- Ian Goodrich
I came mere minutes away from becoming TBA’s final performer. And dammit, I wanted to end the thing.
Unfortunately, the timing fell just short. Karaoke was over. Before that it was dead.
And to be quite honest, putting the microphone in my largely unprepared hands would’ve been every bit as disastrously ill-fated as all those who handled it before in Sunday’s final program at The Works, led by Eric Fredericksen and Weekend Leisure.
Theoretically, the idea was fun—a hybrid interactive-monologue/inclusive-performance/history lesson. In practice, however, the flimsy construct fell flatter than so many of the evening’s tone-deaf deliveries.
From the onset, Fredericksen and co.’s program had many hurdles to clear: a late Sunday start, rain, and festival fatigue. But the performers too deserve their share of the blame. The production seemed almost totally unrehearsed. Video cues were constantly missed and sometimes the wrong footage was played all together. Sound was either missing or overwhelming Fredericksen, who displayed little of the gravitas or charisma to captivate a six-hundred-seat auditorium (even if it was 80% empty).
Fredericksen’s thesis, that karaoke is authentic and, as such, foments society, served more as a bookend to give a stale lecture on rock while involving the audience. (Even as a music critic I couldn’t have been more disinterested as Fredericksen connected the Rolling Stones to the Sex Pistols to Nirvana, before circling back to the blues.)
And the idea that karaoke would create a community here somewhat ate itself, if that community is supposed to be about the share of intellectual ideas. Indeed it’s hard to pay attention to what Kurt Cobain was trying to say when performed horribly out of key and time. Rather than build anything, the karaoke portion it turned the audience off, shifting focus from Fredericksen’s point to the person on stage.
Maybe that was Fredericksen’s point on authenticity—that we’d focus on what this new, unknown individual from the audience was doing, or making their own through karaoke. If so, it sure undercut the focus of his lecture. I can’t be sure, however, if that part of the lecture went over my head (or straight up my ass) since Fredericksen was often drowned out by the bored and chatty back-half of the audience.
Weekend Leisure, a troupe of creatives from Canada, were no better. As well as blowing most of Fredericken’s cues, they provided the karaoke system, and ran it poorly. In the middle of the lecture, rather than in advance, they’d call people to the stage to keep the show going by singing out Fredericksen’s examples. Sometimes the supposed performers were outside, or had left, leaving the show dead in its tracks. Weekend Leisure also designed a light stage show (read: cardboard instruments) and a few re-creations of karaoke backing videos (but not even for all the songs pre-scheduled in Fredericksen’s essay). Their caricatures of the caricatures that are karaoke videos were meandering and uninspired and might as well have been the things they sought to parody. Worse yet they weren’t good singers, which came to bear when Fredericksen didn’t have audience members to perform his examples.
The whole thing was a truly disjointed mess, which might help explain this fumbling, flummoxed account. We could look deeper at the supposed meanings and the failings of execution, but to what end? Bottom line was this final program absolutely sucked, which an audience that almost all left before its conclusion can attest to. It gives me absolutely no pleasure to shit on this final performance of TBA, as those involved seemed to approach their subject with earnest hopes. But compared to many of the engaged, thoughtful and well-executed performances that filled the Works, it was truly an affront.
My disdain extends to the schedulers as well; capping a mostly venerable festival with such a throwaway performance—rather than something more contemplative or with surefire punch—is inexcusable.
Around 11:15 the show was over, and karaoke was offered to the remaining audience. For 15 more minutes. I didn’t get to sing.
Thanks for the review, and my apologies that you didn’t get your shot at the stage–we were surprised to be told to close up shop early: the plan was for the night to go late and many more songs to be sung by all.
Just for purposes of the historical record: I didn’t argue in my talk that karaoke was authentic at all. I was working from the introductory quote from Malcolm McLaren–“”Today there are two words that sum up the culture: ‘authenticity’ is one, and the other … ‘karaoke’! Many artists spend their entire life trying to authenticate, make true, a karaoke culture, but you have to be a magician to make that happen.”
My goal was not to assert karaoke’s authenticity, but to critique authenticity, using Godard’s “Sympathy for the Devil,” the Sex Pistols’ final concert at Winterland, and Cobain’s suicide note as scenes where creation and community run head-on into the problem of authenticity.
It’s interesting that this review critiques the evening as a performance, rather than as a lecture and an evening of karaoke, as it was advertised. I went in with the belief that these are very different modes of public presentation, but perhaps agreeing to host the evening from a stage in an auditorium risks creating different expectations.
I didn’t set out to make a tight show of good singing. That would be an inappropriate way to present or discuss karaoke: Its virtues are tied to amateurism, enthusiasm, and looseness. I did hope to be a good host, in the sense that those who came out for the night would enjoy themselves during the evening, and would get to sing. This review serves as evidence that those goals were not met.
Best regards,
Eric Fredericksen
In the future, now that we are aware of the OLCC’s liquor regulations, we’ll make sure to sell $1 PBJ sandwiches at our next Oregon event to avoid losing the venue’s liquor license and thus having to cut the karaoke short causing you to miss your song.
Be assured, we make every effort to have everyone sing at least once during our events, and Andrew R Tonry, should you ever find yourself at one of our karaoke nights – in Vancouver or elsewhere – you will be given preferential treatment due to this missed opportunity to sing.
Mostly though I am disappointed that you did not care for our own karaoke videos. Were they not funny enough, too kitschy or too little, formally uninteresting? We have always made our karaoke videos with the greatest of enthusiasm, and it pains me to read them described as ‘uninspired’. If you could provide me an inspired karaoke video that has been made in the last 10 years, I would greatly appreciate it.
What about this one: http://vimeo.com/6169393?
Hey Eric, just reading your essay intensely now. It’s great! Really good. Too bad you had to present it at 10pm to tired and well-fed (post-dining) festival goers.