Michael J. Sheehy

Following the demise of Fantasy City Film Club in 1999, Michael J. Sheehy quickly surfaced like a single singer/songwriter. Even though many of his U.K. contemporaries had been exploring melodic acoustic guitar rock and roll or neo-prog, Sheehy struck out in another path; his dark and frequently darkly funny, punk-spirited tracks drawing on from early American rock and roll & move, blues, gospel, and nation towards the English hymnal custom. Michael J. Sheehy was created in 1972 right into a working-class Irish Catholic home in Kentish City (North London), where pop music usage devoted to American performers like Elvis Presley, Hank Williams, Marty Robbins, and Patsy Cline. Ironically, although nation music would later on exercise a significant impact on his function, Sheehy disliked it as a kid. While Elvis continued to be a firm preferred, in his teenagers Sheehy gravitated to glam rock and roll — especially Marc Bolan and David Bowie — and American proto-punk rings just like the Stooges, as opposed to the homegrown course of 1976. Other performers to appeal to his attention had been Marvin Gaye, Tim Buckley, Tom Waits, and Nick Cave. Sheehy started performing single pub gigs in his past due teenagers and, after 3 years around the London “bathroom circuit,” he fulfilled Laurence Ash and Alex Vald, with whom he created Desire City Film Golf club. Pursuing two full-length produces (Desire City Film Golf club and In the Chilly Light of Morning hours) as well as the Stranger Blues mini-album, the group was at the idea of implosion; apathetic viewers, an indifferent music press, too little radio publicity, and inevitable monetary strain had used their toll and added to the disintegration of relationships among bandmembers. Benefiting from a brief break between your launch of Stranger Blues along with a tour to get the record, Sheehy spent fourteen days in the studio room recording his personal materials. Although he previously no immediate programs release a it — provided his commitments with DCFC — the classes offered him with a chance to work on tunes that he previously considered as well personal to record using the band. Since it proved, DCFC split around the eve of the tour and Sheehy experienced no problems reverting to his earlier identity like a single performer, obtaining it an ideal outlet for the sort of materials he was composing. Nice Blue Gene, the fruits of those fourteen days in the studio room, premiered in 2000. His tunes crossed a variety of designs: sparse hymnal ballads, reverb-laden swamp blues, and commercial soundscapes. In lyrics which were alternately arrestingly poignant and grimly funny, Sheehy trawled sordid, unpleasant, and occasionally troubling territory. The recording was a crucial achievement in Britain — in noticeable contrast to the task of the frequently maligned DCFC — and Sheehy came back to live show, including times with Tindersticks in European countries. While Sheehy euphemistically characterized the time following Nice Blue Gene like a “dropped year,” it really offered him with an abundance of materials for his 2001 follow-up; Sick Gotten Gains is usually another assortment of haunting, melancholy ballads and dirtied-up, electronically improved rock and roll & roll where, lyrically, everything will go horribly incorrect. In springtime 2002, Sheehy finished his third recording (NO MORE My Concern) and toured the U.S. with Peter Murphy.