Do you remove songs from your songbooks?

[Bigdog]

I have every right to run my business in a respectable manner.

NOT THE BAR BUSINESS. MINE

They are free to hire whomever they want to provide the entertainment.

If they have no respect for their paying customers it's not my fault. Radio stations play respectable song versions. They maybe forced to do it, but they are forced by what society calls normal and exceptable. Advertisers would jump ship if the content was out of the norm, for fear of losing millions of dollars. FROM THE PUBLIC. Their audience. Your audience. My audience. THE PUBLIC. MR & Mrs Smith. Average Joe. Not Charles Manson, Norman Bates norm.

I run my business according to what is considered the public norm for public behavior, in mixed company.

You and others are free to run your business as you see fit. You are trying to impose your "immorality and disrespect" on your crowd.

Take a poll at your next show. Ask them if they want and need to hear everything you are trying to force on them. My guess is you may be suprised.

Being over 21 means that you are now in charge of your actions and nobody else will be held responsible. And to conduct yourself as an adult.

Alcohol doesn't dictate the public norm. Dope doesn't dictate the public norm. Society does. Society has deemed many behaviors unacceptable. Being over 21 doesn't dictate the public norm. It means that you should be acting in an adult manner when in public. Respecting others male & female, is part of that norm. You do not feel that all of the unnecessary swearing is disrespectful?

Next Thanksgiving send all the kids to the basement and gather up mom & gram and the mother-in-law and all the uncles and aunts and sing them your best rendition of "Ode to my Car" or some other really good swearing song. Just to show evereyone how much you respect them. It's OK they're over 21, I see no problem. I'm sure they will love you even more. Might even ask for an encore. You could give them a great cop killing, dope dealing, swearing rap song to end your preformance.

Make sure they eat first. Wouldn't want to ruin their appetite.

[letitrip]

You know, Big Dog has a valid point. He has a right to run his business how he sees fit. Bar owners have a right to not hire him, clients who want to sing the songs he doesn't have in his book have a right to find another Karaoke show elsewhere. So let's be honest about what we're really arguing about here.

My gut feeling here is that the root of this whole thing is that some here take issue with the attitude projected by Big Dog and the effect it has on the perception of KJ's in general. Many, like me, see the KJ role as one of a service provider, there to cater to the needs, wants, desires of our clients and their guests allowing them to entertain themselves. Others see it as more of an authoritative role where the KJ is there to provide a specific structured entertainment experience for the clients and guests. Unfortunately this is an argument that has about as much chance of being settled as the argument over the correct balance between federal and state power (been raging for over 200 years now).

If Big Dog is successful despite a semmingly postumous attitude, so what, good for him!! If others here are successful despite allowing their guests to sing songs that offend some in the crowd, great!! We all run our shows a little differently, that's what gives each of us a niche and lets us stand out from the others. That's as it should be.

[Bigdog]

It's not about me per say...

It's about giving ALL of your customers the respect they deserve. There are many women and some men that find many of those songs offensive for various reasons.

It's about your reputation and how people see and talk about you.

It's about the kind of reputation that you project for the bar.

Reputation is all you have to get your jobs.

A more positive reputation works better than a negative one.

What can people say bad about me?

He edited his book.....He doesn't offend anyone. He cares about his reputation and the bars. This gains you respect.

What can they say bad about you (used in general terms)? He offended a bunch of people. I'm not going back there. You cost the bar money and hurt their reputation.

I'm in business to make them money. The more I help them make the better my reputation gets. The better theirs gets.

The bar has to make money before you can make money. Chasing people away doesn't help.

Last night my bar owner kissed and hugged me when I left because he is so happy about his karaoke night. (We are both male ). He runs a higher end restaurant and bar.


You may feel it's funny or who cares as long as they are having fun. But you run the risk of alienating quality people from your show and taking a reputation hit. When it's time for someone to refer you for another job, bar party, etc. Isn't he the guy that plays those x rated songs????

There goes the chance to do weddings, graduations, reunions, birthdays, other public venues where under 21 will be present also. So you limit yourself/income to wild reputation bars, where anything goes. Most of these places I choose not to play. I leave them for my unemployed competition.

So it's not about me,...... it's about you.....

[DanG2006]

What the customer asks for is what they get from me. It is all about the customer. I Won't play the same stuff at certain private parties that I might play in a rowdy bar. They are two different animals.
That said I can't afford to generate two different books as I have too many songs that uses up too much ink. Likewise I don't have the time to edit databases based on what the customer's wishes are. Sp I exercise discretion based on what they ask for so if someone turns in a tabboo song then I go to them and explain why I can't play their request, and if they have any questions to address the hosts of the event. Most of my customers (the ones who hired me) have supported the way I do business.

