WEBVTT - Karaoke: Tuesday Night Fever 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:14.520 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:21.759 and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant Chucker's Chuck tran Um. Yeah, 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:23.160 I just spice it up a little bit with some 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:26.560 multiple stuff. Uh. And no one else is here with us. 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:30.960 We're we're alone out there in the ether, um, and 0:00:31.040 --> 0:00:36.000 this is stuff you should know. Although my prediction is, uh, 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:37.959 you know, we started recording a bit early today since 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:40.560 we're on our own. I bet guest producer Dave and 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:42.920 short stuff producer Dave was going to chime in about 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:46.400 five minutes. Okay, yeah, well look forward to hearing what 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:52.360 he says. Uh, what's your deal with karaoke? I sort 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:54.280 of know, but I think that people should know. We should, 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:58.720 we should, we should exchange stories. Okay. I like karaoke. Um. 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:02.120 I particularly like karaoke in the K Box, which we'll 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:04.720 talk about, which is basically it's a little private karaoke 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:07.600 room for you and your friends. Have some great memories 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:11.520 um of karaoke like that. Um. But I'll do it 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:13.360 in front of an audience if I get a drink 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:15.640 or two in me, you know, not too much. Though 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:18.680 you go too much, you start trying to, like, you know, 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:22.520 fight the piano player or something like that. Uh. Oh, 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:25.600 so like live karaoke. Yeah, I've mentioned it a couple 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:28.920 of times, but Sig Gold's Request Room in Manhattan is 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:32.720 the place to go for live piano karaoke. Um. It's 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:35.640 just a beautiful, wonderful place. So if you haven't been there, 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:37.560 go check it out. It's great, about as good as 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:41.679 live karaoke gets, like live instrument karaoke. Alright, so I 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:46.120 haven't been there. I will go still, I forget you know, 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:49.440 I thought you would have gone this past year. Right, 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:52.480 I haven't been there, never been in a k box, 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:56.640 um no, never had the private kerrie. Uh. You know, 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.920 we'll pronounce it karaoke even though it's kr a okay, 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:03.960 cut out, okay, cut it okay, But we're not gonna 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:07.000 do that. We're not because I think Dave Ruse helps 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:09.000 us out. He's like, you can pronounce it correctly, but 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:12.320 don't be expected to be invited out to karaoke night 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:15.799 with your friends anymore, right after you practice your kata 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:21.520 te right exactly. Uh so I um have done live 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:23.919 karaoke a few years ago on my birthday. We went 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:26.919 to the um, the one that has the rock band 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:30.799 in the Virginia Highlands. I don't know that one. Yeah, 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:32.720 I mean they have the full on band. It's rock 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:36.400 and roll live karaoke. Uh. One of the local Atlanta 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:40.959 DJ's English Nick is there to serve as um sort 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:44.160 of a backup singer, and they can mix his vocals 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:46.000 and more if you're really bad, because no one wants 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:48.720 to hear that kind of thing. But I get up 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:51.640 there and did Surrender by cheap Trick and he uh. 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:54.240 I saw him at one point even stand away from 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:56.200 the mic, and I was like, I've got this. Oh wow. 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:59.200 He he like went and did something else. I maybe 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:01.919 ate some corns tips or something, a tip of the cap. 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:07.600 But my deal with Karrie Karie okay, is I used 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:11.520 to be scared to death to try it, and that 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:16.200 was when I had severe stage fright performance anxiety, which 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:18.880 I completely got over because now I'm in a band 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:21.440 that sings in front of people. You and I get 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:26.040 on stage in front of people and it doesn't bother 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:29.960 me anymore. I think I'd still probably be a little 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:34.639 nervous to do like an acoustic open mic thing. Yeah, 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:38.120 and you should be for a number of reasons. But uh, 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:40.560 it's just funny how I used to be so scared 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:44.960 and really overthink karaoke, like sit in the room, anxiety sweats, 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:46.720 I really want to do it, but I won't put 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:49.360 my name down, and then you know, the night comes 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:50.880 and goes and I don't do it. Then I had 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:57.120 