I'm a Lefty

April: It was a Tuesday at 2:30 and I was hungry. I'd been craving New York style pizza, so I headed to Lefty's Pizzeria and Blues Club.

This place is cool. It's funky art deco and superior sound system left me longing to sing there someday. But then, there was a side of me that thought, Why would they ruin this place with Karaoke.
 
Did I really just say that? If my mother had been there, I hope she would have washed my mouth out with soap. I LOVE Karaoke. But this place is cool with a capital K. I had to admit to myself that Karaoke can be hokie.

I love this place. The owners names are Karen and John. Their pizza sauce is called KJ's. Like Karen and John. Like Karaoke Jockey. Like Kyle Jordan. Dad's called me KJ since I was 4.

Back to the story. I've order my pizza and John sees me from across the house. "There's the man I want to see!" He exclaimed. "I hear you sing a lot of Karaoke."

"Who'd you hear THAT from?" I asked.

"Around. You do, don't you?"

"I've taken Karaoke addiction to a whole new level," I explained. "They don't make 12 step programs for people like me... Yet."

Listen," he says as he puts his arm around me and we walk, "Have you heard of Live Band Karaoke? We're starting it here tomorrow night... a dry run. I want you to be here and tell me what you think... maybe tell me what you think we need to do."

Of course, I'm game for this. So I email about a dozen people and about 8 of them show up Wednesday night for the dry run of Live Band Karaoke. We own the place. I sang 5 or 6 times in 3 hours. This was the BEST singer's high I'd ever experienced.

John asks me what I think it needs, which is like asking a cat with a freshly caught mouse if he wants fries with that. I'm not thinking too clearly in my euphoric state, so I told him I'd email him. I thought it was going to be brief, but I got rolling and hammered out about 3 pages of ideas and systems. John and Karen wanted to meet with me about it.

John cuts right to the chase. He likes all of my ideas, and he wants me to run it. Run it? Yeah, run it. Al, the sound pro, is lukewarm about the idea, at best.

The next week, I show up, for round 2. John introduces me to the band, the FLEXTONES. "Guys, this is Kyle. He knows karaoke, he's got this big karaoke web site, he's going to run the show for us. It's his gig, so whatever he says, goes."

With that, he leaves.

I quickly come to understand John's communication style. He's got other fish to fry, and I'm feeling like one of the fried fish. The band is a little perplexed. OK, they're a little upset, but I jump in quickly.

"Guys, my job is to work the room and make this a great experience for every singer, and to SELL you, the FLEXTONES, to the entire house. You guys are too good a band to be tooting your own horn. I'll do that for you, and build the systems to make this a great event."

"OK," says Rick. "I guess we'll just feel our way through this for a while."

Yep. Feel our way. For the next few weeks, we perfect the system. I spent HUNDREDS of hours printing songlists, printing lyrics, building a coordinating web site, and implementing the master plan. We rocked the house.

I could go into detail about how, over the next 6 months, the FLEXTONES played like the stars they are. I could tell you about how Al made every singer sound like a pro on the mic. I could tell you about the groupies that hung around after the show to flirt with me.

I could also tell you about how the night lost money eight weeks in a row in September and October. And how we played around with cover charges, drink specials, press releases and desparate last-minute advertising.

Finally, good news. The local newspaper is going to review the show. They send a photographer, and I appeal to our fans to show up for the photographer, and then the following week for the reviews. Both crowds were the biggest since the end of August.

The article made the cover of the Weekend edition, a special pull-out section that is also distributed on its own from Thursday to Sunday. On the cover, there's me belting out the Lefty's theme song.

Show-business, I'm learning, isn't as much about marketing as it is about bodies. Bodies in the door, bodies buying drinks, bodies bringing other bodies to do more of the same. If your audience isn't growing, it's dying. That's a hard pill to swallow when you're stepping out to produce a one-of-a-kind show. This is a cutting edge production that nearly bled to death.

Here come the crowds.

Keep Singing,

Kyle J.

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