LOST IN THE BOOTH
WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT A SHOPPING CENTRE COULD BE FUN?
Informer can sing. Well, I can hold a tune, with occasionally pleasing vibrato. I’ve sung in bands, duos, trios, in an a capella ensemble and even solo in front of an orchestra. While making no claims to Farnsy’s title as The Voice, I am at least a voice, try and understand it.
The first time I sang in public was in a high school production, a tribute to the ’50s for which Informer’s fledgling prowess on guitar convinced a highly optimistic few that I might pen a ditty or two and soak up a chunk of stage time while they were in the wings sneaking ciggies.
I duly dashed off a couple of amateurish tunes that ripped off the chord progression from Neil Young’s The Needle and the Damage Done and featured lyrics about blue jeans, beach scenes, hot rods and you get the picture.
Unfortunately, I’d misread the brief. Turns out we were actually paying tribute to the 1850s, which required some fancy last-minute musical footwork to change jeans of blue to pantaloons, beach scenes to bushrangers and hot rods to sly grog, the whole shebang climaxing with the theme from Happy Days. Needless to say, the audience was baffled and the critics unforgiving.
Despite this debacle, the music bug had bit and for several years Informer played around the local traps until lured by the tone-deaf easy virtue of one Mrs Informer, whereupon my musical muse, unamused, was excused.
I never maintained any illusions as to the extent of my “talent” – and today I am even less hip and more hip replacement – but my long-dormant voice has found its reawakening, all thanks to a most unexpected location: the local shopping centre.
As shopping centres go, it fits the norm as an unprepossessing clump of concrete containing the usual suspects – supermarket, cafe, newsagent, hairdresser, bakery and one of those weird joints that sell 3D pictures of tigers, risqué playing cards, synthetic feather boas and cutlery trays, all excitingly toxic and flammable. A charmless conglomerate though my shopping centre may be, recently it welcomed something positively whimsical: a karaoke booth.
“Mamma Mia,” I thought upon seeing it for the first time, closely followed by: “My, my, how can I resist you?” In I went, and in I have been wenting ever since.
Initially I struggled with the repertoire and selected artists. I’d have gladly swapped Uptown Funk for Downtown Train, Single Ladies for Foxy Lady, Taylor Swift for James Taylor, Katy Perry for Kate Bush, Harry Styles for Harry Chapin and everything Pink for anything punk. And some of the tunes are really demanding. That high note in Let Her Go left me frozen.
Still, Informer is enjoying a nostalgic idyll, this despite the booth offering little privacy to change into my spandex pants and sequined cut-off singlet. I must also apologise for one ambitious dance kick during Beat It that resulted in the door crashing open to take out the youngest member of a Japanese family waiting, ironically, to sing Daft Punk’s Get Lucky.
Sure, I accept that karaoke is a bit naff – when my daughter found out what I was doing she asked if the booth only played songs by Tool – but it’s karaOKe by me.
As with all things, and especially all things karaoke, it could always be verse.