/* Google analytics tracker */ John the Revelator: 10/01/2010 - 11/01/2010

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Who do you want to sing karaoke with?

There was a recent poll in Singapore asking which artist you would most like to sing karaoke with. Naturally, my absolute first choice would be the Gypsy Songstress, who just happens to be my wife. It's all very convenient the way that works, cuz we do get a chance to sing karaoke together.  :)

But... I think their question had more to do with fantasy, and real pros rather than pro wannabees.

For me, I think I would have fun singing with Bette Midler. She has such a bawdy in your face style and I love her voice. Here is a pic of Bette. The one on the left is not me, by the way. It's Gladys Knight, without any Pips.



How about you?  What celebrity or performer would you like to join on a karaoke stage? Add a comment to tell me who you would like to get up on a karaoke stage with, and why.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Claudia Schiffer "admits" to singing karaoke

Believe it or not, supermodel Claudia Schiffer admitted in an interview that she sang karaoke at a party.

"I think I had a little too much to drink and it ended out with me being totally out of character and do a lot of karaoke... cuz I know me and I'm quite shy..."



Sigh.  Why do people need to make excuses to explain why they sing?  It isn't all that nasty of a disease, but it is catchy!

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

A few goofy karaoke videos

Karaoke for the deaf


Star Trek karaoke




Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Best songs of the 80s

Best of the 80's
I found out that I will be doing an 80's themed gig!  I have to be honest. I pretty much checked out of the music scene in the 80's. Career, kids... Tragically, life kinda got in the way of music for a while. I have my priorities straight now, thank god, but I needed a refresher course on what's good from the 80's.

So, I did a little Googling for "best music of the 80's". I picked out ten websites (see below) with lots and lots of songs  - most had a top 100 list. And I compiled votes. Here is a list of all the 27 songs that got at least 5 votes. So, if you happen to be coming to the Milwaukee Art Museum on Friday, Dec. 17, stop by for karaoke. Here is a list of songs you could sing.

Votes Song Artist
8 When Doves Cry Prince
7 Billie Jean Michael Jackson
7 Don't You Want Me? Human League
7 Like A Virgin Madonna
7 Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)   Eurythmics
7 Take on Me A-ha
6 Every Breath You Take The Police
6 Hungry Like the Wolf Duran Duran
6 Livin' on a Prayer Bon Jovi
6 Pour Some Sugar on Me Def Leopard
6 Tainted Love Soft Cell
6 Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go Wham!
6 With or Without You U2
5 Beat It Michael Jackson
5 Don't You (Forget About Me) Simple Minds
5 Everybody Wants To Rule the World Tears for Fears
5 Faith George Michael
5 Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Cyndi Lauper 
5 I Love Rock N' Roll Joan Jett & The Blackhearts 
5 Kiss Prince
5 Material Girl Madonna
5 Nasty Janet Jackson
5 Sweet Child O' Mine Guns N' Roses
5 Total Eclipse of the Heart Bonnie Tyler
5 Walk Like An Egyptian Bangles
5 Walk This Way Run D.M.C.
5 You Shook Me All Night Long AC/DC

Other posts in my "best songs" series
Crowd pleaser karaoke songs
Worst karaoke picks
Best slow dance songs of all time

Websites that I collected data from
http://hubpages.com/hub/Top-100-Songs-of-the-80s
http://www.liketotally80s.com/best_80s_music_videos.html
http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Clarkone68/top_100_songs_of_the_80s
http://www.nutsie.com/top100sradio/Top%20100%2080s%20Songs/2094767
http://www.digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/best_dance-80s.html
http://www.80sxchange.com/radio.htm
http://www.squidoo.com/100-greatest-songs-of-the-80s
http://mag.weddingcentral.com.au/music/songs/top1080s.htm
http://jeantop10.com/top100/72-music-charts/250-top-100-songs-80s
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/best-songs-of-the-80s.html

Monday, October 25, 2010

Heavy metal, horror flicks, and Jewish music

My wife sent me a link to a review of a new CD.  It's a collection of Jewish songs as performed by black singers. You can hear some clips from the CD, or buy it, from Amazon: Black Sabbath: The Secret Musical History of Black-Jewish Relations. My wife was not terribly impressed. She likes to hear Hebrew spoken (or sung) like someone who knows Hebrew.

