Karaoke is more popular than mud wrestling and cosmetic surgery!

Google has a new app with the catchy title "Google Ngram Viewer". I was so excited, I couldn't wait to use it.

What does this mean?

At my behest, those nice folks at Google searched every novel written in English between 1980 and 2008. I tried to get them to extend this to 2010, but they stopped at 2008. I thought about going back and asking again just a bit more loudly to make sure they understood my request. I decided not to worry about it, though, since they were so nice to me. I figgered that it would be good enough just to complain about it passive aggressively in a blog.

They counted the occurrences of a number of phrases of my choosing. I decided to look up a few popular Saturday night activities: karaoke (in blue), mud wrestling (in red), and cosmetic surgery (in green). As can be seen in the chart, karaoke overtook mud wrestling in about 1988. Yet another wonderful that happened in the 80's. It was about 2000 that karaoke took over from cosmetic surgery as the preferred was to spend a relaxing evening.

In English fiction books written in around 2007, the word "karaoke" appears 0.00007% of the time. That means that you can expect to run across the word karaoke about once 1.4 million words. To put this in perspective, the typical novel is about 100,000 words. If you read novels from 2008, you would likely run across the word "karaoke" every 14 books.

In my own novel reading, I see the word karaoke about five times a day. From that, you could conclude that I read about 70 novels a day. It doesn't leave a whole lot of time for blogging.

While I was at it, I figgered I might just as well contrast the popularity of two very popular public figures. Since I had been thinking about mud wrestling and cosmetic surgery, I naturally though of Sarah Palin. Since I am always thinking about me, I thought we should have a face off. Sarah Palin is in blue and John  the Revelator is in red. As can be seen, there is no contest.

Air guitars and the best karaoke in Milwaukee

Sometimes, it's the little stuff, like inflatable guitars, that make all the difference.

Years before I met my darling wife, she threw a bat mitzvah party for her daughter. She visited Oriental Trading Company to find party decorations. Among other things, she bought some inflatable guitars.

There were a few guitars left over from the party, and they languished in the basement for years, lonely and dejected, until I found them. "Oh! Wouldn't it be cool if I took one of these babies to karaoke?"

And it was cool. People actually played air guitar. A lot of people played air guitar. A lot of adults actually played air guitar. Some of the adults (although a minority) were actually sober! Wow. That was a surprise. A bit weird, but, you know, it's all part of the fun. And if it's not fun, then what fun is it anyway? It's no fun to not have fun, you know?

That first air guitar found a friend when I wasn't looking, and left the bar with another guy. That was a sad day for me. Almost as sad as the part in The Velveteen Rabbit where the little boy loved all the fur off the bunny. Bittersweet... I was sad that the guitar was gone but happy that someone had cared enough about the guitar to steal it from me.

(This is not a picture of the Velveteen Rabbit getting its fur loved off, BTW. This is a real rabbit, being picked up by a girl. To give you an idea of the size of the rabbit, the girl is 6' 3". Or something like that. The rabbit just got into the Guinness Book of World Records.)

I was downcast and forlorn when my dear wife found me curled up in the fetal position in my closet. She spoke to me words that even to this day, almost two years later, words that I can never forget. "Honey, don't be downcast and forlorn." And then she told me that there will be other Velveteen Air Guitars. When I got over the trauma of losing my beloved inflatable guitar, I dug another one from the basement.

That one lasted one night before all the air got loved out of it. It popped. Isn't that just like an inflatable friend?

So... I had to make my own trip to the Oriental Trading Company. I bought a dozen of the silly things. Needless to say, none of the inflatable guitars ever found a place in my heart like that first one, you know? I mean, can you ever really forget your first air guitar?

But this next dozen did get used. Some of the air guitar players played mellow and dulcet tones. Some played the heaviest of metal that you can get with air. But believe me, some of the coolest people in the known universe have played my air guitars. Don't believe me? Have a look!

And I started giving them away. Sometimes it was part of a contest. Sometimes it was a birthday. And sometimes Sven or I were just so overwhelmed with a performance that we had to show our appreciation. It's kind of like a Grammy, only without all the glitz and fame and recording contracts.

And so it came to be that a lady by the name of Anne ventured onto the stage at Bootleggers to perform Lady GaGa, backed up with an entourage of dancer. Well... if you could call Mitchell an entourage. I thought he was entourage-like.

Well... whatever.

