Clueless Newbie Questions, Karaokeing recordings. Options

[nickdaum]

My current hard and soft:
Mac G5 dual
M-Audio FireWire Solo
GarageBand
Audacity

I'm not a professional musician and don't intend to be. I just want to start singing and playing guitar Blues on my own as a retirement hobby.
Instead of using loops for the drums and bass backing I would like to use actual recordings of my favorite musicians as karaokes. Is it possible to remove both voice and guitar from a recording? If so how?

Secondary question, a little off topic: I need to buy an electric guitar, not too expensive, possiblly second hand.
As a matter of fact I'll stick to a slow tempo, like Blues does, so I don't need a "fast" guitar. I don't care about the look or the shape since I find them all ugly whether Strato or LesPaul or whatever. I don't care about accessing the highest treble notes.
I care only usability and sound.

What are the specs I should put on my list? Any brand you would recommend?

TIA

Nick

[gonechan]

hi again nick!

well ,actually for that kind of money you should be able to get a second hand strat,sorry for insisting ,but those are blues guitars ,is fair to say that yamaha and ibanez guitars are also good,but for my point of view ,they don't compare with a strat ,unless you're a metal player(which is not the case of course).
and the amp,mmm,we could say that you can skip that bit ,but as i see it ,the amp is one of the most important pieces when it comes to play the guitar,it shouldn't be considered as a mere amplifier with a speaker ,it should be considered a musical instrument as well.for 300$ you definitely can get a Squire strat and a small 10w amp ,second hand of course.