“I’m gay so I can’t do the guitar solo,” quips Sam Buck.
A smile performs throughout his face because the unmistakable jangle of Tim McGraw’s “I Like It, I Love It” wafts by means of the room. Members of the viewers chuckle knowingly — the tall, bearded musician might completely shred it if he needed to, however on this night time, enjoyable trumps virtuosity.
Buck stands below the comfortable glow of Tiffany-style fixtures, his guitar slung casually over his shoulders and his brown cowboy hat casting a shadow over his black denim jacket. Behind him, silver tinsel sparkles, a Nashville-glam backdrop to the intimate stage at Everlasting Information Roadhouse, a comfortable bar-cum-record retailer in Glassell Park. He’s kicking off the KFM Karaoke Nation Revue, a month-to-month celebration the place honky-tonk tradition meets the queer neighborhood to toast, twang and tumble by means of songs like outdated mates in a Garth Brooks ballad.
“What I love about this show is that it’s like Goldilocks — it’s never just right,” Buck says earlier than saying the night time’s singers.
Rosie Ruell sings “El Toro Relajo” at Karaoke Nation Revue.
This isn’t only a showcase; it’s a haven. A spot the place nation music, with all its contradictions and complexities, embraces its messiest, queerest, most joyful self. Trans, nonbinary, queer, homosexual, cis and straight performers all take the stage with the identical purpose: to create space to have a good time nation music for many who aren’t often embraced by its stubbornly conservative circles.
Over its two-year run, KFM, named after Buck’s podcast KFM Nation Radio, has drawn expertise like Julianna Barwick, Dougie Poole and Jae Matthews of digital duo Boy Harsher. One of many night time’s visitors, Amber Coffman, the previous co-frontperson of the Brooklyn-based indie band Soiled Projectors, stirs the group together with her rendition of “Hard Candy Christmas,” a Dolly Parton traditional from 1978, which she formally lined in 2020.
Attendees cheer performers at Karaoke Nation Revue at Everlasting Information Roadhouse.
L.A.-based singer Sedona, sporting a classic T-shirt that claims “Rodeo Girls,” performs a rocking model of Bonnie Raitt’s “Angel From Montgomery.” And Loren Kramar, an up-and-coming orchestral singer-songwriter, smolders by means of Little Huge City’s “Girl Crush.”
The microphone isn’t just for seasoned performers; nonetheless, Buck ensures that the present runs easily by curating the lineup and requiring everybody to rehearse beforehand. The setup looks like karaoke, with Buck cueing backing tracks, however there isn’t any lyrics display screen to lean on. “Bad karaoke can be so rough if someone’s wasted or they don’t know the song,” Buck says. “[KFM performers] have to learn the song, and there is some care that needs to go into it.”
For instance, comic John Early belts out the Chicks’ “Wide Open Spaces,” prancing about dramatically to choreographed strikes, whereas Nicholas Braun from HBO’s “Succession” watches from the viewers.
Comic John Early, who starred on the HBO Max present “Search Party,” belts out the Chicks’ “Wide Open Spaces.”
Different reveals have featured comedians like Kate Berlant and Casey Jane Ellison. Longtime KFM regulars like Chloe Coover and Maddie Phinney, hosts of the favored fragrance podcast “Nose Candy,” deliver their very own fabulous aptitude — Phinney leaves a path of Céline’s subtle Black Tie fragrance, and Coover is wearing a full-length ball robe whereas she sings NewSong’s fascinatingly sentimental Christian nation ballad “The Christmas Shoes.” Artist Erin Bagley takes on Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 country-rock “Silver Springs.” And Buck’s accomplice, JT Friedman, leads a raucous rendition of Alan Jackson’s “Honky Tonk Christmas” whereas passing out sweet canes from a stocking.
Rosie Ruel, a hopeful pop star who sunlights as an power employee and an actual property agent, belts out the bombastic bullfighting music “El Toro Relajo” (The Toublesome Bull), that each flooring the viewers and underscores a tenet of KFM: that the style’s traces are supposed to be toed. Mariachi is de facto simply Mexican nation music, Ruel later tells me.
Sam Buck provides Maddie Phinney a birthday current after Phinney sang Squeeze’s “Tempted” on the Karaoke Nation Revue.
Mary Rachel Kostrova, proprietor of the classic eye-wear boutique Eyefi, delivers a sultry efficiency of Melissa Etheridge’s “I’m the Only One,” her voice dripping with uncooked emotion. Rising up in Georgia, Kostrova witnessed nation music’s polarizing presence — ubiquitous, but embraced solely by these unafraid to assert it brazenly. Amongst her friends, she recollects the acquainted chestnut about listening to all genres however rap and nation. A wry smile varieties on her face. “And now a lot of people are like, ‘I only listen to rap and country,’” she says.
“Country is in such an interesting place,” muses Buck, who’s taking part in a present with Mercedes Kilmer (the singer-songwriter daughter of Val) at Zebulon on Feb. 9. Pop stars like Beyoncé and Publish Malone are experimenting with the style, whereas nation’s personal Kacey Musgraves and Taylor Swift drift nearer to pop. In the meantime, the trade is cautiously diversifying, however the help is uneven. “There’s not any mainstream gay musician,” says Buck. “I am not sure there ever will be.”
Buck’s journey into the style is its personal type of outlaw story. Born and raised in coastal Massachusetts — a spot far faraway from the South’s storied hollers — he grew up feeling like an outsider for being a Miranda Lambert fan. “I’m a Yankee through and through,” he says. “But anyone from a rural place knows that country doesn’t have to come from the Deep South. In terms of stolen country valor, I’ve probably stolen more than most.”
JT Friedman, proper, talks with Chloe Coover after Coover’s efficiency.
KFM started as a pandemic-era podcast. Buck spins nation data, tells meandering tales and indulges in sharp gossip about county elite. “I have to be careful,” he jokes. “If I talk about [so-and-so’s] ex-cop husband and his disgusting bow-tie pasta, I don’t want that getting back to her, just in case I end up playing a show with her.” He doesn’t shrink back from skewering controversial figures like right-wing influencer Brittany Aldean (“She only believes in evil things,” he says), however the podcast’s appeal lies in its mixture of irreverence and genuine reverence for nation music.
For Buck, who additionally works as an artist (and lately showcased work of architecturally important L.A. properties on the historic Echo Park restaurant Taix), the enchantment of the KFM Karaoke Nation Revue — the following one takes place Jan. 23 — lies in its intimacy and chaos. “It’s messy, it’s beautiful, it’s small,” he says. “People feel like they connect with each other here. And in a time when everything’s about getting bigger and louder, I think small things are good.”
And because the night time rolls on — voices rising, drinks flowing and silver tinsel shimmering below the lights — Buck displays on the unusual universality of nation music. “The more time goes on, the more I realize that everywhere is country. Especially Los Angeles.”
