Joey Alkes

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by Joslyn Layne for All Music Guide

Modern pop/rock songwriter Joey Alkes has also played a lot of parts in the music business, from label executive to vocalist to band manager. Alkes is best known as the co-author of the power pop hit for the Plimsouls "Million Miles Away," which has appeared on a number of new wave compilations since. A native of New York, Alkes has worked all over the figurative map in music. In addition to his songwriting accomplishments and industry positions, he has worked as a music journalist, a magazine editor, and was a published poet before turning his writing toward music.

In the mid-'80s, Alkes sang in the Space Shot Orchestra, a group produced by Tin Machine's Hunt Sales. The band was the first to record "The Sphinx," a song co-authored by Alkes, Chris Fradkin, and Space Shot saxophonist Mitch Rafal, who would later play in Kid Frost's band. The song was also recorded a year later by British bluesman Alexis Korner. Alkes and Fradkin had teamed up a few years earlier with Plimsouls' guitarist Peter Case to pen the Plimsouls' hit "Million Miles Away," which appeared on the soundtrack to the 1982 teen cult flick Valley Girl. Joey Alkes has co-authored a number of other songs, including the Roadrunners' "Haunted Forever" and "Talk to Me," recorded by Phil Seymour. He also co-wrote tunes with Jim Basnight (of the Moberlys) and Devin Payne. Alkes and Payne came up with "Woman in You Girl," purportedly recorded by Roy Orbison right before his death, but remains unreleased.<1> As a manager, Alkes worked with They Eat Their Own and L.A. bands Haunted Garage and (a re-united) Mother's Finest, among others. After a hiatus from the music industry to pursue other interests, Alkes returned to music in the late '90s as a label licensing director. It wasn't long before he started his own entertainment company and founded Airborne Monkey Records. The label roster includes singer and songwriter from They Eat Their Own Laura B.

In 2003 Alkes, along with Mick McMains, and Jamal 'lil tiptoe' Cryer, formed the internationally respected rap-rock ensemble known as DJ Monkey, which released two extremely well received CDs, Another Evolution and 3rd World War.