KIAA (Karaoke Industry Alliance of America) joins in helping Karaoke community!
Eric
Godfrey
Judges for Karaoke Contest - Eric Godfrey, USKA - Derek Slep, Sound Choice - Tom Viveiros and Tony Walstra, Stellar Records
Advisory Board members of the Karaoke Industry Alliance of America traveled from across the United States to serve as judges at the finals of the Chicagoland Karaoke Olympics. Sound Choice President, Derek Slep from North Carolina, Stellar Records President Tom Viveiros from Massachusetts, Stellar Vice President Tony Walstra from Connecticut, and US Karaoke Alliance President, Eric Godfrey from Arizona all traveled to the south side of Chicago to a club called Trio in Palos Heights, IL for the crowning of Chicago’s Karaoke Olympics medalists.
Host Ron Larson with Karaoke Olympics Winners Kristen, Don, & Kevin
1st Place Winner Kristen D’Andrea of Orland Park IL won $5,000 cash with her renditions of I’ll Be There by Mariah Carey and No One by Alicia Keys. She worked the crowd into a feverish pitch with her performances. 2nd Place Winner Don Grillo of Countryside IL won a complete DJ / Karaoke Rig with Sound Choice and Pop Hits Monthly Library, worth over $6,000 with his performances of Piano Man by Billy Joel and At this Moment by Billy Vera and the Beaters. 3rd prize was won by Hard Rocker, Kevin Benson of Indian Head Park IL and included a Budweiser Prize Pack and $1,250 worth of Pop Hits Monthly Discs with Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy by Big and Rich and Plush by Stone Temple Pilots. A crowd of over 400 packed the club for the entire event. The Karaoke Olympic Finals was the climax to 12 weeks of qualifying and then club finals and wild card semi-finals. The even was co sponsored by SingChicago.com, Nitelife.org and www.chiliskaraoke.com. The host and MC for the event was Ron Larson, owner of Chili’s Karaoke.
Karaoke Olympics Finalists
KIAA board members used the event to help the local Karaoke community and pitched very expensive disc collections as prizes.
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Written by Eric Godfrey · Filed Under Everything Else, Exclusive Online News and Content, Karaoke, Mobile DJ to Club DJ, Music, Performing
Sound Choice is a major backer of KIAA, yet they opened a Austrailian website and have added 4000 songs to their library that are they did not pay copyright fees on and are illegal to sell in the USA. Now if an american KJ buys one of these files via internet, they are illegal. How is the KIAA going to approach this problem
In addition to the above, which to my knowledge is completely true, there seems to be some organizational problems at the KIAA.
As of 01/26/10:
People who have sent in membership fees are having trouble getting confirmation of that membership.
Their site speaks of fines that may be levied on certain hosts, but makes no mention of the dispersal or use of those funds.
Making contact with the KIAA seems to be very difficult.
There are questions about their location:
The address that is given on the site is for a mall/office complex, but there are no listings for the KIAA in the complex, or for anything even remotely related.
The phone/fax numbers given are unlisted ( for an org doing the public good? Why?) Also, none of the other listings in that complex are under the “351″ exchange.
This leads me to believe that the “#439″ is probably a rented mail drop/box at that location- probably at the UPS store that’s there- and that the phone number is for someplace else. This is standard practice for a home based business…..
There are just too many unanswered questions about this organization at this time…..