The Human Karaoke Experience
Getting Singers in Touch with Their Inner Divas
by Joel Dossi
Andy Warhol’s prediction that everyone will experience 15 minutes of fame is coming true, believes Fernando Menendez, percussionist for The Human Karaoke Experience, a live sing-along band based in New York City.
Warhol was just a little off on the timing. Today, fame might only last about three minutes, the typical length of a pop song.
“Just look at the American Idol phenomenon,” explains 47-year-old Menendez. “The line between audience and spectator has grayed out. Music has gone from the audience being only observers to becoming participants.” With The Human Karaoke Experience, every audience member has a chance to do more than just participate—they can become an integral part of the band’s performance. All it takes is a little courage.
Own the Stage
The concept behind The Human Karaoke Experience is simple. Ditch the prerecorded music and videos of song lyrics, but just like video Karaoke, allow amateur singers to belt out a tune, feed their inner diva, and have fun with their friends, while being backed by a real, responsive band.
Human Karaoke Experience band members admit they didn’t come up with the live Karaoke concept, but they have become one of its most popular proponents. In fact, they’re afraid of becoming victims of their own success. Their sign-up list maxes out at around 40 singers each night, and the list sometimes fills up days before a gig. As musicians who play open jams themselves, they’re aware of the frustration singers experience if they have to wait hours before getting in front of an audience. As a result, they assign strict time slots to everyone.
Menendez is joined in The Human Karaoke Experience by Tony Novarro, who plays lead guitar, bass guitar, and mandolin, and Marty Bender, who plays bass and keyboards. The band can be found regularly at New York City bar O’Flanagan’s, where casual participants—folks who may have found a little Dutch courage to sing on the spur of the moment for friends—perform along side regulars who practice, memorize songs, and sometimes even choreograph a dance routine to go along with them.
“We don’t differentiate between performers,” observes Menendez. “Our only requirement is that a singer makes the stage his or her own. It’s their chance to sing in front of a live band and have some fun.”
Live Magic
The idea for the band was hatched three years ago, the inspiration of Gregg Raybin, owner of The Jam NYC. A social club for recreational musicians, The Jam NYC prides itself as being a supportive organization where singers and instrumentalists of all abilities meet and join bands that play just about every musical style.
When a neighborhood tavern around the corner asked for some musicians to play at a Karaoke night, Menendez, Novarro, and Bender jumped at the chance. They drew up a list of about 200 songs, photocopied lyrics, hung a sign-up sheet, and prayed that more than just friends and relatives would attend.
“Live performing will never go away, because it’s too important,” asserts Menendez, reflecting on his band’s successful format. “And that’s the sort of experience you can’t get with canned Karaoke. You can only get this thrill singing with live musicians. That’s why people come to sing with us.” In return, the audience gives each performer a unique energy and support that he or she may have never experienced before. That’s part of the magic of live performance.
Follow Along
Now boasting a whopping 469 songs on its play list, The Human Karaoke Experience has learned something for almost every musical taste, ranging from Frank Sinatra ballads to torch songs by Cher to “Be-Bop-a-Lula” by Gene Vincent to assorted show tunes. That kind of variety demands an ability to accommodate a wide assortment of performers and styles.
“One moment I could be playing a hard rock song, and right afterwards, a tender country ballad,” says Menendez. “We have to be sensitive to how our performers are singing and make the necessary adjustments, whether it’s in the volume, the tempo, or whatever. It ends up becoming a growth experience for the singers and for us, because it challenges our listening skills.”
Guitarist Novarro, 45, enjoys the challenge. “You don’t want your singers to lose their place or get off tune,” he says. “If they jump a verse, we’ll follow them. We want to make them comfortable on stage.”
A regular cover band might have around 70 sounds in its rotation, Novarro points out, but The Human Karaoke Experience can perform that many in just one night. “And it may take six months for a song to repeat, but you’ll eventually get to it, so you have to stay on your toes.”
The ability to play many songs in many styles takes a lot of practice, although Menendez makes the preparation sound easy: “With The Human Karaoke Experience, we get male and female singers and have to perform songs from just about every time period. So before each show, I’ll look over the songs with the most difficult riffs.”
Stepping Back
Classic rock tunes from the late ’60s through the ’80s are most requested. Novarro points out that ironically, 20-somethings have a fondness for singing Lynyrd Skynyrd’s stadium rocker “Sweet Home Alabama” or The Door’s grungy “Roadhouse Blues.”
“I don’t know what the draw is. I guess these kids must have grown up without any songs,” laughs Novarro. “You’d think they would want to sing the new stuff, but they don’t. Every once in a while, we’ll get a request for a Kelly Clarkson song, but most of the time, the songs requested are least 20 years old.”
The most requested songs might surprise you, says Marty Bender. It seems people like singing about heartbreak, and perhaps it’s the cathartic value of these songs that makes them attractive—“You Oughta Know” by Alanis Morissette tops the request list, followed by Gloria Gaynor’s disco classic “I Will Survive.”
“‘You Oughta Know’ is a very scary song,” says 48-year-old Bender. “All of us have experienced a broken heart, but in this song it’s more than broken. The heart’s ripped out and the woman is seeking revenge. Every time it’s requested, I take a step or two back. I’ve never known a woman who’s requested this song not know the lyrics by heart. And boy, do they sing it!”
Despite its impressive repertoire, The Human Karaoke Experience can’t offer everything you might find in a digital Karaoke program. Songs by the Carpenters are omitted by the band, for instance. “I love them,” says Bender, “but we just can’t pull them off to sound like the original.”
Bender explains that because there are only three musicians in the band, and they have to cover all the musical lines in a song, each member must play multiple instruments, but sometimes the instrumental mix just doesn’t work. “In songs by the Carpenters, you need the guitar, keyboard, bass, and rhythm playing equally. Without all four, their songs sound empty.”
Creative Chance
Bender has a final word about the name of the band. Beyond referring to the popular sing-along entertainment device, the band’s name also emphasizes what Bender calls “the humanity in the performer’s experience.” To illustrate, he relates a story that touched his heart.
A woman who works at a local New York hospital has become one of the band’s regular performers. On several occasions, she even volunteered to type lyrics for the band. At a recent performance, she invited her boss to attend. During the show’s break, the boss took Bender aside and thanked him for helping his employee through a difficult time in her life.
The boss explained that several years ago, the woman’s husband died of a heart attack. He was a relatively famous musician. “But he never encouraged his wife to express herself musically,” relates Bender. “Her boss told us that singing with The Human Karaoke Experience has helped her bring herself out of the funk her husband’s death caused.”
A chance to sing in front of an audience gave her a chance to express herself creatively and work through her grief.
“You can’t help but be pleased hearing that story,” concludes Bender. “I guess that’s what The Human Karaoke Experience is all about—giving amateur singers a chance to be on stage with their friends and family in the audience. Everyone is supporting each other. It doesn’t get better than that!”
