title: Nathan Chen

text: Chen was awarded a bronze medal at the 2014 World Junior Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria in March 2014. The results of Chen and his teammates, Jordan Moeller and Shotaro Omori, gained three entries for the United States to the 2015 World Junior Championships.


title: Nathan Chen

text: Chen debuted at the senior level in 2014. At the Pacific Sectional Championships in November 2014, he landed a clean quadruple toe loop and double toe loop combination (4T+2T) in his free skate, winning the senior men's division, and advanced to the 2015 U.S. Championships in Greensboro, North Carolina. He developed a growth-related heel injury a week before the national championships, and competed with modified versions of his short and long programs. He placed eighth overall in his senior national championship debut in January 2015.


title: Nathan Chen

text: After the competition, Chen was named to the U.S. team for the 2015 World Junior Championships. He finished 4th at the event in Tallinn, Estonia, on March 8, 2015.


title: Nathan Chen

text: In the 2015–16 ISU Junior Grand Prix series, Chen won gold in both Colorado Springs, Colorado and in Logroño, Spain. In December 2015, he stood atop the podium at the JGP Final in Barcelona.


title: Nathan Chen

text: In January 2016, at the U.S. Championships, Chen became the first American man to land two quadruple jumps in the short program. On January 24, he became the first male singles skater to land four quadruple jumps in a long program. He finished third overall behind Adam Rippon and Max Aaron, the former not attempting any quads and the latter landing two. This event reignited the long-standing debate within the figure skating community over whether artistry should trump athleticism. While attempting a jump during exhibitions on the same day, Chen sustained an avulsion injury to his left hip, leading to surgery on January 27. He withdrew from the 2016 World Junior Championships in Debrecen, Hungary, and the 2016 World Championships in Boston. Chen underwent a month of rehabilitation at the U.S. Olympic Training Center (OTC) in Chula Vista, California, and by May was training off-ice at OTC in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He resumed training around July.


title: Nathan Chen

text: Ahead of the 2016–2017 season, Chen traveled to Canton, Michigan, to have his programs choreographed by Marina Zueva. "I spent a week there, and we hit it off really well. We talked it over and thought it'd be a good idea to go to Michigan and work on PCS a little bit." By September 2016, six months after his hip surgery, Zueva and Oleg Epstein were coaching him in Canton. In preparation for his international senior debut, he began training the 4Lz and 4F.


title: Nathan Chen

text: Chen began his 2016–2017 season with a gold medal at the 2016 CS Finlandia Trophy, 7.71 points ahead of the silver medalist Patrick Chan of Canada. He then competed at two Grand Prix events. For his Grand Prix series debut at the 2016 Trophée de France in Paris, he cleanly landed a quadruple lutz and triple toe combination jump and a quadruple flip in both his short and long programs. His short program scored 92.85, breaking the American short program record of 90.30 held by Olympic champion Evan Lysacek since the 2010 Winter Olympics. After finishing fourth in France, he returned to Arutyunyan in California. At the 2016 NHK Trophy in Sapporo, Chen placed second behind Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu, qualifying him for the Grand Prix Final (GPF) in Marseille, France.


title: Nathan Chen

text: In December at the GPF, Chen placed 5th in the short program but won the free skate with a performance that included four quadruple jumps. Earning a total score of 282.85 points, he won the silver medal, behind Yuzuru Hanyu, and became the second-youngest male skater (age 17) to medal at the GPF after Evgeni Plushenko, who won his first GPF medal at age 16 in 1999. He spent two weeks later that month working in Canton, Michigan, modifying the element order and choreography of his programs.


title: Nathan Chen

text: At the 2017 U.S. Championships in Kansas City, Missouri, Chen performed two quadruple jumps (4Lz+3T and 4F) in the short program and five in the free skate (4Lz+3T, 4F, 4T+2T+2Lo, 4T and 4S), the first skater to do so. He won the U.S. title with the highest scores in U.S. Figure Skating history (106.39 in the short program, 212.08 in the free skate, 318.47 overall). Following the event, he and teammate Jason Brown were named to the 2017 World team by U.S. Figure Skating.


title: Nathan Chen

text: In February, Chen won the 2017 Four Continents, becoming the third person to score over 100 points in a short program and over 300 points in an International Skating Union competition.


title: Nathan Chen

text: In April, at the World Championships in Helsinki, the boots that he had begun using after Four Continents were on the verge of falling apart; however, he decided to continue using them, using duct tape and hockey laces, because he felt that the back-up boots were too new. He attempted a record total of eight quadruple jumps, two in the short program and six in the long program, but fell on two quadruple jumps in his long program, and placed sixth overall at the competition. He and teammate Jason Brown, who placed seventh, secured three places for the United States in the men's event at the 2018 Winter Olympics.


title: Nathan Chen

text: Chen rounded off the season with a 3rd place team and 2nd place personal finish at the 2017 World Team Trophy in Tokyo.


title: Nathan Chen

text: Chen started the 2017–2018 season by winning the 2017 CS U.S. International Figure Skating Classic in September, debuting his short program "Nemesis" choreographed by Shae-Lynn Bourne and free skate "Mao's Last Dancer" choreographed by Lori Nichol. He landed his first quad loop in the free skate and became the first skater to land five different quads (4T, 4S, 4Lo, 4F and 4Lz) in competition. He was selected to represent Team USA alongside Jeremy Abbott, Karen Chen, and Mirai Nagasu at the Japan Open. There, his free program earned second place behind Javier Fernandez.


title: Nathan Chen

text: Chen won his first Grand Prix title at the 2017 Rostelecom Cup in Moscow. After placing first in the short program and second in the free skate, he defeated the reigning World and Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan. At 2017 Skate America, Chen won his second Grand Prix title, finishing ahead of teammate Adam Rippon. He skated the short program, which earned him a new personal best score, with a left blade that had a nick in the outside edge. He replaced the blade for the free skate but stated afterward, "I think that was a bad call. It was a little too sharp on the inside edge, and every time I pressed into it for sal(chow), toe and even flip, it would catch into the ice way harder than I was used to." With two victories, Chen earned the top qualifying spot for the Grand Prix Final.


title: Nathan Chen

text: At the Final in Nagoya, Chen took the lead in the short program and placed first overall, over Shoma Uno of Japan and Mikhail Kolyada of Russia. He became the third American in history to win the Final, the first since Evan Lysacek in 2009. At the 2018 U.S. Championships in San Jose, California, Chen performed a total of seven clean quadruple jumps (two in the short program and five in the free skate) and scored 315.23 to win his second consecutive national title. Following the event, Chen, Adam Rippon, and Vincent Zhou were nominated by U.S. Figure Skating to compete at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea as part of the U.S. Olympic Figure Skating Team.


title: Nathan Chen

text: At the 2018 Winter Olympics, Chen placed fourth in the men's short program of the team event, and became the first skater to land a quad flip at the Olympics. Chen won a bronze medal in the team event alongside teammates Mirai Nagasu, Bradie Tennell, Adam Rippon, Alexa Scimeca Knierim, Chris Knierim, Maia Shibutani, and Alex Shibutani, became one of the youngest male figure skating Olympic medalists. Due to nerves in the individual men's event, Chen performed poorly in the short program and placed seventeenth. In the free skate, he made Olympic history by becoming the first man to attempt six quads and land five cleanly. He placed first in the free skate with a score of 215.08, the highest in Olympic history, earning a total score of 297.35 and moved up twelve places to finish in fifth place overall. Chen was invited to perform in the exhibition gala, but withdrew after contracting the flu and left PyeongChang early to avoid infecting any of his American teammates. His commercial sponsors for the Olympics included Coca-Cola, United Airlines, Kellogg's, and Bridgestone.


title: Nathan Chen

text: In March at the 2018 World Figure Skating Championships in Milan, Chen placed first in both the short (101.94) and free (219.46) programs. He again attempted and landed six quads in the free program, winning the 2018 world champion title with a total score of 321.40 points and became the second skater to break 320 points after Yuzuru Hanyu. Chen became the first U.S. men's world champion since Evan Lysacek in 2009 and the tenth in history. He was the youngest (18 years 10 months 19 days) men's world champion since Evgeni Plushenko (18 years 4 months 19 days) in 2001. Chen's victory and teammate Max Aaron's eleventh-place finish ensured Team USA three men's places at the next year's World Figure Skating Championships in Japan. His margin of victory over silver medalist Shoma Uno was one of the largest in history at 47.63 points.


title: Nathan Chen

text: Chen started college at Yale this season. In an in-depth Olympic Channel Facebook Live interview with 2014 Olympic Champion Meryl Davis, Chen expanded on his school, skating, future plans, life, and other interesting topics. Chen: "I love skating. I love competing. I love training. I love to be around all my fellow skaters. But at the end of the day I am not going to be skating for all the rest of my life. There will be a moment I'll have to take a step away from skating and focus on something else. I think right now I am attempting to do both just so I can bridge that gap, so when I am deciding my time in skating is up I can start the second half of my life..."


title: Nathan Chen

text: Chen's assignments for the 2018-19 Grand Prix series were Skate America and Internationaux de France. Fortunately for Chen, Skate America took place during the Yale October recess and Internationaux de France fell during the Thanksgiving recess. The 2018–19 Grand Prix Final began the day before Yale's pre-finals reading period started. And the 2019 World Championships, in Japan, were during Yale's spring break.


title: Nathan Chen

text: At Skate America in Everett, Washington in October, Chen skated to the music of "Caravan" (choreographed by Shae-Lynn Bourne) in the short program and "Land of All" (choreographed by Samuel Chouinard and Marie-France Dubreuil) in the free skate. He won both segments of the competition and defended his title as the men's Skate America champion.


title: Nathan Chen

text: In an interview with ISU about his programs, Chen said: "The short program (Caravan) is a lot of fun.[...] She (Bourne) wants me to dance to the music so that other people are excited to dance as well.[...] I originally chose the piece (Land of All) for the long because I needed something that contrasted the short.[...] The music is the soundtrack to a movie called 'Desierto' and it is about immigration into the U.S. Obviously, I don't want to make my programs about this or anything political but, at the same time, just because it has that deep and darker meaning requires me to add another layer to my skating," he explained.