They were good. Anne sang well, Mitchell danced well. But more than that... they put on a performance. The crowd loved them. And Sven awarded them a ceremonial air guitar.

Months later, I got an email about a birthday party gig. It was from Anne. She told me that her air guitar / Grammy award was proudly sitting near her desk at work. Anyone who didn't run away fast enough got to hear of the legendary performance by Lady Anne-Anne and the Mitchell Dance Entourage.

So, I ran karaoke for her birthday party. It was a blast. She loved it. I loved it. Mitchell danced again, and even sang. I think he loved it, to. The Velveteen Rabbit unfortunately couldn't make it that night.

Little was I to know that this wasn't just any Lady Anne. Little was I to know that the Grammy / guitar lived in the offices of Milwaukee Magazine! Yes, that Anne!!  My Lady Anne-Anne  wasn't just any Anne. She was  Anne-who-worked-at-Milwaukee-Magazine.

Friends in high places, lemme tell ya.

And so it was that after sampling karaoke at all the famous spots in town, karaoke at Bootleggers (Monday nights) was chosen as Milwaukee Magazine's Best Karaoke Place. Was it the awesome place, Bootleggers? With a sound system that totally rocks?  Was it the hundreds of people who throng to the place? Was it the party environment engendered by the geniality of the karaoke hosts? Was it the fact that Sven and I exude contagious fun-ness?

Or was it the inflatable guitar?  Sometimes, it's the little things.

I would like to thank all the little people that made my Grammy award possible. I would especially like to thank my wife, the Gypsy Songstress, who has been my inspiration. Oh, and Sven, too. It's your award as well.

Seriously, it is a great feeling to be recognized for doing something well that you enjoy doing.

Which came first, the doobie or the brothers? How bands got their names

How did they get their name?  I have compiled a short list of interesting stories about the origin of a few band names from my era.

Alice Cooper
I figgered it's a pretty safe bet that Alice Cooper was not his given name. So, how did he come up with the name? There are a number of stories. Take your pick. One story has it that the name was from a Ouija board session when Vincent Furnier (Alice Cooper's real name) found out that he was the reincarnation of a witch by that name. That certainly fits his persona, but it was likely just made up to culture that persona.

Cooper revealed once that he just made up a name that would go with "a cute and sweet little girl with a hatchet behind her back."

Two other stories about the source of the name have to do with fictitious characters. There was a character in Mayberry RFD by the name of Alice Cooper, and the mother of Betty Cooper (from the Archie comic books) was named Alice. Betty was my favorite. Veronica was too high maintenance. 

Buffalo Springfield
You would think this might be someone's name. Or maybe that is has something to do with the singer Dusty Springfield? Wrong on both counts. Buffalo Springfield was a group that included Neil Young and Stephen Stills, later to be half of the group Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.

There was a steamroller parked outside of the place where three of the band members lived. The nameplate on this steamroller said that it was manufactured by the Buffalo-Springfield Roller Company of Springfield, OH. This is interesting, since a steamroller played an important part in the career of yet another famous rockstar, John the Revelator.

Deep Purple
The band Deep Purple was once listed in the Guinness Book of Worlds Records as the loudest band. When you hear the name, you can't help but think about hard rock. But connoisseurs of the old standards might remember another "Deep Purple". This was a gorgeous song written for piano in 1933, with the lyrics beginning "When the deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls..." The kind of song that your grandmother probably loved. Surely there can't be a connection between the two? Well, there is a connection. Founding member Ritchie Blackmore had a grandmother. This grandmother wanted to hear the band play her favorite song. And her favorite song was Deep Purple.

Doobie Brothers
When we were in high school in the mid 70's, we would snigger whenever someone mentioned "The Doobie Brothers". We all knew what it meant. But our parents and teachers just thought that "Doobie" was their last name. And we sniggered.

But while I sniggered, I also wondered. Which came first, the doobie or the brothers? I could see two possible scenarios: 1) They could have started out with the name "a bunch of guys who like to get together to play music and smoke some weed". This name would necessarily need to be shortened, so they would incorporate the slang for "joint" into their name. or 2) They started with the name just cuz it was cool or something, and then somebody said "hey, what should we call this thing we smoke to get high? Let's call it a doobie, since the guys in the Doobie Brothers get high too".

For those wondering, the doobie came first, then the Doobie. They actually never had the official name "a bunch of guys who like to get together to play music and smoke some weed". The first name was Pud, which is British for dessert.

