Joe Carey: Press

A One-Man Show, And Then Some

Joe Carey takes the term “one-man show” to another level.

Not only did the long-time musician write all of the songs on his latest album, “Sunflower Soul,” he also played all the parts — the guitar, bass, drums and vocals — on the roughly-hewn classic rock album.

And he did it all from his unheated garage, in the middle of a Minnesota winter.

“It just so happened that when I got to guitar parts, it got cold,” Carey said laughing. “When I needed my fingers the most, I could hardly feel them.”

Carey’s do-it-yourself approach was prompted, the musician said, by finances. Recording his 2003 solo album, “Wondervibe,” at a recording studio cost $10,000, Carey estimates — an expense the musician didn’t want to front a second time around.

Instead, Carey bought some vintage recording equipment online, set up shop in his garage and invited in a friend to help him mix and master the album. Then he started laying down his tracks, written over the last six years, one instrument at a time.

To combat the cold, he even outfitted his garage with space heaters and made a habit of drinking hot tea.

“I just kept pushing the envelope,” Carey said. “It was a personal challenge to myself, something that I had never done.”

Crafting his album from start to finish, Carey said, gave him absolute freedom to pursue his vision for “Sunflower Soul.” The result is a 10-track throwback to an older era of rock ‘n’ roll that the St. Paul Pioneer Press calls a “soulful rock record with a distinctly ‘70s vibe.”

Carey, who will perform on Saturday and Dec. 19 at the Tavern Lounge in Northfield, says his solo work on the album let him branch out musically and taught him how to envision an album as the sum of its parts.

Plus, it only cost Carey $3,000 to $4,000 to produce the album — space heaters included.

3 Spin Review: Joe Carey: Sunflower Soul

Length of first spin: I should eliminate this catagory. Only in extreme cases of ADD do I not listen to a CD all the way through the first time. So ... I listened to this all the way through, too.
Working knowledge of Joe Carey: Joe Carey graduated from high school a year ahead of me -- a fact that may seem normal to Duluth natives who see their, like, lab partner on various local stages. But not for me. Does anyone from Rochester even live here?
Brief Bio: Carey comes from a musically-inclined family and sometimes performs with various siblings. In fact, his older brother Jim Carey was the first person I ever knew of to actually release music. It was a two-song tape that included an original song ... Something about the moon ... and a cover of "Saturdays in the Park." I listened to that tape a lot. Today is obviously memory lane day.
My assessment: Joe Carey has that classic rock sound you grew up listening to, whether you were a 70s child listening to your dad rock out while he washed the station wagon, or if you were propped ear-first against a boom box in the 1990s. My picks: "Sunflower Soul," "Only You Know" and "Radio Titans," which is as smooth as it is kind of funny. (I hope it's supposed to be funny. It's a self-aware song about itself. Like when Ferris Bueller addresses the camera).

CD REVIEW: Made in a St. Paul garage, one-man band’s music is worth a listen

You have to be really driven, and fairly brave, to record your new release in an unheated garage in mid-winter in St. Paul.

Joe Carey did that, and said: “I did have to simplify some guitar parts during the colder months, since it was like 30 degrees and I couldn’t really feel my fingers.”

“Sunflower Soul” is the result. It evidences, in this one-man project, a rough-hewn vocal style sitting on top of 1960s and ’70s guitar-driven music, with lyrics that paint vignettes of friends and loved ones.

Carey is St. Paul-based, and got his first Eddie Van Halen replica Sears-Roebuck guitar at age 10.

He and his brother/keyboardist, Jim, were the backbone of the group Loft for three years and two albums. Carey released his first solo project “Wonder-vibe” in 2003 while working his way through Twin Cities groups such as Minnesota Gold, the Porn Thieves, the Careys, and Love Songs for Angry Men.

Writing, producing, playing almost all the instruments and doing the engineering is a tall order, but Carey comes up with an oddly interesting disc. It isn’t strummy singer-songwritery, but much more in the soulful rock vein. Ballads seem to reign supreme, but there’s an electric guitar edge that gives the project a band feel that’s lacking on most one-man DIY efforts.

The title track has an early Joe Cocker-doing-John Sebastian’s “Darlin’ Be Home Soon” kind of feel, with some nice electric slide guitar playing from Carey’s friend and guest, Jeff Ray.

“Only You Know” is an ode to a friend who has sacrificed in some far-off land: “You always stand tall while I can’t stand at all, giving all your heart.” It has a bit of the ’60s CCR guitar-driven anthem rock sound to it.

The chords of “Live for You” bring to mind the Animals’ “House of the Rising Sun” in a tune about expectations and devotion.

With limited (by his own admission) technical chops, an even more limited budget, Joe Carey has come up with a disc worth talking about.

On the next one, who knows what he can come up with, if he just times his recording of those complex guitar parts for the mid-summer months.