I thought the name for the CD was a bit odd. Perhaps more than a little. I mean, the two words individually kind of fit, although I am never sure whether "black" is PC, and  the songs on the CD are not all songs for the sabbath. I guess "sabbath" could make one think about Jews, so maybe that's ok.

On the other hand, when you put the two words together, there are a lot of connotations that don't really fit with the CD.

Naturally, the title first made me think of the band Black Sabbath. Ozzy Osbourne was one of the founders of the group. I just don't recognize much of the music. I never was all that into heavy metal. The black-Jewish CD is not heavy metal, by the way.
But, now I gotta know where the band got their name from, cuz that's just part of my schtick, as shown by a few previous posts:
Where did AC/DC get their name?
Which came first, the doobie or the brother?

The band was formerly known as quite simply as "Earth". No wind. No fire. Just Earth. When they heard of another group by the simple name, they realized they had to change the name. As it turns out, the theater across the street from their practice space was running a Boris Karloff film called "Black Sabbath" when this all came out.
Osbourne wrote a song called Black Sabbath, and they later took on that name. This is just a technicality, but it sounds like the band was named after the song.

So, what about the film called Black Sabbath? The film is a collection of three unrelated horror stories starring Boris Karloff, closely following the Italian film The Three Faces of Fear. Neither Karloff nor the director of the original Italian film were Jewish, so where did the name of the film come from?

The director of the Italian version of the film, Mario Bava, had previously produced a popular movie called "Black Sunday". The directors chose "Black Sabbath" so as to ride on the coat tails of the previous movie. Other than the director, the two movies had nothing in common. I am guessing that there was a Jew in the studio who came up with the phrase Black Sabbath. Imagine that. A Jew in Hollywood.

Where did the phrase Black Sunday come from? Why do I say that the phrase probably came from someone who was Jewish?

Shabbat is the Jewish day of rest, the day of sabbath. It starts at sundown on Friday and continues until Saturday at sundown. Certain of these Shabbats are the special, such as Shabbat Chazon, also called Black Sunday. This Shabbat precedes a period of mourning called Tisha B'Av, which commemorates the day of the year that saw the destruction of two temples. This has been called the saddest day in Jewish history.
The Torah verse for that day (Isaiah 1:1-27)  is particularly gloomy.
People laden with iniquity!
Brood of evildoers!
Depraved children!

...
And every heart is sick.
From head to foot
No spot is sound:
All bruises, and welts,
And festering sores —


God does not sound all that pleased with Israel at this time. 
Your new moons and fixed seasons
Fill Me with loathing;
They are become a burden to Me,
I cannot endure them.
And when you lift up your hands,
I will turn My eyes away from you;
Though you pray at length,
I will not listen.


Wow. Heavy stuff.

But... to summarize my story.

The band heavy metal band Black Sabbath was named after the song Black Sabbath. This song was in turn named after the horror movie Black Sabbath. This movie was name after another horror flick, Black Sunday, to tie it to this previous money maker. The movie name Black Sabbath was also a reference to the gloomiest day in Jewish history.


I think if the folks who put together this CD would have done a little bit of research, they might have chosen a different name.


Saturday, October 23, 2010

Do politics and karaoke mix?

Senate hopeful Rodney Glassman is trying to unseat McCain. While this isn't exactly karaoke... it might as well be.


Shannon Roberts has her eye on a house seat in Florida, and she is throwing a little karaoke party this coming Saturday. Cost is only $10!

Blogojevich is no longer in politics so he figgers he can come out of the closet and sing a little Elvis at a block party.


In Wisconsin politics, Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker is not ashamed to admit that he met his wife while singing karaoke at Saz's. Risky....

And the final karaoke / political mixing...

Ron Johnson directed and starred in a short movie called "Karaoke King". The movie is a mockumentary about a guy who made it from karaoke singer to stardom. Clearly this was a mockumentary, since no one ever got discovered singing karaoke.


Ron Johnson is running against Russ Feingold for Wisconsin's US Senate seat. Johnson says that the scientists who have demonstrated that global warming is the result of human activity are crazy. Johnson said "It's far more likely that it's just sunspot activity or just something in the geologic eons of time." Since Johnson almost has an MBA and is the CEO of a sheet extruder company, his opinion is clearly more credible than the hundreds of scientists who have spent their lives doing research.

