This story aired in the August 27, 2025 episode of Crosscurrents.
We’re bringing you a segment from our Culture Keepers series – celebrating the Bay Area’s unique spaces and communities.
KARAOKE! From 80’s pop hits at The Mint in San Francisco, to musical theater classics at The Alley in Oakland, to KTVs, private rooms where you can sing anything you want — Bay Area karaoke enthusiasts are maintaining these subcultures for music lovers to release their feelings in supportive spaces.
___________
Story Transcript:
REPORTER: I’m waiting outside of K-BOX Karaoke in Japantown. Summer tourists and kids off from school rush past with boba and bags of collectibles.
I’m here asking people the unthinkable…Can I record you singing karaoke for the radio? Finally, I’ve found my people.
So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye?
So you think you can love me and leave me to die?
(Queen “Bohemian Rhapsody”)
REPORTER: Sean Reyes just finished a Certified Nursing Assistant program. He was celebrating with his classmates at Japan Center, and they ended up at K-BOX. It’s his first time at a KTV, but Sean says his family gets together for karaoke at least once a week.
SEAN REYES: Music has brought my family together, and people that I don't even know together, like some of these people I just met one month ago, and we're singing in here. We’re having a good time. It means a lot to me.
Oh, love
Never knew what I was missin'
But I knew once we start kissin'
(Keyshia Cole “Love”)
REPORTER: Lights dance across the walls while the group passes around two microphones, reaching across one side of the U-shaped couch to another. Sean’s the one operating the touchscreen, searching for artists and deciding which versions to play.
REPORTER: I did notice that you were pulling out some karaoke classics. What do you think constitutes a karaoke classic?
SEAN REYES: If I've heard it at a Filipino party, but yeah, like, there's “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Everybody knows that song. “My Way” That's a Filipino uncle classic. Just a bunch.
REPORTER: I learned to love singing at my Filipino/Chamorro family parties; now I frequent karaokes chasing that feeling of belonging.
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
(Natasha Bedingfield “Unwritten”)
REPORTER: Karaoke is a compound Japanese word, “Kara” meaning empty and “Okesutora” meaning orchestra.
The first ever karaoke machine – The Sparko Box – was invented in Japan, and only had an 8-track cassette player with a mixing circuit and a microphone. The technology advanced, but the idea wasn’t patented until nearly a decade later in the Philippines.
Yeah, it's a party in the U.S.A.
Yeah, it's a party in the U.S.A.
(Miley Cyrus “Party in the U.S.A.”)
REPORTER: In the ‘80s, the karaoke craze took hold of American melting-pot cities like San Francisco. Decades later, karaoke is so pervasive in the Bay, there’s subcultures here – with uniquely curated spaces for passionate amateur performers.
So I want to know, where are the different places in the Bay where singers find their voice? Where do the musical theater kids get their stagetime, and the nu metal heads rock it out to an adoring crowd?
Freedom, freedom, freedom
You've got to give for what you take
(George Michael “Freedom! '90”)
REPORTER: On a Thursday evening I head to the club Beaux in the Castro. I’m here for Dee’s Keys.
Inside, there’s over a dozen people sitting around the bar that takes up the middle of the club. The Addams Family and The Golden Girls are muted on the TVs. And against a wall of windows facing Market Street, Dr. Dee Spencer is playing a keyboard on a lifted platform.
If you’re going to sing, you take the steps up to join her. There’s a mic stand, and an iPad on a music stand in front of you – hiding the lyrics from the audience for a more theatrical vibe.
It’s the type of situation that will either thrill or terrify you.
And if you feel like I feel, baby
Then come on, oh, come on, woo
Let's get it on, ahh
(Marvin Gaye “Let’s Get It On”)
REPORTER: Courtney Brown is a long-time regular and friend of Dee’s. He says that karaokes have different flavors based on the neighborhood. Like a karaoke bar close to the theater district…
COURTNEY BROWN: On off nights, the cast might come in or as members of the cast and just feel at home, because the pianists are just really talented.
REPORTER: Dee currently teaches jazz history and vocal performance at San Francisco State University. About 15 years ago, she cut her teeth playing piano bar at Martuni’s –– an SF institution.