Carey Blossoms With "Sunflower"

When Joe Carey goes solo, he means it.

For the former Rochester-based musician’s latest album “Sunflower Soul," Carey wrote, produced, engineered and even played nearly all of the instruments. Fortunately, it’s not his first time at it.

Carey, 34, has been involved in the Minnesota music scene for more than 15 years. He started performing professionally at the age of 19, and in 1998 helped launch rock band Loft in Rochester with his brother Jim Carey. In 2003, he released his first solo album, “Wondervibe," which was recorded in Minneapolis at Oar Fin Studios.

From there he went on to perform extensively with a number of artists/bands, including Minnesota Gold, the Porn Thieves, the Careys, and Love Songs For Angry Men. During that time, he also began playing as a solo act and developed a knack for producing and engineering.

With a garage full of used recording equipment at his St. Paul home where he lives with his wife and two children, Carey got to recording on his own with the exception of some back-up vocals and a few guitar and keyboard solos.

After wrapping up recording in early 2009, he enlisted the help of former Loft bandmate Steve Digre for the mixing and mastering. “Sunflower Soul" was released on May 16.

St. Paul singer/songwriter Joe Carey has been kicking around the local music scene for more than 15 years. Some folks might remember him as a member of Loft or from his current project, Love Songs for Angry Men. He released his solo debut, ‘Wondervibe,’ in 2003 and has finally gotten around to finishing its followup, the new ‘Sunflower Soul.’ It's pretty much a one-man show, with Carey recording most of the music himself. Yet it's not a collection of acoustic love songs, but rather a soulful rock record with a distinctly '70s vibe. Carey's rough, raw vocals might be an acquired taste, but his songs hit all the right marks.

Joe Carey
Sunflower Soul
2009
Self-Released



St. Paul-based rocker Joe Carey kicks off his second solo effort, Sunflower Soul, with all the manic musical exuberance one might expect from a guy who spent most of last winter in his garage, recording these ten tracks on vintage equipment he picked up on e-Bay and Craigslist.



Joe, whose first guitar was an Eddie Van Halen replica he picked up at Sears, says in his rather humbly-worded press kit that he considers some of his biggest influences to be the Black Crowes, the Jayhawks, and Lenny Kravitz, and those artists have definitely made an impact on his style, but the six-string assault/masssage he alternately lays down, along with a distinctive vocal range, more brings to mind material from such transcendental icons of the guitarist/songwriter contingent as Terry Reid or Tommy Bolin.



Though Carey's been around for some time now (he was a member of Loft and Love Songs For Angry Men,) on this album he both stakes out his own slice of local turf and surrounds himself with family and sympatico friends- his brother Jim adds keys and vocals, Jessica Carey and Nick Hensley sing back-up, with Nick adding some harmonica, Jeff Ray plays slide guitar on one cut, and Luke Kramer lends lead guitar on a couple- to showcase his unique and original talents.



The anthemic title opener rings out with Teenage Fan Club-meets-Neil Young axe-play and universally-resounding lyricism, and hearkens the inevitable coming of summer with a joyful howl, a groove that flows almost seamlessly into the paranoid, desperate pop nugget "Panic Attack." You can almost hear him muttering over an old analog tape recorder in his garage- "Why shouldn't this song be on the radio? I ain't shavin' no more time off- it's over four minutes and that's the way it is!" "Get the hell off my back," he finally barks, and the song bristles down with an extended amp-moan.



One thing that makes this recording stand out from the dozens of 651-hopefuls out there is that Joe obviously doesn't give a whit about today's image-based music scene- his press photo comes with the description "...my ugly ol' mug..." and in these wacked-out days of my-digital-shit-is-hipper-than-yours, it's truly refreshing to hear somebody really be who they are, say what they want, and play what they want. If American Idol gave out record deals on the basis of talent and originality instead of style and conformity, Joe would already be recording- oh hell, face it, it would just be in a bigger garage, but like I said, that's what makes this record stand out.



"Change Of Seasons" finds him adding keys to his already finely-layered studio approach, and it's here where the ghosts of respected pioneers like Terry Reid start to appear more frequently in the mix. Carey is one of those rare artists who can record with nearly the same enthusiasm and gravitas as they do in a live setting, and more than a few of these pleasant little gems prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt.



"Only You Know" reveals Carey's softer side, a shimmering, brave nod to the sacrifices of brothers, sisters, and comrades during the war-torn past decade that stands all the truer simply because the artist resolutely refuses to inject politics into the storyline. A few searing blasts from his formidable six-string arsenal make it clear that this is a subject he holds near and dear.



"About To Fall" is a whirlpool of mixed emotions, swirling guitars, and lulling rhythms, "Live For You" an almost-painfully personal musical promise to his child, and "Apologize" sees him seriously working the frets while he (and here's that Terry Reid vibe again, popping in and out like the crackles on an old vinyl album) spins a classic tale about the rocky terrain of committed love.



