petecourtney.com

The Mullingar-based maestro has a habit of leaving audiences spellbound as he weaves his plaintive tales of hang-overs and mournful wanderings – each one suffused with a bantam kernel of hope that marks him out amongst his contemporaries.

Athlone audiences had the opportunity to hear exactly why the Irish Times called him, “a live one to remember, a guitar playing prowess up there with the best” when he performed at the popular venue last week.

Tracks from his debut album ‘One of these kids’ went hand-in-hand with new material from his forthcoming second album ‘Songs from the Holistic Museum’. Pete’s natural stage manner held his audience captive throughout and tracks such as ‘Sensible Shoes’, and ‘Fingers and Face’ were simply outstanding.

Never afraid to experiment with a different guitar effect or gadget, Pete is well known for entertaining audiences with something different at various intervals. An old radio radio and a clothes brush were used during the Athlone show at different times. His greatest achievement within this is that he never lets the gadget/effect take away from the essence of the song.

Supporting with him on the night was AIT student and Mullingar-born performer Fiachra Milner who entertained the crowd with some great originals and cover versions and new acoustic-based Athlone act My Fallen Empire.

Pete’s 2001 debut album won plaudits across the board leaving critics unanimous in their praise. The beautifully crafted debut LP lifted Pete to the very forefront of the Irish singer/songwriter scene which has been a popular source of music journalism column inches in recent years.

Over the past few years, Pete has been concentrating on developing his fanbase in countries such as France, Germany and India, picking up a little something from each country which finds its way into a verse or chorus here and there.

But with his second album scheduled for release in the first half of next year, Pete is now once again focusing his talents on Irish audiences and playing in as many new venues as possible along the way. Always an advocate of gigs in areas beyond the bigger cities, prior to his Palace performance Pete said he was looking forward to his first appearance in Athlone.

“I’ve heard of the Palace loft from a few people and I’ve had good reports,” he says. “So I’m definitely looking forward to playing my first gig in Athlone,” he said.

Despite this being his first musical sojourn to Athlone, Pete is no stranger to the region. Although a Monaghan native, Pete has been living in Mullingar for some time now and has made plans with Westmeath County Council to host a series of young musicians workshops in the county, which will be taking place in areas such as Mullingar, Athlone and Moate in the first few months of next year.

“It’s great working with kids,” he says. “They’re so energetic and enthusiastic. I’m there to try and help them to do it themselves. I wish I’d had someone there when I was there age to give them a helping hand so it’s a really positive thing. I love the whole idea of interaction, of working with different people,” he adds.

As well as gigs and workshops, Pete is also in the process of finishing his second record, which has been mainly recorded at a new studio based in Drumlish, Co. Longford.

“It’s definitely a slow process. The last album was quite organic – this one has more going on with it. There’s more production there but it’s still definitely left-of-centre.

“I suppose it’s somewhere between the last one and where I want to go with the third album,” he says. The new album, which will be titled ‘Stories from the Holistic Museum’ comes as part of a planned triptych, with the material for all three albums written already.

“The second one will be rockier with some more people involved and the third will be quite avante-garde with a lot more people involved. That’s where I want to go,” he adds.

Of his debut album, Pete says he was overwhelmed by the response from both the public and critics alike. “It kick-started my career, really. I had been at a certain level for a number of years and this changed everything.”

Having spent years playing everywhere from New York to rural Ireland, Pete is now an established artist with a successful record behind him and he has bright hopes for the future.

“It’s all about getting out there and playing, recreating awareness and creating awareness where there was none before. That’s the plan,” he adds.

It does however all make sense because for his debut album, he is doing things a little differently.

The Monaghan born, Dublin based (whisper it, apparently they’re dirty words these days) has released a record of timid charm, that manages to mix, amongst other things, an acoustic guitar and irony – who’d a thunk it? ‘Please Somebody’ delivers hints of Paul Simon, but in that simple, clarity of melody rather than the dull, coffee table monotony.

