Hey everyone!? (The exclamation point is for if there's anyone there, the question mark is also for if there is anyone there, but it's more of a question. As in IS there anyone there?) We had a pretty good night tonight. I went for a theme night, the theme being Lost Classics. By Lost Classics I mean songs that were pretty big when they came out(if not singles, you could at least hear them on the radio) but you never hear them anymore. I started off the night by paying tribute to the late Levon Helm with Chest Fever. I prefaced it with "this is a lost classic in two ways" etc. Then Alan did Foreigner's Cold As Ice. I think you can still hear this on Classic Rock radio, but probably not as much as you hear Feels Like The First Time or Urgent(maybe). Alan brought his sister Taylor, who is very fun to hang out with, and her first song was Berlin's The Metro. She felt like she didn't know the song well enough to be doing it, but she did fine. That was followed by this guy named Tim who I don't think anyone knew previously, but he came in to talk to Chris(The owner of Tres Amigos) about his Cinco De Mayo party he's trying to get together. He did Charlie Daniels' Long Haired Country Boy. Marc Sloop made his return with a continuation of the tribute to Levon with The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. My P.A. started acting up at this time and things were sounding like shit.(actually it started sounding bad when Tim came up. At first I thought he was just holding the mic too close, but I couldn't adjust accordingly so by the time Marc came up I realised that the P.A. was being a dick again) I should point out that about midway through the first verse, Tim decided to come up and join in. Afterwards I tried messing with the P.A. to try to get the sound back. It stayed kind of shitty for the next few tunes before getting back to normal. I kicked off the second rotation with Van Halen's Atomic Punk(not a big VH fan, but Alex(the bartender) wanted to hear some so I did that one for him.) Then Alan did Firefall's Strange Way. Taylor did In A Big Country, followed by Tim with (Devo's) Whip It, then Marc did Men At Work's Overkill(Taylor filled me in on the fact that their Flute/Saxaphone Player died on the same day as Levon Helm. I didn't hear about that one, did anyone else?) I started off the 3rd rotation with The Guess Who's Running Back To Saskatoon(which I must point out the karaoke company chopped to shit. No intro, they skipped a bar at the beginning of each verse throwing the timing off, and I actually had to start it over after missing my non-cue. At about the last verse they actually decided to put in that bar that they kept taking out, after I had gotten used to it not being there. I'll know not to do that one again.) Alan's third and last song was Steely Dan's Black Cow(I introed that as "It's Steely Dan time again. Alan's favorite time of the night) Taylor did The Go Gos' Our Lips Are Sealed, which was followed by Tim's version of What's New Pussycat. Marc then did The Ohio Express' Chewy Chewy. He told me when he got there that he was reading Bubble Gum Is The Naked Truth. Then we had a new singer by the name of Jose Luis. He did some song by Jose Alfredo Lopez(I didn't bring the books in because of the rain and I can't read the slip he filled out. Why do Latinos have to wait till they are too drunk to keep up to put in a request?) I started off the 4th and final rotation with Three Dog Night's Version of John Hiatt's Sure As I'm Sitting Here. This was kind of appropriate as I had done Chest Fever pretty much in the same fashion as their version(which I heard first). Tim did A Flock Of Seagulls' I Ran, followed by Mark with Joy Division's Transmission. I finished up the night with Larry Groce's Junk Food Junkie as the oldie from hell. Pretty fun night overall, I just wish we could get more people in. As I mentioned before, it did rain again(as it had for the last two weeks) but at least this time it held off until we were in full swing, so it didn't keep anyone away.

Crappy night, cold, bad turnout. So I'm not going to give the minutes, especially since as far as I can tell, noone has read this blog yet, right? Let me know if I'm wrong.

