Biography

Contact: Geoff Hansplant / 215-852-1570
geoff@geoffhansplant.com
Click here for geoffhansplant.com
Release Date: January 13, 2014
FCC Considerations: No Explicit Language

Click Here for Dirt Track Racer - Something's Gotta Give

Click Here for Dirt Track Racer - Home For Christmas

Click Here for Dirt Track Racer - Better Days

Geoff Hansplant & Dirt Track Racer’s new album, Kick Off Your Muddy Boots, reaches the listener simultaneously through the feet and ears, making a bee-line for the heart. Blending traditional forms of Americana with latin rhythms, jazz voicings, classical strings and Piedmont style guitar, Dirt Track Racer creates an irresistible groove and weaves upon it stories of loves found, lost, yearned for, mourned over and kicked to the curb. The official release date for the album is January 13, 2014, and we’d like to get the songs into your hands and ears for your consideration.

Perhaps it is the intergenerational nature of the band, or the fact that the individual members’ influences embrace so many different genres, but our sound is definitely our own. Geoff Hansplant handles most of the vocals and lays down intricate Piedmont style Country blues licks and riffs on his favorite Lowden guitar and some electric work on his old Gretsch Tennessean. Paul Deck handles all of the percussion, switching effortlessly between jazz, rock, blues, Latin and N’awlins second line styles. Nick Terramani shapes the underlying harmonies on both electric and upright bass and Julie Myers does the rest, be it jazz violin, grand piano, Hammond B3 or vocals.

Order of Songs on Kick Off Your Muddy Boots

1-Kick Off Your Muddy Boots (4:11)
Songwriter: Geoff Hansplant
Publisher/PRO: Finger Candy Publishing / ASCAP

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant: guitar and vocals
Paul Deck: drums and percussion
Nick Terramani: bass
Julie Myers: Hammond B-3

Kick Off Your Muddy Boots is the invitational track on the album, the welcome home for the world weary traveler and in a way, it is an Americana rendering of W.H. Auden's "Who's Who." In our song, the singer has no need of the wonders of the world that the traveler has seen; the wonders of the traveler, herself, the person inside, are all that he needs.

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2-Delilah (4:51)
Songwriter: Geoff Hansplant
Publisher/PRO: Finger Candy Publishing / ASCAP

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant: guitar and vocals
Paul Deck: congas and percussion
Nick Terramani: bass
Julie Myers: violin

Delilah is an obsessive love song built on the mother of all obsessive love stories.

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3-Already Gone (4:15) (Featured Track)
Songwriter: Geoff Hansplant
Publisher/PRO: Finger Candy Publishing / ASCAP

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant: guitar and vocals
Paul Deck: drums and percussion
Nick Terramani: bass
Julie Myers: violin and Hammond B-3

Already Gone is one of our very favorites from the album, a dark song about the voodoo that takes place when your heart is stolen by a new, irresistible love. To me, it feels like we have channeled something of Santana in this track, with a hypnotic drum groove and a sinewy lead guitar line.

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4-Twilight Train (5:19) (Featured Track)
Songwriter: Geoff Hansplant
Publisher/PRO: Finger Candy Publishing / ASCAP

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant: guitar and vocals
Paul Deck: drums and percussion
Nick Terramani: bass
Julie Myers: Violin and piano

Twilight Train is a song Geoff wrote for his father, just after his death. Dad's death was protracted and painful and gave us all time to get ready, but I found myself thinking about what he must be going through, emotionally, getting ready for that last, or maybe next, journey. Twilight is that time between light and dark, between life and death, the moment where we transition to the next stage of being. Perhaps the most moving song I have written to date.

