december roundup
Mark will also be very special guest with Rodrigo y Gabriela at Vicar Street on Tuesday, December 14, 2004. Tickets €22.50 (SEATED).
2FM will be broadcasting Mark's live show from Dublin Castle on 16 December during Dan Hegarty's show (between 12 midnight and 2am).
You've seen it on billboards, now HotPress are giving away a Ghosts fly-poster autographed by the top 10 merchant himself, Mark Geary - who also happens to be on the front cover this week with mrs claus. The poster is so big it'll knock the socks off any self-respecting Geary fan. It may even double as a duvet cover in the colder months ahead. more...
Mark's friend Rachel Loshak is back in Ireland this month with a few shows around the country with Niall Connolly. more...
Finally, Mark will be supporting The Frames on their US tour (end of Feb / start of March 2005) - details to follow shortly...
"Stop! You're Killing Me" Amnesty Comedy Festival
As part of the "Stop! You're Killing Me" Amnesty Comedy Festival in aid of Amnesty Irish Section, Mark will be playing at Vicar Street on 30th November.
Full details:
Tues 30th Nov - Vicar Street - Des Bishop, Ardal O'Hanlon, host Eddie Bannon along with very special music guest Mark Geary
Tickets are €30 and are on sale through Ticketmaster outlets, the Amnesty Shop in Fleet Street and through the Amnesty Website - www.amnesty.ie -
Festival organisers warn to get your ticket early as tickets are expected to sell out fast!
rounding off the year...
Mark plays his final Dublin headliner of the year at the Village, Wexford Street next Saturday 13th November. Mark will have the whole band (Finn, Q, Karl) in tow and support will be Q with his full band. Please join in to end a great year in the Geary camp and sing along to all those songs from 'Ghosts' that you've all been absorbing in recent months.
Mark will be on The Strawberry Alarm Clock on FM104 at 9am on Thursday 11th November.
There's a new interview with the college times.
HOT PRESS are having a public poll on the greatest Irish albums of all time (different to the top 100 Musicians poll in the current issue). All you have to do is log onto www.hotpress.com and vote. Feel free to list '33 1/3 Grand Street' and 'Ghosts' in your choices.
Golden Discs have featured Mark on their website for the month of November. more...
november news...
Mark's 'You're The Only Girl For Me' is getting some good radio play on TODAY FM, thanks to early morning Ian Dempsey and Ray Darcy shows... you can ring/txt in to request it.
Not that we're ones to cause trouble but you can always heckle Mark about his recent New York show in a club called Happy Endings. The truth sounds much worse than anything you think about the name of the place...
october news...
Mark is currently scoring the new movie 'Loggerheads' (www.loggerheadsmovie.com, imdb, www.filmmakermagazine.com). "Set in the three geographical regions of North Carolina, LOGGERHEADS interweaves three stories: a middle-aged woman on a search for the son she relinquished for adoption when she was a teenager; the adoptive parents from whom he is estranged, and the child himself, now a young man who travels to the coast to see the endangered Loggerhead turtles." release dates, etc when we get them...
We've finally got a release date for 'Ghosts' in the USA too... 25th January 2005 is the date to stick in your diaries...
Some irish dates have been added towards the end of november too - check the tour dates page for full details.
mark geary - ghosts
Release Date: August 27th
Catalogue: INDCD 43
Label: Independent Records
Track Listing: 1. Beautiful / 2. Ghosts / 3.You're The Only Girl / 4. Morphine / 5. Fanfare / 6. Mid-nite Sun / 7. Whisper (Set Your Guns To Stun) / 8. A Prayer For St.Rita / 9. I Fell / 10. Up & Up / 11. Hold Tight
"I'm haunted you know? I think we all are at some point and to some degree: by our past, by people and memories, by loss, grief, youth, fear, lust, love...and can we learn from it or are we doomed to repeat the cycle? Ghosts is all about that but there is also hope in the songs. You can't live without hope."
Mark Geary releases his second album, Ghosts, on Independent Records on 27 August 2004. A release date for outside ireland will be confirmed shortly...