Ron Johnson opposed the Child Victims Act, which would allow prosecution of pedophiles when the statue of limitations has run out. He explained that  the act "could actually have the perverse effect of leading to additional victims of sexual abuse if individuals recognize that organizations are at risk of becoming less likely to report sexual abuse".   What?

These are actually two different people. The first guy?  He believes in karaoke and he would like to believe in the myth that someone could become a star by singing karaoke. I think I could vote for that Ron Johnson.
The Ron Johnson who is running for Senate believes in his own myths. I don't think I could vote for that guy.



Thursday, October 21, 2010

World record karaoke marathon

Five hundred artists from all around India have just taken the world record for the longest karaoke marathon in Vashi, India. They sang over 7,000 songs to log a total of 579 hours. (That's 24 days and 3 hours.)

http://www.worldrecordsnews.com/2010/10/worlds-longest-karaoke-marathon.html

This shatters the previous record set in China of 456 hours, 2 min, 5 sec.
http://community.guinnessworldrecords.com/_Longest-karoke-marathon-by-multiple-participants/blog/223028/7691.html

Other karaoke records:
The largest group of people to sing karaoke simultaneously was 160,000. This was at a NASCAR race in Bristol Tennessee. They sang Garth Brook's "Friends in Low Places".

http://community.guinnessworldrecords.com/_Fast-Furious-at-Bristol-Motor-Speedway/blog/593332/7691.html

I don't think this has been ratified by the folks at Guinness, but the longest karaoke song that I am aware of is Don MacLean's "American Pie", which is 8 minutes and 47 seconds.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Karaoke robot

The VCR was invented in the mid sixties to free us from the drudgery of having to watch television. Texting is a more recent labor-saving device which allows us to avoid the drudgery of actually having to speak with other people.

Finally, Japanese scientists have developed a robot that can save us from the drudgery and humiliation of having to sing karaoke.



What's next? I have just applied for a patent for a robot that can swim laps for my wife, thus saving her from all that wasted effort of exercise. Once the Swimbot is perfected, she can just send this device to the gym, hit "snooze" on her alarm clock, and catch a few more zzzzs.

I have another labor saving device under development to compliment the lap swimming robot. I am calling it the Excuse-o-matic. Whenever my wife says, "Hey, you wanna go swimming with my Swimbot?" the Excuse-o-matic will generate a quasi-random excuse. "I need to get to work early, like before noon." "I have a headache." "My arm hurts." "I really should, shouldn't I?"  Then, we will be able to cuddle up, both of us guilt-free, knowing that our responsibilities are being taken care of through the wonders of technology.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Waiting for the call

I have been sleeping with my cell phone on the night stand... making sure that it is always fully charged. I keep expecting each morning to get that early morning call that all Nobel laureates get. "Hello, is this John the Revelator?"


So far, no call. I guess the Nobel committee is still in deliberation on the 2010 award for karaoke. That's good. I certainly wouldn't want them to give me the award frivolously.

I'll keep you posted.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Home made guitars and spaghetti sauce - marketing appled to romance

Warning -- for those of you expecting a dorky blogpost about karaoke, please check out my previous blogpost. Or I'm sure my next one will be more on the topic of karaoke. For those who are ok with "sappy" -- read further.

A friend of mine is building his own guitar. I think that's pretty cool. You can follow his progress on Steve's blog. The picture below is from his blog. Note the clever product placement. Steve really knows how to market stuff. I imagine he is getting some big bucks from Miller.

I ran into Steve last week. When I mentioned this to my wife, I was reminded of the crucial part that Steve played in me meeting my wife. In a previous blog, I admitted that I kinda like my wife.I lied. I really like her. I am totally infatuated with this woman, and have been for almost six years. And it's all because of Steve.

Well, maybe not all because of him. But he did play a small part.

I admire Steve because he does a lot of totally different things well. He was originally trained as an engineer, but he wound up in marketing - market intelligence to be specific.  He also is a pretty decent photographer, does woodworking and has an outlandish blog about pencils and pens and PDAs and notepads and notebooks, and other stuff. And he has a blog about numbers. I typed in the number 12,647 (a favorite number of mine) and found out that this was the population of Brigantine City, NJ in 2008.

