June 9, 2002 - Personal Web Site: Musician Mark Sheehy taught English in Moldova with the Peace Corps

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Moldova: Peace Corps Moldova : The Peace Corps in Moldova: June 9, 2002 - Personal Web Site: Musician Mark Sheehy taught English in Moldova with the Peace Corps

By Admin1 (admin) (pool-151-196-48-41.balt.east.verizon.net - 151.196.48.41) on Monday, October 06, 2003 - 12:12 pm: Edit Post

Musician Mark Sheehy taught English in Moldova with the Peace Corps



Musician Mark Sheehy taught English in Moldova with the Peace Corps

BIRTH

I was conceived during the first fervid, sweaty months of the Johnson administration and born into an American landscape swept by Beatlemania. The oldest son of a nurse and a truck driver, my grandmother used to play the harmonica and an uncle danced the jig.

SCHOOL

Dominican nuns, Christian Brothers, Benedictine monks and Jesuit priests‹on the road from K to BA, I've been educated by all of them. Weird and bookish in the days before children could easily obtain weapons and recipes for explosives over the internet, I started listening to the Kinks and the Rolling Stones when all the other kids were getting into Kiss and Rush and Foghat. I picked up the guitar in high school and started a couple blues and British Invasion bands. Those evolved into college punk bands, four issues of a smart-ass literary magazine (Yeah, everybody's David Eggers), and an invitation to join the National Jesuit Honor Society. (Those wacky Jesuits.)

WORK

A job in a record store. Beer. A roots-rock band called the Sapphires that once played in front of an audience consisting entirely of Doug Sahm and four drunk coeds. Beer. A job at the Chicago Board of Trade. Beer. A grunge rock band called Scarecrow. Beer. Two years teaching English in Moldova with the Peace Corps. Wine (the beer sucked). A bike trip from Warsaw to Varna. Beer/Wine/Slivovice. Six trips to Bosnia to train election supervisors. More slivo. A country band called J-200 that was once called Offal. A wife. Slightly less beer. Three gigs as the only member of Red Star Belgrade that had ever been to Belgrade. Solo CD release. A living room gig with David Olney. Endless scrabbling for the attention of the world at large.

DEATH

Working on it. If you get there first, order me a pint of the IPA. I'll get the next round.


Crooked Pictures" is full of haunting images and lovely melodies. Sheehy's dark baritone voice is perfectly suited to material as diverse as the country-ish opener "Leaves Without Knowing" and the spare "I Know." And Sheehy really shines as a lyricist, with his closer "Five Believers" exemplifying his mixture of humor and pathos about life's changes.
-- Dan Kening, The Chicago Tribune's Metromix

Read the whole review at Metromix


Heartland songsmith Mark Sheehy's first solo CD, Crooked Pictures, is full of haunted houses and lonely roads evoked by finger plucked guitar and skirling organ. It's a well-crafted, eloquent, and heartfelt contribution to singer-songwriter rock in these parts.
-- Monica Kendrick, The Chicago Reader


Playing hard-hitting songs for hard-hit people, Sheehy's music bears a heavy load of frustrations and shattered dreams. Whether he's imparting his experiences with simple guitar or off-center, almost jazzy arrangements, his songs cut to the quick.
-- Chad Driscoll, listen.com

Sheehy's a treat, with a groggy voice reminiscent of John Gorka or Gordon Lightfoot and songwriting that ranges from classic Johnny Cash-style country to modern "he's-his-own-thing" indie-folk. If you live near Chicago, his live performances are always energetic and worth catching.
-- Kevin Grandfield, Indie Reviews

Sheehy's lines reveal a capacity for some pretty evocative storytelling, and his stolid, masculine vocals are well suited to his rustic, everyday-life lyrics, and can be endearing, especially when he starts singing "bum bum bum's" like some cross between Will Rogers and Michael Stipe.
-- Darryl Cater, chicagogigs.com

Mark Sheehy is a folk-rock everyman who writes and records songs practically dripping with life experience. You can feel a lifetime of hard knocks and lessons learned coming through in his performances. -- David Joost, Home Pride Productions
Read the whole review at Home Pride Productions


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Story Source: Personal Web Site

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Moldova; Music

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