London Place 8: Lucky Voice

I hear your lucky voice, I have no fuckin' choice, heaven help me!

Lucky Voice, of course, the heart of swinging London in those distant, innocent days.

We first went to Karaoke Box on Frith Street, which seemed gloriously dark and seedy, while Lucky Voice, on Poland Street, which opened a couple of years later, was garishly bright and, in its own way, equally seedy.

If I'm being honest, karaoke evenings were the most fun. More even than gigs, than weddings, than films, than parties, whatever. Not always, but on average.

Sometimes you'd go with a group of karaoke-hardened close friends, all bulletproof and unembarrassable in that settings, but just as often it'd be friends of friends, or acquaintances, or shyer friends who'd never done karaoke before, and so there was behaviour to be managed, your own and other people's.

I really tried my best on those occasions, ill-equipped as I am for the minutiae of socialisation. Tried not to be too enthusiastic or weird too early, tried to make sure everyone had a turn at choosing but also to make clear that it was fine if someone didn't want to sing, tried not to hog the mic or be too loud, and I'd manage for a while but then, inevitably, in the second hour, I'd be sacking off poorly chosen songs after a minute with a cursory "Shit, onto the next one" and have wrecked my voice by doing both Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballe's parts in 'Barcelona'.

How did a standard evening go? We'd eat in Nando's or Bodean's in Soho. Both seemed new and unjaded at the time. Whether to eat beforehand or after was a key decision, both with risks. Before was probably the marginally safer bet, but eating afterward could be more ... exultant. I date the start of the UK's craft/US beer fixation from the precise moment I first had a bottle of Sam Adams at Bodeans. I didn't know they even made beer in America! We must tell the world!

What made for good karaoke? The really good ones? A bit of showing off, but not too much. Falling back in love with pop music out of necessity, because there's only so many indie classics on their list. Finding, unexpectedly, something one of those indie classics which you wouldn't have thought you'd find at karaoke. Realising that the minor late 80s hit 'Beds are Burning' by the Australian band Midnight Oil is the perfect karaoke sing/shoutalong. Beer, a lot of beer, beer at a faster bottle per minute rate than you'd allow yourself anywhere else. For the vocal cords.

What, really, though? I think I'd pin it down to variety, and everyone joining in with that variety. So you might get a 20 minute stretch with, I don't know, Dancing on My Own, The Mercy Seat, Send in the Clowns, Smells Like Teen Spirit, Push It, and everyone's all in, and it's simultaneously absurd and life-enhancing.

Lucky Voice with its neon, its fancy dress, its echo, its buttons to order drinks. Time it was and what a time it was.