On Thursday night I went to The Annex to celebrate Lawrence's birthday! He'd decided to have a karaoke party and this year got Lord Easy & Chris Goldteeth to host the festivities!
Here they are kicking off the night (and you can see the tuxedoed birthday boy in the background). (Bonus points to Lord Easy for his homemade Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five On the Strength shirt!)
Happy Birthday, Brother Lawrence! I love that he wore a tux. So great. All the photos that have the red "ST" logo in the bottom left corner were taken by Brad Walsh for Stolen Transmission and I stole a bunch of his pictures because 1) They're great. And 2) because I was so busy getting drunk and singing karaoke that I didn't take as many pics as I normally do!
This night was probably one of the best karaoke nights I've ever been to (and I've been to A LOT of karaoke). Pretty much every single person that hit the stage went full-out and sang their heart out. So when it was finally my turn to sing, I knew I had no choice but to go with some Jovi.
...a motherfucking STAGE DIVE into the crowd! Thanks again to Brad Walsh for being there with a camera, otherwise this moment would've been lost to history forever!
It was also right around this time that we realized that most of the other people that were singing karaoke with us were actors. Apparently, they were all working on a movie that was filming nearby. Anybody have any idea what movie filmed in 2006 starred Matthew Lillard...
Hahaha. There's nothing better than a party with your co-worker that gets to the point where all inhibitions have completely vanished. Christine and Ian are singing their hearts out and Rob's just feeling it and dancing. Awesome.
...Co-worker Karaoke! After we were all pretty much sauced, we headed up the street to a nearby karaoke bar with private rooms that Dan Kwok knew about! Here's Phil and Dan kicking off the karaoke jams!
Doubling up for the big outro. This was probably one of my most favorite accidental karaoke moments. (In fact, it's probably only eclipsed by the time that Seth and I ended up accidentally karaoking with Tracey Morgan back in 2003!)
When the band got back on stage, they called me up to sing! "Don't Stop" is pretty much one of the best karaoke songs of all time and one of the few times that I actually don't mind that fact that I was pretty much born with a woman's voice. Check out the singer all like "Holy shit, this guy's a eunuch!"
Let me explain exactly what's happening in this photo. Niki's like "Here Seth, you sing again!" And Seth, who just watched Niki and Karla's duet is like "I think I'll sit this one out, why don't you two keep on singing?" Hahaha.
Last song of the night! I may not have won the competition, but I definitely went home feeling like a winner! (Cue sitcom audience applause and outro music from Growing Pains).
A little 1am, Dennis showed up with a crew of his own! He hit the stage with the quickness for what I'm guessing was probably Bon Jovi's Wanted Dead or Alive, his signature jam.
I'm not sure what song he sang, but I do see the words "Will you let me come on" and "inside" up there on the screen in the background. A decidedly "Seth" choice.
In my defense, I first used to balls to show off my juggling skills, but the crowd wasn't impressed. It wasn't until I started awkwardly rolling them around on my crotch that the crowd lit up! (Photo by Leo Zacharias)
If, by the time I die, tombstones with embedded video screens are commonplace, someone please make sure that this photo makes it into the cemetery slideshow. Thanks. (Photo by Leo Zacharias)
Claire was the other finalist! For the last round it was announced that our hands were going to be TAPED to one microphone and we'd be singing a duet voted on by the audience! Here's Claire and I getting our hands taped together. Hahaha.
(Photo by Leo Zacharias)
The audience ended up selecting Summer Lovin' from the musical Grease. I didn't know the song well, but I knew it better than most of the other songs that were on the list! (There was stuff like Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong! If the audience had chosen one of those songs, I would've been effed!).
For the first round of competition we were told that we'd be judged on two things: 1) How well we performed our song. 2) How well we incorporated the use of a "prop" that would be given to us halfway through our song! Sure enough, I was about halfway through Gloria and I was handed...
Out of all the Jovi repertoire, Livin on a Prayer is the one that has the most opportunity for crowd-interaction. You get to sing the part that goes "Whoa, we're halfway there..."
I was really nervous about the list (because nothing's worse than having to watch someone do karaoke when they don't know the song!), but I lucked out and managed to secure Bon Jovi's Livin' on a Prayer for my round two jam!
I was the second competitor called up to the stage, and it was announced, much to my relief, that I'd be singing Gloria! Yay! (Thanks to Seth for manning my cam and snapping these pics!)
I need to start carrying around a lil' karaoke notebook and writing down what songs people sing! Because months later I look at all these photos and see all the awesome expressions people are making while they sing and I'm DYING to know what songs they were to! Argh!
