Amythyst Kiah will be here all the way from Johnson City, TN, and trust me, you will be kicking yourself if you miss your chance to see her. We played a show with her on the Gay Ole Opry tour this spring and she is about to break BIG. Seriously, listen to this song. Plus, we’ll also have AJ Lewis & Friends! We couldn’t let Professor Banjo come home for the summer without demanding he play his special mix of old timey banjo songs, reflections on the queer genealogies of old time music, and covers from the 1990s. And your faithful host Karen & the Sorrows can’t wait to sing some brand new songs for you!
Queer Country West Coast Returns in February!
Mark your calendar now, cause Queer Country West Coast is coming back for show number two on Friday, February 26th, 2016! We’re at a new venue this time around, the wonderful El Rio bar in San Francisco’s Mission District.
The show will feature the sweet porch music and three-part harmony of The P’s & Q’s, prolific and hilarious songwriter Denise Dill AKA Dillbilly in a new collaboration with Dempsey Wolf, and your host, Eli Conley, with new band members backing him up.
WHEN: Friday, February 26th, 7:30 pm Doors, 8 pm Show
WHERE: El Rio, 3158 Mission St, San Francisco, CA
DOOR: Free!
ACCESS: Wheelchair accessible, 21+
Can’t wait till February? Come see Eli play Friday, January 28th at Dolores Park Cafe in San Francisco with award-winning songwriter and fellow queer and trans country artist Mya Byrne. Lukas Papenfusscline headlines the night with his contemporary folk take on traditional mountain melodies.
See you soon, queer country fans!
Queer Country Quarterly This Saturday!
Friends, it’s time for the Winter Queer Country Quarterly this Saturday! With the wonderful Joshua Marcus on tour from Providence, dreamy cosmic-country goodness from Wiley Gaby’s Goldenchild, and your faithful Sorrows, who have been working hard on our new Jew-country, James-Baldwin-influenced song cycle.
WHEN: Saturday, December 5th, 8:00 pm
WHERE: Branded Saloon, 603 Vanderbilt Ave, at the corner of Bergen St, Brooklyn
DOOR: $5 but no one ever turned away for lack of funds
RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/517247595091677/
Branded has a wheelchair accessible entrance and bathroom. Also, there is always a bucket of free candy for people who enjoy candy. Read more about the bands below and hope to see you on Saturday!
xoxo,
karen
More about the bands:
Joshua Marcus
Joshua Marcus loves cooking, all things musical, and to both orchestrate & be part of tangibly authentic experiences in the actual world. Joshua’s current musical interests are writing and performing our perceived shared truths, as well as syllabic syncopation and off time rhyming à la rap, r&b, hip hop, math rock. JM has been writing & performing for two decades. Current goal: 3new eps and poem chapbook in 2016!
Goldenchild
Influenced by classic country storytelling, melancholy pop melodies, and pretty things, Brooklyn-based, Florida-born songwriters Wiley Gaby & Jeffrey Doker set out to carve a space where their seemingly disparate influences could meet, mingle, and ultimately blur genre lines to create beautiful new music. On their debut album, Goldenchild merges elements of classic country and ambient soundscapes with a respectable hint of pop sensibility. The result is “gorgeous, cosmic country” that NYC’s Next magazine calls “damn beautiful.”
Karen & The Sorrows
Queer country pioneers Karen & the Sorrows “write loss and heartbreak, and goddamn are they good at it.” (F**k Yeah, Queer Music) Their album The Names of Things is full of “haunting pedal steel work and unvarnished heartbreak” (Bust Magazine) and was voted one of the Freeform American Roots chart’s best debut albums of 2014.
New article in i-D!
There is a big article about our Brooklyn queer country scene in i-D! Read it here!
Save the date for the next Queer Country Quarterly!
httpv://youtu.be/BAMPre3KjgQ
Dear cowpeople, don’t forget to mark your calendars for Saturday, December 5th. We’ll be back at the Branded Saloon for the winter edition of the Queer Country Quarterly with the wonderful Joshua Marcus on tour from Providence, RI. Plus Wiley Gaby’s band Goldenchild will be celebrating their brand new gorgeous cosmic country album Bridges.
And of course your host Karen & the Sorrows will have some new songs for you. And maybe a seasonal surprise or two!
In the meantime, c’mon out and see The Sorrows on November 6th at Rock Shop with our friends Tatters & Rags! It wont’ be a queer country show, but it will be rockin’!
The Fall Queer Country Quarterly is Coming Soon!
Hello dear cowpeople! Hope you can join us at C’mon Everybody for some queer country magic! Justin Vahala, honey-voiced queer country unicorn, will open, starting at 7:30 sharp. Transgender love pioneer So Brown will steal your heart and then break it. And your hosts The Sorrows have some brand new songs we can’t wait to play for you!
