A lanky rider from out west is sauntering into Prince George. He wears a black hat and he's got a posse with him.
They say he comes from parts all over, but his campfire these days is Wells-Barkerville high in the Cariboo mountains. He's Joey Only and he's the lead guitar slinger for his Outlaw Band. They shoot the lights out at the Prince George Legion on Saturday.
They come sportin' a new album. It's entitled No More Trouble In The Peace, with that song aimed at drawing attention to the protests against the Site C Dam under construction to the northeast. The package also has other protest songs, ballads and beer poems.
"The band is a hard hittin' psychedelic bluegrass comedy act who you can't easily compare with any one else that's out there," said a Legion entertainment organizer.
"Joey's done a thousand shows in Canada, sang 50,000 dirges and drank 15,000 beers in the process of telling 22,000 jokes. They'll play a smokin' outlaw country, punk-sounding assemblage of hilarious, offensive and thought provoking 'power country' songs that won't let up till the words 'last call' are uttered from management."
Only has played P.G. many times before, but it has been some time since he's had a new album.
"It's the beauty and the horror of human existence," he said, as a description of the new package of songs. "Whether that's personally struggling with your finalitude, the injustice of things that happen, political struggles... Every album, I try to have themes that run through."
With Only's reputation for cutting wit and sly banter from the stage, you'd perhaps be surprised by the tendency to write songs on heavy subjects.
"Eventually I might have to do something funny," he teased. But not today. Not today. He's busy staking claims on artistry in his music. He's focused on writing quality material these days.
"I've always been the outlaw country guy but I'm 37 years old, now, and I'm a dad now, and how much longer do I want to be the party band? Do I have to be known for that, entirely?" Only said. "We have a good album. We have a couple of good albums. And we have a good band, which I haven't always been able to say, so why shouldn't we do something substantial and say something with our music? So this album is a series of songs that will make you think and feel things. I like to think that we're doing something that nobody else has done exactly like this. The musicianship with this lineup is quite intense."
He is pleased to have reached his late 30s, he said, because composers and writers don't really tend to do their best stuff until they break past the youth years and accrue some life experience.
Tickets are $10 available at the door. They open at 8 p.m. and opening act Corbin Spensley warming the crowd up at 9 p.m., then No Trouble In The Peace and other power-country ditties unfurl from there.
