Before I start this blog I need to make one think very clear. In England Karaoke is a four letter word, a word that carries with it images of drunken dads and childhood fears. As a child, if I’d been particularly naughty, my mum would chase me round the house with a microphone shouting ‘Karaoke. Sing Lewis sing!’ I still wake up screaming at the thought, but the screams are out of tune of course.
As the years passed my hatred of the ‘k’ word and everything it stood never diminished. At one stage I started a political party whose sole aim was to get karaoke removed from Britain at the earliest given opportunity. To promote it would be a crime, indeed I suggested if someone were to be caught singing out of key into a metal box, then the culprit should be stoned to death.
But then I got to Korea. I’d heard about nori bangs (translation, singing rooms) and this seemed like a liberal compromise. Let people butcher well known classics, but in a private room out of my way. It was a perfect solution.
The strange thing about karaoke is that it falls into a polarised market. The two groups it appeals to are firstly teenage girls, and secondly pissed up middle aged men in bars, who still haven’t quite got over the fact that they won’t be rock stars. Credit where it’s due that’s a tough pair to find common ground with; teenagers and older men who find solace in drink. The catholic church have done their bit, but I’m not sure that’s quite the same as the karaoke angle.
And so, as the first few weeks in Chuncheon passed, I was blissfully karaoke free. Bars never have nights devoted to it. I have no younger family here to suffer it at birthday parties with. All was good and well in the world, knowing that karaoke was safely being performed behind closed doors.
Then there was Haiti. If it was wasn’t for the disaster in Haiti then I may never have sung, may never have fallen into the spiral of nori-bang addiction, from which I feel there is no way back.
I should explain. To raise funds for the tragedy Neill, a friend of mine, organised a singing competition at a particularly large nori-bang. A nori-hall if you will. To generate much needed cash we were to sing in front of each other, and the worst bit was, we had to pay for this ritual humiliation.
I felt sure the last thing homeless, starving people wanted was a bunch of foreigners in Korea taking apart other people’s musical back catalogues on their behalf, so I suggested just giving the money, but people seemed to think that made me some kind of miserable bastard, and so I signed up. I agreed to go along, thinking I would hang at the back of the room and ride out the whole experience, drink myself into a stupor and listen to my iPod, to music how it should be sung.
Sadly it wasn’t to be. I was seen, trying not to be seen. I was told I had to choose a song, or the song would be chosen for me. Fearing an hour on stage having to sing Bohemian Rhapsody in its entirety, I looked frantically for the fire exits. Why couldn’t they show us before we started? Surely it’s more use to know your way out of a 3 story building than a piece of metal suspended 2 miles above the ground?
During my scanning I found no way out, but I did see a friend was doing the same. He looked panicked, frightened, as if he’d just been told he was to be tortured to death unless he could fix a rubix cube in the next 5 minutes. I had found my companion. We both had nowhere to run.
I sloped over to Matt and asked him if he wanted to go through the experience together. Brothers in arms on a long road to ruin. (You see what I’m doing with these links?) He agreed and so we selected a song. It was to be ‘Copa Cabana.’ It was to become our signature. When Korea is long gone, we’ll always have the Copa.
We battled through, not once but twice. We were so bad we ‘won’ last place, and so were asked to perform again. I had no hesitation. I’d been through to the other side. (Incidentally, there’s over 10 songs called the other side, must be a good place to go) I’d looked fear in the face and laughed out of key at it. We were heroes and there was nothing anybody could do to stop us.
It’s hard to explain why nori-bang has captured me, whilst karaoke has left me feeling born to run (I admit that was tenuous) Perhaps it’s the fact it’s in a room, away from prying eyes. Perhaps it’s the fact there’s no night clubs in Chuncheon, or rather there are night clubs, but most don’t allow foreigners in. I can only think they’re scared of making a profit, because on the few times I’ve made it inside, they have been cavernous holes devoid of life or atmosphere. After drinking and talking in bars, I like to listen and dance to good music. Nori-bang has filled that vacuum.
Maybe, it’s just because for that night, in own mind at least, I’m a rock and roll star.
Since this was published Lewis and Matt have become regulars on the Nori-bang circuit, singing along terribly to various genres of music. The most eventful being renditions of Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquai, as it involves moving furniture around the room in a desperate effort to recreate the video. To recognise their efforts in pushing back the boundaries of nori-bang, Lewis and Matt have been awarded numerous hangovers and Sundays filled with regret.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment