Geoff Farina is probably best known for the abstract lyrics and genre-flouting guitar style he developed over the past 12 years with his band Karate, or as one-half of The Secret Stars, the seminal early-90s duo that passed around home-made cassettes of songs now covered by the likes of Ida and Death Cab for Cutie. More recently Geoff has recorded music for National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation, composed and performed original film music for Cinamazero's annual Schermo Sonoro festival in Pordenone Italy, and is currently part of the Roman punk/folk group called Arde Core, or "Burning Heart," a theme taken from one of the traditional Roman folk songs they perform. He has collaborated with Chris Brokaw (Codeine, Come, The New Year), Nathan McBride (Pandelis Karayorgis, Free Music Ensemble), Josh Larue (Him, the Sorts), Dan Littleton (Ida, the Hated), Luther Gray (Joe Morris Trio), Rebecca Gates (Spinanes), performance artist Jed Speare, dancer Alissa Cardone, and many others over the past decade. Geoff has also released a number of recordings under his own name, including Usonian Dream Sequence (1997) and Reverse Eclipse (2000), and when time permits he enjoys taking his guitar on the road and performing his sparse guitar-and-vocal arrangements for those kind enough to lend an ear.

When he's not playing, Geoff enjoys writing about guitars and guitar-related hardware for Tape Op magazine, and his early articles were recently anthologized in Tape Op: The Book about Creative Music Recording. With fellow Secret Star Jodi Buonanno, Geoff puts his spare time into the ongoing renovation of the Narragansett Grange Hall, a historic public building in Rhode Island the two purchased and converted into studio and living space. Geoff and Jodi have provided inexpensive living and studio space to an annual artist-in-residence who needs these resources to persue a specific project. Past residencies include photographers Patrick Graham and Melanie Standage, and visual artists Ron Rege and Ida Pearle.