SINGER SEARCH

Do you growl "Ring of Fire" in the shower? Croon "All My Exes Live in Texas" in the car? Twist your hips like Tim McGraw?

You just might be the first openly gay country music superstar.

Music impresario Larry Dvoskin is searching the nation for singers to enter a competition to identify the guy with the pipes, the look, and the moxie to climb the country charts.

"I'm in negotiations right now for a television show about the project," Dvoskin said in a recent phone interview from New York. "It's sort of a hybrid of documentary and talent search. It's not just a gay American Idol."

Dvoskin, president of Cool Guy Music and a songwriter, said he was inspired to consider a singer competition on a visit to the Cedar Springs bar scene in Dallas. The typically young-and-buff crowd did not impress. "I found all the pretty boys," he said with a derisive sniff, "but then I went into a country-western club and was amazed. I told my friends, 'This is where the life is.'"

Later, a chum in the Nashville music business issued a challenge. "There will never be a superstar who is a male country singer who is out and openly gay," Dvoskin said. Soon he had put together the project

"It took on a life of its own," he said. "The response has been unexpected and unprecedented."

Initial publicity resulted in 4,000 to 6,000 e-mail messages to todayisthefuture@aol.com. Hopefuls could also sing a few bars over the phone. "My answering machine is like a gay version of the Hitler auditions in The Producers," Dvoskin said with a chuckle.

Dvoskin had just flown in from meetings in California "I have people at three major labels who are interested," he said. "It's really, really the top, top people."

Six guys who have already made the finalist cut (check them out at www.coolguymusic.com). No Texan is yet among the elite. Dvoskin said one Lone Star hopeful did ring up the phone line and sang a couple of bars from a Clint Black song. Impressed, Dvoskin contacted the singer. "Later, he admitted he was more of a Matchbox Twenty-type singer" who adopted a country disguise in a grab for fame. You're out, partner.

That case of ambition does raise a question, Dvoskin said. How do we know these guys are really gay? "We have to turn on our National Gaydar Defense System," Dvoskin advised, adding, "I think we also just have to ask their mommas."

One of the guys who had made the cut is Matt Means. A Kansas farm boy now living in Ohio, Means read about the competition on Advocate.com in late August and called the phone line to sing a few lines of a Garth Brooks tune.

On the phone from his job as an ad-agency art director, Means said he has been a country-music fan from childhood. "I grew up listening to Kenny Rogers, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, and Barbara Mandrell," he said.

Right now, Means takes gigs in local clubs, trying to get more experience. "I've been singing ever since I was a kid, but I'm trying to work on my performing."

Means' family endorses his plans for the singer project. This includes Dan, his partner of four years who he met at a volleyball competition. "They have always been real supportive of me musically."

Dvoskin said he is still looking for men interested in the contest, recently endorsed, he said, by the Lesbian & Gay Country Music Association. Hopefuls can reach him by e-mail. Or the brave can call the voice-mail audition line, 615/361-6714, and warble a few bars.

A showman who understands the subversive value of his endeavor, Dvoskin laughed when he disclosed, perhaps only half in jest, part of his plan: "I want to hold auditions in Lynchburg, Virginia, where Jerry Falwell is."