21 posts tagged “kttd”

In February 2010 we will contest the 10th annual Karaoke to the Death X, and I intend to take home the trophy and enshrine myself in the pantheon of KttD greats. It will be an uphill climb. As often discussed, I have a number of things going against me.

The first, and most difficult obstacle I have to overcome, is my unvarnished enjoyment of attention, good or bad. Your typical modern KttD winner is a tone-deaf introvert who despises being the center of attention. These natural champions have an uncomfortable and displeasing stage presence that simply can't be faked. Hotrod has famously ridden this trait to two KttD championships in the modern era, an historic accomplishment. I go into the competition understanding that I'm going to have to triumph despite my comparative ease on stage.

But KttD is first and foremost a bad singing contest, so being at ease on stage -- while not optimal -- is not a deal breaker. In the singing department, my greatest asset is a powerful voice (easily the loudest in the field) that can be strained to vulgar frequencies given the "right" song. When I won KttD it was the happy marriage of this powerful instrument and Chicago's warbling "If You Leave Me Now" that propelled me ahead of the competition.

Since my victory in KttD V, I have never again factored in the voting, nor have I ever been a factor in the final voting. Part of this can be attributed to a significant, tournament-wide upswing in the overall level of competition, but I think a bigger factor has been my inability to find that perfect song to match my voice.

So I'm going a different direction this year. In the past, I typically shot for bad songs that I secretly loved (If You Leave Me Now, How Deep is Your Love, More Than a Feelin', etc.) but now I'm looking for songs that I wholeheartedly despise. I think this is the key to help me find my muse. Below is the current leader in the clubhouse.

ALEXANDRIA -- In a razor-close competition marked by consistent, if not transcendent performances, Karaoke to the Death co-founder and multiple champion Hotrod drew on his deep reserves of tactics and willpower to eke out a narrow victory in the Ninth Annual Karoke to the Death IX.

Hotrod came out of the gate swinging with an early performance of "No One" by Alicia Keys that set the tone for the night. It wasn't a knockout punch, but it was bad enough to thrust the grizzled old champ into the lead, where he fended off a field of game competitors on his way to a wire-to-wire victory decided by the closest of margins.

Slumped in a creaky, sweating heap on a broken-down stool in the Rock It locker-room (vomit-stained bathroom - ed.) , the KttD I, VI and now IX champ showed his age as he broke down in front of reporters. "That's me up on that stage. I give you people a little bit of my soul up there every President's Day Weekend. Take it you jackals, take it all," Hotrod railed, adding "Go Steelers."

(Note: YouTube's new favorite thing is to disable embedding. Fun. Click on the video if you want to hear the song sung correctly.)

The night got off to a promising start as the Rock It Karaoke DJ -- a source of controversy in years past -- arrived on time, and got the song list started with no hassle and no scuzzy townie shennanigans. Some KttAttendees expressed aprehension at the clutch of rowdy Rock It patrons in uninronic cowboy hats, who looked like they 1) had gotten into a unsecured batch of human growth hormone and 2) knew a thing or two about the fine art of dive-bar pugilism. But those concerns proved to be misplaced, as the townie population was more than usually supportive and respectful of the KttProceedings.

After the townies got things started with a barrage of earnestly-sung country songs, KttD co-founder Dabysan took the stage for the first KttPerformance of the night. In nine years of performing, it was Dabysan's first time in the dreaded pole position, and first time performing ahead of fellow co-founder Hotrod.

Dabysan tore into his performance of Montel Jordan's "This is How We Do It" with gusto, but it was almost immediately apparent that it wasn't the right song choice for the KttD V Champ. Once again, his overly comfortable stage demeanor and love of the spotlight hamstrung him, as it had in so many years past. The song was poorly sung, to be sure, but Dabysan's accompanying dancing, capering and obvious enjoyment led to a bar-wide song-and-dance party that killed any slim chances the song had of factoring in the voting.

Hotrod took the stage next and delivered what would be the performance of the night, a reedy, earnest, sickly performance of No One, by Alicia Keys. The performance bore all of Hotrod's loathsome trademarks -- crippling stage fright, rigid stance, two-handed death grip on the microphone and of course, his singularly unpleasant, fey singing voice wavering indistinctly throught the key changes in Keys' passionate torch song. If anything kept the performance from being a home run, it was Hotrod's inability to really belt it out at the top of his volume. To appreciate how bad it was, KttCompetitors actually had to be looking at him. Thankfully for him, all of them were, and the totality of the performance was truly rotten.

