Joey Clarkson

Artist Information

Biography

The long and short of it:

A Singer/Songwriter from the Comox Valley, Joey Clarkson fell in love with music and performing at a very young age. With a strong passion for traveling and experiencing new cultures, she travels the world, allowing herself and her music to be influenced by the people and experiences she encounters.

Joey recently placed as a regional winner for Canadian Music Week and Astral Media’s 2012 National competition RadioStar, with her single “MJ (Get Out)”, which has been receiving airplay on several British Columbia radio stations, and has been featured on national and international stations, including: CBC and BBC.

March 2012 Joey was featured in an interview and live performance on BBC in Norfolk. At the age of 22, she has entertained audiences across Canada, England, Ireland, Scotland, France and the UAE; sharing the stage with such artists as: Allison Crowe, Suzie Vinnick, Sue Medley, Susie McGregor, Emily Spiller, This is Franco, Jamie Warren, The Sam Bradley Band and Dan Hill.

Currently in the studio, working on her second album, she divides her time between composing, performing, touring, recording and teaching music. She also finds time to give back to the community performing at fundraisers and raising money through her music for disaster relief.

What kind of community projects and fundraisers, you might ask?

Joey has been involved in dozens of full length Dramatic and Musical Theatre productions, onstage, directing, musically directing, stage managing or lighting/sound technician. At the age of 16 she founded her own company “Joey Clarkson Musical Theatre”, with this company she currently instructs workshops, locally and world-wide.

At 15, Joey founded K.A.T.T.A.L.I.S.T. (Kids Acting Together To Assist Lives In Suffering Times) a group of youth dedicated to fundraising efforts for disaster relief through music, originally created to raise money for the 2005 Tsunami disaster relief fund. Through these efforts, Joey was chosen as a Save on Foods Amazing Kid, and became a recipient of the Power Pioneers Award for Community Service, both provincial awards. At 17, she was chosen from hundreds of youth as a finalist in Canada’s prestigious top 20 under 20 competition.

In January of 2010 Joey spearheaded a fundraiser “Hope for Haiti”, a 2 day micro music festival in the Comox Valley to raise money for Habitat for Humanity’s earthquake relief fund. She and her team raised over $15,000 and involved over 50 local businesses.

In August of 2010 Joey co-wrote, produced and directed a new musical “Common Ground” in the Comox Valley. Proceeds from this endeavour were donated to Habitat for Humanity.

Joey believes that it doesn’t matter how old you are, you have power. Power to accomplish great things, important things. She doesn’t believe in standing by and waiting for someone else to pick up the ball and run.

Instrumentation

Joey Clarkson - Vocals, Guitar, Glockenspiel
Jesse McCloy - Guitar, Mandolin, Backing Vocals

Discography

Mj - Single from "Joey" - Regional winner, Vancouver, RadioStar
MJ - Single from "Joey" - Airplay in Canada, as well as (recently) the UK and Ireland.
MJ - Single from "Joey" - Featured on BBC Norfolk's Introducing, September 2011
Joey EP - 2010
That Song - Valley Idol Compilation CD
The Strudel Song - Jewels of the Island 3 Compilation CD

Official Website

http://www.reverbnation.com/joeyclarkson

Links

• Facebook
• MySpace
• Twitter

Audio

• Save Yourself
  Listen   Download
• Get Out
  Listen   Download
• How About Now
  Listen   Download
• Just Go
  Listen   Download
• Shoot To Kill
  Listen   Download

Lyrics

• How About Now
• MJ (Get Out)
• Save Yourself

Video

BBC INTRODUCING IN NORFOLK JOEY CLARKSON LIVE SESSION.mp4

Joey Clarkson - Shoot To Kill

Photo Gallery

Press

• Joey Clarkson, The world is her Strudel Crust [+ Show ]
  