[Bigdog]

I only use one book. I edited out the offensive songs. I'm only talking about 30-50 songs at most. If that's going to screw up the books then there is a problem. I have 10,000 songs, they can/will find another one to sing. But taking them out of the book keeps you from going through the explanation of why you won't/can't don't play certain songs.


So you agree that there is a public norm that should not be fooled with. And the possibility exists of your reputation taking a negative hit for some stupid swearing song?

[letitrip]

I don't know Bigdog, I have a real hard time thinking that what people sing or how people sing it is going to be the basis for how the guests will perceive the KJ. Having been a long time singer, I always based my opinion of the KJ based on how much fun they are, how fair they are, and how many songs they have that I like to sing.

I want my business' reputation to be based on those things as well. And thus far that has been our experience. Our regulars tell us they like us because we have "good" songs, we are fun in our interaction with the guests and we try extremely hard to run a very fair rotation.

Now I'm in agreement with Dan G that we do customize our show to our clients' needs. For instance, we've been booked for a daytime small town festival, a definite family oriented environment. Now while I don't plan to print another set of books for that show (removing the songs with cursing in them) I can tell you that if someone asks to sing songs like "Bitch", "Ode To My Car", etc I will politely remind them that this is a family show and ask them to choose a different song.

[wiseguy]

I edited out the offensive songs. I'm only talking about 30-50 songs at most.

Bigdog, would you give us a list of some of the songs you have removed from your books. I have around 17,000 unique song titles and I don't think I could come up with 10 that would be considered offensive.

[Bigdog]

Cowboy...He talks about buying west coast P***Y
Ode To My Car
Songs that have the "N" word, that "Blacks" seem to think is ok for them to freely use. But If I do I'm racist or prejudice.

I also edit my book to try to eliminate the possiblity of trouble between blacks and whites. I don't want some white punk wannabe rapper screaming about the N word. 99.9% of the time it will never get sung by a black person. You may find it fun/funny, I don't. I get mixed crowds.

All of 50 Cents stuff
Most of Nelly
She F***n hates me.
I-95 song.
Rodeo song. Some of these would be fun at a private adult house or batchelor party, but not a public venue.

Someone wanted to sing the Rodeo song as the second song sung at the beginning of the show. Now that is the last thing I want people coming in for the very first time to hear. They will think that I run my entire show this way. If they are offended and leave before they even sit down, how do I look??????? What will they say about the BAR with the obnoxious KJ?

See it's not only me, the bar gets included in my bad reputation, from my lack of good judgement. I end up hurting both of us, money wise with one song.

Some other crap that escapes my at the moment.

Now if you can telll me a "good" reason for these songs to be in the book we'll talk. I said good, not just because they made them. Give me some social merit for their creation. Other than to be offensive.

Also as I mentioned before...If the person singing said songs would just sing every word in the song at the same volume without having to scream the swear words at 4 times the volume used for the rest of the song it might be a different story. But since the "kids" can't do it with out yelling the offensive words.....so people across the street can hear them.....I will help them by not having them in the book to begin with.

Yes you are right that you can tell people about not singing said songs. Your reputation for being a fun guy has nothing to do with the way people see you if you allow people to be offended. Those that normally are not exposed or want to be exposed to that type of language.


You can do whatever you want but I'm suggesting that you could be hurting your reputation by doing it. If you think about it logically, offending people will hurt you more than help you. You may get jobs from the wild bunch, but is that the only type of job you want/try to get?

In 14 years I have heard many stories about hunderds of KJs. Where do you want to start?

99% of them are not good stories and they are not about how good they are.

I have heard stories about KJs that allow people to throw objects at singers.

I have heard about KJs telling people they suck.

I have heard all about the crappy sounding systems.

I have heard about all the unfair rotations.

I have heard about people being offended by certain lyrical phrases.

Any one of these could have been about you or someone you know.

It is impossible to make everyone happy at every event/show. There is always one in the crowd that wouldn't be happy in a 1 person rotation.

I'm sure there have been some negative comments about me in 14 years. But I try to keep these to the lowest possible number that I can.

Having people walk away saying they or someone else was offended because I am stupid and let anything go at my show for the sake of what???? I want you to answer the question as to why you feel that just because a song was written that no matter what the content is, you feel you should include it in your show. Just because it's fun, won't work. Unless the idea of offending people is fun.

Your reputation is what you need to think about. But more important you should be thinking about the kind of reputation you are helping to create for the bar. You work in bars. So a bar that has a bad reputation, sooner or later loses business because nobody wants to be there anymore or they are shut down for being a nuisance bar. The more bars that close means you and I have less places to work. It's a trickle down effect.