But Hotrod would have to stave off a bevy of worthy competitors in is quest for an unprecedented third victory. First up was the always dangerous Cap'n Crunch, who took the stage immediately after Hotrod to perform the attrocious "I Was Made For Loving You," by Kiss. Crunch was terrible, and to his credit, there wasn't a hint of tanking in his performance, but while bad, he failed to achieve previous lows. Some said that his decision to move away from the gender-bending, uncomfortably sexualized genre that has defined his KttCareer was a mistake. But it should be noted that the Cap'n was one of only four performers to actually tally votes in KttD IX.  He'll be back in KttD X.

Crunch's performance opened the floodgates to an onslaught of KttChallengers who delivered consistently bad, but not excruciating performances. There was Soo Do Nimh, doing a severe injustice to Jackson Browne's Running On Empty; Jeff -- a KttD newcomer -- showed his mettle with a surprisingly dischordant and uncomfortable version of Enrique Iglesias' "Hero"; Andie -- another newcomer -- who wowed everyone with a consistently off-key dismantling of Tiffany's "I Think We're Alone Now"; and Alan, who bellowed his way through "Welcome to the Jungle."

The best performance of the night (not really a compliment in this competiton) went to Jason P, who got the Rock It rolling (PUNishment - ed.) with a masterful performance of "Hold On" by Wilson Phillips. Jason lit the bar on fire. Put some punky guitars in there, and he'd have a radio hit that'd make the post-ironic hipsters swoon.

But even as all these performances came and went, the KttAudience braced for the Big Three of this year's KttCompeition -- mercilessly untalented newcomer Matayas, reigning KttD Champ Aussie Bob and odds-on favorite Emma Peel.

KttD VII Champ Peel was up first, and figured to blow the competition out of the water with Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U." But Peel was off her game. The elements were there to be sure: wooden posture, lead-footed "dancing," and of course Emma's singluarly tuneless singing voice. But she just didn't manage to eke out the big cringes that she did in previous compeitions. In hindsight, Emma performs best when she's singing a song intended for a man, and her "range" was a little too close to Sinead's to be truly mortifying. When the dust settled, Emma tallied no votes for her dissapoingly adequate performance.

Reigning champ Aussie Bob fared slightly better, coming to the competition with one of the best song selections of the night -- "Extreme's More than Words" -- and delivering it in his uniquely tone deaf fashion. Bob eked out a couple votes for his tunelessness, but was hampered by two key drawbacks: 1) the song drew a lusty, and unexpected, singalong from the townies and 2) the talky quality of the tune lulled Bob into state where he was more speaking than singing, which undercut the pain potential of the song. The sophmore slump is a very real phenomenon in KttD, and Bob caught a nasty case.

Hotrod's biggest challenge came from a contender who suffered no such slump. From the moment she took the stage in KttD VIII, it was clear that Matays had something sinister hiding beneath her good natured facade. Her performance of Barracuda very nearly won her the competition as a rookie -- a nearly impossible feat -- and the KttCrowd was eager to see what she'd do this year. Matayas didn't disappoint. Her performance of Natalie Cole's "This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)" was just brutal. With indefatigable good-naturedness, she belted out the song in a voice that never, ever threatened to stray into the appropriate register. The performance delivered the kind of shudder- and cringe-inducing moments that KttD victories are made of. When the dust settled, and the assembled ears stopped ringing, it was clear that it had become a two-horse race between Hotrod and Matayas.

Hotrod, Dabysan and the Cap'n  managed to sing second songs, and while Dabysan redeemed himself somewhat with a frayed, out-of-key deconstruction of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi," none of the second performances factored in the final voting.

The judges were split right down the middle, with one camp solidly behind Matayas and the other backing Hotrod. In the end, it was Matayas herself who decided the competition. By casting her vote for Hotrod, she put him over the top with a two-vote lead. Had she voted for herself, KttD would have ended in an unprecedented deadlock -- something that would have sent the rules committee into a state of high alert. But she voted for Hotrod, and the rest is history.

Matayas was phillisophical in defeat. "I would have liked to have taken home the Cup," Matayas said, "but I did my best, and what can I say? Hotrod really, really sucks."

Excelsior!  

So, I missed posting yesterday. For a KttD co-founder,  missing a post during such an important week might be regrettable, but as an ordinary attendee, I think my KttOutput has been pretty strong, missed post notwithstanding.

If the greatest controllable factor for any KttCompetitor is selecting the right song, the greatest challenge may be the tendency to second-guess song selection. Second guessing is a predictable and inevitable byproduct of the KttD preperation process. After picking song, boning up on the lyrics, listening to it on headphones and singing in it in the shower for a few weeks, the KttCompetitor starts to get strangely desensitized to it.

