Karaoke Forums

You're right.. .. it was Karen K who said it.

What profanities did I use in the last few posts?

'Reality'?

It's your show, I say run it how you want and if it works for you, your show and your customer that's great.

It's a scenario where you can't make everyone happy anyway. Regardless of how you run your rotation, organize your book, set your monitors, position your speakers whatever someone will always have a better way to do it (at least in there minds).

Each and every KJ in certain ways is different. I'd venture to say very few if any of us have the exact same rig as anyone else on the forum. What's wrong with that? What's wrong with doing your show differently? What's wrong with catering to different singers, crowds, or venues? Heck some may be running there show a certain way because that's what the venue owner wants. If it's working for you great, but that doesn't mean that is the only way a show can and should be run. I'd think a professional KJ should be able to access the venue, owner and crowd and make a determination what works best for their shows.

I currently only setup at home or go out to other peoples shows. I wouldn't even consider myself a KJ at this point. As long as those shows are consistent week to week with their format I can adjust if its different then someone elses. Sure I'd like to see certain shows run differently, but it's not my gig and I'm not paying the KJ so I deal with it or don't.

Just my $.02

All excellent and valid points, hiteck.
Thanks!


I actually HAVE to mix what I consider crappy sound at one of my venues. The owner HATES Bass and so of course it all sounds rather tinny. I push it as much as I think I can get away with, until the owner tells me to turn it down, but it's still frustrating.
Even so, I apparently mix better sound than the other shows in the area.
Comes in handy having a sound man / musician for a hubby! I pick his brains every chance I get!

Just noticed your new pic. Nice!

Sometimes I just call it like I see it and have trouble keeping it to myself

Thank you
finally posted a pic after all these years

These last few pages got me thinking ... There are types of venues to go with types of HOSTS and SINGERS.

I've often wondered if it would be possible for a karaoke show to survive on just a songbook of jazz songs and showtunes. Would it be possible to collect all of a larger city's jazz and showtune karaoke-ers, and get them to your bar? Just today's odd musing...

I bet it could be done in Vancouver's West End.

The truth is you could probably find a niche for almost anything.

If you were to host karaoke at a JAZZ club ... I think you better have an extensive collection of those types of songs. Same goes for COUNTRY BARS or bars in urban areas. You should have a library that reflects your show and the customers it attracts. And the VENUE plays a large part in that process.

There are a few stead fast rules that make a show GOOD --but after that what ever works for that HOST --that VENUE --- that NIGHT ---is good in my books and who's to argue something that works ? ( thats a loaded question I know who you are )

Not sure but I'm guessing we've talked about almost every subject possible so of course the same things are gonna come up again.

Sorry cheese but I disagree with the way you run your show. The drunk girls would not bump my regular singers. If everyone in the room said to do it, yes. They are my bosses and put the $ in my billfold. If they show up late, they take the chance of not singing.

And if my show is advertised as karaoke, there will be no non karaoke songs unless it's an extremely slow night.

Not much more to say that wasn't covered by the others. Hard for me to believe your methods have worked in all those places you say you have been. But,,,, who knows, to each his own!

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

I may see some of the hostility you are referring to, but speaking for myself only, my response was made only after Cheese's later responses. The Cheese may have been on the defensive in his later posts/responses, but when you start labelling people with terms like "Anal Retentive" and classify them in groups like he did, it irks me to no end. And, I noticed that he didn't even bother to address that in all of his retaliations against the other posts that he harped on.

1++
I bring my own discs and sing from them.....mostly. What is wrong with that?

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

Like i've said multiple times before.. whatever works for you guys.

Doesn't make a difference if you *believe* in planets outside our solar system, they're still there.

You know, I entered this thread to say what type of host I was, and how I run my show.

You guys can hogpile on me and tell me how wrong I am, but the truth is i'm booked four nights a week getting paid top dollar because I draw and retain a drinking crowd that makes these bars money night after night.. so I must be doing something right.

That's not to say my way is the only right way to run a show, or that your way is wrong. There's a Holiday Inn down the street that has a reputation for being a hard core karaoke bar.. those cats are as serious as it gets.

People who don't take karaoke that seriously don't care if they get bumped down a song or two while new arrivals get up and sing.

Then again, I can't imagine going into a bar with NO MONEY and sitting there at a table sipping water and singing. That's called LOITERING.

There are plenty of shows in every city that cater to the serious karaoke singer.. the singer who brings their own music, who demands a strict rotation be followed, etc.

