Karaoke at Tall Timbers Tavern

I just love "emergency" karaoke calls. They really break up the monotony
of the week.
This call came in at 2:30 in the afternoon, of course I missed it,
I was working.
Yeah, I called and was asked if I could run the karaoke at
9 o-clock , that night. I thought about it for....about.....
20 seconds, "Yes I will, let me get directions and I"ll be there".
Quite interesting really, I wasn't sure what time I would get off of work.
I just knew I was going to run karaoke that night, relax and enjoy myself.
Lucky for me I finished my last run at 6 and drove on home, thinking:
karaoke. La.... La.... La.....
I was ready to go at 7:30 but, didn't leave until 8.
Julie came with me acting as my "navigator". We had both gone online
for directions. She did Yahoo and I did Google. They were similar, but,
we still got lost, a little. In Fife, of all places! Now, see I was going the
right way, but, Julie said I was supposed to go the other way, so, I finally
turned around and went back into Fife. Uh-oh, Construction.......and a Detour.
Now, to me, that's a recipe for getting Lost. I turned around again and Hey!
We found Taylor Way - followed the rest of the directions and we found Tall Timbers
Tavern. I only passed it twice!
As we went inside, I was looking for the karaoke equipment - didn't see any.
That's because it wasn't there yet. When the equipment arrived, it got set up
quickly and we were up and rolling.
Brandy sang the first song and it was a sweet party from there on out,
Pour Some Sugar on Me. Then, "The Funky Munkey softball team" showed up
and sang their big hearts out. Shelley, our bartender, was dancing and
singing all night, very entertaining. Colleen and Mr. Rose Jr.
did a great job on the microphone, even when it came to suicide songs.
Julie got everyones attention with her songs and smiled all night. Mhmmm.

It's a nice big bar with dart boards, two pool tables- side by side, -a whole
side bar of pull tabs, 4 tv's and a big screen tv. Lots of room for dancing &
singing too, right in the middle of the bar.
We had some extra songs left over at 1:30, when I was ready to close down,
Shelly said, go ahead and play 'em-So, I did with a cheesy smile on my face.
I could have played all night, excellant excitement.
They got some crazy singing people over at the Tall Timbers -check them
out next Thursday when Misty will be back at her post.
And I'll be dreaming about singing.......relaxing and having fun.

Now on My Second Weekend at Ida's.............

So, I start the music, we've got the karaoke rolling and they start bugging me to sing a song. Yeah, okay, fine, just let me find a gap in the singers and I'll sing something. Finally, after about 20 minutes of waiting and non-stop karaoke singers, Reg, decides he wants to completely give up his next turn in the rotation, he says "you take that spot and sing us a song". Aw man, fine. So I put on "whenever, wherever" by Shakira, and take note of the people hanging over the ledges on either side of the stairs-Reg has told everyone, "She's gonna sing, come on down." The music has started, I start singing, I like the song so I get into it a little bit. The crowd is clapping, smiling and dancing. Then I made the huge mistake of singing to the wrong person.

I was having fun until then. This man jumps outta his chair and starts matching me move for move, now I'm stuck singing the song-I started laughing and trying to whip my hips around like Shakira does, you know. I forgot all about the audience, and was simply having fun with the song and dancing until this dude say's "sit down", pushes me into a chair and is gyrating like

a Chippendale (with clothes on, ok)! "I didn't know a man could move like that!" My song was on auto-pilot and mentally I was brain dead, zzzzzzzzzT! I couldn't look away and I knew my face showed that. Here I am siting in a chair, singing, with this man not two feet from my face, I couldn't back up because I was stuck in the chair. Nor could I stop smiling and the song wasn't even over yet!!! I forced myself to lean forward and push him away, so I could get up and finish my song. I finally looked over at my girlfriends who were just "dying" with laughter! Hmmph, some friends.

I finished my song to rousing applause, oh, the crowd just LOVED it, must have been some spectacle. Embarrassed the heck out of me - Geez, damn! Got scared out of my wits!

Maybe, I liked it a little bit, and I think that "brain dead" feeling might be what men feel when they see a pretty girl, or something. When I got my senses back, I realized that it probably was a good show. My girlfriends just said-(when they could stop laughing..) "You should have seen your face!" and "Rescue you, Hell no! It was too good to stop!" No pictures, thank God, but, they were talking about it all night. I even got a comment from the bartender-"Oh girl, you gotta do that again." Not for a while, dearie, not for a long while.

