Ladies and gents, that special night has arrived. This week, at Pants Karaoke, we’re celebrating the greatest of all souvenirs, the thing that made instant friends (and enemies) in the high school cafeteria, the way to literally wear your taste for all to see: the band t-shirt. This theme is a little different than most, in that you have say in what others can sing. The song list will be limited to bands that are currently featured or have been featured at some point in the night on someone’s shirt. Or hat. Or pants. Or undies, if you want to get freaky.

The rules:

1. Wear a band shirt.

2. Feel free to bring multiple band shirts and change throughout the night. Once a shirt is worn for 15 minutes, that band is unlocked for the rest of the night.

3. I’ll be bringing a bunch of my own shirts. Want me to change into a different one? Sing something from the band I’m currently wearing.

4. Other articles of clothing count, too, as long as they’re visible. Don’t sign up for Welcome to the Black Parade and claim you’re wearing the limited edition My Chemical Romance thong unless you’re willing to show it off.

5. Homemade shirts count. Wanna sing a Weezer song but don’t have the shirt? I’m sure you can make that iconic =w= with a few pieces of masking tape.

6. Festival shirts count for all of the bands listed on the shirt, but not if they just say the name of the festival. Don’t make people google “what bands Coachella 2015.”

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Don’t have any band shirts? Not a problem. Earlier today, I went to Goodwill and spent the $45 I could have spent one David Byrne shirt the other night to instead get nine count ‘em nine random band shirts. What bands are they, you ask? You’ll have to show up to find out, but believe me, I was absolutely not picky in choosing them. If you pick one blindly, I’ll even bump you to the top of the list, as long as you sing the shirt!

As always, karaoke starts around 6pm. There’s a holiday on Monday, so we’ll keep singing as long as you keep signing up.

See y’all there? ROCK!

Love Pants.

We lost a couple of good ones this week, folks. They took the wrong 80-year-old. Then they took the wrong 80-year-old. And then we relived childhood trauma with the death of Optimus Prime.

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This week at Pants Karaoke, we’re doing a karaoke tribute to artists we’ve recently lost. Dolly Parton. Tim Curry. Peter Cullen. Frank Beard. Hayden Panettiere. Yayoi Kusama. Jackie the bald eagle. Sing songs performed by these artists, songs inspired by these artists, songs tangentially related to these artists. If there are any more that I’ve forgotten to include, please let me know and I’ll add them to the list.

See y’all there? Awesome.

Love Pants.

This week at Pants Karaoke, we’re celebrating this soundtrack, along with other grunge and grunge-adjacent music. I guess if we think hard enough, we could come up with other side themes. One dollar bills? Sure I guess we could sing about them. Songs that were released as singles? That works, too. Song about unique, one of a kind items? Not sure how many of those there are, but let’s get creative, shall we?

That’s it, right? No other meanings of the word “single” that I can think of.

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See y’all there? Bring a date if you’ve got one!

Love Pant. (that’s the single form of “Pants”)

Oh, you already knew that? Like it’s one of the basic facts listed on the Wikipedia page for New Wave music? Including the cool older cousin part? (some of these Wikipedia editors get WAY too specific) I guess I have nothing more to share with you, we’ll have to let Howard bring the real New Wave fun facts this evening.

Tonight at Pants Karaoke, it’s everything New Wave. Screw the Old Wave, that crap is lame. I’ll be around with the girls at the beginning of the night, so come by early and have some ice cream with us!

See y’all there? Awesome.

Love Pants.

In short, it was almost exactly the same story as The Odyssey.

This week at Pants Karaoke, we’re celebrating Greek mythology and boats. But mostly boats. Come and pay tribute to Poseidon with songs about sailing, about ships, about being set adrift on memory bliss, and anything from the vaguely defined “Yacht Rock” genre.

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See y’all there? Ahoy!

Love Pants.

https://villageartsoutreach.org/portfolio/everythings

This week at Pants Karaoke, we’re celebrating Howard’s birthday and his art by having a karaoke night inspired by The Picture of Everything. It’s simple - scour The Picture of Everything for inspiration (you’ll probably want to use the zoomable version to see everything) and sing songs based on what you found. There’s even time to go see the work itself - it’s already on display, and the official opening reception is on Friday (07/31/2026) starting at 7pm. Stop by and say hi on Friday, and then join us again for the karaoke itself on Sunday!

See y’all there? Awesome.

Love Pants.

Everyone survive Comic Con? Or at least make it through in good enough health to survive the oncoming Con Plague? Good.

This week at Pants Karaoke, we’re doing our annual Comic Con theme - Heroes & Villains. Sing songs that are literally about heroes or villains. Sing songs by your own personal music heroes, or songs by artists that could truly be considered villains (I didn’t realize until this week just how many ‘this guy is really a bad guy’ songs have been written about Ryan Adams, for instance).

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Hope everyone is well-rested, because singing starts at 6:00pm.

See y’all there? Excelsior!

Love Pants.

Love lifts us up where we belong.

All you need is love. In whatever form you choose to have it. This week, at Pants Karaoke, we’re celebrating Pride weekend with songs about love, songs by queer artists, songs about queer superheroes (next weekend is Comic Con, after all), anything pride-related is fair game.

Sorry again about the late post. I’ll do better eventually.

See y’all there? Awesome.

Love Pants.

Turn around.

Turn around.

Turn around.

Turn around, bright eyes.

Turn around, bright eyes.

Wait a sec, something is missing here. Bonnie? Are you there, Bonnie? It’s just not the same without you. Give us a sign if you’re there. Maybe… a crash of lightning?

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This week, at Pants Karaoke, we’re celebrating the artists who have left this mortal coil. Plus, it’s the only time ever that we’re actually encouraging people to sing Total Eclipse of the Heart. How could you pass that up?

