Stouffville, Ontario Canada (647) 962-1997 gwstudios@rogers.com M-F 8:30am - 2:30pm & 8:00pm - 11:00pm

Tag: singing.

Basement Karaoke: Tales of the moonlighting groan inducing, happy to try but I ain’t no good, singer of others songs.

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I originally recieved a full blown karaoke machine as a wedding present from my colleagues at Moosehead Breweries Ltd / The Premium Beer Company many, many moons ago. And one late summer day a year or more ago I dropped it coming up the stairs. I dropped it one step, but it was enough to muck up the machine and create that burning wire smell. So now, I use the microphones, and reciever on an old amplifier to do my caterwauling downstairs. The JBL Boombox 2.0 is across the room with my wireless play list, and I can stand comfortably in the living room and wail away. It’s pretty glorious. I’m terrible, but enthusiastic. I usually give it a whirl when everyone else is out of the house, but a friday evening sing along is never that far out of reach!

I have a mix of 50’s, 60’s, early 2000’s, and even some current music in rotation. Oh, and it’s loud. So loud. So very, very loud. My favourite. Crooning alone to my oldies and having a sweaty fun time. I’d ask you to check out my set up but I don’t much care where it lands on the private in home Karaoke continuum. It’s not run through a PA rig so right there you can tell it’s not a professional kit, so why do comparisons at all. It’s loud, it’s fun and it works, that’s all that matters to me.

On another note (pun intended) I plan to go see Dune Part Two this weekend and I am pumped! I’ll catch a Sunday night late show and will hopefully avoid a massive crowd. Other than that I have no plans to do much of anything, unless more work comes in that needs to be reviewed on Monday morning. Ciao Bella!

A stroll down a musical memory lane…

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Turns out I can remember a great deal of silly lyrics even after a few decades of changing musical tastes. I saw that the movie “Weird” is out on Roku now, and went to my CD collection to listen to a bunch of my old Weird Al Yankovic albums. And instantly I was in my early to mid teens listening and singing along to Al’s hits on an endless loop. Though I don’t recall the song names & titles, once he starts to croon the words come falling out of my memory and spill from my mouth. I wouldn’t have scored a 100 on any karaoke leader boards, but the majority of it came back, unbidden, and in larger and longer stretches. With head phones on, I bet I’ve listened to the handful of Al albums I had several hundred times. Bits like “One more minute with you“, or “You don’t love me anymore” just exploded out of me full force. I loved those tunes. Along with “Slime creatures from outer space“, and “Like a Surgeon“. There are so many that I kept on a loop for ages. I don’t remember why I stopped listening to it. Great stuff. Although now that I say that, I picked up the guitar at 15/16 years old and turned to Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and Joe Satriani for musical fulfillment. So the parodies, while exceptional, fell out of favour. Then along came the likes of Wolfmother and The Blue Stones, and I just didn’t go back. I did like “Amish Paradise”, “White and Nerdy”, “Tacky”, and a few other more current tunes, but it didn’t linger like it did way back when. I also didn’t have access to the depth and breath of music I have now with iTunes,  Vinyl, cassette tapes, cd’s and YouTube deep dives.

Pretty amazing what both smells and music can do for your memory. The first hint of cool air after a rain, makes me think of England, or my walk to school in Scarborough. Certain Status Quo songs make me think of falling asleep under tables or chairs late at night, when my parents held their raging house parties on Baronial Court. I still recall the odd scratchy softness of that mustard-yellow brownish semi-shag carpet in the dining room/living room. The split mirrors running vertically up one wall showing sweaty people dancing, drinks in hand. Or hangovers the next day with Dire Straits playing on the family stereo. Ah, memories. Could be faulty, could be my imagination at this point. Who knows!

We’re off to dig up potatoes. Or the others are, and I’m taking the car to get an oil change. So I best eat something, and go get the vehicle sorted out. Have a birthday party to take the kids to, so I’m on a schedule today! Take care out there. Ciao Bella!