Double Bubble

Mark Geary is one of the best songwriters in the world. In my opinion. But somehow the wheel of fortune continues to click past his number (for now). I am so grateful to play drums with him and recently we recorded an album in Glen Hansard’s house studio and Ruth O Mahony- Brady, Dave Odlum and Karl Odlum were involved in his latest beautiful album creation. Mark is nearly ready to release the first single 'Drowning' and I’m very proud of the drumming on it. There were a couple of very different drum parts in my approach to the rhythmic construction of the song. One part is reminiscent of a Frames song called ‘What’s The Verb’? (demo of this song available on Patreon) which keeps turning the beat around under the music in a 3 against 4 polyrhythm. Then it relaxes in the chorus. Tension/release I suppose. Nirvana were good at that.

*MP3 'Drowning' here

Anyway Mark asked me to get involved in the making of his video for this song as well.. The line ‘One more step and I’m drowning’ from the song in question was to be a strong reference, as was the Wes Anderson film Darjeeling Limited, its main character, and the heavy colour saturation that the director is famous for. For me this was an excuse to extend some of the sea reflection photography I had been working on and I got into the sea locally to film underwater and also just above the sparkling water line, and into the warm setting sun. Lots of quizzical and suspicious looks of course. I used an old GoPro mark 5 which is tiny and waterproof. The joy of making these video ideas/demos is hard to beat. It’s the time you get lost in the parallel world of creativity and the bliss of joyous idea connecting. Writing musical ideas is similar. The bands, musicians, or producers that encourage and trust your ideas and creativity are the best ones to work for. I’ve worked with many more successful people who didn’t always have that trust in me, or didn’t want any creativity (other than their own). So I felt a bit flat in those environments and there was a level of the ‘mechanical drummer’ in operation on my side therefore. So, Viva Mark Geary and his ilk!