title: Nathan Chen

text: At Internationaux de France in Grenoble in November, Chen fell on his quad flip in the short program and placed third behind Jason Brown and Alexander Samarin entering the free skate. Chen landed three quadruple jumps (4F, 4T and 4T+3T) in the free skate and won the competition with a total score of 271.58. He had now won five consecutive Grand Prix gold medals.


title: Nathan Chen

text: By winning both Skate America and Internationaux de France Chen qualified to compete in 2018–19 Grand Prix Final in Vancouver, Canada.


title: Nathan Chen

text: At the 2018–19 Grand Prix Final in early December, Chen competed with the other five qualifiers, Shoma Uno, Michal Březina, Sergei Voronov, Cha Jun-hwan and Keegan Messing (Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu qualified but withdrew due to injury). Chen had mistakes in both his short and long programs - a missed combination jump in the short program and a fall in the long program, but won both segments of the competition to collect his second GPF title.


title: Nathan Chen

text: The gold medal marks Chen the fourth man after Evgeni Plushenko, Patrick Chan and Yuzuru Hanyu to win consecutive Grand Prix Finals since the event's debut in 1995, and the second man after Evgeni Plushenko to win every one of his Grand Prix competitions in two consecutive seasons.


title: Nathan Chen

text: At the 2019 U.S. Championships in Detroit, Chen gave a strong performance scoring 113.42 for a two-quad short program (official NBC Sports) and 228.80 for a four-quad free skate totaling 342.22 points. Chen became the first man to win three straight national titles since Johnny Weir in 2004–2006. He said, "I'm happy with what I did, and hopefully I can do that in other competitions, The first few jumps are a little like a checklist, and once I get done with that, I can focus on the music and the audience. Nationals is no joke. You can't discount any of these other skaters who are here. I'm really proud of myself with all of the work I put in, and it's an honor to be up here with these two guys. I don't mind the training atmosphere I am in, and I am so thankful Yale has given me the ice time to pursue my dreams outside of school. I feel like I am improving competition to competition. This gives me a lot of confidence going into the future."


title: Nathan Chen

text: Competing at the 2019 World Championships in Saitama, Japan in March, Chen successfully defended his world champion title, and broke the world record for both the free skate and total score, with 216.02 and 323.42 points respectively. The gold in Saitama was Chen's 11th victory out of 12 individual competitions over the past two seasons. He became the first U.S. man to win back-to-back world titles since Scott Hamilton won four in a row from 1981 to 1984. With teammate Vincent Zhou winning the bronze medal, two Americans stood on the men's podium at Worlds for the first time since 1996, when Todd Eldredge won gold and Rudy Galindo took the bronze in Edmonton, Canada.


title: Nathan Chen

text: Chen concluded the season at another event in Japan, the 2019 World Team Trophy, where Team USA won the gold medal.


title: Nathan Chen

text: Chen opened his season with a free skate at the Japan Open, placing first in the men's event, and contributed to Team North America's bronze medal finish. In the 2019-2020 Grand Prix, Chen defended his title at Skate America in Las Vegas, with his third consecutive win. This was the first time anyone had won Skate America three times consecutively since Todd Eldredge won four from 1994 to 1997. The 44-point margin of victory was the largest ever at Skate America. He then won his second straight Internationaux de France title in Grenoble, and became the first singles skater since Evgeni Plushenko nearly two decades earlier to win eight straight Grand Prix events. In winning two Grand Prix events, Chen qualified for the Grand Prix Final.


title: Nathan Chen

text: At the Grand Prix Final, Chen was widely perceived as the co-favorite for the title alongside Japan's Yuzuru Hanyu. Chen skated cleanly in the short program, setting a new personal best score of 110.38, 0.15 short of Hanyu's short program world record at the time which had been set at the 2018 Rostelecom Cup. Hanyu failed to complete his combination jump, resulting in Chen leading by almost thirteen points going into the free skate. Chen skated cleanly in the free skate and set a new world record for the free skate (224.92 points) and total score (335.30 points), beating Hanyu for the second time since the Olympics. Chen's win made him the first singles skater to win all Grand Prix events in three consecutive seasons.


title: Nathan Chen

text: Suffering from the flu, Chen was only able to fully resume training less than two weeks before the 2020 U.S. Championships. Competing in Greensboro, North Carolina, Chen won his fourth national title and became the first man to win four consecutive U.S. men's titles since Olympic champion Brian Boitano in 1988. He was assigned to compete at the World Championships in Montreal, but these were cancelled as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.


title: Nathan Chen

text: With the pandemic still raging, the ISU assigned the Grand Prix series based largely on geographic location, with Chen again set to attend Skate America, and was considered the favorite. He won both the short program and the free skate, with a total score of 299.15, despite popping two planned jumps in the free. After the competition, Chen revealed to Olympic Channel that he is taking a break from school to focus on skating and the next Olympics. "(The Olympics) are the end goal," Chen said, "It's the driving force behind a lot of what we do and a lot of the decisions that we make."


title: Nathan Chen

text: Chen made history at the 2021 U.S. Championships, winning his fifth consecutive National title. He became the first man to win five consecutive National titles since Dick Button, who won seven straight from 1946 to 1952. Chen cited Button as inspiration. "It's incredible to try to follow in his footsteps," Chen said of Button. "It means the world. Dick is a true skating icon, and it just feels incredible to be trying to chase something that someone like that has done. I'm nowhere near the level he was at, but it's just cool to be able to be even mentioned in his sort of realm of legendness." During his free performance, Chen attempted five quads, landing four of them cleanly.


title: Nathan Chen

text: At the 2021 World Championships in Stockholm, Sweden, Chen placed third after the short program with a score of 98.85, after a fall on the quadruple Lutz. In the free, he placed first with a score of 222.03, with a clean program landing five quads, and won his third world title with a total score of 320.88. Chen became the first man since Patrick Chan (2011–13) and first American (male or female) since Scott Hamilton (1982–84) to win three World titles in a row. In a post competition interview, Chen said he felt he had grown since the 2018 Olympics, when he was seventeenth heading into the free skate: "I think having had that experience now going into this competition, it definitely helps me retain some resiliency, I think. And I think that definitely, you know, thankfully came into play today."


title: Nathan Chen

text: Chen competed as part of the American team at the 2021 World Team Trophy, where he placed first ahead of Yuzuru Hanyu with his combined scores, after also placing first in the short program. His result helped Team USA win the silver medal.


title: Nathan Chen

text: Chen began the Olympic season at the 2021 Skate America, where he placed fourth in the short program. He fell on his first quadruple jump. A poor landing on the second quadruple jump meant he was unable to execute the required two-jump combination. He placed second in the free skate despite doubling on two of his six planned quads, finishing in third place overall behind Vincent Zhou and Shoma Uno. Speaking afterward about the end of his winning streak since the 2018 World Championships, Chen said "it's not devastating. It was inevitably going to end as a winning streak at some point in time, and I am really proud of these guys up here." Competing the next week at the 2021 Skate Canada International, Chen rebounded to win both segments of the competition and take the gold medal, with a 48-point margin over silver medalist Jason Brown. Chen's results qualified him to the Grand Prix Final, but it was subsequently cancelled due to restrictions prompted by the Omicron variant.


title: Nathan Chen

text: At the 2022 U.S. Championships in Nashville, Chen won his sixth consecutive men's title, a feat last achieved by the legendary Dick Button 71 years earlier. Chen scored 115.39, a new national record, in the short program and 212.62 in the free skate for a total of 328.01 points. After the competition, Chen was named to the American Olympic team along with Zhou and Brown.


title: Nathan Chen

text: Chen began the 2022 Winter Olympics as the American entry in the men's short program of the Olympic team event, where he had skated poorly four years earlier. Delivering a clean skate, he placed first in the segment with a new personal best of 111.71, securing ten points for the American team. He remarked after that "it feels great to have a short program I actually skated well, at an Olympic experience." Team USA would go on to win the silver medal, Chen's second Olympic medal. However, the team members were not awarded the medals following a positive doping test of gold medalist Kamila Valieva of Russia, pending investigation, which is still ongoing as of December 2022. Two days later, Chen set an international figure skating world-record in the men's short program with a score of 113.97, topping the previous record of 111.82 set by Yuzuru Hanyu in 2020. Chen would go on to win the gold medal with a free skate score of 218.63 which included five quad jumps, finishing with a combined score of 332.60. After the Olympics, Chen withdrew from the 2022 World Championships due to injury.


title: Nathan Chen

text: Regarded as one of the greatest figure skaters of all time for his technical prowess and impact on the sport, Chen has broken multiple world records in his career and currently holds the all-time world records for short program, free program, and combined total scores. He is widely recognized for performing the most technically difficult programs in the world, and is credited for pushing the boundaries of athletic ability in the sport. Chen is the first and currently the only skater to have landed five types of quadruple jumps in competition: the toe loop, Salchow, loop, flip and Lutz. He is also the first skater to land five quads in a free skate program and seven quads in ratified competition at the 2017 Four Continents Figure Skating Championships. He remains the only skater who has landed seven clean (positive grade of execution) quads in one competition, two in the short program and five in the free skate, which he first achieved at the 2019 Grand Prix Final.


title: Nathan Chen

text: Under the new ISU Judging System implemented since the 2018–19 season, Chen holds the highest scores for the following quadruple jumps: 4Lz (16.43), 4F (15.40), 4S (14.83), 4F+3T (20.23), 4Lz+3T (21.21) and the second highest scores for the following quadruple jumps: 4T (13.71), 4T+3T (18.46), 4T+1Eu+3S (17.01), 4T+1Eu+3F (19.14). Chen holds the highest possible ChSq1 score of 5.50 and the highest possible StSq4 score of 5.85 among male and female singles skaters under the new ISU Judging System.


title: Nathan Chen

text: According to Forbes, Chen has long term deals with 11 partners, many of which overlap with Team USA’s official sponsorships, including Bridgestone, Panasonic, Comcast, Nike, Toyota and Visa. He also works with consumer brands Grubhub and Airweave. Other sponsors leading up to the 2018 and 2022 Winter Olympics included OMEGA, Coca Cola, United Airlines and Kellogg’s.


