Last Friday night, Jen and I met up with some friends at a local bar called Z Club. I had been warned that the place is a dive. And I guess if you compare it to Mother’s Tavern (where we’ve gone for karaoke in the past), it kinda is. But overall, the place isn’t that bad. Sure, the floor is perpetually sticky, and there’s an elevated stripper poll in the middle of the place. But it’s not that bad.
Like most evenings of karaoke, this one began with the procurement of drinks, followed by the process of finding the right songs. I was impressed with Z Club’s massive selection of karaoke tunes. Z’s catalog is WAY bigger than what they’ve got at Mother’s. Me and Jen both scoured the book to find our backing tracks of choice. We then filled out our song-selection slips and turned them into the DJ. (”KJ?”)
Jen’s first performance was “Under The Milky Way.” My first song was “Electrolite” (a personal favorite). Of course, we weren’t the only ones singing that night. Over the next hour, we heard an interesting collection of Joy Division, Cardigans and U2 songs (among others). Then, Jen was back up with her take on “Our Lips Are Sealed.” She struggled with some of the high notes. But she did OK. My next song was “Army.” And talk about struggling! I flubbed the first verse (I couldn’t hear the backing track that well) and barely recovered the rest of the song. Another hour passed as we heard karaoke-ized versions of Eminem, Bon Jovi and Nancy Sinatra tunes (again, among others). Jen capped her evening with a fine rendition of “Only Happy When It Rains.” Her voice is a good match for Shirley Manson. My last song was “Pictures Of Lily,” and I believe I redeemed myself with this one. It helped that I know this song really well, and it’s a little closer to my range (whatever exactly that is).
Not too long after that, the night started winding down, and our group began to head in separate directions. We had a good time, though. It was great to get out there and sing again.
And getting back to the whole “dive bar” thing: On our way out, we had to squeeze around some guys on a ladder who were working on the front door. We asked what had happened, and their only response was, “Someone broke the door.” I don’t remember ever hearing of something like that at Mother’s.
