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| Daniel Ash, Poptone, Ace of Spades Sacramento |
A Tuesday evening at the
Ace of Spades in Sacramento, California, and the downstairs floor is filling up with a generous, if not sold-out, crowd. The background music, songs I can sing along to and I'm showing my age by knowing all the words to
T Rex's Metal Guru, which is still worth hearing and still valid, even today. I look around and I feel I'm in a bit of a time warp; goths as far as the eye can see.
Poptone is in town;
Daniel Ash and Kevin Haskins plus Haskin's daughter, Diva Dompe, playing songs from
Bauhaus,
Tones on Tail, and
Love & Rockets. Appearance, such a huge part of the goth scene; black everywhere. My
daughter and fellow writer Jade should have been here, in her black-eyed-goth-from-France getup, but she's at home because very-late-pregnancy isn't conducive to standing in a crowd in Sacramento temperatures for hours on end. So I'm her proxy tonight. And the evening is more than simply Bauhaus-goth; it's also post-punk-synth-pop-and-rock, Poptone style.
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| POW! at the Ace of Spades, Sacramento, opening for Poptone |
The show opens with
POW!, straight-to-the-kisser synth-pop-rock from San Francisco, and the time warp takes over the evening, big time. Punk meets New Romantics meets indie-rock, with a heavy dose of distortion and... quirkiness. I hear the
Buzzcocks and early
Bowie. I see
Sparks. And after listening to POW!'s
Here Comes The Spade again several times in the past 24 hours, at last I recognise the audio connection that's been bugging me ever since the show...
The Undertones, Teenage Kicks, one of the best-ever singles from the British pop-punk scene. Like I said: quirky.
Check out POW!, and their latest album, Crack An Egg, here and all the
photos, here.
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| Poptone, Ace of Spades, Sacramento |
And then the band that we've all been waiting for:
Poptone. Forget the black, you should have worn white, because the show is all black light, Daniel Ash center front, all in white, sunglasses and bottle-brush hair; Diva Dompe in a long, white dress, Kevin Haskins bathed in red and green as the lights change. Opening the show with an Elvis song? Yes. Does it sound like Elvis? Not one bit! You've never heard Heartbreak Hotel like this. And then OK, This is the Pops, followed by Mirror People, and then Ash breaks out the sax for Movement of Fear... and we have a show!
Check out the
full setlist here: a wonderful, diverse selection
from Tones on Tail, Love & Rockets, one Bauhaus, a David Bowie, an Elvis... yep, you should have been here.
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| Poptone, Ace of Spades, Sacramento |
All the songs are highlights, but for me, An American Dream--Love & Rockets--the killer. Heavier than the original, and then leading into Christian Says (Tones on Tail). Powerful.
Poptone have a unique and special way of touring; a couple of weeks on the road, and then a few days off, back home. Check all the dates
here, on Poptone's Facebook page.
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| Poptone, Ace of Spades, Sacramento |
I'm texting updates to
Jade throughout the evening. She reminds me that she interviewed Kevin Haskins in New York in 2005 (
here's the story, and the interview). One of the things that's not included in the interview is the discussion that they had about the British punk scene, with Kevin knowing the band that Jade's dad roadied for,
The Janitors. Sometimes this planet is so small, and so huge, all you can do is listen to the music. And if you can
catch one of the Poptone gigs, do.
For all the Poptone photos, go to the gallery:
http://www.alisontoon.com/-/galleries/music/poptone And if you are a Bauhaus fan, you might also like
this story about Peter Murphy's latest show in Sacramento.
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| Daniel Ash, Poptone |
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