Six years ago, Steve gave me some practical advice about profiles on match.com. He said "John, you gotta put something in your profile that will set you apart from all the other schmucks out there." Rather than have the usual "I am incredibly good looking and very smart and successful and I love NASCAR" type of profile, he changed his profile to a description of the perfect date. I guess chicks really dig that whole "holding hands while you walk on the seashore" bit, cuz he found a lovely woman who he married.

I took his advice to heart and changed my profile into my recipe for spaghetti sauce, starting with the smell of garlic in olive oil and ending with the choice of wine.

It worked. The Gypsy Songstress took my bait. Within hours of me changing my profile, I had a date with Madelaine. Nine months later we were married.

Thank you, Steve.


Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Undercover karaoke, the TV series!

In a previous blog I told about a great gag from the folks at FunnyOrDie. For this video, they recruited Jewel to dress up, or rather, to dress down and visit a karaoke bar. The results were hilarious. One patron consoled her about her looks: "You can be an ugly girl with a voice like that and get laid all the time." The video of this charade has had over three million views.

And now the idea has been taken up by TBS. They will be running a series called "Undercover Karaoke". In each half-hour episode, some rock star will don a disguise and rock out at some unsuspecting karaoke bar.

I would urge all my readers to start visiting unsuspecting karaoke bars on the off chance they might get to hear Mick Jagger or Cher.

http://zikkir.com/et/47233
http://www.deadline.com/2010/10/tbs-back-in-the-reality-game-with-funny-or-dies-undercover-karaoke/




Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Bad karaoke dates, and one good one

You may wonder how a date that includes karaoke could ever be bad... or then again, maybe you never stopped to think about it.

Well, a karaoke date could go bad, I suppose, if your date strips down to his pants while singing "The Real Slim Shady". Or how about if your blind date takes you to a private karaoke room and starts off singing "Springtime for Hitler"? Could be risky.

I was running karaoke one night when a fellow dropped off a slip, telling me that he wanted to impress the gal he was out with cuz it was a first date. When he got to stage, he announced that to the whole crowd, and yes... he was impressive. Excellent voice. The two of them left rather quickly after he sang. That was either a very good sign or a very bad sign. I never found out.


Despite the fact that I spent a lot of time in karaoke bars between marriages, I never met anyone while singing karaoke. I thought I made it pretty clear whenever I got the mic that I was single and looking. I dunno, maybe women don't go for that whole "single and desperate" vibe?  Or maybe I just should have read this advice back when I was single and looking?

Josh suggests that the girl maybe better not suggest karaoke for a first date, cuz he's gonna be trolling for his next first date. I learned from a pool shark that you always need to think about lining yourself up for the next shot. It never occurred to me to apply this strategy to dating!  


The folks at match.com also figger that karaoke on a first date is just not conducive to romance. Maybe their advice is worthwhile. After all, match.com did find me a wife. She sings karaoke, by the way. and I kinda like her.


As I write this, a memory comes back to me of a very special night at Clifford's, one of the karaoke places I frequented when I was single. There was a couple who were regulars. They often sang duets together. Cute couple. Nice people. One night, he proposed to her on stage. It was beautiful. Maybe karaoke can go together with romance.






Sunday, October 10, 2010

Heaven

http://www.flickr.com/photos/winton/4863754294/#

What more can I say?

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Jennifer Aniston is a karaoke-phile

Yes, Jennifer Aniston is one of us. She is on location in Clarksville, Georgia and had a karaoke night out with the cast. To top it off, she hired a KJ to host a girl's night out at the place she is renting. By the way, Aniston can sing. Ellen Degeneres says that she would "put her through to the next round".




Wow. That's a gig I would like. Jennifer... if you are reading this... give me a call next time you're around Milwaukee, ok?


Friday, October 8, 2010

What a little technology can do....

Here is Mishka the husky, saying "I love you".


Here is Mishka the husky singing Justin Bieber:


That's the miracle of technology.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Glee is bigger than the Beatles!

Wow. Who'd thunk?   The Beatles were bigger than God, but Glee has surpassed the Beatles. Glee has had 75 hits listed on the Billboard top 100.

