I caught a documentary on VH1 about metal. It was done pretty well and it filled in some gaps I had about the development of it. I'm not a metal fn really, but I'm curious about all types of music, where they come from, their influences, etc. Anyway, they were talking about metal's resurgence in Britan in the early 80's and they interviewed some people at a local club that played metal.

Keep in mind that there was no band there, just a DJ, and he played metal exclusively. And of course it was all guys.... Then they showed what some of the guys were doing to kick up the metal experience (without a band) up a notch. They started bringing in cardboard guitars to add to the air guitar experience. Seeing these guys rocking out on cardboard guitars in a club filled with other guys is just... sad. You can see what I'm talking about in this video at around the 2:56 mark and at the end. The rest of it is amazing as well...



This reminds me a bit of the current craze with "guitar hero" and "rockband" games. Guys spent a lot of time perfecting their air guitar performance on the cardboard guitars and God only knows how much time is spent on those games. Why not pick up an actual guitar? The guy in the video admits that it would take him 5 years or so to become competent. Yeah, that's some time, but then you could actually play music instead of waiting for someone to make it for you. The thing that seems to escape most people's notice is that even if you never get all that good at it, your appreciation of music will increase incredibly. Learning an instrument really is the best way to learn about music in general.

So put down the cardboard boys! Chicks dig actual guitarists, not fake ones...