WHEN: Thursday, October 8th, 7:30 sharp
WHERE: C’mon Everybody, 325 Franklin Ave, Brooklyn, New York 11238
RSVP: facebook.com/events/773925929402525/
DOOR: $10, but if you’d like to come and can’t swing that, email me at karenandthesorrows@gmail.com
xoxo,
karen
p.s. You might have noticed that I switched us over from monthly to quarterly. If only it didn’t look weird to spell country with a q, we could be the Triple Q! All that to say, there will be a little more time in between shows so I can keep up better. Next up: Winter Edition, December 5th, back at Branded!
More about the bands:
So Brown is a critically acclaimed transgender musician, actor and model from Texas and Alabama. So’s debut album Point Legere, released in April 2014, was heralded as “Debut Album of the Year” by Innocent Words magazine, and So’s songs have been covered by such luminaries as Norah Jones. A rebellious pioneer of new gender possibilities, So embodies the belief that honesty in art can reveal the humanity that unites us all.
The Names of Things, the debut album from Brooklyn queer country band Karen & the Sorrows, is full of “haunting pedal steel work and unvarnished heartbreak.” (Bust Magazine) Voted one of the Freeform American Roots Chart’s best debut albums of 2014, the record is “some of the best alt-country being made.” (Billings Gazette) F**k Yeah, Queer Music says, “They write loss and heartbreak, and goddamn are they good at it.” The Sorrows also host queer country shows like the Queer Country Quarterly, helping to build new community for people who love country music even if country music doesn’t always love them back.
Justin Vahala Justin Vahala is a singing, song/writing, yoga teaching, tarot reading fool from Dallas, the shimmering turquoise inset of the Bible Belt. Justin uses his roots in southern folk and gay old musical theater to produce lyrical songs of heartbreak and hope for queers to hear. Past projects include his original musical, What Leaves the Wind Has Laid, which took place in a magical bathhouse ruled over by a witch. He is currently working on a new folk musical, The Ones I’ll Find, in which two boys with guitars break up only to realize that they can’t part with the tickets they’d bought to the same music festival. Can you imagine?!
Surprise Queer Country Summer Love on Tuesday the 28th!
Just when you thought we were taking the summer off, surprise! We are back for a special show! Come see Kings, Small Talk, and your host Karen & the Sorrows at the summer edition of the Queer Country Monthly.
WHEN: Tuesday, July 28th, 8:00 pm
WHERE: Branded Saloon, 603 Vanderbilt Ave, at the corner of Bergen St, Brooklyn
DOOR: $5 but no one ever turned away for lack of funds
Branded has a wheelchair accessible entrance and bathroom. Also, there is always a bucket of free candy. In case you like free candy.
Hope you can make it!
xoxo,
karen
Introducing Queer Country West June 25th!
Hey y’all, big news! This summer we’re proud to welcome to the family Queer Country West, hosted by Eli Conley in the Bay Area! Eli is an Americana singer-songwriter originally from Virginia, now living in Berkeley, California. He performed at Queer Country Monthly and had such a good time he decided to bring the fun back to the west coast.
We’ve got some great queer country music for you at this kickoff show that you won’t want to miss. Julian Brolaski’s band The Western Skyline will bring their queer country western goodness. Julian’s previous band Juan & the Pines played at the very first Gay Ole Opry, so we are so pleased to have them with us for the first Queer Country West! Country singer-songwriter Shane Fairchild of The Goat and the Feather will grace us with her beautiful songs, and Americana trio Sugar in the Salt are playing their last show with banjo/accordion/fiddler extrordinaire Koralie Hill. Please come help us send her off with love!
WHEN: Thursday, June 25th. 7:30 pm Doors, 8 pm Show
WHERE: La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, CA
DOOR: $8 in advance, $10 at the door, No one ever turned away for lack of funds
RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/373229736202491/
TICKETS: http://lapena.org/event/
ACCESS: All ages, kids welcome! Wheelchair accessible.
Please come *scent-free* so everyone can come and stay! More info on how and why to be scent-free at http://eastbaymeditation.org/accessibility/scentfree.html.
For other access needs, questions, or requests, please contact Eli at eli<at>eliconley.com.
Read more about the bands below. We can’t wait to see you!
-Eli
Country singer-songwriter Shane Fairchild of The Goat and the Feather. A bit of the dustbowl, the surreal, and the countryside with a smattering of power, sex and wilderness for good measure.
The Western Skyline is a San Francisco-based country western honky tonk band, featuring Julian Talamantez Brolaski (lead vocals, guitar), Mei Jardstrom (harmony vocals), DJ Gray (upright bass), Marco Baroz (electric guitar), Rob Davis (drums), and Andy Waegel (pedal steel).
Sugar in the Salt is an indie folk trio featuring songwriters Eli Conley (guitar, vocals), Koralie “K Sugar” Hill (accordion, banjo, fiddle, vocals) and Maia Papaya Wiitala (upright bass, guitar, vocals). With their luscious three-part harmonies and swelling strings, these three friends serve up songs that will touch your salty heart and sugar up your funny bone. Members of Sugar in the Salt have graced stages across the Bay Area including the Freight and Salvage, Cafe du Nord, and the San Francisco Trans March, not to mention countless livings rooms and protest rallies. Now they are joining forces as a queer folk band that just wants to have fun! When Sugar in the Salt gets together to play, you can always count on a sweet time.
