Everybody's Got A Rum Dealer On Speed Dial.
More home karaoke! Yes, it's only been a couple of weeks since the last session. I swear this isn't going to become a fortnightly habit; the timing just worked out that way.
It's time for me to talk about the things I sang in unnecessary detail!
We had a couple of guests I'd never met before, and both they and I were a little nervous about singing in front of strangers. The best strategy for overcoming karaoke nerves, I've found, is to make a fool of yourself straight out of the gate. To this end, I went with the Sonic Underground theme song for my first performance, perhaps the most dramatic cartoon theme song ever composed. I had a blast.
As we now have multiple microphones and don't have to share, Tem and I were able to perform 'Stalemate' from Death Note: The Musical as God intended: stalking slowly around the room, staring intensely at each other as we sang. People in the room were shouting 'Now kiss!' by the end of it.
We did not kiss, but we did later sing the homoerotic tennis duet from the same musical at the request of a guest who'd previously seen us perform it, which is basically the same thing.
I was Light in both cases, naturally! And also wearing a new Death Note T-shirt Tem had given me for my birthday. It seems to have become an unspoken rule that I should always wear a Death Note shirt for karaoke.
To my delight, Rei had been listening to Koethe's 'Haunt Me' since I'd performed it at our last karaoke session, and they suggested we duet on it for this one. I think Koethe's music is fantastic, and I'm very pleased to spread awareness of it!
The song I was most concerned about performing was 'Prayer of the Refugee' by Rise Against; I wasn't sure whether I would be able to get the ferocious shouting right. But I think it went well! I really enjoyed singing this one. At one point I turned around and spotted one of the guests air-guitaring on the solo.
I thought Persona 5's 'Life Will Change' would be a self-indulgent 'pretty much nobody else knows this' song, but it turned out to be a great choice, because it transpired that the two new-to-me guests love this game! They both leapt to their feet at the first notes and spent the entire song dancing enthusiastically. What a banger.
In a return to our teenage roots, Rei and I dueted on 'Byakuya ~ True Light', the theme song to DN Angel. It has several instrumental breaks, and we danced through every one of them. Afterwards, my housemate's boss asked about the anime it was from, and we had to explain, 'It's about a fourteen-year-old boy who transforms into a legendary art thief whenever he gets horny.'
My last performance of the evening was this sea shanty adaptation of 'Rockstar' by Nickelback. One guest went 'oh, no, I hate this song' when they saw the title, but I'm pleased to report that they quickly came around to the sea shanty version. By the end, they were joining in on the chorus.
Some other performances I really enjoyed: Tem draping xemself in a cloak and waving it around like bat wings during BABYMETAL's 'Akatsuki'. A guest's incredible performance of The Little Mermaid's 'Poor Unfortunate Souls' in French. A lovely duet of 'Born to Die' by Lana Del Rey, and a very fun performance of 'Move Your Feet' by Junior Senior, which is a great song for audience participation.
One of the guests, J, is great to have around for karaoke because they always choose massive crowdpleasers that the whole room can join in on, whereas the rest of us can't resist performing weird nerd songs that nobody else will know. Rei and J absolutely belted 'You Give Love a Bad Name' by Bon Jovi, there were intensely enthusiastic performances of No Doubt's 'Don't Speak' and Alice Cooper's 'Poison', and I was compelled to join in on 'Stacy's Mom' by Fountains of Wayne. I kept waking up last night with J's performance of 'Ain't No Rest for the Wicked' by Cage the Elephant in my head.
Rei made vast quantities of shortbread for the party, but people kept forgetting to eat the snacks, so now we have a huge amount of delicious leftover shortbread. How will we cope with this terrible fate?
It's time for me to talk about the things I sang in unnecessary detail!
We had a couple of guests I'd never met before, and both they and I were a little nervous about singing in front of strangers. The best strategy for overcoming karaoke nerves, I've found, is to make a fool of yourself straight out of the gate. To this end, I went with the Sonic Underground theme song for my first performance, perhaps the most dramatic cartoon theme song ever composed. I had a blast.
As we now have multiple microphones and don't have to share, Tem and I were able to perform 'Stalemate' from Death Note: The Musical as God intended: stalking slowly around the room, staring intensely at each other as we sang. People in the room were shouting 'Now kiss!' by the end of it.
We did not kiss, but we did later sing the homoerotic tennis duet from the same musical at the request of a guest who'd previously seen us perform it, which is basically the same thing.
I was Light in both cases, naturally! And also wearing a new Death Note T-shirt Tem had given me for my birthday. It seems to have become an unspoken rule that I should always wear a Death Note shirt for karaoke.
To my delight, Rei had been listening to Koethe's 'Haunt Me' since I'd performed it at our last karaoke session, and they suggested we duet on it for this one. I think Koethe's music is fantastic, and I'm very pleased to spread awareness of it!
The song I was most concerned about performing was 'Prayer of the Refugee' by Rise Against; I wasn't sure whether I would be able to get the ferocious shouting right. But I think it went well! I really enjoyed singing this one. At one point I turned around and spotted one of the guests air-guitaring on the solo.
I thought Persona 5's 'Life Will Change' would be a self-indulgent 'pretty much nobody else knows this' song, but it turned out to be a great choice, because it transpired that the two new-to-me guests love this game! They both leapt to their feet at the first notes and spent the entire song dancing enthusiastically. What a banger.
In a return to our teenage roots, Rei and I dueted on 'Byakuya ~ True Light', the theme song to DN Angel. It has several instrumental breaks, and we danced through every one of them. Afterwards, my housemate's boss asked about the anime it was from, and we had to explain, 'It's about a fourteen-year-old boy who transforms into a legendary art thief whenever he gets horny.'
My last performance of the evening was this sea shanty adaptation of 'Rockstar' by Nickelback. One guest went 'oh, no, I hate this song' when they saw the title, but I'm pleased to report that they quickly came around to the sea shanty version. By the end, they were joining in on the chorus.
Some other performances I really enjoyed: Tem draping xemself in a cloak and waving it around like bat wings during BABYMETAL's 'Akatsuki'. A guest's incredible performance of The Little Mermaid's 'Poor Unfortunate Souls' in French. A lovely duet of 'Born to Die' by Lana Del Rey, and a very fun performance of 'Move Your Feet' by Junior Senior, which is a great song for audience participation.
One of the guests, J, is great to have around for karaoke because they always choose massive crowdpleasers that the whole room can join in on, whereas the rest of us can't resist performing weird nerd songs that nobody else will know. Rei and J absolutely belted 'You Give Love a Bad Name' by Bon Jovi, there were intensely enthusiastic performances of No Doubt's 'Don't Speak' and Alice Cooper's 'Poison', and I was compelled to join in on 'Stacy's Mom' by Fountains of Wayne. I kept waking up last night with J's performance of 'Ain't No Rest for the Wicked' by Cage the Elephant in my head.
Rei made vast quantities of shortbread for the party, but people kept forgetting to eat the snacks, so now we have a huge amount of delicious leftover shortbread. How will we cope with this terrible fate?