DEE SPENCER: That's where I learned the beauty and significance of piano bar. So becoming a piano bar piano player was a really, really huge transition, because you had to learn, like, thousands of songs in all genres, and just be ready to play in any key.
REPORTER: Here at Dee’s, you can have a backing track, you can sing just with the instrumentals or you can sing with nothing but Dee playing piano. She doesn’t have a sign up sheet or a book. You just tell her you want to sing and she can do it.
DEE SPENCER: And what it does is it combines elements of a piano bar, and DJing with karaoke, so it's got a little bit of something for everybody.
But they said it really loud, they said it on the air
On the radio, whoa-oh-oh-oh
(Donna Summer “On the Radio”)
REPORTER: For over ten years, she’s built a community of music enthusiasts from first-time singers to seasoned professionals.
DEE SPENCER: The Bay Area has always been fearless when it comes to, you know, pushing boundaries. And I love that. I love that.
I push my fingers into my eyes
It's the only thing that slowly stops the ache
(Slipknot “Duality”)
REPORTER: Over in Oakland – it’s Sunday night, and Thee Stork Club is packed. Since reopening in 2022 with a new, campy look, Thee Stork became known for alternative programming. A perfect space for the fabulously weird singers of Freakyoke.
They are crying
In your head, in your head
Zombie, Zombie, Zombie
(The Cranberries “Zombie”)
REPORTER: There’s a bonafide stage at Thee Stork, lined with red velvet curtains. A standing projector screen shows the lyrics to the audience, while performers look at a monitor in front of them, although most of them don’t need to.
Karaoke Jockey PiÑa bLeeP KJ SinG KiNg hosts Freakyoke here every first Sunday of the month. Before becoming a KJ, PiÑa’s song choices weren’t always appreciated.
PiÑa bLeeP: You know, I would go to a lot of, like, dive bars with a lot of older people, and they don't want to hear me screaming, Linkin Park and stuff. So I was like, what if I created a karaoke night specifically for people that want to sing alternative music?
I mean, it's open to everybody. But specifically, like, somewhere people can scream or be sad. Like a lot of times I would go to karaoke and people are like, “Sorry, I'm bringing down the mood.” And that's not allowed at Freakyoke, because you can literally let out whatever emotion you want.
When in this charming car
This charming man
¿Por qué mimar la complejidad de la vida?
(The Smiths “This Charming Man” – Spanish cover)
REPORTER: Not only do PiÑa and co-host KJ Crystal use Youtube for an extensive song library, they can also make a video for especially hard to find tracks.
And while some karaoke spaces can make trans people feel judged for the sound of their voice, regular Euphemia says Freakyoke at Thee Stork is a place where people can sing in a more comfortable register –– and kill it.
EUPHEMIA: People come with, like, a lot of theatrics, like everyone's doing like a little micro drag act with live singing.
For everything I long to do
No matter when or where or who
(Pet Shop Boys “It’s a Sin”)
REPORTER: KJ Crystal started as a fan of Freakyoke, and now co-hosts twice a month. They say this spot is where people can connect and express themselves.
KJ CRYSTAL: If we want to resist, if we want to like fight and live a life that is more than surviving, we need spaces where we can share and experience joy.
I don’t love you, like I loved you, yesterday
I don’t love you like I loved you yesterday
(My Chemical Romance “I Don’t Love You”)
REPORTER: People often tell me they don’t do karaoke because they’re afraid of sounding bad. But for folks who love it, it’s not about hitting every note.
When you find a place you feel safe –– where you start singing and the whole crowd joins in –– it’s magic. These chance moments with strangers can turn into beautiful, lasting memories.
All night, I’ve been told I have to sing. So, I put down my mic and picked up a microphone cover from the KJ stand.
I’m more of a “feel it in the moment type,” and I like to push myself. So I’m going to sing a song I haven’t tried before – Barracuda by Heart. I might be a little flat, but no one here is going to judge me.
"Sell me, sell you" the porpoise said
Dive down deep now to save my head, you
I think that you got the blues too
(Heart “Barracuda”)
