Embracing karaoke culture

North End

Most of my regular readers know about my passion about music mas I talk about music in many of my stories. I had a pretty interesting upbringing, and music was always around. Dad was a bit older than mom and country music was played at a lot of his family’s gatherings. After Christmas dinner at Grandma and Grandpa Kretschmer’s (my father dropped the ’s’ in the surname), the guitars would come out and the whole family would singsongs like Kris Kristofferson’s Me and Bobby McGee and Johnny Cash tunes. I also have memories of visiting my mom’s sister in Moosomin, Sask., and listening to Mr. Moonlight and Baby’s in Black from the Beatles for Sale album. Mom’s family was more into pop and rock.

Hearing a song from the past can stir up a lot of memories. Certain songs can even take you back to where you were when you first heard it. I liken it to a form of time travel – every time I hear Murray McLauchlan’s The Farmers Song, I’m transported to the back seat of the car on family road trips across Canada in 1972, when it first came on the radio.

As a writer, I really appreciate the short-story structure of a song which can say so much in three to five minutes. Sometimes I get more out of a well-crafted short song than a two-hour movie. Indeed, songs leave more to the imagination.

Some of the first articles I wrote for the now defunct Community News Commons were concert reviews, in which I encapsulated a two-hour concert experience into a short review. I also got to meet and interview some of my musical heroes of the past. I remember meeting Gordon Lightfoot and telling him a show he did in 1974 was one of the first concerts I saw. My aunt couldn’t go, so my mom brought me. Pretty impressive for a 10-year-old. I got him to autograph an LP each for mom and me. Again, great memories.

Fast forward to 2002 when I was living on Magnus Avenue near Main Street, and I went to Boogie’s to try out karaoke. Most people were singing country, then I got up and sang Frank Zappa’s Dinah-Moe Humm. People looked at me like I was the devil, and I didn’t do karaoke for many years after that.

About 10 years ago, I began reading my poetry at open mics and after a while started turning some of my poems into songs and collaborating with some of the musicians. I went back to Boogies to try karaoke again to find my singing voice.

“Which Frank Zappa tunes do you have?” I asked.

“Dinah-Moe Humm,” said Richelle, the host. I told her about the reception I got in 2002.

“Go for it,” she said, “they’ll love it.”

And they did. I met a group of people there who told me about some other karaoke places around town.

So, after years of hitting the karaoke circuit around town and hanging out in that community, I now host karaoke myself. Last year I got a job hosting karaoke in the Wolseley area, filling in for a friend who went tree planting. Then in November of last year, I started hosting at the Northern Hotel on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. I also started hosting recently at the East Gate Inn (formerly The Sherbrook Hotel) on Sherbrook a few weeks ago on Wednesdays. It’s a lot of fun getting to know people through the songs they sing.