Karaoke Forums

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It was a night I was on call and had to go fix a jukebox or pool table or something.. There was a chap there setting up speakers and stuff.. He had great big laser discs so I asked what is that?  Karaoke he said.  Kara who? Wait a minute I'll have it seup and give you a demo. So he started playing music with the words on the screen!!! U got ur cheatin heart I asked..He started it handed me a mic and started it I sang it and he said u been joshing me you have done karaoke before... Nope but I have sang all my life... I said I'm actually Hank Snow!!! He laughed but needless to say I had a new hobby... I was on the wagon at the time and karaoke kept me sober for 5 or 6 years... At one time we were singing seven nights a week...I have formed bonds with people in pool and dart leagues but nothing like the bonds and friendships with people I have karaoked with for years.....

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For me it has been bittersweet.A good friend mariano cuevas pasted away last july,we called him yano
I was always extremly frighten to sing in front of people by myself except for him. I would sing so loud and never was  worried what he thought. Well  when he pasted we went to his favorite bar to have a drink and I could hear him say you gotta sing for me. I took a shot of kesslers oops I know I spelled this wrong  and said what the  heck  :yes:  and put in edge of seventeen,I was so scared that I had the kj to sing with me the music started and off I went hello, goodbye stagefright the kj robin looks at me like i was insane for asking her to get up there. when i got done it was a release and that has been my signature since,(i sing every kind of music though).

I thought I won't see these people again so I didn't really realize that it was a begining of some super friendships fast forward to feb my good friend nancy who was there the first night keep bringing me to sing,she had cancer and knew she was going to not be here for me  so she brought me to what is now my family.
when she pasted I didn't want to sing anymore but my friends that she brought me to were not going to let that happen
they have now been the best thing in my life this year .so in short
I am ther every wednsday thursday too  if money permits and thats how i got started  :)

I met a girl that was really into karaoke and had been for years.  She drug me to many a karaoke bar.  Then one night, when it was really dead in the bar, I worked up the nerve to get up there myself.  There was no going back after that.

my brother dragged me kickin' and screamin'... I was in a terrible funk, falling deeper and deeper into depression. My mother didn't want me living by myself with no friends and at that area of the town, nobody around me at all. So he kept insisting, saying karaoke bars were THE place to meet women! !

Kinda backfired on him. I found a group of folks I enjoyed immediately, and within a few months, I SO owned that place! ! It really WAS like Cheers... you walk in, everyone knows your name and waved hi... the KJ there got a big kick out of how my personality changed from the meek mouse I was to the lion that roared. STILL couldn't sing, mind you, but it became a place of terrific comfort.

I hadn't realized how depressed I was until I looked back on my life in that six months, and realized how far out of the hole I'd crawled out of.

I ended up working for the bar... buying my own karaoke cds bit by bit, and eventually, forging a partnership with a man named Dave Albertson of CDEntertainment. I learned a lot from him, and eventually moved onto my own... only to forge a better (ahem) union with Tig...

Tig is the best thing to ever happen to me. As far as karaoke, he was a wealth of information and it was great to run into someone that shared my own beliefs, and had a voice for those of mine that I thought about but hadn't put them to words yet! he is also a terrific friend, who won't let me get away with anything... keeps me honest to myself and grounded. He's also got a heart of gold, and was really there for me when I broke up with my fiance, or woke up to her line of bulls**t! Tig and his wife were solid rocks against my crrashing waves!

hey .. leave our "union" outta this... kids might be reading....

c'mere big boyyyyyy

you've seen the pics???

Well, I just started karaoke-ing (is that a word?) this year.  

I've done lots of choral singing (although I'm more experienced as a pianist than as a singer), and I had taken voice lessons about 10 years ago, and had done a little bit of singing in public--I should have started karaoke-ing back then!  I would have gotten a LOT more practice that way!  I don't know why I didn't do it then!  At that time I sang in a few talent shows, and at a nursing home (I mostly played the piano there, but if I had a vocal number or two ready to go, I'd do that, too), and at church.  The problem was that at the church I was going to then, even though there were lots of people who could sing, it seemed like there were 4 people who did 90% of the solos--including the music director's daughter.  Don't get me wrong, these 4 people had good voices, but it seemed like you had to either be related to the music director or in really tight with him in order to get a lot of singing experience there.  

Then I had a kid.  And I did LOTS of singing to him.  Those were some of my favorite "performances" that I ever did--just me singing Jonathan to sleep with hymns, little kids' songs, and little songs that I made up (sometimes I would just hum and make up a melody as I went along).  And at Christmas time, he got to hear every Christmas song I knew (I even went online and looked up the words to some of the Christmas songs we sang in grade school).  All of this rubbed off on him, as he loves to sing too and has a nice little voice (although he's more into drawing than singing right now--he does that well, too).  

