What's In Your Fridge: Joey Only

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      What’s in Your Fridge is where the Straight asks interesting Vancouverites about their life-changing concerts, favourite albums, and, most importantly, what’s sitting beside the Heinz Ketchup in their custom-made Big Chill Retropolitan 20.6-cubic-foot refrigerators.

      On the grill

      Joey Only

      Who are you:

      I am Joey Only. B.C. outlaw-country singer. Veteran of 2000 shows across Canada. Thirty-seven years young. Stompin' Tom impersonator. Anarchist. Activist. Hilbilly. Cowboy. Punk rocker. Tornado chaser. Prospector. Mountain climber. Fish killer. Hunter. Comic. Columnist. Legion member. First aider. Artist. Former radio DJ. Former newspaper editor. Former busker. Father. Redneck philosopher. Resident of Wells up in the Cariboo. One time resident of Vancouver. Child of the Canadian Shield. Leader of the Joey Only Outlaw Band and writer of hundreds of songs. I am the brains behind a hot new album called NO MORE TROUBLE IN THE PEACE which I want you all to hear.

      First concert

      I’d already been around music a lot as a kid, but the first really large concert I ever went to was at Toronto’s Massey Hall in the late 1980’s. I didn’t realize what a special room I was in at the time but I did know it was special that the Everly Brothers were re-uniting there. I knew all their songs and could sing them like a bird dog, so for weeks after I’d sing along to the Everly Brothers greatest hits trying to hit each note while imagining it was I on that stage of Massey Hall. I’ve had a lot of big opportunities in my time and played some amazing stages, but I have yet to step on a stage as significant as that. I will keep dreaming. Dream dream dream.

      Life-changing concert

      There’s been many life-changing concerts, but none of them shaped me more than Punkfest 1995. I had already been to small-town punk and metal shows, but Spiderland Acres was something else. It was total chaos. This retiring old man named Warren Spider Hastings (RIP) began putting shows on his farm not far from where I grew up. Spider was a big source of local gossip but I wanted to be a punk, so I went there at the age of 16 and saw what a real lawless bushparty was like. Bands like POLiTiKILL iNCORECT blew my mind. I did so much drugs. I was finally getting to meet and befriend big-city punks from Toronto and Montreal and party myself near to death with them. When I came back to rock, folk, and country music a few years later it was with this new attitude and understanding that punk gave me. Spiderland was the first place I felt a sense of real belonging. I wil always love the music of street punks.

      Top three albums

      Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison I will have to pick my top three randomly—I love a lot of music. But I’ll say Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison is on the list. The first time my local punk friend Lucas put it on I suddenly understood what Johnny Cash really was about. “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash” and in comes the train beat, the prisoners shouting, the heavy bassm and that chicken-pickin’ Telecaster. That was the first time I realized I wanted to be a real hard-ass country singer.

      Floyd Red Crow Westerman Custer Died for Your Sins ...Then I’d pick Floyd Red Crow Westerman’s 1972 album Custer Died for Your Sins, as it employed the hottest country pickers of the day yet sang the saddest songs about being an American Indian. I found it on vinyl on E-Bay after I heard his voice in a movie—I had to know who that was. That record is still the one played most often in my house.

      Take your pick. Third one is a real toss up. I could say Let’R Buck (Andrew Neville and the Poor Choices), Prairie Sentimentalist (Sean Brewer), Carnival of Chaos and Carnage (Bunchofuckingoofs), Incorrect Thoughts (Subhumans Canada), Toilet Rock (McLean and McLean), Last Run (Rebel Spell), Live at East Fillmore (The Fuggs), Waylon Jennings Greatest Hits, Federal Grain Train (Russ Gurr), Alberta Crude (Tim Hus)...I really wouldn’t know which to pick, I’ve listened to them all so many times. There’s so many bands I have been shaped by.

      All-time favourite video

      Stompin’ Tom Connors Across This Land With Stompin’ Tom Connors I never grew up with MTV and have only recently got satellite for the first time in my life. So my choice will be odd as it was a 90-minute long National Film Board movie called Across This Land With Stompin’ Tom Connors filmed in 1972. It’s vintage Tom, just like you would have seen at the Horseshoe Tavern back in the day. He smokes, he drinks, he’s charming, he’s country, he’s an outlaw, he’s fairly young. When I developed my Stompin’ Tom Tribute show I watched the movie again and again and again trying to mimic his quirky faces and stomping style—which were just different enough from my own that it was a challenge to do his. You can find it on YouTube. Watch it...he and that band were something else.

      What’s in your fridge

      Chicken. I just culled and butchered 20 great big meat-birds, some as big as 14 lbs. They ate too much, they needed to die. I got 20 more chicks who need that pen. There’s a good chance we’ll have nearly 350 to 400 lbs of bird in the freezer this winter...I can’t wait to fry some up tonight. We’ll have a pot of chicken soup on top the woodstove most of the winter I am sure. I have a lot of canning, smoking, and freezer prep to do this week.

      Deer. I got one venison burger left in a plastic bag chock full of garlic from the garden. Bobby Middleton from King Crow and the Old Ladies from Hell left me 8 lbs of deer meat as a thank you for staying here during Artswells Festival. I have moose meat in the freezer from my neighbour, who had pity on me after a hunting disaster last fall. Let’s just say the biggest buck I’ll ever be in position to shoot walked right up to me and the gun wasn’t in my hand, but was instead eight feet away. I was devastated and depressed. Thankfully everyone else’s kindness got us through the last winter. That’s how it goes in the north as the wild meat is shared around.

      Fish. In the freezer, which is still part of the fridge, I have bags of dried and smoked fish. What I like about country-living is, if I’m bored, I go over to the lake and kill a fish—it’s close enough to drag the canoe down the road if I’m ambitious. In the country you can make your hobbies add value to your household. I only smoke fish when I have way too much to eat in a week otherwise I bread them and fry them or bake them in butter-garlic-lemon. Smoked trout is especially good in my trout chowders. Every ounce of food we get from nature is a dollar we don’t spend. We don’t make as much money living up here but we own this place and our cost of living is low. I couldn’t use these talents when I lived in Vancouver and it was very hard on me.

      You can stream the Joey Only Outlaw Country Band's NO MORE TROUBLE IN THE PEACE here

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