|
Note: This article has been edited for brevity and clarity. It’s your morning shower. The water runs, the soap lathers and you’re feeling the brilliance of a beautiful Central Coast day. You start to sing- “Good Morning, Starshine” from the “Hair” soundtrack with a cool segue into “Sunshine On My Shoulder.” You can hear the band following your lead. And you sound good. Darn good. Now take away the shower and add an audience of 50...and some clothes. This is Karaoke. It all starts with a disc. The CDs made for Karaoke feature the same music and background vocals as a commercial release. The only thing missing is the lead voice. The discs go in a special player, which not only plays the requested song but feeds the lyrics to a video monitor for the singer to read. The lyrics appear as the song progresses, so the brave soul with the microphone can keep up with the music. Most record stores now have a Karaoke disc section, and the equipment--from high-end to stripped-down--can be found at many electronic stores or specialty dealers online. There’s no need to pack your home with equipment, however. San Luis Obispo County has a number of bars and restaurants offering Karaoke nights. More than a pastime, karaoke is a genuine subculture with its own etiquette, rules and loyal participants from backgrounds as diverse as the songs they sing. Nearly a dozen places around the county offer a chance for non-professionals to belt out tunes. But if you think it takes a certain type of person to get up in front of strangers and croon like Frank Sinatra or Sheryl Crow, Karaoke singers will tell you anyone can be a star--for three minutes, anyway. “It doesn’t matter if you’re new or if you’re bad. Nobody cares,” said Millie Daugherty, a retiree who hits the Karaoke circuit at least three times a week. Since her husband died in 1992, she’s been singing her favorite blues or country songs--such as Patsy Cline’s “Crazy”--at venues in San Luis Obispo, Morro Bay, and Los Osos. “It makes you forget what you have to think about,” she said after coming off the stage. |
Joey L. Colombani, a roofer from Morro Bay, also uses the music to forget. “When I’m working on a roof, I start singing those songs. It helps me through the day,” he said. Colombani sings with Outlaw Country, a group based in Morro Bay. With karaoke, he and bandmate Ron Phillips prefer country or rock ‘n’ roll hits such as Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive” or Cheap Trick’s “I Want You To Want Me.” Doc Thompson and his wife, Nancy, run California Karaoke, the oldest such company on the Central Coast. They held their first show at Izzy Ortega’s in San Luis Obispo 13 years ago. They run as many as 15 Karaoke events a week, at clubs and bars all over the county and employ up to four disc jockeys. Thompson used to be a psychotherapist in private practice, so he knows more about the personalities of the performers than the average DJ. He cited his own life as proof of Karaoke’s healing power. “I did a lot of lecturing (as a psychotherapist) and a couple of days beforehand, I’d have trouble telling people what my name was,” Thompson said. “As a Karaoke MC, I had to do the announcing. It was like a headache going away. I forgot what being scared felt like.” Thompson admitted there are a few common threads among Karaoke singers. “Need for recognition, combined with a basic talent for singing and a degree of exhibitionism,” he joked. Still, Karaoke isn’t just for the vocally gifted or mentally needy. It is a chance for anyone to get up in front of people and command their attention. And for Thompson, the results are as rewarding as his previous profession. “If somebody doesn’t sound
good, no one goes to the hospital,” he said. |