Houston sings along with the queen of karaoke
Montrose singer Nina Lombardo gets the ball bouncing
Nina Lombardo sums herself up perfectly on her Instagram page, just above her carefully curated selfies with sky-blue lipstick and spiked heels.
“Tattoos. Dreadlocks. Music. Moxie. Crafty. Queer. Virgo. Vegan. (Not So Wicked) Witch. I myself am strange and unusual.”
It’s a decidedly left-of-center mix. Lombardo has more than 30 piercings, including several on her face, and she’s lost count of how many tattoos cover her arms, chest and legs. Among her favorites are a 1920s flapper and her parents cast as teenage zombies.
And, yes, she’s gotten stares.
“I just give them a big smile,” Lombardo says. “It kind of throws them off to see that from someone they’d expect to react much differently.”
To know Lombardo, who turns 32 this month, is to understand that there is another side to her riot-girl image. She’s obsessed with glitter. She loves to design and decorate. She can whip up a perfect batch of cupcakes. She’s taking a full-time online course load at Houston Community College. She went vegan earlier this year and has lost 30 pounds.
“I really feel so much better,” she says. “It’s also helped me uncover and take care of other problems I didn’t know I had.”
She owns roughly 80 pairs of high heels — some covered in bloody eyeballs, gothic Care Bears, Garbage Pail Kids or rhinestone skulls. She’s a proud bargain shopper, “stalking” shoes online until she finds a good price.
All those colors have made Lombardo a known commodity in Houston’s LGBT community — and beyond. She’s considered the Montrose queen of karaoke, hosting Thursdays and Sundays at JR’s Bar & Grill. She’s held the host job for four years, ably handling rowdy crowds and repeated requests for Bruno Mars, Adele and songs from “Grease.”
The Sharpstown High School graduate was a finalist in the 2010 Pride Superstar singing competition and had little onstage experience before that. She became a fan favorite, and it opened doors for her as a singer and performer throughout Houston.
“I really wasn’t going out, wasn’t involved in the community before that,” she says of Pride Superstar. “It opened my eyes to a lot of things and put me in front of a lot of people. I’m so proud of what I was able to do there.”
She has become a go-to emcee for various events around town, including four years as co-host for the Houston Pride Parade.
“Nina has a fresh, revitalizing appeal that connects with millennials. She is very in touch with the music that appeals to them,” says Jose Apodaca, director of operations for JR’s, South Beach nightclub and Meteor Lounge. (All three, along with the Montrose Mining Company, are under the Charles Armstrong Investments banner.)
JR’s was the first gay bar in Texas to introduce weekly karaoke in 1991, Apodaca says. The bar has two sides: one for wouldbe divas and crooners, the other a more standard setup for patrons to mingle away from the high notes. JR’s recently unveiled a massive, “New Orleans style” courtyard and patio, complete with couches, misting stations and fountains.
Lombardo has also brought in more music. She beefed up the JR’s catalog by more than 100,000 tracks from her
personal collection.
“Hosting karaoke has definitely helped me develop as a performer and a singer,” Lombardo says. She gets nightly requests to duet with patrons and take solo turns on everything from Kelly Clarkson to Evanescence.
“You can’t just stand there, or the crowd will get bored,” she says. “It’s definitely pushed me to up my game and come out of my shell.”
Lombardo also is a vocalist and songwriter for metal band Raised From Nothing. She brings a velvety sort of soul to the crash of guitars and drums. Her heart, however, is in the singersongwriter vein of Ani DiFranco, her primary inspiration.
And twice a week, her zombie heels are dug into the karaoke stage and all its eccentric characters.
“I was singing ‘Karma’ by Alicia Keys, and this girl started throwing change and roofing nails at my shoes,” Lombardo says. “She said, ‘I know it’s not much but it’s what I had.’ Roofing nails?
What am I, a house?
“People are very — friendly when they’re drunk.” She’s had patrons ask to make out and others touch her tattoos. “It’s very strange to me how little boundaries people have. But it’s part of the job.”