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Couse and the Impossible/Pugwash - live review
the Spirit Store, Dundalk
Tony Clayton Lea
A value-for-money double bill is all-too-rare these days, so when you have
Ireland's most acerbic songwriter (Dave Couse) twinned with its best exponent
of power pop (Pugwash) you'd be something of a village idiot to stay at home.
Pugwash is something of a slimmed down affair tonight, with just main singer
and songwriter Thomas Walsh strumming guitar, playing songs from his two
previous albums, Almond Tea and Almanac, and previewing tracks from his new
record, Jollity.
Even without the propulsion and power surge of a band, Walsh's songs have an
identity all their own. The template is still very much mid-late Beatles, but
Walsh smartly lashes down the influences with a flurry of ropes and knots, his
own voice cutting through the 'where-did-I-hear-that-melody-from?' tunes and
forcefully tying up his material with a resonance many other bands would murder
for.
You would think that a support act would be utilised as merely a foil for the
nominal headliner, but Walsh proved otherwise with a deft display of very good
songs and extremely funny between-song-banter.
Dave Couse and The Impossible, then, had a tough act to follow, but Couse has
had more experience in the limelight than Walsh, and has far more of a serrated
edge to his music. Even now, 20 years after A House started and almost 10 years
after they finished, Couse remains a dogged, determined, often dramatic figure.
His set contains selections from the past 20 years - A House favourites such as
Kick Me Again, Jesus, Why Me?, Endless Art (a new version); solo items such as
Celebrity, and cover versions such as John Cale's I Keep a Close Watch.
Watching Couse, centre-stages, arms aloft, ranting and railing against life's
inequities, still fusing the personal with the emotional, one receives an
uncommon glimpse of someone that has refused to trade artistic integrity for
commercial acceptance. Couse's new album, from which he performs several
tracks, is called The World Should Know - and it should, of course, except that
the cynically fatalistic Couse probably couldn't give a damn if it does or not.
DAVE COUSE AND THE IMPOSSIBLE-Live review
Whelans, Dublin
IRISH INDEPENDENT
Eamon Sweeny
If there was a picture In the dictionary to illustrate perserverance, then DAVE
COUSE would certainly be a candidate. After leading the sorely underrated
alternative pop band A HOUSE between 1985 and 1997, Couse is still writing and
releasing records and playing gigs, wisely refusing to keep his arsenal of
acerbic pop songs a secret.
The fruits of these labours can be heard on the recent singles BATMAN & ROBIN
and BEAUTY IS, from THE WORLD SHOULD KNOW album.They're big and beautiful tunes
that immediately hit home on first hearing, but unfortunately have yet to
secure some richly deserved success for COUSE and the IMPOSSIBLE. While the
crowd is quite small for a Saturday, it must be reiterated that everybody here
seems intimtely familiar with DAVE's oeuvre, singing along with everyword from
late eighties classics to brand new song with gusto.
DAVE takes us back in time with A HOUSE's calling card anthem CALL ME BLUE, and
the breezy bittersweet pop of TAKE IT EASY ON ME. SMALL TALK is a corrosive
rant about chat up lines that has aged very well and is also included as a b
side on BEAUTY IS. COUSE is an amusing raconteur and entertainer, peppering his
between song banter with self depreciating jokes and even wisecracks about the
size of the crowd.
A dramatic early highlight is a stirring rendition of John Cale's I KEEP A CLOSE
WATCH that sees COUSE command centre stage, wooing us with a charming delivery.
Its a night of pleasant surprises, as SHIVERS UP MY SPINE from the second A
HOUSE album I WANT TOO MUCH receives a rare live airing. Seldom has the phrase
"send 'em home smiling" been so apt, as the crowd flies off happily into the
night, visibly enthused by COUSE and his IMPOSSIBLE cohorts.
Eamon Sweeny.
THE WORLD SHOULD KNOW-DAVE COUSE & THE IMPOSSIBLE
IRISH INDEPENDENT - 14 October 2005
John Meagher
**** (4 Stars)
A HOUSE were one of Ireland's leading bands not to make it the big time and a
sense of sadness marked their passing in 1997. Front man Dave Couse didn't fade
away though, and his second solo album proves that he's still got plenty to say
and he pens songs that most of his contemporaries can only dream of emulating.
