Everybody dreams of stardom.

If you don’t believe that, watch a few episodes of American Idol and tell me I’m wrong!

Our inner rock stars and divas are always just an opportunity away -  we sing in the shower, we rock out in our cars, we make up catchy little ditties to hum to when we're doing our laundry.

If you’re me, you sing show tunes while doing the dishes, 80s hip/hop hits when vacuuming, country ballads when dusting and once, you might have been caught by your roommate singing Gloria Estefan’s “Conga” while attempting to do said dance with your dog.

Ahem.

Secretly, we all believe that inside ourselves there exists a Madonna, a Beatle, a Rolling Stone, a Clay Aiken just waiting for the right moment to get up, get down and make our way to funky town.

So is it any wonder we can't pass up a night of karaoke?

The word 'karaoke' comes from the Japanese words 'kara', meaning empty and 'oke' (short for okesutora) meaning orchestra. Performing karaoke entails mixing prerecorded music with the amazing vocal stylings of a live person. That person can be anyone: you, your friend, the Lunenburg Building Inspector - anyone.

All anyone really needs is a microphone, lyrics and a lot of gumption.
 Karaoke was first thought to have developed in, get ready for it - a bar - in Kobe, Japan, in the early ‘70s. In a single decade, it swept quickly through Europe and Asia, eventually making its way to the United States in the early 1980s.

Karaoke was at once a huge bar and restaurant fad. It was wildly popular.  And why wouldn’t it have been? We were an Mtv nation that had already accepted shoulder pads, the totally, tubular moonwalk (the dance, not that other thing with Armstrong in the ‘60s) and Miami Vice.

And, three decades later, our love of karaoke is as strong as ever and not necessarily limited to bars and restaurants. Beyond the fact that we’ve developed portable karaoke machines designed for at-home play, karaoke has found its own supremely popular niche in the video game industry. Karaoke Revolution, SingStar and American Idol are just a few games solely dedicated to singing, swinging fun.

Other games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band have incorporated a microphone into game play which allows people to sing their little hearts out while their friends play back up and try to keep their laughter to a minimum (some people think it’s a little over the top to dress like Axl Rose when you play, but I don’t agree.)

Disney has also influenced a nation of adolescents and pre-teens to get their karaoke on, inspired by movies like High School Musical and singing sensations like The Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana (I have this suspicion that she may actually be Miley Cyrus but I haven’t been able to prove it yet - they’re never in the same place at the same time.) They all have their own karaoke CDs and video games.

And in its newest evolution, there is now Live Band Karaoke, where people can get onstage and sing with a live band instead of a machine of pre-recorded music.

Live Band Karaoke, a hit right now on the West Coast, is now being popularized by local rock cover band FingerCuff. They offer their audiences a setlist of over 100 songs to choose from and with the lyrics right in front of you and your band rocking along right beside you, it’s an amazing new karaoke experience.

I had the opportunity to get onstage with FingerCuff recently for their Live Band Karaoke and it was an absolute blast! You can visit their Facebook page and see videos of myself and all of the others who performed that night (it’s not about how well you sing, but how much fun you had, right?) You can also see the band’s working setlist under the “discussions” tab. Check it out, start practicing and then get yourself to FingerCuff’s next Live Band Karaoke gig on February 27 at Breakaway Billiards in Clinton.

So my Friendly Suggestion is to think about it.

Mull it over.

Realize ‘you're only as fabulous as you allow yourself to be,’ so be free to be a karaoke star - wherever you are!