The DC Accord

Denis Collins grew up in West Cork surrounded by fields and the sound of distant tractors. Music
was always there, but like the tractors, it was always something other people were doing. With the
Leaving Cert fast approaching, he needed to find a distraction from that impending complicatedness
and so began playing the guitar to provide accompaniment to his angsty, guttural perfusions. At the
turn of the century, these loud exclamations were looked upon favourably in the pubs of rural Cork,
the student accommodation of UCC and at numerous marital unions.

Realising quickly that science rather than music held the key to attracting the opposite sex, he
embarked on a career in biological research at Dublin City University arriving in a blaze of Kubrickian
glory in 2001, where he exists to this day, standing on the shoulders of past giants while trying in
turn to do enough to be stood on by contemporary giants.

In 2003 he found himself among a group of individuals who didn't mind him "singing" and mutually
agreed to a working musical arrangement known as Cirque. Cirque played Dublin venues like The
Sugar Club, Whelans, Crawdaddy and Isaac Butts with varying frequency, peddling their folk-tinged
acoustic rock to punters high on freely available credit and leaking band friendly disposable income.
Enough people turned up to these gigs to fund the 13-track album Auditions (2005) and 4-track EP
Bad Dreams and Lullabies (2010). While never officially terminated, and therefore a constant, if
invisible, threat, Cirque dissociated gradually in early 2010.

While pipetting and analysing are the stuff that dreams are made of, Denis has found that, on
occasion, he suffers from a chronic form of musical seepage. It generally occurs in or around social
events involving heightened emotional states, lasting until his voice goes or everyone leaves. Mostly,
it is when everyone leaves. Worryingly, it also started to occur during work hours in the lab. While
not debilitating, medical professionals advised that this may in fact be a natural process that could
be alleviated through the gossamer art of songwriting.

Between covers in pubs and a minority stake in the songwriting process in Cirque, Denis has been
singing other people's songs for more than fifteen years. The problem with singing songs by the
artists he loves, the likes of U2, Eddie Vedder, Roy Orbison, David Gray, and Radiohead, means
the standard for writing a "good song" looks impossibly high. And now, the interesting side of 30,
curiosity has caught up with the doubt and four self-penned songs have been assembled.

Touch and Go, Let's Dance, Not Right Here and Roll On.

The songs sound as they do because of the input of a number of partners in crime, Mick Creedon
and Eric Downer the foremost amongst them and that is why it is The DC Accord. It's a fine and rare
thing to have people who will commit their time and talent to someone else's reverie.