By Martin Aston
Q Magazine | January 1995
The eponymous Geek in Lisa Germano’s haunted new album, Geek the Girl, is, her sleevenotes explain, “confused about how to be sexual and cool in the world but find out she isn’t cool and gets constantly taken advantage of sexually, gets kind of sick and enjoys giving up…”
“The album is a story, I guess, about the tragedy and humour of not knowing yourself, or following your intuition, and the situations you get in,” Germano elaborates in person. “They’re kind of funny, because they’re so tragic. But at the end, there’s a song about the fact you gotta dream about stuff, even if it’s not going to happen. Does that make sense?”
The origins of the record were a couple of months in 1993. “I was between labels, and I started writing without even thinking of making a record. When you don’t think anyone will hear your stuff, you really get down to some deeper stuff.”
The labels in question were Capitol and 4AD—Germano was miserable with the former, then rescued by the latter, which remixes and re-released 1993’s debut album, Happiness, to substantial acclaim. “I fought so much at Capitol, like they wouldn’t let me have a mandolin on songs, or the track sequence I wanted, which should be completely the artist’s decision,” she shudders to recall. “It was so important with the new album to remember what you do and enjoy, and not having anyone tell you what you can or can’t do.”
Once a frustrated session violinist in the services of John (then Cougar) Mellencamp, it was after a particularly under-employed stint with Simple Minds that she took the solo plunge: “I wanted to finish my own songs. I had lots of unfinished once, which is a good way to stay stuck, to keep telling people you’re still working on them.”
John Mellencamp is apparently proud as punch of his ex-fidder. “When I first joined his band, I was a complete victim-type person, very much a baby,” Lisa laughs, because she can afford to now, “and they brought me up. I learned then that nobody is going to baby you.”
A geek no longer.
Featured Image: Lisa Germano (Photo: Andrew Catlin)