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5--Bucket Full of Rain (4:05) (Featured Track)
Songwriter: Geoff Hansplant
Publisher/PRO: Finger Candy Publishing / ASCAP

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant: guitars and vocals
Paul Deck: drums and percussion
Nick Terramani: bass
Julie Myers: Hammond B-3

Bucket Full of Rain spent two weeks at #2 on the Roots charts in February 2014, and is a reflection on the heartaches we accumulate and carry through a lifetime. What keeps us moving? The hope that the next day, the next love, the next opportunity, will be better. We triple tracked the guitars on this track, with acoustic rhythm and electric slide and electric lead guitar. I love the way they all blended together. And Julie's B-3 provides the perfect underpinning.

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6-Dead Man's Shoes (4:01)
Songwriter: Geoff Hansplant
Publisher/PRO: Finger Candy Publishing / ASCAP

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant: guitar and vocals
Paul Deck: drums and percussion
Nick Terramani: bass
Julie Myers: violin

Dead Man's Shoes kicks in with that distinctive N'Awlins second line groove and never lets up. Julie's violin teases the vocal and the guitar drives the pocket. Lyrically, I can't really say where this one came from. I remember thinking about my father and how I was now walking in the "shoes" he left for me, and it somehow got twisted up into a quirky love song (don't they all?).

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7-Eliza Jane (5:46) (Featured Track)
Songwriter: Geoff Hansplant
Publisher/PRO: Finger Candy Publishing / ASCAP

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant: guitar and vocals
Paul Deck: drums and percussion
Nick Terramani: bass
Julie Myers: violin and backing vocals

Eliza Jane may well be the finest song I have ever or will ever write. It is my love song to the mystery that is all women. Try as we might, no man will ever truly understand a woman, and anyone who says he does is a stone liar (I'll meet you, out back!). And that, my friends, is the beauty of all women. In the end, they are the unknowable, the infinite, the beginning and the end.

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8-Rain In My Coffee (5:52)
Songwriter: Geoff Hansplant
Publisher/PRO: Finger Candy Publishing / ASCAP

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant: guitar and vocals
Paul Deck: drums and percussion
Nick Terramani: bass
Julie Myers: piano and backing vocals

Rain In My Coffee started as a kind of writing exercise. It occurred to me that in this era of singer songwriters, we have become accustomed to accepting their songs as the truth. Maybe not THE truth, but at least their truth. And I wondered, what if a song was written where everything was a lie, a lie that the singer needed to live, just to carry on? So, I started from that premise, that each line was a lie, and I found that I had no idea what the song was about, until it was finished. And then I saw that it was a kind of ghost story, of someone living with the ghost or memory of someone long gone. I love Julie's "ghost" vocal on this one.

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9-Traces of Caroline (6:22)
Songwriter: Geoff Hansplant
Publisher/PRO: Finger Candy Publishing / ASCAP

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant: guitar and vocals
Paul Deck: drums and percussion
Nick Terramani: bass
Julie Myers: Hammond B-3 and backing vocals

Traces of Caroline is a straight up blues in something like a Ray Charles vein, complete with Julie as the Rayettes. Paul's brushwork on the drums and Nick's upright bass draw out the smoky jazz club atmosphere, while the lyric depicts the lost love for whom the singer is Jonesing, like an addict in need of a fix. I love the guitar solo on this, set against that B-3 and jazz backing.

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10-I Ain't Sayin' (4:06)
Songwriter: Geoff Hansplant
Publisher/PRO: Finger Candy Publishing / ASCAP

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant: guitar and vocals
Paul Deck: drums and percussion
Nick Terramani: bass
Julie Myers: Hammond B-3

I Ain't Sayin' is based on a true story. I have an ex who used to call me at two or three in the morning, "just to say hello" and see how I was doing. Ultimately, these conversations wound up going over well-worn paths, and whose fault was whatever. In hindsight, it was a little bit comical, though it was plenty awkward at the time. No slight to San Antonio! The story did not take place there, but it is a great name to sing (and it fits the rhyme - sometimes we have to make artistic concessions!). "You can't go back, you can't go home, you can't step in the same stream twice. There's just this moment, and then it's gone. The only thing that seems to last, is paying the price." - I am proud of that one.

