Riverside Karaoke

Two and a half stars. About ten of us trickled in here on the last stop of KK4. The blacklight at the entrance made me want to flagellate myself with a pair of lint rollers, stat. Was equally surprised that no one checked in for even non-alcoholic refreshment purposes, and that's the primary reason for swinging short of 3 stars instead of 4. To be honest I wasn't terribly content with song choice availability; Nicole and I definitely would've been happy dueting Fireflies, but overall I scribbled down codes for maybe a dozen songs after skimming the selection. Yelp discounts are great, considering that all their medium rooms were full.Eventually I'll figure out why the remote never takes my awesome indie song choices. I was relieved to see that there was a nice vent along the wall by one of the benches, making the room a comfortable temperature during our stay. Potential for music volume is enough to satisfy even a metalhead. Most of us chose to sit or stand as we pleased, but there was definitely a raised platform in one corner if we cared to go full-on backup dancer. Fortunately this was "sober up hour" and not "pound more soju hour". Two full sets of songbooks to pass around. Tambourine was less popular than the two mics, but not for a lack of happy tinny chimes. Seconding props to Oscar M. for beatboxing and being an excellent backup singer when my voice was too hoarse.

Our fouth installment of the Korean Krawl brought us here after visiting Gom Tang E and Wara Wara.Apparently the word here is that only old men come to Riverside...so I was reluctant to pick this place, but I figured it was worth a shot since they were offering a discount.So there are three businesses separated by levels.2nd Floor - Riverside Cafe1st Floor - Riverside SaunaBasement - Riverside KaraokeWe only visited the basement level karaoke rooms. It's a rather small place, and if I recall correctly only 3 or 4 rooms. We took the large room ($50/hr) which fit our party of 10 comfortably. After the other two places, the plan was to sober up here...so I told the guy we were here just to sing. I appreciate the fact that there was no pressure to buy food and drinks here as can be the case with other places. I guess you are supposed to go up two levels to the cafe for that.I'd have to disagree with Nicole...it wasn't the volume that was uncomfortably loud, it was some people's singing. **cough cough Mikkela singing lust for life cough** ;) j/kAnyway we should have just used the volume control.So after the end of an hour, which felt longer than it actually was *wink* we wrapped up just before I could sing Go West - Pet Shop Boy. Maybe at the next KK event. I'll need to pair up with a female vocal to sing Dr. Jone - Aqua. I think I've decided to retire Butterfly - Smile.dk.Anyway with the discount it was $40 between 10 people. Totally worth it I thought.

The third stop at our Korean Krawl - it was in a building lit up with signs in korean characters. Riverside Karaoke as well as a spa upstairs. The karaoke was in the basement - as we were walking down there was a whiff of throw-up stench as I commented that or pop-corn. Yes pop-corn smells like throw-up I always wondered how people could stand it. We had a big room for 10 people, the music was way too loud for comfort. Everyone was having a good time singing. Mikkela made "lust for life" come to life for sure. LOL!! For 1 hour it cost $50 and we had a 20% discount for mentioning "Yelp". It was only $4 per person - what a steal!

Dying camel here. Throat still sore. Under A-Oh-Kay or whatever that restaurant is called (Oe-gib-dib?). Underground, we (down to 10) got a "large" room as the mediums were sold out. $50 is not bad. Karaoke is called noraebang in Korean (I think it's sort of no-ray-bang). We got no drinks. No one even tried to get us to drink. The rooms have long red leather benches lining the walls a bit like a karaoke steam room.We screamed, some sang, we scored 100 on the scream-o-meter. Plus, I got video! An hour later after singing many anthem songs and ballads of past decades, we left. $4/person because we're Yelpers. All round, a fun five buck hour and good way to sober up.Strangely, I discovered something new about myself. Although I sound like a dying (punctured?) camel when I sing, I may actually have a natural gift for handling the mike. There were moments when I felt that my hand holding the mike was taking possession of itself and moving in new magical motions (or have I watched too many of those Shake Weight infomercials?). A note to future fellow noraebangers, because of this, I may have to try it out again.A little shout-out to Oscar for his backup singing and DJing. He really carried it!As we left our room, I glanced into the other rooms and was struck with how lonely and "other worldly" this was... young women in short skirts singing sad songs to themselves.

This place is kind of hard to find if you don't know the area. The building is somewhat visible from the main road, but you have to go into the basement to find this place. I'd say its okay if you have no other choice, but only if you have a large group to offset the cost. Selection: The selection isn't good when you compare it to other places. It has some recent songs (English, Japanese, Korean). A lot of the Japanese/English songs haven't been updated since 2009/2010 and there are large gaps of time missing with some of the song pages. The Korean selection is pretty decent, but a lot of newer material is missing. Hours: It's open until 5 AM, which is probably the one great thing about this place. Room: Probably my least favorite room of all karaoke places I've been to so far. The room was big but the sound from the other rooms was just incredibly loud. Our system was also shockingly loud. We got used to it after a while, but it was just not pleasant. If we weren't singing, we could hear everything that was going on two rooms down. It got to the point where I didn't even put a song on and just sang to the same song that was on two rooms down. It was that loud. At least I got some song ideas from those folks (props on the GD&TOP rapping). Drink: Not sure if I saw a drink menu, but it was 3AM when I went, so there wouldn't have been any alcohol available at that time.

we definitely had a fun evening here. they had a really wide song selection (missing Send Me An Angel, though, tragic!), we had our own room to look foolish in, and there was a tambourine. everything i need for a party?