title: Nathan Chen

text: He also starred in TV spots for the 2022 movie Jurassic World: Dominion with fellow Team USA Olympians Shaun White and Mikaela Shifrin.


title: Nathan Chen

text: In 2021, Chen was part of luxury jewelry designer David Yurman's "My New York" social campaign and partnered with them to create an exclusive bracelet benefiting non-profit collective "Gold House" which is a community of "Asian founders, creative voices and leaders dedicated to unifying the world’s largest populace–Asians and Pacific Islanders–to enable more authentic multicultural representation and societal equity."


title: Nathan Chen

text: Chen supported the COVID-19 public education campaign "We Can Do This" which was an initiative by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He was featured in a vaccine campaign ad shown during the 2022 U.S. Stars On Ice tour. He also got the chance to speak to Dr. Anthony Fauci as part of the "We Can Do This" campaign.


title: Nathan Chen

text: In June 2021, Chen was appointed to the Athlete Advisory Committee which is part of the Salt Lake City-Utah Games Committee bidding to bring the Olympic Winter Games back to Salt Lake City in 2030 or 2034.


title: Nathan Chen

text: On August 5, 2022, Chen was named the Lake Placid 2023 FISU World University Games goodwill ambassador. Chen stated that he was happy to be a part of January’s Lake Placid 2023 FISU World University Games and helping to support everyone involved. He will also be among the speakers at the 2023 FISU International University Sports Federation World Conference focusing on climate change and winter sports. Chen is a promoter of the "Panasonic Green Impact" initiative and the American is working with the tech company to achieve carbon neutrality through such schemes. The Lake Placid 2023 FISU World University Games is set to be held from January 12 to 22.


title: Nathan Chen

text: Chen's memoir "One Jump at a Time: My Story" was released by "HarperCollins" on November 22, 2022. The book follows Chen from childhood as the youngest son of Chinese American immigrants in the Salt Lake City area to his rise and the many challenges along the way in figure skating buoyed by the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in his hometown – including his family’s determination to find the resources to pay for expensive training, a painful hip injury and surgery in 2016, and a disappointing fifth-place finish at the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018.


title: Nathan Chen

text: "HarperCollins" Children's Books will release Chen's first picture book entitled "Wei Skates On" on February 21, 2023, about a young boy named Wei who learns to find the joy in sports no matter what the outcome.


title: Nathan Chen

text: Chen will be featured in the children’s book “Who Is Nathan Chen” which will be released on Aug 29, 2023, by Penguin Books.The children’s book is part of the non-fiction Who Was also known as Who HQ series that tell the stories of trailblazers, legends, innovators, cool places, and important events. Covering everything from sports to politics, the Who HQ Now series focuses on trending topics and prominent subjects discussed in the news.


title: Nathan Chen

text: He has been featured in magazines such as Vogue, GQ, Harper's Bazaar and Spur Magazine and has graced the covers of "World Figure Skating Magazine" and "International Figure Skating Magazine".


title: Nathan Chen

text: On July 12, 2022, Chen made an appearance on the American dance competition television series on NBC's Dancing With Myself as a creator. One creator demonstrates a series of dance moves and each contestant must then perform those moves.


title: Nathan Chen

text: Chen was featured in an episode of Secret Celebrity Renovation on CBS on August 12, 2022. The show gives celebrities the opportunity to gift a renovation to a person who helped guide them to success. For Chen, who acknowledges the many people who have helped him along the way, that meant gifting the Salt Lake City Sports Complex a new skater’s lounge and dressing room.


title: Nathan Chen

text: He reunited with all four of his siblings in order to compete on the Steve Harvey-hosted game show Celebrity Family Feud against actor Simu Liu's team. The episode aired on ABC on August 21, 2022.


title: Nathan Chen

text: Chen has been a guest and made appearances on the Today show, The Late Late Show with James Corden, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Access Hollywood and Good Morning America.


title: Nathan Chen

text: He starred in three episodes of "From the Top: Olympians and Rockstars" with Hayley Kiyoko which was released on the Olympic Channel in 2021 with Elton John as executive producer. When Elton John and Britney Spears released the acoustic version of their song "Hold Me Closer" on November 18, 2022, they also released an official music video starring Chen.


title: Nathan Chen

text: "Small medals for short and free programs awarded only at ISU Championships. At team events, medals awarded for team results only. Current ISU world bests highlighted in bold and italic."


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: Bauhaus are an English rock band formed in Northampton in 1978. Known for their dark image and gloomy sound, Bauhaus are best known as one of the pioneers of gothic rock, although they mixed many genres, including dub, glam rock, psychedelia, and funk. The group consists of Daniel Ash (guitar, saxophone), Peter Murphy (vocals, occasional instruments), Kevin Haskins (drums) and David J (bass).


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: The band formed under the name Bauhaus 1919, in reference to the first operating year of the German art school Bauhaus, but they shortened this name within a year of formation. Their 1979 debut single, "Bela Lugosi's Dead" is considered one of the harbingers of gothic rock music and has been influential on contemporary goth culture. Their debut album, "In the Flat Field", is regarded as one of the first gothic rock records. Their 1981 second album "Mask" expanded their sound by incorporating a wider variety of instruments—such as keyboards, saxophone and acoustic guitar—and experimenting with funk-inspired rhythms on tracks like "Kick in the Eye". Bauhaus went on to achieve mainstream success in the United Kingdom with their third album, "The Sky's Gone Out", which peaked at No. 3 on the UK Albums Chart in 1982. That same year, they also reached No. 15 on the Singles Chart with a standalone cover of David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust", earning them an appearance on "Top of the Pops". During recording sessions for their next album, Murphy fell ill and spent much of his time away from the studio, leaving the rest of the band to compensate for his absence. This created a rift between the singer and his bandmates, culminating in the group's dissolution on 5 July 1983, one week before "Burning from the Inside" was released. Featuring the hit single "She's in Parties", it would be their final studio album composed entirely of new material for a quarter century.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: After Bauhaus' breakup, Murphy formed Dalis Car with Japan's bassist Mick Karn before beginning a solo career later on, while Ash and Haskins continued as Tones on Tail and, later, reunited with David J to form Love and Rockets. Both enjoyed greater commercial success in the United States than Bauhaus had but disappeared from the charts in their homeland. Bauhaus eventually reunited for a 1998 tour, again from 2005 to 2008, and once again in 2019.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: Daniel Ash, his friend David J. Haskins, and Haskins' younger brother Kevin, had played together in various bands since childhood such as "Jam" and "Jackplug & The Sockets", where they would play cover songs from the Rolling Stones and The Beatles. Ash initially tried to convince his school friend Peter Murphy to be in a band, but nothing came out of it. According to Ash: "Pete didn't think about it at all, it wasn't on his mind as such." One of the longer-lived of these was a band called the Craze, which performed a few times around Northampton in 1978. However, the Craze still split up fairly quickly, and Ash once again tried to convince his old school friend Murphy to join him, simply because Ash thought he had the right look for a band. Murphy, who was working in a printing factory, decided to give it a try, despite never having written any lyrics or music. During their first rehearsal, he co-wrote the song "In the Flat Field".


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: Ash's old bandmate Kevin Haskins joined as the drummer. Ash made a point of not inviting David J, the driving force in their previous bands, because he wanted a band he could control. Instead, Chris Barber was brought in to play bass, and together the four musicians formed the band S.R. However, within a few weeks Ash relented, and replaced Barber with David J, who suggested the new name Bauhaus 1919. David J. had already agreed to tour American airbases with another band but decided that joining his friends' group was "the right thing to do". With their lineup complete, the band played their first gig at the Cromwell pub in Wellingborough on New Year's Eve 1978.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: The band had chosen the name Bauhaus 1919, a reference to the German Bauhaus art movement of the 1920s, because of its "stylistic implications and associations", according to David J. The band also chose the same typeface used on the Bauhaus college building in Dessau, Germany, as well as the Bauhaus emblem, designed by Oskar Schlemmer. Bauhaus associate Graham Bentley said that the group was unlike any Northampton band of the time, most of which played predominantly cover songs. Bentley videotaped a performance by the group, which was sent to several record labels, in the hope of obtaining a contract. This approach was hindered partly because many record companies at the time did not have home video equipment, so the group decided to record a demo.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: After only six weeks as a band, Bauhaus entered the studio for the first time at Beck Studios in Wellingborough to record a demo. In rehearsal for the demo, the band experimented with echo and delay on the drums. One of the five tracks recorded during the session, "Bela Lugosi's Dead", more than nine minutes long, was released as the group's debut single in August 1979 on Small Wonder Records. The band was listed simply as Bauhaus, with the "1919" abandoned.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: "Bela Lugosi's Dead" was strongly influenced by the band's interest in reggae and dub; where the bass and the drums were pushed upfront. It was the band's first recording they ever made and completed in the first take. It was also the first time Murphy ever sang in a studio microphone. Murphy was sick with a cold when he recorded the song. Kevin Haskins' drumbeat was based on a Bossa nova style of drumming. Daniel Ash explained how the inception of the song began when he talked with David J in regards to a riff he made: "I was talking to David (J, bass) on the blower one night and told him I had this riff, using these trick chords that had a very haunting quality to it. He went: "It's so weird you should say that because I’ve got these lyrics about Bela Lugosi, the actor who played a vampire."" David J further elaborated: "There was a season of old horror films on TV, and I was telling Daniel about how much I loved them. The one that had been on the night before was Dracula [1931]. I was saying how Bela Lugosi was the quintessential Dracula, the elegant depiction of the character." Ash elaborated about the chords: "My riff has these mutant chords – they're not even minor chords – but it's rooted in an old Gary Glitter song, slowed right down. I didn't realize that when I was doing it." Ash also explained how he was able to achieve the echo effects for the song: "...David had this old HH echo unit, which would crap out on you all the time. We hooked up the guitar and snare drum to this echo unit and I was just sliding the HH amp thing to trigger all these echoes as the song went through." David explained the process of how they recorded the song: "We didn't really talk about what we were doing. Daniel started scratching away on the guitar, Kevin started his rhythm and there was this atmosphere building. I came in with those descending chords and Peter was just prowling up and down, slowly, like a big cat."


