Karaoke Forums

I'll relate this story to you all.   A few years ago we did a bar on a Tuesday.    The place really was packed every Tuesday.    One of our "guys" usually did the place.   Two owners, brothers and the young kids were involved to some extent.     The cash register had to be cranking pretty good.     Sonnyboy, the 21 year old kid comes up and wants to sing "Ode to My Car" by Wiener Brain Sandler.    The crowd was leaning toward the older side.   I told him I wasn't playing it.    He told me that I will be telling my wife how I just lost this job.     Now Sonnyboy just cost mommy and daddy about $25,000-35,000 a year.    ON a Tuesday.    The crowd totally died.    He should have been religated to toilet scrubbing, because that's all he qualified for.   And that's giving him extra credit.    I don't know what he told everyone as to HIS reason for firing me, but I'll bet it was really a good story.    If it was my kid and he cost me that much money, for being stupid, he would be living in a cardboard box under a bridge.   Just because your age says adult, doesn't mean the brain caught up yet.    I guess mom and dad got what they deserved for being even dumber for letting Jr. have a say in anything relating to making money.    :yes:

I don't know, for some reason I've always had an aversion to winning the battle but losing the war.  I've never felt that I wanted to sacrifice a gig unless I knew I was going on to something bigger and better.

I can see that some of you have the luxury of being able to sacrifice a gig for the sake of a principle.  And I do have some principles that I would not compromise.  So far I haven't seen anything here that was something that I think I would have to go to the mat over.

I'm always aware of who's signing my check.  If I'm doing a gig with my duo and the owner wants to here "Wolly Bully" 50 times a night it's okay with me.  I guess I've been lucky in the respect that I haven't had to confront an issue that couldn't be resolved with a little conversation.

And maybe you can chalk it all up to this; I have standards, they may not be high but they are mine.

Larry

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

I think there is usually a way to make everyone happy.

I had those nights where someone would come up when I was closing and
said the bar owner said I can sing. I figured out all I have to do is say that's
fine, but I need to hear it from him. He is to busy and doesn't want to be bothered with such trivial stuff. So he has learned to tell people to not bother him it is up to me. Over time he has learned to trust me, but at first I got more interference. Just
like people complaining about not singing more. He'd come up and say get so & so in
they are driving me nuts. I told him the only way to avoid people bothering him about it is to direct them to me and tell them you aren't the one who makes those decisions it's the KJ.
If he doesn't do that they will bug him all the time and if he messes with the rotation I'm going to direct everyone who complains about it to him. Never had a problem since.

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[updown]~*~ MONKEY BUSINESS KARAOKE~*~ [/shadow][/updown][/glow]

If they want to set hard core rules for you, then you should be able to do the same.     If you have a crappy bartender that everyone complains about, you get to pick the new one.  You pick the KJ, I pick the bartender.    When the airconditioner needs fixed, you fix it fast.   You always pay full money, even if we have a blizzard with 20' of snow and I'm the only one there.   I run my rotation, not you or anyone else.    Any other issues can be addressed by my lawyer.   One more thing, any more s**t out of you and you will be replaced.    LMAO    

That brings up something else.   I have worked in bars that customers didn't want to come in, if the owners were there.   Because they were jerks.   Can we tell them to stay home on the karaoke night?   They can't even run their bar, what do they know about picking a karaoke KJ?    They burn me up.

When someone comes up after I stop taking requests and says the bar owner told me I can sing another one.   I tell them to go ask the owner if he's going to pay overtime.   Or I may say, the owner is not running the karaoke and I'm not bartending, we have an agreement.   9 times out of 10 the guy that wants to sing is a jerk anyway.    And he has probably pushed my button the wrong way earlier in the night.   Or they just came in from another bar, that they spent all of their money at.