Adventures in Karaoke

Image from Flickr

I'd like to consider myself moderately versed in the Los Angeles Karaoke scene. I've experienced possibly every karaoke format/setup this city has to offer.  I've been to the karaoke box style places with the individual rooms.  I've been to karaoke bars with a little stage where you sing in front of everyone.  I've also been to places that are more bar than karaoke, with the little sliver of karaoke floorspace tacked on as an afterthought.  And of course, I've been to the Magic Mic nights in my aunt/uncle/family friend/regular friend's garage.

The interesting thing is, for the most part, the balance between singers and non-singers at these places seems pretty constant.  There's always a great majority of people that are just there for fun or think they can sing, and maybe one or two people that can actually, for really-really, sing. Sang. Blow. Got pipes...
Anyway, being a stage whore of epic proportions (both figuratively and physically), I'm used to being on the "singer" side of that divide.  If I'm lucky, I'll get a random person or two telling me, "Nice job up there, (you Ruben Studdard wannabe)." I've grown accustomed to this, not because I'm that good, but simply because of the singer/non-singer ratio.

Yesterday however, my karaoke world was semi-shattered.

Enter: Max's Chicken in Glendale.

It's a karaoke night.  "Let's do this," I think to myself. "I feel like sanging!"  I head towards the entrance, thinking my theory of the Singer/non-singer ratio will hold true.  I'll savor my singular moment of audience adulation and be done with it. However, as I get closer to the bar, I hear a sonorous voice belting out a rendition of "Faithfully" by Journey.  I'm impressed.  So, a singer, eh?

He wasn't the last.  Person after person goes.  It doesn't stop.  Singers, all of them.  They all can sing!  What is going on here?  The ratio has been rendered obsolete! Then it hits me.

I'm in a Filipino Karaoke bar.

Everyone around me has probably been singing since the day they could hold a minus one microphone in their hand.  I'm surrounded by every wannabe Martin Nievera, Gary V, and Ogie Alcasid in a 30 mile radius.  This is the Galapagos Isle of Karaoke singing.  Natural freakin' selection.

Eventually I take the stage and do my song with the illustrious Kris Clemente.  We don't do too bad.  But that only makes them come out of the woodworks.  More and more singers take the stage, each one as good, if not better than the previous.  And in the end, what usually would have been a night of minor ego boosting became an exercise in humility.

Max's Chicken, man.  It's the Triple-A league of the Karaoke world.  Be prepared my fellow Karaoke-sters.  Be prepared.