this guilt and bad feelings. It was. It was a thing. Oh, 0:03:57.160 --> 0:03:59.920 I mean this was in my twenties and into my 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:03.560 early thirties. I think when I moved to l a 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:05.640 As when I really started. I guess it was in 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:07.360 my twenties because when I moved to l As, when 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:11.320 I uh finally did it, I was like, this is fine, 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:14.520 and I sing better than a lot of these people. Yeah, 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:17.559 it's a great feeling to to, you know, be done 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:19.720 and have the people you're with be like I had 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:22.760 no idea you could do that. That's really impressive. Yeah, 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:25.240 it's fun. Yeah, I enjoy it. Thir Do you have 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:29.240 a standard karaoke song that you you do or too? Yeah, 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:31.200 I mean I usually try to do uh And I 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:33.960 think we've talked about this under pressure by Queen and 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:37.039 Bowie and I do kind of both parts at the 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:40.920 same time you do like the Tibetan throat chaining kind 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:44.920 of thing. But I I have made some mistakes too. 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:46.839 I tried to do Foreigner as Cold as I said 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:50.040 a friends uh not at their wedding but wedding weekend 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:52.400 at a bar in Philly, and I just I was 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:54.600 feeling it and was like, I had forgotten how high 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:56.200 that song is. It was, Yeah, that can be a 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:58.919 problem when you like starting your range but then you forget, 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:01.360 Oh it keeps going up. That's a that's a real 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:03.720 karaoke problem. And actually I saw a check that if 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:05.280 you do that enough times you can get what it's 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:09.680 called karaoke polyps, which are really Yeah, it's basically like 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:12.320 polyps that grow on your vocal cords from straining your 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:15.480 vocal cords by trying to sing like a professional without 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:18.640 the training of a professional singer. So it can be 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:21.560 deadly dangerous. Maybe not the deadly part, but it can 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:24.440 be dangerous. Yeah, And I used to do the mental 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:27.840 gymnastics of kind of like stepping outside and going through 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:31.960 the song mentally real quick. Yeah, yeah, can I hit 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:34.640 the parts for sure? For sure? And you should, I think, 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:37.520 just as a responsible karaoke singer, you kind of do 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:41.280 need to make sure that you can sing the song, because, yeah, 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:44.920 it's kind of funny to you if you do a 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:48.240 bad karaoke performance. But the point of karaoke is to 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:52.279 like blow everybody's socks off. Like just just tear the 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:55.559 roof off the suckers is kind of my personal motto 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:58.479 every time I grab the mic. Yeah, and you know, 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:02.240 I've had sometimes where I've seen some performances at the 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:05.440 live karaoke thing. There was this country guy that clearly 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:09.560 drives in from you know, country Georgia to do this, 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:12.000 and he had a cowboy head on and he did 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:15.680 want a dead or alive. You could tell that's his deal. 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:19.280 He comes into the city, he crushes it, and then 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:21.600 goes back to the farm the next day and everyone's like, 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:26.240 who was that lonesome cowboy? Who was that mask stranger? 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:30.320 It's pretty cool to see an everyday person just get 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:32.560 up there and really kill it. Yeah, and I'm sure 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:34.040 that guy has to go out of town because he 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:36.120 probably get beat up at his town if he tried 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:37.880 to do that there. You know, he's kind of like this, 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:43.520 like being anonymous too kind of enables that karaoke Gusto, 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:47.440 I think as well, Yeah, so you said something earlier. Um, 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:51.919 you compared kado okay and kada te. And there's a 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.919 good reason for that because karate karta ta means empty 0:06:55.920 --> 0:07:02.800 hand and um kado okay is actually short for kata oka. 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:09.400 Man I even practice this kata okayta um, which is 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:14.320 like romangi when when people in Japan take an English 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:16.800 word and just kind of chapaint it up a little bit. 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:21.600 So instead of orchestra, it's okaya and kata so it 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:26.080 means empty in Okaya means orchestra, so it's an empty orchestra. 