CARITAS is Portland's first and only Goth/Industrial Karaoke night. we specialise in the rarer, obscurer tracks that actually fit a goth night that you just can't get in Karaoke form. As a result, we make a lot of them ourselves. This is done through some complex procedures to remove or at least reduce the vocals in the song with out damaging the music portion if at all possible. We try our best to not mess up the song, because that's your job! Oh, chill. It's a joke. You may very well be an amazingly excellent singer. But even if you aren't, we want to see you on stage because it's fun.

We make more tracks every week. This is just what's up there. The online list gets updated tuesday afternoon, right before we hit Kinko's to print out the new list for the club.

FAQ

I have stage fright. What do I do?

Get over it. No, really, it's not doing you any good. Go up and force your way through it and just literally get over it. If that fails, hide in the corner. We'll be happy to turn the lyrics screen whichever way you want. It's only a flatscreen monitor, after all. If that's not enough, wear a funny mask. It works for Ogre.

Do you have any Stevie Nicks?

No. This is a Gothic/Indistrial Karaoke night. We do not do Stevie Nicks, Don Henley, Bon Jovi, The Scorpions, or Eminem. No Carly fuckin' Simon either. Sorry. It's our format. If you're desperate for that stuff, you're at the wrong Karaoke night. You probably meant to go to The Boiler Room. They have all that stuff and do it all the time.

But I really really want Stevie Nicks!

Quiet, Liz! I have dead Enough for Life for you, and you know the finale!

Can I request Dead Stars? It says I can't. Why not?

You can't. But you can sing it! Just stay until last call, and you and everyone else will get called up on stage and we'll all sing it together. And it will be awful and it will be great and everyone will have fun. Trust us. Those who love Dead Stars will have a blast singing it in a crowd. Those who hate Dead Stars will have a blast making fun of it. It works out for everyone!

Can I recommend a song to convert that you don't have?

Yes! Totally! We keep a list up at the KJ booth and we want to hear your requests. That said, we still retain veto power—we still won't convert Stevie Nicks. However, we do our best to convert ten to twenty tracks a week, and as long as they match format and don't have other difficulties (like we can't do overlapped duets yet, for instance), we put your requests first on the list! Make sure when you write down your reqeusts you know the name of the artist and the song you are requesting. Also make sure your handwriting is obviously using the Roman alphabet. If we squint and still see it as Arabic or Hiragana, we're going to cross it out. In other words, print legibly!

Can I bring my own CD+G Karaoke tracks?

Yes! As long as it's not Stevie Nicks! Well, as long as it's in format. Also, due to the effort we have to go to to get a CD+G into a format we can use without totally interrupting the flow of the night (the software will play it, but it's kind of retarded about it) you have to be willing to part with that disk for a week and come back next week. Why? Because we're going to take it home and make it into a software CDG track that we can easily use, and we can't do that quickly in the bar. Also, allow me to re-iterate that bit about it having to be in format OK? "Sex and Candy" is NOT in format by any stretch of the imagination. Once we have enough tracks, we're even going to 86 any Manson we have on general principles (and for the sheer fun of deleting it whilst laughing maniacally and muttering "Take THAT, Brian Warner, you wanker!")

What's "Pants Off Men"?

It's the exact same audio as Panzermensch by And One, but it it has very special lyrics mostly in English and partly in nonesense gobbledygook ("Ichesarg", "Kriegen niegen noo"). Panzermensch is a song in German. Pants Off Men is a set of alternate lyrics written mostly by the fine weird folks at Lawlolawl Studios. Look here. You can request this one.

Do you spin music too?

Only when we don't have a backlog of performances queued up, so if you want to hear music just being spun, get here early. Yes, we realise that's a lot to ask of a goff.
We will also occasionally set aside 45 minutes to an hour for special sets by guest DJs. This can happen any time. Right now we've talked about having DJ Pocket Lips (err, Apocalypse) right here in Portland (aka SKot), DJ Unit 77 from San Francisco, and DJ Stats from Santa Cruz when any of them get a chance to come up.

I'm on foot. How do I get to the bar? That's kinda far out there...

Actually it's not that hard to get to. There's a stop on 82nd on the Max line, and you can just walk up a few blocks (about six to eight depending on how you measure it.
We're also talking about setting up Jan's car, the RETARDIS (because it's a blue box that's smaller on the inside) as a once-a-night Max shuttle (maybe even twice). We're calling it the "Karaoke Express" in tribute to Tones on Tail (i.e. "All Abourd the express Karaoke!")

What does "Caritas" mean? Where did the name come from?

It came from Joss Whedon and the Ancient Romans. No, that's not a band. Basically, "Caritas" is Latin for "Mercy". You know, like the Sisters of... Further, in the TV show "Angel", a spin off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer starring David Boreanaz, that guy from Bones, as a Vampire with a Soul, there's a Karaoke bar for Demons. The Host of the bar, Krevlornswath "Lorne" of the Deathwok Clan, is a green demon from a place called Pylea, which is a sort of Anti-Oz demon dimension. Therefore, we named the night in a tongue-in-cheek tribute to a Karaoke bar full of demons, monsters and vampires, which also happens to be a word very associated with Gothdom through the whole Sisters of Mercy thing. It worked out nice, we think.
Incidentaly, "Caritas" is also spanish for "Little Faces". We're not sure if it means anything, but the Sisters do have that line "See them shimmer, see them glow, see their painted faces flow, slow slow, quick, quick, slow, see those babies go, go, go, go, go!" That could be something.

Does that mean you can read my future when I sing?

Yes. But I can't tell you.

I still want some Stevie Nicks

Can it, your ferretness!

I saw stuff on the list that's not goth or industrial. What gives?

There's some 80s, some punk, and assorted other stuff goths have tendencies to like. Our esteemed Ferret Queen notwithstanding, Stevie Nicks and other classic rock hits are not in there because that's too far off format. In other words, Tears for Fears is OK, Duran Duran is OK, the Eagles are not. David Bowie is. We're very careful where we draw the line. I'm pretty sure it's down the middle of A-Ha (with Take One Me outside the line and The Soft Rains of April inside it).
And yes, wo do have a Buffy song as well as "The Major-General's Song" from the Pirates of Penzance. Just because they're amusing. Too amusing to pass up.

I want to perform Deuschmaschine, but I can't understand the lyrics.

That's because they're in German. If you're up on stage right now reading this, please put the PDAphone away and start faking it. The funny B thing (ß) is pronounced like an "S". Just try to work your way through the umlauts. Good luck!

How do I pronounce "は"?

"Ha", except when used as a subject-indicating particle, where it's pronounced "Wa". But we don't have any songs in Japanese so far. Why are you asking me this?

Heyyyy. Speaking of Japanese, how do I say Caritas in Japanese?

Uhm... well... that depends. In theory the word would be "慈悲" because that's the Kanji for "Mercy." However, if you just mean the club night, you'd have to put it in Katakana (because it's foreign) and add a 'u' to the end because Japanese phonetical structure doesn't let a word end in 's' by itself. So thus: カリﾀｽ However, if you insist on Hiragana since it's prettier, go with: かりたす or just write out the whole thing: Caritas Gothic Industrial Karaoke: カリタスゴシック工業カラオケ

Did anyone really ask that or did you just stick it in there to get higher placing on Google Japan?

Now, would I do that?