Fear and loathing at Karaoke Night
BY REBECCA KEISTER / STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, February 20, 2008 12:46 PM EST
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| Bett Schofield of South Easton belts out a tune at Karaoke Night at Fitzy's Pub in Plainville. (Staff photo by MARTIN GAVIN) |
PLAINVILLE -- The words were all jumbled. That’s our story and we’re holding to it. But really, they were.
“That’s the way my week has been going,” said Gary Gifford, who is running the karaoke show we’ve just seriously blundered at Fitzy’s Pub last Saturday night. “The paper shows up for me, and my the words don’t show up on the screen.”
When we — I and my two very brave friends, Noelle Pedersen and Nicole Gratch — got up to, ahem, sing Shania Twain’s “That Don’t Impress Me Much,” I knew we were in for it.
We were nervous. (I really had to talk Nicole into this one.) We didn’t really know all the words, and we can’t really sing all that well. Plus, everyone was looking at us!
Then tragedy struck.
Clear white lines of lyrics began to gradually jumble into pink smudges on the screen in front of us and we no longer had a chance.
At one point, we just stood there waiting for the misery to end. When it did, the crowd cheered.
Huh?
“That’s the beauty of karaoke,” Gifford had said to me earlier. “Even when it’s bad, it’s just as much as somebody who is good.”
Gifford, an engineer by day, has been hosting Saturday “Garyoke” nights at Fitzy’s for the past couple of years but he’s been singing it up all over Massachusetts for about 10 years.
How he got into the business isn’t that surprising a story to anyone who’s ever sang to a bar full of beer-happy patrons.
“Somebody got me drunk one night and got me to sing. And I liked it,” Gifford said. “I started doing my own discs and soon I had so many I thought I should be a jockey.”
Oh so right for the job, Gifford is a jolly force of a guy, smiling from the evening’s start to finish as he strides from table to table, trying to encourage singers, and welcoming them up to the microphone with friendly introductions.
The crowd, he says, is a little smaller than usual.
But at that point, it was still early. Karaoke starts around 9 p.m., but as the night went on the crowd filled in and more and more singers took to the stage.
That’s pretty typical.
“The alcohol flow does make the song sound better,” Gifford said. “It just takes a few drinks and they loosen up.”
Gifford starts the fest off himself by singing “I Write the Songs.” He performs several more as the night goes on, including a few duets with Chip Charlebros, 60, a Fitzy’s regular who is partial to the harmonica.
Charlesbros said he’s there every Saturday — and several other times during the week.
He’s also the man responsible for the back wall covered in caricatures of Fitzy’s patrons.
“I sing sometimes, but I’m bad. I’m better at the artwork,” Charlesbros said. “But I love that people love karaoke. I’ll tell you, you’re up there and everybody loves you.”
That seems to be true. There’s no booing going on around the bar, but there is a lot of talk. The table next to ours mulled over songs for so long, I think they actually forgot to pick one. A large group of 20-somethings had the songbook before them the entire evening, but not one of them ever got up to sing.
We were much more willing.
Noelle first got me to do karaoke about a month ago, during a mini-birthday celebration in our hometown. Never one to willingly humiliate myself in public, I was a bit nervous. But her can-do attitude and free spirit had me up there.
And I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun it was. Even though I believe I’ll never be on American Idol, it actually was enjoyable to laugh at myself.
At Fitzy’s, our second song was Gretchen Wilson’s “Redneck Woman.” Noelle’s boyfriend congratulated us on doing better the second time around.
Brad Slack and his friend Chris Leonard fared better. Their duet on “Who Says You Can’t Go Home” sounded, well, much better than we did.
“We come every once in a while,” said Slack, noting they were out celebrating Leonard’s birthday and explaining they are by no means karaoke junkies. “I’m a musician, so it’s a little easier for me. It’s fun, too, watching other people, good or bad.”
Another regular, Bob Dean, 61, is a bit more into the fun. He’s slowed down a bit, but estimates his karaoke addiction was a six-time-per-week habit at its high point.
He doesn’t discriminate in song choice either. A big Sinatra, Bennett and Toby Keith fan, it was his rendition of “Baby Got Back” — yes, the song about rather large posteriors — that got the crowd cheering.
“The crowd always seems to like that,” Dean said. “I like it here, and try to see my friends here from time to time. Gary’s got a good sound system and a good music selection.”
Gifford’s got about 600 songs, though country selections seemed to rule the evening.
His personal favorites include Nickelback’s “Rockstar” and Elton John’s “Somebody Saved My Life Tonight.”
But, he reminds me, it isn’t about the song or the quality of singing.
“I just like getting the crowd excited and performing,” Gifford said. “I just like promoting a good time.”
F0REBECCA KEISTER F0can be reached at 508-236-0336 or at rkeister@thesunchronicle.com.