One more thing..

Do you think you can only be a fun guy by allowing all of the swearing and offenseive language and subject matter? If so I think you should reevaluate your whole business philosophy.

Fun/successful shows don't have to be all about seeing who can be the most obnoxious person there. Respectable shows are just as much fun. They probably get more talked about in the long run and you will probabaly get more jobs from them.

This whole topic is about reputations and how the majority of people see you as a KJ. How do you want people to talk about you? Which in turn DIRECTLY EFFECTS how much money you will make.

I am in business to make money, not hurt my reputation. Or have people think I'm an uncaring jerk.

It's not about you and it's not about me. It's entertainment. All entertainment doesn't have to be offensive to some. Yes they are free to go to whomever they want. Not everyone comes in thinking it's going to be an X rated show. Maybe you should warn people that your show contains x rated material. How do you think that would go over? Would it help your reputation? Nobody wants a strip club or x rated movie house next door. So an x rated karaoke show should fall into the same catagory.

You will never know about all the jobs you missed out on, because you choose to run a wide open anything goes show.

[letitrip]

Our reputation is exactly what I think about every day, and it has everything to do with our marketing, how we run our shows and the services we provide. I agree with your point that bad news travels better than good, and I've heard stories fitting every category you've listed but one. In 10 years of singing at Karaoke events and hanging out with large Karaoke crowds, I have yet to hear anyone blame the KJ for their being offended by lyrics.

I can tell you in the crowds I've been in for the last 10 years, a KJ who felt they were the morality police, the authority on what has "Social Merit", would have a much worse reputation than a KJ who allows people to sing songs with cursing when in a crowd of all adults.

So have you removed Trace Adkins' Honky Tonk Badonkadonk from your books? I mean he's singing about butts and objectifying women, that's offensive. How about family tradition? Certainly plenty of offensive words in there? "Give it Away Now" and "Under the Bridge" certainly don't appear in your books right? See the point is once you start playing morality police where do you draw the line? That line is very subjective and infinitely a matter only of opinion. I'm curious, if someone comes to you and says a song offends them, do you immediately remove it then? If not, why not?

I see more damage being done by limiting people and acting as their parents when I have no right to especially since there will still be songs that offend some people.

[Bigdog]

You know very well the songs I'm talking about and it's not the ones you refer to.

No one has answered the question for the need to play the songs I listed above.

There is a place for them at private functions, if that's the kind of "fun" you want to have. But not in a public venue where there is more at stake than just your reputation to worry about. The bar has an equal share to worry about.

If some bible thumper wanted to use your show as an example of something being below the community's acceptable standard for decency, you're going down with the club owner. Only he will get the black eye first. Your job will be lost in the aftermath. I doubt that this will happen, but it could. I have seen stranger things happen.

No matter how you try to justify it, you are running an x rated show.

How many people in your crowd do you see at the p*rn theater?

The percentage of the population is very small. Those would be the same people you will attract. The percentage will be smaller than if you ran an edited show.

I'm all for trying to improve the odds/percentages in my favor. I don't feel that "anything goes" will do that.

People come up and ask me if I have those songs, I just tell them everything is in the book. If you can not find it, I don't have it. The problem goes away that easy. They usually come up with another song to sing.

There are certain discs, (mostly the new pop ones) that I review before I list them in my updates. If it's bad I don't list it. There are some songs that I have missed and yes, I carry whiteout tape and I have indeed gone around the bar and removed a song right after it was sung. Not a problem for a seasoned professional. Not because someone complained, but because it doesn't fit in with my show.

I'm starting a new show in 2 weeks and the owner of the restuarant wants to operate a high quality business. I told my contact that I have edited my book and the first thing he said was "that's good to know because the owner doesn't want all the riff-raff." It's in a more affluent neighborhood.

An edited book also lowers my chances for having equipment damage from idiots fighting or just acting stupid.

It sounds like I run at a different business level than you and some others. Everyone has their goal/bar set to their comfort level. It reflects on your reputation.

[wiseguy]

I'm starting a new show in 2 weeks and the owner of the restuarant wants to operate a high quality business. I told my contact that I have edited my book and the first thing he said was "that's good to know because the owner doesn't want all the riff-raff." It's in a more affluent neighborhood.

I consider anyone who refers to any other human being as "riff-raff" to be prejudiced and a bigot. I will not associate with anyone like this, let alone work for them. Some how I get the feeling that you Bigdog, share this same attitude toward others. Those that conform to your standards are the respectable citizens and those that don't are "riff-raff".

