On Karaoke

I guess I’m a karaoke nerd. I’ve done musical theatre and have sung(?) on stage, before an audience, and accompanied by an orchestra…of sorts — in community theatre, you take what you can get.

When I was in college, my best friend, Lu, played me a tape that had been made of him singing Born To Be Wild at some bar in town on “Karaoke Night.” He sounded…okay. But I admired him for his testicular fortitude in getting up there before a crowd of strangers — likely drunk, most of them — and belting a tune. I remember thinking that I did not have the balls for that.

For sixteen years I had no closer brush with karaoke than seeing online videos from Japan of young people — women mostly — standing in front of a screen and mumbling the words to some familiar song or another, and of Producer retelling the tale of how one night on the road he wound up at dinner with the owner of our company and how they were surprised when a woman took the stage and let them all know that it was karaoke night. After several drinks on the boss, he convinced Producer — who sings ALL the time around the office, to just about everyone’s maddening last nerve — that it was a good idea that he give it a whirl. He wound up singing several duets with the karaoke hostess who thought he was the bees knees.

Then, in April of 2007, I was sent to Raleigh, North Carolina, for one night. I had befriended Claire through her blog and via e-mail, and I contacted her to let her know I would be in town. She invited me out to hang with her friends at their favorite bar, where it was karaoke night. I wasn’t crazy about the karaoke thing, but I really did want to meet Claire. So I figured I would go and have a beer and a couple of laughs and be done with it.

While I sat there watching person after person take the stage — some pretty good, some pretty awful — I felt within me a tug at my gut. No, I wasn’t becoming ill… it was the nagging thought, “I can DO this.” Mind you, it wasn’t the thought “I want to do this,” but from the moment Claire asked me if I was going to (she already had), I just knew I would.

I wound up as one of the last singers of the night, and I did Surrender by Cheap Trick. I’m pretty sure I sucked, but not as bad as some of the others of the night (I mean, come ON! I HAVE done some musical theatre, fercryinoutloud!)

I sat down, a little embarrassed, but with the sense — nay, the knowledge — that I had accomplished something, that I had confronted a fear and defeated it. I would never have to do it again.

The next time was on a Baltic Sea Cruise we worked for one of our clients about four months later. One bar aboard ship had karaoke two nights a week, and Producer and Editor told me they were going there for a couple of drinks. I had stuff I needed to shoot that evening, so I told them I would meet them there. By the time I got there, karaoke had been going on for about 40 minutes, and very few people were interested in participating. When I sat down with my coworkers, Editor was deep into razzing Producer for his cowardice, as he was stalling to choose a song and give it to the KJ (Karaoke Jockey). I joined in the razzing and, shortly after Editor, who has sung with rock bands in his youth, totally shredded (in a good way) The Beatles’ Twist and Shout, the KJ shut down due to lack of interest. So I neither got to see Producer sing, nor did I feel the pressure to try it again.

About three months after that I was on a convention site in Orlando, Florida, when word went around that some of the stage crew were piling into a van and going out for a steak dinner. And Karaoke. Producer and I were asked if we’d like to come along — he, I’m sure, because they wanted to hear him sing, I because I was standing beside him when they asked.

We went to a Stuart Anderson’s Black Angus restaurant where the steak was decent, the beer cold and the KJ very late. He eventually showed up and got things rolling. I had had a beer with dinner and another while we waited for the KJ to show. The song list was passed around our table, and Producer stalled again — this the guy at our table who had sung professionally as a young man. Most everybody had chosen songs, even a couple guys I would never have suspected would want to do this, and the daggers were getting pointier the longer Producer stalled. I kept razzing him, calling him a chicken-shit, as he’s the one who was always singing. “Now’s your chance,” I said to him. “Now I want to hear you sing, and I’m not going to tell you to shut up.”

Finally he had enough, and he shot me an angry look. “Are you gonna do it?”

I shot him back a look just as mean. “Not until you do, chicken-shit.”

Our friends started getting called — there were really very few people in the place, and fewer participating in karaoke — and once the music started, and I saw my friends and coworkers up there — some pretty good, some pretty awful — and the beer kicked in, I laughed hard, sang along loudly and had an absolutely fantastic time.

And then Producer walked up and turned in his song choice to the KJ.

Oh, shit.

