Karaoke Treasure Hunt: Ballard Dive Bars

Karaoke is everywhere--you can go out any night of the week and do karaoke in a creperie, a gas station or soundproof pod. However, if you want to experience Seattle karaoke in its purest form, go to the place of origin—dive bars. In dives, a unique, inhibition, destroying suspension of reality occurs. In turn, karaoke flourishes. Only in a real dive will you hear a lady with a walker’s X-rated rendition of the Ghostbusters theme. You insist you can’t sing and then wind up shrieking most of a Queen album. When you regain consciousness at four in the morning naked except for a moth-eaten mink stole, you remember but it doesn’t matter. This is the magic of dives. Ballard sports s one of the highest concentrations of these sort of dives in the city. For you, we did lots of research, it was brutal, but we survived and think you will too.

Tarasco Mexican Restaurant, photo by Sarah Galvin

Tarasco’s Saturday karaoke night is the longest-running in the neighborhood. Food is impressively affordable, burritos ranging from $ 4.50 to $ 7.50 plus a sampling of American fare like any good “family” Mexican restaurant. Have a $6.50 margarita or $4.50 well drink, or Mexican hot cocoa for only $2. If sipping hot cocoa (or copious amounts of tequila) in a dining area that feels like a familiar living room doesn’t relax you enough, “Karaoke Kurt’s” array of lasers and fog machines will lure you onto the stage with fantasies of the future and/or the 80’s. A girl in a tweed blazer howling “We Are the Champions” complete with acappella instrumental parts and a bearded fellow in a cowboy hat singing “Sixteen Tons” appear equally at home here. So would Elton John riding a dinosaur. This is why karaoke at Tarasco has been packed since 2003. 1452 Northwest 70th Street, (206) 782-1485

Harlow's Saloon, photo by Sarah Galvin

Harlow’s, open since December, started Wednesday karaoke night a month and a half ago. Happy hour is 10:30 to close on Wednesday night featuring $1 off pints and $3 wells. Harlow’s also has enough cheap beer to inspire attempts at even the most obscure and high-pitched songs. Karaoke inducing PBR and Miller as well as Icehouse, Schmidt and Milwaukee’s Best are menu staples. Though the bar is new, the décor seems to have been chosen to suit the old brick building that houses it. The scene: beautiful chandelier to lounge under whilst drinking tall boys leafing through the yet to be grimy karaoke book. For your viewing pleasure, sit in the mezzanine (is it still a “mezzanine” if it’s in a dive?) and watch. 5200 Ballard Avenue Northwest, (206) 327-9804

Waterwheel Lounge, photo by Sarah Galvin

Despite the cheerful martini and burger pictured on a sign outside, walking into the Waterwheel’s karaoke night on Friday, Saturday, or even Tuesday feels like arriving unannounced at a rager in a double-wide. The bar’s vaguely threatening aesthetic is thrilling rather than off-putting. Inside, exceptionally friendly bartenders serve $3.50 wells, barbecue, and three-liter “beer towers.” ($15 for a tower of PBR.) Barely acquainted patrons of all ages are likely to buy each other rounds of Jaeger and sing raspy, enthusiastic versions of Nine Inch Nail’s “Closer.” The gumball machine is filled with pistachios and the walls of the gold “marble” bathrooms have seafoam-colored curtains for doors. It’s like doing karaoke on the set of “Barbarella,” but with tater tots. 7034 15th Avenue Northwest, (206) 784-5701

T Bird Tavern, photo by Sarah Galvin

The T-Bird shares a wall with Sands Showgirls, which, in a town so uptight about strip clubs, gives it an appealing atmosphere of the forbidden. According to the bartender guys having a pre-Sands beer tend to be “quiet and kind of weird.” On a quiet night the T-Bird feels like a place where anything could happen. Drinks are certainly cheap enough that during their Saturday karaoke night, few things would be shocking. Pints of PBR are $2.75 and wells are $3.00. A bag of chips and two karaoke-fuelling hot dogs is only $5. The walls are covered with mirrors, providing a view from every angle of a performance you normally only give in your car when no one’s looking. Unlike your car, at the T-Bird it will be met with applause. 7515 15th Ave NW, (206) 706-4973