  / October 2010 35 How was your summer? Mine was excellent, thanks. Susan and I pootled about the .../ October 2010 35
  How was your summer? Mine was
  excellent, thanks. Susan and I pootled
  about the island, as you do, indulging in
  seasonal adventures ranging from noshing
  on frozen bananas to being moved to the
  core of our souls by an Inuit throat singer.
  One satisfying event we attended was a
  Comox art show in a beautiful garden
  belonging to friends. As at their first such
  show last year, a live soundtrack was
  provided by a local musician, further
  enhancing the relaxing experience of
  ambling around the garden, gazing at the art.
  This year it was the turn of Joey Clarkson, a
  20-year old singer-songwriter from Merville.
  It was a hot day, so relief from the blazing
  sun was found in the shade of the garden’s
  trees, listening to her play. And what
  extraordinary songs this young lady writes,
  two in particular serving to demonstrate
  the emotional extremes she is capable of
  inducing in the listener. One concerns an
  elephant and an inchworm; so affecting
  a tale it is that Clarkson’s performance
  provoked tears in Susan and others listening.
  In direct contrast, The Strudel Song is one of
  the wittiest and most lyrically imaginative
  songs I’ve heard in quite some time. It is not
  every day, after all, that one encounters a
  song with an opening line like: In Grade 7 I
  had a science project where I had to make a
  model of the earth, including all the layers,
  and I chose to make mine out of pastry!
  This great song and others Clarkson
  performed that sunny Saturday are taken
  from her 6-song, eponymous debut EP, just
  one plate this driven individual has had
  spinning recently. (It is indicative of her
  work ethic, incidentally, that she took the
  trouble to travel to The Outback Kangaroo
  Farm in Arlington, WA, in order to have her
  photograph taken with a baby kangaroo – a
  joey – for the EP’s cover shot.)
  Listening to her music it genuinely is
  difficult to tell from whom she may draw
  inspiration, so I asked her recently what
  she listened to growing up, and if she has
  any particularly strong influences. “I was a
  huge fan of classic rock, meaning from the
  50s and 60s,” she begins. “I used to listen to
  a lot of musical theatre stuff, and the only
  popular band I was into when growing up
  was the Spice Girls! And I don’t know if
  ‘influence’ is quite the right word, because
  I don’t sound anything like her, but one of
  my role models, who I aspire to be more
  like, is Ani DiFranco. I’ve spent a lot of time
  listening to her and I like how she’s been
  successful, but done it in her own way. I find
  that she never sacrifices her music to the
  ‘rules’ of songwriting, not worrying about if
  it rhymes or contains the ‘right’ amount of
  syllables. It’s probably why her songs aren’t
  successful on the radio, but she commits to
  the feeling she wants in the song. There’s no
  compromise.”
  As Clarkson herself acknowledges, I was
  quite surprised to hear this from a musical
  perspective, but considering American
  folk-rocker DiFranco is a feminist icon
  whose creative fruitfulness yielded 17 studio
  albums before reaching the age of 40 last
  month, it’s easy to understand why any
  musician, female or male, would admire all
  that she is and does. So looking back now
  at The Strudel Song’s opening line, thinking
  on what Clarkson says about DiFranco’s
  approach to songwriting, the inspiration
  fuelling the fearlessness with which she
  tackles her craft becomes apparent.
  In respect of the “musical theatre stuff”
  Clarkson mentions enjoying, it is a huge
  part of her life. She conducts classes and
  workshops in musical theatre for children,
  and has been an instructor and musical
  director on many productions for the
  TheatreWorks Centre for Performing Arts in
  Courtenay. She tells me that her experiences
  in this regard have shaped her into the
  engaging performer we witnessed playing
  in that garden. “I credit a lot of my ability
  to get up on stage to TheatreWorks,” she
  says. “It did so much in boosting my selfconfidence
  and training me in my ability to
  publicly speak. It was never easy for me. I
  started with this when I was about 11, I guess, and it really got
  me into doing directing and the theatre I love.”
  All things considered thus far, it is unsurprising to learn that
  Clarkson, in collaboration with her dear friend, Breanne Larson,
  has written a musical. Already staged locally this year, she
  describes it as “a glimpse into the life of baristas and their
  interactions with customers in a coffee shop, while focusing,
  well…it’s got a hint of an Internet dating relationship in it! It’s a
  little love story based in a coffee shop!”
  Does this award-winning young woman never sleep? Apparently
  not, as the next step in her hopeful rise to stardom is currently
  being organized, albeit an ambitious one to present her
  sometimes beautiful and sometimes quirky pop songs to an
  overseas audience. Accompanied by Larson and guitarist Jesse
  McCloy, Clarkson is headed to the UK for a string of shows in
  November. With dates still to be confirmed as you read, through
  personal connections she hopes the band may also be able to
  secure a few gigs in Germany. Her anticipation is tangible. “I’m
  so very excited for this!” she gushes. “We’re booked to be over
  there November, December and January, so I’m looking into
  finding a sponsor so I can go to MIDEM (Marché International
  du Disque et de l’Edition Musicale, held annually in Cannes) at
  the end of January, if possible, and for November we would like
  to organize between 15 and 20 gigs. So that’s our ultimate goal;
  I don’t know if it’s going to happen. We just want to go and
  promote ourselves and be positive and see some of the world at
  the same time. If it goes well we hope to do a Canadian tour next
  year.”
  I really have to hand it to this kid, as she is absolutely going
  for it. Yet despite her personal ambition, Clarkson is someone
  firmly in touch with community and extremely proactive when
  it comes to the difficulties of others. Locally, she has spent eight
  years volunteering in the St. John’s Ambulance Brigade, and
  she was so moved by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that, with
  likeminded friends, she founded KATTALIST: Kids Acting
  Together to Assist Lives in Suffering Times. A fundraising
  group dedicated to “underprivileged and disaster-struck people,”
  KATTALIST is now shelved, but simply because the various
  members have dispersed far and wide following graduation;
  Clarkson sees no reason why it or a renamed, similarly intended
  group will not return in the future.
  So as we nudge into the fall and I find myself still humming
  The Strudel Song as I go about my days, I can’t help but ponder
  something else its composer told me back in the summer. “I
  don’t consider myself to be a very funny person, but if humour
  shows through in my songs it is always honest humour,” she
  said. No kidding, eh? I’d say everything about Joey Clarkson is
  built on honesty, wouldn’t you? ~
  For more information about the music and other activities of
  Joey Clarkson, please visit the following websites:
  www.joeyclarkson.com
  www.joeyclarkson.ca
  www.myspace.com/JoeyClarksonMusic
  www.reverbnation.com/joeyclarkson
  