I had spotted in the list the song I thought I wanted to try, so I wrote it down on the little sheet of paper provided for the occasion, and, a man of my word, I turned it in.

A couple more of our coworkers were called up, and our table of six was laughing and shouting along with them. Producer was called and he did some old standard, made famous by Sinatra or someone of that era. And he was pretty good.

Then it was my turn.

The song I had chosen was “December ’63,” by The Four Seasons. If you’re not familiar with the title, it’s the song that begins with “Oh, what a night/Late December back in ’63.” I sang it in its original key (the KJ can adjust the key with the touch of a button or the turn of a knob), which, the guys later told me, they thought was way higher than they ever imagined I could sing. They told me they all looked at each other and thought, “Oh god, this is gonna suck.”

Aside from getting lost in the words on one of the verses, I didn’t suck, and I nailed all the high notes, even the ones that, halfway through the song I realized I had forgotten went so high! The guys were all high-fives and back slaps when I got back to the table, and I felt an exhilaration I had not felt in years! I don’t know if it was singing a popular song, feeling that I had done it well, or the reactions of my coworkers, but it felt really good.

In the ensuing months after that I had discovered that a bowling alley near our office does karaoke night on Fridays and Saturdays, and I tried to get some of the guys interested in hanging out sometime and doing that. The problem is that work lets out around 5:30, and karaoke at the bowling alley doesn’t start until 9:00 or later. So it never happened.

Then back in December, the evening I signed up for a bazillion and a half groups on Meetup.com, I also signed up for the Chicago Karaoke Underground Party meetup. It’s unique in that the hostess holds the party in her home, which is a huge loft apartment from which she also operates her business. It’s a commercial building, so after 5:00 most evenings, she’s the only person in the building, so she can make as much noise as she wants to without bothering anybody. She structures her parties with a limit of 15-20 singers so that no one who wants to sing gets left out, and she makes it a point that her place is not a bar (though there is plenty of booze on hand!); people are here to sing, to be heard and to listen, and have a good time. It is also a very supportive environment; no one who sings ever faces jeers or criticism, no matter how “off” he or she may have been.

I’ve been to two parties there, now (she hold one per month), and both times I have been dealing with a cold — the first time coming down with one, the second time coming off of one — so my voice wasn’t what it could be. In other words, I sucked. But I had a good time.

In the few karaoke events I’ve done, I have noticed that people fall into some interesting categories, and those of a type all seem to be very similar. I’ve named them somewhat arbitrarily:

The Warbler is someone who doesn’t quite exactly have a handle on her voice. He is usually off key — often not even close — and never goes above the volume of a raised voice. She stands stock-still at the microphone and stares intently at the lyrics on the video screen. The Warbler often chooses a song that would be difficult for even a veteran karaoker to do, but he does it because he loves the song, and he wants to be up there singing it.

The Stickler strives to perform the song exactly the way it is performed on the original album or in a particular performance from a live recording. He tries to hold every note, stroke every vocal nuance and pronounce every word just as the original or popular artist did it in the original recording. She usually stares at the screen, but occasionally knows the song well enough to stare over the heads of the audience. I do believe I fall into this category.

The Entertainer is a frustrated performer who had — or maybe still has — dreams of being onstage and was diverted by life happening to him, she took a crack at it at some point in the past and failed, or he just believes he has the charisma to pull it off. She does her own stylized rendition of the song, often vamping and taking other liberties with the lyrics or the melody, playing air guitar or air piano (or horn, or whatever) during instrumental breaks, and can often go off-screen and perform the song confidently from memory, referring to the screen only occasionally to make sure she’s on track.

The Impersonator attempts to embody the performer who made the song famous, with vocalizations and body movement. He is usually totally off-screen, the accuracy of the lyrics secondary to the summoning of the original’s persona to the stage.

The Ringer sings regularly, currently or formerly professionally or in a church choir or community theatre. She is very comfortable up in front of a crowd of people and has a great command of her voice. He often has a certain repertoire of songs that he has practiced often and does very well. The Ringer is often quite entertaining, but makes the rest of us feel very self-conscious at the mic!

The Addict can fit into any of the aforementioned categories and does karaoke as his only form of social entertainment. She seeks out bars and other establishments that feature karaoke, and may frequent two to three or more in a week to satisfy the craving for expression and attention. I fear I may soon fit this category as well….