Sammamish rocker cuts CD
June 25, 2008
By Laura Geggel
When Joie Calio started banging on pots and pans at the age of 5, he tripped on a note and fell into music. After playing for a long line of bands throughout his youth, including the band Dada, Calio is releasing yet another CD June 17, called “Happiness in Hell.”
Calio lives in Sammamish with his wife and children and bikes around Beaver Lake and Tiger Mountain, allowing the scenery to percolate into his music.
“I end up getting a lot of ideas while riding my mountain bike,” Calio said. “You could really get lost there – I got lost there twice. I got a compass and made my own map.”
The rocker got his start in his native San Francisco. His baby sitters, “three blond go-go girls,” gave Calio a collection of records and a record player when he was 5-years-old.
“That was pretty much it,” Calio said. “That wrecked me.”
He discovered he had a natural rhythm, but his parents didn’t appreciate the racket he made with kitchenware. They bought him a drum set when he was 6-years-old, but mom and dad only endured that a year-and-a-half before they confiscated it for peace and quiet.
But Calio discovered musical talents could develop in a void. He listened to music religiously and began playing bass at age 13 when his friends said they needed a player. He started a paper route to maintain his musical habits and sought out guitar teachers who would teach him techniques for stardom.
By high school, Calio had reached fame, but it was more the notorious kind.
His parents had divorced and he found lodging either at girlfriends’ houses or in his Dodge van.
“I didn’t care back then,” Calio said. “A couch and a floor were fine.”
He joined a band called Damian and the Furies, which was more into counter-culture than troublemaking, Calio said.
For instance, Damian used to pull stunts at red traffic lights; the band would stop and exit the car.
“Damian would take off his shirt and sing a note at the stoplight,” Calio said. “Just a note – a really high classic tenor note. At the end, people would start clapping.”
At 19, Calio moved to Los Angeles and started the group Dada – named after a dada art exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art – and finally reached the airwaves with band members Mike Gurley and Phil Leavitt. They released “Puzzle” in 1992 with the song “Dizz Knee Land,” which reached No. 5 on the Billboard Modern Rock chart. For the next eight years, the band toured in 48 of 50 states and even played with Sting at Key Arena.
Partnering lucky breaks with talent, Calio began recording a few songs solo, before he moved to Sammamish in 1999.
“I felt like those songs were my favorite I had done in years,” Calio said. “It just wasn’t Dada stuff.”
His new band, X Levitation Cult – named after a levitating party trick – will release “Happiness in Hell,” which includes the song “Habit Forming,” played frequently on The Mountain at 103.7 f.m.
Calio just finished an autobiography, “You Can’t Hear It, but You Know It’s There,” due out later this year.
“He’s extremely talented,” said Phil Stafford, co-owner with Lisa McCord of Finaghty’s Irish Pub & Restaurant on Snoqualmie Ridge where Calio played a free concert June 12. “(Calio) plays bass and lots of different instruments and he’s also a great singer.”
MySpace Music
To listen to Calio’s music, visit www.myspace.com/xlevitationcult or www.myspace.com/dadatheband.
Reporter Laura Geggel can be reached at 392-6434 x221 or editor@samrev.com.
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