[do] Heavy Metal Karaoke
As Carly Holmes so eloquently stated in her post about karaoke in Wichita, it’s a guaranteed good time. At the places she listed, you’ll likely hear country faves and past & present pop hits energetically performed by tipsy patrons. But there is one karaoke night in Wichita that is a bit different, where you’ll hear “Run to the Hills” and “Talk Dirty to Me.” It’s HEAVY METAL KARAOKE!
Kirby’s Beer Store (3227 E. 17th St.) is the locale for this metal mayhem. I attended HMK on Friday, Feb. 19 and it was standing room only. People dressed in leather and teased hair, reminiscent of ’80s hair band splendor, belting out hard rock tunes before the crowd that was singing along. Here, hostess Marta McKim gives us the background on Heavy Metal Karaoke:
“HMK began because it was 2006, and the date 6/6/06 was approaching,” McKim said. “I kept waiting for someone to come up with a Black Sabbath party or something, but no one was doing it. I had been inviting people to come out to this one bar out on West Kellogg because I noticed they had an inordinate amount of Heavy Metal selections. I just always thought it seemed like a good idea.
“I finally got a few friends to come to the westside bar and we did it. It was a BLAST! At that point I knew that I had to do something, so I contacted my friend Tony Rois and worked on getting a database of songs to work from. He really went above and beyond the call of duty locating all of them, and in the end we ended up with approximately 800 songs. Doug VanEs of Sluggos fame had a Karaoke machine and was my co host. I planned the event, made flyers, saturated as much of MySpace as I could and hoped for the best. Needless to say, it was a huge success! Our faces were practically cramping from smiling and laughing so much!
“Immediately following the end of the night, several people were inquiring about when was the next event. It’s just been a “whenever it happens” type thing and its always at Kirby’s Beer Store. There isn’t another place that works the same way. Kirby’s has the perfect vibe for it.
“It usually works out to be around three or four times a year. I have been asked to make it a more regular event, but i sorta dig having everyone chompin’ at the bit for the next event, and when they are, its even better!
“If you’ve never been to a HMK event before, fasten your seatbelt! You never know what will happen! A few years back when HMK coincided with Halloween, the whole place was filled with costumes and Doug was dressed as the Executioner and if someone chose something that wasn’t “METAL” enough (there are many nonmetal selections in the book that are simply there because when you get karaoke CDG’s, you often have one song that is metal, along with a bunch of other songs that have nothing in common. I expect the people who come to my shows to have enough sense and taste to know better than to try to sing CREED up on stage, and in fact, Michael Carmody took it upon himself early on to black out those selections in the books. We are all very grateful to him for this) they would be “executed” off the stage.
“The real highlight of the night, and what goes down in not only HMK history, but Kirby’s, was when Wayne G. was feeling uninspired during his rendition of “Bad Motor Scooter” by Montrose, and decided to shake things up by stripping down to his black briefs to the screams of shock and delight from the patrons of the bar and ultimately declaring “aw f*** it, I’m doing the last verse naked” and whipping them off to a shower of cellphone and digital cameras flashing that rivaled the last 20 seconds of an NBA championship!
“I always appreciate it when people come dressed for the event, and I always try to give the crowd something badass to look at hoping to encourage others to truly embrace the “rockstar for 5 minutes” experience.”
If you want to explore the darker side of karaoke, check Kirby’s Beer Store’s calendar on their site or check out Heavy Metal Karaoke’s facebook page to find out when the next spectacle will begin!
Related posts:
Talk Dirty to Me is my “go to” Karaoke song. Rock on!
Leave your response!