Karaoke as Promotion

I may not sing karaoke often (or well) but I listen a lot.

I've heard great karaoke, funny karaoke, horrible karaoke...and everything in between.  The great thing about karaoke is the variety of songs.  Sure, you hear a lot of the same stuff - Don MacLean's American Pie, Toby Keith's I Love This Bar, Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive, and Picture by Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow (or worse yet the parody).  You suffer through...distract yourself with your drink or food.  But almost every time - there is at least one song that makes me think "Oh, what's this?" or ""Man, I forgot about this song."  Karaoke has inspired me to buy a lot of music and investigate a lot of artists and bands that I hadn't heard of before.

I think karaoke is great for introducing people to new music and reminding them of old songs.  My problem is that the place rarely has the song I want to sing - sure they will have thousands and thousands of songs but they always seem to be missing the exact song I want.  They'll have Harvey Danger - Flag Pole Sitta but not Little Round Mirrors, they will have Megadeth Trust, but not Symphony of Destruction.

Even worse (and I can't blame the venues since they have to buy the songs, but still it's disappointing), they don't have the obscure and small time bands that I think are awesome and would love to introduce to people.  I always wish that more small time and beginning bands would release karaoke versions of their songs for the fans to download and take to their local karaoke establishment.  I would love to have sing some Speed McQueen, Jupiter Sunrise, or 2 Skinnee Js.  There is tons of music that I would love to sing that most people haven't heard...and I am sure many others have some obscure song that they would like to share with the world.  I wouldn't worry about the quality, I've heard really awful renditions and later looked them up to see what it should sound like.  Any publicity is good publicity right?

Just and idea that I have had stewing in my brain for years...now get on it indie bands.