As the day of the compeition gets closer, the KttCompetitor hears new songs, is tempted by new ideas, and starts to question the logic that went into the original choice. Sometimes, spur of the moment choices are inspired -- as was the case in Lord Ramsey's impromptu performance of Private Dancer -- but in many cases, KttCompetitors end up talking themselves out of perfectly good choices and into the flavor of the moment.

On a personal note, I thought I was going to avoid second guessing this year. I had my song choice months ago, and have felt very strongly about it. I was striking out in a new direction, abandoning past failures. But in the past week a new song has worked its way into my conciousness and I am back on the fence.

So I thought I'd put it to the KttDing public. Vote in the comments for your choice, if you're so inclined. A strong public response in either direction would probably be enough to sway me one way or another. So without further ado, onto the contenders.

1) The Wire-to-Wire Frontrunner

For the past few months this has been my number one with a bullet. It works on a lot of levels. Montel has a very high, melodious voice that I can't mimic. The ghetto/street sensibility of the song will be extremely incongruous with my, um...overwhelming whitness. There's even a really terrible rap toward the end of the song to seal the deal. I maintain that this is a solid, solid choice. 

The main drawback, as I see it, is the extremely high liklihood of a sing-along. On the bright side, I think the only thing people would sing would be the refain "this is how we do it" (natch), which isn't actually part of the lyrics, but it lends itself to an generally festive air, that could really kill any chance I have to make a negative impression on the judges.

2) The Ballad-Come-Lately

I'm tired, I still have (paying) work to do before I sleep, and I'm having a hard time thinking of a KttD-related anecdote/observation that I can relate in less than five sentences. The good news is that my mercurial co-founder has finally come to his senses and started nominally posting about KttD. The bad news is that all the posts are really about me, since he appears to be locked into one of his trademark spite spirals.

So because I have no real content, here is a song that I think I could really mangle, but that doesn't appear to show up on many Karaoke DJ's lists.

Woof. This posting every day business is no good for man or beast. I went out to a big fancy-pants meal with Carrie Nation, watched Top Chef, and was about to slip into blissful oblivion before I remembered my idiotic challenge to myself. So tonight, it's time for something easy: the Vegas line on some top Karaoke to the Death (KttD) contenders!

Dan the Man: 14-1 -- Also called the KttD "Pace Car," Dan is a longshot to factor in the voting.

Jason P: 11-1 -- Too much of a natural performer to scare anyone, lacks a truly awful voice.

Dabysan: 10-1  -- Decent skill set, but would need the stars to align in order to take the cup.

Hotrod: 7-1 --  There is some question to whether the old champ has anything left in his bag of tricks. 

Mwanga: 6-1 -- A little tanky, but very, very bad. 

Cap'n Crook: 4-1 -- A top tier contender. Odds would be better were it not for the perenial concerns about tankery.

Soo Do Nimh: 4-1 -- Soo has less natural ability than the Cap, but is also free of taint.

Allison: 3-1 -- The question is whether she can match the bombast of "Thunder Road."

Aussie Bob: 2-1 -- Last year's winner has all the tools to repeat, if he can get by the other heavy hitters.

Matayas: 2-1 -- If her Baracuda wasn't a fluke, we could be witnessing a new power dynamic in KttD.

Emma Peel: 3-2 -- If one or two votes go the other way she'd be going for the threepeat at KttD IX. The First lady of KttD is the odds-on favorite to bring home the bacon...and the Ramsey Cup.

Excelsior!

(I might add links tomorrow, but I need to sleep off this food baby.) 

Newcomers to KttD follow a predictable pattern. Most first-timers will say something to the effect of: "Oh, you don't want me there. I'm terrible. I'll win for sure." This bravado is usually squashed within moments of the first performance of the night. KttD Competitors aren't merely bad, they're the Worst Singers on Earth, and you need something special to get up and trade body blows with them.

The other common meme among outsiders is something to the effect of "I know EXACTLY the right song. Anyone would win with it." The statement itself belies the speaker's inexerpience. There is no universal solvent in KttD. The right song for me isn't the right song for Hotrod, and the right song for Hotrod isn't a good choice for Emma. Good song selection highlights a singer's greatest weakness, and obscures any redeeming qualities they may have.

Sometimes brilliant song selection is seridiptious -- as was the case with Bill "Lord" Ramsey's performance of "Private Dancer" -- and other times it is the result of months of careful planning -- Hotrod's performance of "Wild Boys" in KttD VI -- but it always defies conventional wisdom and received platitiudes about what constitutes a great KttD song.

