This is more nerve-racking than I thought, I realize. In my sudden anxiety, 20 years of Guns 'N' Roses memories abandon me like Axl Rose storming off a Montreal stage. I look for my two friends, seated at a table toward the rear by the bar, but they can't help me now.  Slash, where are you?

A familiar staccato B note rings out into the haze, the muted picking of a Gibson Les Paul guitar with echo box plugged into a mini-stack of Marshall amps. Suddenly a cheer of recognition bubbles up from the crowd like foam from an opened beer can. With it, a sneer lifts the corner of my mouth. It all comes rushing back to me as the intro swells.  Welcome to the jungle, Liberty Spirit Bar and Grill!  Then I sing.

Oh, God, that's what I sound like? Too late to turn back now. Besides, not four verses in, much of the crowd has gone back to ordering drinks, and greeting friends on the way to and from the bathroom. Even as I flaunt my "money, honey," partiers at a front table turn back to each other. Others peruse a songbook, hoping to replace me on stage.

I can't hear anything over my screaming, but it doesn't matter anymore. I'm going to rock these people. For four minutes and 30 seconds, no matter what key I'm in, I am Guns `N' Roses, it's 1986, and I'm bringing down the walls of the Hollywood Whisky A Go Go.

I give it all I've got, because when the song ends, once again I will be just a man with a bar tab and a pipe dream.

It's karaoke night somewhere in Salem.

My goal: to tour as many area karaoke bars and clubs as I can in two weeks, and to sing at each one. My posse: friends and Salem residents Brittin Witzenburg, 33, an energy analyst for the state of Oregon, and Nate Isaacs, 37, a graduate student at Willamette University. Our purpose was twofold. By immersing ourselves fully into karaoke night, and daring to take the mic, we hoped to find the recipe for a fun night of amateur singing in Salem. So we sought the places where people go to celebrate songs like "Loveshack," "Red Red Wine" and Grease's "Summer Love."

For my part, I wanted to find out where it is around here that they've been putting the bomp in the bomp-a-bomp-a-bomp. And to stop it. Or at least expose them to the truth.

That truth:  The best rock music ever made occurred during the years 1986 to 1993. Those were the years when MTV aired "music videos" and albums had upward of four, even five hit songs on them. Groups like Cinderella, Bon Jovi, Poison, Motley Crue, Van Halen, Def Leppard, RATT, and Warrant were tried and tested acts that could play their own instruments on a stage. Their songs ran the spectrum of pop music subjects, from social justice ("Uncle Tom's Cabin") to sticky-sweet love ("Pour Some Sugar On Me").
They did it with raw energy and emotion, and none did it better than Guns `N' Roses. I still remember at age 12 trembling in my bedroom, door locked, and pulling a forbidden copy of 1987's "Appetite for Destruction" from under my bed to stare at the cover, daring to press "play" on the tape deck while my mother was still in the house. I remember listening in awe to news of cancelled tour dates, Axl Rose walking off the Ritz stage in disgust, crowd riots and turmoil both in and out of the recording booth. Last August, Rolling Stone paid homage on its cover to the 20th anniversary of this band's explosion onto the scene, an explosion that can still be heard at kickoffs and opening lineups on football fields and basketball courts across the country. But will no one relive their glory? Clearly the burden must fall on me, to bring them to their sha-na-na-na knees.

*  *  *  *

Liberty Spirit turned out to be the only place we would find a large crowd on our tour (admittedly, it was a Saturday night). I don't think we expected Mardi Gras every night, but I was unprepared for the empty seats we serenaded time and again.

I also didn't expect to see how sketchy some of the clubs were.

"If you're in the mood for a real dive bar," said Witzenburg, looking back on it all, "we know where those opportunities are." From concrete floors and hole-in-the-wall desolation to walls of Keno machines, off-track betting monitors and a sickly stale cigarette odor, more than one bar kept us eyeing the door.

"In some cases," Isaacs said, "I [was] just like, `You know what, let's just get our song out and get the heck out of here."

It used to be bigger several years ago, said KJ (karaoke jockey) Larry A., who runs karaoke nights at both the Southside Speakeasy and Duffy's Hangar.

"You couldn't throw a rock without hitting a karaoke bar," he said. "Four nights a week, 50 to 60 people a night, it was up to the rafters."
As a fad, karaoke has lost a bit of its novelty, he said. Nowadays, some nights there may be a waiting list six deep, but on others there may be no more than eight people in the bar, he said.

Some bars have bowed out altogether, like Lefty's Pizzeria, whose raucous, live-band karaoke night ended when it changed ownership and location.
"There was no draw from it," said a bartender at AJ's Hideaway in Keizer, which dropped its karaoke night earlier this year.

So was karaoke dying out in Salem? Was my chance to rock this town escaping my grasp? Not so fast, says Kyle Sexton, Director of Member Services for the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce, and a die-hard karaoke fan.

According to Sexton: "Rain is good for karaoke, sun is bad." Especially in Oregon, he said. If the day is beautifully sunny, Oregonians are "mowing lawns instead of heading out."

"Karaoke as an industry has never been bigger," he insisted. Crowds die down every summer in Oregon, he says, but bars keep their karaoke nights going, no matter the turnout.

"Bar owners don't dare shut it down," he said.

"Crowds are fickle," and patrons will abandon a bar if their options are taken away.

The success of American Idol is "amping up interest" in amateur singing, Sexton said, as are technological advancements that are making karaoke more available to the consumer than ever before. Software is available to convert songs by removing the vocal track, he said, and karaoke CDs, with studio musicians covering popular songs, are becoming booming exports in places like Nashville and Austin, Texas.

"Karaoke CD sales are insane," he said.
Karaoke night still rocks, said Sexton, who incidentally sings a mean "Who's Your Daddy?" by Toby Keith. It just takes good planning. For one, he suggests that some bars ought to cut down their schedules.

"To offer karaoke seven days a week means you're competing with every other karaoke joint that offers karaoke every night," he said. "If you want to run karaoke as a feature, choose a night or nights where you can be successful."

Also, to keep a crowd coming back, he said, partner karaoke with other activities and events.

To that end, Shooter's Saloon offers alternative events like Guitar Hero nights. Duffy's Hangar swaps karaoke for live music once a week, and also couples it with poker nights. In one effort to improve its karaoke experience, South Liberty Road Bar & Grill has balanced karaoke singing with hip-hop and dance music, which "helps keep the karaoke from going south," Sexton said, by keeping low turnout or a number of bad performances from ruining the overall feeling of the night.

Above all, karaoke needs spirit in order to succeed, Sexton said. Like a familiar bartender, karaoke depends on the relationship patrons have to the event, he says.

"What was notable to me,"  Witzenburg said, "was each karaoke bar had a personality... You return to the places that you like to go, because of that personality."

And it needs effort, which even the novice singer can appreciate.

"Not all karaoke [is] equal," Isaacs cautioned. "There are people who are real craftsmen, as far as KJs, and there are guys who are just working the computer."

"If you're going to do it," he said, "I think you're better served by going to a better-end karaoke bar where you're listening to real music, and you have a KJ that's making your voice sound better than it should."

Without this energy, putting a microphone stand and a CD player in the middle of a room is little more than "a desperate effort to keep up with the Joneses," Sexton said, or worse yet, a last-ditch effort, like declaring "ladies' night," to draw business and extend a bar's lease.

When it's working, it's like karaoke night at Shooter's Saloon and Café.  A tight-knit community, this felt like the bar where everybody knew our name. That's because these were regulars, said Lonny Ivey, bartender for the past four years.

"It's a neighborhood bar," she said.  

The KJ kept the beats coming, and the drinks were good and cheap, but what struck me the hardest was the friendliness of the place. I went to the bar after my song, and strangers leaned over to make small talk with me. Groups stopped their conversations to cheer everyone who sang, no matter how good or bad, no matter the song.

Fellow karaoke investigator Nathan Isaacs trotted out the same song, Clarence Carter's "Strokin'," that he had clung to at every stop on our tour, and people cheered him, too. Two random women even lent him a hand with his performance, by dancing suggestively behind him.

It was while watching these women grind to his song that I began to see more of the true value of karaoke singers.

"They keep the night more entertaining," Ivey said. "If everybody in my bar's happy, I'm happy."
In forcing my glam rock dream on an entire town, I began to see that karaoke was instead doing something more important for me, something it does for anyone willing to face the music.

"It's an outlet," said Rita Hinchcliff. She came to Liberty Spirit to celebrate her 30th birthday; she tries to come every week.

"I would say, don't be afraid to get up there [and sing]," she said, "because there is always someone better, and there will always be someone worse."

Kitty Morris, a regular at the Silver Inn, loves covering Elvis, Wayne Newton and Anne Murray songs.

"I've always liked singing," she says. As she talks, a young woman sits on a stool in the other room, microphone in hand, and proceeds to butcher Christopher Cross' "Sailing." Morris cringes at a particularly off high note, but then gives a raspy laugh. Tucked away at the end of the bar by the door, she smokes her cigarette.

"If you hit a few sour notes, maybe that's what the world needs," she says with a shrug. Ready to sing? See how venues rated on the tour. Not quite ready yet? Get tips from a pro