71 posts tagged “kttd”

I have other stuff I should be doing right now.  But I made the mistake of turning on my computer when I got home.  Then I re-read Dabysan's excellent post about getting married this weekend.  Then I started thinking about my toast, which I thought I had completed last night.  Then I started going back through some - okay, most - of our posts about Karaoke to the Death.  Then I started listening to the audio from past years.  Then I started thinking about how great all my friends are, and how much I'm looking forward to this fantastic celebration on Saturday - despite the fact that I have to give a toast, which I definitely don't want to do.

I have other stuff I should be doing right now, but you're going to have a hard time convincing me I wasted my evening.

The main reason for my trip to the flyovers on this particular weekend is to go to the Steelers game.  They're playing the Lions in Detroit, and my brother-in-law (poor guy) is a lifelong Lions fan.  One of us - the one who roots for the team who has won the most Super Bowls and has been enormously successful over the past forty years - is going to be pretty pleased at four o'clock this afternoon.  At least my brother-in-law is accustomed to disappointment.  He is, after all, a lifelong Lions fan.

It's the least I can do to post a Rocktober song just for him, though.  We used to work together at the service station during the summers when I was in college, and there were several songs with which we always sang along whenever they came on the radio.  We sounded good.  You never would have guessed - way back then - that I would one day be an award-winning bad singer.  Our tickets for the game are in the all-you-can-eats-seats, which makes today's song a little ironic.

Fun fact: though widely considered by most (including me until just now) to be a crass cross-promotional attempt by Soundgarden and Pearl Jam to capitalize on the success of Badmotorfinger and Ten, this song - and the record on which it appears - predates those albums by six and four months, respectively.  It was only after both of those records broke big that this one was reissued and crassly cross-promoted.  Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

So I'm in Ohio for the weekend.  You may have figured that out from my post last night.  I'd planned - before my flight was delayed and I got in later than expected - to write a little bit about how returning home now depresses me a whole lot less than it used to, and to contradict my experience with that of Chrissie Hynde.  I guess, now that I get around to thinking about it, I shouldn't be surprised.  She's from Akron.  I'd be depressed to return to Akron, too.  But when I come back to Ohio, I visit Toledo.  Things are a whole lot more hopping in Toledo.  The only real drag these days is that I'm subjected to Ohio State football.  I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

But there are many aspects of returning home that I have grown to enjoy.  For starters, even though Toledo has a long way to go, there really is more going on here than there was when I left a decade and a half ago.  And I get to see two of my terrific nieces.  They welcomed me warmly when I got in last night, and today has been a pretty great day - mostly because I win all the games I play with them.  We played a little basketball earlier, and I destroyed them even though it was two against one.  Our game of Trivial Pursuit wasn't even close.  Scrabble went about the same way.  (Though they are better competition at this point than Jodi.)  And even with my slightly gimpy ankle, I easily won our footrace around the block.  But perhaps the best part about spending time with my nieces is all the things I learn from them.  They shared with me today some of the music they enjoy.  If you think I'm not gonna be singing some Taylor Swift when KttD comes around, you've got another think coming.

Most people blame bands who came later for the scourge of hair metal power ballads, but really it's Mötley Crüe's fault.  They started it.

I took a fair amount of abuse in the early part of this year for failing to live up to my duties in stoking the KttD hype machine.  The abuse was unjustified.  Not because I was dispatching my quota of propaganda, mind you, but because my record at the time had been above reproach.  And I was distracted.  But I've got no excuse this time.

Yesterday marked the beginning of the traditional six-month countdown to the triumphant tenth edition of Karaoke to the Death - KttD X: KttDuets.  And I missed it.  I shouldn't have, but I did.  I even thought about it earlier in the week and made a mental note not to forget.  Which, of course, I forgot anyway.  This is an inauspicious beginning to what promises to be the best karaoke season yet.  I'd be more bothered by it, though, if I didn't know Dabysan was completely unaware.

So yeah - yinz got six months from yesterday to make your travel arrangements, an' 'at.  Excelsior!

Dear Matyas,

I have a confession to make and it's....  Well, it's a little awkward.  I think I love you.  There, I said it.  I love you.  And this is no fleeting crush.  No, this is the real deal.  This will be an everlasting love.  As long as you never stop coming to Karaoke to the Death.

In nine years, I've never seen anyone burst onto the KttD scene like you did.  Sure, others have had strong debuts.  Alison comes to mind, but she really didn't factor into the voting.  Cappy came out strong and even came close to winning.  But you, you....  You not only could have won KttD VIII, but you were the last singer in a deep field.  Convential wisdom says that's a huge mistake.  Several voters never even saw your raw performance of Heart's "Barracuda."  But you flouted convention and single-handedly re-energized a moribund Anyone But Bob movement in the process.  And you damn near pulled off the upset.  You would have been a worthy champion.