As previously discussed, there are a couple considerations that must be taken into account to find a truly winning song. The first challenge is picking a song that is instantly recognizable (it is difficult to know how badly a song is being mangled if you have never heard the original) but not so ubiquitous that it triggers a sing-along. As previously stated, nothing kills a KttPerformance like the I'm-ok-you're-ok group catharsis that is a sing-along.

Next, one has to think seriously about sonic difficulty, which means you actually have to listen to whatever dreadful song you're considering. Sometimes we have it in our head that a song is brutally acrobatic, when in fact, it presents no real vocal challenge. Consider this oft-cited KttD recommendation:

It would appear that in a fit of pre-KttD fervor, I vowed to post about KttD every day this week. I think this is a good lesson for me with regard to blogging. I think I need to take a five minute cool-down period any time I get a wild hair up my ass about issuing myself a challenge, especially when there's no pie involved. But, alas, I promised, and Hotrod doesn't seem interested in doing his part, so here goes nothing.

I think it was future Hall of Fame Coach Vanna who once said: "Ninety percent of KttD is song selection. The other fifty percent is mental." She also said "Hotrod is a petulant prima donna," but that's a story for another post.

Most KttCompeitors start thinking about songs months in advance. The right song can put you over the top. A bad one can ensure that you never make it out of the starting gate. First and foremost, you need a song that highlights your particular vocal limitations. For most, this means a visit to the land of high vocal registers. Next you want a tune that is instantly recognizable, but NOT likely to provoke a performance-drowning sing-along. Finally if you can mix in some gender confusion or other embarassing aspect of the tune, so much the better.

To get a better sense of the process, here are a few songs I considered and rejected this year.

Advantage: miserable. Disadvantages: too obscure, not difficult enough.
 

One week from today, the worst singers in the world will battle for Lord Ramsey's Cup in the Ninth Annual Karaoke to the Death IX. As KttD co-founder, I have to acknowledge that the KttPublicty Blitz has been a little less robust than usual.

There are reasons for the downturn, some legitimate (Hi Peri!), some considerably less so, but the onus is on we, the KttD Establishment, to inform the public about what to expect when the titans of loathesome singing take the stage next Sunday.

I hereby make a personal commitment to post once a day from now until KttD IX about the competitors, songs and storylines that will make this year's contest unique. I can only hope that my co-founder Hotrod has sufficiently recovered from his inane distractions in other sporting venues to focus on something important.

Excelsior!

(Karaoke to the Death is, quite simply, the world's premier bad singing contest. To hold the coveted Lord Ramsey's Cup is to be acknowledged as the Worst Singer on Earth. Needless to say, some competitors will do anything to reach this pinnacle of human vocal achievement.  With the Ninth Annual Karaoke to the Death IX less than a month away, it's worthwhile to take a journey into the seedy underbelly of the KttD world. KttD Confidential will explore true*, never before told stories about KttD competitors and the lengths to which they've gone to hold bad karaoke's greatest prize. The truth isn't pretty, but neither is KttD. Excelsior!)

Cap'n Crunch was bred for the grand stage of Karaoke to the Death. Blessed with a painfully awkward stage demeanor, miserable, high-toned voice, and penchant for choosing smarmy, uncomfortable songs, the Cap'n was one of the first of the new breed of KttD challengers that emerged to drive old warhorses like Hotrod into forced obselescence.

The younger, lousier-voiced brother of KttD IV champ Soo Doh Nimh, Cap'n was annointed heir to the family's bad singing legacy before even stepping foot in the KttD arena. His early performances didin't disappoint. Sickly and dischordant, he had narrowly missed taking home bad karaoke's greatest prize twice, and was an odds-on favorite to take Lord Ramsey's Cup in KttD VI. Prior to the event, he told his training staff, "I'm taking the cup, whatever the cost."

Cap'n came prepared. Prepared to sing his worst, and prepared to do do anything necessary to ensure that nothing stood in his way.

When KttD cofounder Hotrod got up to sing his first song, Cappy got spooked. Though the former champ's rendition of Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" was hardly Ramsey Cup material, but it was enough to convince Cappy that he'd "need a little extra."

He knew just what to do. Cappy's long-time Philladelphia associate Rocco wouldn't leave a mark. Cappy took advantage of a break in the action to steal into the Rock-It's filthy back alley, where Rocco was waiting. You can do a lot to a man's throat without putting an immediate mark on him, and Rocco knew all the tricks. Cappy brushed away a tear as he sidled back into the arena.