The Yacht-rockin' "Radio Titans" nails Steely Dan with a wink and a nod, and could've been a serious contender for the soundtrack to the film FM if it had dug a bit deeper into the movie's subject matter- "I'll admit, I'll sell this damn song right now for the highest bid/So let the bidding begin/Do I hear fifty grand? Oh yeah, fifty grand in my hand/From the radio titans..." This bittersweet ode goes beyond its' spot-on lyrical message and unabashedly showcases Carey's command of his instruments and the board.



The disc takes a bow with two songs that are completely opposite musically, yet manage to hit on a myriad of the things in life that haunt him enough that he's compelled to spend a long, dark (in more ways than one) winter getting them all down on tape and sharing them.



"Unity's Fading" is a vicious growl- both vocally and sonically- at the injustices that have been eating away at this country's core for longer than we'd like to think about, while "Timid Child" is an after-hours, bottom-of-the-glass tip of the bottle to lost, love-lorn souls everywhere that would've undoubtedly caught Ted Templeton's ear as he was making the studio transition from recording the Doobie Brothers to attempting to contain "Diamond" David Lee Roth's high-flying in-studio antics.



All in all, Joe Carey displays an undeniable knack for writing, recording, and playing songs that may finally find folks on both sides of the Mississippi agreeing that the talent pool in our Capitol city is nothing to take lightly- as Carey sings in the final line on this recording- "Now you've got a song..."



You can learn more about Joe Carey and hear his music at www.joecareymusic.com or www.myspace.com/joecareymusic His CD release party is scheduled for May 16th at Tiffany's in St. Paul. Sunflower Soul will be available at Cheapo Discs, iTunes, and online at cdbaby.com on May 16th.

After Joe Carey's solo release, his heart's still with the band--July 24th, 2003

Joe Carey, always the second half of the Jim and Joe Carey equation, arrived as his own man on his first solo CD, "Wondervibe."

Well, he was his own man at least until the CD release party at O'Gara's in St. Paul a couple of weeks ago.

"It was billed as my CD release and the introduction to the band," Carey said.

But being back in a band feels right.

"I always knew we'd keep playing as a band," Carey said. "I wanted to record a CD before we got too deep into it."

Carey is best known locally for his group work, including playing guitar in the defunct pop-rock band Loft.

Since Loft broke up in 2001 and brothers Jim and Joe Carey moved to St. Paul, Carey's been a part of collaborations playing everything from pop to rock.

There's the short-lived group, Shag Jeans; regular acoustic gigs with Jim at Sebastian's; a stint as host of open mic night at Rookies with his brother and other regulars, and his current role in what they call, "The Carey-Sorenson-Miller Extravaganza Bonanza." That's the open mic night at the North Star Bar, which Jim and Joe host with Scott Sorenson on bass and Steve Miller on drums.

Now call him a member of Sister Doris, which is Jim and Joe Carey, their younger sister Jessica Carey, 21, on vocals, Sorenson and drummer Mike Molzahn.

As a band, they play "straight-out roots rock, with vocal harmonies, guitar and piano," Carey said. The songlist is a collection of a few covers and Jim and Joe's originals.

For his CD, Joe Carey adds a variety of tones, from thought provoking to just fun.

"The Divide," for example, was inspired by a Ku Klux Klan rally on the stairs of the state capitol a few summers ago, he said. It begins: "Ignorance upon the steps. Preaching from behind the mask."

Then there's "Wondervibe." The song idea came simply from his desire to evoke a Stevie Wonder style, or Wonder vibe, Carey said.

"I thought about how it would feel," he said. A laid-back, 1970's kind of groove, is how he described the end product.

"Superhuman Strife," a tale from the point of view of a superhero, was another challenge.

"I rap on that song," Carey said. "I never rap, but I wanted to challenge myself to rap a song that still fits our type of rock."

It's just one way Carey proved he's his own man.

Artist of the Month--February 2002

This month we have selected two artists to share these honors; Jim and Joe Carey. These brothers are the epitomy of what this text represents.

We found them holding an open jam at Rookie's in Rochester last month. I've got to say: "They were quite impressive!" It seemed they were able to help calm, and in a lot of ways, help fortify the guest artists to better perform. I mean, let's face it, if you're not on stage regularly, it is tough.

Jim and Joe take the edge off, and keep the tunes rolling. They have a clever, humorous, and very enjoyable stage presence that should be witnessed. These guys are great.

I should also mention they are extremely talented musically, and have been part of three CD productions. On Tuesday night in Rochester however, the theme is fun, and you'll find it there.

Whether you're simply enjoying from an observer's stance, or you're up there jamming with them, I'll bet you agree these guys are worth the trip.