So, where did the word doobie come from? Good question. It could have been from the "Mr. Do Bee" character in the TV show for preschoolers Romper Room.

Or it might have been from the scatting that Frank Sinatra did at the end of his rendition of "Strangers in the Night". Or - my favorite urban legend, cuz I made it up myself - it may come as a result of a quote by the pop icon and author Kurt Vonnegut:

To be is to do - Socrates
To do is to be - Sartre
Do Be Do Be Do - Sinatra 

The Doors
Everyone knows this, right? The Doors took their name from the book "Doors of Perception" by Aldous Huxley. The book recounted an experience that Huxley had with mescaline, a psychedelic drug from the peyote cactus. Mescaline, as Huxley told, helped clean his doors of perception so that he could be enlightened.

Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors had his owns doors of perception permanently closed at the age of 27, from a probable drug overdose.

Did Huxley die of an overdose?  Huxley was on his deathbed from cancer of the larynx. He asked his wife to administer LSD and he died several hours later. Was this an overdose? You decide.

Jethro Tull
One would think that Jethro Tull was the name of the flute player who brought classical music into the band. Not so. The flautist with Jethro Tull was Ian Anderson. The original Jethro Tull was a British inventor around the year 1700 who developed a device for planting seed and a horse-drawn hoe.

Was this a play on the idea of heavy metal?  Probably not. The name was suggestion by an employee of their booking agent, who happened to be a history buff. They had been changing the name of the band repeatedly. This name stuck because they actually got a second gig with this name!

John the Revelator
John the Revelator is one of the most innovative and influential karaoke hosts of our time, having pioneered the use of an inflatable guitar to augment the cheesy riffs in karaoke backup tracks. In addition to his phenomenal skill with karaoke equipment, with karaoke software, and his uncanny ability to know just where on the floor a mic cable should go, the Revelator is a tireless advocate of karaoke in the greater Milwaukee area. His website with a listing of every single karaoke venue in Milwaukee is pure poetry to the karaokephile.

In the early 90's, John the Revelator applied his prodigious mathematical genius to the production of the single most flawless karaoke song ever sung, "Steamroller Blues". Those who have heard this live will surely count this as a life-changing experience. He has followed this up with an equally life-changing version of "Minnie the Moocher". Today, people can be seen swooning when he performs "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You" in a manner that would make Frankie Valli cry.

Anthony "Sven" Chojnacki had this to say about the Revelator: "John the Revelator? Yeah. He's ok I guess." High praise indeed.

Where did such a luminary acquire his nom de plume? Was it a misspelling of "John the Realtor"? Does it have to do with the revelry that the Revelator inspires? Does it harken back to the Book of Revelation? An ancient blog, recently unearthed, may provide some clues as to the source of this enigmatic but strangely haunting name.

Johnny Paycheck
Donald Lytle is a country singer best known for the song "Take This Job and Shove It". It may seem obvious that he changed his name to try to grab a bit of Johnny Cash's fame. Lytle has a different story. He says that he took the name of a boxer from the 40's.

Led Zeppelin
Keith Moon and John Entwistle (from the Who) were potentially going to join with Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck (from the Yardbirds) to form a supergroup. Moon commented that this would go over like a lead balloon. Or maybe like a lead zeppelin. Or maybe it was Entwistle that said it. Read the account in Wiki. Another account said that Moon said "lead balloon", and Entwistle said "lead zeppelin". Either way, the name resurfaced, with the "a" in "lead" dropped so that the Americans would not pronounce it "leed". Jimmy Page was the only one of this group of four musicians who became part of Led Zeppelin.

cool image stolen from Maria Nikishyna's blog

Lynryd Skynyrd 
Leonard Skinner was a gym teacher in Jacksonville, FL. He believed in discipline, and he believed in sending young would-be rockers to the principal's office if their hair touched their collars. When looking for a name for their group, these would-be rockers decided to immortalize their gym teacher with a little different spelling: Lynryd Skynyrd.

That was in 1970. It wasn't until the mid-70's that Skinner heard about Skynryd. At the time, he couldn't even recall the long-haired trouble maker students. 

Marilyn Manson
Brian Warner took his first name from the starlet Marilyn Monroe, and his last name from the murderer Charles Manson. Ok, that's a little creepy.

Charles Manson actually wrote some music, and The Beach Boys recorded one of the songs without giving tribute to Manson. 

