Who is PAUL E.C. Anyways?!?
My name is Paul Carey. Back in the '80s (May 1984 to February 1988 specifically) I was the lead singer for The Untold Fables. The other Untold Fables were Jon Niederbrach on guitar, Robert Butler (later of The Miracle Workers) on bass, and Paul Sakry on drums.
Although we were mainly associated with the mid-'80s LA Psychedelic/Garage revival scene that grew out of a club called The Rave Up, and later moved to Greg Shaw's Cavern Club, our music also included strong influences from '70s Punk and '50s Rhthym & Blues. (Click here to see a picture of me with other Cavern Club regulars from PEOPLE magazine on the Bomp Records website)
Our first release, a remake of "I Try" by The Young Tyrants, was for VOXX Records' Battle Of The Garages Volume 3 (which is now available on the Battle Of The Garages Part Two CD). In Spring of '85 we recorded our first LP, Every Mother's Nightmare, for Lee Joseph's Dionysus Records at West Beach Studios in LA.
Lee Joseph produced it with a lot of input from Robert, and sound engineering by Brett Gurewitz (Bad Religion). The album was finally released about a year later.
In Summer of 1986 and Spring of 1987 we had two more recording sessions, this time at South Coast Studios in Santa Ana (where both No Doubt and the Offspring recorded demos before anyone knew who they were) with my brother, David Carey, producing. Eleven songs from these session were later compiled for our second LP, Aesop's Apocalypse, that was released in early 1989 about a year after we split up.
The two LPs may still be available from Dionysus's Mail Order department.
Over the course of our four years together we had the pleasure of playing with great bands of the time like Redd Kross, The Dead Milkmen, Thee Fourgiven, The Unclaimed, The Telltale Hearts, The Morlocks, The Pandoras, The Beguiled, Yard Trauma, Lazy Cowgirls, The Red Devils, John Doe, and many others.
Currently the four of us are working with Lee to compile a CD collection of Untold Fables tracks from our various vinyl releases as well as a few unreleased live and demo tracks.
If anybody would like more info about the Fables please write to me by clicking on the link below.
From 1989 to 1995 I was the lead singer of The Witch Doctors. Here is a picture of the art from the cover of our second EP by world famous tiki artist Shag.
In 1989 I got an invitation from my old friend Steve Hill to come check out his band The Brimstones. Steve had written for various fanzines back when I was in the Untold Fables, and had briefly sang with a band called The Cryptkickers that opened for us at the Cavern Club once. Steve was now playing bass and was trying to find a singer for the Brimstones. I checked it out and liked the material they were doing: Chuck Berry cover songs and songs from the "Pebbles" albums. I joined the band without hesitating. Unfortunately the guitar player at the time was very flaky and quit about a month after I joined.
This gave me the opportunity to bring in my old friend Doug Price who I had hung out with back in the Punk days of the early '80s. Doug had played guitar with Large Hardware, a favorite with OC's Doll Hut punk scene. Although Doug was basically from the Steve Jones school of guitar, he had also taken the time to listen to some of the artists that had influenced Jones such as Chuck Berry and Keith Richards. He provided a solid sound and more stable personality that the band needed. At this same time we also opted to change the name of the band to The Witch Doctors (at my suggestion). At this point the lineup also included Scott Burton on organ and Greg Paynich on drums.
We generally played at the Anti-Club in Hollywood at this time, but we somehow developed a following among the San Diego mod/pyschedelic crowd. It was at a show in San Diego that we met Jake Cavaliere, who although living in Orange County (and about to graduate from High School) was playing organ for a psych band based in SD. We kept in touch with him, and when Scott quit due to personal reasons we offered Jake the keyboard spot in the Witch Doctors. Around this same time Steve Hill had a side project called the Gallows featuring Steve's old friend Bobby Tremble, drummer from Big Sandy and the Fly Right Boys. The guitar player in the Gallows was Gregg Hunt (nicknamed "Lord Hunt"). Steve was so impressed with Greg that we brought him into the Witch Doctors as well, as a second guitar player. This worked out good since Doug left the band shortly after that. By Fall of 1990 we made the final major change in our lineup when Dave Klein joined us on drums to replace Greg Paynich (who was concentrating on college).
This became the best known Witch Doctors lineup. Things started to jell better musically, and each member began to get more comfortable with writing songs. This began a shift from mostly cover songs to much more original material. After about six months or so, Jake got an offer he couldn't refuse. He had been asked by Rudi Protrudi to join the Fuzztones for a four month tour of Europe. Knowing that Jake would be leaving soon, the Witch Doctors rushed into the studio to capture some of their current material on tape. Wally Hersom, bass player for Big Sandy, was kind enough to record these sessions at his Wallyphonic studios using his authentic '50s recording equipment. The results can be heard on our first EP on Dionysus Records (which is also included as bonus tracks on our CD "Witchdoctors Au'GoGo") and on our "Graveyard" EP for Screaming Apple Records in Germany. A week or two after we recorded our version of "Going To A Graveyard" at Wallyphonic, Rudi Protrudi asked for permission to record it with Jake and the other Fuzztones for their "Monster-a-go-go" album that featured all cover songs with horror themes. Because their CD was released a few months before our EP some fans have mistakenly assumed that we were covering a Fuzztones song instead of the other way around. Now you know the truth!
Check back here soon for more info on the Witch Doctors (such as our connection to The Finks and The Bomboras).
The Witch Doctors' LP/CD, "Witchdoctors A'GoGo," is also still available from Dionysus Records, as well as from CD Now (where you can also hear RealAudio clips of some of our songs).
Updated March 8, 2001
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