From the Surfside

Need to get caught up on the Air-Guitar saga?  Start here. Chapter 7: #4 "Time" - Pink Floyd The beginning of Pink Floyd's "Time" could be the most annoying intro to a song of all time for anyone not expecting to hear Pink Floyd's "Time." It's sure to drive any non-Pink Floyd believer further to the edge of utter distaste and even those who are casual fans usually react as any average person would to one alarm clock going off at an unplanned moment, let alone eight or nine at the same time, especially at the high volume level I'm typically listening to "Time" at. Predictable reactions from the unsuspecting listeners are generally along the lines of... "What the fuck?!" "Jesus Christ!" Or "Fuckin' A, that scared the SHIT outta me." It even scares the shit out of our dogs.  All that to say, it's a great fuckin' intro. The beginning of "Time" is dark and ominous. In fact, I'm wi...

Need to get caught up on the Air-Guitar saga?  Start here. Chapter 6: #3  "The End" - The Beatles The Beatles. Only the Beatles could make their end one of the greatest masterpieces of all time. Abbey Road from front to back is incredible. In my opinion, their best work — hands down. This one final jam session to close out their final-recorded album is an emotional moment, to say the least. And at 2 minutes and 21 seconds, it is the shortest song on this list of my all-time favorite songs to air-guitar to. Unlike Peter Jackson's film "Get Back", it is short, concise, to the point, and leaves you wanting more.  While this one has less opportunity musically than many of the others on this list to strut my stuff, it more than makes up for it in heavily weighted emotion.  Like many of the songs you're reading about in these chapters, getting to the main event, aka, the guitar solo, is half the fun. And let's be honest. Not ever have I pulled out Abbey Road ...

Need to get caught up on the Air-Guitar saga?  Start here. Chapter 5 - #2 "Iron Man" - Black Sabbath If you've been following "My Life As an Air-Guitarist" since the beginning, I'd like to bring your attention back to the photo of me in the kitchen, circa 1976. While the average pre-schooler would have been more likely dancing happily to "Free to Be You and Me"  around that time, there is a 99.9% chance I was air-guitaring to Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" in that picture.  A prime example of the influence my older siblings' musical taste had on my early days, in this case, my brother Doug, who did us all an incredible favor by introducing our family to Black Sabbath's 1971 album, Paranoid. In fact, I was so fascinated by this album at that young age that I apparently brought the record into my pre-school at the Dover Church as my show-and-tell item one day. That's a story for another time, but the point is, I was so mesmerize...

Need to get caught up on the Air-Guitar saga? Catch up here.  #1"Sympathy For the Devil" - The Rolling Stones In the early years —between the ages of 5 and about 14— most of my air-guitaring revolved around rhythm guitar, strumming hard chords, and the occasional leg kick. 70s rock reigned in our house, so power chords from bands like Boston and Aerosmith were a heavy influence on not only my musical taste but also on my visual interpretations of songs like "More Than a Feeling" and "Back in the Saddle".  But "Sympathy for the Devil" was a real turning point in my playing and one of the first songs where I decided to start taking air-guitaring seriously. Much of my current technique was derived from this one guitar solo which I mastered by watching James Hubble do his best Keith Richards impersonations when I was in Jr. High. James was in high school and a friend of my older sister, Molly. He was an avid Stones fan, a Keith Richards fanatic, and ...

Chapter Three: Getting To the Point Need to catch up? Find the preceding chapters here. Now, if you know me, you probably know talking myself up isn't something I'm too comfortable doing. In fact, my wife says I'm horrible in job interviews because I don't know how to sell myself. But despite that, I feel confident saying I would consider myself to be an above-average air-guitarist. I mean, I've been practicing since the 70s, so I should be. But, to my point, one afternoon about 8 to 10 years ago, as I was shredding my imaginary axe in our living room, my two sons watched in amazement and wonder as I effortlessly nailed note after note (the beauty of young children is that, not only will they refrain from poking fun at you for air-guitaring, they actually think it's cool and are one of the best audiences to practice in front of and boost your confidence).  During a break in the music, one of my boys mustered the courage to ask, "Dad, if you had an actual gu...

Chapter Two: Finding Your Prop Need to catch up? Find the preceding chapters here. Now, a tennis racquet can be hard to come by for an aspiring air-guitarist unless there's a tennis player in the house. And anyone serious about tennis is likely unwilling to let their Prince racquet double as a Les Paul. Fortunately, that was not the case for me in our house back in '76. We just happened to have tennis racquets with no serious player in the family. The 70s were weird like that. If you don't have a racquet around the house or your Johnny McEnroe brother is too stiff to let you borrow his, there's a multitude of other common items found around the home you can use to practice your chops, including: Broom -  I know I shared my feelings previously, but I'll give the broom an official endorsement here. The broom is a common go-to. Most homes have one, and besides the lack of support on the bristle end and the excess handle, it's a good entry-level piece. Plus, if some...

Chapter One: Tuning Up Like father, like son. The photo on the left is me circa 1976; on the right, Rowan circa 2008. We're just about the same age in these photos. I love the way he's hamming it up for the camera. A real performer. Although I must say, when it comes to bringing a physical prop into an air-guitar routine, my preference is definitely toward the tennis racquet. I like the way the head of the racquet naturally replicates the body of a guitar. Its nylon strings lend to a more authentic feel of actual guitar strings, allowing for a little more pick action on those intricate solos when I'm really trying to sell it. The handle is just long enough that going from a high to low note looks natural without the excess length of a broom handle, which poses the risk of knocking something over if I throw in a 360 spin —a definite possibility depending on the musical selection. I also find the soft bristles of the broom don't provide enough support against the hip. The...