Karaoke Forums

As anyone who has ever hosted a 'raoke show knows there are many ways singers get under the skin of the KJ. With that in mind, what is your biggest pet peeve?
(BTW, drunks do not count - without them most shows would not exist!)

My top 3:
1. 'raoke whores who have their friends put in a song so they can bump into the rotation by "helping" their pals sing the song.
2. People who walk up to the booth and request a song. When you ask for the slip, they say "It's in the book!". When you inform them they need to fill out a slip they walk away indignant.
3. Singers who give you static for allowing someone to sing a song that they consider "my song".
(Honorable mention goes to the people who try to use different names to bump into the rotation.)

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Karaoke should be a selfish pleasure.
Check out my Facebook page "Griff's Karaoke Adventures" to see how many tunes I can do without repeating!

Probably biggest peeve are those that give lame excuses as to why they should be up next. Most memorable for me was a gal that said her daughter was just admitted to the hospital with breathing problems and needed to go next so she could leave - she was in rotation about 15 minutes out. I just gave her her slip back & said - go be with your daughter and pulled her out of rotation. She never left the club after that - but I didn't allow her to sing again either even though she tried putting another song up later!!

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Thumping on my microphones drives me through the roof.

1) The Diva who's actually a good singer, but can't get over herself. The one in my bar is always saying "you need to get me up next, everyone in the bar said they want to hear me sing." Right.

2) Singers who make themselves sound worse than they already are by employing the ubiqitous "American Idol" mic technique, pulling the mic away from their mouth randomly for no apparent reason, not understanding that the singers who actually need to do this have voices about 20X more powerful than their own.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

All the above.

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My first choice IS Sound Choice.

People who put up long (> 5 minute) songs every time, stealing time from the rotation. They are never good singers, either.

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[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Griffon, I totally agree with you on that one. Song slips are mandatory at my shows for a couple of reason:

1) Makes you look through a book (unless you know I have the song) and maybe you'll find something new you haven't sung before.
2) Disrupts the singer much less with less chatter between host and song requester.
3) Allows host the option of processing the song request at his pace (it gets very busy and sometimes you don't have time to take a verbal request).
4) If you put in the wrong song you have proof (the song slip) that is what the singer asked for.

I have removed all songs over 5 minutes long and moved them to a file called TOO LONG. I can still access them but they are not in my books. And yes, frequently they are not good or entertaining singers.

The guy who thinks "karaoke" means "open mic night" and wants you to play a cheesy rhythm track off his phone so he can sing some crappy song he wrote.

The kid who thinks he is a rapper and "freestyles" some inane BS over a normal song, ignoring all the actual lyrics.

I've been getting a lot of that lately... and have had to explain to at least three or four people that (a) they do not "own" the song; and (b) it's first-come, first-served. If you want to sing that particular song, get here early.

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Earl
(BS, PHD & Certified CurmuDJeon)

[font=Times New Roman]"Growing Old may be mandatory... but growing UP is still optional."[/font]

People who cup the mic with both hands, and thus sound muffled and distorted when they sing.

Another one is the guy that sees you setting up karaoke and immediately puts 20 songs in the jukebox, then wants his money back when only 8-10 of those songs get played. We even have a sign above the jukebox that states the jukebox is off at 9:00 every Wednesday and Saturday, yet this scenerio happens before at least 1/2 of my shows.

I even had one guy the other day that asked me if he could play one more song on the jukebox right before I was about start. I said, sure, why not, one song. He then played a 22 minute live version of "Crazy Game of Poker" by O.A.R. Very cute. I cut it off after about 8, but he at least had a sense of humor about it.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

Not being ready to sing when called. I announce the next 2 singers after every singer, I have a scroller set for the next 4 singers, and Karma's splash screen lists the next 4 singers and their songs. And when called they act as though they didn't have a clue.

and it's always the same singers that do it (the regulars). I also have the scrolling names at the bottom of the list, and they always go outside to catch their breathe (smoke a cancer stick) before they are up. when I call their name and they don't come up I give one chance, the next singer is bump up in front of them, then the second time I call and they are not there I dump their name to bottom of the rotation.

they get pissy, but they just keep doing it. over and over and over and over and over....

and this is the group where one of them just went to cbs's taping of "the test". new talk show in September 2013 that does dna paternity testing. anyways not the father and felt sorry for the chick and baby and brought them home with him. dumbass!!!!!!!

it gonna air sept. 14 if ya wanna see the quality of inbreed people I have at my show.

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It's all good!

I make the bar deal with the Jukebox, shutting it off, etc. If someone complains to me, I point to the bar and say "talk to them, they did it".

When I am setting up, I am usually early. Once done, I usually will have about 30 minutes spare time before start time of the show. At that point, I usually put a piece of Duct Tape over the money slot of the Juke Box (or whatever machine it is they are using to play music), and attach a note that no more selections are allowed because Karaoke will be staring at X:XX PM (insert time here)). I've never had a problem or occurrence with that being done.

my day job, I work for the company that actually owns the jukebox.....

as I walk in the bar I have to pass it and just hit the power button and turn it off, if it's playing music then when the lights go off for karaoke so does the juke box.......

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It's all good!

IMHO, yes that sucks, but that is the fault of the KJ by having long songs in the books, cant blame the singer for that one.

The singer who gets PO'ed when you don't call them up every rotation even though they haven't given you new song requests and when you call them up they figure everyone one in the room should have to wait for them to decide what they want to sing.(Ex: "Oh, I don't know what to sing, Show me the list of songs you have for the Beatles.....")

The person who gets PO'ed when they are not singing after the same person every time due to new singers coming in. (Ex: "You skipped me! I was supposed to be after Joe!")

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Sal "Kjmann" Esquivel
Karaoke With Sal - Website

Punters who bring their own CD's. These are sometimes scratched and jump about after about 2 minutes. Then the punter will say oh er can I have xxxx instead.