Crazy Karaoke Stories from Around the World

This page is dedicated to crazy karaoke stories. Karaoke doesn't seem like a dangerous activity, but I guess that anytime you mix ego and alcohol, strange things can happen. The stories below are pretty wild and give you an idea of just how serious some people take their music and karaoke. We do not endorse violence in any way. However, this is an interesting aspect of karaoke. If you find a story that applies, please send it to webmaster@CoolestKaraoke.com

Karaoke nuisance jailed for drunken cream bun attacks on police officers

Thursday, 22nd January 2009
SOURCE: Yorkshire Post, UK, (Click here for full article) 

SLAPPING a cream bun on a policeman's head has led to a two-year jail sentence for a 61-year-old man who has become notorious for his antics in a Yorkshire town centre.

Self-styled karaoke singer and street entertainer Kenneth "Kipper" Jackson was arrested after smearing the bun onto the head of Pc Brent Porter as he made an arrest. Jackson had claimed he was balancing the bun on his head when he was pushed from behind and it landed on the officer, Sheffield Crown Court heard yesterday.

Revellers in Barnsley town centre found the scene hilarious but Jackson was arrested for breaching an Anti-Social Behaviour Order which bans him from being drunk in public.

A jury heard that he committed a second breach of the order when he threw another cream bun at a police car two weeks later.

Jackson wore a red T-shirt in the dock bearing the slogan "Free Kipper Jackson" on the first day of his two-day trial and yesterday sported a prison shirt with the slogans "Super Legend" and "Karaoke King".

The judge told him: "You slapped a cream bun on the head of a police officer struggling with a prisoner, it could have led to serious public disorder."

Karaoke Singer Attacked By Woman For Lousy Version of Coldplay's "Yellow"

SOURCE: Associated Press
SEATTLE - A woman attacked a singer belting out Coldplay on Thursday night, telling him he "sucked" before she pushed and punched him to get him to stop singing, bar staff said.

The man was singing "Yellow" when it happened. "It took three or four of us to hold her down," bartender Robert Willmette said. When she was escorted outside, the 21-year-old woman "went crazy," Willmette said, throwing punches at him and others, including an off-duty police officer.

Patrol officers and detectives then arrived at the neighborhood bar and blocked off the street, which inflamed the woman's rage even more, a police report said. Before police could handcuff the woman, she head-butted the off-duty officer at least twice. The off-duty officer was treated for cuts, scrapes and bruises.

After treatment for injuries, the woman was booked into the King County jail for investigation of assault. She was also held on a warrant issued for a previous theft charge. According to bartender notes, she had only a single shot of Jagermeister.

 

Boston Needed Lead Singer, Found One Online
"I've Never Dreamed this Big!"
Plucked From Obscurity, Man Joins Favorite Band After Karaoke Wows Founder

(ABC News) By DESIREE ADIB and STEPHANIE DAHLE
June 1, 2008

Tommy DeCarlo of Charlotte, N.C., dreamed of becoming a rock star, listening to his favorite band's albums and memorizing their songs.

Tommy DeCarlo is the new singer for his favorite band Boston. "A Boston song would come on and I'd get fired up and I'd start singing it," said DeCarlo, 43, a father of two kids -- Talia, 19, and Tommy Jr., 17.

But dreams didn't pay the bills, so DeCarlo worked as a credit manager at a Home Depot store in Charlotte to support his.

Still, he never gave up singing along to his Boston CDs, and his daughter Talia took notice. She posted a MySpace page of DeCarlo singing karaoke to Boston songs after the band's lead singer, Brad Delp, committed suicide in March 2007. And, in an instant, DeCarlo's whole world turned upside down.

"I wanted to share [the karaoke] with ... other Boston fans," he said.

DeCarlo had to sing with the karaoke track because he had sold his keyboard in 2006, using the extra cash to buy Christmas presents for his children.

 Meanwhile, up in Boston, members of the real band were struggling to continue playing as the coped with Delp's suicide.

