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Pop Rock Nation

Author: Jenny

  • National Karaoke Week is the fourth week of April!

    Until today, I had no idea there was such a thing as National Karaoke Week…

    If you’ve been reading my posts here on PopRockNation, you might know that I really enjoy karaoke. It’s not just because I enjoy singing, though. It’s because when it’s done right, karaoke can be a lot of fun and a great way to meet people who love music. Sure, people tend to do karaoke in bars, where there’s a lot of drinking and, depending on the place, things can get kind of sketchy. But karaoke can also be a fun, wholesome activity. Why, minus the booze, even kids can do it!

    Karaoke can be a fun way to be exposed to new music and bond with friends. It can also make for a great dare. It’s said that many people have a fear of public speaking. I’m willing to bet that even more people are afraid to sing in public. But if you manage to do it and the crowd is friendly and encouraging, it can be an excellent way to get a totally natural adrenaline rush. My poor husband, Bill, is not a singer, but I managed to get him to perform “Detachable Penis” by King Missile in front of a bunch of his peers. He still loves me, anyway! That song, by the way, is perfect for people who don’t sing and have no issues saying the word “penis” in public.

    The first time I ever sang karaoke was when I was in college. It was sometime in the early 1990s, when a good friend and I stumbled into Sunny’s Cafe and Bar in Farmville, Virginia. They had karaoke every Thursday night. There was a one dollar cover charge. I was too young to drink alcohol. That didn’t stop me, of course. I just imbibed before my arrival. My friend Chris and I sort of became regulars and it was a fun way to blow off steam on Thursday nights. To this day, Thursday still has sort of a party mystique at my house. It’s probably a good thing I don’t have any kids.

    These days, I don’t get to do much karaoke in bars anymore. But I can still celebrate National Karaoke Week this fourth week of April, 2013. In fact, I can celebrate all month, since SingSnap.com just announced a contest they’re having to celebrate National Karaoke Week for the rest of April.

    They’re throwing a contest that anyone who is a member of SingSnap can enter. There are several prizes; the grand prize is a lifetime gold membership to SingSnap.com. Given that SingSnap currently charges $80 per year and $15 per month of unlimited storage of recordings and unlimited access to its song catalog, a lifetime gold membership is a pretty good deal. You don’t have to be a great singer to enter, either. They’re looking for creativity and people who can make a song their very own.

    I’m not sure if I will take part in this particular contest. I’m a bit camera shy, and I have a feeling SingSnap’s contest will require that I make a video that actually shows me singing on camera! That will require me to get dressed up and– horrors!– wear makeup! And God forbid if I have to dance, too! I don’t mind singing in public if I don’t have to watch the end result on camera. But if you’re a karaoke fan and feel like celebrating, by all means join in the fun! SingSnap.com is free to join, though if you want access to all the songs on the site, you’ll want to get a gold membership.

    As for me, all this karaoke on SingSnap has inspired me to experiment with Garage Band, an Apple program I’ve had on my Mac since I bought it in October 2010, but have only just now started to play with. I recorded a couple of songs yesterday and made videos to go with them… neither of which show me on camera! I don’t know if I’ll ever use these new media skills for anything but personal enjoyment, but it’s always fun to learn new things!

  • Thank you, Stephen Bennett…

    Stephen Bennett helped me make it through many a dinner shift…

    Did you ever have a job that made you feel like throwing up every time you went to work? I did. Back in 1998, I took a job waiting tables at a well-established restaurant in Williamsburg, Virginia. When I was hired, I didn’t know the first thing about waiting tables. I was also suffering from pretty significant depression and anxiety. For the first few months of my employment, I was constantly stressed out and on the verge of hyperventilation and/or projectile vomiting. Fortunately, I eventually learned how to wait tables and the job became easier. I was finally promoted to dinner, meaning that I could be scheduled to work at night. On many Friday and Saturday nights in the late 1990s, a then local musician named Steve Bennett would play music.

    Stephen Bennett plays guitar. Actually, he often plays a harp guitar, which he inherited from his great grandmother’s second husband, Edgar Pierce. Steve writes on his official Web site that his great grandmother was married to Pierce for over fifty years, so he thinks of him as his great grandfather, even though the man was not a blood relation. The harp guitar Steve Bennett inherited is a Dyer Brothers symphony harp guitar, which was manufactured in 1909.

    Although Steve was born in Oregon, which is where his great grandparents lived, he grew up in New York. Consequently, he didn’t really know the man whose magnificent harp guitar he inherited and now enchants audiences with. When I knew Steve, he was living in my hometown, Gloucester, Virginia. He has since moved north to Milford, Connecticut with his wife, Nancy. He has released many albums, several of which I own, and has traveled the world playing his guitar and teaching others. When I check to see what he’s up to these days, I feel very fortunate that I got to hear him play every weekend as we worked stressful night shifts at the restaurant. His soothing music got me through many tough evenings.