Pink Floyd
"and by the way, which one's Pink?" This is a line from the Pink Floyd song "Have a Cigar". David Gilmour of the band explains that this was a common question that fans would ask, assuming that there must be someone in the band named Pink. The name Pink Floyd came from two blues musicians, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. The group was forced to change their name from Tea Set when they heard of another band by that name.

The other group didn't make it big, by the way. A punk group with a raucous name like that does not instantly start cranking out platinum albums? Go figger. The link to the last.fm page on Tea Set says that a group named "Scrotum Pole" has a similar sound. I really can't see why a punk group with a name like that did not hit the big time. There is so much injustice in the music industry.

Steely Dan
Walter Becker and Donald Fagen got their name from the book Naked Lunch by William Burroughs. One website on band name origins goes so far as to state that "Steely Dan is the nickname given to a giant steam-powered dildo." To paraphrase Mark Twain, "the rumors of my dildo have been greatly exaggerated."

The book contains the phrase "Steely Dan" twice. The first reference says that it is a strap-on rubber penis. The other reference is rather vague. Sorry to let the steam out of you guys!

Although I myself did not finish the book when I tried to read it a few years back, the book has had some influence on culture. The alternative country group Clem Snide takes it's name from Naked Lunch.

Strawberry Alarm Clock
You would think that there has to be a good story behind the name Strawberry Alarm Clock. Evidently not, cuz I haven't found any explanation. On second thought, maybe it's just some silly name somebody came up with. 

Three Dog Night
This is an easy one. In the Australian aboriginal culture, one would curl up with the dogs at night to keep warm. The colder the night, the more dogs you needed. A three dog night is pretty darn cold.

Uriah Heep
No doubt all rock music fans will immediately recognize that Uriah Heep was the unctuous character in the Charles Dickens' novel David Copperfield. Today the reference seems very obscure, but this British band was christened by this name in 1969, and February of 1970 was the 100th anniversary of this extremely prolific British author. England was abuzz with Dickensia at the time. 

Wet Willie
For the benefit of anyone who did not go to Junior High school, a wet willie is when you wet your finger an stick it in someone's ear. Just to be gross. The Wiki article on the band does not mention how the band got its name. Nor does their official website. Now, wouldn't you think a band whose name is associated with sticking your saliva into someone else's ear would work hard to either bolster or refute that association.


Other resources
In my prolific research for this post, I came across two websites similar to this one. While both sites list more bands than I do, but, needless to say, neither is as entertaining as my own. Indeed, I find it hard to believe that there could be another webpage as entertaining as this one. When I finish reading every page on the web, I will submit another post.

http://library.thinkquest.org/4626/rock.htm
http://digitaldreamdoor.nutsie.com/pages/music0_name.html

Looking for karaoke in Milwaukee?

My speaking engagements

Somehow, my dance card has just gotten full of opportunities for me to speak. Not about karaoke, but for my other job. Here is my schedule:

Feb 16 - Color Theory Class in Johannesburg, South Africa
Feb 17- Color Theory Class in Cape Town, South Africa

March 16 - Presentation at Technical Association of the Graphic Arts, in San Diego

April 13 - Speak on the Future of printing at UW Stout
April 15 - Same presentation at RIT, Rochester, NY

Gosh.  How does this happen?

My second gig

My second gig was in December, 2007.

Every year, my company (QuadTech) has a holiday party. It's always the last day before Holiday break. Everyone brings a little something to eat, and pretty much everyone brings a little something to drink. We are instructed that we must work at least until 11:00 that day.

Many teams go all out for the cubical decorating contest. My team, not to be outdone, brought in one string of lights AND a green garland. I added to the festivities by writing on the board the equation of the catenary that described the shape of our hanging garland. I suppose the judges felt sorry for the teams that had worked until three in the morning for a week to set up the Elvis Workshop (or wait, was it "elves"?) and the "Christmas on Battlestar Galactica" cubicals.

As for me, while everyone was noshing and sloshing, I set up my full set of karaoke gear for the first time. I had literally been painting the subwoofers the previous day, so this was a maiden voyage. I came with a book of about 2,500 songs.

My car, by the way, was not all that happy with me. the night before, while I was packing, I started thinking seriously about going out to buy a larger car. Please don't tell Url, my car. It was only a fleeting thought. I still love ya, guy!

The engineers came by to critique the equipment and laugh about my lack of woodworking skills. They were jealous. Or, maybe they were just engineers?

