Dream City Film Club were an English,

North London North London is the northern part of London, England, north of the River Thames. It extends from Clerkenwell and Finsbury, on the edge of the City of London financial district, to Greater London's boundary with Hertfordshire. The term ''nort ...

-based rock band, founded in July 1995. Their sound was difficult to categorize in that it encompassed tortured lovelorn balladry,

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

flourishes,

Tin Pan Alley Tin Pan Alley was a collection of music publishers and songwriters in New York City that dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It originally referred to a specific place: West 28th Street ...

, straightforward

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

and

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

yearnings in both lyrics and subject matter. Ultimately, Dream City Film Club failed to find enough of an audience to sustain them. Vocalist Michael J. Sheehy had been working as a solo singer/songwriter for several years when he met Alex Vald and Laurence Ash, who quickly began writing songs with Sheehy. Upon the demise of another local group, ''Breed'', bassist Andrew Park joined. The band's name came from a news story Sheehy had seen about an arsonist who had burned down a members-only porno theatre. They played their first gig as Dream City Film Club on 31 July 1995. They released a single, "Crawl" for the underground fanzine, ''the Organ'' in early 1996. Soon after, they were contacted by

Beggar's Banquet ''Beggars Banquet'' is the 7th British and 9th American studio album by the English rock band the Rolling Stones, released on 6 December 1968 by Decca Records in the United Kingdom and London Records in the United States. It was the first ...

and recorded their eponymous debut album in late 1996, later releasing it on 26 May 1997. According to Sheehy, the English press reaction to the first single, "Perfect Piece of Trash", was almost unanimous in its derision. After parting with Vald, DCFC continued on as a three piece, recording its second and final album, ''In the Cold Light of Morning'' featuring a more expansive sound best realized on the epic "God Will Punish the Pervert Preacher". The group disbanded in 1999. Michael J. Sheehy subsequently recorded three solo albums for Beggar's Banquet and two for

Glitterhouse Glitterhouse Records is a German independent record label and mail order company based in Beverungen, North Rhine-Westphalia. It was founded in the mid-1980s. From the late 1980s until the mid-1990s it was the European branch of the American la ...

, and has fronted Saint Silas Intercession with his brother Patrick. During the early 2000s, Alex Vald worked as half of experimental pop band Datapuddle. In 2015, Sheehy and Vald reunited as the pop-noir duo United Sound of Joy. In a retrospective biography of the group,

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

called them "one of England's most underrated bands of the 1990s."Dream City Film Club biography
at Allmusic

Line-up

*Michael J. Sheehy - vocals, guitars, keyboards *Andrew Park - bass guitar, keyboards, guitars *Laurence Ash - Drums, percussion *Alex Vald - guitar (until 1997) *Patrick McCarthy - guitar (1997-1999)

Discography

*''Dream City Film Club'' (Beggar's Banquet, 1997) *''In the Cold Light of Morning'' (Beggar's Banquet, 1999) *''Stranger Blues EP'' (Beggar's Banquet, 1999) Michael J. Sheehy solo albums: *''Sweet Blue Gene'' (Beggar's Banquet, 2000) *''Ill Gotten Gains'' (Beggar's Banquet, 2001) *''No Longer My Concern'' (Beggar's Banquet, 2002) *''Ghost On The Motorway'' (Glitterhouse, 2007) *''With These Hands: The Rise and Fall of Francis Delaney'' (Glitterhouse, 2009)

References

External links

{{Authority control English rock music groups