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11-Fool Enough To Fall In Love (4:23)
Songwriter: Geoff Hansplant
Publisher/PRO: Finger Candy Publishing / ASCAP

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant: guitars and vocals
Paul Deck: drums and percussion
Nick Terramani: bass
Julie Myers: piano

Fool Enough To Fall In Love was written for a dear friend, who was going through a hard time in her own love life. Sometimes, writing songs from the viewpoint of others is a lot easier. You tend to streamline the issue, cut out the extraneous details that you either don't know, or don't stumble over. We fall in love, get our hearts broken, curse our foolishness, and then turn around and do it all over again. Such is being human.

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12-From This Moment On (4:13) (Featured Track)
Songwriter: Geoff Hansplant and Julie Myers
Publisher/PRO: Finger Candy Publishing / ASCAP

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant: guitar and vocals
Paul Deck: drums and percussion
Nick Terramani: bass
Julie Myers: Hammond B-3, violin and vocals

From This Moment On is a song out of my dim dark past, written in the 1990's, and resurrected for this album. Julie helped me sort out the pieces and tighten it all up, and provided the great second vocal. I always like to end an album on a hopeful concept, as hope is often all we have. I like to think I hear elements of Justin Hayward's writing here. When we fall in love, and know that it is right, it creates a point of departure for us, from which nothing will ever be quite the same. I also always love the chance to play some electric lead guitar.

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13-Home For Christmas (4:35)
Songwriter: Geoff Hansplant and Julie Myers
Publisher/PRO: Finger Candy Publishing / ASCAP

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant: guitar and vocals
Paul Deck: drums and percussion
Nick Terramani: bass
Julie Myers: violin and vocals

Julie and I decided to put a bonus track on the album and wanted to create a seasonal Christmas song something in the vein of the great jazz standards from the 1940's. Of course, my natural proclivity is to lean toward a bossa groove, so the song feels a bit more like the late 1950's, early 1960's and Stan Getz and Astrid Gilberto. Paul lays down a rock steady beat, and the guitar solo flows just right. And for anyone wondering about the line regarding watching the roaring fire on our TV, back in the 1960s and 70s, WPIX channel 11 in New York used to cancel all programming on Christmas Day and show a yule log in the fireplace all day. In so many New York homes, where there were no fireplaces, they decorated around the TV as though it was the mantle piece around the fireplace.

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We're glad to have you for spend some time with Dirt Track Racer, getting to know us and our music. We hope you’ll agree that this ain’t yer old man’s Americana. We sweat the details musically and lyrically and the results speak for themselves. This is music to move your body and move your mind.

So, from Geoff, Julie, Paul and Nick, thank you for listening to our work. We hope you'll find a home for it in your playlists.

Here is a review of the album, from INsite Entertainment Magazine (Atlanta):

GEOFF HANSPLANT & DIRT TRACK RACER

Kick Off Your Muddy Boots (Twilight Tango)

Americana with a much-needed twist. 


LVS Granted, Geoff Hansplant isn’t a household name yet. But, with the aid of his band Dirt Track Racer, the Philadelphia-based singer-songwriter takes traditional forms of Americana and adds delicious Latin rhythms, tricky jazz and classical flavors, narrating the ups and downs of the human condition. As expected, Hansplant is up front with his vocals and Piedmont-injected guitar, with Julie Myers adding violin, piano, organ and vocals. The result is a much-needed fresh take on the musty mountain that is Americana. Opening with the title track, an irresistible rocker, the set includes a number of worthwhile highlights. The bare-bones, primitive desires of “Delilah” mesh well with the spicy percussion that punctuates the plaintive blues grind of “Already Gone.” The true centerpiece of the set, the effervescent “Bucket Full of Rain,” delivers Americana with a funky, Stax-tinged swagger. Hansplant, like many artists before him, seems determined to detail the many moods of love. And with “Eliza Jane” and “From This Moment On,” he tackles two very different sides of that often-confounding emotion, deftly expressing the mercurial joys of the pursuit. Overall, it’s a very solid debut.