Karaoke Forums

I’m hired as a solo singer and while singing I use Cds. I’m surprised at the number of individuals that will come up and actually demand that I let them sing.  Most will ask politely and then I’ll just explain that I’m sorry but I do not do karaoke and then they are alright with it, but there are quite a few that will really get nasty.  One guy said that I was just being a jerk and that he sang better than me anyway.  I told him he probably does but the difference between us is that I get paid to sing.   One lady wanted to sing and when I wouldn’t let her she went to the owner.  She came back and informed me that the owner said she could sing.  I told her that if the owner said she could sing then I guess she could sing.  She held out a CD and I asked, “what’s that for?” She said that it was the song she wanted to sing.  I told her that if the owner said she can sing that I have no problem with her singing, but that the owner does not own my equipment and that no one uses my equipment without my permission.  My question is are any of you guilty of this or do you know of other that have acted like this

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Singing just for you

Absolutely not.

That's just not right.

Wow! I've never heard of such a thing. What gives these people the impression
they can do that? Are you using CDGs where they can see the graphics?

I feel bad for you. I don't even know how I would handle that.

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[shadow=pink][glow=deepskyblue]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[updown]~*~ MONKEY BUSINESS KARAOKE~*~ [/shadow][/updown][/glow]

Man... never. I can't imagine walking up to a performer and demanding I get to sing! I don't get why anyone would think that's even remotely okay. You should just tell them to go look for a karaoke bar hehe

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Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure. (I can't hear you. I have a banana in my ear.)

I know a few  LMAO

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[shadow=pink][glow=deepskyblue]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[updown]~*~ MONKEY BUSINESS KARAOKE~*~ [/shadow][/updown][/glow]

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Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure. (I can't hear you. I have a banana in my ear.)

Why do they think it is an open stage or karaoke at their demand?

Looks like another job for the MANINBLACK....
Just send them over to the complaint dept. I'll be more than glad to listen to them.

One time I had this dude lay the line on me, 'Oh come on man, help a brother out', I politely went and held the door open for him as he exited.

James
Maninblack

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I serve no man and am loyal to only one God.

Being critical of a person's success in any respect speaks volumes about the lack of your own.

Love as though you've never been hurt, Dance as though no one's watching, Sing as though God Himself were listening.

I went to a Rascal Flatts concert not too long ago and told the lead singer that the venue owner told me i could do a set with the band.  after i got out of the hospital, the roadies that beat me up sent me a nice get well card............

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All work and no play make Homer something something

Unfortunately, what E.J. is describing is not all that unusual.  We get that kind of thing a lot.  My partner and I rehearse for about 2 hours each week.  In between we both rehearse individually.  When learn a new song we don't use sheet music so we have to figure out how to play it before we even start figuring out the vocals.  It's not unusual for us to work on a particular song for 3 or 4 weeks before we're ready to do it in front of an audience.  We take a lot of pride in what we do.  We don't think that the people who hire us to play are hiring us to rehearse on their dime.

I used to patiently explain all of this to the people who ask to sing.  I would make the point that while they might be great singers, we had not had a chance to rehearse with them and that we were there in a professional capacity.  I finally stopped doing that when I discovered that it had no effect.  Now I politely say, "I'm sorry but we don't do that."  I still get the withering glare and the pleading but it doesn't take as long.

I recently had a particularly bad experience with this.  My partner had been ill and was in no shape to play so the lead guitar player from our former band was filling in for him.  It's probably worth mentioning here that to get him ready we rehearsed for four hours 3 times a week over a four weak period.  So he put in a lot of work in his preparation.

We got to a gig one night, a brand new venue for us.  Things were going well for our first set.  There were some older people there who were really enjoying what we were doing but the bulk of the audience were below 30.  Even so they seemed to be enjoying it.  I saw a lot of them singing along and some people were dancing.  Non one was leaving and the place was beginning to fill up.

We were coming to the end of our first set when our manager came up to tell me that she had met the owner and that he had told her we needed to be doing material that was a lot newer.  I thought this was odd because before we were hired we gave them our CD which contains a very good cross section of what we do.  No one could possibly have mistaken us for a cover band doing contemporary music.

About that time someone else came up and told me that it was his friend's birthday.  So we did our usual happy birthday routine and took our scheduled break.

We were sitting at the bar and a young man came up and asked if we ever let anybody sit in with us.  I said no.  He then assured me that he had been playing guitar for 12 years and was "pretty good".  I responded that I was certain that he was good but because we had never met before and we had not heard him we weren't going to honor his request.  

Then he told us that he didn't really want to sit in with us.  What he wanted to do was play a song during our break.  He said that he and a friend had an original song that they knew the crowd would really like and that we wouldn't be sorry.

At that point, my temporary partner suggested that I let them do it.  I would have held my ground if he hadn't suggested that in front of the young man.  I found myself in a very uncomfortable position so I said okay.  I asked the guy who would be up on the stage.  He assured me it would be just him and his friend; no one else.