The wonderfully named ‘Sensible Shoes’ displays a voice pure and perfect enough to make you wonder if the man has ever seen a cigarette. While ‘Fingers and Face’, with vocals, guitar and a tiny touch of atmospherics is quite possibly the catchiest song you will ever hear. But it’s in the even gentler moments that Pete really excels. ‘Jesus Sweat’ is a quiet conversation of even quieter love. And ‘Kissing Stars’ is the perfect closing lullaby.

While other singer/songwriters might prove that a furrowed brow and self-importance equate to neither real passion nor honesty: Pete, with an amiable smile and sweet philosophy has delivered both.And, while he’s at it, the perfect soundtrack to those lazy, warm sunsets to come. That Pete Courtney, he’s not quite the same.

with not one, but two appearances at Witnness over the weekend.

His first, to a packed Witnness Café tent just as the Waterboys were finishing off a superb set on the main stage and as the rain began to fall, was nothing short of a triumph. Faced with one of the biggest crowds he’s ever played to, Pete took things in his stride. Since his band consisted of, eh, a teddy bear (I kid you not) for 40 minutes or so it was just Pete, his guitar and an arsenal of great songs.

Playing solo to an up-for-it festival crowd has got to be a hard task but Courtney’s natural charm and smooth tunes won them over with consummate ease. His set to savour drew mainly from his just released debut album, while stripped of their studio embellished bits and bobs, stood tall and proud. Never once did and in dedicating ‘Certified’ to a lady recently recovered from a serious car accident Pete had the crowd 100% on his side.

He opened with the largely instrumental ‘Fairy Dance’ – a piledriving acoustic toe tapper dripping with a Led Zeppelin-esque chord structure. From here on he had the crowds undivided attention. ‘Fingers and Face’ soon followed and with it he had the crowd nodding along knowingly.

As the rain fell outside he decided to add in some river effects to ‘Abide By’ which suited the occasion and the song itself, while somberly played, was one of the most moving songs heard all weekend. Then came ‘Certified’ and the set closed too soon with a stirring ‘Please Somebody’ – the opening track from his debut album and, with it’s lyrics of shaky hangovers, the perfect song for a weekend long festival.

And with its conclusion he was gone, only to reappear an hour later in the Treatment tent, a special tent set up for TV purposes in the VIP area. Here Pete played a brief 3 song set, more intense than his set in the Café stage but equally as enjoyable. ‘Kissing Stars’ stood out in particular but it was ‘Please Somebody’ that perfectly captured the mood of the weekend and further added to the feeling that Pete Courtney is a name to watch out for.

Just about.

When I meet him in Molloy’s of a wet Wednesday, Pete still has a couple of weeks to put the finishing touches on the home-recorded, self-released album before launching it in Whelan’s on April 25th. One Of These Kids.(so-called after that catchy little number from Sesame Street) will feature the profound and comic musings he has been developing over the past year.

The album is being recorded with the help of Ray Beggan of epic electronica duo Operation Seesaw.

“Ray has a very organic set-up in his bedsit, with mixing desks, computers, and lots of technical stuff that, er, he knows about.” Pete explains “He’s pretty much producing the album for me”. It has proved to be a fruitful friendship.

“Ray and I tend to stay out on the beer together, but we’re finding that the hangovers put us in the right mood to work on the album. We’re recording as close to the live sound as possible for the most part, with the emphasis on voice and guitar, although a few tracks have full sound with bass and drum machine, etc. It’s a very old and straight-forward way of recording, and we’ll keep all the little idiosyncrasies in it, you know, those moments where it’s slightly off technically-speaking, but I think that just adds something.”