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: On the origins of the song, Murphy explained: "We'd been talking about the erotic quality of vampire movies, even if they were the Hammer horror type. There was this conversation about the sexuality and eroticism of Dracula. Danny talked about his fascination with this and the occult connotations. So, we carried on that conversation and made it into a song." Murphy also elaborated: "There's an erotic, alluring element to the vampire. We didn't want to write an ode to Bela Lugosi, ostensibly. The kitsch element was his name because he was the biggest icon, yet he was the most unlikely vampire-looking person. So there was that Brit angle to it, but it wasn't at all negative. It was perfect. The idea of Bela Lugosi being dead or undead is classic." The band was initially nervous about their song due to its length as various record labels refused to issue the single due to the song being too long. Haskins explained the frustration the band faced with the song's length: "Danny took an acetate around all the big companies – Virgin, EMI and the rest – and they all said similar things: “This is the sort of thing I listen to at home, but it's not commercial.” Or: “It's way too long. Can you edit it down to three minutes?” Even Beggars Banquet turned us down, which is ironic because we ended up on that label." However, Peter Stennet of Small Wonder Records accepted and was insistent on putting out the record by favorably comparing it to Velvet Underground's single Sister Ray.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: The single received a positive review in "Sounds", and stayed on the British independent charts for two years. The song received crucial airplay on BBC Radio 1 and DJ John Peel's evening show and Bauhaus were subsequently asked to record a session for Peel's show, which was broadcast on 3 January 1980. Murphy gave his account of the John Peel session: "We walked up to reception, passing Motörhead on their way out, and said, "Hello, we're Bauhaus and we're friends of John Peel. We'd like to go up please." Somehow, we were allowed up there and we put the record in front of him. After we'd all introduced ourselves, he said on air, "We’ve got Bauhaus in the studio, they're from Northampton and they have a new single out called "Bela Lugosi's Dead". It's nine-and-a-half minutes long and this will probably be the first and last time I'll play this." Then we left and went down to listen to it in the car. Apparently, the BBC switchboard was jammed with listeners wanting him to play it again." Of the additional tracks, Classic Rock Magazine wrote that, "The rest of the material finds a band fumbling for direction, even touching on ska."


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: Despite the success of their signature song, the band left Small Wonder Records due to its lack of support for touring due to budget issues. As Stennet put it: “The trouble is we just can't afford to send the bands on tour or anything like that, and a group needs that sort of support”. Signing with the 4AD label, the band released two more singles, "Dark Entries" in January 1980 and "Terror Couple Kill Colonel" in June 1980, before issuing their first album "In the Flat Field" in October 1980. The album cover for the album was chosen by David J and it was a photograph called Homage to Purvis de Chavannes by Duane Michals, which depicts an image of a naked man blowing a type of trumpet. Reviewer Andy Gill from "NME" described it as "Gothick-Romantick pseudo-decadence" and ultimately dismissed the band as "a hip Black Sabbath". Despite negative reviews, "In the Flat Field" topped the indie charts, and made headway on the UK Albums Chart, peaking for one week at No. 72. While the band was satisfied with the album, they admit that it didn't capture everything that they wanted. They felt the LP was a little too intense; however, it was "the purest statement of what [we] were like then".


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: In August 1980, the band traveled to North America to play four dates in cities such as Toronto, Chicago, and New York. One of Bauhaus' first US shows was in a venue called Space Place in Chicago, Illinois in September 1980, booked by Jim Nash and Dannie Flesher, the owners of the independent record label Wax Trax! Records. The band returned to England in October 1980 for a 20-date tour in England and in Europe to promote their first album. In December 1980, Bauhaus released a cover of "Telegram Sam", a hit by glam rock pioneers T. Rex, as a single.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: Bauhaus' growing success outstripped 4AD's resources, so the band moved to 4AD's parent label, Beggars Banquet Records. Bauhaus released "Kick in the Eye" in March 1981 as its debut release on the label. The single reached No. 59 on the charts. The following single, "The Passion of Lovers", peaked at No. 56 in July 1981. Murphy said, "One of our loves is to make each single totally different from the last, not to be tied down by a style or sound." Bauhaus released their second album, "Mask", in October 1981. The band employed more keyboards, and a variety of other instruments, to add to the diversity of the record. The front and back cover of the album was an impressionistic drawing made by Ash. In an unconventional move, the group shot a video for the album's title track as a promotional tool for the band, rather than any specific song from the record. David J explained the techniques, effects and his reaction regarding the content of the title track: "I can still recall with crystal clarity overdubbing the echoed bass part and using a metal bottleneck to achieve the cascade effect that comes in at the point where Daniel's acoustic twelve-string part starts. Hearing these sounds in ultra-sharp coke-intensified focus through headphones produced an ecstatic heart-bursting emotion on the edge of orgasmic release." The film crew consists of Chris Collins and Ken Lawrence of Standard Pictures. The video was made with a minuscule budget; the gear used in the video were powered off car batteries and roll film, and filmed in a hazardous building in Northampton, which was just across the road from the main police station. David J explains how the band and film crew broke into the building to make the video: "We snuck into this place about three in the morning and the lights kept going down at crucial moments so we'd have to wait and sit around in complete darkness...the place was dripping wet although it all added to the atmosphere." The video's imagery and lighting borrowed heavily from German Expressionism. David J commented on the content of the music video: "We improvised around the loose idea of a ritualistic resurrection, with Peter lain out like a corpse on a wooden slab. Each of us would administer some kind of shamanistic voodoo to assist in the raising of the dead. The place was freezing cold, dank, and dripping with filthy water. The lights kept going out, and we would be plunged into complete darkness until they were restored." When the scenes of the factory were finished, the group went to another location for filming. David J explained: "Once we had filmed the scenes in the factory, we set off for a second location: the woods on the grounds of the Spencer family's country estate - another illegal situation, and a potential threat to the monarchy. We did have fun that night! The finished film looked great: a fog-cloaked atmospheric drama that was redolent of a German expressionist silent horror flick." David J also mentioned that the music video was more of an art piece than a traditional music video and commented that Chris Collins "did a brillant job of capturing the visual essence of the band." Chris Collins commented on the motive of the video: "Foremost in our minds was to make something interesting, so somebody who'd never heard of Bauhaus before and suddenly saw that video might say, "God, that's really interesting, I want to know more about that". Ken Lawrence also explained the film's intention: "Every film about a band should show the strengths of that artist. So of course "Mask" is a promo because hopefully, it's what Bauhaus are about. If you listen to their lyrics at all, if you know the way their music is structured - it's thought provoking, it evokes mood and it's very atmospheric music and that was our approach to making the film." It made only one appearance on British TV. Around the same time, "In keeping with our surrealist leaning...", the band also employed the "exquisite corpse" technique to an experimental film they made called "Consequences", where each member was given an amount of time to film whatever they wished. It was shown on tour in place of a support band. The band toured broadly to promote the album by playing a 16-date tour of England and 13 dates in Europe.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: In July 1982 Bauhaus released the single "Spirit", produced by Hugh Jones. This was unusual for the band since they tend to produce their own music and, as a result of this move, led to conflicts and compromises in the studio. As David J explains the predicament: "It took ages and ages. Usually we recorded very quickly - we'd do an album in three weeks from start to finish - but that took about nine days, which for us was absurd. There was so much agonising over it more from the producer than us." The song used an acoustic guitar with a bossa nova drumbeat. According to Shirley, The song was about: "...a "fifth member" of the band - a spirit they felt occupied the stage, lifting them to a higher plane when they were playing well." The music video was directed by Collins and Lawrence. Originally, the video was to show a physical representation of this spirit which included "a single dancer with a white facemask and body paint who would come onto the stage whilst the band performed the song and literally "lift" Peter and give him wings." However, this didn't happen since once the band completed their part, they had to depart in a hurry in order to do their tour of the United States. So, Collins and Lawrence were responsible for the editing process and completion of the video. They changed the spirit figure and exchange it with a spectral female figure "who would walked through the theatre along with a motley crew of clowns and jugglers." When the band came back from their tour of the United States, they were repelled by the music video and wanted to redo it. However, their record label refused as the band was already given a budget for the video and was not interested into providing more money for it. Despite this, the band was still unrelenting and still wanted to change the video. As David J explains: "So we raised the money ourselves out of our own bank balances and pooled our money and so we went in and re-edited it, trying to get it into some kind of shape. We did it. Delivered the master to Beggars Banquet. Next week - this was at the time of the video jukebox craze - we went into a pub and we see the original horrible version on the video. So we immediately rang Beggars Banquet and said; "What's going on?" and they'd send out the wrong one and it had gone off to TV and everyhing." It was intended to break into the Top 30, but only reached No. 42. The band was also displeased with the single, and re-recorded it later in 1982 for their third album "The Sky's Gone Out". Also when they played a gig in Salford University in 1982, Nico joined the band for a cover performance of the Velvet Underground song, "I'm Waiting for the Man".


