Confessions of a Pop Fan

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

WITH THE WASSAILING BOWL, WE'LL DRINK TO THEE

Karaoke Watch for December 24, 2007

Combining the A Christmas Story Chinese Food tradition with drunken caroling and rock 'n' roll, we met up with some folks at the Ambassador to do some karaoke. I had never been before, and the place is huge. What is interesting is that it turns out that there are two karaoke rooms, and while everyone crams into the main room with the bar, a smarter set moves into the side dining lounge where there is actually room to move and you can get your songs up and actually sing.

The night would see us perform some old favorites and try some new ones, too.

JAMIE:
Spandau Ballet - "True"
The Monkees - "She"
My Chemical Romance - "Teenagers"

JOELLE:
The Foundations - "Build Me Up, Buttercup"
Natalie Imbruglia - "Torn"
David Bowie - "Life on Mars?"

Apparently, she also tried "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" in the other room, but it lived up to its title. The track was edited and compacted and totally threw her off.

I also got screwed up on "Teenagers." First, I couldn't hear the backing track at all, which meant my performance was a lot of shouting and rushing to try to catch up with the words on the karaoke screen. I was also called over by the KJ in the middle of the performance to be chastised for cursing. One of the whole reasons for doing that song is to be able to shout out, "Teenagers scare the living shit out of me," right? Well, apparently at the Ambassador you're not allowed to curse on the microphone, not even when it's part of the song lyrics, because apparently in a bar where you have to be of legal drinking age to come and kill brain cells, there might be some sensitive souls sitting and reading their Bibles and sipping soda water. So, drunk and now pissed off, I kept changing the lyrics to how I wasn't allowed to swear at the Ambassador. Then, as I sat at the table, and the anger boiled inside the alcohol, I started randomly shouting strings of curse words, as varied and as foul as I could come up with. Oddly, no one seemed to mind.

Fuck the Ambassador. The Ambassador to my Ass!

This gentleman was massively awesome. In the photo, he's dancing to "Thriller," and he did a fantastic job. Earlier in the evening, he also did a spot-on Axl Rose and sang "Weclome to the Jungle." The night belonged to Singing Santa.

Current Soundtrack: Dave Gahan, Live from SoHo (iTunes Exclusive)

Current Mood: aggravated