Not that there were no detractors, mind you.  I'll admit that those who thought your performance to be "a little tank-y" had a point.  But I am sure the doubters would likewise admit that they were as eager as I to see what you had in store for your sophomore outing.  It pleases me immensely that those expecting a slump were disappointed.  You were, in many ways, worse in KttD IX than you were in KttD VIII.  And what's more, you were (as Vrabel pointed out later) worse in different ways in KttD IX than you were in KttD VIII.  I think it's safe to say that the KttD faithful can stop talking about if you will win the Ramsey Cup and start talking about when.

But none of that is why I love you.  I don't even love you because your vote for me was the deciding factor in my victory.  Not exactly.  I love you because after the fact - when I asked you about your curious vote - you said:  "I could hear you sing, and you were bad.  When I was up on stage singing, I thought I sounded pretty good."  Those sentences give me chills in every possible way.  When I think of all the songs you aren't capable of singing, it makes me so very happy just to picture you a year from now taking the stage, just to imagine how I will recoil at the vile sounds emanating from your lips, just to know you.  If that's not love, I don't know what is.
 
Yours always,
Hotrod

The first thing that must be noted about Cap'n Crook's showing at KttD IX is that questions of tanking now seem to be moot.  It's true that Cappy has had a checkered past, but his shameful behavior appears to be behind him.  And as a Co-Chair of the KttD Competition Committee, I can't be more pleased.  Cappy's rendition of Kiss' "I Was Made For Loving You" was abyssmal.  At best.  This performance is the return to form for which we have all been waiting since his powerful debut in KttD V.  Cappy is once again poised as one to watch in future contests.

The second thing that must be noted about Cap'n Crunch's showing at KttD IX is that he got totally hosed with his second song.  Supertramp's "Goodbye Stranger" was an inspired choice - or it would have been had the shrill backing vocals of the chorus been part of his karaoke experience.  A bad karaoke mix can be disconcerting, so to speak.  I experienced a similar, though far less devastating, scenario in KttD VI when the chants of "Wild boys!  Wild boys!" were omitted from the intro to Duran Duran's masterpiece.  That was unfortunate, but I was able to recover.  Cappy did his best to salvage the situation, but in this case the missing vocals were crucial to the potential of his performance.  Their absence thwarted any chance Crunch had of making a late comeback.  Hosed. I don't know how work the title of Cappy's song (and this post) into the body of the text like I've done with the others.  I mean, there's an obvious way, but Cappy doesn't like it when I bring up that magical night we shared in New York last summer.  Come on, Cappy.  Why you gotta be that way?

I didn't wake up this morning intending to buy a new bike.  That was supposed to be next weekend.  But I was in a bike shop this afternoon, and I saw a good deal.  So I took it for a spin.  And then I remembered that Dabysan wanted to see me buy a new bike maybe even more than I actually wanted to buy a new bike.  Spending the money while he wasn't around was definitely the right call.  I'm a man of simple tastes.  Like spite.  And European carbon-fiber bicycles.

I don't actually have my new spitebike yet.  They're going to swap out the cassette for me and they have to order the part.  I could have it this week some time, but getting home from work and to the shop before seven is cutting it a bit fine.  Plus this way Daby can come with me next Saturday when I get it fit.  I'm sure he won't want to miss that.

No karaoke today.  I'm wiped out.  Not only did I ride this morning in weather that's way too cold, but I got up way too early to do it.  I'll double up tomorrow.  Maybe.

Selecting a winning KttD song is as much an art as a science.  There's more to it than tempo and melody, more than words.  And one should never - ever - discount the sing-along factor.  Aussie Bob learned that one the hard way.

Jason P. holds the dubious (and ultimately meaningless) distinction of being Karaoke to the Death's "actual best" in both of the past two years.  He is definitely at a competitive disadvantage, what with a background in music and all, and Daby's assessment that a couple of fuzzy guitars are all his performance of Wilson Phillips' "Hold On" would need to make the hipsters swoon is probably accurate.  But I'm starting to hear some potential.  He doesn't hit all the notes here.  I believe that with the right song, anyone can win KttD.  This wasn't the right song for Jason, but it's a step in the right direction.

Hold on, Jason.  Don't you know?  Don't you know things can change?  Things'll go your way if you hold on for one more day.  Hold on for one more day.  Things'll go your way.  Hold on for one more day.