It’s taken me almost a week (and two trips to the doctor) to come down completely from my amazing experience at the U.S. Air Guitar Championships last Friday in Washington, D.C.

I, as Mean Melin, competed against 24 other air guitarists from all over the country who share the same affinity for rock n’ roll and making fools out of themselves onstage that I do.

It reminded me a lot of being on VH1’s “World Series of Pop Culture” two years ago: A huge group of people are thrown together over their strange (and formerly useless) talent in front of a large audience to challenge each other onstage, but only one winner is declared. Everybody would like to win, but most of the people are just there to have fun.

We all spent a lot of time in the small, crowded, B.O.-filled backroom of the 9:30 Club and I immediately felt sorry for the four brave and badass female air guitarists (McNallica, Airisol, Mojo Gojo, and Airin Maiden). I got to know many of the other contestants and had a blast hanging out with them.

There was a brief and bizarre press conference (made way cooler and funnier by West Coast air guitarist Awesome, who is also a comedian), a hallucinatory red carpet walk outside the club, and then the show began—late, of course, because there was a line down the block and around the corner. I think the sellout crowd was like 1,200 or something. Wow.

The security guy wouldn’t even let me in the back alley to work out some last minute kinks in my routine! Apparently, he was intent on protecting the “talent” (air guitarists) from …. the talent.

Being a newcomer, I drew a number out of a hat and ended up going sixth, so I wasn’t expecting much. My air roadies (Peter “Stiff” Dickens and Mot Waldmann) and I hit the stage with lots of energy.

They gave me a joint, shot me up with air heroin, I snorted air cocaine, and I was ready to rock. My special edit (thanks, JoJo!) of Megadeth’s “Wake Up Dead” and “Bad Omen” began and it was ON.

I rushed the routine a little bit and smacked my head really, really hard on the stage at the end on accident (leaving me temporarily dizzy and with a huge pain in my head and left eardrum), but other than that I felt pretty good about it. The audience seemed to dig it too, cheering the loudest when my air guitar “impaled” me in the chest and blood spewed up in the air.

The judges didn’t share the love. Maybe it was because I’m a first-timer, or maybe I didn’t sell all of my unorthodox movies well enough (guitar neck that extends 30 ft. during solo, swinging guitar around neck, impalement). Whatever it was, it was clear I wasn’t moving on to the second round.

I read later that someone poured beer on one of the judges and that the audience booed when they gave me crap scores, so there’s some solace in that.

I can’t get too worked up—it’s air guitar after all!

Either way, I’ll be gunning for a spot next year for sure because that was an infectiously fun and insane evening.

The other competitors all brought something new and hilarious and I was cheering like I was front row at a KISS concert circa 1977.

There were six people who advanced to the final round and, in the end, NYC champ William Ocean edged out DC champ (but Chicago native) Sanjar the Destroyer for the crown and the trip to Finland to compete for the World Air Guitar Championship.

There’s a ton of great video from the show. Go to YouTube and check it all out if you’re curious. I can’t begin to explain how much fun this is, no matter how ridiculous it sounds.

A huge thanks from me goes out to everyone at U.S. Air Guitar, our esteemed host Bjorn Turoque, all the fans who cheered and photographed and videotaped the show, and all the other air guitarists.

To all you musicians who think this is “stupid.” You don’t get it. This is the ultimate expression of rock fandom. It transcends playing real guitar and it’s a tribute to kick-ass rock tunes that make you want to jump up and down or stop steering when you’re behind the wheel. If the idea of this competition offends you, you take things too seriously.

It’s ain’t over ‘til it’s over
One last performance: The Pitch has invited me to do my act at the 2009 Pitch Awards at the Uptown Theater this Sunday Aug. 16.

My actual band, The Dead Girls, is nominated for Best Pop Band in the awards, but I’ll be displaying my airness Sunday night rather than my drumming prowess. So be it! Air guitar lives for one more night!

There was a lot of press coverage of this insane journey this summer, so I’ll include some links for you to check out below.

There are at least two demo videos below that I can’t embed here, so if you want to see a 2009 air guitar demo or me impromptu air guitaring to an edit of “Ogre Battle” by Queen (thanks, Kliph!), check some of these links out below (or my last blog post).

