Cardioke is now looking for investors to help spread the word!. I can tell you right now that I won’t be giving any of my 17 million hard-earned dollars to Billy. Cardioke is the wave of the PAST, pal.

There are counties. And then there is Manitowoc in Wisconsin. Here karaoke is a cash crop and this year they’re experiencing a bumber yield. Delta Dawn & The Karaoke Cowboy have announced the following finalists in their 2007 Karaoke Battle of the Bars competition:

Chadwick Tegelman of Manitowoc and Sarah Nass of Two Rivers, a bartender at the Waverly Inn Pub & Pizzeria in Two Rivers. These two will compete against each other and others… Remember, the next qualifying event will begin at 9 p.m. on Saturday, April 28, at Gilly’s Saloon, 401 N. 10th St. in Manitowoc. Bobby Karaoke will be on hand for the event… if you are smart, bring a printout of the Bobby Karaoke webpage, introduce yourself as a fan of the site, and Bobby will sign the printout for you.

The Karaoke Battle of the Bars competition is sponsored by Larry’s Distributing Co., the Shoto Conservation Club and the Manitowoc County Tavern League. Come out and get your sing on, Wisconsin. Karaoke is life.

Single twentysomething Jewish men and women are invited down to Porky’s in New York for a night of fun and… you heard it hear first, folks… ROCK KARAOKE! I’m not Jewish, I’m not single, I’m not a New Yorker, and I’m 48 years old. Now if I was at least fit one of the criteria for the event I would so be there. Anyway, the night is mainly speed dating with a karoake twist. If you fit the criteria, check out Porky’s at 55 West 21st St. New York, NY 10010. The only downside is that it costs 45 bones. Event is hosted by Shoshanna’s Matches. Bring your singing voice so you can get MAD PROPS from the opposite sex!

This is especially for our Scandinavian readers out there:

TeliaSonera has launched a mobile karaoke service in Finland featuring Eurovision Song Contest songs. Walk, do not run to your nearest TeliaSonera dealer for further info (or just click here). Press release copied here for your convenience:

The new mobile karaoke by Sonera brings the popular entertainment service to the mobile phone. The customer can easily order a karaoke song through the Sonera SurfPort service. The song is sent to the customer in an MMS message and stored in the phone. The service is available for most new Nokia smartphones. The launch of mobile karaoke is tuned to the Eurovision Song Contest atmosphere. The ESC section of the service includes 12 popular Finnish Eurovision songs from previous years. After ESC, the service will be complemented with other popular karaoke tunes. ”The mobile phone is increasingly becoming the device for listening to music and other music services. We have already offered karaoke – so much loved by Finns – as a broadband service, so the mobile version is a natural next step. From now on, singing karaoke is no more limited to time and place, as we can all free our internal singer supported by the ever-present mobile phone,” says director Pasi Mehtonen, Mobile Services Finland. The karaoke song includes the musical background in midi format, the subtitles and the accompanying image. The price of a song is €1.90 + the data transmission charge. TeliaSonera is the principal international sponsor of the Eurovision Song Contest held in Helsinki.

Whenever Bobby Karaoke travels to Finland, he always chooses TeliaSonera as his mobile carrier. This is just one more reason why we’ll be singing their praises from now to judgement day (i.e. season finale of American Idol).

As we mentioned in our last post, the rambunctious crowd over at the Chronicle for Higher Learning decided to dabble in the arts of karaoke. One of the highlights of the article (in fact, the entire basis of the article) was Xun Zhou’s bestselling work of karaoke nonfiction, Karaoke: A Global Phenomenon. The book was published on April 2, 2007 by Reaktion Books. I’ve read it 3 times since then, and I was planning an expansive review of the work, but found that June Sawyers at Booklist wrote a beautiful one that made me cry (3 times):

