I’m still a terrible singer, but I finally experienced Japanese karaoke last night. It was actually a lot of fun. Unlike in my karaoke experiences in the U.S., where you are in a large bar filled with strangers and you have to get up in front of them, face them, and sing (a la performance-style), Japanese karaoke is where you rent out a small room for a few hours. The room has chairs, a big TV, weird lighting if you want (which we didn’t use), and a phone where you can call to order snacks and beverages. Everyone stands around facing the TV, and you hands off the two microphones to each other to sing various songs.
It was my friend Becca’s birthday, so we decided to combine her birthday karaoke with the evening that my friend Carrie had planned in Gotanda. It worked out well for those of us who lived nearby (such as me, Olivia, Carrie, and Matt), because we could all walk home. We didn’t get out there until almost 11 though, because some of us went home to drop off bags, etc.
Some other observations about karaoke. The songs available were extensive (even the English selection). I was really surprised. I wasn’t able to find any Shins, which made me sad, and they didn’t have all of Lily Allen’s album, but they did have LDN, which is the song I chose to sing. I would have actually sung more, but I wasn’t fast enough entering stuff into the queue I guess. Some of my friends are really great singers. I won’t name names.
The karaoke remote panel is really cool. If it works properly, it lets you search by song, by artist, or enter in a key code for the specific song you want. You can also skip songs, and do a bunch of other functions that would probably be cool if we could read kanji better.
We ended up with a random Japanese salary man in our room, named Hide (Hee – Deh is how you pronounce it). He was trying to practice his English, but by the end of the few hours, he was pretty drunk. He was funny though, and he sang a Japanese rap song, which was pretty impressive actually. He must have known it by heart, because he barely looked at the screen. I think he went out to a bar with the others after we left karaoke, but Olivia and I went home at that point. My wallet and my kidney were both hating me. :) I wouldn’t be surprised to see Hide again, since he got both Nathan’s and Rebecca’s phone numbers or vice versa.
That’s the other observation of Japanese karaoke – it’s not something I could afford to do every weekend (or every night – I think salary men in Japan do it QUITE frequently). That said, at least they try to give you some value for your money. The place we were at was called Karaoke Kon, and it was 3000 yen for nomihodai (all you can drink). We were there an hour with no nomihodai, so it ended up being more than 3000 yen each, but it was a lot of fun, and it was something new to try. We were originally going to go to Big Echo right nearby, but it was at least 1000 yen more. Yikes!
Anyway, I’m looking forward to taking my visitors out karaoking with my friends, because I think they’d really enjoy it. Maybe we’ll do it for my birthday when Lynette is here. I think she’d get a kick out of it. I’m supposed to be out karaoking again RIGHT NOW, but I couldn’t get up this morning, so Carrie is off without me. I decided it was more important to try to feel better for the Sestubun festivals tomorrow.
So, I will probably take it easy today. I don’t even know if I will go to Shinjuku to talk to the travel agent or to Ginza to visit the Apple store. I probably need to get some food at some point though.
Anyway, that all for my ramblings about karaoke!
Ja, mata!
No comments yet.