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The owners wife sings the bald (@$%&#!) song every sat night usually after 11p. We can get wild but I have never had a problem with swearing. If somebody's mother is there you better tone it down or get your arse kicked. In a family bar it doesnt go. I have done all types of groups including the wildest. If that is the norm with the crowd there then by all means.

I have been in the dirtiest meanest port bars in the world. Believe me these bars are kiddy clubs and somebody cussing or even stripping while singing is tame and childish.
I am not my brothers keeper. Frankly I am tired of all this crap about OH You Cant Say That!!! I'm Insulted!! Thats when I want to use the Fbomb...

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I love George Carlin (RIP)
but, I would not like a Carlin's style karaoke

I love it when a big chested hottie wraps her lips around the F word..

Well I have 2 versions of Creep from different manus & both of them have VERY special in the lyrics rather than the album version of F***ING special. Which manu does it the latter out of curisity?
There are some exceptions as in the Pearl Jam case, it is in the song one time, in an area that isn't too noticeable & if done correctly, is sort of supposed to be slurred out anyway & do tell people not to sing that part but always have my hand on the fader at that point.
I'm talking about the songs that are very repetitive or just have to have these 'accent' words to prove a point or just to have it in the song. But yes I omitted several songs for only 1 word (these are sometimes allowed provided I know you & can trust that you will edit yourself such in the case as You Oughta Know, all the girls that are allowed to sing it substitute F*** for Love).




You would be missing a good show & if these songs are the only driving factor that would determine you to come that would be really too bad.

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Exactly! I'm there to entertain, not to be a moral arbiter or censor. Fergawdsakes, most all of us are hosting karaoke in venues which sell alcohol and allow cigarette smoking!

And what drunk karaoke singer doesn't enjoy yelling the "F" word into 1000 watts of sound with reverb?

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Hey Lonnie, please reread the last quote of mine in your post, I think I worded it correctly, maybe not, I would still go to your show, rock is my favorite genre ( ok, 80's is a close second ) and I love going to shows that are rock oriented. I have no problem doing other songs, someday I'll have to sit down and figure out just how many songs I can actually sing.....but that is another topic. Rudy.

That goes to show that there are differences. If someone wants to have a profanity-laced show, more power to them. Most of the people here live in America, and you can say just about anything you want in the US.

But conversely we also have the freedom to make rules not popular with hip-hop singers. My problem is not that they exist in their space, it is that they would not allow others to exist in their own space.

The only alcohol-serving club that I host at has a duality. Before 10pm weekdays and 11pm weekends, no profanity. After that, you are allowed to do it as it is presumed all people out that late are adults. The profanity drove out some people, and they haven't come back, even after we made that rule.

And we took out a few real tediously profane songs like "At A Medium Pace".

Everything else I do is family events, and I don't allow profanity at them, almost by definition. When I get a song that I don't know and it looks like it might be rappish, I ask the kids if there are bad words. I can tell by the look in their eyes if there is, but I think it has only ever happened twice that they put in one of those songs.

Lonnie, Radiohead's Creep is one of but a handful of songs that I actually do without looking at the screen, I learned Creep from listening to it a thousand times before I ever did it karaoke. It was one of my personal discs but my brother has it now (monster hits mh1133 ) I really can't remember but I think it shows f****** on the lyrics display, I could be wrong. One song that I probably couldn't do if swearing wasn't allowed would be "You" by Candlebox I don't know what I would say in those parts. Rudy.

I can't imagine trying to censor the karaoke book with so many songs in it. Besides removing the "obvious" f-bomb songs, where would you go from there?

With newer hip hop and modern rock, you would have to listen to every new track you bought (unless you custom order every song) and decide to include/exclude it.

Seems like too much time investment.... a sign on our singer tv asking singers not to curse works for the most part, and a verbal reminder (keep it clean) on the mic once or twice a night helps curb their need to let loose, but that's here.

It would be nice to have a list citing most offensive songs, but once again that would take a lot of someones time- unless they've already done it.

I admire you kjs that have taken the time to protect the audiences' ears and have completely edited your songbooks.- i guess i don't have the patience to listen to every new song i buy and see if it's completely clean or not.

My bad, I did read it wrong.

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Nah it isn't as hard as having to listen to every song. When I first was asked to pull those songs I would begin with the obvious. Then if I saw something I missed that got sung, i'd note it & pull it from the database for the next book printing. After that everytime I buy new discs I go through & check for obvious songs or if I know they are good to begin with, then just Google search the lyrics for the remaining songs. I just bought 10 new discs, had to check content on at least half of them, took about 10-15 minutes. Country is generally ok to begin with so all of these are 99 out of 100 times deemed clean.

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errr what happened to the two warnings Gem had? how come they have been removed?