Recorded in New York, France and Dublin, Ghosts was made over the course of a bruising and traumatic year of solid touring. With debut album 33 1/3 Grand Street as his calling card Geary took to the road touring constantly in the U.S. and Ireland and squeezing in recording sessions wherever possible - with Justin Quip in New York and the Odlum brothers in France's Black Box studios as well as snatching a couple of quick recording sessions in the Odlum house in Dublin. Geary grabbed friends he had met along the way (including Glen Hansard and Josh Ritter) for vocals and advice before taking it all back to Black Box for a final mix.
"Black Box was kind of like living in a space station, Dave (Odlum) would be mixing a song and Karl (Odlum) and I would be in another room recording a song that had just been written...the excitement was always there; you're working and sleeping at such odd hours - working 18 hours and then sleeping for ten, waking at dinner time to have breakfast and then head straight into the studio."
"Ghosts was written and in some part recorded in the mists of a madness in Up-State New York when I was walking on a broken ankle for three days before I was finally convinced that something was not right. Black and blue and purple though my leg was, it was the smell that finally convinced me. These songs had been in my head and scribbled on the back of beer mats (coasters!!!) bits of paper, motel stationary. From New York to L.A to Dublin and France and then back to New York...little bits of family time...friendships and hugs...At times I wanted to record and play for ever, then I'd crawl away swearing: "I'm done!!!"
"This album has been just about the greatest fun I've ever had - the irony is not lost on me that a lot of what I seem to write about is sad and thoughtful, a little freaked out and melancholy. The truth is I'm only just learning how to be okay with whatever comes... Playing music, recording these songs with Karl and Dave Odlum, having Glen Hansard and Josh Ritter to call on during recording taught me not to be precious about these songs."
"Fighting for your right to fail" a line from the title track sums up a lot of what I think I'm about.
The Songs:
Ghosts: I wrote this song in Brooklyn, New York. I kept thinking about all the time I've wasted being unsure of my feelings, my beliefs and all that. It's hard sometimes not to regret and "Ghosts" is an admission of regret... I'm sorry I really am.
Beautiful: was written upstate and out of state. I had broken my ankle and was on these really powerful painkillers. I wrote it in one sitting and then recorded it with all these harmonies - I was listening to a lot of Bowie "sorrow" at the time.
Your The Only Girl: I wrote most of it in Orlando where I had this fuckin' awful show, a nasty crowd and a real coke "horror" afterparty. Just the most awful mix of bad vibes and bad breath. I was kinda trapped there so I hid away and smoked and wrote this song...
I Fell: I had many attempts at writing and recording this one. Karl Odlum and I dusted this one eventually upstairs in his Ma's house. Karl and Dave play great on this. I loved playing and singing on this.
Morphine: I think I was in North Carolina. I had this guitar part that I was convinced was someone else's it just sounded so heavy and creepy. The words kind of wrote themselves really: obsession, lust and anger, all the good stuff. In France Karl and I worked on this song and put it together while Dave was mixing other tracks.
Fanfare: I was listening, really obsessing over The Stones' Exile On Main Street. "Tumbling Dice" is so musical and singable. Josh and I and tour manager John Vickers were all in a car coming back from a show playing it maybe twenty times in a row and it just got better and better and better. So this is my attempt, the handclaps and the shouting and 800 guitars and all, just great fun....
Whisper (set your guns to stun): The first line is pretty literal. It's what we've been hearing over the last two years, after a show driving late so we can get the good sleep in before the bastards start kicking down the door and asking for money. This song is all about some kind of enforced acceptance, which is the worst kind of acceptance. It's like being told to say you're sorry while someone is standing on your balls.
Mid-nite Sun: Glen's singing on this is just beautiful. A lot of what I've been doing over the year has revolved around just getting people to sing and engage with me. I seem to write a lot of songs which climax with a big showdown. I'm a big fan of the anti Hollywood ending...the good guy gets eaten by wolves... and squirrels!!!!
Hold Tight: By any means necessary...teeth and fingertips...all the strings and the live drums by Dave. I just had a great time singing this, trying to get more and more desperate in the singing...
A Prayer for St. Rita: "Don't fall in love if they are far away, don't fall in Love if they're too close" an anti-love song for the commitment weary !!!!
Up & Up: Another one of these rants. I tend to rant in a pretty quiet voice just in case anyone hears!!
new photos
Mark and Matt took some photos during the US tour in June... These are available to view online here.