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:30.640 And that's really what car karaoke. Kata okay is. It's 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:33.920 it's slang for empty orchestra, and it actually predates the 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:38.600 concept of karaoke that we think of today. Yeah, apparently 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:42.240 in the early fifties that was a you know, a 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:46.240 pit orchestra in Osaka. They said we want you know, 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:49.040 I'm the army. Sure what they wanted, you would assume 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:52.280 better wages or more bathroom breaks or something, and they 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:56.920 went on strike and the theater replaced them with a 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:00.600 sound system and it was from Matsuda like tronics, And 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:05.800 apparently as the story goes executive from Matsuda came there, 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:09.920 heard the system and said, it's uh, the orchestra. There's 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:13.119 music playing about the orchestra pit is empty, and thus 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:17.000 the term was coined empty orchestra. And that was that 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:19.800 was in the fifties. Um, I think nineteen fifty two 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:24.880 was it, Yes, so um. Karaoke as we understand it 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:29.120 today didn't come along for good almost two decades later. 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:33.080 So there was this idea that anytime you had prerecorded music, 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:37.600 especially if it was played in instead of you know, 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:40.800 where a live performer would play, UM, that that was 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:44.200 karaoke kata okay um. So it was kind of a 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:49.360 handy term that a guy named Desca in a way 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:54.400 um used when he came up with karaoke. And the 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:57.600 idea of who invented karaoke who came up with it 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:02.120 is not just widely settled, but for the most part, 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:07.280 there is like those who know site desk in a 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:10.400 way as the as the guy who who actually came 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:13.960 up with this as we understand it, Yeah, I did see. 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:15.640 You know, there are a couple of other people in 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:21.000 the late sixties that kind of messed around with machines 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:24.000 that kind of did what what the karaoke machine does. 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:26.800 But yeah, his story is great. He's a if you 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:29.080 look him up a picture, he's a pretty cool looking customer. 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:32.760 And in Osaka in the fifties, he was in high 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:35.120 school and he was a drummer in a rock band 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:38.040 and then tried to be a musician professionally for a 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:41.560 little while, but like so many musicians that tried that 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:44.480 for a little while, ended up back at home in 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:47.000 his late twenties, living with his parents in Kobe. Yeah, 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:49.720 but he gave it a good decade long try, you know, 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:51.839 he was out on the road. I read this really 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:56.680 great UM kind of mini biography or autobiography UM from 0:09:56.679 --> 0:09:59.720 the early two thousands that was published in the appendix 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:02.160 is voice Hero to look that up. It's a really 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:05.640 he's just a charming guy. Um. But he he tried 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:07.760 it for about ten years and it just didn't work 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:10.840 out because most of the money was pocketed by the older, 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:15.560 more established musicians. UM, and it just he wasn't going anywhere. 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:17.600 I think he said that he realized that no matter 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:21.080 how much he practiced, and he really practiced, UM, he 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:23.160 would never be as good as somebody who had natural 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:25.559 talent and it just wasn't for him, so he decided 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:28.040 to try something else. But he didn't want to give 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:31.720 up um playing entirely. He wanted to try to make 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:34.920 a living somehow from playing music, and it just so 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:38.680 happens that his parents living in Kobe placed him at 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:44.560 this really particularly good spot for karaoke to begin, which 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:48.040 is Kobe, which is about thirty minutes outside of Osaka, 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:51.960 um where the very famous Kobe beef comes from. And 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:55.120 at the time in Kobe, and for a while before that, 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:59.920 there was a popular pastime of singalongs, which is basically 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:01.920 like you go to a bar a snack is what 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:05.360 they were called, and there'd be somebody playing a piano 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:08.560 or a guitar or something like that, and everybody would sing, 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:11.800 you know, popular songs along with the mini band that 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:16.840 was playing. Yeah, but that was like groups singing together, uh, 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:22.480 not like a single person either delighting or embarrassing themselves. Um. 