"My wife was at her computer playing our tunes, and I asked whether it was us playing live," said Boston founder Tom Scholz. "She said, 'It's some guy in North Carolina singing your songs.' I said, 'I know Brad's voice, and that's Brad.'"

Still, a skeptical Scholz was intrigued.

"In order to believe it, I had to plug the computer into the big speakers so I could listen to the background music and see if it was the band," Scholz told ABC News. "And I realized it wasn't the band, it was a karaoke track. Somebody was singing to it, and it wasn't Brad."

So the band decided to give DeCarlo a shot -- as their new lead singer.

"I was like, 'Wow!'" DeCarlo told "Good Morning America." "I remember calling my wife and kids in the bedroom and I said, 'Look at this e-mail!' I couldn't believe it."

"I was like, 'Oh my goodness, I can't believe this is happening," said Talia DeCarlo. "It was crazy."

DeCarlo made his debut onstage at a tribute concert to Brad Delp last August. It was the first time he sang with a band in his entire life.

"Even at the tribute, I heard a few people say it was a little eerie to hear Tommy sing, because it sounded like Brad up there," Scholz said.

Tommy DeCarlo performs with the legendary rock band Boston after being plucked from obscurity to be the group's new lead singer.

"My hope is to carry on what Brad meant," DeCarlo said.

DeCarlo and the rest of Boston will begin their summer tour on June 6, 2008, in Thunber Bay, Ontario, Canada.

And the keyboard that DeCarlo sold two years ago, trying to make ends meet? Yamaha is endorcing DeCarlo and shipping him a brand-new synthesizer. He is scheduled to receive it the day before he and the band leave for their tour.

Boston got lucky finding "somebody who is good at something, who loved it and all of a sudden, all the connections got made," Boston founder Scholz said. He added: "Thank God!" For DeCarlo, his ultimate "dream job" has become an unbelievable reality. "A lot of folks have said, 'Wow! You're living a dream.'"

DeCarlo laughed, "I've never dreamed this big. ... Never in a million years I thought this could happen."
 

Was it Karaoke Madness, or Sinatra Syndrome?
Shooting Industry, May, 2002 by Commander Gilmore

Karaoke is proving to be a lethal contact sport in some parts of the world. Not surprising. As we all know, exposure to karaoke can drive people mad and spark aggressive assaults -- as well as stupid, sappy behavior.

Recently, the premier of Cambodia tried to control, then shut down, that country's karaoke parlors because of their record of drunken violence and shootings. It didn't work. The premier then ordered the Army to search for outlaw karaoke sites and flatten them with tanks.

More than one shooting incident occurred after some yahoo tried his rendition of Frank Sinatra's "My Way." That particular tune seemed to cause outbreaks of mayhem. And you thought that was just some weird localized phenomenon. Uh-uh.
In the Philippines, owners of karaoke parlors are removing Sinatra's song from their machines after a wave of "My Way" incidents. In the most recent deadly episode, one crooner shot and killed one dude and wounded another after they jeered his version of the song.

In another case, a man was beaten to death by the crowd for singing "My Way" off-key. It seems that the "Sinatra Syndrome" is producing more casualties than the guerrilla civil war in the jungles. Now, if the government was smart, they'd build karaoke parlors in guerrilla-held areas, stock them with Sinatra, and then wait a week. Peace achieved.

 

Two Cambodian Fisherman Shot by Jealous Boyfriend of Karaoke Singer

A jealous shooting now from a fishing port in Sattahip which left two Cambodian Fishermen with gun shot wounds. Police Lieutenant Colonel Nipon from Sattahip Police Station dealt with this case and was told by the two men that they had spent the night at a local Karaoke Bar where they became friendly with a young woman who worked as a singer in the bar. It appears that an altercation between the two men and the angry boyfriend of the singer began outside the bar and continued at the port where the boyfriend produced a gun and opened fire on the pair. The bullets caused injuries to the hip and legs of both men who were taken to Hospital and are expected to fully recover from their injuries. A full description of the jealous boyfriend has now been circulated amongst officers who expect to catch him soon. The Karaoke Singer is already assisting Police with their enquiries.