See y’all there? I’ll really need you that night.

Love Pants.

“Hey man, is that Freedom Rock?”

If they’re a true Gen Xer, there’s only one appropriate response:

“Yeah, man.”

Now it’s you’re make or break moment. The spell must be cast, the circle must be completed, the words must be spoken:

“Well, turn it up, man!”

If done right, Ramblin’ Man should immediately start playing, and more importantly you’ll have a cynical, disaffected Gen X friend for life.

This week at Pants Karaoke, we’re celebrating freedom in all its forms. Songs from the Freedom Rock compilation (here it is on vinyl, in case anyone wants to buy me a stupid overpriced 5th of July gift), songs about getting out of incarceration, out of Dodge, out of bad relationships, out of your parents’ house, songs of the open road, songs about freeing your mind and hoping that the rest follows.

In short, Freedom Rock, man!

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(If you have no idea what I’ve been ramblin’ on about, here’s the original commercial from the ‘80s.)

See y’all there? Awesome.

Love Pants.

Come sing songs about dads, songs your own personal dad likes, sad dad music (my girls are out of town, so I’ll be sticking to the National thank you very much), Father John Misty, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, etc etc etc.

See y’all there? Awesome.

Love Pants.

See y’all there? Awesome.

Love Pants.

It’s the end of the school year as we know it. And I feel… fine I guess? One of my kids is moving on to the second grade, and the other is going to be starting elementary school, and it’s weird to be back in a phase of my life where each year is marked by a grade and I can absolutely feel the passage of time. No sneaking up on me this decade, life!

On Sunday May 31st at the Ken Club, we’re going to be celebrating educators and the students they pass their knowledge onto with a school-themed karaoke night. Yes more pencils! Yes more books! Yes more teachers’ dirty looks! Songs about learning, exams, books, standardized testing, common core math, detention, suspension, expulsion, songs from Ferris Bueller’s Day off or the Breakfast Club, anything having to do with school gets you an A+ in this grade book.

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See y’all there? Awesome.

Love Pants.

I meant to post this earlier, but I kept falling asleep.

Zzzzzzzz.

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This week at Pants Karaoke, we’re singing about sleep, about dreams, about nightmares, about those hours where you lie awake trying unsuccessfully to sleep and you’re all out of Ambien. I would write more about it, but I gotta go take a nap. Singing starts 6pm, for those of you who have an early bedtime!

See y’all there? Honk shoo.

Love Pants.

Oh, and while you have her on the phone, ask her what you should sing for karaoke!

This week at Pants Karaoke, we’ve got a dual theme. First up is Mom songs - Songs that are about mothers, and songs that your own personal mother would want you to sing. If you don’t want to ask her, I’ll ask mom what you should sing. It’ll likely be something by The Beatles or Simon & Garfunkel.

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If you’re anti-mom, or you don’t know Mother by Danzig, or you’ve done this theme before and want something new, we’ve got theme number two: Your Mom jokes. You know the format - “Your mom’s so [adjective], she [something insulting that relates to the adjective]”. For instance, Your mom’s so surface level regarding early ‘90s indie rock bands, she thinks Creep is the best Radiohead song. It’s simple - you come up with a Your Mom joke that somehow tees up whatever song you want to sing, tell the joke on the stage, suffer through the inevitable groans from the audience, and then you sing the song.

But if anyone insults Saint Reene, they’ve got me to answer to.

Also, as a bonus, anyone who’s an actual mom or who brings their actual mom gets their first song bumped to the top of the list.

See y’all there? Mom-tastic!

Love Pants.

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Count your crows. Jam your pearls. Sound your gardens. Dish your wallas. Wet your toad sprockets. Smash your pumpkins. Radio your heads. R.E. your Ms. We’re taking it back to the days when some of us were in college, listening to actually CDs, making actual mix tapes. And by some of us I mean me, because I’m old.

As an added bonus theme, we’re also bringing back cancelled artists. You know the ones. You love the song, but the singer did something so egregious that you’re embarrassed to sing their songs at karaoke. Well, for one night only, don’t be. We’ve hired some shame eaters, and they’ll help take care of the guilty feeling. Suck it up buttercup, we’re singing that song from Free Willy!

See y’all there? Shame.

Love Pants.

This Sunday, we’re going to be singing a bunch of weeds songs. You know, for the hippies.

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Earth Day was this past week, so we’re going to celebrate by singing songs about plants. Yeah, I guess marijuana is a plant, so you could technically get away with singing more weed songs if that’s your thing, but you can also sing about trees, flowers, grass, succulents, clovers, Venus fly traps, heck, there’s still time for someone to write a Dave Matthews Band parody called “Ent’s Marching” if anyone is really feeling ambitious!

See y’all there? Awesome.

Love Pants.

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We’re going to be celebrating the nation’s 4:20 as they occur throughout the night. East Coast at 9:00pm. Central at 10:00pm. That other one at 11:00pm. We’ll probably all be mellowed out in bed by the time the California 4:20 rolls around, but feel free to stick around late and prove me wrong. Weed songs, green songs, songs about smoke, songs about grass. Feel free to sing songs about other drugs, too. We’re cool with that.

See y’all there? Right on.

Love Pants.

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We dropped the ball on International Women’s Day. It fell on a Sunday, but I had a brain fart and didn’t even think to do a coordinating theme. We’re making up for it this week with Ladies’ Night AKA Girls Just Wanna Sing Songs. It’s simple - Sing songs from female-fronted bands. Can’t hit the high notes? Well, just press your face up against that musical glass ceiling and give it your best! Or do what I do and drop it down an octave. Like a coward.

See y’all there? Awesome.

Love Pants.