Immigrant Song » AK Video of the Week

Anti-Karaoke 2-Nite Esta Noche

Rachel Arieff — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 10:16:16 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeEguolKhgg

Ladies and gentlemen, Anti-Karaoke Video of the Week is back. This time, it’s Oscarzombie with System of a Down’s “Toxicty”. An import from Chile, Oscarzombie has a rock-n-roll soul and the look of Satan. What more could you ask for?

In case anyone was wondering if Anti-Karaoke would go on vacation tonight, WE NEVER TAKE VACATIONS. Anti-Karaoke will be there in full force tonight in La 2 of the Apolo Club of Barcelona to tear the roof off the sucka.

Be there or be square! 21:30h.

AK Video of the Week Has Moved!

Rachel Arieff — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 17:25:59 +0000

From now on, the AK Video of the Week will be at the following URL:

http://antikaraoke.com/cronicas/category/ak-video-of-the-week/

It will now form part of the new and improved “Crónicas Anti-Karaokeanas” section on the AK website.

AK Video of the Week: Pink Snow & Rachel

Rachel Arieff — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 11:56:47 +0000

Hands down, one of the most notorious AK performances of all time!

Cesar mentioned the “King of Sex Rock” Lord Bishop in a recent DiaWHEE!. Let’s now pay tribute to the Queen: Pink Snow, frontwoman of the U.S. sleaze-rock band Erocktica, plus post-feminist scholar and author.

On this hot, sweaty summer night in 2007, the sexy, Amazonian Pink bumps, jumps, grinds, and — Dios mío — crowd surfs(!) providing plenty of eye candy… and let’s face it, hand candy… to accompany Rachel’s vocals.

I’ve always wondered: who was the lucky Johnny Thunders look-alike in the front row? (Or “unlucky”, depending on whether his girlfriend saw the video.)

One thing’s for sure: he didn’t leave the club hungry.

AK Video of the Week: Laura L.

Rachel Arieff — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 08:37:29 +0000

From last night’s AK-Madrid. I took this video with my point-and-shoot camera from backstage last night. The dressing room of El Sol is downstairs, below the showroom. There was such energy coming from the stage that I went tearing up the stairs in my platform boots to catch it. I couldn’t resist.

This girl, Laura L., showed up last month at AK in El Sol and brought down the house with her furious version of “Chop Suey”. She goes back to the U.S. this week. We only had her twice in the show, but we will miss her!

AK Video of the Week: El Inquebrantable McGinty & Spanish Tony Sánchez

Rachel Arieff — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 10:42:22 +0000

Un ejemplo inolvidable de lo que puede pasar con un poco de preparación, y mucho papel de aluminio.

Unforgettable example of what can happen with a little preparation and a lot of tin foil. Beautiful!

And I love that crowd at AK-Madrid. So enthusiastic, fun and supportive! There’s nothing like it.

McGinty has a fan page on Facebook, of which I’m a proud member. (Spanish Tony Sánchez ought to have one as well, as he’s one of the biggest sex symbols of AK-Madrid.)

Hope to see all you Madrileños at AK-Madrid next Wednesday 25 November at El Sol!

AK Video of the Week: Donna She-Wolf

Rachel Arieff — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:07:56 +0000

It’s only fitting that, while visiting Donna‘s hometown of NYC, I post the video of her electric performance in Anti-Karaoke from May 2008. Donna (formerly of Cycle Sluts from Hell, now of She Wolves) was visiting Barcelona, along with Sean Yseult (White Zombie, Rock City Morgue) and Chris Lee of Supagroup. That Monday, all of them came to AK.

The show was still in Sidecar then, and the stagnant air stunk of sweat and smoke. Donna’s furiously gritty and sleazy interpretation of the Johnny Thunders’ classic was the high point of that night. It was certainly authentic, since she knew ‘em all in the New York punk scene: the New York Dolls, The Ramones, The Dictators, Jayne County… It was a real treat to have her in the show.

Here’s a snippet of video of her current group, She Wolves, from a show we saw on Tuesday. Great voice. Great attitude.

AK Video of the Week: Uncle Bobby!

Rachel Arieff — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:34:20 +0000

He used to do this all the time: break into song, from out of nowhere. A spontaneous injection of happy-go-lucky showtunes to spice up any dull moment.

I was trying to get a marathon going here, but he was kind of tired and petered out after a few minutes. I would give my pinky finger to know what he’s thinking at the end.

Why is Uncle Bobby featured as an AK Video of the Week? Because without him, there’d be no Anti-Karaoke. My entire childhood, I was terrified of singing. I was unable to let the sound come out of my mouth because I was so ashamed. To me, singing was the most embarrassing thing in the world… even though I longed to do it.

Meanwhile, I had this Uncle that was not only utterly unashamed of singing, but he was unashamed to break into song wherever he was, in any public place, with no warning. Shopping malls, restaurants, any public place was fair game. Show tunes were his favorite. I especially remember songs from The Wizard of Oz, Yankee Doodle Dandy, and My Fair Lady.

To him, singing wasn’t just for the stage. It was for waiting in line at the supermarket, for parking your car, walking down the street… for any moment, whenever you felt like it. It seemed almost as if he lived halfway in the “real” world, and the other half in the Golden Age of Hollywood.

The same went for film dialogue. He was fond of inserting into casual conversation famous lines such as, “Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a BUMPY RIDE.” (Bette Davis, All About Eve) or “-You wouldn’t do these awful things to me if I wasn’t in this chair. – But you ARE, Blanche! You ARE in that chair!!!” (Joan Crawford & Bette Davis, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane).

