Category: karaoke

Baby Ketten Has A Furever Home

I’ve written about the best karaoke in the world, Portland’s Baby Ketten Karaoke, many times. I’ve done it here and here and here and here. My friend Jay Horton wrote all about the new all-ketten all the time club here.

It’s big news! Baby Ketten Karaoke is on the scene 7 nights a week on SE Powell, where it all began! Where I met Brophy and his crew, where I sang my first song, I Want Your Sex by George Michael, while wearing a petticoat of some sort (I mean a lot of these are sense memories), where I got drunk and bought a painting of a pitbull, where two sisters waited for an ambulance after one of them bit the other one’s nose sort of OFF, where Klingon Karaoke happened for a while, where I DJ’ed a terrible goth night where an attendee asked me to play the I’m Dead I’m Dead song, all that spirit and magic has swirled together for all the Kettens to meet up. I am getting there as soon as I can and I’ll see you when that happens! Check out the best songbook in the world here!

Meet Your New Vocal Coach, Emma Michaelsen

Dear Errybody.

You like singing, right?  Sure you do!  We all like singin’!

Are you singing at your full potential?

Meet Emma.  Emma is a badass Swedish black metal singer with formal jazz vocal training.  She can teach you to sing any style.  She’ll help you figure out where your range is, and how to improve it.  I’ve been working with her for a year and have increased my range by a whoooooole octave, and solved a lot of my problems!  Not all of them!  Just the ones about singing!

Hit up this amazing vocalist and coach today- it’s Emma Michaelsen!

I Have A Dark Footish

My friend Simon Max Hill is a hard-working casting agent who has been casting Portlandia, Nike spots, and other important television from his seat in Portland,OR.  He’s also an enthusiast of dancing, robots, and being a super weird generator of ideas at all times.  On Tuesday, he announced that it was my responsibility to make a sock puppet music video, and by Thursday I had it up.

  Here’s Dark Footish covering the Smiths.  And to the nice lady who said “Oh, this is great, I hope there’s more!”- it currently has 22 views.  I am the gothic Naomi Campbell of Youtube, I don’t get out of my coffin for fewer than 100 views.

Update: Four years later and we’re up to 140 views, only 410 fewer than a video of Bloodmeadow cracking her neck.

Baby Ketten Los Angeles!

 

 

Dear Los Angelans:

I’m very excited to share with you some important mews.  The legendary Baby Ketten Karaoke, with the baddest book in the universe, (where “bad” means “good” and “universe” means “Continental United States”) is opening a local satellite that will run first and third Sundays at the Ace Hotel in LA, starting Sunday, Aug 3rd!  RSVP here!

It’s slated to be rooftop karaoke, with plenty of space for dancing and singing and hot tubbing and shenanigans, run by the Ketten’s close friend Meggie Nicole!  If we have ever stood next to each other for any amount of time you have heard me run my mouth about Portland’s Baby Ketten, which is the best karaoke ever.  The book is not just expansive but obsessive, with many many many original Ketten-only tracks, and constantly updated with today’s weirdest hits!  Here’s the New York Times article on the Ketten phenom: here!

Have you ever wanted to sing Siouxsie Sioux’s apocalyptic lullaby, Metal Postcard? Probably not, but I did, and I sang it at Baby Ketten!  Bauhaus’ Kick in the Eye? Think you can keep an audience through Pulp’s bump and grind classic, This is Hardcore? Find out! Do you think singing Laid by James will get a singalong going? Can you handle Tori Amos’ Crucify? Do you think you can step to The Strangler’s Peaches?

Here is a partial listing of my favorite Baby Ketten Karaoke tracks to give you a taste.    Go to their website here or install the app to look for your favorite songs!  YES OF COURSE THEY HAVE AN APP!

 

Mark Ronson- Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This one Before

Suicidal Tendencies- Institutionalized

Nine Inch Nails- Something I Can Never Have

Hoodoo Gurus- Like Wow, Wipeout

Tori Amos- Smells Like Teen Spirit

The Smiths- The Queen Is Dead

The Horrors- Still Life

She & Him- Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?

The Cure- Why Can’t I Be You?

The Cure- The Walk

LCD Soundsystem- Daft Punk Is Playing At My House

Radiohead- Lucky

The Normal- Warm Leatherette

The Dead Milkmen- Instant Club Hit

Rufus Wainwright- Vibrate

Nina Simone- I Need A Little Sugar In My Bowl

Desire- Under Your Spell

Belle And Sebastian- Lord Antony

Siouxsie and the Banshees-Metal Postcard

Echo and the Bunnymen-Killing Moon

XTC-Senses Working Overtime

Japan-Quiet Life

Replacements-Alex Chilton

Nick Cave-Red Right Hand

Proclaimers-Sunshine on Leith

Beats International-Dub Be Good To Me

Belle and Sebastian-Funny Little Frog

Pixies- No. 13 Baby

Beautiful South-Rotterdam

Pulp- This is Hardcore

Psychic TV- Godstar

Warpaint- Undertow

AND SO MUCH MOAR!

I love the Ketten so much I have talked about them in my blog before, here and here!

POSTSCRIPT: This show ROCKED and everyone who was a part of it was GREAT!  Local karaoke celebs Kevin Cable and Howard Hallis came out!  BABY KETTEN will be back Aug 17!