We want your MTV

We take a moment now from our regularly scheduled journalism to ask you this: Do you know how to rock?

More specifically, do you play guitar? Do you think you’re pretty good? Do you think you could hold your own with the likes of Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Bonnie Raitt, Jack White or the late Jimi Hendrix?

OK, that’s not likely.

But if you do play, or just think you can, we want you to play along with us and try and get your 15 minutes of fame — in a minute or less.

We want you to shoot a video of yourself (or, you know, have a friend — or your mom! — shoot it) playing your best guitar riff, upload it to YouTube, then send us the link.

We’ll post them online at registerguard.com, and a panel of judges, consisting of local guitar experts and Register-Guard employees, will watch them all and score them on originality, technical ability and general quality.

No, sorry Eddie Money fans, you won’t win two tickets to paradise. But someone will win not only a $50 gift certificate from the Lesson Factory in Eugene, but also two tickets to the summer concert of their choice at the Cuthbert Amphitheater.

In fact, there could be two winners, because visitors to the newspaper’s website also will get to vote and select a “people’s choice” winner.

And yes, anyone can enter. Even those who have made a living, or tried, by shredding their ax or by slapping their bass.

So get on it.

Channel your inner Stevie Ray Vaughan, do your best impression of Joan Jett. But remember: We’re looking for originality, too, so don’t just copy what the all-time greats have done.

Grab your Stratocaster or your Les Paul or whatever you play and cut us a riff we won’t soon forget.