These films were moments of gold that he savored throughout his life. Life was never boring around him… ’cause if it was, he’d just reach into his pocket, dust off a little ditty and spice up the moment with a bit of showbiz.

It worked the opposite way, too: if you were fighting or upset with someone, Uncle Bobby would recite those lines from Baby Jane or All About Eve and BAM! You forgot for a moment what you were so angry about. Instant levity.

On his memorial guestbook, one lady wrote to say that Bobby was the only other person she knew who knew the words to every song in West Side Story. That made me chuckle. Those are the things he left us with: not just loving memories, but fun ones.

I hope I’ll always enjoy life as Uncle Bobby did. He didn’t just “have” fun, he manufactured it out of nothing. What a gift!

AK Video of the Week: Barbarah

Rachel Arieff — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:51:52 +0000

Barbarah started coming to AK back in the days of Sidecar and has never missed a show unless she was ill or out of town. She is one of those people who lives and breathes to perform.

Whenever I see people like Barbarah onstage, it reminds me of an important moment in my life:

When I was a student at an improv school in L.A., my teacher, the brilliant actress Cynthia Szigeti (Repo Man, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Seinfeld), put two words together in a way I’ll never forget. The words were “girl disease”.

This is what happened: Cynthia called on two people for an improvised acting exercise. “I need two people onstage.” Many men jumped up and headed toward the stage. Many women jumped up, too. But, as soon as the women saw that others had jumped up too, they apologetically shrunk back down into their seats, as if to say, “Oh, excuse me for being so rude and aggressive. I couldn’t possibly take someone else’s place.”

Cynthia had a name for that tendency to be overly accommodating. It was an affliction, a horrible disease. GIRL DISEASE.

After all, so many girls had it. And none of the boys did.

Cynthia let all the women in the class have it. She wasn’t one to mince words. “What the fuck are you doing, women? Don’t you realize how hard life is? Don’t you know that everything in your lives is going to be more difficult to come by, just because of sexist prejudice? Why are you shrinking back when you should be pushing forward? Why do you give it up to the guys, when all your life you’ll have to fight twice as hard for anything a guy gets? Don’t sit back on your asses! Come take what’s yours! Now, I said I NEED FIVE PEOPLE ON STAGE. NO MORE GODDAMN GIRL DISEASE!”

Now back to Barbarah: The first time I saw Barbarah perform, she was very different than the performer you see in the video. She wore a baseball cap pulled down over her face and directed most of her singing at the music stand, from which she almost never averted her gaze. It was obvious she was a powerful person, but she almost seemed to be hiding herself.

But she had a great voice, husky and with a lot of passion and emotion. I gave her a piece of advice: lose the music stand. Don’t hide. Don’t make yourself smaller. Be strong! Be what you are.

The next few times, she made a point to come to the show with the lyrics memorized, and confront the audience head-on.

The difference between the Barbarah from before and the new Barbarah was like night and day. She was a sensation. Besides being an AK regular, she now sings in a band.

Women are conditioned to wait for someone to give them permission. That’s why I love seeing women like Barbarah triumph on stage. But this isn’t a battle of the sexes. It’s not about men vs. women. In truth, this story doesn’t just apply to women. It applies to anyone who might be shy or frightened about asserting themselves — onstage, at work, or in their family.

My point is this: if you’re a shy person and you have something inside you want to get out, why wait for someone to give you permission? You might spend your whole life waiting for it to come… and wondering, “What if?”

AK Video of the Week: Dani Metal

Rachel Arieff — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 17:17:20 +0000

Today I inaugurate a new section in this blog, “Anti-Karaoke Video of the Week”. Once a week, I will post one of my favorite videos from AK, and the story behind it.

The reason: Many times I’ve wanted to comment on something interesting or weird that happened in the show. Yes, Dyk Tornado does a great job in the Anti-Karaoke Chronicles, but nearly every Monday, I’m completely amazed by something somebody does onstage, and I never have a chance to talk about it.

Today’s video is of Dani Metal (real name Dani Claramonte), who began coming to AK-Barcelona towards the end of the Sidecar era in 2008 and sings in a band called S ilent Scream. He was one of those people who suddenly appear one day in the show and you think, “Where did this amazing performer come from?” Ever since his first day at AK, he’s stood out with his beautiful operatic voice and command of the stage. When the show moved to the Apolo, Dani was one of those performers who directly benefited from the improved sound and overall conditions of the club: his voice shone more than ever, and his stage presence grew even stronger.

Dani is one of the best singers these days in Anti-Karaoke. Generally, I don’t like to use the word “best” or “worst” in reference to AK. We always de-emphasize the importance of talent in the show — whether you can sing or not, whether you’re musical or not — because it’s really not important in the context of AK. Plenty of people with no musical talent whatsoever give great performances at AK. But when you hear someone like Dani sing, it’s nothing but electrifying.

Another special thing about Dani: his amazing vocal talent is offset by a tremendous likeability. He’s one of those rare performers that possess a crushing talent along with a down-to-earth, humble, even innocent quality. This contradictory combination of elements is just what makes a star.

Dani is not a professional singer (though I think he’s good enough to be one). Curiously, the problem professional singers often have at AK is that they tend to be boring as performers. They focus so much on their voice that they tend to give physically static performances, as if they were in a recording studio. They sound perfect, but don’t connect with the audience.

Not so with Dani Metal. He knows how to connect with the music, with his voice, and most importantly, with the audience. He is a total performer.