Anyway, this year I went to the Alan Parsons Fan Fest in Bonnots Mill, MO (just a couple of hours from where I live).  Some of the people there have a band called Projectronics--they do their own set, and then they let people come up & do songs with them.  Well, I sang "Psychobabble", and I had a blast!!!!  I really got into it--I did it kinda sexy and did a lot of dancing.  People really loved it.  Anyway, that was the first time I'd sung in public in maybe 2 years, so I was a little nervous at first, but very excited at the same time.  (BTW, if this song is available on any karaoke discs, I'd LOVE to find it--even though it probably wouldn't be as much fun as singing with live accompaniment.)  

After that, I thought, "I want to do MORE singing!  More!  More!"  So I started seeking out karaoke places, and whenever my kid is with his daddy or grandma, and if I'm not too tired, I go to karaoke places and sing.

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I love being a mom!

Laura, I'm a huge Alan Parson's Project fan myself... saw them up here in Portland about 7-8 years ago when they toured initially off their "On Air" cd...

was absolutely fantastic. My brother wanted to go, and he was surprised (not being a big fan) at all the songs they sang the he didn't KNOW that they sang!

I'd KILL to sing Psychobabble!!! Good for you!

You should probably try to organize a huge letter or email campaign to Sound Choice's BBoard... they won't make much of A.P. due to what they believe is a lack of interest... only going by Billboard chart ratings on the songs!

If you go over there, tell B.C. (board and company administrator) I said Howdy!

I've been karaoking for about 18 months now I guess, the usual had a go whilst not entirely sober and got hooked scenario.  Cats in the Cradle, by Harry Chapin was the first one I did (dunno why! I think I thought it would be an easy song).  These days I'm happy to sing early on when I've not had a drink yet.

Eeeeee!  Go to roadkill.com IMMEDIATELY!  That's where you'll find the AP mailing list!  I'm gonna go see the Alan Parsons Live Project on Feb. 2 in St. Charles, MO!!!!  Thanks for the info--Sound Choice seems to have a wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide variety of songs!

(edited to say:  I got the date wrong, it's Feb. 2 not Feb. 4--I fixed it in this message)

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I love being a mom!

Don't kill me, 'cause I'm planning to sing it next year also (they do this Fan Fest every year)!  I'm also planning to do "Dr. Tarr & Professor Fether", but that's with bouncy-ball karaoke on the screen, not with the live band.  Darn.  But it sounded like it would be fun to do.  (You see, some of the songs are "band-assisted karaoke", and some are "bouncy-ball karaoke".)  The only problem is that the mp3 we have to use for the bouncy-ball karaoke on this song is reallyreallyreallysupersuperfast--about 10 times faster than it's "supposed" to go!  

I keep finding other songs on the list of songs for Fan Fest that I might want to do (they put the list out a year in advance, so it's subject to change), so maybe I'll let someone else do "Psychobabble" next year--MAYBE--if they're real nice to me...

...Nah.  I think they're gonna have to _fight_ me for it.  

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I love being a mom!

Cool! More great stories. Ya know, I don't feel so alone now on my journey. The feeling I have is that this karaoke thing is tremendously huge with alot of people, and it can be beneficial to creating or restoring a person's sense of self-worth and emotional well-being....or it could totally destroy it!!
But isn't that a chance we all take? Isn't life all about taking risks and reaping the rewards or just figuring out what you are personally capable or incapable of?
I am very pleased to be a part of this crowd of interesting, honest, and incredibly diverse, multi-talented people.
Now if I could only convince my wife that this is a good thing...my expanding my horizons, it would be an even more pleasurable experience, but due to the fact that I do this stuff away from home and it doesn't include her, she can't keep an eye on me.
Which is perfectly understandable except for the fact that women don't hit on me, and I don't go out of my way to hit on women. Sure, i'll joke around with someone innocently or somewhat flirtingly if a female happens to talk to me, but nothing ever happens, especially after I mention that I have a daughter their age, then it's like......eeewwww, get away from me!!

So yes, karaoke can be a useful tool if you're a player, but I'm just a tease I guess?

Sooooo many broken hearts.................yeah WHATEVER!!
Y'all know I'm just joking.........right?

Thanks for sharing your stories friends, now I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

I've got a lot more flirty since getting into karaoke, I can't sing "When you say nothing at all" without singing it to someone.  All a lot of fooling around but good fun.  And of course, the girls are more likely to notice the guy who gets up and sings a nice song than the guy who sits in the corner sipping his drink.

I was first introduced after my divorce from a marriage of 20 years.. I was bored..and someone thought that anyone that was from Tennessee could sing a country song ha!ha! So, once they found out I was from Tennessee they said come on girl we know you can carry a tune with that Twang of yours..so out came a Patsy Cline song...and the rest is history. It has become a passion of mine..and my main stress reliever after a long day at work. Nothing better than getting lost in a song.