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: For their third LP, "The Sky's Gone Out", based on their previous experience with their producer of their song "Spirit", they originally wanted to produce the album themselves as they knew what they should sound like. However, this led to problems in the studio as arguments between the band members would flare up based on their individual disagreements on how to make the album. The results of the album was due to the whole band's decision as a group and efforts of compromise. The band understood that they were too closely aligned to their work to have an objective take on their music, and was in need of a person from a third party that wasn't a producer however, one that makes suggestions and elucidations for their album without exerting a dominating effect on the band. This resulted with Derek Tompkins as their third party person. Derek Thompson commented on his agreement as an engineer of the album: "I was, however, quite willing to act as an engineer provided the resident engineer was responsible for the engineering and I was only responsible for interpreting what they wanted to him and helping a bit creatively myself." The band were booked into Rockfield Studios in Wales for one month to record the album. The band at the time had little original material written for the assembly due to the constant touring which didn't allowed to have enough time to write and rehearse new material. As Murphy explained: "The third LP was one of those unwritten albums that was done on the spot. An album of experimentation which was enjoyable to us because we didn't have any songs and we didn't feel like writing stuff and we said, "OK that's fine. If we don't have any songs we'll make the songwriting environment the studio." Although the sessions went well, there were some issues between the engineer and the band as the members would spend hours on laying down tracks until they got exactly what they wanted. However, this was solved with Derek Thompson as a mediator of the sessions. As Thompson explained: "I was a link to eliminate any strain between the two. A lot of things they did the engineer knew was not right but I used to say to him, "Don't worry about it, when it comes to the mix they'll throw it out. Don't worry they're just putting down stuff to work with. The creative part will come with the mix." Despite Thompson not understanding the music or lyrics of the album, he mentions: "I always used to ask them what the song was about so I knew what mood I was aiming for". Some of the lyrics of the album reflected the band's personal feelings and experiences. For example, one of the songs from the LP "All We Ever Wanted Was Everything" was according to David J, "evokes nostalgic memories of a time of innocence and naive yearning." David J also praised Murphy on the song by saying his singing: "...emoting the bittersweet sentiment so perfectly, every word ringing true."


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: In the same year, Bauhaus scored their biggest hit with a cover of David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust", which was recorded during a BBC session. The song was chosen by the band in spite of their critics who accused them of being "Bowie plagiarists", a label that they were quite annoyed with. Ash explained that the band didn't care about their critics and "...so we thought we'd do the opposite of what they'd expect and promptly release 'Ziggy'". The song reached No. 15 on the British charts, and earned the band an appearance on the television show "Top of the Pops". Due to the success of the single, the album also became the band's biggest hit, peaking at No. 3. That same year, Bauhaus made an appearance in the horror film "The Hunger", where they performed "Bela Lugosi's Dead" during the opening credits. The final cut of the scene focused on Murphy; this, coupled with the singer's modelling work in a popular ad campaign for Maxell, caused resentment among the rest of the group.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: Prior to the recording of their fourth album, "Burning from the Inside" (1983), Murphy was stricken with pneumonia, which prevented him from contributing much to the album. Ash and David J took the reins, becoming the driving forces behind the record and even performing lead vocals on several tracks. One of the songs in the album, "Who Killed Mister Moonlight" was described by David J as a "surrealistic ballad inspired in part by the murder of John Lennon". Later on, the mysterious character of Mister Moonlight had a symbolic meaning, which was seen by the band "as being representative of the dreamy, poetic aspect of Bauhaus". The album's lead single, "She's in Parties", reached No. 26 on the charts and earned Bauhaus their third and final "Top of the Pops" appearance. Bauhaus then embarked on an international promotional tour for the album, with dates in Europe and the Far East. David J recalled that the night before they were supposed to perform two shows at Hammersmith Palais in London, the group decided to disband.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: The band played their farewell show on 5 July 1983 at the Hammersmith Palais; dedicated fans had been warned by the band's crew not to miss the show, without telling them it was the last. After a long encore, consisting of some of their early songs, David J left the stage with the words "rest in peace". "Burning from the Inside" was released a week later. The album received largely positive reviews and reached No. 13 on the charts. Bauhaus released the single "Sanity Assassin" in limited quantities as a farewell gift for those who joined the group's fan club.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: During the band's initial lifecycle, solo projects would be initiated at times. For example, in 1981, while still being a member of Bauhaus, David J started a solo project in collaboration with Rene Halkett, who was one of the original students of the art school of their band name. The origins of this correspondence was due to Halkett's younger neighbor telling him of hearing about a group called Bauhaus on the John Peel Show on BBC radio. This intrigued Halkett and he soon wrote to Peel about getting in touch with the band. They eventually met, discussed poetry and decided to work with David by sending a cassette tape that contain Halkett orally citing two of his poems. After listening intensly on the tape, David decided to go a recording studio where he provided the backing music to the tape. This collabroation resulted as a single called "Armour/Nothing" which was released by 4AD. According to David J regarding the correspondence, "He wrote to John Peel when he was playing Bauhaus’ first record, Bela Lugosi's Dead, and Rene was then in his 70's and was an avid listener to John Peels show. He heard this and was intrigued that this band of young upstarts had usurped the name Bauhaus and he wrote to John Peel asking for more information. Peel sent me the letter and I was just amazed to be in contact with somebody from that time, so I wrote to Rene and we struck up this correspondence and in the end would meet up and I'd go down and visit him in his little cottage in Cornwall. We ended up making a record together, which was his poetry that I put to music. It was one of the first releases on 4AD. I would just go down and he would enthrall me with these stories of him appearing in these cabaret clubs in Weimar and dancing on the piano and letting off revolvers in the club and this whole sort of barbarous cabaret scene that he was intrinsically involved in. He met Bertolt Brecht and people like that, the surrealists came through and his teachers were Kandinsky and it was just amazing to have a friend from that time so that gave me a real insight, to actually be communicating with somebody that was there." Both Halkett and David were satified with the single. Halkett commented on his contribution to the single: "I felt that the two poems required something more than print because they depend on things which can only be expressed in musical signs... It (the single) falls between music and poetry and is not entirely either. With "Nothing" David has written a perfect arrangement for what is a quite concentrated philosophical idea and it becomes so much more than the words..."


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: After Bauhaus disbanded, the members of the band moved on to various solo work. Murphy worked briefly with bassist Mick Karn of Japan in the band Dalis Car, before going solo with such albums as 1986's "Should the World Fail to Fall Apart", 1988's "Love Hysteria" and 1989's "Deep". Ash had already started Tones on Tail with Bauhaus roadie Glen Campling as a side project in 1982; after Bauhaus broke up, Kevin Haskins joined the group, and the trio released an album and several EPs before breaking up after a 1984 American tour. During this time, David J released two solo albums and collaborated with other musicians, recording two albums with the Jazz Butcher, and also with comics writer/spoken-word artist Alan Moore in the short-lived band the Sinister Ducks.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: During a discussion about the state of their projects at the time, Ash and David J began talking about reforming Bauhaus. All four band members arranged a rehearsal, but Murphy failed to show up on the scheduled day. The other three band members rehearsed regardless, and were inspired by the chemistry they had as a trio. As a result, Ash and the Haskins brothers formed Love and Rockets in 1985. Love and Rockets scored a US hit four years later with "So Alive". The band broke up in 1999 after seven albums. Both Ash and David J released solo albums during the Love and Rockets years; Murphy contributed backing vocals to David J's 1992 single "Candy on the Cross".


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: Bauhaus reunited for the "Resurrection Tour" in 1998, their stage show opened with "Double Dare" and Pete Murphy singing to the audience via a TV screen set up centre-stage. The tour featured a new song, "The Dog's a Vapour", which was also included in the "Heavy Metal 2000" film soundtrack. A live album was recorded during the tour, "Gotham", which was released the following year. It included a studio recording of Bauhaus' cover of the Dead Can Dance song "Severance".


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: Bauhaus reunited again in 2005, playing that year's Coachella Festival in Indio, California. They opened their set with Murphy being lowered upside-down to the stage, singing "Bela Lugosi's Dead". The performance was critically acclaimed and ranked among the greatest and most memorable performances ever in Coachella. Following Murphy's 2005 tour, Bauhaus embarked on a full tour beginning in North America in autumn 2005, ending in Europe in February 2006. During the tour, Bauhaus covered Joy Division's "Transmission". The band also mentioned that they hoped to record new music. In May they performed as opening act for Nine Inch Nails on the summer leg of the latter's US tour.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: In 2008, Bauhaus released their first new studio album since 1983, "Go Away White" (Cooking Vinyl). It marked the band's end and the album had no promotional tour. In late 2007, Kevin Haskins said "We were getting along really well, but there was an incident that occurred," and added that as a result, "Some of us just felt that we didn't want to carry on as a working unit." In early 2008, Murphy claimed that he "was most satisfied with the bonding on an emotional level. It was good to be working together and to put the past behind us and it was very positive. The result was coming out really fast, so it was exciting and it was very enjoyable", but in the end, "that rocky character worked and I think it was a bit right to finish it, really". The same year, David J commented on the breakup: "You have a test tube, and you pour in one chemical, and you pour in another chemical, and something happens. It starts to bubble. Pour in another chemical, and it starts to bubble a bit more. You pour in a fourth chemical, and it bubbles really violently, and then explodes. That's my answer".


