Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Karaoke, or Killing Time By Singing Better Than Most

I've got time on my hands, so what the hell else am I supposed to do? I've got three weeks in between gigs, and only two new songs to learn in that time. And I don't sing in Steppen Stonz anywhere near as much as I did with Powerlight, so I have to keep my vocal chops up somehow. Karaoke ain't the greatest solution, but I enjoy it, so there.

Coming back to Port Angeles, I find myself with only two legitimate options for doing karaoke. My preferred choice is at a funky little bar called The Coo Coo's Nest, which long ago used to be the whitest, most Irish Mexican restaurant in the entire universe. I would know, because I worked their once, washing dishes and doing prep-work while my uncle Skip was the cook, and the closest thing we had to a minority working there was an excessively-tanned bartender. Every time I go to The Nest, I get profoundly disoriented from that past experience. But it's a nice place with good music in the jukeboxes, Guitar Hero in the back room, and Joy's favorite beer in the world (Rogue Brewery's Dead Guy Ale) on tap, and perhaps the deepest karaoke selection I've ever seen on Tuesday nights.

That deep selection is giving me the opportunity to really stretch the limits of my capabilities as a singer. Of the three nights that I've attended so far, I think I've only sung two or three songs that I was already familiar with. Last week I walked in and sang Joan Jett's "I Hate Myself For Loving You" stone cold and took second place in a contest qualifier, though I honestly thought that nobody else sang anywhere nearly as good as I did. I've been doing so much off-the-wall, off-the-cuff, pulling-it-straight-out-of-my-ass stuff, say like following up 90's one-hit-wonders Failure with Divinyls' "I Touch Myself" and Genesis wannabes Marillion's one radio hit from the 80's, "Kayleigh", with old Whitesnake, Deep Purple, and Oasis on deck, that even I'm kind of surprised at what I've been coming up with, and doing well.

But in the end, it's just for fun. There's really nothing that I could come up with here that could surface with the Stonz. What will surface with them is sitting in the basement right now, as my kit is set up and waiting patiently for morning to come, so I can learn two songs, and generally just take out a lot of frustration upon. See y'all in Sparks at the Nugget in a couple of weeks!

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