seventh dream of teenage heaven

Love and Rockets saw beyond the outside and found their path in the seminal spark of this hypnotized and haunted quicksilver chemistry.   The trio of Daniel Ash, David John Haskins "David J", and his brother Kevin Michael Dompe "Kevin Haskins" had played together since their youth in various bands.  Their diverse work with Peter Murphy in Bauhaus over four albums (In the Flat Field in 1980, Mask in 1981, The Sky's Gone Out in 1982, and Burning from the Inside in 1983) helped to define gothic rock.  Ash and Haskins worked together briefly as Tones on Tail before getting back with David J (who had released two solo albums and produced two more with The Jazz Butcher) to form Love and Rockets, taking the name from the independent comic series  by the Hernandez brothers: Gilbert, Jaime, and Mario.   

Haskins harkens back:   "[I first started playing music when] I was 13. David formed a band and they needed a drummer. I never thought about drumming before. Since they needed a drummer it spurred me on. Luckily I have some talent at it. That was a great experience for me...I suppose because we grew up in the same town, same culture, kept us together. But there are clashes. I think it's the music at the end of the day. We're writing together, in the studio, playing a show and it all goes well, that's what keeps us together ... After Bauhaus, the three of us (Kevin, David J, Daniel Ash) went on and did Love and Rockets for actually like a decade and a half. I feel we have this intuition now that was born from that period of time of working together — almost a psychic connection in a way."

Ash asserts:  "Myself, David, and Kevin were in about three or four different groups in Northampton where we come from...Going back to 1978...There was a group called The Craze...Then '79 I contacted Peter Murphy...We used to go to school together...Asked him if he fancied starting a group or whatever.  So we both went at a rehearsal together and within about a half hour it started to really work; so then the other two came in automatically...Bauhaus carried on for about four years...That's just the basic story.   It was us playing in pubs like everybody does when they first start out.   And then we started Love and Rockets...although there were things in between:  Tones on Tail, David solo things, and him working with The Jazz Butcher...Kevin had the idea of recording Ball Of Confusion, with that group anyway, but we split up.  But as we were driving over, we had a cassette of it; so we were just playing it in the car.  And we thought it would be a good starting off point with this particular group.   Something just to start working together with.  And within about three or four hours after reworking it - In effect, it took about four weeks to rework it so it sounded relevant for 1985,"

They recorded their debut album that same year at Woodbine Street Recording Studios and Royal Leamington Spa with co-producer John A. River.   'Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven' credits Daniel Ash on vocals, guitar, keyboards, and lyrics;   David J. on vocals, bass, keyboards, lyrics, and guitar;   and  Kevin Haskins on drums and keyboards.  John A. Rivers also handled the engineering, string arrangements, and played keyboards.  Love and Rockets did the sleeve design.   

David J:  "I didn’t really get into psychedelics until ’85. It was the time of the first Love and Rockets album. In fact, the collage that’s on the inside of the gatefold sleeve—that was finished on LSD, on the day of my first trip. I remember being quite delighted with it! I remember sitting on the floor, looking at Daniel’s antique furniture and thinking how sexy the legs of the furniture were, and remarking on this! [Laughs] The curvature of the furniture, and Daniel just smiling ... I think we were really ahead of our time. We were provocateurs. We knew were winding people up, and we delighted in that actually. But we still were just being true to ourselves and making music that we thought was just bloody good. And yeah it was kind of going against the grain of the time...Post punk, there was an attitude of being sort of humble and unpretentious and working class and meat and potatoes, whereas we delighted in being pretentious. But in being pretentious we were being ourselves. You know, it’s the lie that tells the truth. Like how camp is the lie that tells the truth. We were being truer to our real selves by being that glam and that avant-garde and outside the meat and potatoes...But musically we were just ahead. And that’s been borne out by the number of bands influenced by Bauhaus. They’ve told me personally that they have, and that’s really gratifying. I hear the influence coming through a lot. And Love and Rockets. In America certainly. We focused on America. We turned down tours in Europe and Australia and focused on America and Canada...I think it’s the appeal of the alien. In England, we liked the American bands. They were exotic to us: Television, Talking Heads, Patti Smith Group. Huge in England. The appeal was so exotic. The Englishness of Love and Rockets—and we were very English—I think was appealing to Americans."









http://www.davidjonline.com/

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https://www.facebook.com/Kevin-Haskins-Official-174176679267103/









"The Dog-End of a Day Gone By"


There's a man on the corner
Coming on like Moses
Found a new religion
that rebuts your plastic roses
He's found his path
To the living heart of Jesus
You tell him
You've found yours

Been to the future
You've never made
There is nothing less than music
Then the amusement arcade
In a city without a soul
Newspaper boys selling you the hard truth
Lucifer employs by the hands of malady

Stuck at the dog-end of a day gone by, boy
Stuck at the dog-end of a day gone by
Stuck at the dog-end of a day gone by, boy
Don't let the smoke get in your eyes

Well the drunk outside the Wendy's
Is becoming less than friendly
A dog is barking at the moon
The drunk outside the windy
Is becoming less than friendly
A dog is barking at the moon

You want to get away
From the city of light
Then when you've gone
You want to get back
It is some strange addiction
When you need to put yourself
Back in your eye

Stuck at the dog-end of a day gone by, boy
Stuck at the dog-end of a day gone by
Stuck at the dog-end of a day gone by, boy
Don't let the smoke get in your eye

Stuck at the dog-end of a day gone by, boy
Stuck at the dog-end of a day gone by
Stuck at the dog-end of a day gone by, boy
Don't let the smoke get in your...

Stuck at the dog-end of a day gone by, boy





"If There's a Heaven Above" 







"Ball of Confusion"







'Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven'
full album:





All songs written and composed by Love and Rockets (Daniel Ash, David J, Kevin Haskins).

Side A
1. "If There's a Heaven Above"   Ash, J 4:57
2. "A Private Future"   Ash 5:06
3. "The Dog-End of a Day Gone By"   J 7:38
4. "The Game"   Ash 5:09
Side B
1. "Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven"   6:37
2. "Haunted When the Minutes Drag"   8:03
3. "Saudade"   5:00



bonus

8    Ball Of Confusion (UK Mix)
9    Inside the Outside
10  If There's a Heaven Above (12" Mix)
11  God and Mr. Smith
12  Haunted When the Minutes Drag (USA Edit)
13  If There's a Heaven Above (Canada Mix)