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: In 2017, Ash and Kevin Haskins toured as Poptone with Haskins' daughter Diva Dompe on bass. The group performed songs from Bauhaus, Tones on Tail, and Love and Rockets along with cover songs. A live album recorded at various stops on the tour was released through PledgeMusic.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: In 2018, Murphy and David J announced a tour of New Zealand, Australia and Europe to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Bauhaus, with the pair performing "In the Flat Field" in its entirety.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: In September 2019, after a 13-year hiatus, Bauhaus announced a show at the 5,000-seat Hollywood Palladium with all original members on 3 November. A second show was added for the following night, after the first show sold out quickly. A third date at the same venue was then confirmed for 1 December.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: In March 2022, Bauhaus released their first new song in fourteen years with "Drink the New Wine," which was recorded separately by all four members during COVID-19 lockdown. The recording process used the Exquisite Corpse method whereby each artist adds to the piece without hearing what the others have done.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: According to David J, the bands Bauhaus related to in the post-punk scene were Joy Division, Pere Ubu, Devo, Gang of Four, Cabaret Voltaire, and the Pop Group. Among bands and singers who influenced Bauhaus, they cited Siouxsie and the Banshees, David Bowie, T-Rex, Roxy Music, Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd, New York Dolls, Velvet Underground, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, The Doors, Alice Cooper, MC5, Ramones, the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Residents, Captain Beefheart, Suicide, Kraftwerk, Can, Faust, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Serge Gainsbourg, Lee Scratch Perry, King Tubby, Mikey Dread, Kurt Weill, Scott Walker, and Jacques Brel. Specific recordings that were influential on the band include the compilation album , Lou Reed's albums Berlin and Transformer, the Bits and Pieces single by the Dave Clark Five and the Double Barrel single by Dave and Ansell Collins.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: In terms of early influences from childhood, David J said that he was interested in jazz and its musicians such as Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk. Peter Murphy cited Doris Day, Simon and Garfunkel, the Beatles, the Everly Brothers and his experiences from Mass in Catholic school as highly influential to his singing. He mentioned that the first 7-inch single he ever bought was "A Hard Day's Night" by the Beatles and also listed Brian Eno's Music for Airports as one of his favorite albums. Daniel Ash was interested in music at a young age, first being impressed by the stomping of the Dave Clark Five's "Bits and Pieces" song and later going through his older brother's music collection of records from the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Faces and the Kinks. The first record he bought was Dave and Ansell Collins' "Double Barrel". When Ash was asked about how he developed his playing style and guitar influences, he replied: "My style of playing comes from a mixture of extreme laziness to learn proper scales/chords and a burning desire to sound original and new. Although I am a huge fan of Hendrix and Mick Ronson, Robert Fripp on Bowie tracks is also fab, and what about Earl Slick!" Ash also mentioned his appreciation of bands such as the Only Ones, the Damned, Television, Richard Hell and the Voidoids and said that the Stooges' Raw Power as one of his all-time favorite records. Kevin Haskins at 14 years old went to see Led Zeppelin and the drummer's (John Bonham) drum solo impressed him and called it "amazing". However at the same time, he was depressed as well due to feeling inadequate about his own musical abilities and never reaching the skill of Bonham. He even had thoughts of giving up music altogether. However, the nascent punk scene and seeing bands such as the Sex Pistols and The Clash gave him the confidence he needed to pursue in music.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: Around 1970, David J's was intrigued by the Ska music, Roots reggae and Dub music coming out of Jamaica. He mentioned that Reggae "...was the first music that I was seriously into." It was from this exposure from these musical styles that made David J choose a bass guitar instead of a lead guitar. David explained: "I loved [Dub]. It was so exciting because it was my first exposure to this other world really. Something subterranean, dark, sexually charged, violent and compelling. This dark music was played in these dark places and was just captivating. I realised very quickly that what was powerful about this sound was the bass. I recalled that when we got guitars, no-one wanted to be the bass player - we had various bands just a bunch of friends who wanted to play pop music and they all wanted to play lead guitar - so I went; "Well, I'll play the bass". I retained my six string guitar and just played the bottom four strings and just used to play along with the records and work out the bass lines. I just got into it and found it really satisfying and saved up and bought a bass guitar."


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: Given their mixture of reggae and punk rock, Murphy said that musically, they were "more aligned to the Clash than anything else that was going around." When asked about the influence of reggae on Bauhaus' music, Murphy stated that it was "massive. We were listening to toasting music all the time, and David brought in a lot of bass lines that were very lead riffs [...] those bass lines really formed the basis of the music" In particular, dub reggae was highly influential to the band, so far that David J mentioned that their signature song, "Bela Lugosi's Dead", was intended as dub.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: The band members Daniel, David and Kevin once attended a Rastafarian event that became quite influential to their music. As David explained: "At the time, Northampton had a large Rastafarian population, centred around the Matta Fancanta Youth Movement, which had its base at the old Salvation Army Citadel on the corner of Sheep Street, just across from Derngate Bus Station. It was run by Trevor Hall, whose uncle had started the famed Count Shelly sound system, which Trevor inherited. They would hold monthly events featuring two outfits competing against each other, spinning dub plates—instrumental tracks direct from Jamaica—and blasting them over the huge speakers while their respective ‘toasters’ took turns freestyling over the top. They would really go to town, painting up the entire place in the red, green, and gold of the Ethiopian flag and wearing suits and outsized hats to match, while the women would dye their hair. There were quotations from Haile Selassie all around the walls, and the air was thick with ganja smoke and the gamey aroma of goat's head soup. It was a true ‘temporary autonomous zone’, to quote the anarchist writer and poet Hakim Bey, and the police would wisely keep their distance. Daniel, Kevin, and I would be the only white faces in the throng, but there was never any trouble—quite the opposite—and the amazing music that we heard in that place became a big influence on us, ‘Bela Lugosi's Dead’ being a good example."


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: The band's other musical influences included various forms of rock (garage, glam, art, electronic, prog, heavy metal, folk, experimental, krautrock), as well as avant-garde music, ambient music, traditional pop and funk. Outside of music, Bauhaus's influences were often artistic and literary and included William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Bertolt Brecht, Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire, Comte de Lautréamont, Surrealism, German Expressionism, Greek Mythology, Ingmar Bergman, David Lynch, Oscar Wilde, Franz Kafka and Antonin Artaud. In regards to the influence of the original Bauhaus movement on the band, Murphy stated that "Bauhaus had no influence on Bauhaus (the band) except for being the sound, shape, energetic, and sensory birth name of our group."


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: Bauhaus combined these influences to create a gloomy, earnest and introspective version of post-punk, which appealed to many music fans who felt disillusioned in the wake of punk's collapse. Its crucial elements included Murphy's deep and sonorous voice, Ash's jagged guitar playing and David J's dub-influenced bass. Their sound and gloomy style would eventually come to be known as gothic rock or simply "goth".


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: According to David J, the band was "...always keen not to be a traditional ‘rock’ band, and we would go to great pains to avoid that well-trodden road." They experimented with various techniques and methods for song composition such as the Exquisite corpse on tracks such as "1. David Jay 2. Peter Murphy 3. Kevin Haskins 4. Daniel Ash" along with the use of Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies cards as well. To achieve some of the sound effects in their songs, various instruments were implemented such as bottlenecks, echo units, a Syndrum, and an EBow.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: In their second album "Mask", expanded their sound with the addition of synthesizers, electronics and a saxophone to "add color and dynamics to each song." The album was less structured and spontaneous compared to their first album. The song "Of Lillies and Remains" is an example of this method. According to Murphy: ""Of Lillies and Remains" is a song that was written as it happened. None of it was rehearsed, worked out or played beforehand. We simply told the engineer to turn on the tape. That was incredibly exciting. That said a lot for our confidence and courage and total absurdity; that it was possible to demonstrate that those ideas form an artistic point of view, come from another outside force - i.e. the collective creative thing."


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: In their first album and singles, Bauhaus' songs dealt with taboo subjects such as martyrdom, paranoia, madness, obsession and prostitution. For example, the song "Stigmata Martyr" was about (according to Shirley) "...a person whose religious obsession with Christ takes the form of a physical manifestation of the crucifixion; i.e. nailmarks on the hands: "In a crucifixion, ecstacy, Lying cross checked in agony, Stigmata bleed continuously, Holes in head, hands, feet, and weep for me." When delivering these lyrics Peter became the stigmata." Murphy also commented on the misconceptions of the lyrics of the song: "I don't think the other members of the band really got what I was writing about, and the collective intention suddenly became very anti-religious. And that song is not an anti-religious song at all. The message is, really, the dangers of obsession, of almost psychosomatic induction of that masochism. That alone can be an illusion. And it's way off the mark as to the actual source of the message of any religious God. God doesn't want you to be in pain and die. It wasn't ant-ireligious. It wasn't demonic. It was alluding to the manifestation. Is it truly a mark of the Holy Ghost or is it simply an obsession condition? That's all there is to it." Another song, "Dark Entries" tells the story of title character Dorian Gray from Oscar Wilde's novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray", which is Murphy's favorite novel. Murphy explains: "It was the first book with real substance that I chose for myself. It's a story of great narcissism and esoteric interior, and brilliantly written. It's a window into this personality, this Oscar Wilde chap I'd heard about. The language is so opulent. It's a rock star's story, really." The song "A God In An Alcove" was about "...the story of a fallen idol." The title track's "In the Flat Field" was inspired by "...the quotidian mundaneness of life in Northampton, and the desire to escape that ‘flat’ existence."


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: Other songs from later albums and singles, explored subjects such as nostalgia, desire, reflection, self-realization and hope. For example, the song "All We Ever Wanted Was Everything" was about the "...nostalgic memories of a time of innocence and naive yearning." Also, some of the song titles came from literary sources. For example, the song title "Kick in the Eye" was based on a line from the novel Satori In Paris by Jack Kerouac.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: The construction of their lyrics were inspired by the Cut-up technique method. An example of their approach to lyric structure is the amalgamation of individual lyrics from each member in the song "Of Lillies and Remains", as Murphy explained: "I'd written a dream out on a piece of paper and Dave picked up this piece of paper at random and found a blank side and wrote out a lyric. He turned it over and asked what it was. I said, "It's a dream." And so he said: "Let's do this." So David went in to do his half - no rehearsal - and then I took it from where he left off. That was a typical way of working."


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: In terms of live performances, Bauhaus' stage theatrics, specifically their lighting, was inspired by a Judas Priest concert that Murphy attended with Bauhaus' manager. They predominantly used black and white lighting for their live shows. When they were asked why in early interviews, David J responded, "...coloured lights are for Christmas trees." Their lighting was so minimal that sometimes the band would play in almost complete darkness where they were glimpsed rather than seen in their shows. Their manager Graham Bentley helped with the lighting, "I started doing lights for Bauhaus - which obviously came about because I was the person who was there - I got into it very much from the start. I love the shadows. I used to call it a dark show rather than a light show. The essential emphasis was less light." Bentley used industrial lights for the lighting and put the lights on the floor rather than the ceiling. Also, a strobe light would be used for Murphy to hold on to his body and move around with it on stage.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: Bauhaus are frequently considered to be the inventors of goth; however the band rejected this label, preferring to describe their style as "dark glam." Peter Murphy said he felt their contemporaries had a larger hand in solidifying what became goth. Likewise, Kevin Haskins felt that bands such as Siouxsie and the Banshees were more influential to goth subculture than themselves and mentioned that Bauhaus were "...more three dimensional, more art rock". Ash nevertheless admitted: "if you wear black and your first single is "Bela Lugosi's Dead," you’ve pretty much got a stamp on you. That's always been one of our strongest songs, so it's sort of undeniable".