But eventually, people became lubricated enough to get up and sing. I was completely floored by one ringer who got up to sing. I hadn't known that the guy was a professional. He goes by the name of "Downtown Harrison". Check out his website - he has some clips. Whether you want Elvis or James Brown or Nat King Cole, or Cher, he has it!

There were a few other surprises for the day. The biggest surprise was my office mate, Mike. Not only does he know some country songs, but he could sing! Not bad, actually. Here I thought he was just good for a bit of trivia now and then. The picture shows my wife, Gypsy, myself (drinking as usual) (it was soda) (honest) (would I lie on the internet?) (everyone knows that everything on the internet is true), and Mike.

I should also mention Paul. I love to listen to Paul sing. He has been in bands and he puts everything into his singing. Keep it up! (Sorry, I don't have a pic of him gettin' into it!)

Although the party was going on throughout the building, the karaoke just kept getting more and more popular as the crew got more and more liquored up. By the way, did I mention that QuadTech is a great place to work?

Other than a bit of constipation, I had a fabulous time.

I will end this blog with the endorsement that I got from Karl, the company president:

John the Revelator helped to make our Christmas Party a blast! He helped break the ice in the early stages and slowly made everyone feel comfortable singing and performing with their friends. It's a great way to get people to interact with each other in a fun environment!

Karl

Singing to the choir

On a whim, I plugged a karaoke CD into my DVD player. Not only did it play the music, but the words came up on the screen. I have since tried several DVD players that don't support this wonderful feature, but the folks that engineered this one felt it was important that I be able to do karaoke in my living room. Thank you, whoever you are!

Our music director at church was getting married and the choir was throwing him a shower. The music director is a truly unique individual. He is probably the best pianist that I know, he is an excellent warm and caring choir director, and he is modest to a fault. At the time, I had collected perhaps a dozen karaoke CDs. I offered to run a karaoke show for the shower.

I set about looking for disks on sale so that I knew there would be enough of a selection to make everyone happy. By the time of the gig, I had about 20 CDs. I threw together the equipment that I could scrounge and ran my first show.

It was quite a hit. It was like singing to the choir! Everyone wanted to sing, everyone was attentive to other's singing, and people were excited to sing together or solo. I heartily recommend a karaoke party for any choir!

I learned a few things from that gig:

1. The kind of speakers you get for you computer are not beefy enough for a karaoke gig. Also they are not particularly handy to cart around.

2. If someone can't hear their own voice, it is hard for them to stay in the right key. You need to have speakers pointed toward the singer. I later bought a set of Roland MA-8 speakers for this purpose. Actually, I now have two sets.

3. I didn't have nearly enough Beatles songs to keep Karen happy. I now have a dozen, and she seems pretty content.

4. Omni-directional mikes are not such a good idea for karaoke, unless you happen to like feedback.

Oh yeah... one more thing I learned...

5. I really wanted to do this again!

How I got into this...

I started singing karaoke about five years ago. There was a karaoke host in Madison by the name of jOHNNIE, who ran Koool Karaoke. Ok, a hokey name, but Johnnie is about the nicest guy you could imagine. He is a very caring guy and not surprisingly, he had quite a following.

From Johnnie, I learned that a good karaoke host is compassionate and supportive Karaoke is not about contests and winning and having the best voice. Karaoke is about having fun.

Johnnie is the guy that gave me the moniker "John the Revelator". Where did he get it? From the Blues Brothers' movie. Why did he attach that name to me? I dunno. I like the blues, I like jazz... He just called me up to the stage one day, and called me that. Hey, that's cool. I liked it. Funny, he asked me twice afterward whether it was ok if he called me that.

When I go to sing karaoke, I use this name for signing up. There are usually a few people by the name of John, and the name avoids confusion. (That, of course, is the rational explanation. To be honest, I use the name because I like it!)

So Johnnie taught me a bit about what karaoke means, and Johnnie gave me a nickname. He also inadvertently got me started on the path to DJ-ing. There was a song that I wanted to do, called "Steamroller Blues", written by James Taylor. He had it in his book, ut the CD was unfortunately messed up, so it wouldn't play. Drat!

I had done the song at karaoke a few times before, and I had started to make the song my own... adding a little scat, working the rhythm, the dynamics, etc. Since I couldn't sing it from his copy, I bought myself a copy, and proceeded to make the song and the CD my own.

That was my first CD. Once I had bought the first one, it became a little easier to visit karaoke.com and pick up a few more. Before I knew it, I had a dozen or so CDs.

To be continued...