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Cary Stringfellow

Written by D. Michael Taylor

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.)

Gigs in places as far-flung as Fire Island, Toronto and Hawaii cemented his reputation. “He was a master at the uplifting style that sent me to heaven,” Steinberg recalled of Cary’s mixing.

His booking at Splash Days in Austin this year will be filled by his friends Phil B and Twisted Dee, who are donating their proceeds to his family. Of his passing, Troy Spicer, one of the Splash event’s organizers, said, “He was friends with half our group.” Commenters on the web extolled Cary’s personality and talent. One called him a “sweet man with a beautiful soul”; another, a “spirit that was captivating and joyous—contagious”; still another, “his message was so much deeper than his music.”

One person noted that Cary had exchanged vows with the commenter’s brother, a concert pianist with the New York Symphony Orchestra, in 1996. Even after the break-up a few years later, Cary remained close with his mother: “He called her frequently and always beat me to the punch on Mother’s Day.”

“When she was going through a bout with cancer,” Kay adds, “he flew down to Florida. He told her how beautiful she was after he made her take her hat off.”

His sense of camaraderie and fellowship extended to the DJ booth, where there were always sparkling gadgets, toys, t-shirts and hats on hand. “I ran into Cary on the dance floor,” Steinberg recalls of an encounter at the 2000 Masterbeat New Year’s Eve party. “He excitedly pulled me to the side. He had found the very last of a portable laser system that he knew I would like. He had one like it, and loved lying on his bed watching the patterns on the ceiling.”

Nico recalls Cary placing “Hello, my name is ___” stickers on people’s bare chests at parties after asking their names: “While at first people looked at him like he was odd, by the end of the party people were coming up to him and asking if he had any stickers left.”

Nico also notes Cary’s acts of kindness to those around him: “He was incredibly sensitive and thoughtful.  For my first anniversary with Zack, who I met through Cary, he instructed us to ‘make sure we were home at seven,’ without telling us any more.  Promptly at seven, a limo pulled up to our house, picked us up and drove us to Robert Redford’s restaurant Zoom in Park City. There was a camera in the back seat to take pictures during the ride and a wonderful table with flowers waiting for us.  That was his style—to create fantastically memorable moments for those he cared about.”

He also had a charitable side. For a big birthday party, Steinberg had asked for donations to the Trevor Project, which helps gay youth. Stringfellow immediately volunteered his DJ services at no charge.

After his death, Steinberg called Cary’s cell phone just to hear his recorded voice: “I hung up, took a deep breath, and went on with my day. The next day I got a call on my cell. It was the voice of a woman, shaky and soft. ‘Hello, did you try to call Cary Stringfellow?’ she asked. ‘This is Cary’s Mom.’ My eyes teared up and my throat closed. ‘I saw your number on his phone. I need to tell you…’ The two of us, strangers, spoke about Cary, much of the conversation in silence. She was in the car, driving back from Los Angeles to Utah, with Cary’s ashes in a container on her lap. I told her how much I cared for him, how influential he was in my life, how we talked almost daily.”

The cruelest irony of his passing, as with so many bright lights extinguished too early, is that he was on the cusp of even greater success. He had just received rave reviews for playing at “Frisco Disco” at San Francisco Pride (with a giant can of Crisco as the DJ booth). “My partner and I danced together under the DJ booth for what was truly Cary’s last song,” recalled promoter Kyle Pickett. “Cary Stringfellow was a wonderful man who knew nothing but how to bring joy into people’s lives both on and off the dance floor. He spun uplifting and sexy music that just simply made you want to dance.”

Having watched him grow and develop as an artist, noiZe was proud to offer him a DJ Profile in this issue. We obviously had no idea how sad and ironic the timing would end up being. We therefore offer this profile as a celebration of a friend whose life was filled with talent and joy. May we all learn something from this gentle and loving soul.

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