2006-10-16 - 4:17 p.m.
For a couple of years now, Sunday night for me has meant Karaoke night. For a while it was over the hill in Hollywood at the Lava Lounge. Lots of fun with friends and the hosts were always awesome, but when they started adding "event nights" with promotional skanky blondes and nasty starlets tongueing the DJ directly behind the lyric monitor, it was time to bail out. Plus the song selection was sub-par.
We've been to Dimples in Burbank a few times--they're loose with the booze and party favors on a birthday, but their sound system blows and you run the risk of ending up on Burbank public access tv. Sardo's has good song selection but non-optimal karaoke clientele. It seemed like a high school reunion. Please: I won't go to mine, I'm not interested in yours. Period. I hear the adult film industry does karaoke there on Tuesday nights. My invite must've been lost in the mail.
Brass Monkey in K-Town has an awesome selection and great crowd, but the drinks are expensive with a two-drink minimum or $10 cover. Lameness. Also, there's an off-chance you may get stabbed on your way out of the club to your car. And it's not in the Valley, so it's automatically disqualified.
Which leads me to...
The best karaoke in the Valley: Fox Fire Room in Valley Village at Whitsett and Magnolia. A drive from Burbank, to be sure, but not unrewarded.
Smokers are kept a solid distance away behind a solid steel door, ladies' bathroom is kept stocked and in good repair, and the dj Tom is fabulous. Drinks are totally cheap (last night I got a cosmo and a soda water with lime for $4.50 which is practically miraculous this side of Vegas,) the bartenders are cool and actually look you in the eye, there are many dart boards in constant operation, comfy booth seating, a very cute doorman, and a wonderful crowd. Which segues directly into the best reason for going...
The people at The Fox Fire Lounge are probably the coolest people in all of Los Angeles County. I've mentioned the staff already--and it must be said again that they are phenomenal--but the customers are the real reason I feel so at home there. I call them my "bar friends" and they are a pack of the most rambunctious, outspoken, occasionally rowdy, fiercely loyal bar rats in town. I heart them. Of course, there are the requisite boozy floozies, creepy drunk old men staring at the young girls, the karaoke geeks who arrive early and stay until the overhead lights flick back on. It's quaint. And crowded.
The space is smallish, what would accurately be described as a "dive", long and narrow in a boxcar layout. It works, though. If you get there early enough, you can snag a booth with your back to the wall and watch as all the pretty people come and go.
And what pretty people there are. Attractive Hollywood-types with Valley-tudes and no detectable chips on their shoulders. My favorite principal was there a few weeks back. Dennis Haskins (Mr. Belding of Saved By The Bell fame) is a regular in the Valley karaoke scene, and I've spotted him in a few different bars. I was happy to see him as always, but felt this bar definitely earned the Belding seal of approval with his appearance. And Amen.
But good God, how to get up on Monday morning?