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: Various bands and artists with goth associations pointed to Bauhaus as an inspiration, including Type O Negative, Alien Sex Fiend, Deine Lakaien, AFI, Buck-Tick, Lycia, Jaz Coleman (of Killing Joke), the Cult, Glenn Danzig (of Misfits), Greg Mackintosh (of Paradise Lost), She Wants Revenge, the Dresden Dolls, She Past Away and Wolfsheim. The Mission's Wayne Hussey even sang with Murphy on stage in 2013. Bauhaus were also influential upon many industrial rock groups and artists, like Ministry, Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails, Nitzer Ebb, and Skinny Puppy.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: In addition, Bauhaus were hailed by various alternative/indie rock performers and groups, including the Flaming Lips, Steve Albini (of Big Black), Jehnny Beth of Savages, Stephen Malkmus (of Pavement), Alan Sparhawk (of Low), Bradford Cox (of Deerhunter), Mark Lanegan (of Screaming Trees), Jesse Hughes (of the Eagles of Death Metal), Courtney Taylor-Taylor (of the Dandy Warhols), Jeff Ament (of Pearl Jam), Alex Henry Foster (of Your Favorite Enemies), Nicholas Thorburn (of Islands), Matt Noveskey (of Blue October), Jane's Addiction, Soundgarden, the Smashing Pumpkins, A Neon Rome, ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, Hole, whose lead singer Courtney Love admitted that a lot of her songs are "complete Bauhaus rip-offs", Interpol, My Chemical Romance, the Twilight Sad, Shearwater, and Elliott Smith.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: The group have been namechecked by several other prominent musical acts from other genres, including Jello Biafra (of the Dead Kennedys), Jonathan Davis (of Korn), the extreme metal band Celtic Frost, the lo-fi musician Ariel Pink, Maynard James Keenan (from Tool), electronic act Carl Craig, American record producer DJ Premier (of Gang Starr), the American comedian/musician Reggie Watts, the Iranian musician Azam Ali, the Japanese Visual kei musician Hide (of X Japan), the Japanese post-rock Mono, the Japanese heavy metal band Dir En Grey, whose lead singer Kyo listed "Press the Eject and Give Me the Tape" as his top record he would take to a desert island, the electronica act Moby, the trip hop band Massive Attack, the crust punk band Amebix, the shoegaze band Drop Nineteens, the psychedelic rock band White Hills, the noise rock band Today Is the Day, the nu metal band Coal Chamber, the extreme metal band Behemoth, the grindcore band Napalm Death, Randy Blythe (of Lamb of God), Fred Durst (of Limp Bizkit), Serj Tankian (of System of a Down), Sean Yseult (of White Zombie), Bilinda Butcher (of My Bloody Valentine), Stuart Braithwaite (of Mogwai) Blink-182 namedropped Bauhaus on their song "She's Out of Her Mind" on their "California" album. Duff McKagan of Guns N' Roses listed the Bauhaus compilation "Bauhaus 1979–1983" in his 100 favorite albums list.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: Alternative Press included Bauhaus in their 1996 list of "100 underground inspirations of the past 20 years."


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: The Bauhaus song "All We Ever Wanted Was Everything" (from "The Sky's Gone Out") was covered by several artists and bands, including John Frusciante (guitarist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers), MGMT and Xiu Xiu (who recorded it in 2006 for their "Tu Mi Piaci" EP). Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins sang T. Rex's "Telegram Sam" and "All We Ever Wanted Was Everything" live on stage with Bauhaus in 1998. "Double Dare" was covered by the alternative rock band the God Machine. "Hollow Hills" was covered by System of a Down. "Silent Hedges" (along with "Double Dare") was covered by the power metal band Nevermore.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: "Bela Lugosi's Dead", was covered by numerous acts, including Until December (1986), the Electric Hellfire Club (1996), Opera IX (on 2000 album ""), Sepultura (on 2001 album "Nation"), Nouvelle Vague (on 2006 album "Bande à part"), Chris Cornell (2007), Nine Inch Nails (2009), Trent Reznor with Murphy and TV on the Radio (2013), Massive Attack (2013), David J with Jill Tracy (2013), Chvrches (for the 2014 "Vampire Academy" soundtrack), Dead Cross (on their 2017 debut album) and the Damned (2019).


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: Bauhaus's fanbase extends beyond music; the American novelist Chuck Palahniuk was influenced by the Bauhaus song "Bela Lugosi's Dead" when writing his 2005 novel "Haunted". In James O'Barr's 1989 comic book "The Crow", the facial features of Eric Draven were based on those of Peter Murphy. In Neil Gaiman's series "The Sandman", Dream's face and appearance were also based on Murphy. Additionally, comic book writer Alan Moore wrote the sleeve notes of "Mask" and contributed an anonymous Bauhaus review called "Phantoms of the Teenage Opera" to the UK music paper "Sounds".


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: The 1984 music video of the song "You're the Inspiration" from the American band Chicago featured lead singer Peter Cetera wearing a Bauhaus T-shirt.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: In the "Beavis and Butt-head" season 3 episode "Meet God, Part II" (1993), they view and comment on a music video for Bauhaus' Bowie cover, "Ziggy Stardust".


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: Susie Lewis, the co-creator of the American animated series "Daria", is a fan of the band and used their song "1. David Jay 2. Peter Murphy 3. Kevin Haskins 4. Daniel Ash" in the closing credits of episode 213, "Write Where it Hurts".


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: In the 2003 "South Park" episode "Raisins", Henrietta Biggle (one of the "goth kids") had a bedroom poster of "Blauhaus", a parody version of the band.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: In the 2015–2016 "American Horror Story" season "", "Bela Lugosi's Dead" is used in the opening episode, in line with the underlying horror/vampire theme of the series.


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: In the 2017 "The Americans" episode "Darkroom", the Bauhaus song "Slice of Life" is played in the background of the red room scene. It was ranked #8 in Vulture's list of "The 10 Best Musical Moments in The Americans".


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: Bauhaus' performance at Coachella in 2005 has been ranked #5 among "LA Weekly" as one of "The 20 Best Coachella Sets of All Time".


title: Bauhaus (band)

text: Bauhaus' appearance in the Tony Scott film "The Hunger" has been ranked #20 by "Rolling Stone" as "The 30 Greatest Rock & Roll Movie Moments". and #17 by Time Out as "The 50 Best Uses of Songs in Movies".


title: History of the telephone

text: This history of the telephone chronicles the development of the electrical telephone, and includes a brief overview of its predecessors. The first telephone patent was granted to Alexander Graham Bell in 1876.


title: History of the telephone

text: Before the invention of electromagnetic telephones, mechanical acoustic devices existed for transmitting speech and music over a greater distance. This distance was greater than that of normal direct speech. The earliest mechanical telephones were based on sound transmission through pipes or other physical media. The acoustic tin can telephone, or "lovers' phone", has been known for centuries. It connects two diaphragms with a taut string or wire, which transmits sound by mechanical vibrations from one to the other along the wire (and not by a modulated electric current). The classic example is the children's toy made by connecting the bottoms of two paper cups, metal cans, or plastic bottles with tautly held string.


title: History of the telephone

text: Some of the earliest known experiments were conducted by the British physicist and polymath, Robert Hooke, from 1664 to 1685. An acoustic string phone made in 1667 has been attributed to him. An early version was also found in use by the Chimu in Peru. The gourd and stretched-hide version resides in the Smithsonian Museum collection and dates back to around the 7th century AD.


title: History of the telephone

text: For a few years in the late 1800s, acoustic telephones were marketed commercially as a competitor to the electrical telephone. When the Bell telephone patents expired and many new telephone manufacturers began competing, acoustic telephone makers quickly went out of business. Their maximum range was very limited. An example of one such company was the Pulsion Telephone Supply Company created by Lemuel Mellett in Massachusetts, which designed its version in 1888 and deployed it on railroad right-of-ways.


title: History of the telephone

text: Additionally, speaking tubes have long been common, especially within buildings and aboard ships, and they are still in use today.


title: History of the telephone

text: The telephone emerged from the making and successive improvements of the electrical telegraph. In 1804, Spanish polymath and scientist Francisco Salva Campillo constructed an electrochemical telegraph. The first working telegraph was built by the English inventor Francis Ronalds in 1816 and used static electricity. An electromagnetic telegraph was created by Baron Schilling in 1832. Carl Friedrich Gauss and Wilhelm Weber built another electromagnetic telegraph in 1833 in Göttingen. At the University of Gottingen, the two had been working together in the field of magnetism. They built the first telegraph to connect the observatory and the Institute of physics, which was able to send eight words per minute.


title: History of the telephone

text: The electrical telegraph was first commercialized by Sir William Fothergill Cooke and entered use on the Great Western Railway in England. It ran for from Paddington station to West Drayton and came into operation on April 9, 1839.


title: History of the telephone

text: Another electrical telegraph was independently developed and patented in the United States in 1837 by Samuel Morse. His assistant, Alfred Vail, developed the Morse code signaling alphabet with Morse. America's first telegraph was sent by Morse on January 6, 1838, across of wiring.


title: History of the telephone

text: Credit for the invention of the electric telephone is frequently disputed, and new controversies over the issue have arisen from time to time. Antonio Meucci, Alexander Graham Bell, and Elisha Gray amongst others, have all been credited with the telephone's invention. The early history of the telephone became and still remains a confusing morass of claims and counterclaims, which were not clarified by the huge number of lawsuits filed in order to resolve the patent claims of the many individuals and commercial competitors. The Bell and Edison patents, however, were commercially decisive, because they dominated telephone technology and were upheld by court decisions in the United States.


title: History of the telephone

text: The modern telephone is the result of the work of many people. Alexander Graham Bell was, however, the first to patent the telephone, as an "apparatus for transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically". Bell has most often been credited as the inventor of the first practical telephone. However, in Germany Johann Philipp Reis is seen as a leading telephone pioneer who stopped only just short of a successful device, and as well the Italian-American inventor and businessman Antonio Meucci has been recognized by the U.S. House of Representatives for his contributory work on the telephone. Several other controversies also surround the question of priority of invention for the telephone.


title: History of the telephone

text: The Elisha Gray and Alexander Bell telephone controversy considers the question of whether Bell and Gray invented the telephone independently and, if not, whether Bell stole the invention from Gray. This controversy is narrower than the broader question of who deserves credit for inventing the telephone, for which there are several claimants.