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:24.960 But he got into this scene a little bit and 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:27.959 it was clearly a popular thing. So he's like, I'm 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:31.120 a musician. I guess he played piano too, and he 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:36.640 learned a few hundred really popular songs on piano and 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:42.760 then started performing as the accompaniments, accompaniments, accompaniment. I think 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:47.240 that's the Latin plural accompaniments accompany down what's the word 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:52.280 for the person the accompanist? Accompany is accompany minimust empotymus. 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:57.920 None of these sound right, it's accompany list Okay, that 0:11:58.040 --> 0:11:59.719 just sounds weird to me. But you know how that 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:03.760 your brain just broke it did a little bit. So 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:07.760 he was doing this as the piano guy, the piano man, 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:11.360 if you will, and one day this customer comes in 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:14.640 who had been frequenting these nights where he was playing piano, 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:16.920 and he was like, listen, I'm a business guy. I 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:19.760 gotta go to a different city on the sales for 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:23.120 the sales meeting, and I gotta take these uh these 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:25.560 other people out to you know, to go out drinking 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:29.520 and singing after and you're my guy. I can't like, 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:32.480 I can only sing along with you. So would you 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:36.520 mind recording something for me that I can bring along? 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:39.560 And he said sure, So we recorded some stuff on 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:41.640 a reel to reel, gave it to him. The trip 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:43.480 was a big hit, and the guy came back and 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:46.040 said I need more of these, and that was, you know, 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:48.880 literally the aha moment. He grabbed desca in a way 0:12:48.880 --> 0:12:51.320 by his lapels and shook him and said, give me more, man, 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:55.720 I need some more. And he did. And apparently right 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:58.959 at this time, as he was being shaken, Desca left 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:02.200 his body astro project elsewhere into the universe, where he 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:06.960 was greeted by the same entity that Um that led 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:10.760 to the creation of Ketchup, and the same entity has 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:13.720 Ketchup and karaoke under its belt because it met with 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:16.800 Daiskin said this is like, pay attention to what's happening 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:21.959 right now, invent karaoke, and dasa Um basically came back 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:23.520 to his body and said, I have I have this 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:26.320 great idea. I'm going to invent a machine that is 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:29.200 basically me what this guy wants me to do live 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:33.400 that I can multiply create a bunch of different machines 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:36.000 that do the same thing and it's going to be 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:39.040 the first karaoke machine ever. And that's what he did. 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:40.960 He came up with something called the Duke eight, which 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:44.520 is a great name. Yeah, it's cool looking, I mean 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:46.240 the idea and you can look at pictures of the 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:49.200 guy with this thing and it's you know, it's about 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:52.400 the size of a small guitar amp or something which 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:54.120 is not bad. You'd think would be the size of 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:56.719 like a smart car or something for the first prototype 0:13:57.480 --> 0:13:59.800 back in the day. But it was simple. I mean, 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:01.800 they had amps at the time. They really just combined 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:04.880 a few technologies, which was an eight track player right 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:07.240 from a car, A car, a car eight track players 0:14:07.280 --> 0:14:10.280 where they started with oh yeah and a which are 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:12.719 really no different than any other eight track players. I 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:16.840 guess that's true. Yeah, yeah, I mean maybe they worked 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:19.120 better in motion. I don't know, no, but that's probably 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:21.000 why those cars were so big, because they had to 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:22.560 be that big back in the day to hold the 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:25.600 eight track track. Uh. So, you know, it was like 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:28.000 an eight track player mixed with a you know, an 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:30.600 amp or a p A, a small p A. And 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:32.840 his ideas, you know, he called the juke e because 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:34.480 it was kind of like a juke box, is that 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:36.200 you would put money in it like a juke box 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:39.520 to get a certain amount of time on the clock, 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:42.800 which I think was kind of brilliant instead of like 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:46.960 a song, um like, I think the idea is that 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:50.000 people would just keep feeding it. Yeah. He actually specifically 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:53.320 said that he chose five minutes a hundred yen about 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:56.920 thirty five cents bought you five minutes of singing time 0:14:57.280 --> 0:14:59.280 so that you'd be part way through the second song 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:01.200 and have to put more money and to finish the 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:03.840 second song. He was he was a sharp tack in 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:07.840 a lot of ways, well in some way, in some way. 