27 August 2004
== New album ==
New album 'Ghosts' is out today August 27th...
Signed copies are available from www.roadrecs.com for €15.99. Tower Records at Wicklow Street have it for €14.99 for first week of release. There will be an in store in HMV Grafton Street on Thursday 2nd September.
MARK GEARY
GHOSTS
Release Date: 27th August 2004
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, in Ireland on Independent Records on 27 August 2004.
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.
Reviews:
9/10 review in the current Hot Press:
"Ah... the dreaded second album - it's not called the 'difficult' one for nothing. As an almost necessary evil in the career of any artist, the second album affords fans the opportunity to ascertain where exactly a certain artist's career is heading, and the artist in question to spread their creative wings. Sometimes, the second album may implode under the overbearing weight of expectation.
Not so in the case of Mark Geary. Having created a certain frisson in the singer-songwriter community with his understated debut album '33 1/3 Grand Street', Geary has gained in confidence. Having spent much of last year touring the world, 'Ghosts' paint pictures of scenic journeys, newly visited cities, and as such is gilded with a freshness and lust for life that can only be evoked by someone seeing much of the world for the first time.
Geary certainly hasn't lost the understated charm and sweet humility that propelled him to success in the first place. He still paints with a supremely subtly palette, although he manages to uncover aspects of the human psyche that other singer-songwriters simply can't reach.
Live favourites like 'Ghosts' and 'You're the Only Girl' sound as resonant on album as they do in the intimate confines of Geary's live shows. There's an almost nostalgic feel to the record, as it somehow evokes the simplicity of rosy-cheeked Irish childhoods. 'Beautiful' lodges in the mind like some glorious tumour and 'Morphine' is a brooding, though no less affecting track.
At times exalting, yet consistently majestic and rousing, Geary has the talent to survive the implosion of the singer-songwriter scene - if and when it comes."
- Nine/Ten. Tanya Sweeney
== 'ghosts' posters ==
We have some 60" x 40" posters for the new Mark Geary album Ghosts for sale on www.independentrecs.com
== tour dates ==
August/September 2004 - irish tour dates:
[27 August] whelans, dublin **SOLD OUT**
[28 August] whelans, dublin **EXTRA DATE**
[2 September] instore @ hmv grafton street, dublin - 5pm
[4 September] o2 in the park, dublin
[9 September] solo festival, model arts centre, sligo
[12 September] spirit store, dundalk - doors @ 8pm
[15 September] dolans (upstairs), limerick- doors @ 8pm
[17 September] an grianan theatre, letterkenny
[18 September] glor theatre, ennis
[19 September] everyman palace theatre, cork
[20 September] town hall theatre, galway
more info at http://www.markgeary.com/dates.shtml
== new website ==
We've relaunched the site with a new design to coincide with the launch of ghosts... comments, suggestions and bugs are kindly welcome... email donal[at]markgeary.com
That's it for now...
Donal
-- www.markgeary.com --