Live Band Karaoke

So it's Thursday. I'm planning on heading out to Quenchers tonight, around 10:30 (after I get off of work) for Live Band Karaoke. For those of you who are somehow unaware, Live Band Karaoke isn't really the same thing as karaoke (it gets capitalized, for one thing).

Here's the deal. There's a band. A full rock band. If you're lucky, it's the Hootenaners, led by brother and sister John and Laurie Miller. Guitar(s). Bass. Drums. Maybe even a keyboard if you're lucky. Laurie plays lead guitar, and she can hold her own on all of those wanky hair metal guitar solos. She was sick as a dog two weeks ago, and still managed to rule.

So you've got the band. They're turned up to 11. It's loud. You get the mic, on a mic stand, just as if they're your band. You ge the lyrics on a piece of paper. No TV here.

And then the rock.



LBK has it's own cult following. Some of these people have nicknames, like Big Mike, who dresses like John Cusack in High Fidelity, is very tall, and excels at punk. There's a tall, skinny blonde guy with glasses, who sits by himself, doesn't really ever talk to anyone, but can actually pull off Journey or the Darnkess (and hitting all of those high notes is no mean feat). And there's that girl that always reminds me of Chrissy Hynde (sp) of the Pretenders, who always brings the house down.

I like to think that I'm not easily ignored myself. I've been going to LBK for a few years now, on and off, although I had two blocks of time that I went weekly. Yes, beer was consumed, sometimes in great quantities, but it wasn't the drinking that was the goal of the outings.

There's a community of sorts. I have a group of friends that go to Mothers on Thursdays, and you should see how good they are. Youll get a lot of yuppie scum down there, and then Christine would get on stage, and blow them away with her version of Get Your Hands off My Woman. Some douchebag in a backwards white baseball cap would ruin a perfectly good Scorpions song. At that point Emi would get on the stage and bustout with Killing in the Name, and show him what fucking rock and roll is all about.

We've even lost friends. The last song I performed at Mothers, back when I used to go there, was Round and Round, by Ratt. I didn't know the song that well, so Lewis volunteered to come up and sing it with me. I lost my job shortly after that, and wasn't able to make it back for LBK there, and I found out the he passed away unexpectedly not too long after that. I haven't been back since. Too many memories.

But I've started again at Quenchers. It's every Thursday night at 10:30, and while I can't say that I'll be there every week, I'm going to be there tonight. I've got an iTunes playlist of all the songs that I might want to do, and I'm going to go and practice in the shower now. I'm thinking about Maneater by Hall and Oates.

Hope to see you there.