Wow, what a great couple of months I've had!
With all the negativity I've seen on the board lately, I wanted to take time to share my experiences here.
I recently subed at a local bar for a KJ friend of mine who went on vacation. This local bar does karaoke 6 nights out of the week... 2 with my friend steve, and 4 with an "in house" KJ named Doug.
Sadly, over the last year I've been hearing rumblings of discontent at my other venues about the karaoke there. Keep in mind, this bar was at one time a top karaoke venue, but sadly the current KJ (Doug) has failed to keep pace with technology, and his system is suffering. He's been there for 15 years!! The owners even lent him money to upgrade his equipment, but the KJ's discs frequently skip, and he is frequently stopping the show to fix technical issues. As the bar owner put it, "We bring friends to our bar to party and sing karaoke and this keeps happening. Its embaressing!"
I'd been hearing about all this for a while now, and many of my regulars were saying they wanted to get me in there for one night.
As luck would have it, Steve, a KJ friend of mine went on vacation for two weeks, and the bar owner called me to see if I would step in for Tuesday and Wednesday night while he was gone. I couldn't do both nights as I have a regular wednesday already, but I could step in for the Tuesdays (but, I did email some KJ friends and got them another KJ to sub for Wednesday which is ladies night there
).
The bar owner came by my Monday night gig to check me out the night before I subbed, and in her words was, "blown away."
The next night was a success. While I wouldn't call it big, it was the best Tuesday night the bar had had in some time. Well, over the next week, as I worked at other places I was beginning to hear rumbling of how "impressed" everyone was.
Well, last night was PACKED! I walked in to pats on the back, and "man are we ever glad your here." I was blown away. One of the singers, Steve (another one), came back with his group, as did my regs from a bunch of other places.
Well, Steve, it turned out is a reporter for the local paper and is doing an article on local karaoke, and asked me for an interview... I'm going to be the featured KJ in his article!! He said he does karaoke all the time, and I was one of the best KJs he'd ever seen... not only for the sound system, but the way I ran the show.
Wow, was I ever touched.
The night was a big success in every way 26+ singers (on a Tuesday!), and the bar owner gave me a $50 bonus, and assurances that they want me for a regular Thursday night... which I kinda knew as I was getting winks and "we're gonna get you here on Thursdays" from the patrons all night.
The only down side is that I know Doug will lose one of his nights, and I feel bad about that. However, I also know that the owners have given him every opportunity on the planet to get his act together, and improve his show... so the loss is his own doing, not mine. I didn't actively pursue his night, the bar owners and PATRONS pursued me... and this is just part of the business.
For me, I take note and remind myself to keep my head on straight and remember why I'm there!!
). When others complained about him to me, all I've ever said was, "That's too bad, I'm sorry to hear that."