Welcome to the Rockin' Ammonia Karaoke blog. I am Jon Mitchell, owner & operator of Rockin' Ammonia Karaoke. I started the company in July of 2008 because I love singing karaoke, but I hate having to sit through a lot of Hip Hop, modern Top 40, and Nashville Pop(also known as Modern Country) just so I can sing a few kick ass Rock-N-Roll tunes. So I decided to be the boss, and try to revolutionize karaoke for the die-hard rockers who have probably stayed away from karaoke places for the exact same reasons. My book contains only the best selections available from what is out there. I've had a number of regular places in the Triangle area over these last 4 years, at which I have had various levels of success, but it's mostly been bad. So, I decided to start a blog to report the details of the night so people can see what they missed and maybe they'll come check it out. So, I just finished my 3rd week at Tres Amigos Mexican Restaurant, located at 109 W. Main St. in Carrboro. It's been a slow start, but tonight was the best turn out so far. So here's the details. I started off the night with Joe Jackson's Sunday Papers. Then some Latino guy initiated my Spanish disc which I had to make in order to get this gig. I think his name was Chianto or something like that. He actually had a good voice but he was pretty drunk so he had a little bit of an issue keeping up. But then again I know nothing about the Spanish tunes that I have so the timing of the titles may have been a little off, I don't know. Then Danny Hooley did Paint It Black, followed by Marc Sloop doing The Beatles' Savoy Truffle. Simeon Berkley did The Who's Getting In Tune, and then Alan Butler did Steely Dan's Do It Again. Jet Schmidt made her Tres Amigos debut with David Bowie's Moonage Daydream to wrap up the first rotation. I kicked off the second rotation with Steve Miller's Living In The U.S.A. , then I think Danny did his second and last song which was The Hollies' He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother(which towards the end he threw in an ad-lib something along the lines of "but he's put on a few pounds as of late") Marc came back with Bob Segar's Katmandu during which I took my first smoke break(It's the Live Bullet version, kind of, except it doesn't have the end part with the breakdown where he says "Goodnight, you've been a beautiful audience!") Simeon then did Drive In Saturday, Alan did Touch Me by The Doors, followed by Jet again with Siouxsie & The Banshees' Hong Kong Gardens(which I don't think anyone had done before, as was the case with Moonage Daydream). As I just re-dyed my hair red for the first time in a while I decided to do something by a redhead, so I started off the third rotation with The Babys' Back On My Feet Again. Then Marc did Subterranean Homesick Blues, followed by Simeon with Bad Moon Rising(he actually requested Tom Petty's Refugee, but that song came up instead and he said "I'll do that". It's weird but some songs have been coming up as being mislabeled lately and I have no idea how that happened. I appreciate it when people are willing to go with the flow like that. Then Alan did Devo's Girl-U-Want, followed by Jet with Heart Of Glass. I started off the last rotation with Alice Cooper's I Never Cry, then Marc attempted to do Echo & The Bunnymen's The Killing Moon, during which I stepped out for another smoke and the track turned out to be incomplete and cut off. I let him try it again as I thought it might have been a fluke(like the machine malfunctioned as has been known to happen before) but it's a brand new machine so it cut off at the same place. I'm going to have to see if I can't download a new version of that so I can reburn the disc. I think both Simeon & Alan had left by that time(I'm gonna start saving the request slips from now on so I can give a more accurate picture of the night)so Jet did That's Entertainment by The Jam. I did my best to do harmonies with her(I love singing with Jet almost as much as I like singing with Jenni Snyder) but the phrasing on that song is a little awkward so we both fucked up a bit. Marc had another slip in for the next rotation which didn't happen, so since his last one was fucked up, I let him come back up and do the very brief The Letter by The Box Tops. Now for those of you who have never been to my shows, I always end the night with what I call the "Oldie From Hell". I didn't invent the phrase, it comes from an old syndicated classic rock radio show called Flashback. Anyway it's usually some sort of AM Gold dreck from the 70's and in most cases these are guilty pleasures for me, but occasionally I will do something that I think is just a terrible schmaltzy piece of dreck. When I do do these types of songs I usually sing it in a kind of fucked up way. So tonight's Oldie From Hell was Debbie Boone's You Light Up My Life. I introduced it by saying "I'm not going to tell you who this is, but I will tell you that Patti Smith managed to make this song sound cool. I don't know that I will be so lucky." So I started off doing it kind of half gothy half croony(in the lowest octave I can sing, it kind of sounded like that guy from Crash Test Dummies) but then later I kind of eased into a gravelly Tom Waits voice. It ended up being a lot of fun. So there you have it. In the coming days I will post my songbook here. I hope this blog will help get more people in so we can get more singers in there and keep it going till 2. If anybody who participates does not want to be identified by name, let me know.