THERE are no doubt possibly hundreds of karaoke joints spread across the main towns and interior villages in Sarawak, indicating the huge popularity in fact of the minus one music, as the Japanese invention is called, not only in Malaysia but also across the rest of Asia and indeed the world today.

Indeed, the Japanese have a knack of manufacturing their own cars, motorcycles, radios, TVs, cameras and tape-recorders with Japanese brand-names like Nissan, Honda, Suzuki, Toyota, Madza, Mitsubishi, Isuzu, Daihatsu and Subaru, Sony, Aiwa, Sharp, Hitachi, Nikon, Yashica, Canon and Nikon which are household names in many countries.

You might have laughed at the first Japanese car to roll out of the Japanese assembly plant in the early 1960s and saw the first unit on our road then. But as sales picked up and improved in technology along the way, first competing with the European made cars and then completely overtaking the sales of the European makes, you wondered how the Japanese managed to do it.

When Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was Prime Minister and because he didn’t quite like the West or rather the West didn’t quite like him and his anti-West rhetoric, he told Malaysians to ‘Look East’, meaning at the growing economies of North Asia (Japan, South Korea and Taiwan).

Since then, a lot has changed and Malaysians, and indeed the rest of Asians and the world, are looking at China, the rising world economic power, and at India too.

And after the March 8, 2008 general elections, when the ruling national coalition Barisan Nasional (BN) took quite a heavy beating at the hands of the combined opposition now calling themselves Pakatan Rakyat (PR), someone wrote in an online news portal ‘…the federal BN’s new Look East strategy’, meaning not North Asian countries but Sarawak and Sabah for the numbers support to prop up the federal government.

Top leaders from the ruling national coalition are likely to make more visits to the two states bringing ‘goodies’ like Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi did last weekend in his third trip to Sabah after the recent general elections.

If the leaders stay long enough and bother to travel into the interior they will find there is no lack of entertainment, especially in the form of live bands and karaoke joints, after the official side of the programme is over.

I walked into a karaoke bar in Kuching recently and much to my surprise and delight heard a gentleman sing a song that is not often heard in such a place, let alone played over the radio, but is very popular with US soldiers posted overseas such as in Iraq. The US military picked on one of their great country singers Toby Keith to entertain US troops in Iraq not long ago.

It’s called I Love This Bar and I thought it might interest readers if I publish the lyrics, because it is easily what your kind of a place is if you are a regular in one of those joints in town and know the experience and feeling:

(The full lyrics)

I Love This Bar (Singer: Toby Keith)
We got winners,
We got losers,
Chain-smokers and boozers,
We got yuppies,
We got bikers,
We got thirsty hitch-hikers,
And the girls next store dress-up like movie stars.
HHmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, I love this bar.
We got cowboys,
We got truckers,
Broken-hearted fools and suckers,
And we got hustlers,
We got fighters,
Early-birds and all-nighters,
And the veterans talk about their battle scars.
Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, I love this bar.
I love this bar,
It’s my kind of place,
Just walkin through the front door,
Puts a big smile on my face,
It ain’t too far,
Come as your are.
Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, I love this bar.
I’ve seen short skirts,
We’ve got high-techs,
Blue-collared boys and rednecks,
And we got lovers,
Lots of lookers,
I’ve even seen dancing girls and hookers.
And we like to drink our beer from a mason jar.Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, I love this bar. (Yes I do)

Toby: I like my truck.
Crowd: I like my truck.
Toby: And I like my girlfriend.
Crowd: I like my girlfriend.
Toby: I like to take her out to dinner, I like a movie now and then.

But I love this bar,
It’s my kind of place,
Just toeing around the dance floor,
Puts a big smile on my face,
No cover charge,
Come as you are.
Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, I love this bar.
Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, I just love this old bar.

Incidentally, where you can find a local with the near-country voice belting this number I Love The Bar is at The Planet, Golden Arch, near the Third Mile Flyover. It is my kind of place too. It has a warm and friendly atmosphere, tastefully-decorated ambience and a good sound system and opens seven days a week, with a restaurant as part of the set-up for those who wish to dine there before meeting friends and exercising their vocal chords.

As expected, you see the regulars there, as in most such other joints, and Bong, the boss, and his partner Ah Chu always make the effort to make their customers feel welcomed.

There is a great repertoire of karaoke songs in Chinese, English and Malaya (and Indonesian) and like in many other such joints you’ll find some great singers too, often signing the latest and popular hits. No wonder C/VCD/DVD shops are doing well.

Today, it’s not just music one music, it’s also karaoke made easy with the latest technological innovations, when hundreds or thousands of songs can be programmed into the karaoke music set and hey, presto, just press the button and minus one music comes on the screen and you pick up the mike to sing! Simple.

Walking into one of these joints is often like attending a song singing competition, except there is no prize for getting the loudest applause (which is perhaps already the prize itself for singing so well and being so entertaining!). It could turn out to be different being accompanied by a live band on hand.

I was curious to find out more from the Internet about the origins of karaoke which most people seem to agree started in Japan, to be more exact in the city of Kobe. One story has it that a snack restaurant owner, after his performer failed to turn up, put on tapes of music and asked people if they wanted to sing.

So, it is said, from such an insignificant beginning, karaoke has spread, first throughout Japan and then to many other countries. Presumably some foreigners who visited Japan must have learnt about it or Japanese working overseas introduced karaoke for their own pleasure at home or at parties to entertain themselves or friends.

Now in Sarawak, if you go to some of the karaoke bars around the Third Mile area in Kuching or to Lundu, Sri Aman, Sarikei, Sibu, Kapit, Kanowit, Mukah, Bintulu, Miri, Marudi, Limbang and Lawas you’ll be entertained to many of the karaoke songs in Iban, a major dialect among the Dayaks and understood and spoken also by many non-Dayaks.

There are many fine Iban singers, both male and female, who are also recording artistes. It has evolved into an Iban music industry of sorts, and the Dayak Chamber of Commerce and Industry Sarawak (DCCI) has recognised their role and contribution and is in fact organising a Dayak music awards night as a form of encouragement. About time too, after the contributions of the pioneers of Dayak music and songs in the late 1950s and 1960s. We will be hearing of some of the pioneers who still live today. One name that comes to mind immediately is Senorita Linang. There are several others of course.

As Shakespeare said in his ‘Twelfth Night’, “…if music be the food of love, play on.”