With Rocco's neck work, and Cappy's own attempts to dirty up his already vile voice, the performance was bad alright, but somewhere along the line the Crunchster made a mistake. Maybe it was hubris, and maybe it was the Grade 2 concussion, but his tanking was too rank, too obvious. The crowd smellled it, and even Crunch appeared to realize that he had overshot in his manic quest for the Cup.

Cappy curried is fewest votes ever, left with only a partially crushed larynx, a scarlet "T" of shame and a bag of broken dreams.

*may not actually be true.  

(Karaoke to the Death is, quite simply, the world's premier bad singing contest. To hold the coveted Lord Ramsey's Cup is to be acknowledged as the Worst Singer on Earth. Needless to say, some competitors will do anything to reach this pinnacle of human vocal achievement.  With the Ninth Annual Karaoke to the Death IX less than a month away, it's worthwhile to take a journey into the seedy underbelly of the KttD world. KttD Confidential will explore true*, never before told stories about KttD competitors and the lengths to which they've gone to hold bad karaoke's greatest prize. The truth isn't pretty, but neither is KttD. Excelsior!)

Slumped over on a soiled toilet in KttD's unofficial "locker room" (the bathroom at the Rock It Grill), KttD cofounder Hotrod looked shell-shocked. Kelly Clarkson's "Since You Been Gone" had been his ace in the hole. Sung in the former champ's trademark warbling squeak, the teen queen's breakup anthem was supposed to peel the paint off the walls, and catapult Hotrod into the lead to reclaim Lord Ramsey's Cup.

But as so often happens in KttD, things took an unexpected turn.

In recent years, an unsettling tunefulness had crept into the once-great-champion's voice. His discomfort on stage was less palpable, and even his legendary song choice and preparation had shown signs of weakening. The Clarkson gambit was the bad karaokeing world's first real glimpse of the cracks in Hotrod's formidable reputation.  To start with, the song was shockingly close to being on-key. It didn't sound good, certainly, but Hotrod simply wasn't hitting the sort of tone that had provoked so many suicidal thoughts in audiences past. This new pedestrian lousiness wouldn't cut it in the competitive inferno of KttD, and Hotrod knew it.

Harder to explain was his stage demeanor. Hotrod's wooden discomfort and beet-faced embarassment had always been his calling cards. Maybe it was the years of competition, but Hotod actually looked borderline comfortable on the Rock-It stage.

And finally, there was song choice. Against the guidance of manager and svengali Vanna, Hotrod had gone with Since You Been Gone. On paper it was a good choice, featuring many of the hallmarks of a KttD-winning tune: gender confusion, generational disconenct, acrobatic vocals, etc., but Hotrod's performance revealed the song's weaknesses. Though Clarkson herself is an acrobatic vocalist, the song is not particularly challenging. Up-tempo and monotone, the song lacked those moments of quietness that would allow listeners to really hear the discordant quality of Hotrod's voice. Worse, though, was the dreaded, and in hindsight, wholly predictable, singalong that broke out during the performance. Clarkson's trademark song had been dominating the charts all year.  That a gaggle of socially retarded townies would join in on the chorus should have been obvious to a wily veteran like Hotrod, who knows full well that nothing destroys the needed cringe factor of a KttD winner like a singalong. 

"Get yourself together," Vanna spat, cuffing the despondent Hotrod hard across the face. "We've got another song, thank god, and I'm not going to watch you shit all over yourself twice in the same night."

"I got nothing, I got nothing," Hotrod whimpered, prompting another whack from Vanna, this one so hard that it sent Hotrod sprawling to the urine-soaked tile.

"You WILL get a hold of your self, damn you," Vanna yelled. "I don't care about your delicate feelings. It's MY reputation on the line out there. It's MY sweat and preparation you're wasting. If you screw this up for me, we're finished. I'll go coach someone who has some promise, like Cap'n Crunch."

Hotrod straightened as Vanna's barb sunk home. "I'm gonna need some help, coach," Hotrod said, nodding in the direction of Vanna's ever-present "training bag."

Injecting a high-octane mix of horse steroids and homemade methamphetamine directly into the larynx can have unpredictable side effects, but then, KttD has never been for the fainthearted. After Vanna had staunched the bleeding and applied some coverup to the telltale tracks on Hotrod's neck, the legendary duo stepped back out into the arena with a renewed sense of purpose.

The rest is history. For his championship-winning performance of Duran Duran's Wild Boys, Hotord rediscovered his losing ways. His voice cracked and warbled, and his preternatural discomfort returned, with interest. To many, it was the most stunnining turnaround in KttD history. But to future hall-of-fame coach Vanna, it was just another day at the office.   

Stay tuned for the next installment: Cap'n Crunch: Requiem for a Tanker

*may not actually be true.