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On the front of my books, I post a "conditional" warning: Some songs may contain profanity, and the KJ may not allow them to be sung until after a certain hour. (I do karaoke in restaurant/bars that do have families and kids coming in early. I may allow bad-language songs if the hour and atmosphere and venue are suitable.)

As far as dropping bad language over the mike when it is NOT part of a song, that will get you turned off immediately and knocked out of the show, and probably out of the bar -- as will changing a lyric to inject profanity. I don't allow open mike or unscreened announcements.

This policy is appreciated by my bar owners and my singers. It's all fine with me. If the only reason you come to a show is to be crude and offensive, I'd just as soon you were somewhere else anyway. My shows have no problem drawing singers and customers (including some who came from other shows that cater to the "F-bomb" mentality).

I've argued with singers who insist they have a "free-speech" right to sing profanity -- I respond that my show is not a democracy, it is a benevolent dictatorship and I am the big dic...tator.

We've been over this topic before ad nauseum and I don't want to rehash the old stuff. But here's a few thoughts after reading comments this morning.

1. The Backstage version of "Creep" substitutes the word "very" for the expletive. But no one sings it that way. And for good reason. The F-bomb gives that song a touch of anger and bitterness... an additional layer of emotion that's absent without it.

2. You can't rely on the warning asterisks on the discs. If you're going to censor your show you've got to go through the songs individually. A couple of examples: Sound Choice tagged "The Humpty Dance", which I know Lonnie allows in his place, but they didn't "Aenima" which has more F-bombs than probably any song in my book. Maybe they didn't because they're critical to the song... I dunno.

3. There are some songs that I would allow even in my quiet room that do have an F-bomb. One example: "Hate Me" (Blue October)... a lot of the guys from this age group really relate to this song and sing it often. It has one expletive sung rapidly in a non-critical place unless you are paying close attention wouldn't even notice.

I don't know if Lonnie allows "Hate Me" or not.

From a KJ perspective, it's easier to run a non-censored show than a censored one. It's one more thing you don't have to think or worry about. The songs with gratuitous graffiti come, but leave after the novelty wears off. Songs like "Crazy Bytch", "F##k Her Gently", and "F##k You I Don't Want You Back" have all had their moments in my room but have mostly faded away, leaving behind songs with no cussing at all or with expletives that are there for an artistic reason.

Edit: I'm not trying to convince anyone to run their shows differently than they are. I'm just giving my perspective.

We all do what we need to do. I'm actually censoring one of my own rooms. And I have the utmost respect for Lonman, who is the only full-time professional KJ we have in the forum (as far as I can tell), and has been doing this for 10 times longer than I have.

woah.... what does FULL TIME have anything to do with PART TIME??? Most of us that are KJS are Professional KJs.

Word.

My shows are pretty free flowing. I let people be who they are, and the owners have no problem with it. I've never had a fight, so equating profanity with such is ludicrous. A buddy of mine runs an absolutely SLAM-PACKED show at a place where if you're white, you're the minority, and hip-hop and R&B are the ONLY things that get sung. He never has fights.

The only censoring I do in my books is with actual song titles. I do this for those situations where kids might be reading them, but I have never, and will never, tell someone they can't sing a certain song. If a venue started to place these restrictions on me, I'd look for another gig. It's not some chest thumping thing where I feel everybody should be able to say f**k, it's just that I run my show a certain way, and if the owner doesn't care for that, well, I can foresee more trouble down the road, so it's better to just not work there at all.

And I have to say this: I really get tired of hearing people (not just here, but everywhere) say things like, "Swearing shows a lack of maturity" or "Poor vocabulary," etc. I have a degree in English and have been a professional writer for 17 years, and I swear like a sailor. Just sayin'...

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I also like to remind people that the right to free speech (freedom of the press, actually) does not refer to speech on private property if the authority (KJ or owner/manager) does not allow it.

The 1st determining factor is what the VENUES policy is.

If they don't care , then I take in various variables before allowing a "nasty" song to be sung. type of crowd , time of day. if there are children present etc.

We have one girl who sings CREEP and sings the Fbomb and it sound awesome ?
Then again if someone is singing just to CURSE I have no need for them and will stop the song..don't go changing the words just so you can swear

It's not about FREEDOM OF SPEACH ..its about common sense

Great, in our case it was very much the case & we eliminated those songs, we eliminated those problem children. Maybe it was JUST a coincidence, but the 2 coincided & haven't had any major problem since. And again no one is crying that they can't sing these songs either.

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The owner of the bar I work doesn't like provanity over the mic when it isn't in a song. I have no problem with that. In fact I prefer it. Most people don't do it anyway.

I try to stay consistant on policing it, but it's hard. If it is someone who isn't a regular I use the 3 strikes your out policy. First time a warning, second time the mic gets turned off, third time your out ! If it is a regular who has forgotten or slipped I joke on the mic that they said "Fudge" instead of "F###" and say that everyone must have heard wrong. I get a laugh and the point is made without sounding like a rule nazty.

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