But the 'serious karaoke singer' only represents a small percentage of todays bar going audience.. maybe 20%.. and i'm there to entertain the other 80%

Funny how I talk about people who come in and sing and just sip water, or nurse a diet Coke, and all you guys act like that never happens.. like *I'M* the crazy one for even suggesting that sort of person exists.. then along comes this dude who says flat out many times he goes to the bar with no money and sips water.. and even when he does have money he doesn't drink alcohol or beer.

That's like taking your kids to Chuck E. Cheese just to play on the rides, and not buying any food.

I've run strict singer shows, followed strict rotations, catered to the early birds who put 12 song requests on the back of one slip, who don't want to drink booze because it effects their voice, who bring their own discs up to your booth with little post it notes stuck to them identifying what track and key they want each song played.

I've been down that road.. and I simply didn't have any luck getting those kinds of crowds to generate that much money for the bar. Hard to shell out $50+ a week for new discs trying to build a decent library when you're not getting paid squat because the bar isn't making any money on ice water with lemon and the occasional bag of pretzels.

That's my personal first hand experience. It's not wrong.. I lived it. Clearly some of you have had different experiences and followed another path and that's working for you. That's not wrong either.

Whatever works for you.

At the end of the day, the sole function for ANY entertainment in a club or bar, weither that be karaoke, DJ, magician, jiggles the dancing clown, whatever.. is to put asses in the seats and sell drinks.

That's it. No deeper meaning.

Now where did that dead horse go to, I know it's around here somewhere!!!


Rosario

Cheese

regarding your very last post ..... SPOT ON ..SUMS IT UP
As kj's we've all experianced some of what you mention and some singers no doubt can agree that they don't like your shows. On this site you have to realize about 90% of the responses to your type of show will be negative. Afterall you won't find the drunk singer on a karaoke site or the singer who could care less. What we have here are singers who lean towards the hard-core serious type shows. To them you represent everything they hate about karaoke

Don't fix it if it ain't broken........rofl

OK I'm going to throw out what I think is a bit of an elephant in the room and that is simply put, I would not enjoy playing to a crowd of all hard core karaoke singers. For the same reason I don't like contests, I don't think that would be any fun either. I know there are people out there that enjoy that and good for them.

I know this is going to sound contrary to much of my attitude on audio quality and such, but honestly I'd rather listen to a bunch of half-good singers who are having fun at a bar than a group of class A singers who are more concerned with showcasing their voices and hoping that a band will see them and pick them up.

Honestly I firmly believe that the reason I enjoy my shows is that I get mostly our type B singers with only a small smattering of the super serious karaoke singers. I deal with enough demands from vocal (and guitar) divas when I mix bands. Karaoke is supposed to be my escape where people just enjoy the fact that they're singing on a stage with "big ol' PA" in front of their friends having a gas.

So from that perspective I can see Cheese's points on this and I don't disagree. And for the record, when I go to a show to sing, I sing a lot if the rotation permits, I don't enjoy watching those who think it's all about them, and I only bring and ask the KJ to use my discs if it's for a specific song that they don't have. Not saying that my way is the right way, but just trying to give you some perspective on my personality as a Karaoke singer.

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DJ Tony
Let It Rip Karaoke

I think we sometimes forget that karaoke should be FUN, and yes FUN is a personal thing. KJ's and singers each express fun in different terms. To some fun is singing 10 songs in a night get sloppy drunk. Others FUN is a more serious night listening to all great singers and having there own 2 or 3 songs in the spot light.

The key is to realize as said Different Strokes For Different Folks

Haha yeah! I found that out pretty quick!

Seemed to be this thread was started to discuss the A/B/C types of hosts and singers, and I was just saying i'm the kind of host that caters to the fun time party crowd, whos primary motivation for coming to the bar is to have a good time with friends and maybe sing a few songs if they build up enough 'liquid courage'.

The bringing your own disk thing is just a pet peeve of mine.

Naturally if I don't already have a reasonably decent copy of a song, and a person wants to bring in a disk, that's fine.. but again.. I spent literally WEEKS of my life ripping disc after disc and manually typing each track into a database, naming each file just so I *wouldn't* have to mess with discs anymore.

If these singers were half as 'professional' as they think they are, then it should be no sweat to jump from a Sweet Georgia Brown to a Chartbuster to a Pop Hits version of a song.

I mean, as a general rule, most karaoke versions of songs are not that drastically different in arrangement.

Like the difference between Hunts and Heinz ketchup.