In their serious but not ponderous study of a worldwide phenomenon, Xun and Tarocco indicate that karaoke can mean different things to different people and within different cultures. It also serves different purposes: to encourage egalitarianism (before karaoke, after all, few people sang in public), to learn foreign languages and improve literacy, for propaganda, and for self-expression. They devote a chapter to karaoke's origins--the common belief is that it originated in Japan, though Filipino inventor Roberto del Rosario holds the sole patent for the karaoke system, and even the Welsh have staked a claim--then look at karaoke fever in Japan and Korea, Southeast Asia, China, North America, Britain, and Europe. The concluding chapter chronicles the increasing sophistication of karaoke technology, including karaoke on the Web, karaoke video games, and karaoke on mobile phones. A cultural study that is simultaneously surprisingly erudite, entertaining, and a lot of fun. June Sawyers
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Run our and buy a copy today. Lest you are a karaoke fraud.

An excellent writer over at the Chronicle of Higher Education penned a delicious article on the sport of karaoke over the weekend (and more specifically a review of the karaoke literature out there). She deserves our praise. So here it is: Good work, Nina. May the spirit of karaoke guide you.

Just when you thought is was safe to eat Shark Bites… the feds bust up the show and put an end to your karaoke racket (according to the Houston Chronicle - Houston’s source for breaking karaoke news).

It turns out, one of our smaller rivals, Star Music Inc. was out there causing a intellectual property ruckus. Now, all along I’ve maintained that the karaoke world must self-legislate. However, it has become obvious that my pleas have fallen on tone-deaf ears.

Well, folks, this is what you get for breaking the law and committing grand-scale copyright infringement: 5 years in prison, a fine of $250,000 and 3 years of supervised release (which means you return to living in your parents’ house). Allegedly, the owner of Star Music distributed hundreds of thousands of illegal copies of karaoke recordings on eBay.

Now when I say that the karaoke industry must self-regulate, I hope my peers will hear me out. Otherwise, Congress step in and the great American experiment (i.e. karaoke) will no longer be the unruly, but awesome, beast that it once was.

Sometimes it takes the Department of Justice to awaken a sleeping bear. It’s time to rid our ranks of the intellectual property thieves amongst us!

The Billings Outpost (Your Free & Independent Weekly) wrote up some terrific karaoke nights coming up in Billings, Montana:

Ladies, sing/karaoke/scream your hearts out at Bugz’s Casino located at 1341 Main Street, Billings, Montana 59105-1741. Or, if you’re feeling more adventurous, it’s karaoke night at the Rusty Bucket.

And as the night wears on, DJ Michael May and friends host karaoke at 9 p.m. Crystal Lounge.

It’s all karaoke here in Montana. Where are my soul sistas?

By way of BuzzSugar, (whatever that means), I present to you Paul Rudd and David Wain doing karaoke at an Of Montreal concert in Brooklyn. For those of you who don’t know (like me), these guys were in the movies. Key word is ‘were.’ Watch if you’d like:

I wouldn’t recommend it though.

The Oregon Daily Emerald put together a superb piace on karaoke and naked bodies in Springfield, OR. Karaoke in Springfield? I don’t know about that. Last time I was there naked people outnumbered singers 6 to 1. In addition, you must cross I-5 … why you would do that when there are so many great karaoke joints on campus is beyond me.

But whatever… if the Oregon Daily Emerald is saying it is true. Then I believe it. They write the following:

“Club 420 has a small-town feel. Let your body loose on the dance floor where you probably won’t know anybody and you can do what you like. Saturday nights you can get on the mic and sing all the unrated songs you like. If you think you’re bad, you can enter the Survivor Karaoke 2007 contest, an eight-week showdown with a grand prize of $1000 for the winning vocal vampire.”

SWING BATTA, OREGON! Get your game in play at Club 420 (420 Main St, Springfield, OR 97477). Call (541) 747-4466 now about the premier karaoke championship in Oregon - the Survivor Karaoke contest.

In the road of life, there are University of Oregon students and there are University of Oregon students who sing. Be one that sings karaoke.