• Wednesday Night with Joey [+ Show ]
  

  Wednesday Night: Joey Clarkson—Old Nicks had a special treat on Wednesday when the highly talented ...Wednesday Night: Joey Clarkson—Old Nicks had a special treat on
  Wednesday when the highly talented young Joey Clarkson ably assisted by
  Jesse and Breanne delighted a good size audience with a fine performance of
  showmanship. Including a diverse selection of songs and some banter the
  sort a raconteur would be proud of. Given that the weather was again awful
  we were pleased to see how stoic the trio were, making little fuss and fulfilling
  the night even though Joey was clearly unwell and Jesse had been under
  the doctor. Touring in mid winter is not for the faint hearted. Joey and the
  gang are from the Canadian West coast, Vancouver Island and British Columbia
  so the adverse weather was also uncommon to them as well, as Joey
  informed a galvanised gathering. Her compositions were well delivered and
  had a unique punch with superb clarity of voice. Lyrically the songs were
  both funny and informative giving an insight into the world of Joey from
  many years ago to the present day. Harmonies by Breanne brought an emphasis
  in the quality of writing and performance while Jesse accompanied
  along on a sometimes errant mandolin and
  well behaved guitar. Shoot to Kill, If This
  Ends plus The Stroodle Song were stand
  out numbers but the jewel in the crown had
  to be Changes which was requested again.
  A magnificent number that truly showcased
  Joey’s silky voice and panache in delivery.
  Many thanks to Joey, Jesse and Breanne
  for a fabulous evening and we hope
  that when they return again to the UK
  they will factor Old Nicks into their itinery.

Setlist

How about now - 3:35
If this ends - 3:30
Just go - 3:00
Say goodbye - 3:52
Hopeless boat - 3:40
City lights - 3:56
Changes - 4:47
Moon tide - 4:02
Shoot to kill - 3:32
Johnny - 3:01
MJ (Get Out) - 4:33
Lightbulb - 4:00
Running is good for your self esteem - 3:30
Prettier Girls - 3:20
Dont you go - 3:40
Save Yourself - 4:00
Hold Tight - 3:30
The Winds are Changing - 4:30
Fighting for - 3:00
Europe - 3:00
Claire's Song - 3:30
Sleep - 3:00

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