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:10.760 Uh So I think they took a couple of months 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:14.040 to build each. Uh They cost him about four d 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:20.560 and twenty five bucks, which is about today. And he said, 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:23.040 I gotta get some of these tracks recorded. So he 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:25.120 got a bunch of his friends to record, you know, 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:29.600 musicians to record these instrumental tracks, started shopping it around 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:35.720 and sold all eleven of those machines and pretty quick order. Yeah, 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:39.040 I think. Um, I don't know if he sold them 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:42.520 or if he took them as like basically, um a 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:46.560 proof of conflict, yeah, something like that. Either way, he 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:50.640 did get them in eleven different clubs around Kobe, um, 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:53.520 and everybody was glad to have him there to look at. 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:55.320 And that was about it. They just sat there and 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:57.760 nobody did anything with him. Nobody knew quite what to 0:15:57.760 --> 0:15:59.920 do with them. And even if they did, I think 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:02.320 it took you know how much gumption it takes in 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:05.560 an established karaoke place when other people are doing it. 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:09.320 Imagine being literally the first person to do karaoke like 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:13.000 you probably would. You know, it just took a little bit. So, Um, 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:17.080 Desica hired somebody, uh he said, a pretty girl in 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:19.760 a sexy outfit is how he put it in that 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:23.400 one autobiography, UM, and had her go around to all 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:27.240 these eleven clubs and basically like sing karaoke. And she 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:30.000 did it, um because he hired her too. But apparently 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:31.440 she came back and was like, I would do that 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:33.120 again just for fun. That was a lot of fun. 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:37.240 And from that point on, basically the whole concept of 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:41.120 karaoke took off, at least in Kobe. Yeah, there were 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:44.840 about two hundred of these machines uh in and around 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:48.880 Kobe uh in pretty short order. And I think it's 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:50.920 a good time to take a break. I think it 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:54.040 is too, because karaoke is just simmering that the lid 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:57.200 is like rattling on the pot right now. Yeah, it's 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:14.160 about to blow. All right, we'll be right back. Well, 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:18.200 now we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:21.560 to learn a thing or two from Josh can Chuck. 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:29.480 It's stuff you should know, all right, Okay, chuck. So 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:32.199 there's a rendered fat spitting out the sides of the 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:35.200 pot and steam going everywhere. I just burned my hand 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:37.840 on it. Let's tear the lid off of this sucker, 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:42.080 which is tangential to my karaoke motto of tearing the 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:46.520 roof off the sucker. That's right. So they're going gangbusters 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:49.640 in Kobe, and like you said, it's not too far 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:53.320 from Osaka, which is a bigger city. And a couple 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:56.159 of entrepreneurs from Kobe said, this is great, but we 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:58.840 need to get this to Osaka, And they brought a 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:02.159 duke eight around kind of showed it around and it 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:05.880 really hit big to the tune of they were moving 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:09.520 about twenty five thousand of these a year pretty quickly. Yeah. 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:11.760 Because so remember I said that Kobe was like a 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:14.760 perfect place for karaoke to to kind of be incubated, 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:18.160 because people already did these sing alongs in Tokyo and Osaka. 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:21.159 It wasn't like that they liked watching an actual band 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:25.400 perform or listening to actual songs in the jukebox. Um. 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:27.640 But when these guys, it could not find the name 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:30.520 of this club, but that when they opened, essentially the 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:34.520 first karaoke club in Osaka. Um. I guess it just 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:37.760 hit at just the right chord, just the right time, 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:40.480 and all of a sudden, Osaka was a karaoke town, 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:44.200 and in very short order, Tokyo was as well. Um 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:46.720 And because it kind of blew up for the first 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:50.240 time in Osaka, Osaka is considered the birthplace of karaoke, 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:56.280 even though it really was born in Kobe, like very plainly. Yeah. 