revealing
a perplexing tattoo consisting solely of a solid black box over
his heart. At this point, Hoang was on his fourth set and was
visibly exhausted, but then found the energy to stage dive into
a rapturous crowd, and the judges responded with across-the-board
perfect marks. “You’re the only one here without a
schtick,” said Douchette, and he was right. Hoang looked
like he had just nailed the parallel bars at Athens 2004. “I
really didn’t expect this,” he said after the group
jam finale of “Rockin’ In The Free World.” “A
lot of the moves weren’t finalized when I went on. But I’ve
been in bands, and the crowd really helped. My wife is my groupie.” Hoang
now has to prepare for the world finals in Finland in late August,
where the US is riding a two-time winning streak. But back at
the Key Club, Bjorn Turoqe had only his parents for consolation. “Wasn’t
he fabulous?” asked Crane’s mom, Nancy Conrad. “He’s
been doing this since he was young. I’ve always been absolutely
supportive of everything he’s ever done with it.” “I think this is my retirement from Air Guitar,” Turoqe answered, still sweating buckets in his spandex suit. “I was either going to Finland or going home. I think I’m going to get into air consulting or something.”
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