Dead Cat Bounce
Dead Cat Bounce is an Irish comedy band made up of Demian Fox (drums), Shane O'Brien (bass), Mick Cullinan (keys) and James Walmsley (guitar and lead vocals). Based in Dublin, but touring all over the world, the group perform all-original comedy songs in variety of musical styles.
History
The four met at Trinity College Dublin in 2002 where they were all founding members of the sketch comedy group H-BAM. In late 2007 Fox, O'Brien and Walmsley were living together in Dublin and began to write a sketch show which they performed in Project Arts Centre in January 2008. They chose the name Dead Cat Bounce (a stockbroking term)because the show opened with three stockbrokers standing over the body of a dead hooker. Will Ferrell happened to be in the audience at their very first show and came backstage afterwards to personally congratulate them.
In April 2008 the group premiered a second show Dead Cat Bounce...Radio Play in Dublin’s Sugar Club. This was in the style of a 1950s radio recording and Cullinan, who had directed the first show, was brought in to play keyboards and do live sound effects. This was also the first time the four had played together as a band. In August of 2008, they took both shows to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, performing them back to back every night for a month.
In October 2008 they recorded a pilot TV sketch show for RTE which was part of Project Ha Ha – a season of comedy pilots aired on RTE 2 in January 2009.
In March 2009 they were invited to perform at the Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal, appearing in a televised gala hosted by Martin Shortt.
Touring Shows
Dead Cat Bounce: First performed in January 2008 in the Project Arts Centre, Dublin, and brought to the Edinburgh Festival 2008, this self-titled show was made up of a series of twelve sketches set in the same hotel room. It included Famine the Musical! A seven minute ‘musical’ based on the Irish potato famine.
Dead Cat Bounce...Radio Play: First performed in April 2008 in the Sugar Club, Dublin and brought to the Edinburgh Festival 2008, this show was in the style of a 1950s radio recording and featured a live foley artist. It was also the first show in which Dead Cat Bounce played together as a band and included the songs ‘Golf!’ and ‘Damn Girl’ which would later feature in their RTE pilot.
Dead Cat Bounce...Wired: First performed in the Sugar Club, Dublin in April 2009, and brought to the Edinburgh Festival 2009, this was billed as a ‘rock and roll sketch show’ and combined songs with character sketches performed on mic. It included all seven songs featured on the live EP Dead Cat Bounce, live at the Sugar Club.
Live EP
In September 2009 Dead Cat Bounce recorded a week of shows at the Sugar club in Dublin. The resulting EP ‘Dead Cat Bounce, live at the Sugar Club’ contains the following songs:
1) Switzerland (4.07) 2) Overenthusiastic Contraceptive Lady (2.22) 3) Midget (2.48) 4) Rugby (2.26) 5) That Summer When we Killed that Guy (2.12) 6) In Da Club (2.50) 7) Four Lads (4.13)