Karaoke From Hell 33 ⅓ Aniversary Celebration With a Screening of the Karaoke From Hell Documentary Wednesday, December 17, 2025 at The Star Theater Karaoke From Hell, a documentary film examining the origin and history of Portland’s own Karaoke From Hell Band, will be screened at The Star Theater Wednesday, December 17, 2025 in celebration of the band’s 33rd anniversary. The documentary covers a year in the life of Karaoke From Hell, a live karaoke band that has played in Portland for 33 years.   Karaoke From Hell is a staple of Old Town Portland night life and the self-proclaimed first live karaoke band on the planet. They have been providing live performances at Dante’s on Third and Burnside since the establishment opened and have positioned themselves as a key ingredient of the cultural scene and nightlife of Portland’s Old Town community. Founded in 1992, the band has provided income and opportunities to play on Mondays for dozens of musicians over the past 33 years. “Mondays are slow nights for musicians and we thought if we could create a regular gig on Mondays, that it would be a benefit to the band members who play elsewhere throughout the week,” says Dawn Panttaja, co-founder of the band. The film is a production of Portland filmmaker Chip Mabry, Producer of Rip City, a film about Portland skateboarding culture and Producer/Director of Brutal Beauty: Tales of the Rose City Rollers, about the Portland women's Roller Derby organization. “I moved here in 2007 and fell in love with Portland, and I knew I wanted to spend my creative energies exploring its unique subcultures through documentary filmmaking,” Mabry said. Producer/Director Mabry says he felt the band was a connection to the mythic 1990’s Portland scene that has been much mythologized, most notably in the IFC series Portlandia (Peabody Award winning Portlandia Producer David Cress is an Executive Producer of the documentary). “When I arrived in Portland, I immediately began to hear of this Golden Age of indie music and film that ended before I got here. Cheap rent, lots of basements for bands to practice in or make art, talented people everywhere creating art in every conceivable way. I hate that I missed that, but I found that there were echoes of that scene all over the city and Karaoke From Hell is a prime example,” added Mabry. The documentary uses much rare, unseen, archival footage from the 1990s Portland music scene with an emphasis on the short- lived, but influential, X-Ray Cafe as an incubator of talent, art and community. Karaoke From Hell differs from karaoke in the fact that the karaoke performer will be performing with a live band and not a machine playing a track. This includes back up singers, guitar and drum solos and all the frills of being a lead singer of a band. Their songbook contains over 1,000 songs, many are obscure selections and would be hard to find on a karaoke machine. Since 1992, other bands in other cities in the US and worldwide have emulated the live karaoke formula created by Karaoke From Hell.    The documentary will play at The Star Theater (13 NW 6th Avenue Wednesday, December 17th at 7:00 pm ($5.00 in advance, $10.00 at the door.) There will be an afterparty celebrating the band’s 33rd anniversary following the showing featuring a live performance from Karaoke From Hell from 8:00 pm till midnight.