Pete runs a featured singer/songwriter session in Slattery’s of Rathmines showcasing new talent every Tuesday night, but that’s just one of his enterprises. Last year, he set up his own independent music company Tonal Music under the Business Expansion Scheme. “All I had to do was register the company, knock up a three-year business plan and send it off to the Department of Arts. They said, “Very good. We approve” and gave me a certificate to show investors. I’m releasing the album under my own company name, so I’m in complete control. After the release, I should be in a good position to attract potential investors, if I need to. For the time being, I’m just concentrating on doing my own stuff, but in five years when the scheme expires, I hope to develop the company into a more mature independent label, incorporating other people in a kind of collective thing”.

Pete spent eight months plying his trade in New York.

“Initially, I was waiting tables to make money, but after a month or two I said, “To hell with this!” and played a gig in the Village. Some people saw me and said, “We like what you’re doing – come and live with us”. So I ended up living in the East Village for six months, playing loads of gigs at Arlene’s Grocery, CBGB’s Gallery and all these places”.

It was on one such occasion that he encountered the late Jeff Buckley.

“It was a singer/songwriters night in the Sidewalk Café with about eight people playing. After my set, the next guy to get up stopped me with, “Hey Irish Guy!” and we were yapping for about twenty minutes before it clicked who he was. I’d never really heard his stuff before, but I copped on when he mentioned people like Glen Hansard. He was well-oiled, but really humble and sincere. I don’t think he played much of his own stuff that night, but was jamming a sort of bluesy-jazz thing. He was ad-libbing most of it, just having fun. He was hilarious and brilliant with a great spontaneity. Unfortunately, that was only about two or three weeks before he took that famous final swim”.

Most of Courtney’s songs are light-hearted but with underlying themes of a philosophical nature. “I think they’re kind of funny and truthful. Someone said to me recently that my main thing is enlightenment. The songs are affirmations toward the more spiritual side of life, while incorporating the human side, of course. ‘Jesus’ Sweat’ off the album was written in a halfway house in New York, lying in bed. There were some very strange people there – and I’m not the most conventional meself – but it was real David Lynch territory. It’s about waiting for true love, and how you get tormented by ideas and temptations. It starts off dark and sparse, but turns into something very bright”.

After his New York experiences, Pete came back to home soil and formed the band Peaces, before going solo in 1999. Since then he has been doing solid support slots in Dublin and Mullingar, with the likes of Juliet Turner, The Handsome Family, and David Kitt.

The album launch in Whelan’s will also feature some very special musician friends as guests, including a singer/songwriter, very hot on the scene at present, who must remain anonymous due to promotional entanglements. There are more big things on the horizon for Pete Courtney and, mark my words, you’ll certainly be hearing a lot more about him this summer.

this Monaghan born, Dublin based singer/songwriter’s laid-back approach to life has made gig-going over the past few years a positively healthy experience. “I’ve noticed, at other gigs, there can be a lot of tension in the room. And personally, even if it’s a high-energy gig, I think it’s really important to feel relaxed. And I hope that comes across with me. It’s not about rock’n'roll or alienating anyone. It’s just about sitting back and listening to the song – the profundity. It should be light-hearted”.

And just to brighten your day, Pete has released an album of equally calming charms. Mixing a gentle philosophy, a sense of irony, a voice, an acoustic guitar, and the odd perfect extra: ‘One Of These Kids’ is the ideal accompaniment to your lazy summer days. And it seems that relaxed mood was more than evident during recording. “A lot of it was intentional, but then some of it was really erratic. We recorded it with the windows open – with birds singing along and doing backing vocals. And sometimes we’d to stop cos there was a siren or a car alarm. So there was just this lovely warm feeling while we were recording. It just felt really creative”.

With the British press giddy over their oh-so-catchily titled ‘New Acoustic Movement’. And our own shores littered with a fresh breed of singer/songwriter – that’s less earnest conceit and furrowed brow, and more easy charms and fragile beauty. It seems the world is paying new attention to the troubled troubadour. “They’ve always been there though. There’s an age in every decade when people get really disillusioned with what’s going on, and that’s reflected socially and in the arts. So I think, almost by necessity, people are more aware of the singer/songwriters that are around – the ones with messages aswell, it’s not all just about their own therapy”.

