DAVID GERAGHTY

DAVID GERAGHTY
THE VICTORY DANCE



“Sonically, it’s rustic, organic and wistful with lots of beautifully understated arrangements.
The Atmosphere is that of a cackling log fire on a cold winter’s night. Great stuff.” Hot press ****

“The Songs on The Victory Dance evoke Badly Drawn Boy, Eric Clapton, Paul Simon,
John Martyn & Jeff Buckley at various points, but there are surprises and treats aplenty” Irish Times ***

“His 2007 debut Kill Your Darlings was a wake-up call to his stand alone talent. This follow
up is a confirmation that he’s an ability to create his own career.” Star On Sunday 8/10


BellX1’s David Geraghty released his debut solo album Kill Your Darlings in 2007, to huge critical and fan acclaim. The album was nominated for a Choice Music Prize for Irish Album of the Year and in both Best Irish Album and Best Irish Male in the Meteor Ireland Music Awards. September 2009 sees Geraghty return with his second solo offering The Victory Dance, set for release on his own imprint Decal Records. The ten track collection was recorded in West Cork, mixed by Tim Martin (Terence Trent D’Arby, The Waterboys and Kirsty MacColl) and engineered by Greg French (U2, Van Morrison, Brian Eno and Placebo).

The Victory Dance was a labour of love for Geraghty, recorded in between stints in a hectic BellX1 European and US touring schedule “I spotted a clearing in the dense forest that is the Bell X1 tour machine”, says Geraghty, ‘so in June 2008, we retreated to a friends’ house in West Cork to begin recording. We ended up using the old barn beside the house, which had a great vibe and the added bonus of a colony of bats, who lent us their vocals on a number of tracks. I subsequently forgot to include the addendum that no bats were harmed in the making of the album. I’m sure it wasn’t an ‘FX first’! I can’t imagine that Meat Loaf hasn’t used bat noises on a number of his recordings!’



Geraghty was eager to ensure that the new recordings were fully focused on capturing the intensity of the live full band performance and in a departure from the somewhat isolated creation process of the debut, The Victory Dance is very much a collaborative effort, with band members Marc Aubele, Kevin Brady, Clare Finglass, Tiger Cooke and Dave Redmond involved from the very outset. “For me, working with different people helps me avoid getting stuck in a rut when making an album”, says Geraghty, “If you reach for the trusty old mould every time you approach something, that’s the curtain call! All it takes is one person in the room to say, ‘what about trying this’….and suddenly you’re off down a completely different avenue that you may never have thought of sitting alone in a studio”. Geraghty continues, “I sometimes find song writing the most lonesome and torturous process, but I look forward to introducing the new songs to the band to flesh out and have fun with. It’s the joy and mystery at this stage that makes it all worthwhile. It’s always fun to work with different people. I feel too that I return to the Bell X1 table with fresh ways of approaching things. Whoever said being in a band should be monogamous?”

The Victory Dance was lovingly nurtured and brought to life while Geraghty was on downtime from his BellX1 duties. The band made five US trips in the space of twelve months to promote their fourth studio album Blue Lights on the Runway. The Stateside hikes included many personal highlights for Geraghty, in particular performing at the Lilywhite Sessions in the Avatar Studios (The Power Station), a studio seeped in musical lore having hosted Lennon, Bowie and Springsteen over the years. Geraghty also got the chance to appear on some of the biggest TV shows in the US, including The Craig Ferguson Show, The Conan O’Brien Show and the Late Show with David Letterman:“It was amazing but pretty daunting, especially the first time around. Here I was, performing live on the legendary show that I’d grown up watching. It’s a tight ship that they run in the Ed Sullivan theatre!” At the end of July this year, BellX1 supported U2 on one of their hometown shows in Croke Park in Dublin. “This is it, the moment that the geography teacher was on about all those years ago.…’oh now don’t forget us when your up there with U2 playing Croke Park’. I can’t quite remember her name….what was it now?”

The Victory Dance is available now on Decal Records through ESD.


The Victory Dance Tour:

• Saturday 5 September: Electric Picnic, Stradbally, Co. Laois
  
• Wednesday 9 September: The Pavilion, Cork
  
• Friday 11 September: The Roisin Dubh, Galway
  
• Saturday 12 September: Upstairs, Dolans, Limerick
  
• Sunday 13 September: De Barra’s, Clonakilty, Cork
  
• Tuesday 15 September: The Spirit Store, Dundalk
  
• Wednesday 16 September: The Button Factory, Dublin
  
  
  The Victory Dance – Track by Track
  
  Watch Her Win: This is an old song and an ode to the appealing and mysterious ways in which a woman’s mind can work. It’s a celebration, of sorts.
  
  Tuesdays Feet: I wrote this in the days following Sept 11 2001. With a catastrophe like this, it’s a sobering reality check on what we carry around with us and how it trivialised a lot of that.
  
  Instant Sunshine: Is another name for anti-depressant drugs, a song about the line that’s crossed when pills are introduced to make the sun shine.
  
  Soft Spot: I have this memory as a kid, of overhearing grownups talking about the mean streets of big cities like London, that it’s dangerous to make eye contact with strangers in the street or on the Tube. It stuck with me and then when I went there for the first time as a teenager, I was hugely conscious of it. The suspect in people. The avoiding eye contact. The paranoid mistrust with which we approach and brush past each other in the street. A culture in which we fear the hitchhiker.
  
  Wear Out Your Name: A duet with a man, about impatient lust with a lady, who it seems was never into it in the first place.
  
  Last Time Around: This is a song about helpless, long distance love. The heart strings can only stretch so far.
  
  The Emperors Hand–Me-Downs: This song is dedicated to those that set themselves on fire every weekend. Bulls on parade and strutting she-devils.
  
  Stones: The feeling that sometimes hits on tour, when you’re feeling alone but for the sake of the others in the touring party, you need to exile yourself. You find yourself thinking of loved ones at home, at the edge of the water, awaiting your return.
  
  Change My Mind: The decision to call a halt to a long term love affair is never easy, unless of course she murdered your mother. You want your mind to be changed so that the inevitable can be avoided.
  
  Falter: You may feel yourself faltering when muddling through. Regardless of the fact that you may have been knocked back, made mistakes. It’s the belief in yourself that’s been tarnished, not your ability.
  
  
  For further media information, contact Entertainment Architects:
  National/Dublin: Emma Harney - 01 2606998
  Regional/College: Mary-Kate Murphy - 01 2194662
  
  www.davidgeraghty.com