You keep bringing up reputation. I have an impeccable reputation in my area as evident by my being booked six days a week within a radius of 25 miles of where I live. I also receive frequent requests to perform at wedding receptions that are held in recreation rooms of local churches. My reputation is not based on censorship but rather on total respect for ALL people.

[Bigdog]

Don't limit you short sightedness.

You have 17,000 one of a king songs? And you remember and know every song that has swearing or sexual content and other objectionable stuff?

So at a wedding these would never be an issue? You're good....

Riff raff can mean people that get drunk and look for fights, that drink to see how fast they can become obnoxious, they can be people that live under bridges and want to come in to warm up that you wouldn't want in your bar, or they could be winos that look and act bad. What would you call them? And would you want them in your upscale bar???? That's the reason to have an upscale respectable place. So you can distant your self from people that can't/don't/won't conform to the rest of society. People that have any respect for themself and others don't act this way. And respectable people don't want them hanging around chasing away quality customers.

I and the majority of business owners do not want to cater to the RIFF-RAFF. Why would anyone?

When is the last time you moved a homeless guy into your house??? Why not?? How about a wino, street walker or addict? According to your philosophy they are not RIFF-RAFF and you want to associate with them. Don't get holier than thou on this subject. You know as well as I do that having a respectable propeous business has to have certain guide lines. And that doesn't include RIFF-RAFF.

There are bar business' that are run by RIFF-RAFF, that cater to RIFF-RAFF. I don't hang out there or play there. Some of my lesser competition does. That keeps them busy for when the good quality jobs come along.

As for a quality reputation, nobody else around here has worked as much or as steady as I have in the last 14 years. I can work 7 nights week if I want to. I had 14 jobs a week several years ago. So my edited song book does better than all my other, unedited anything goes competition put together. The reason for being hired at the new job is because the guy booking me said I came highly recommended. That would mean the quality of my sound system, the show and me and the edited song book, minus 30-50 objectionable songs out of 10,000. Not much of a sacrifice.

[letitrip]

Well it's nice to see the true colors shining through here now. Pompous and arrogant are two adjectives that I have have seen applied to many a KJ and not something I'd ever want applied to my reputation. Bigdog, you've made it clear that you place you personal worth far above that of the bar's clientele so there's no sense in arguing about morality issues anymore. You've elected yourself morality police and that's clear.

What worth do those removed songs have? People like those songs and are entertained by them. To me, no wrap "song" has any worth so does that mean I should remove them from my books? If every song that in my opinion had no value were removed from my song list, there would be complete genre's removed. Fact is there is no way to draw a line cuz everyone's line is different. So I, and many other KJ's here, have chosen to let adults be adults and draw their own lines. You have chosen to elect yourself morality enforcer and yet you don't do a good job by your own standards.

What worth, in your mind, does a song like "Give it Away Now" (which you've now stated you wouldn't remove) have? Do you even understand what the lyrics are talking about? See if you're going to start deciding what is offensive, you better understand what every song in your list is about. I consider "Give it Away Now" as way more offensive that some of the songs you've pulled simply because they curse. Your vision of morality doesn't match that of others and that's why you have no business enforcing it on others.

But hey, again it's your business run it as you see fit. Your attitude toward other KJ's that don't share your moral viewpoint is disgusting and unwarranted. Oh and don't worry your pretty little head about our reputations, the rest of us are doing quite well thank you.

[Bigdog]

To Bill Gates.... I'm Riff-Raff.



What is wrong with trying to attract a higher class bar/karaoke cliental???

I don't like slumin' it. Maybe you do. That is not pompous or arrogant. It's common sense.

I take in to every bar $50,000 worth of music and equipment. My show is not cheap. My crowds are not cheap. I do not want some drunk 21ers that want to act like little kids screwing it up. What is wrong with that?

Letting the 21ers swear up a storm and cheapen my show with heavy sexual content and cop killing, isn't my idea of high class. It isn't even my idea of any class, period. Adults can make up there own minds. I'm not forcing "R" and "X" rated stuff on my crowds. You are. WHY????

Why do you want to risk chasing away good quality customers for the sake of letting anything go at your show. I fail to see how that is good business sense. Insulting the majority, to cater to a few immature knuckle heads, for what???




"Give it Away" sounds like a love song to me. He wants to share everything he has.

It's not exactly as blatant as "Are you thinking of me when you F**** her"....Now is it??????

[wiseguy]

What is wrong with trying to attract a higher class bar/karaoke cliental???

What's wrong is classifying people in the first place. I think kingsofkaraoke pretty well has you pegged.