“It’s grueling. It’s exciting. It’s brutal. And it’s absolutely amazing.”
But most of all, said Mark Geary about the life of a troubadour, “It’s a privilege.”
That life on the road takes him back to New York, specifically for the Craic Session at the Wolfhound in Astoria, on Friday of next week, May 31. There he will perform songs from his latest album, “In the Time of Locusts,” which was recorded in his cottage in a forest near Celbridge, Co. Kildare, with his neighbor Glen Hansard and a few others lending a helping hand.
Speaking on Sunday from Chioggi – which he dubbed the “working man’s Venice,” nearby the famous city itself, but cheaper, more beautiful and largely unspoiled – Geary said, “Last night, I was in a vineyard in Tuscany playing to 2,000 people on the side of the mountain. As a bartender, I’d be happy to do a gig like that, forget singing at it and selling records and whatever.”
Next up on his performing calendar for this week was a library in Trieste. Of course, as an artist from Dublin he was happy to be visiting one of the iconic cities of James Joyce’s exile.
Geary’s own exile lasted for 15 years in New York, but he’s been back often since his relocation to Ireland.
The extraordinary “footprint” of the original sojourn is raised with him in conversation all the time.
“I still have Sin-é conversations. I’m still having Jeff Buckley conversations,” he said. “If anything, it’s gotten bigger and bigger and bigger, and I realize what I was a part of, in a small way, with [his brother] Karl, [proprietor] Shane Doyle, Arlene’s Grocery and the Scratcher.
“The legacy of the New York I lived in came up just tonight,” he said of the vibrant East Village scene based around Irish establishments in the 1990s and into the new millennium.
“Going back to New York, it’s like a home town,” Geary said. “In a non-nostalgic way. You can’t be too nostalgic. It'll break your heart.
“Your favorite restaurant is gone,” he added by way of example. “You have to be okay with that.”
New York hasn’t broken Ailbhe Reddy’s heart yet, but when it does you’ll likely hear about it in a song.
“I always admire people who can write about other individuals,” said the Dublin-born indy folk star, who will also perform at the May 31 Craic Session.
“All my stuff is autobiographical,” she said.
One of the benefits of being a songwriter, Reddy believes, is that one has “snapshots” of one’s life over the years.
“You can go back to something that you wrote 10 years ago, 8 years ago,” she said. “It’s like reading an old journal, because you don’t always recognize the person who wrote that.”
It’s a “different version” of the person.
“Even if it’s the broad theme of love, your attitude to that changes,” she said. “The way you’ve written about it changes. The way you look at it changes.
“You look back, ‘God, I was very naïve,’ but it’s also ‘how sweet!’
Ailbhe Reddy.
“You can be very harsh on yourself in the present and you go back a few years later and are a lot kinder, I find,” she said.
Reddy, whose debut North American tour in 2023 took in the major East Coast and West Coast cities as well as places like Toronto, is currently dividing her time between London and New York.
“There are a lot of great venues in New York, in Brooklyn and Queens in particular,” she said, citing for instance two in the former borough, Pete’s Candy Store and the Owl Music Parlor. “It feels like they have their own audience who come weekly no matter who’s playing. That’s something that a lot of big cities have been lacking over the last few years.
“There are loads of smaller venues [in New York] that have a lot going on every night of the week,” Reddy said. “It’s great to work with people who are super passionate about their shows.”
For Mark Geary's website, click here; for Ailbhe Reddy's click here. For more information on the Craic Session, which will also feature Brendan O'Shea, go to thecraicfest.com.
