Howard Jones:
Electronic music pioneer Howard Jones has been a constant presence on the international touring scenefor the past four decades, playing live in a number of different configurations including intimate soloshows and dates with his full high-tech band set-up.Hefirst burst upon the contemporary music scenein 1983, with his very English songwriting andpioneering synthesizers with “New Song”. His first twoalbums HUMAN’S LIB and DREAM INTO ACTION were worldwide hits.HUMAN’S LIB reached #1 in 1984in theUK and featured the hits “New Song,” and “What Is Love?”In 1985, Jones released the follow-up, DREAM INTO ACTION, which quickly became a Top Ten Platinum album in the United States andfeatured the smashes: “Things Can Only Get Better,” “Life In One Day,” “No One Is To Blame,” and “LikeTo Get To Know You Well.”Howard Jones has sold upwards of 10 million albums worldwide and continues to make new music andtour the world.Jones has performed on NBC’s top-rated morning and nighttime shows respectively,Today and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.His ubiquitous hits can be heard in such high-profiletelevision series and films such as “Stranger Things,” “Breaking Bad,” “Watchmen,” “The Carrie Diaries”,“Superstore” and “Bumblebee”.Howard Jones’ most recent album is DIALOGUE, which was releasedin September, 2022. DIALOGUE is the third album in a trilogy of electronic releases from Jones withmulti-media project ENGAGE coming out in 2015 and studio album TRANSFORM out in 2019.DIALOGUEgarnered serious coverage in outlets such as Spin, Stereogumand more.

ABC:
ABC has enjoyed a glittering career to date. Very definitely one of a number of groups who came along and kick-started the Eighties withtheir own brand of pop for a ‘new decade’. On it’s release in May 1982,their debut album‘The Lexicon of Love’ crashed straight into the UK album charts at numberone. Showcasing the hits songs‘TearsAre NotEnough’, ‘Poison Arrow’, ‘The Look Of Love’ and ‘All Of My Heart’. A ground-breaking collection ofmodern love songs. With a majestic production from the legendary Trevor Horn it remains a classic to this day. Voted by many as the best British album of the decade.

ABC’s second album ‘Beauty Stab’ was a very different proposition to the polished beauty of ‘The Lexicon of Love’and spawned the hits ‘That Was Then But This Is Now’ and ‘SOS’. It developed a much rawer, hard-edged sound.These were protest songs from a band that was constantly evolving.Next came the 1984 album‘How To Be A Zillionaire’. ABC again conquered American audiences with a series of devastating club mixes and pre Gorillaz animated cartoons. ‘How To Be A Millionaire’, ‘Be Near Me’, alongside‘Vanity Kills’ and‘Ocean Blue’ were all Billboard dance chart number ones. The emphasis here was unashamedly electronic. 1987 saw the release of their fourth album ‘Alphabet City’,co-produced by Chic’s Bernard Edwards. By the summerthe worldwide hit‘When Smokey Sings’ had powered its way toward the top of the American charts.Representing areturn to luxuriant soul, alongside the songs ‘The Night You Murdered Love’ and ‘King Without A Crown’ the album captured the cosmopolitanfeel of the moment andis both urban and chic.Heavy MTV rotation and an appearance on legendary show Soul Train cemented even greater success in the U.S.A for the band.Inspired by the burgeoning House music scene ‘Up ‘the fifth ABC album reflected the euphoric and uplifting spirit of the times. ‘One Better World ’an idealistic and Ibiza influenced anthem champions the radical changes that were taking place in music in London, Manchester, Chicago and Detroit in 1988.

Haircut One Hundred:
Can you guess the year? Excitement is building for a new, much-anticipated album andgigs by one of Britain's most-loved and creative pop bands. They are Haircut 100, andactually, there are two correct answers. One is 1982, and the other is 2024.The exuberant reaction to last year's live reunion by the British tunesmiths, who playedselected shows in the spring followed by an equally rapturously-received tour in theautumn, underlined the sheer timelessness of their appeal. The same went for theexpanded, 40th anniversary reissue ofPelican West,their one and only album with originalfrontman and songwriter, Nick Heyward.That cherished LP contained their trademarks "Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl)," "LovePlus One" and "Fantastic Day," all UK top ten singles in the 1982-83 season. Soon theyadded a fourth, "Nobody's Fool," By which time,Pelican Westwas already platinum-certified in the UK, only three months after release.The album spent 11 consecutive weeks in the British top ten and twice reached No. 2. Italso charted in the US, Australia and beyond, after which Heyward left for a distinguishedsolo career, which included another top ten title,North of a Miracle,in a collection of nineLPs in his own name to date.Heyward toldClassic Popof Haircut 100's unique recipe: “I’d come up with songs toinspire everyone else to get colouring them in. Everyone played their role. What I wrotewas different and mixed up. This wasn’t The Carpenters.” Added bassist Les Nemes: “It’sonly recently that I realised we had our own sound. But we never questioned that we weregoing to succeed. We never said: ‘If we make it,’ it was always: ‘When we make it.’ Wealways had the confidence that we were something special.”Pop songwriting this imaginative and uplifting has simply never been replaced, so theprospect of H100's reawakening, Heyward and all, was always going to be seized uponbyoriginal fans and inquisitive newcomers. "A fun, breezy treat," enthused Dave Lawrence inthe York Press about the final night on the 2023 tour, noting with some delight that it was alittle over 15,000 days since he'd last seen them play live.Other reviews noted, for example, that the Cardiff show was full of "good showmanship,"while in Bournemouth the band "settled into old grooves and friendships".All agreed thatthe signature singles and adored album tracks sounded fresher than ever, as they did in amemorable collaboration with the BBC Concert Orchestra at the hallowed Maida ValeStudios for Radio 2's 2023 Piano Room Month.During the tour, there was also plenty of enthusiasm for the new songs that accompaniedtheir catalogue of hits, and that's where the 2024 chapter of the Haircut 100 story begins.Heyward is collaborating with fellow founder members Nemes, Graham Jones and BlairCunningham on what will be their collective follow-up toPelican West,and festival datesas well as atour of North Americaare also being lined up for the year ahead. Plenty morefantastic days beckon for Haircut 100.