Poptone – Daniel Ash & Kevin Haskins – Music of Bauhaus, Loe & Rockets & more

Singer-guitarist Daniel Ash and drummer Kevin Haskins — who spent large swaths of the ’80s and ’90s performing together in the seminal acts Bauhaus, Tones on Tail and Love and Rockets — have reunited to form a new band called Poptone, with Haskins’ daughter Diva, that will perform the music of those three classic acts on tour in the U.S. Diva Dompe is a musician in her own right who previously played in BlackBlack. Haskins and Ash, who have been DJing together of late, last played together, with Haskins’ brother David J and frontman Peter Murphy, during a Bauhaus reunion and in Love and Rockets, again with David J, in a later reunion.

OMD (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark) w/ GGOOLLDD

Featuring the core members Paul Humphreys and Andy McCluskey, the Liverpudlian synth pop group Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark released its first single, “Electricity,” on Factory Records; the record led to a contract with the Virgin subsidiary DinDisc. In 1980, the group released its self-titled debut album. It was followed by Organisation, which featured the U.K. Top Ten single “Enola Gay.” The band’s next few albums — Architecture & Morality, Dazzle Ships, and Junk Culture — found the band experimenting with its sound, resulting in several U.K. hit singles. Crush, their most pop-oriented album, found more success in America than in Britain as the single “So in Love” hit number 26 on the charts. “If You Leave,” taken from the Pretty in Pink soundtrack, was their biggest American hit, climbing to number four. After a hiatus a full-blown reunion came in 2006, including both McCluskey and Humphreys. They dabbled in a few more projects and as soon as they were off the road they began writing songs for another album. Taking its name, and some inspiration, from Italian divisionist/symbolist painter Giovanni Segantini’s work titled The Punishment of Luxury, the band’s 13th album was made by the duo of McCluskey and Humphreys and released by White Noise Records in September of 2017.

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