How I Discovered Karaoke

During January 1984 I traveled to the Philippines to visit my pen pals and search for a wife.  One hot afternoon during a lull in that trip, I found myself bored as I peered out from the Ambassador Hotel onto busy Mabini Street in this tourist district of Manila.

         Across the street and into a local bar I wandered not knowing what I’d find besides a San Miguel.  The place was empty except for this happy-go-lucky barmaid.  She set me up with an ice cold one.  “What’s that up there on stage?”  I asked.  That’s Karaoke she responded.  There were a bunch of lyric sheets with eight tracks and cassettes piled high on a table, a bar stool with a microphone on it and a Karaoke Machine.  As I sipped my San Miguel the barmaid sensed my confusion and encouraged me.  After a little instruction from across the bar she said “Sing something for me!”  I found an easy country love song that I poured my heart into.  It was “Paper Roses”.  My adrenaline pumped me up with my San Miguel as a chaser.  It’s what John Denver called a natural high!

         Then, just as I finished up my song, a young lass walks in and sits at the bar.  I sit down beside her, I buy her a drink, we talk a little and she says “So, you like Karaoke”? And I say “I really dig it!”  Then she tells me she knows some really nice Karaoke spots around town.  So, we take off arm in arm to do dinner and Karaoke big time in the heart of Manila’s night life district.

         As soon as I returned home to the states, I realized that Karaoke had not yet reached the East Coast!  My Filipino friends in LA told me it had reached California.  In fact they had a luncheonette out in the San Franando Valley doing self serve Karaoke just like in the Philippines.  Soon I was in LA to check it out!   You see now I’m hooked and addicted to Karaoke.

         In Japan where it was invented to replace the off key piano player, singers routinely dress up in costumes to represent themselves as the original singing star when they perform at Karaoke bars and clubs.  Elvis is the favorite as you guessed.  That’s how addictive it can become.

         My Filipino friends in LA helped me get started with JVC and Singing Machine Karaoke equipment back in Bucks County starting in 1985.  Now, I’m hoping to rent these machines and do gigs at restaurants and bars.  It’s a slow go.  Most people don’t know what Karaoke is here.  The eight tracks and cassettes with loose leaf binders of lyric sheets makes it very difficult.  I get some gigs at the Valley Stream Inn from my old Father Judge High School buddy Bob Cwenar.  Soon the dinner crowd leaves and the Karaoke bar singers won’t go home, staying sometimes till midnight.  Not so good for a place the wife wants to be known as a dinner place only.

         Then after a five year struggle with this ancient equipment, laser video Karaoke comes along about 1990 and makes my day.  No more lyric sheets, eight tracks and cassettes.  Moving video and lyrics are now on the TV screen.  Another Japanese innovation by Pioneer.

         Bars and restaurants buy into this friendlier version of Karaoke.  Gradually it becomes a colloquial word.   People are attracted to it as a new form of entertainment and as a vehicle to self stardom and aggrandizement via the Walter Mitty fantasy. 

         By 1998 the manufacture of laser disks stops.  Laser disks are replaced by compact disks with graphics ( CDG’S).  This change in format allows me to provide my customers with a significant increase in songs without increasing my prices.  Plus annual updates in music content take place.  Today Karaoke is a household word and it can be found everywhere as we enter the electronic world.

         Just like my experiences, many people who discover the joys of Karaoke become, mesmerized, hooked and addicted to it.  House parties become more fun and enjoyable and that means they last longer and are remembered much more often.  So, for the perfect party you need to get Karaoke Rental from Sing Along Machine Company.  It’s our specialty.     215-355-6006. Remember, we get the party going!

Now I do parades with a six foot Elvis statue and sing to my customers from a van as an Elvis look–a–like.  Oh yes! And I have a lovely Filipino wife of 25 years now!

                      Mabuhay!