So they take the stage.  They hadn't been up there for 10 second when the friend announces that they are going to invite someone else up to sing with them.  I pointed out to the guy we had been talking to that he had specified two people (there were only 2 mics anyway) and that if they could either do what they had asked to do or get off the stage.  So they told the third guy he couldn't come up.

The song was awful.  The guy may have been playing for 12 years but he obviously had reached the peak of his ability around 11 1/2 years ago.  The other guy couldn't not sing and the song conisted mostly of about 10 obscene words sung over and over.  I was so stunned by this that I couldn't react.  I should have shut down the sound system but I didn't think of it.

They finished their song to cheeering and applause from a small group of their friends who had gathered in front of the stage.

About 5 minutes later the "owner" asked our manager to step into his office for a conference.  She left with him and two of the bartenders.  It turned out that the "owner" was actually a manager.  He was angry that we hadn't started playing newer material even though the only song we had played since his request was Happy Birthday.  He demanded to see our set list and after having looked at it he announced that we weren't right for this place and he demanded that we pack up and leave immediately.

I hadn't see this going on but as our mangager pointed out to me who this guy was I realized he was the third guy who wasn't allowed up on stage.  

I've never had this happen before and it was really extreme.  I hope it never happens again.  I have been with other bands that did allow someone to come up and sing or play with them.  Not once has it turned out well.

At one of our venues, one of the regulars usually comes up and does a song with us. But it's only because we've known him for several years, we know that he sings well and we always to the same song because it's the only one we've ever done with him.

Sometimes I'll go to see a band and they will invite me up to play.  I've been playing with bands around this area for a long time.  I know a lot of people and that's why they invite me up.  They know what I can do.  But I would never go up to a band and ask if I could play with them—whether I knew them or not.  I think that's very rude.

But I imagine that in the next few weeks it will happen again at least once or twice.

Larry

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"Life is too short for diet soda and lite beer"

I would have asked the bar owner if he could sing and play, because we aren't.  :wave:

If someone said "The owner said I could sit in".  I'd tell them "that's quite generous of him, then I guess he won't mind if you use *HIS* equipment. Get that from him too."

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Actually we get this a lot as well. Because we use backing tracks on a laptop I used to go thru the hassle of typing out the lyrics and printing them to a song book. Once I realised I could play cdg on the lappy I kinda got lazy.
Because we are mainly booked for private functions, I feel obliged to let folk up to sing if they ask. I dont like it but if they are at a private gig and are guests of the person paying me what else can I do?
The ones that really get me are the ones that just barge up without asking and grab a mic or push in beside me or my partner.
Generally they rate themselves to the point of wanting to overpower the backing music. So I just lower their volume and back off mic till they finish.
I am not a kj, I have been but its not for me. I dont deal well with drunks, same thing applies to the guest at a private function who's imbibement has given them dutch courage enough to want to demand to spit and yell into my equipment.
And if you ever want to see a red headed hissy fit in full swing try touching my rig when I go outside for a break. This happened recently and the guy and his group of friends physically and verbally got a message they wont forget in a hurry.

Now THAT I would have loved to see! (love the avatar by the way )

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Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure. (I can't hear you. I have a banana in my ear.)

I'd love to do this.  I have had fantasies about doing this.  Fortunately, I wake up before I destroy my career.

Here's the reality.  In our locale there are fewer venues for live music every year.  A certain number of the venues are never going to hire us because they are going for the younger crowd who only want rap and hip hop.  Consequently the potential number of venues available to us is limited.  

Our duo is popular at the places we play.  But, except in insolated situations, we are in no position to dictate to the owners what we will and won't do.  

About a year ago an owner did force me to let one of his friends get up and sing with us.  This owner is a great guy, and reasonable, when he's sober.  But when he's had a few he's a loose cannon and when he gets something into his head he won't let it go.  We realized that having this guy sing with us wasn't a good idea.  And so did the guy.  We do rock & roll, he does country.  He is also a friend, his band plays the same venue and neither of us wanted to p*ss off the owner.  So he got up and sang and it was disastrous.  But both of us are still playing that bar so in the end it didn't cost either of us.  We may have lost the battle but we won the war.

If we were big stars and people were beating down our door to get us to play at their clubs, it would be a different story.  But that's not the case, so we have to deal with the situation in the best way we can.  

Larry

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"Life is too short for diet soda and lite beer"

Sounds like a good reason for them to not change a thing. Soon your club will be the only one offering live entertainers that know what they're doing.

Heheheheh.  We thought about trying rap and hip hop.  Other than the fact that neither of us knows the first thing about either style we kind of thought we'd look pretty ridiculous on-stage trying to do that stuff.  We have our pride you know.  Not much else, but we do have our pride.

And according to the old saying, "pride goeth before a fall".  We've only go about a month to go before fall arrives so it seems pride might be out the window sooner than we expected.  

So with our pride no longer intact, let's go for it.  Wanna get jiggy with it anybody?  (see what I mean?).

Larry

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"Life is too short for diet soda and lite beer"