Caveats: The Billboard Hot 100 isn't everything. And it isn't everything it used to be. Billboard Hot 100 does not necessarily mean song sales. The Beatles are way ahead of Glee on that. The Glee version of Don't Stop Believin' hasn't quite gone platinum.

But still, it's pretty impressive that in a few short months, Glee has managed to place 75 songs on the Hot 100 list. That beats out the Beatles, who "only" put 71 songs there. Not quite up to Elvis and James Brown (108 each), but still pretty impressive.

There are some who say that Glee is just karaoke with a plot. Those are perhaps the same people who say that American Idol is just karaoke with a million people in the audience. Why does everyone seem so interested in putting down karaoke??!!?

I think it's time for the nattering nabobs of negativity to finally admit that karaoke is an art form.


Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Rant on piracy

I saw an ad yesterday that offered a karaoke system with 53,000 karaoke songs for less than a penny per song. Wow. That puts my "paltry" collection of 8,500 songs to shame. And here I paid more like a buck a piece for the songs in my collection.

Let me state the obvious. The karaoke songs are pirated.The website is offering stolen goods for sale. It is illegal to sell them and it is illegal to buy them or use them.

I'll a little ticked off about this. I have spent thousands of dollars just for songs so that I can be a karaoke host, and this ad says that my arch nemesis ("John the Piratator") could get together a bigger collection of songs for a few hundred dollars.

Let's just say that someone is looking to hire a karaoke host. They compare John the Revelator with John the Piratator. Of course, I'm the better looking guy, but the Pirate has six times as many songs. And the Pirate presumably has a lower price, since I am spending a significant amount of my income on new songs. Who will get the gig?

I dunno if I have lost any gigs to John the Piratator. Maybe, maybe not. If I have lost some, well, it's irritating because it's unfair. But for me personally, it's not a huge problem. Karaoke is my hobby job. If my accountant tells me next April that I made just enough to cover business expenses (equipment and music, mainly) then I am cool with that. I am not relying on that income to put food on the table like other KJs in the area.

The thing that really worries me, though, is the effect on companies that create the karaoke tracks - companies like Sound Choice. They are facing the very real possibility of going out of business. In 1999, their sales were $12 million. Ten years later, in 2009, their sales had dropped to $1 million despite the fact that karaoke is more popular than ever, and despite Sound Choice's reputation for authentic karaoke tracks. 

Sound Choice has chosen to combat this by suing KJs and clubs that make use of pirated CDs.  In July of last year, they went after 15 bars and KJs in Phoenix. In January of this year, they targeted 60 restaurants and KJs in the Richmond VA area. Just recently, there were over 100 KJs in L.A. who received letters of "intent to sue" (see page 11).

This is a desperate move on their part. It's risky to start suing your customers. Even though I am clean, I don't relish the hassle and the stress should they decide they want to audit my books.

But, on the other hand, I completely understand their position.

Sigh.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Quote from Davy Jones

Anyone from my era will recognize the name "Davy Jones". He was the cute one.

Well, that's not quite what I would say. I would say that he was the British guy in the Monkees. I would say that he was the guy that all the girls said was the cute one. I was so jealous. Of course, I am still jealous. His wife is a flamenco dancer who is 33. He is 64.

He was recently interviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle.

I used to be a heartthrob, now I'm a coronary. There's no place I can't go because of the Monkees. I can go into a biker bar. I can go into a punk club. I try to avoid karaoke bars so I don't have to get up and sing "Daydream Believer."
It's ok. I'll sing Daydream Believer for him. If he could hear me, he would be so jealous.

Friday, October 1, 2010

The lovely ladies of kids television

You have probably heard... Katy Perry did a little skit with Elmo for Sesame Street. A little skit with a little too much cleavage. Sesame Street pulled it.


Sigh.

I recall a character named Susan on Sesame Street, which first aired on my eleventh birthday. My brother was ten years younger than me, so I watched Sesame Street with him. And I watched Susan. I had a crush on her. She was pretty hot.

Ok... so Big Bird. Does his voice remind you of anyone else? Can you detect the inflections of Pee Wee Herman?

And this reminds me of another woman that I had a crush on: Miss Yvonne!



These lovely ladies put a smile on my face.