April QCM this Saturday!
Hello dear cowpeople and happy spring! The Queer Country Monthly is coming up this Saturday, April 18th, and this will be the last one in our limited run (at least for now), so you don’t want to miss it!
Also, you don’t want to miss it because we have a super-special line-up: Eli Conley is here on tour, plus DK & the Joy Machine with dulcimer amazingness, AJ Lewis & Friends with banjo amazingness, and your faithful host Karen & The Sorrows have some new songs to share with you. So come join us down at Branded Saloon!
WHEN: Saturday, April 18th, 8:00 pm (This month the Sorrows are on last, so remember to take your disco nap so you can stay up late with us!)
WHERE: Branded Saloon, 603 Vanderbilt Ave, at the corner of Bergen St, Brooklyn
DOOR: $5 but no one ever turned away for lack of funds
RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/433835840109652/
Branded has a wheelchair accessible entrance and bathroom. Also, there is always a bucket of free candy. In case you like free candy.
Read more about the bands below and hope you can join at Branded Saloon!
xoxo,
karen
Eli Conley (www.eliconley.com)
Eli Conley is a San Francisco Bay Area-based indie folk artist Eli Conley has a voice that shifts deftly from country choirboy to soulful croon at the turn of a phrase. Steeped in Americana music and the singer-songwriter tradition, Eli crafts modern day folk songs for misfits from the raw material of his life as a gay transgender man with Virginia roots. Eli will be accompanied by co-conspirator Joel Price on mandolin, fiddle and harmonies.
DK & the Joy Machine (www.dkandthejoymachine.com)
DK & the Joy Machine’s new album, Shy One, out on March 22nd, has been described as “intense, colorful and diverse. A novel of sorts. Dark, light, humorous and humble.” Her “quirky and smart” songs celebrate all the crucial things in life: unrequited love, falling in love with feral cats, and treating yourself with kindness. Known for her sultry, expressive voice, well crafted songs, and genre-blending, innovative work on mountain dulcimer—plucking, strumming, bowing and “rocking out” on this trad instrument—DK’s music is at turns evocative, moving, playful, fun, and always genuine.
AJ Lewis & Friends
AJ’s old timey banjo set will highlight the usual themes of drugs, death, nonhuman animals, unusual kinship structures, and critiques of capitalism and happiness. Whimsical reflections on the queer genealogies of old time music are provided free of charge. For the first time, however, AJ intends to break from tradition and include a handful of countrified covers of notable women singer-songwriters of the 1990s. He invites you to sing along.
Karen & the Sorrows (www.karenandthesorrows.com)
The Names of Things, the debut album from Brooklyn queer country band Karen & the Sorrows, is full of “haunting pedal steel work and unvarnished heartbreak.” (Bust Magazine) Voted one of the FAR chart’s best debut albums of 2014, the record is “some of the best alt-country being made. Twang-drenched drown-your-sorrows music about bad relationships, abandoned lovers and endless heartbreak. In other words, pure country.” (Billings Gazette) New York Music Daily writes, “Country keeps evolving and Karen & the Sorrows are taking it to a place it’s never been before, a good and creepy one.” And F**k Yeah, Queer Music says, “They write loss and heartbreak, and goddamn are they good at it.” The Sorrows are also hard at work hosting shows like the Queer Country Monthly and helping to build new queer country community for people who love country music even if country music doesn’t always love them back.
Queer Country Monthly This Saturday!
Hello again, everybody! Just a reminder that we have a fabulous Queer Country Monthly coming up this Saturday that you don’t wanna miss. We’ve teamed up with music blog Adobe & Teardrops for a special fundraiser. So come join The Paisley Fields, Small Talk, and your host Karen & the Sorrows for a night of queer country in support of FIERCE. Adobe & Teardrops has also put together a great compilation CD to benefit FIERCE–check it out at adobeandteardrops.bandcamp.com. As usual, it’s $5 at the door, but if you donate $10 or more, we’ll give you a download code for the album too!
FIERCE builds the leadership and power of LGBTQ youth of color in New York City through youth-led campaigns, leadership development programs, and cultural expression through arts and media. They are dedicated to cultivating the next generation of social justice movement leaders who are dedicated to ending all forms of oppression. If you can’t come to the show, you can still support FIERCE with a donation at https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/551356.
WHEN: Saturday, March 21st, 8:00 pm–The Sorrows are opening, so if you want to catch us, make sure to come at 8:00!
WHERE: Branded Saloon, 603 Vanderbilt Ave, at the corner of Bergen St, Brooklyn
DOOR: $5 but no one ever turned away for lack of funds
RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/1417227195239061
Branded Saloon has a wheelchair accessible entrance and bathroom. Also, there is always a bucket of free candy for people who like candy.
And save the date for the last QCM in our limited-run series: April 18th with Eli Conley and DK & the Joy Machine. Hope you can make it this Saturday!
xoxo,
karen