title: History of the telephone

text: The Canadian Parliamentary Motion on Alexander Graham Bell article reviews the controversial June 2002 United States House of Representatives resolution recognizing Meucci's contributions" 'in' "the invention of the telephone (not" 'for' the invention of the telephone"). The same resolution was not passed in the U.S. Senate, thus labeling the House resolution as "political rhetoric". A subsequent "counter-motion" was unanimously passed in Canada's Parliament 10 days later which declared Bell its inventor. This webpage examines critical aspects of both the parliamentary motion and the congressional resolution.


title: History of the telephone

text: The main users of the electrical telegraph were post offices, railway stations, the more important governmental centers (ministries), stock exchanges, very few nationally distributed newspapers, the largest internationally important corporations, and wealthy individuals.


title: History of the telephone

text: Telegraph exchanges worked mainly on a store and forward basis. Although telephones devices were in use before the invention of the telephone exchange, their success and economical operation would have been impossible with the schema and structure of the contemporary telegraph systems.


title: History of the telephone

text: Prior to the invention of the telephone switchboard, pairs of telephones were connected directly with each other, which was primarily useful for connecting a home to the owner's business (They practically functioned as a primitive intercom). A telephone exchange provides telephone service for a small area. Either manually by operators, or automatically by machine switching equipment, it interconnects individual subscriber lines for calls made between them. This made it possible for subscribers to call each other at homes, businesses, or public spaces. These made telephones an available and comfortable communication tool for many purposes, and it gave the impetus for the creation of a new industrial sector.


title: History of the telephone

text: The telephone exchange was an idea of the Hungarian engineer Tivadar Puskás (1844–1893) in 1876, while he was working for Thomas Edison on a telegraph exchange. The first commercial telephone exchange was opened at New Haven, Connecticut, with 21 subscribers on 28 January 1878, in a storefront of the Boardman Building in New Haven, Connecticut. George W. Coy designed and built the world's first switchboard for commercial use. Coy was inspired by Alexander Graham Bell's lecture at the Skiff Opera House in New Haven on 27 April 1877.


title: History of the telephone

text: In Bell's lecture, during which a three-way telephone connection with Hartford and Middletown, Connecticut, was demonstrated, he first discussed the idea of a telephone exchange for the conduct of business and trade. On 3 November 1877, Coy applied for and received a franchise from the Bell Telephone Company for New Haven and Middlesex Counties. Coy, along with Herrick P. Frost and Walter Lewis, who provided the capital, established the District Telephone Company of New Haven on 15 January 1878.


title: History of the telephone

text: The switchboard built by Coy was, according to one source, constructed of "carriage bolts, handles from teapot lids and bustle wire." According to the company records, all the furnishings of the office, including the switchboard, were worth less than forty dollars. While the switchboard could connect as many as sixty-four customers, only two conversations could be handled simultaneously and six connections had to be made for each call.


title: History of the telephone

text: The District Telephone Company of New Haven went into operation with only twenty-one subscribers, who paid $1.50 per month. By 21 February 1878, however, when the first telephone directory was published by the company, fifty subscribers were listed. Most of these were businesses and listings such as physicians, the police, and the post office; only eleven residences were listed, four of which were for persons associated with the company.


title: History of the telephone

text: The New Haven District Telephone Company grew quickly and was reorganized several times in its first years. By 1880, the company had the right from the Bell Telephone Company to service all of Connecticut and western Massachusetts. As it expanded, the company was first renamed Connecticut Telephone, and then Southern New England Telephone in 1882. The site of the first telephone exchange was granted a designation as a National Historic Landmark on 23 April 1965. However it was withdrawn in 1973 in order to demolish the building and construct a parking garage.


title: History of the telephone

text: Early telephones were technically diverse. Some of them used liquid transmitters which soon went out of use. Others were dynamic: their diaphragms vibrated a coil of wire in the field of a permanent magnet or vice versa. Such sound-powered telephones survived in small numbers through the 20th century in military and maritime applications where the ability to create its own electrical power was crucial. Most, however, used Edison/Berliner carbon transmitters, which were much louder than the other kinds, even though they required induction coils, actually acting as impedance matching transformers to make it compatible to the line impedance. The Edison patents kept the Bell monopoly viable into the 20th century, by which time telephone networks were more important than the instrument.


title: History of the telephone

text: Early telephones were locally powered by a dynamic transmitter. One of the jobs of outside plant personnel was to visit each telephone periodically to inspect the battery. During the 20th century, the "common battery" operation came to dominate, and was powered by the "talk battery" from the telephone exchange over the same wires that carried the voice signals. Late in the century, wireless handsets brought a revival of local battery power.


title: History of the telephone

text: The earliest telephones had only one wire for transmitting and receiving of audio, and used a ground return path. The earliest dynamic telephones also had only one opening for sound, and the user listened and spoke into the same hole. Sometimes the instruments were operated in pairs at each end, making conversation more convenient but also more expensive.


title: History of the telephone

text: At first, telephones were leased in pairs to the subscriber, for example one for his home and one for his shop, and the subscriber had to arrange with telegraph contractors to construct a line between them. Users who wanted the ability to speak to three or four different shops, suppliers etc. would obtain and set up three or four pairs of telephones. Western Union, already using telegraph exchanges, quickly extended the principle to its telephones in New York City and San Francisco, and Bell was not slow in appreciating the potential.


title: History of the telephone

text: Signaling began in an appropriately primitive manner. The user alerted the other end, or the exchange operator, by whistling into the transmitter. Exchange operation soon resulted in telephones being equipped with a bell, first operated over a second wire and later with the same wire using a condenser. Telephones connected to the earliest Strowger automatic exchanges had seven wires, one for the knife switch, one for each telegraph key, one for the bell, one for the push button and two for speaking.


title: History of the telephone

text: Rural and other telephones that were not on a common battery exchange had hand cranked "magneto" generators to produce an alternating current to ring the bells of other telephones on the line and to alert the exchange operator.


title: History of the telephone

text: In 1877 and 1878, Edison invented and developed the carbon microphone used in all telephones along with the Bell receiver until the 1980s. After protracted patent litigation, a federal court ruled in 1892 that Edison and not Emile Berliner was the inventor of the carbon microphone. The carbon microphone was also used in radio broadcasting and public address work through the 1920s.


title: History of the telephone

text: In the 1890s a new smaller style of telephone was introduced, the candlestick telephone, and it was packaged in three parts. The transmitter stood on a stand, known as a "candlestick" for its shape. When not in use, the receiver hung on a hook with a switch in it, known as a "switchhook." Previous telephones required the user to operate a separate switch to connect either the voice or the bell. With the new kind, the user was less likely to leave the phone "off the hook". In phones connected to magneto exchanges, the bell, induction coil, battery, and magneto were in a separate bell box called a "ringer box." In phones connected to common battery exchanges, the ringer box was installed under a desk, or other out of the way place, since it did not need a battery or magneto.


title: History of the telephone

text: Cradle designs were also used at this time, with a handle with the receiver and transmitter attached, separate from the cradle base that housed the magneto crank and other parts. They were larger than the "candlestick" and more popular.


title: History of the telephone

text: Disadvantages of single-wire operation, such as crosstalk and hum from nearby AC power wires, had already led to the use of twisted pairs and, for long-distance telephones, four-wire circuits. Users at the beginning of the 20th century did not place long-distance calls from their own telephones but made an appointment to use a special sound-proofed long-distance telephone booth furnished with the latest technology.


title: History of the telephone

text: Around 1893, the country leading the world in telephones per 100 persons—known as teledensity—was Sweden with 0.55 in the whole country but 4 in Stockholm (10,000 out of a total of 27,658 subscribers). This compares with 0.4 in the US for that year. Telephone service in Sweden developed through a variety of institutional forms: the International Bell Telephone Company (a U.S. multinational), town and village co-operatives, the General Telephone Company of Stockholm (a Swedish private company), and the Swedish Telegraph Department (part of the Swedish government). Since Stockholm consists of islands, telephone service offered relatively large advantages, but had to use submarine cables extensively. Competition between Bell Telephone and General Telephone, and later between General Telephone and the Swedish Telegraph Dept., was intense.


title: History of the telephone

text: In 1893, the U.S. was considerably behind Sweden, New Zealand, Switzerland, and Norway in teledensity. The U.S. became the world leadership in teledensity with the rise of many independent telephone companies after the Bell patents expired in 1893 and 1894.


title: History of the telephone

text: By 1904, over three million phones in the U.S. were connected by manual switchboard exchanges. By 1914, the U.S. was the world leader in telephone density and had more than twice the teledensity of Sweden, New Zealand, Switzerland, and Norway. The relatively good performance of the U.S. occurred despite competing telephone networks not interconnecting. On January 7, 1927, W. S. Gifford, president of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, called Evelyn P. Murray to test the first commercial telephone line across the Atlantic Ocean.


title: History of the telephone

text: What turned out to be the most popular and longest-lasting physical style of telephone was introduced in the early 20th century, including Bell's model 102 telephone. A carbon granule transmitter and electromagnetic receiver were united in a single molded plastic handle, which when not in use were placed in a cradle in the base unit. The circuit diagram of the model 102 shows the direct connection of the receiver to the line, while the transmitter was induction coupled, with energy supplied by a local battery. The coupling transformer, battery, and ringer were in a separate enclosure from the desk set. The rotary dial in the base interrupted the line current by repeatedly but very briefly disconnecting the line 1 to 10 times for each digit, and the hook switch (in the center of the circuit diagram) permanently disconnected the line and the transmitter battery while the handset was on the cradle.


title: History of the telephone

text: Starting in the 1930s, the base of the telephone also enclosed its bell and induction coil, obviating the need for a separate ringer box. Power was supplied to each subscriber line by central-office batteries instead of the user's local battery, which required periodic service. For the next half century, the network behind the telephone grew progressively larger and much more efficient, and, after the rotary dial was added, the instrument itself changed little until Touch-Tone signaling started replacing the rotary dial in the 1960s.