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Put your hands on the remote! browse music »One Band Man by Geoffrey Welchman
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fave it Folk Rock | Acoustic Blues
12 tracks | 38 minutes
Released Apr 2007
on Geoffrey Welchman
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- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 02:53 The Trial lyrics BUY MP3 02:53 The Trial lyrics "GIFT MP3" 02:53 The Trial
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 02:55 Washes His Hands lyrics BUY MP3 02:55 Washes His Hands lyrics "GIFT MP3" 02:55 Washes His Hands
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 03:18 Crowd Control lyrics FREE 03:18 Crowd Control lyrics "GIFT MP3" 03:18 Crowd Control
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 02:37 Unforgiven lyrics BUY MP3 02:37 Unforgiven lyrics "GIFT MP3" 02:37 Unforgiven
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 03:09 Fender Bender lyrics BUY MP3 03:09 Fender Bender lyrics "GIFT MP3" 03:09 Fender Bender
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 03:23 Hard to Know lyrics BUY MP3 03:23 Hard to Know lyrics "GIFT MP3" 03:23 Hard to Know
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 02:46 Here, My Dear lyrics BUY MP3 02:46 Here, My Dear lyrics "GIFT MP3" 02:46 Here, My Dear
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 03:19 Hildegard lyrics BUY MP3 03:19 Hildegard lyrics "GIFT MP3" 03:19 Hildegard
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 03:15 Wendy (Blow You Away) lyrics BUY MP3 03:15 Wendy (Blow You Away) lyrics "GIFT MP3" 03:15 Wendy (Blow You Away)
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 03:25 Out on the Road lyrics BUY MP3 03:25 Out on the Road lyrics "GIFT MP3" 03:25 Out on the Road
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 03:54 Is It Okay? lyrics BUY MP3 03:54 Is It Okay? lyrics "GIFT MP3" 03:54 Is It Okay?
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 03:54 Right Before My Eyes lyrics BUY MP3 03:54 Right Before My Eyes lyrics "GIFT MP3" 03:54 Right Before My Eyes
Folk-rocky blues, or acoustic pop/rock.
Bio / Background
One Band Man, the long-delayed follow-up to Geoffrey Welchman’s critically-acclaimed debut album (Comfort Noise), has finally emerged.
“To quote the Rutles,” Welchman said with a sigh, “the first album was recorded in twenty minutes—the second one took even longer.”
The reclusive singer/songwriter, based in Baltimore, recorded his 10-song debut album (“Comfort Noise”) in a single afternoon session in 2001. One Band Man incorporates guitars, bass, keyboards and drums, as well as stunning multi-track harmonies, all performed by Welchman himself.
The former writer for such magazines as Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, People, and Might had long dreamed of just such an exercise in megalomania. “I’ve been playing solo for years now, so I figured the time had come.”
Recording began in February of 2004 at the Chicken Coop Studio in Fulton, Maryland.
↓ more ↓Returning to the boards was engineer Scotty O’Toole, who admits he didn’t know what to make of the new material at first.
“He built the songs from the ground up,” O’Toole said, “starting with drums, then bass, I didn’t hear guitar or melodies for three or four sessions. But he always knew where he was.”
The labor-of-love project ran into difficulties half-way through recording, when lack of funds forced a year-long delay. But when work resumed in September of 2005, Welchman said, “I just picked up where I left off.”
“What made it worth it,” O’Toole stressed, “was that he had a great bunch of songs.”
One Band Man’s range is startling. Opening with a courtroom confessional (“Life is a trial/and I plead innocence” in “The Trial”), Welchman weaves in english folk (the celtic-raga outro of “Is It Okay?”), classic 4/4 rock (“Wendy”), backwards-guitar textures in the psychedelic mashup “Unforgiven,” even bottom-heavy funk in “Fender Bender.”
“I always loved the variety-show feel of the Beatles’ albums,” Welchman said. “They took such care to make each song sound different from the last. I’d hate to stay in one groove for a whole record.”
His witty lyrics swerve from the Kafkaesque to the light-hearted, sometimes within the same song, such as “Crowd Control,” that opens with the quotable line “Weapons of mass destruction/cheeseburger and fries.”
“I don’t set out to be controversial, or topical,” Welchman said, “because I don’t necessarily plan to write what I write. I just tend to blurt out things that I’m thinking about. Songs like Crowd Control or Hildegard came very quickly.”
“Hildegard,” a surprisingly moving tribute to the 15th century German nun, author, and theologian Hildegard von Bingen, is another example of Welchman’s penchant for off-beat topics or approaches, such as assembling 21 rhymes for “ear” (“Here My Dear”). “It keeps it fun.”
While guitar and bass came naturally to him after years of solo performing and bass-playing with his early 90s band Big Bug, drums were a new challenge. He started playing them in 2002, and as he improved, changed his recording plans from having a session drummer to completing the entire “band” himself.
One of the first songs he completed is the album’s centerpiece, a serio-comic depiction of a nervous breakdown, “Out on the Road.” With a taut beat and a chunky acoustic groove, the song mixed wild west imagery and desperation. “I wrote that out in California, at a really rough time, a night where I tried to get in my car and literally drive out of my life.”
With recording comleted, the album suffered another roadblock—which lasted a full year—before mixing began at Nice Package Studio, in Towson MD. The album was released in May of 2007, and the word is spreading!!
↑ less ↑Average Customer Review: 5
RadioIndy Review of "One Band Man" by Geoffrey Welchman!Radioindy.com wrote on April 05, 2008
"One Band Man" is filled with lyrics, licks, and lessons of life that reflect the abounding talents of Geoffrey Welchman. In keeping with historical trend-makers, Welchman shows us the path of bluesy, contemporary music, as he echoes past, present and future sentiment in this well-put together package. The musicianship on the CD is impressive, especially considering that Geoffrey performed all of the instruments himself. The production is very clean with some interesting effects. The highlight of the CD, however, is the songwriting, which combines interesting and sometimes unpredictable chord progressions with clever and well thought-out lyrics. One of our favorite tracks, "Unforgiven" is an adult rock track filled with raw emotion that blends electric guitar licks with beautiful self-harmonies. "Fender Bender" begins with some interesting effects that fade into a catchy bass line that provides a very cool groove for this track. This CD is well worth a listen to hear some of the creative songwriting and impressive musicianship of one talented person! By: Terri D., Manny V, and RadioIndy.com http://www.radioindy.com/bands/3874/






