GETTYSBURG, Pa. — Local sound guy and part-time sadist Rick Smithston recently made life a whole hell of a lot easier for the crowd when he engineered his sound system to painfully and memorably electrocute any karaoke participant who attempted A-ha’s “Take on Me,” pleased sources confirmed.
“It was honestly pretty simple to rig it up. I put a sensor in the mic and if anyone even attempts that ‘I’ll be gone’ octave then it lights them the fuck up,” explained Smithston, gleefully. “Oh, this is absolutely personal for me! Inflicting nerve and/or mild brain damage is the only appropriate response to their feeble attempts at this part. I have to listen to the same tone deaf morons crack their voices night after night. At a certain point you have to take matters into your own hands. Electric hands! Let’s just say no one’s attempted it since that one guy went into cardiac arrest.”
Karaoke night shock recipient Frank Ephraim was still recovering from ten-thousand volts when reached for comment.
“Where am I? Is the fire alarm going off? Why do I taste aluminum?” began Ephraim, physically incapable of uncrossing his eyes. “All I remember was a blinding flash of light, and then I’ll be gone in a day or two… wait, why did I say that last part? Oh look, I think my wedding ring evaporated. Can I go to the hospital now?”
A-ha lead vocalist Morten Harket was oddly supportive of the weaponization of his biggest hit to punish the tight-throated.
“Honestly, I make more in royalties from karaoke night failure than anything else. But at this point I’m set for life, so yeah, bust out the cattle prod and whatever happens happens,” Harket remarked. “One thing I do regret about my vocal performance in ‘Take on Me’ is that I didn’t include any scatting. Oh yeah, that sure would have deserved some electro-shocks — for the people at karaoke, I mean! My performance would have been immaculate.”
At press time, Smithston had also rigged a boxing glove on a large spring to knock out anyone who attempts “We Didn’t Start the Fire” and forgets the lyrics halfway through.
