Geneva are a Scottish
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
band formed in
Aberdeen
Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...
in 1992.
The group enjoyed moderate chart success but split after the release of their second album. They reformed in 2018, minus guitarist Stuart Evans, in preparation for a live tour in 2019.
Career
The band were formed in 1992 by vocalist
Andrew Montgomery and guitarist Steven Dora. They recruited second guitarist Stuart Evans, bass player Keith Graham and finally drummer Craig Brown. Craig was later replaced by Douglas Caskie. Originally the band were called Sunfish.
One of their
demos
Demos may refer to:
Computing
* DEMOS, a Soviet Unix-like operating system
* DEMOS (ISP), the first internet service provider in the USSR
* Demos Commander, an Orthodox File Manager for Unix-like systems
* plural for Demo (computer programming)
...
found their way to
Suede
Suede (pronounced ) is a type of leather with a fuzzy, napped finish, commonly used for jackets, shoes, fabrics, purses, furniture, and other items. The term comes from the French , which literally means "gloves from Sweden". The term was fir ...
’s
record label
A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...
,
Nude
Nudity is the state of being in which a human is without clothing.
The loss of body hair was one of the physical characteristics that marked the biological evolution of modern humans from their hominin ancestors. Adaptations related to h ...
, who signed the band in 1996. The band changed their name, originally to Garland, then later to Geneva, and released their debut
single
Single may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Single (music), a song release
Songs
* "Single" (Natasha Bedingfield song), 2004
* "Single" (New Kids on the Block and Ne-Yo song), 2008
* "Single" (William Wei song), 2016
* "Single", by ...
"No One Speaks" the same year. The band garnered enough press to headline ''
NME
''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...
s annual Bratbus
tour
Tour or Tours may refer to:
Travel
* Tourism, travel for pleasure
* Tour of duty, a period of time spent in military service
* Campus tour, a journey through a college or university's campus
* Guided tour, a journey through a location, directed ...
of up and coming bands in early 1997. The band released second single "Into the Blue" to coincide with the tour.
Musical style
The band fitted well with the current musical scene and were well promoted by the UK music press of the time. As a reaction to the fading
Britpop
Britpop was a mid-1990s British-based music culture movement that emphasised Britishness. It produced brighter, catchier alternative rock, partly in reaction to the popularity of the darker lyrical themes of the US-led grunge music and to the ...
scene many bands rejected the laddish ideals of bands like
Oasis
In ecology, an oasis (; ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment'ksar''with its surrounding feeding source, the palm grove, within a relational and circulatory nomadic system.”
The location of oases has been of critical imp ...
and wrote darker, more intelligent songs, in the vein of contemporaries such as
Gene
In biology, the word gene (from , ; "...Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a ba ...
and
Strangelove. Montgomery's relatively high-pitched vocals were often compared to Suede's
Brett Anderson
Brett Lewis Anderson (born 29 September 1967) is an English singer best known as the lead vocalist and primary lyricist of the band Suede. After Suede disbanded in 2003, he fronted The Tears with former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler in 2004-2 ...
.
Albums
Geneva released their debut
album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...
, ''Further'', early in June 1997. The album mixed
power pop
Power pop (also typeset as powerpop) is a form of pop rock based on the early music of bands such as the Who, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Byrds. It typically incorporates melodic hooks, vocal harmonies, an energetic performance, and ch ...
with darker brooding songs. It reached No. 20 in the
UK Albums Chart
The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...
, and included amongst others the ''
NME
''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...
'' voted "Single of the Year", "Tranquilizer", plus "Best Regrets", "No One Speaks" and "Into the Blue".
All four singles from the album reached the UK Top 40.
The second album, ''Weather Underground'', was released in March 2000, after more than a year of wrangling with the band's record label. It was preceded by the single "Dollars in the Heavens" (which only made the UK Top 60) and followed by the single "If You Have To Go". The band split later that year.
Current whereabouts
Following the breakup of Geneva, Evans and Graham formed 69CORP and released an album, ''Our Present to the Future'' in 2005, although 69CORP now consists of just Graham.
Andrew Montgomery embarked on a number of musical collaborations, most notably with American composer
Ben Neill and
Leeds
Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...
electronica guru
Overseer
Overseer may refer to:
Professions
* Supervisor or superintendent; one who keeps watch over and directs the work of others
*Plantation overseer, often in the context of forced labor or slavery
*Overseer of the poor, an official who administered re ...
. Montgomery formed a band called Amityville with guitarist Stuart Peck and drummer David Bevis; they released the ''Pacific Radio Fire'' EP in 2004 to critical acclaim - a limited release, it quickly sold out. Amityville broke up in late 2005 and Montgomery formed a
duo with Keris Howard called St Famous. In March 2009 Montgomery announced on the band's Myspace page that Keris Howard had decided to leave the band and St Famous disbanded.
Montgomery appeared in th
"Identity Parade"in series 22 (2008) of the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
''.
Montgomery announced in July 2014 that his début solo album, "Ruled By Dreams" would receive a worldwide release on 5 October 2014, supported with a UK tour. The album is slated to feature
. Andrew then went on to join an electronic duo called Unify Separate (Us) for a few songs and a tour. As of 2018 they have reunited for the Star Shaped Festival tour and have teased they may be releasing new music.