I have a clear memory from childhood.
My class was getting ready to sing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”
I’d been listening to Christmas music on Cool 108 since Halloween and the only thing that stood between me and a week and a half off school was a class party and a holiday concert the next day. It was music rehearsal and I was locked in.
The teacher counted off. I took a deep breath and prepared to do my best Christmas lounge crooner impression.
“You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen,” I half-sang in an unnaturally low bellow. The teacher glanced my direction.
Oh good, I thought, she noticed.
“Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen.” The teacher’s eyebrow twitched. I gasped a quick breath.
“But do youuuuu recallllllll”— she cut us off.
We waited. Now she offers me a solo, I thought.
“Someone over here,” she gestured to the risers in my general direction, “is doing an ugly voice. My friend over here should stop and sing normally.”
I wondered who she was talking about.
We tried again. We barely got through a line before the teacher waved us off. She took a few steps closer.
“I can’t tell who it is, but one of my friends over here is singing in a voice that doesn’t sound good,” she took another step and leaned in. “Someone over here. Just use your normal singing voice.”
Shit, I thought, she means me! My face turned bright red.
I hated the thought of being embarrassed. Of course, you can’t stop class to explain what you were trying to do and how you thought it would be better. Just trying to help. Just trying to make art. Just trying to be a performer. It would not be the last time that I’d have creative differences with an authority figure.
But then, I had a more troubling thought: wait, am I a bad singer?
That one stuck with me, and it’s been a real bummer.
When I moved home after college, Dahlke and I got really into karaoke. I’m not sure how it happened but I know it was his fault.
Was I still self-conscious about my voice? Yes, but the rum and cokes helped.
Karaoke in college barely counts—groups of sloshed people with plastic cups sticking microphones in each other’s faces while the jockey mercifully drowns out everything with the bass and backing track.
Not Dahlke and I, no sir. Not on what we dubbed “The South Metro Karaoke Circuit.”
Once we settled into a rhythm, we’d do Thursday nights at The Ugly Mug (now just “The Mug”) and Saturdays at Celt’s Pub in Farmington. Once in awhile, we’d head to Celt’s Rosemount location or Bogart’s in Apple Valley.
We were in our early twenties with jobs where we had the mornings off and worked till evening. It was a pretty good schedule for lifting weights and going to the bar.
I usually chose Come Monday by Jimmy Buffett or Fire and Rain by James Taylor for my first song of the evening—something nice and easy to get into the swing of things. Dahlke often took a more direct approach, screaming Jet’s “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” to open the night.
This is illustrative of our personalities. I wasn’t a confident singer and tried hard to pick songs that would sound good with my voice. Dahlke didn’t care either way and was there to have fun. There were times when I envied the approach. Still do.
It was a growing up, figuring it out time for both of us. We met new people, some that became fast friends. Others, not so much. People regularly mistook us for brothers.
Sometimes, we’d leave the bar early and just walk the streets of Farmington at night. We scaled a few roofs, put on miles through the parks, but never caused any real trouble. We’d talk about anything and everything, meaningful life stuff, drunken ramblings, relationships, our families. We never really talked much about the future, I’m realizing now, though we were both making plans and trying to figure out the next step. Dahlke was on his way to being a paramedic. I wanted to start a career.
We got to know the regular jockeys and worked with them to host ugly Christmas sweater karaoke and Zubaz karaoke and Halloween karaoke and karaoke contests. (You’re looking at a grand champion, ladies and gentlemen. It was based on applause volume rather than tonal quality. And I had a lot of friends at the bar. The $25 tab as a prize helped defray the evening’s expenses.)
At the end of the night, we’d usually get a pizza at the gas station and a ride home from my mom.
Before that though, Dahlke and I would take the stage for one of the last songs of the night. We almost always picked Meat Loaf’s “I’d Do Anything for Love.”
It’s a great karaoke song—a recognizable and easy-to-sing power ballad and rock anthem with a catchy chorus. And people forget this about the song: it’s a duet.
Dahlke and I played this to great effect. We’d split the first few verses, both of us belting out our version of Meat Loaf before coming together on the chorus. The whole bar would be rocking.
Or already empty—it was Farmington, after all.
Four minutes in I’d break into Lorraine Crosby’s part, pushing to a higher register.
Will you raise me up?
Will you let me down?
Will you get me right out of this godforsaken town?
Will you make it all a little less cold?
If I hit it just right, the bar went wild.
Can you picture it?
Two loudmouths on stage, Minnesota’s version of the Blues Brothers but short on talent and a generation late. You’re not wrong to look at it that way.
But you might also see nearly 500 lbs of unabashed male joy screaming into dual microphones. The mix of friendship and youth and alcohol. The possibility of the world, even from our little town, even though we were young and didn’t have careers or serious girlfriends or any idea where we’d end up. We were foolish and happy and unafraid, not knowing what we didn’t know.
These days, Dahlke lives on an island and runs a coffee shop with his wife. They were on HGTV a couple years ago. He’s still a go-with-the-flow guy and jack of all trades.
I’m moving to Canada soon. No big TV appearances for me, but I once gave a milquetoast statement to the Washington Post that ended up in print. Long story. I’m trying to roll with the punches more as I get older. And I’m slowly getting better at fixing things.
And that teacher from all those years ago? It wasn’t even my natural voice that she was criticizing. It’s funny the things that stick with us.
I miss karaoke sometimes.
This didn’t happen every week, but when it did, it was magic: standing next to one of my best friends and finally feeling, for a few minutes at least, like I could sing.
Like I could be free.
Could a new karaoke bar in Pictou be on the horizon? 🙂