And the message on ‘One Of these Kids’ takes the form of a quiet, warm-hearted spirituality, that neatly side steps any tree-hugger tendencies with it’s gentle sense of humour (and perhaps a touch of his metaller kid roots). And to help Pete on this mission..a fluffy, foot-tall philosopher has been spotted sharing the stage with him – one of the centuries finest thinkers (no really), Winnie the Pooh. “Of all the things I’ve learned – magical, mystical and material – he’s a composition of the whole lot. The whole symbolism of Owl – who’s the intellect – he thinks about things too much, whereas Pooh just trusts his instincts and redeems situations, cos it’s his heart that he’s working with. It’s amazing when you read it in that light. It really sums up so much of western society. The truth it tells.it’s just about being good. And being good is really easy. It’s a manifesto for the world.And I love honey!”.

and is full of the wisdom that comes from going everywhere, letting your immediate situation fall away and figuring out what’s important from what’s left. Thus, these are friendly, summery wanderer’s songs: simple, but deceptively so.

Courtney owes less to Dylan, Drake and the usual Dublin-beloved canon than to the 1960s-born bloodline of troubadour-philosophers like Cat Stevens or Gordon Lightfoot – ‘Sensible Shoes’ and “Jesus Sweat’ are open, bittersweet and complex, with the optimism of the pure heart tempered, but not spoiled, by the clear vision of experience. And, more than once (as on “Chosen’ or the unfortunately named ‘Fairy Dance’, which is a million times more complex a creature than it sounds) his impassioned guitars and steady, fiery delivery almost recall Woodstock-era Richie Havens, albeit on a much more innocent and political scale.

A really lovely debut and no better companion for thoughtful wandering and travelling light.

and One Of These Kids – his debut album – deserves high praise.

It showcases his twin trademark talents – a stunning voice and a guitar prowess to match the best. This is an intense and intimate album with a raw, ‘live’ feel, probably helped by the fact that it was home-recorded.

The infectious opener, ‘Please Somebody’, captures well the mingled pleasure and pain of too much alcohol. The sparkling ‘Fingers and Face’ features subtle, gorgeous backing vocals from Jenny Burke. The mellow ‘Sensible Shoes’ and ‘Vociferous Consciousness Impulse’ sees David Kitt’s regular keyboardist, Paul Smith, adding some welcome background sounds to accompany Courtney’s understated guitar.

The latter is spoken – a bottom-of-the-heart plea for a Utopian world. On first listen, it calls to mind ‘When A Child Is Born’ (no kidding!) – but to his credit, Courtney steers it away from the farcical. It’s actually quite touching.

The largely instrumental ‘Fairy Dance’ is toe-tappingly delightful. ‘Kissing Stars’, which closes the nine-track album, is beautiful. Only a curmudgeon could find fault with it.

Pete Courtney has released this on his own label, Tonal Music. But without the big bucks of an industry behemoth, he may not receive the exposure he deserves. One Of These Kids celebrates simple, honest, melodic music that tugs gently at the heart-strings. It’s a commendable debut from a fine young talent with considerable promise.

Rather than wait around to be discovered by Paul McGuinness, Courtney has had the wherewithal to put out his own debut album, helped a little by such musician friends as Ray Beggan and Paul Smith.

Courtney’s songwriting is perhaps a little cosy and inoffensive, although ‘Please Somebody’, ‘Sensible Shoes’ and ‘Fingers and Face’ are well-rounded, subtly engaging tunes. ‘Fairy Dance’ and ‘Chosen’ however, wander off on winding acoustic guitar chord progressions, while ‘Vociferous Consciousness Impulse’ sounds like an aimless, New Age-y improv. At least ‘Cushingtown’ knows exactly where it’s going: down to Dublin town on a whimsical, folksy stroll.