    A great video showing Stephen Bennett playing “The Water Is Wide” with many, many harp guitar players…

    As I get older, I find myself seeking music that is… shall we say… a little more soothing to the soul. When I listen to Stephen Bennett’s recordings play, I remember watching him live as I worked at the restaurant and how lovingly he held his instruments as he finger picked and flat picked beautiful music. I was always amazed by how he was able to coax such intricate melodies from his guitars. Sometimes he would play popular songs that everyone knew. Sometimes he’d play original compositions. Sometimes he’d sing. I remember a couple of times, he’d have guest musicians play with him. He was pretty well-known in Williamsburg and the surrounding areas. I’m sure his presence is missed by those who used to love to listen to him play as they enjoyed fine cuisine on date night as well as those who were privileged to work in his presence. Virginia’s loss is Connecticut’s gain!


    Here he plays “What Child Is This”/”Greensleeves”…

    While I can’t say I always appreciated living in Gloucester, Virginia when I was growing up, I do love to look at Steve’s CDs and see Gloucester referenced in the credits. Like I said, I’m getting older and starting to appreciate more soothing things. I can now understand why my parents decided to settle in Gloucester back in 1980, having moved us from the Washington, DC area. Back in 1980, Gloucester was a quiet, rural, peaceful place surrounded by rivers. Thirty plus years later, it’s become a lot more populated. But compared to the sprawling metropolis of Newport News, Gloucester is still pretty tranquil. And though Stephen Bennett doesn’t live there anymore, his music often takes me back to the place where I grew up. It calms me down… and frankly, kind of inspires me to want to learn how to play guitar. I’ve tried to before, but it’s not as easy as he makes it look!

    I didn’t enjoy a lot of the shifts I worked when I was waiting tables in Williamsburg, Virginia. But I can say that many good things came from that job. I made a lot of great friends, learned a lot about good food, lost a lot of weight, got driven into graduate school, and was introduced to Stephen Bennett, a stellar musician with a gift for producing wonderful music. If you like acoustic guitar music and have ever wondered about the harp guitar, I highly recommend checking out Stephen Bennett. And if he’s playing anywhere near where you are, you should definitely stop in for a show.


    Stephen Bennett and Tommy Emmanual play a scorching rendition of “Puttin’ On The Ritz”. You have to see this to believe it!

  • For gingers only…

    A post especially for gingers!

    Hair color is a weird thing. I was born with blonde hair. As I got older, my hair got darker. My mom, being a vain type, started taking me to get my hair “Luminized” when I was still a young kid, which artificially lightened my hair. I hated those treatments. The color smelled bad and made my scalp itch. I’m sure the hairdresser dreaded my appointments, too. I wasn’t the most patient client.

    As I got older, I wasn’t used to seeing myself with darker hair, so I kept coloring it. Then in 1995, I went off to Armenia for two years. While hair color existed in the former Soviet country, I didn’t trust it. I saw a lot of “interesting” hair coloring attempts on Armenian women and I didn’t want to have weird hair. My weird personality already sets me apart enough! So I let my original color grow in and by the time I went home, my hair was sort of a dishwater blonde with lots of natural red/coppery highlights in it. It seems that I actually have a “tinge of the ging’”, as singer-songwriter Tim Minchin puts it.

    I resisted coloring my hair for a long time after I came home in 1997, but I hated seeing the inevitable silver streaks in my locks. But now, every time I use hair color, even if I use light brown, it turns red. So I guess I am now sort of a “ginger”, even though my hair never caused me the childhood trauma it apparently did others. Gingers were, after all, famously spoofed on South Park, where Eric Cartman famously claimed “Gingers have no souls!”

    I will admit it was odd for me when people started referring to me as a redhead. I have, in my mind, always been a blonde. I remember when I updated my military ID and in the block for hair color, I had to ask my husband whether I should put blonde or red. Both he and the lady making the ID said I appeared to be a ginger to them. It was weird being a redhead; even though I think they have as much fun as blondes do.

    Last week, an interesting article about redheads was circulating around the Internet, with lots of factoids about why some people have red hair as well as some of the myths perpetuated about redheads. I’m not sure if they apply to a pseudo redhead like me, though. I’m not quite sure in my case the carpet matches the drapes.

    Anyway, Tim Minchin is a guy who understands the plight of natural redheads, which he addresses in his hilarious song, “Prejudice”…

    I discovered Tim Minchin through a posting on one of my favorite Internet message boards and ended up downloading his great album, Ready For This (Live). “Prejudice” is just one of the great songs on that album. Whether you’re a ginger or not, it’s worth checking out!