“I'm gay so I can't do the guitar solo,” quips Sam Buck.
A smile plays on his face while the undoubted jangle of Tim McGraw's “I LIKE, I Love” crosses the room. The members of the public knowingly glush – the great bearded musician could absolutely shred him if he wanted it, but that evening, the pleasure prevails over virtuosity.
Buck stands under the sweetness of Tiffany style lighting, his guitar arouses with casualness on his shoulders and his chest of brown cowboy which projects a shadow on his black denim jacket. Behind him, Silver Tinsel Sparkles, a backdrop from Nashville-Glam to the intimate scene of Records Roadhouse, a comfortable-bar-Cum-Record store in Glassell Park. He launches the KFM Karaoke Country Revue, a monthly celebration where Honky-Tonk culture meets the Queer community for Toast, Twang and Tumbles through songs like old friends in a walk by Garth Brooks.
“What I like about this show is that it's like Goldilocks – it's never fair,” says Buck before announcing the singers of the night.
Rosie Ruell sings “El Toro Relajo” in Karaoke Country Revue.
It is not only a showcase; It is a paradise. A place where country music, with all its contradictions and complexities, embraces its most disorderly, strangest and happiest self. Trans, non -binary performers, queer, gays, cis and heteros all go on stage with the same goal: to make space to celebrate country music for those who are generally not kissed by his stubborn conservative circles.
During his two years, KFM, named after the Buck Kfm Country Radio podcast, attracted talents like Julianna Barwick, Dougie Poole and Jae Matthews from the Boy Harsher electronic duo. One of the guests of the night, Amber Coffman, the former co-border of the independent group based in Brooklyn Dirty spotlightsarouses the crowd with her interpretation of “Hard Candy Christmas”, a dolly classic of 1978, which she officially covered in 2020.
Participants applaud the artists of Karaoke Country Revue to Permanent Records Roadhouse.
Singer based in los an SedonWearing a vintage t-shirt that says “Rodeo Girls”, interprets a swing version of “Angel from Montgomery” by Bonnie Raitt. And Loren Kramar, a promising orchestral-interpreter-songwriter, Smolders through “Girl Crush” by Little Big Town.
The microphone is not only for experienced artists; However, Buck guarantees that the show takes place gently by organizing the programming and forcing everyone to repeat in advance. The configuration looks like karaoke, with Buck Cueing support tracks, but there is no screen of words on which to rely. “Bad karaoke can be so tough if someone is wasted or if he doesn't know the song,” says Buck. “(KFM's performers) must learn the song, and there is care that should go there.”
For example, the actor John Early ceases “open spaces” of chicks, walking spectacularly for choreographed movements, while Nicholas Braun “succession” of the HBO of the public.
The actor John Early, who played on the program HBO Max “Search Party”, which presents the “wide open spaces” of chicks.
Other shows presented actors like Kate Berlant and Casey Jane Ellison. Long -standing regulars of KFM like Chloe Coover and Maddie Phinney, hosts of the Podcast of popular perfume “Nose Candy”, bring their own fabulous flair – Phinney leaves a sophisticated scent of Céline's black tie, and Cover is dressed in a complete ball of Christmas shoes. Artist Erin Bagley faces Fleetwow Mac's Fleetwood Mac “Silver Selfwood Mac. And Buck's partner, JT Friedman, directs a noisy interpretation of the “Honky Tonk Christmas” by Alan Jackson while evanting candy canes from a bottom.
Rosie Ruel, a pop star full of hope that decreases as an energy worker and real estate agent, stimulates the bombed song with bull “El Toro Relajo” (Le Taulean Bull), which the two public floors and highlight a KFM principle: that the lines of the genre are supposed to face. Mariachi is really only Mexican country music, said Ruel later.
Sam Buck gives Maddie Phinney a birthday present after Phinney sang “Tempted” from his people to the Revue du Country Karaoke.
Mary Rachel Kostreva, owner of the Vintage Eyefi Eye Boutique, offers a sensual performance of “I am the only one” of Melissa Etherridge, her voice disgusted with raw emotion. Having grown up in Georgia, Kostreva witnessed the polarizing presence of country music – omnipresent, but adopted only by those who are not afraid to claim it openly. Among her peers, she remembers the familiar chestnut of listening to all genres but rap and the country. An ironic smile forms on his face. “And now many people are like:” I only listen to rap and country, “she said.
“Country is in such an interesting place”, Muse Buck, who plays a show with Mercedes Kilmer (the daughter of the singer-interpreter of Val) in Zebulon on February 9. Pop stars like Beyoncé and Post Malone experience the genre, while the country of Kacey Musgraves and Taylor Swift Swift are getting closer. Meanwhile, industry is diversified with caution, but support is uneven. “There is no general public gay musician,” says Buck. “I'm not sure there will never be.”
Buck's trip in the genre is its own type of History History. Born and raised in the coastal Massachusetts – a place very far from the Southern vegetable Hollers – he grew up by feeling like a stranger to be a fan of Miranda Lambert. “I'm a Yankee from start to finish,” he says. “But anyone from a rural place knows that the country does not have to come from the deep south. In terms of the value of a stolen country, I probably stole more than most.”
JT Friedman, on the right, speaks with Chloé Coover after Coover's performance.
KFM started as a podcast from the pandemic era. Buck Spins Country Records, tells winding stories and engages in acute gossip on the county's elite. “I have to be careful,” he jokes. “If I speak of her ex-cop (such or such) and his darling butterfly knot pasta, I don't want it to come back to her, just in case I end up playing with her.” He does not hesitate to distort the controversial characters like the influencer on the right Brittany Aldean (“she only believes in perverse things,” he says), but the charm of the podcast lies in his mixture of irreverence and authentic reverence for country music.
For Buck, who also works as an artist (and recently presented paintings of architectural houses at the historic restaurant Echo Park Taix), the attraction of the Karake Country review – the next one takes place on January 23 – lies in its intimacy and its chaos. “It's messy, it's beautiful, it's small,” he says. “People have the impression of connecting each other here. And at a time when everything is bigger and stronger, I think the little things are good. ”
And while the night takes place – rising voices, drinks flowing and silver garlands sparkle under the lights – Buck reflects on the strange universality of country music. “The more time ago, the more I realize that everywhere is the country. Especially Los Angeles.”
