EPISODE 7 | Simulation = Memory + Emotion

Quarantine Karaoke

TOISHA TUCKER: At the very beginning of the pandemic, one of the first things that you were told was the absolute worst thing you could do was to sing. Singing became this really dangerous thing. It’s hard to think of karaoke, the action of, like, sharing music, sharing songs with other people, with your friends, as being deadly.

[White noise from an unplugged amp is followed by a videogame startup sound and then Tom Petty’s “Free Falling”]

LISA KO: My name is Lisa Ko. I am an amateur, at home and away from home, karaoke enthusiast. I’ve been singing, lately, a lot of Men At Work, “Who Can It Be Now?”

A lot of “This Year” by The Mountain Goats, which has a line that says, “I’m going to make it through this year if it kills me,” which feels very appropriate. 

TUCKER: I am Toisha Tucker. I go by Tucker. I wouldn’t even say I’m amateur. I’m just an enthusiast. And sometimes I’m amazing. And sometimes it’s pretty bad. 

[Sound of Tucker singing “Free Falling]

So, normally the karaoke that I do is you can rent private rooms here in New York city. So, you’re not at a bar, you’re just with your friends in a dark stuffy room. In a pandemic, you wanted to recreate that cause it’s like, who doesn’t want to hang out in a space and sing with their friends, but it was also one of the things that you were told, and we were all warned against, was singing.

KO: On a platform like Zoom, the sound doesn’t really sync up with karaoke, which is what I found. I was thinking about how, in the very early days of the pandemic, when we all felt like it was going to be a matter of weeks maybe, but, also, I deeply felt like the world was about to end, and I was terrified. And I remember how, in those early weeks, there was a really big rush of ways to recreate normal life. 

Cause we were still used to seeing friends and going out on a regular basis. 

And I organized a few karaoke nights with one or two other people trying to figure out how to do the sound. 

[Videogame sound is followed by a floor tom being beat into an upbeat karaoke backtrack]

TUCKER: So, Lisa is like a star and figured out how you can actually Zoom karaoke because you can’t just be like, “I’m going to Zoom with my friends.” It’s horrible.

KO: I found that what’s interesting about doing a lot of YouTube karaoke recently is because any song is available, because I don’t have to necessarily share a room, and we’re not renting by the hour, it’s pushed me to sing a lot of random stuff that I wouldn’t necessarily sing.

And so, I found myself doing a lot of comfort karaoke, a lot of heavy nostalgia songs from my childhood, to really very esoteric things that I would not normally think of singing.

TUCKER: When you’re left to your own devices to do karaoke, it’s weird because you’re not building that exquisite corpse, right? A list of songs where Lisa goes, and I’m like, “oh, that reminds me of that era!” And then I go, and then that reminds someone else of this other thing, and you— 

KO: But then there’s this sense of sadness, which is why it’s great that we can do this, but also why are we doing this? We’re doing this because things are collapsing [laughs] outside our apartments, and that’s really terrible, right? So, this feeling of trying to sing through the tears or sing with the tears, which, to me, is the joy of karaoke in the first place.

[Karaoke backtrack for “This Year” by The Mountain Goats plays in the background]

TUCKER: I found that you can’t have everyone’s mic on because then you’re getting all this feedback and echoing, and part of what’s lovely for me about karaoke is that bad voices still harmonize.

If we can all sing it, it works out. And if I’m just singing, and you guys are all on mute, then I also don’t feel your energy. There’s nothing happening. And I’m like, “is this bad? Am I bombing?” 

KO: I feel like there was a point in which it felt sad. Even though there were times that I really enjoyed doing things like virtual dance parties and virtual karaoke, but there was definitely a point, maybe in the early winter, when things felt pretty bleak, I think, all around. It felt like I was trying to pretend to keep my energy up in a certain way that I wasn’t actually feeling.

That gap between the performance and the reality felt like a lot. Even though you’re doing it on Zoom, you’re only hearing your own voice, and it’s in a crappy way because the reception is really bad.

TUCKER: There wasn’t even the, “oh, I’m gonna run outside with you and go down the street and get some fries,” or whatever from this place. You start talking to people around you. You can’t do that on Zoom. I can’t have a side convo with Lisa while somebody else is singing.

[In a comical voice] “Guys, we’re going to a break-out room, we’ll be back!”

[Ko laughs]

KO: You can DM me in a private chat. [Laughs]

TUCKER: One of my favorite parts of karaoke is when you have to, eventually, go to the bathroom, and you’re walking down the hall and you’re just hearing the sound coming out of all these other rooms. And you’re like, “is that what it sounds like from our room too?”

I think what I’ve learned is it’s not an experience you can replicate.  

KO: Yeah, it just felt like a poor substitution.

It felt even lonelier than maybe doing it alone or with my partner in our apartment.

[Karaoke backtrack of “Hallway Moment” by Mountain Goats plays in the background]

I think also, because the weather is getting warmer, and people are getting vaccinated, I’ve been able to see friends in person. So, it feels less necessary. One of the things I’ve really missed is just having those accidental run-ins with people.

I do miss that casual nature of running into your friends’ friends who you sort of know, but you don’t know well enough to really hang out with one-on-one in a pandemic.

I imagine renting a big room and then just having people come in and out. Seeing some people that I haven’t seen for a long time.

That idea of a big, collective space where people can come in and then leave when they’re ready, and some people stay the whole time. To me, one of the most important things is that we get to go out to eat afterwards, it’s late at night, and we can get Korean food somewhere in K-Town and have a big, communal meal of barbecue and noodles.

[Laughs]

Yeah, so that’s my vision.

[Ko singing “I’m Going to Make It Through This Year If It Kills Me”]