Joey Only
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Joey Only is a Canadian singer/songwriter of the anti-folk genre. His songs tend to be often either very political in nature (especially in reference to B.C. and Ontario provincial politics) or about drinking, robbing banks, small town history, marijuana and country living.
Joey traditionally performs using a guitar, harmonica, whistling, and foot-stomping (which he often prefers to mic.) His solo act was furious and edgy enough to catch a loud bars attention. But more and more often he is to be found playing in a full band.
Having come from a small-town background of punk rock, his music is in line with anarchism and his fan base tends to be either anarcho-punks, hippies, protesters and peace advocates (although he has a number of listeners in the country music crowd as well), taking influence from Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie, and Johnny Cash among others. Joey has performed with many of the artists from Riot Folk including Evan Greer, and Anne Feeney as well as various other well-known folk and anti-folk acts from around Canada and the U.S.A. and has recently (Summer '06) been playing with a band called The Joey Only Outlaw Band.
Joey Only is also known for playing at punk rock and heavy metal shows, and has played with numerous famous underground bands including Mass Grave, Mechanical Separation, Leper, The Business Associates, Poseur Disposer, The Switchblade Valentines, The McGillicudy's, Meat of Mankind, Mitochondrion, BUNCHOFUCKINGOOFS, Knifehammer, The Tups, HippieCritz, Subhumans, the Ripcordz and many others. His first band was a popular but controversial Ontario punk band called the Persecuted (1995-1998) though he played with numerous punk bands such as Bloodthirst, Four Quarters, The Arrested and Fart Bomb Apartment. Joey Only has also done a split CD with a punk band from Quesnel called the Effigy. More recently his new rockabilly country band JOEY ONLY OUTLAW BAND has done a series of shows with Vancouver's THE REBEL SPELL while being seen at Vancouver's Punk bar (The Cobalt), Montreal's Punk Bar (Cafe Chaos), Spiderland Punkfest (Killaloe Ontario), the Punk Night in Whistler BC and more. Joey Only often appeals to punk and hippies more than the average country music fan, though that is changing.
Joey has had numerous run-ins with the law and for this reason has often called himself "Outlaw Folk" instead of Anti-Folk. Most of these run-ins are due to his days as a protester. Due to charges of mischief and unlawful assembly from a protest in Montreal put on by the C.L.A.C., at which Joey Only was accused of smashing the windows of luxury cars, Joey Only has been banned by court order from attending protests until his court and probation was finished in May 2007. As well in the past joey was not allowed to go to Vancouver Island, B.C. due to charges received there when several welfare advocates barricaded themselves in a Human Resources building to fight a series of cruel and unusual cuts to BC Disability Benefits by the Gordon Campbell government. The action was ended by a bath of pepper spray from Victoria Police. Both of these events are logged on his web site and mentioned in songs.
Joey Only is also known as a highly talented mountaineer, navigator and survival instructor having topped over 60 mountain peaks (www.myspace.com/bobbybobcat). His lifelong dream of fighting a black bear was realized in August 2007 when a mother bear charged him near his hunting camp in Madoc Ontario. Joey reportedly chased her off in a stand off then kept on guard as she stalked him all night long. Joey Only is also known for his ability to draw, write, and carve; though he was a failed university art student. He is also regarded by some as a very intelligent martial artist. These are some of the things that shape who he is as an artist and songwriter.
Since the spring 2006 Joey Only has been touring with THE JOEY ONLY OUTLAW BAND consisting of cello (Christina Zaenker), accordion (Rowan Lipkovits), drums (Kenan Sungur), bass (Rick McCallion) and steel guitar (Mike Zinger). The Outlaws played 150 shows in less than two years while Joey Only maintained a series of solo shows around the country. The Outlaws headlined the Artswells Festival in Barkerville BC in August 2008 raising their growing profile considerably. They have toured through all parts of BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan and have become one of the fastest and most psychedelic country bands Canada has ever seen reaching #8 on the Canadian College folk and roots charts in January 2007, the first time Joey saw any real radio success.
A movie was made about Joey Only's tours through Canada called NO GLAMROCK COUNTRY STAR in 2007 by McCann Video Productions and Documonkey.
RELEASES BY JOEY ONLY: -Radical Folk of the Great North (CD) - 2004 -Quesnel County Country Punk Conspiracy (split CD with Effigy) - 2005 - out of print -Joey Only Outlaw Band EP (CD) 2006 -Joey Only Outlaw Bad LIVE AT THE LAMP (DVD) - 2007 -No Glamrock Country Star (DVD/Documentary) - 2007
