BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
[Ria's note: What first began as a reluctant story turned out to be a lot of fun. Though I'd pitched the story, I was still nervous about ruining people's Friday nights by badgering them with questions. And who would ever want to go with me on assignment? Fortunately, Paul, Aram and Roberto went along willingly with me to a nice-but-dive karaoke bar...maybe they assumed my company would pay for our fun. HA! That'd be nice. We enjoyed a beer and a round up on stage singing to the Backstreet Boys; as we stepped off the stage after a presumably amazing performace, a table at the front erupted in cheers for Paul, chanting "El Güerito! El Güerito!" which to me means "Go, white boy, go!" And that is the story of how my Pulitzer Prize-winning piece came to be.]
Alan Marino steps up on the stage in a dimly lit bar in Mexico City, a microphone and "michelada" in hand. A fuzzy monitor displays Marino and his pack of friends anxiously awaiting their cue.
"Neeeena, luna sereeeena," they begin to croon on a Friday night, passionately singing along with Miguel Bosé's "Nena" as the soft sounds of synthesized music keep the beat.
The packed bar erupts with applause and laughter as the team returns to their seats at a small square table near the stage. Brow sweaty and face flushed, Marino picks up a white plastic binder to search for his next serenade, scribbling his song and table number onto a small slip of paper.
Marino, 25, is a regular at Cantabar Collage, a simple but comfortable karaoke joint in the city's Zona Rosa district. He says he comes every weekend to belt his heart out before a crowd of 20- to 40-year-olds.
"It is a space where you can express all the feelings you keep trapped inside," he said of the bar as his tablemates nodded in agreement.
Cristian Cabrera, another Collage regular, said he loves singing karaoke because "it helps you throw away your fears."
The 26-year-old theater actor treated the audience that night to a soulful rendition of Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli's "Por ti volaré," hitting each note flawlessly - in stark contrast to the next group's unharmonious cover of the Backstreet Boys.
Cabrera said in addition to Collage, his regular karaoke circuit includes El Palomazo in Colonia Del Valle and Il Canto in Polanco.
`CANTABAR' VERSUS KARAOKE
The Mexico City nightlife scene is widely diverse; any late-night mingler might stumble across a dark, dingy cantina serving frothy "pulque," a faux Irish pub or a high-class "antro" with well-dressed club-goers sitting on sleek leather couches.
Karaoke joints can be cathartic for some, a chance to channel post-breakup anger or to sing a heartfelt homage to newfound love. Others enjoy the opportunity to soak in the crowd's affection, while some are shepherded to the stage by liquid courage.
Sing-along bars themselves offer a varying range of options: some merely pass a microphone to any drunk soul at the bar who wants it, others provide top-notch sound equipment like voice processors that take the edge of any horribly tone-deaf ballad.
Agustín Rodríguez, event coordinator for Club My Way Karaoke in Polanco, described bars in the first category as "cantabares," while karaoke clubs fill the second, appeasing the fantasies of countless songbirds across the city.
"People come here because they want to sing, they don't just casually stop in," he said of his club, whose clientele typically come dressed in ties and dress shirts or pretty blouses.
The bar features murals of New York City's Statue of Liberty and the Empire State building, a tribute to "My Way" singer Frank Sinatra. Barstools with red leather cushions and smooth beige lounges fill the interior of the stylish but unpretentious club.
"All of us like to sing, it's just that some of us never dare to," Rodríguez said.
While Sinatra plays every night at the bar, he said customer favorites include songs by Elvis, Luis Miguel and Alejandro Fernández, and the bar has 7,000 songs to chose from.
Other karaoke bars retain a more cantina-like vibe.
Cantabar Collage, for example, boasts carpeted floors, metal-framed chairs and bowls of orange-dusted wheat flour crisps; the lyrics scroll along monitors displaying inexplicable and mildly raunchy video clips of women in bikinis. The bar's cleanliness, friendliness and eager-to-please staff, however, keep it out of cantina territory.
On the opposite end of the karaoke spectrum, clubs like Cotton Club in San Angel offer vocalists a more refined, high-end experience in their sing-along endeavors.
Singers mostly troll to Mexican pop and ranchera music, although the club offers tunes in nearly every genre and in English and French as well.
The well-furbished song bar is also a dance club, depending on customers' requests. Round leather ottomans circle low, glossy tables accented by candlelight. Exposed brick walls painted with flashy gold provide the backdrop for on-stage starlets.
Back at the Collage karaoke bar, Cristina Resendiz, 28, bounds off the stage giggling after singing along with her fellow preschool teachers to Mexican pop group Flans' "Las mil y una noches."
She said she'd never been to a karaoke bar before but that her group decided to try something new. She struggled to describe the draw of the stage and the kitschy music, so with cheeks rosy and short of breath, she simply explained, "Well, I just like it."
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