Opium
1. Cold Little Fire
2. Not on your Life
3. Angel
4. Facing the Fall
5. See-Saw
6. Maid of Gold
7. Always
8. Tuesday
9. Atrophy
10. The King of Swords
11. Wake Up
Ghosts
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
33 1/3 Grand Street
1. Gingerman
2. Obi's Chair
3. Songs My Mother Taught Me
4. It Beats Me
5. Suzanne
6. Adam & Eve
7. Not Like Home
8. America
9. South
10. Volunteer
11. Here's To You
“So you tour two records, see the world and you build up, somehow; a fanbase
and some records get sold. Had I been on a major label, I would have been
dropped by now, or shot in the head or whatever happens to those poor bands
who don’t make money for their labels. Bye bye time. I would love to have a
comfortable life etc, but at what cost… so I never took the fast money and
artistically speaking at least seem to have lived to tell the tale?”
Instead its 2008 and Mark Geary is releasing a new album, Opium, on 11th
April 2008 on Independent Records.
His third record, to date, it will be preceded by a single, “Tuesday”, which
tells the story of “the day all the shit changes! The guy in the song –
maybe me? – has to change all the shit and the baggage he has been dragging
around. But change brings uncertainty that can be so scary that maybe you’re
better off just living a kind of quiet hell?!”
So begins the tale of Opium, an album which has taken Geary through places
in his head that he didn’t know existed in a processes that has infused the
new album with an energy and an emotional power that is barely contained
within the melodies and instrumentation of each song. But he tells the story
of Opium better than anyone else…
“It’s about escape and the notion of consequence. All of that plays a part
in what I think about or was thinking about when I was making the record. I
think sometimes I kinda like to torture myself with these dark thoughts and
in so doing reveal some of my demons and drugs of choice.
“I started writing this record over two years ago. I had written a song
called “Maid Of Gold” that seemed to me to be the advent of something new
and I had the beginnings of the song “Tuesday”. At that time I had being
reading Robert Fisk’s books and the “God Delusion”; the ‘war on terror’ was
on the news every night and I became aware of my discomfort with people on
telly using ‘God phrases’: “With God on our side”; “In God we trust”; “With
God’s help we will prevail”…
It seemed that people were using God as an example of rightness - their
rightness – and I was just really interested in how people find themselves
with this kind of “faith” and “crusade”. All fun stuff that led on to
thinking about all the things we do to fill the void or the hole in us: God,
money, sex, religion.”
“For the record I had definite ideas about how I wanted it to sound. It
needed a band and because some of the songs would be pretty heavy and dark
it needed lots of instrumentation. And rather than hiding behind melody and
being obscure I wanted to try write as directly as I could. I was working
with this drummer Eric Gebow, from New York. and Irish producer Karl Odlum
who had done some great records with his brother David and had worked with
me on some soundtrack stuff. So we all got together in Dingle and played for
three weeks. It was amazing and I found a real confidence in writing and
playing because I trusted them so much to tell me if things weren’t
working”.
So I came back from the session in Dingle with about 16 or so songs and for
the next year and a half worked on vocals, guitars and over dubs. Month
after month after month. Adding new songs, new vocals…I’ve never spent so
long listening to and changing a record.
Then I sent a few songs over to Sam from Josh Ritter’s band to have a listen
to. And he put strings on some and some piano on others…and then Karl and I
just deleted parts that didn’t work and mixed the record.
11 songs and then off to Abbey Road for one day of mastering. Job fucking
done! Haha!
Opium is Mark Geary’s 3rd record. His first, 33 1/3 Grand Street was
released in 2003 [“Grand street was kinda the diary, the whispered words in
an attic. Confessional kind of album.”] Ghosts followed a year later
[“Ghosts was like stepping down from the attic, over some skeletons and
bones and into the day light.”]. in 2005 Mark wrote the soundtrack to the
feature film Loggerheads.
Hey Mark! Must be a man about town, eh? don't see any upcoming gigs posted lately....things going well? what's going NY side? Pc's up & running finally... Till then.....& waiting Tracy
If you're in Dublin this Sunday and have no plans...my album launch is on in the Cobblestone with band, brass and craic. Doors 9pm. Hope to see you there and if not, have a great weekend : ) gav
The Annesley House North Strand (Fairview) Dublin 3
The Hootenanny Launch Gig
2 Stages 7 Acts
Collaborations on the night from…
Matthew Devereux (from The Pale) Keiron Black (from The Amazing Few) Wally Page Stephen and Tony Boylan Mick Duffy and Niall O’ Shea Alan and Breda Trimble Q and more…
Kicks off at 8.30pm Admission: 5 Euro
Everyones welcome along-it's gonna be a great nite full of fun+frolicks, so come along+join us for lots of Hootenanny Maddness!!!:)
.
