noizemagazine - Index

noizemagazine - noiZe Magazine Issue 57 August 2008 - Index

It was understandable that the promoters
of the 2008 IndepenDANCE
in Laguna Beach were desperate to
reach the DJ they had booked for
the event. A frantic series of calls
led to the morbid discovery that
Cary Stringfellow would no longer
be playing anywhere. He had been
found dead in his bedroom at the
age of 36.
This DJ Profile was a long time in
the making. Originally meant to be
an interview with Cary, it now takes
on the somber duty of celebrating
his short yet fruitful and promising
life well lived.
Ten years ago, noiZe's Gary
Steinberg received a phone call
from Salt Lake City. It was from Cary
Stringfellow, manager of the Vortex.
He wanted to know if he could distribute
an article in Circuit Noize (as
we were then called) about the dangers
of crystal meth. He was seeing
a lot of the same self-destructive
activity in the heart of Mormon
Country.
The two hit it off at once, talking for
hours about responsible partying,
the state of the Circuit, and what
the local Salt Lake City scene was
like. “When we finally met in person,
it was like we were old friends,”
Steinberg recalls.
By then, Stringfellow had also
caught the DJ bug, and trained
under the talented eyes of friends
like Phil B, Chris Cox, and Twisted
Dee. Nico, another close friend for
the last decade, as well as Cary’s
roommate in L.A., remembers that
the transition from Vortex to Club
Axis was in part born from his passion
for music: “When the partners
decided to sell Vortex, Cary,
wanting to continue DJing—along
with myself and another one of our
friends—opened a smaller club
which did very well for several years
and gave Cary the opportunity to
continue playing music.”
With a capacity of over 1,000, Club
Axis won the title of Salt Lake City’s
Best Dance Club for five years, with
heavyweight DJs like Paul Oakenfold
and the high-tech trappings of a New
York or Miami venue. But although
the club was doing well, Cary wanted
to get out of club ownership and the
promoting business to concentrate
on DJing and music production.
Cary was always outgoing, according
to his mother, Kay. Cary was “born
feet first and on the run from that
moment,” she recently recalled. “He
was very organized and intelligent,
and everything had to be just right.”
In high school in Provo, Utah, he
served on the debate team. He studied
business at a local college and
also learned to be a pilot.
But he kept returning to his first love.
“He grew up listening to music from
the time he was born,” Kay said. “We
always had music playing instead of
the TV. He loved all different types of
music, except Country.”
Cary’s musical ear and his infectious
energy quickly gained him recognition.
In 2001, he headlined “Latin
Fever” in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico,
where he returned every year since.
(His dream to quit the rat race and
open up a yogurt business with a
new beau never came to fruition. But
some of his ashes are being sent to
the place he so loved.)
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