Paul Cary

Biography

Chicago's Paul Cary knows a thing or two about grit. In his Iowa days, Cary was the front man for the seminal In The Red Records’ band, The Horrors (not the UK band, the gritty garage rockers from the depths of Iowa). During that time, Paul Cary drove taxis, hopped trains from Iowa City to San Diego, worked the door at local dive bars and toured Europe with The Horrors. While on In the Red Records, The Horrors released two albums: 2000’s self-titled The Horrors recorded by Mike McHugh at the Di...

Chicago's Paul Cary knows a thing or two about grit. In his Iowa days, Cary was the front man for the seminal In The Red Records’ band, The Horrors (not the UK band, the gritty garage rockers from the depths of Iowa).

During that time, Paul Cary drove taxis, hopped trains from Iowa City to San Diego, worked the door at local dive bars and toured Europe with The Horrors. While on In the Red Records, The Horrors released two albums: 2000’s self-titled The Horrors recorded by Mike McHugh at the Distillery and 2004’s Vent, recorded by both Mike at the Distillery and by Doug Easley and Greg Cartwright at Easley McCain Studios.

In 2005, Cary woke up, wised up, and moved all of his worldly belongings to Chicago. Once there, he buckled down, apprenticed with a carpenter, and continued to work on songs. With no band to support him, he enlisted the help of percussionist and engineer Johnathan Crawford (Head of Femur, William Elliott Whitmore, Grey Ghost, Tim Wehrle), and together they began to work out arrangements of Paul Cary’s new material. In late 2007, Paul and Johnathan set out to record Cary’s first solo album, Ghost of a Man, with Mike Lust at Phantom Manor Studio, and Toby Summerfield joined on bass.

Ghost of a Man was later self-recorded and completed at Clown Town Studios in Chicago – basically a small room with some old mics and a tape deck, just the sound they were after. In total, the album took two years to record. Upon completion, Portland's Stank House Records offered to release the album on vinyl, Chicago's free music label Candy Dinner released it as a download. Stank House Records recently released a split 7" with Paul Cary and San Francisco's Thee Oh Sees, and it quickly sold out.

Paul Cary and the Small Scaries is the current incarnation of Cary’s band. Contributing players include a list of Chicago jazz heavies, such as Dave Rempis, Fred Longberg Holm, and Jason Stein – as well as the addition of Farfisa organs and other hellish noise makers. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.