Lead single Batman and Robin is a thrilling slab of guitar pop, an instant
sing-along with the pointed lyrics that Couse does so well. Elsewhere the
largely spoken word Celebrity puts the boot into our Big Brother/MTV Cribs
obsession, packing a brilliant punch in three minutes flat. And Stars in a
none-too-oblique attack on music journalists and their dismissive rating
system. His new band, The Impossible, are right on the money, although this -
as - Reviews
Discography
The World Should Know, 2005
Batman and Robin, single, 2005
Beauty Is, single, 2006.
entire album has received extensive radio play.
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
Dave Couse is a musician by profession. He has always wondered what exactly the function of a biography is? Do people read them, and if they do, do they believe them? With that in mind, 1969 Records hooked Dave up to the polygraph with no fear - the content is as true as his memory allows.
So, in his own words, take it away Dave!
It all started some years ago in Dublin, Ireland on the day I was stillborn. My mother's doctor worked tirelessly through the night in order to fulfil his contract with her. Thankfully he did and I'm here to tell the tale. Moving swiftly along, at the age of fourteen I began to teach myself guitar while playing along to the sound of Abba songs on my dad's friend's two track machine. The results were so exciting that my friends and I spent much of the next few years forming, disbanding and re-forming some of the best and worst bands ever.
Eventually in 1985 I started a band called A House. It only took the release of two independent singles to convince the great Geoff Travis, owner of Rough Trade to sign us to his Blanco y Negro label, which was part of the greater Warner Bros. group. Across the Atlantic we captured the imagination of one Mr. Seymour Stein and our debut album, On Our Big Fat Merry Go Round was released on Sire in the U.S. (home to Talking Heads and Madonna etc.). Our single Call Me Blue reached no. 3 in the Billboard College Charts in 1989 and was championed by radio stations across the USA from K-ROQ to WER.
A House toured the States for months with The Go-Betweens on the strength of this. It was all great and it looked like we were on our way to becoming the greatest thing on Warners since Bugs Bunny. But of course life being what it is would ensure that the next twelve years of A House would be somewhat of a bumpy but glorious ride.
Back home in Ireland and also in the UK, we went on to achieve great critical success over the release of our next four albums and enjoyed high billing at festivals like Reading, Feile and Phoenix. Some of our singles were hits and of course some were not. Sessions for John Peel's show were recorded at the BBC and the legendary man gave us great encouragement. In 1989 we up-rooted to the glamorous island location of Inishboffin off the coast of Co. Galway to record our second album I Want Too Much with acclaimed producer Mike Hedges. Soon after, we found ourselves to be no longer in the employment of Warners. This only encouraged us at a time when many of our contemporaries would have been crushed by such a thing. A House agreed to become a corner stone of the fledgling Anglo-Irish indie label Setanta in 1991.
I Am The Greatest (produced by Edwyn Collins famed for monster hit, A Girl Like You and fronting the excellent Orange Juice) resuscitated our career prospects in a big way! This owed no small thanks to the singles Endless Art and Take It Easy On Me. Soon EMI / Parlophone were smart enough to knock on our door to snap up the album and re-release it in 1992.
We followed this in spectacular style with Wide Eyed & Ignorant in 1994 and another taste of British chart success with Here Come The Good Times and Why Me?. The success of the two aforementioned albums inspired Gary Kurfurst to release them on the Radio-Active label in the US. We were whisked back for shows in New York and all along the east coast, only returning to the west coast to make a video for Strong and the Silent, released as a single in 1995.
Back in the arms of Mike Hedges, we relocated to France to record our swan song album No More Apologies in 1996. Claimed by some critics to be one of the finest albums ever made (an accusation we were willing to live with), it was unquestionably our finest creative achievement. We bade fond farewell in simple style, in the company of all those who loved us at Dublin's Olympia Theatre in May 1997. All told, the A House story is one of triumph, because survival for such a long time in the music industry must be seen to be just that.
I went off to spend some obligatory time in the wilderness, always knowing I had to come back to what I do best. On the request of the Irish soccer team, I produced a re-recording of Here Come The Good Times as their official song for the 2002 World Cup in Japan. Featuring luminaries like Aslan and Westlife, it inevitably went to Number 1 in the Irish Charts. A retrospective anthology of
In 2003 I teamed up with my extremely talented and generous friend Edwyn Collins again to record my debut solo album Genes. Heralding the end of my musical exile, we conjured up an eclectic gem of a record treading much new territory for me. The warmth of reception from the audience and critics alike soon dispelled any reservations I might have had about playing live. Edwyn and I even took our collaboration to the stage, presenting a couple of infamous Couse versus Collins bouts at The Village in Dublin. Many more gigs down the road from them I am happy to be back our there with m
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