Air on the G String

It goes something like this...

It was for a high school talent show  in the early 80's that a few friends and I suited up and performed the Ozzy song "Crazy Train" on the school stage before the whole staff and student population. Except we left our instruments at home. And we still pulled it off.

You might be scratching your head over that fact, but the explanation is that we were doing our rendition of that popular (at the time) Ozzy tune as an air band - a group of air musicians playing air instruments, all of this nonsense derived first from the originally dubbed air guitar. We mimed singing and playing to the recorded song that boomed from the PA system. 

I first learned of air guitar on Toronto's City-TV show The New Music back in the early 80's, where they showed clips of UK and European metalheads at concerts doing some serious headbanging and "playing" what would eventually be universally known as air guitar. This TV music news magazine was always right on top of the latest thing in music, whether it was an interview with Weird Al Yankovic or some footage from the latest Rush concert in Toronto. The show was excellent, with great hosts asking seriously good questions of their guests. 

It was host J.D. Roberts (now a Fox News Channel journalist) who brought us up to speed on the phenomenon which was newly dubbed "air guitar". We got a visual taste of it via concert footage from shows by bands from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, I believe. I do know this stuff seemed to have been brought to a new level of popularity in the vicinity of Europe and definitely within the metal music genre. Long-haired, leather-jacketed metal fans displayed their impressive chops on imaginary guitars, Some of them even built their own fake guitars out of cardboard or a wooden plank.... with no actual strings or operable knobs... just a prop for them to play with... claiming this, too, was an air guitar. Whatever. 

A tiny bit of research uncovered the fact that the first recorded demonstration of anything resembling air guitar took place in 1951 when one Bill Reed, of The Diamonds, sang while strumming an imaginary guitar on TV. Joe Cocker at 1969's Woodstock made more of an impression with his antics, earning him the title of Father of Air Guitar. And ever since the early 80's, there have been air guitar competitions the world over. Weird, huh?

But back to my little story: we four dopey high school kids took our air band project very seriously. We spent evenings learning the words to the song... first deciphering them, of course, since there was no lyric sheet in the album and no internet lyrics websites way back then. We practised together and independently on our respective air instruments. That was always a blast since it usually involved some drinking and always ended with some shenanigans which no grown-up would approve of. You know.

Our air drummer did a magnificent job since he really could play drums. The rest of us had at least a bit of experience on actual guitar, so bringing our real instrument skills to this new form was a snap. It looked pretty convincing, or so we thought at the time. 

I brought the showmanship influences of Eddie Van Halen and The Who's Pete Townshend, among others, to my own performance. After all, theatrics count for a lot in this air guitar business.

Our little combo also took pains to develop some outlandish stage costumes. Now we didn't want to look like fools without hiding our identities, so we all wore get-ups that covered our faces. I wore an old army gas mask with the hose dangling loosely before me. I can't remember what the other guys wore, but there may have been ski masks and Halloween masks in the mix. And I seem to recall one of our air guitarists wearing shorts and a bath robe onstage. Some of us wore scarves and ball caps, too, I think. Yes, we were a motley bunch. 

When showtime came - partway through the school's Winter Carnival events, we were a bit nervous but reminded ourselves that nobody would recognize us. Boy, were we wrong. Everyone teased us for days after our silly display. Our feelings were hurt, since we poured our souls into that song, emoting like we were the next KISS.... or Ozzy. Anyway, it was all good fun at the time, and I suppose we can pretend we became a part of air guitar history on that fateful afternoon.