Needless to say, I will not sing that song with that man in the audience again. I'm still trying to figure out how he can move like that!

Hey, Reg, Thanks a lot Man, I mean really.

My first night at Ida's Pub (yes, in Tacoma)

Wow, my first night was crazy, fun and a little frustrating (a little).

The karaoke starts at 8:30 and bar time, it's really 8:15.

It's busy already when I get there, lot's of drinkers at the bar. I uncovered the

equipment and turned it on, so it could start warming up. I turned around and

there were 4 people in front of me, all wanting books and slips. It was great!

All I had to do was show up and the customers were all ready for me. Debby

turned the jukebox off and I fired up the karaoke.

We had non-stop karaoke singers for two solid hours. Since the music was

rolling and the beer was flowing, after awhile even people who didn't normally

sing were turning in slips and trying it out-repeat customers are my specialty.

It never ceases to amaze me when customers from other bars I have worked in

make special trips to come sing with me. It's wonderful!

I had 11, yup, 11 people from other bars come in and sing. These are singers

fromPacific Lanes, Midland Tavern, The Valley and one from the Flying Boots,

they just came to say "Hello" and sing a song or two. It was great seeing them

and I hope they come back to see me next week. Hey, time will tell, right?

Thursday Night Meetup at Barb's Westgate Inn.

Last Thursday was the meetup night for the Tacoma Karaoke Meetup Group.
Katherine got there first and reserved a table for us. She's so cool!
We grabbed our books and started searching for songs, frequently using
our cell phones as lighting devices. It's very dark in there. Great ambiance
though. It's most likely a great place for illicit hook-ups, they've got tables
further back that are even darker,(no one bothers
you). So, we get into the books-now that's not cool! It seems these books have
not been updated in two years. The beginning of the book starts out with songs
added in June of 2005 and just gets worse from there.
Any new song additions have been printed out, put into the protective sleeve and added to the books. Unless you want to search all night, you kinda have to know when the song you wanted came out on karaoke or when this karaoke company bought the disc to add to the collection.
I gave up, since I had brought my own discs, I had the host use those.
Julie stuck with the tried and true favorites and I did a couple of suicides, the
audience is great over there. They clap if you do ok and clap, hoot and holler if
you do a little better. We had fun-in the dark-and behind the mic's, clowning
for our friends and acting like the Diva's we were meant to be.
Because it was a Thursday night and some people had to be at work early the next
morning, I was supposed to leave around 11pm, but, I ended up staying later because Sami
was on the way and I had to say "Hi". So, she gets there and decides on her theme for the
night, I had one more song up and so did Julie, so we got to talk to Sami for a while -always fun.
Donny decided to come out of the woodwork and tell us about the club downtown that just
started Karaoke-I think it's called "Cans". So to keep the karaoke going we need to advertise
it - get more people in there singing so the owners don't get tired of the "regulars" they have.
Amylyn, got wild with her song and was standing on the stool, unbuttoning her shirt when the
security guard talked her down to floor level. I was amused by her antics, while simultaneously praying I never succumb to the level of drunkeness she was exposing. The older gentlemen seemed to appreciate the exibition, even the security guard was smiling.
My night finally ended with driving people home-being sure they were safe.
Then I went home, just smiling. Then Friday came...........TGIF.

Karaoke at Billy McHales

In Federal Way, Washington, there's this restaurant called Billy McHales. I was called in to do karaoke on a Saturday night. First I had to find the place. So I found it, why? How? My Mom and her friend went there early to have dinner and pretty much talked me in from the freeway. Yay Mom!
On that happy note, after parking my car, I unload my discs and head inside to warm up the equipment.
The stuff is fine, they've just got the speakers set up facing each other. Singers are forced to sing between the speakers and the microphones end up pointing at one or the other speaker too frequently. This as you know causes feedback. A nightmare for a karaoke show. I cannot move the speakers, I'm just subbing, but, we did the best we could. We do the best we can with what we have available. We did have fun.
Got some great pictures posted on the Tacoma Karaoke Meetup Board (and some not so great ones). We had visitors from California determined to have a ball, so we showed them a great time. Now part of their vacation is online. Gee, I hope they like those pictures.