MP3 Trains Across the Sea - Greetings From The Peach District

Halfway between Kerouac and NASCAR.

6 MP3 Songs in this album (17:02) !
Related styles: FOLK: Folk Pop, COUNTRY: Americana

People who are interested in Bob Dylan The Magnetic Fields Jens Lekman should consider this download.


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Article in The Other Paper:

Comfest performer is out to redefine 'making it'

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By Eric Lyttle
Published: Thursday, June 25, 2009 9:08 AM EDT

Andy Gallagher gave up his day job to give his music a chance. Certainly, that doesnât make Gallagher uniqueâplenty of musicians have done the same.


Gallagher, however, wasnât just flipping burgers at the local greasy spoon. After graduating from Ohio State in December 2006 with a degree in material science engineering, Gallagher landed a lucrative job inspecting gas and oil pipelines.


âUgh. Do we really have to get into all of this,â Gallagher bemoaned. âThe idea of an engineer playing music just sounds atrocious.â


To Gallagher, though, the idea of a musician becoming an engineer sounded even worseâat this point in his life, at least.


âEvery time Iâd hear or read about someone doing something successful with their band, it would always get to me,â Gallagher said. âIâd think, âMan, if I was not locked in here for 45 hours a week, I know I could do that, too.ââ


What Gallagher really wanted was to be a musician playing music. So in February, he âretiredâ in an attempt to discoverâas he explains on his website, trainsacrossthesea.comââwhat happens when you trade the job of their dreams for the life of yours?â


Since then, Gallagher said, heâs been treating his music as a fulltime job. Heâs found a handful of regular players to accompany him, built a website and released six new songs, which hit the web in May. The songs subsequently were collected in a CD, titled Greetings From the Peach District, that was released this week.


Heâs performed locally at Bernieâs Bagels, at Larryâs (until it closed) and at the Short North Gallery Hop under the moniker Trains Across the Sea. The name, he says, comes from the second track off the Silver Jewsâ first album.


âThereâs plenty of other heady made-up shit about what it really meansâas though everything that exists in a band has to exist on multiple planes and be way deepâbut I made that all up after just picking the name because I liked that song and those words so much,â said Gallagher.


The next step in Gallagherâs quest to become a serious musician comes Friday night, when Trains Across the Sea makes its Comfest debut at 10:20 p.m.âthe headlining slotâon the Solar Stage.


Trains Across the Sea will perform at 10:20 p.m. Friday on Comfestâs Solar Stage.


âThis is the next level,â said Gallagher. âItâs not telling your friends, âCome to our show.â This is 150 bands, more or less, and thousands of people watching.â


Getting into Comfest is no easy task for a band, and many might envy the fact that Gallagher accomplished it on his first try. Even so, he downplayed the competitive aspect of the situation.


âThere really arenât any losers, there are just more defined winners,â he said. âAnd for the bands that are in, now weâre all on the same page. Now we simply have to put on a better show than anyone else on that day. And I like that.â


In an age when MySpace and Facebook and digital technology make recording and distributing music to the masses easier than itâs ever been, Gallagher said, the world has become smaller, not largerâwhich is the very essence of Comfest.


âWith more music, we have more opportunity to support local music,â Gallagher said. âEverything just goes hyper-local, creating a better sense of community. I want to be a part of this local music community. Imagineâwhat if you knew everyone on your iPod?â


As for his own decision to set aside a lucrative career for his music, Gallagher said, âWe just have to redefine what âmaking itâ means.â


âWhen people ask, âWhat do you do?â it means, basically, âWhat services do you trade for money?â All I want to do is wake up and play music. If it ends up feeding me and paying the rent, and Iâm living by my own terms, Iâm happy (doing) it for as long as I can.â

(URL: http://www.theotherpaper.com/articles/2009/06/25/music/doc4a43761b1ea61255848156.txt)