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:58.119 So you know you mentioned earlier that he was a 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:02.480 pretty sharp tack in some ways, uh and others. And 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:05.800 I'm not saying he wasn't smart, but he didn't patent 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:07.960 the thing. His brother in law said he really should 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:11.480 patent this Duke eight. He said, you know what, patent 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:16.440 law is really complicated here in Japan. It's super expensive. Uh. 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:18.359 You know, all I can patent is the business model 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:21.080 because all of these you know, it's just a combination 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:24.520 of other components that already have patents on the which 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:26.440 is you know, I guess it's just different. I know, 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:30.680 just from my Shark Tank viewing that in America, if 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:34.000 you put together these different or any different technologies and 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:36.879 just the right way, you can't get a patent, you know, 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:40.680 not always but um, I've seen patents go through where 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:43.480 I'm like, well, that's just this, this and this. They're like, yes, 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:46.840 but we can bind them in the patent offense recognized it. Yeah, 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:49.560 it's I think it's called an improvement or something like that. 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:52.399 And I actually read this really interesting article chuck in 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:56.120 a on magazine like I don't know, five six, seven 0:19:56.200 --> 0:20:00.400 years ago, um, where it basically made the case we 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:04.679 stopped actually innovating we humans did back in maybe the 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:07.840 sixties or seventies, and that everything we've invented since then 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:11.640 it's basically just putting existing stuff together. And they used 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:16.200 the example of the iPhone, which basically is like, it's amazing, 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:19.800 it's this amazing technology, but it's you know, it's a camera, 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:22.359 it's also a phone, it's also your email, it's also text. 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:24.280 Like it's all these existing things just put together in 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:28.560 one convenient place. Um. And that that's a really great 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:31.520 example of how we actually stopped like creating new stuff 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:35.560 and just basically repurposing, repackaging existing stuff, and that hopefully 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:40.080 we're due for another huge technological advancement sometime soon if 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:43.960 we don't, um, just decline from utter decadence before we 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:47.440 get the chance to do that. Yeah. I remember there 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:50.240 was a meme a few years ago or probably a 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:53.120 little more than that, that showed up this the front 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:57.880 page of a radio shack magazine at or whatever, and 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:00.399 it was in at the bottom it said, all of 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:03.120 these are now on your smartphone and it was like 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:07.200 forty things, you know, from like tape recorders to microphones, 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:11.479 to cameras to uh, you know thing, what's the thing 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:17.120 that tells the temperature? The a an accompanist? But basically 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:19.639 everything you know on that page is now on an iPhone. 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:21.120 It's kind of like, well, and now I see why 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:23.680 Radio Scheck is no longer around. Yeah, poor Radio Scheck. 0:21:23.760 --> 0:21:25.880 They really they did a lot there and they got 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:28.760 kind of dissed at the end. It was pretty great. 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:31.040 I love that story, it was and they had a 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:36.159 really cool logo too. I agreed. Um. So, so you 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:40.600 said that that he did not patent the karaoke machine 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:43.240 the juke a right, Yeah, I mean he made plenty 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:47.000 of money still though. Yeah. So yes, he's still manufactured 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:49.760 juke case eight and sold them and you know, he 0:21:49.880 --> 0:21:52.199 sold tens of thousands of them a year and they 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:55.440 were his machine. So basically for a long time until Base, 0:21:55.760 --> 0:21:58.320 until other competitors figured out that there wasn't a patent 0:21:58.359 --> 0:22:01.159 on this thing. Um, if you wanted a karaoke machine, 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:03.040 you had to go to Daska in a way, right 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:05.359 and buy one. So yes, he definitely made money, and 0:22:05.359 --> 0:22:07.840 he continued to make money over the decades and through 0:22:07.840 --> 0:22:12.720 the years, selling like UM equipment or UM cd s 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:15.199 stuff like that. Right, So he was fine, and he 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:18.960 actually seems very zen about this. But it is entirely 0:22:19.040 --> 0:22:22.119 clear that had he patented this, and I think this 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:25.360 really kind of drove home to me just how globally 0:22:25.440 --> 0:22:29.800 popular karaoke is, he would have been a billionaire many 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:34.119 times over just from inventing karaoke and kicking back and 0:22:34.600 --> 0:22:37.879