You won't see Thomas Walsh's Pugwash traipsing around the country any time soon. Alas, the Irish public just doesn't seem to get the talented songsmith's classic Beatles- and XTC-inflected power pop, writes Tony Clayton-Lea.
IT NEVER FAILS to amaze - the musicians with the most talent and the best songs tend to get shoved aside in favour of the kind of people who could advertise hair gel for the rest of their lives. While X Factor types preen and pose, pout and drool, and interpret other people's material with as much expertise as a 10-year-old tiling a swimming pool, the real musicians sit back and wonder why they didn't pay attention at school instead of dreaming about being a rock star.
Thomas Walsh could well be one of those former schoolboys; you can imagine him sitting in class doodling band logos on his maths copybook, looking out the window with an ELO tune in his head (Mr Blue Sky, perhaps) and waiting for the class bell to ring because it reminds him of an Alice Cooper song. Walsh has been around in some shape or form for over 10 years; prior to going solo under the umbrella title of Pugwash, he was working at the coalface of the live music scene, sessioning for one act, touring for another, and generally making himself useful to anyone who would care to employ him for a few weeks at a time.
Pugwash's debut in 1999, Almond Tea, set out his peculiarly Anglophiliac stall; here was a guy who was spoiling himself by playing the kind of music he loved, and not the kind that might get him radio air play; here was a bloke who dared to think he might one day perform and write with his musical heroes; here was a geezer who had a vision so tunnelled it could barely see around corners.
Other albums followed - 2002's Almanac, 2003's And By Jove They Did and 2005's Jollity. Each one was better than the previous, each one highlighted Walsh's obsession with Britpop style and design (album covers veered from disturbed psychedelia to antiquated Python-esque collages), and each one died a relatively miserable death at the hands of the Irish public - who, at best, hummed along to some of Walsh's highly memorable tunes (whenever they heard them on the radio) and who, at worst, wondered why a guy who could effortlessly fill an XXL T-shirt would want to reference the likes of classic Beatles and obscure XTC.
The Irish public just didn't get it, which is the reason why you won't be seeing Pugwash traipse up and around and across the country any time soon. Walsh shakes his head when the topic of gigging is mentioned.
"What is the sense of touring in Ireland if you're Pugwash?" You get the feeling that this question is something that Walsh has asked himself several times. "People say you have to get out there to bring up the fanbase, but I think that's a total joke because - for what I do, which is unlike what, for example, Mundy or Paddy Casey does - you cannot badger people to come to your gigs. Mundy and Casey sell records and people will definitely come to their gigs - they're kind of troubadours or bards, more in the classic tradition of Irish music. For the most part, people will not come to see me doing my Beatles-esque pop of a windy, cold rainy night. That's a fact of life, I'm afraid. I remember touring with bands like Hal and Relish - both of whom were on major labels at the time - and seeing them play loads of gigs to about a dozen people. Embarrassing . . . " What about solo gigs? Surely the one-man-and-a-guitar approach could reap moderate dividends? "I've done it too much to get a buzz out of doing a whole batch of them. That said, it's a way to get the music out there. Singer-songwriter nights? You go in there knowing things are bad and leave in a worse state. That's not ego, it's just that it isn't for me."
What is for Walsh is the music he makes; he's rightly proud of the albums - each one a treasure trove of naggingly familiar yet smartly distinctive pop music of the old school variety. There isn't anything ironic or conceited about Walsh's tunes or words; they reference what is often cloyingly described as "pop music's greatest era". In other words, dress Pugwash's tunes up in "Granny Takes a Trip"-style military finery and march them down Carnaby Street and wait for the memories to come flooding back.
"I'm very proud of the records, and people are obsessed with them, but it'd be nice to sell some," says Walsh, with an air of irritation. "Does it matter if they don't sell? Absolutely, because finding the money for rent is difficult - always has been. The music isn't done for that, because I'm aware that there can be too much moaning about these things.
"The truth, though, is that for an independent record company, the label I'm on makes elaborate records." Which costs money; what also costs a few euro are guest fees, all of which seem to be borne with goodwill by the people running the label.
Walsh isn't playing the poor mouth, however; neither is he allowing his ambitions or dreams to run away with themselves. Guests on the new album, Eleven Modern Antiquities, include Michael Penn (brother of Sean, husband of Aimee Mann), Jason Falkner (fomerly of US pop-punk band Jellyfish), XTC's Andy Partridge and Dave Gregory, and Neil Hannon. As a roll call of people who know a pop tune inside out and back again, it's an impressive one. You also get the strong impression that were Walsh any less of a songwriter, these are the sort of people who would steer clear of wanting their precious time used up.
The strategy, such as it is, for the new album, is less touring and more focused exposure. "With the tour around the release of Jollity, we booked the gigs before the album was released. Then we had to face playing to 10 people here, 10 people there. We lost loads of money, so after that we developed a different procedure - concentrating more on radio, television and press. For the new album, we booked one great gig, and from that we hope that news of the band will continue to filter out."
The US, in all its Anglophile envy, is calling for Pugwash to head over there and play selected shows. A visit is on the cards. "We had 15,000 hits on the Pugwash MySpace page in the past four months," says Walsh, noting that most of them were US-based. "We sell albums on the back of that, so a trip to America is definite. They love the Anglophile aspects of our music, and with the XTC connection you have the sound that so many people over there want to listen to. America is where it lies."
Eleven Modern Antiquities is on 1969 Records