Name | A House |
---|---|
Background | group_or_band |
Origin | Dublin, Ireland |
Genre | Alternative RockIndie Rock |
Years active | 1985–1997 |
Label | Blanco Y NegroParlophoneMCA RecordsSetanta RecordsSire Records |
Associated acts | Last ChanceDave CouseCouse and The ImpossibleLokomotivAV8 (a.k.a. Sweet Hereafter)Pony Club |
Past members | Dave CouseFergal BunburyMartin HealyDave DawsonDavid MorrisseySusan KavanaghDermot Wylie |
Notable instruments | }} |
A House was an Irish band from the 1980s to the 1990s, recognized for the clever, "often bitter or irony laden lyrics of [frontman] Dave Couse ... bolstered by the [band's] seemingly effortless musicality". The single "Endless Art" is one of their best known charting successes.
The earliest recorded appearance for the band seems to have been on a charity compilation called Blackrock Youth Aid '85, put together at Newpark School. This was followed by tracks on two live compilations: A House contributed a song whose very title is representative of the band's early spirit, "On Your Bike Wench, and Let's Have the Back of You", to the EP Live at the Underground (1986), recorded in September 1985 (and only available) in The Underground club in Dublin, and featuring other contemporary up and coming bands such as Something Happens and The Stars of Heaven; the Street Carnival Rock EP (1987) includes songs recorded as Dave Fanning sessions, and finds A House, performing a song called "What A Nice Evening To Take The Girls Up The Mountains", alongside other young Irish bands including The Golden Horde.
These beginnings were followed up by two self-released singles, "Kick Me Again Jesus" and "Snowball Down". A House released these on a label given the name "RIP Records".
A promo version of "Call Me Blue" for the US tour included a track labelled "Some Intense Irish Brogue" which was a short interview with the band. Even in Ireland, however, some listeners found Couse's "yelp of a voice" not quite suited to the slightly quirky but basically mainstream rock style of Merry-Go-Round. Perhaps the band had this in mind when, after that first major tour, they went back to Ireland, and wrote and recorded the album I Want Too Much in 1988 on the small Irish island of Inishboffin. Observant critics had noted that On Our Big Fat Merry-Go-Round's title reflected a track list that developed a cartoonish sense of threat (with titles like "I Want to Kill Something", "Watch Out You're Dead", "Don't Ever Think You're Different", "Stone the Crows", and "Violent Love"). I Want Too Much was a move to maturity, with Couse's lyrical concerns becoming deeper, reflecting abilities both to look outwards and to introspect. The music too had developed, sounding far less like it wanted to sound like a rock band, and rather working with and enhancing Couse's unorthodox voice and phrasing, such that the album saw A House developing its own persona, although they would never lose their catchy side. The response of the press was good, but record sales were poor, and Blanco y Negro decided to drop the band. Eventually they were picked up by Setanta, a London-based independent label tending to focus on Irish acts.
Dermot Wylie also quit the band in this period, to be replaced by Dave Dawson.
"Endless Art" had also benefitted from an accompanying video using clever stop motion animation which gained significant airplay on MTV in Europe, but again due to the bad timing with the song's distribution, the video seemed to be everywhere but the record was not selling. Nevertheless, "Endless Art" became A House's signature, replacing "Call Me Blue" as the song everyone associated with them. The video was memorable, and the song itself – somewhat unusual in its musical approach, and even more so in its lyrics, which led off with a quotation from Oscar Wilde and ran through an extensive roster of famous artists from various fields, all dead, with years of births and deaths specified – stabilized the band as a cult favorite among indie lovers, and is the paradigm of the surprisingly successful "list" style of song which Couse has frequently used (the first example of this style had been the title track on I Want Too Much).
At the time, however, the band had run into criticism because all the artists mentioned in the original "Bingo" release of the song were men. Despite the facetious excuse that they thought Joan Miró was a woman, they tried to make amends by making available a second version of the song, called "More Endless Art", which lists only women artists, as the B-Side of the single version. Controversy aside, "Endless Art" is frequently featured on representative compilations of Irish rock and pop music. The 12" single included two other tracks, "Freak Show" and "Charity" which had been recorded for the band's second John Peel Session very early in 1992.
Lyrically, the songs on the record addressed themes running from satire of societal and religious pieties, through excruciating examinations of personal fears, to the title track, on which the three core band members ruminate in spoken word fashion on their lives, their regrets, their jealousies, and the state of music in the 1990s. The cover artwork was by Irish photographer Amelia Stein, and a second single from the album, "Take It Easy On Me" (1992), was also released.
Others have more definite views. In 2008 the Irish Times rock critics voted I Am the Greatest the third best Irish album of all time (jointly with Ghostown by The Radiators From Space), behind only Loveless by My Bloody Valentine and Achtung Baby by U2.
Martin Healy also took on a couple of different projects. He formed the electro-rock band Petrol with French musician Julie Peel, although they didn't get very far; nonetheless, this was Peel's first entry into music, and she enjoyed working with someone who was "kind of famous" in Ireland, although they, "never actually played a gig - only did studio work and rehearsed". A more substantial effort was known as AV8 (sometimes "Aviate"). This began in 1998 when Healy and Niamh McDonald began a writing and performing partnership, to be joined about a year later by French guitarist Morgan Pincot. AV8 recorded an album called Tremor, and was still a going concern in 2002, albeit with a name change to "Sweet Hereafter", but may now be defunct as Healy, with David Morrissey, is currently part of Mark Cullen's Pony Club. Four tracks from Tremor (Fireside / Push / Now and Forever / Never Knew What Luck Was) have been available for streaming and/or download on AV8's website.
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Category:Musical groups established in 1985 Category:Musical groups disestablished in 1997 Category:Irish alternative rock groups Category:Parlophone artists Category:Sire Records artists Category:MCA Records artists Category:Music from Dublin (city)
it:A HouseThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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