Pitch coverstory by Justin Kendall

Article in Lawrence Journal-World and video of “Ogre Battle”

The comments on that one are hilarious. Example: “Get a job!”

Interview/video in InkKC of KISS’ “Love Gun” and more “Wake Up Dead”

Pitch reporter Erin Slattery’s coverage of the DC show

Tags: 2009, Air Guitar, championships, Coming, down, from, mean, melin, national, nationals, results, the, us, video, winner, wrap-up

This is really, really cool.

In anticipation of competing in the U.S. Air Guitar Championship in Washington, D.C. Friday night, The Pitch’s Justin Kendall has written an awesome  coverstory on my past movie/TV/rock exploits and air guitar future.

Click here to read the entire thing (5 pages!) or click here to see a video I made in 1990 that proves I’ve been air guitaring for a long, long time. (It’s really funny and I have some pretty great late 80s/early 90s metal/grunge hair.)

Justin interviewed me several times and came out to watch me practice my routine at my house. He got it seriously right. Then I did a photo shoot with staff photographer Emily Henson that was really fun. The shot of me air guitaring in the produce section while a grocery store employee loads cantaloupe is one of my faves.

Here’s an excerpt from the article and I’ve embedded the video from 1990 below because I have no shame:

From Eric “Mean” Melin is a real musician — but it’s air guitar that might make him a star:

There’s a giant hole in the crotch of Mean Melin’s pants.

Seconds ago, he hoisted an imaginary guitar over and behind his head, strumming the invisible strings to Motorhead’s frantic metal anthem “Ace of Spades.” Then he dropped to his knees — and this became a bust-out performance.

He’s the last one onstage at the Kansas City regional air guitar finals June 9 at the Record Bar. He’s tonight’s favorite, although he faces stiff competition from Hammerin’ Cock And Thunderin’ Ballz, Longbottom Leaf, Banana Man, Dirk Tickler and Satanica.

And he’s already banged up. He bruised his foot practicing and could barely walk last night, but now adrenaline, tape and a few beers have numbed the pain. He keeps playing despite the rip in his pants. His head bangs, whipping sweat from his floppy dark hair. His fingers slide up and down the neck of his air guitar. He windmills and hammers on the imaginary chords. His fist pumps.

He spots a beer cup sitting on the edge of the stage and punts it into the crowd, then executes a flying elbow drop to end his set.

The crowd erupts. Longbottom Leaf jumps onstage and bows to him. Another fan dives onstage just to touch his red Chuck Taylors.

A goofy smile crosses Mean Melin’s face.

Air Guitar World Champion Hot Lixx Hulahan — the host of tonight’s battle — gazes down at Melin’s crotch.

“A testimony to his rock,” Hulahan says, getting an eyeful of Melin’s manhood. “Is that a fucking moose knuckle?”

This is exactly why Hulahan and air-guitar hall-of-famer Björn Türoque hopped on a bus for a 25-city tour of air-guitar competitions. They’ve been looking for new talent just like Mean Melin.

Now it’s time for the judging.

“I was going to give you less than what I was going to give you, but then you kicked that fucking cup,” says judge Charlie Burt, who DJs around town.

“Yeah, he did!” a woman screams.

Burt raises a satanic score of 666.

“I think it was the behind-the-head that convinced me,” says judge Lacey Storer, a former reporter for the St. Joseph News. “You are ready to play with the big boys.” She raises a perfect 6.0.

“Goddamn right!” a woman yells.

Impressing the last judge, Türoque, isn’t going to be easy. Türoque knows air and he knows “Ace of Spades.” That much is clear from the opening moments of the 2006 documentary Air Guitar Nation, which shows the genesis of competitive air guitar in the United States and follows Türoque’s heated rivalry with C-Diddy to become the first American to compete in the World Championships.

“I don’t know, dude,” Türoque says. “You guys thought that was all right?”

“Fuck, yes!” someone yells.

Türoque raises a 6.0.

“Mean Melin. Mean Melin. Mean Melin,” the crowd chants.

They’re cheering for a guy who just pretended to play guitar — and rocked their fucking faces off.

Mean Melin throws up the devil horns. He’s going to the U.S. Air Guitar Championships in Washington, D.C., on August 7. Read more>>

Tags: 2009, air, championships, funny, guitar, kansas city, mean melin, photo, regional, rock, stills, video