History of Haines

Awhile back I was listening to this "Italo" song I'd been enjoying a lot entitled "It Spoke To Me of You" by someone named Denis Haines. On a repeat listen I thought that the intro sounded just like a Gary Numan track. Being that Mr. Numan is one of my all time favorites, I liked that. After realizing that, then a lot of it started sounding like Gary Numan. Not like it was him, but like it was someone really into him. The keyboards in the intro, the strange lyrics and the vocals all seemed to owe a debt, despite the song's upbeat atmosphere.

Denis Haines- It Spoke to Me of You

So I looked him up on the discogs and got this. It's one of Gary's keyboard players! Though he worked only on one album, at least it was one of his good ones. In my opinion, 1980's "Telekon" is Numan's last good album before sailing down crap creek for 28 years.

Gary Numan- The Aircrash Bureau
Gary Numan- Trois Gymnopedies (First Movement) (From the Telekon Deluxe Edition)
Yes I know I've posted this, but so what? It's so pretty!

After the Telekon tour ended, Numan, notoriously choosey with bandmates, decided to lose his backing band, Dramatis. Not one to rest on their laurels, Dramatis recorded their one and only album, "For Future Reference", with Haines doing most of the writing and vocals. Fortunately the album did have a hit. Unfortunately for Dramatis, it was the one song on the album that featured Gary Numan on vocals, "Love Needs No Disguise", Numan's supposed farewell to Tubeway Army. Haines co-wrote that song with Michael Guihen, founder of Night Moves, a synthpop group Guihen formed after seeing Numan perform Are Friends Electric on BBC's Top of the Pop's in 1979. Are you keeping up? Haines then helped record Night Moves' classic track, Trans Dance to return the favor.

Dramatis- Love Needs No Disguise
Dramatis- Take Me Home
Night Moves- Transdance

In 1986 Haines was commisioned by a company called Filmtrax to make, "The Listening Principle" (The Pleasure Principle?) to be part of a series of "new age representations of colors". I don't know exactly what that means or even what color he might be representing here, but I like it. Its a gorgeous ambient/new age album co-produced by Simon Heyworth (who's worked with Gong and Mike Oldfield on Tubular Bells) and Simon Smart, quite reminiscent of M83's recent Digital Shades Vol. 1 (which if you haven't heard, get it). Being that this album is out of print and hard to find (I don't even remember where I found my digital copy anymore) heres the whole thing in a zip. It's meant to be listened to as an album anyway.

Denis Haines- The Listening Principle

So what's happened to Denis Haines since? Who knows? I do know another weird Haines fact, he played keyboards for The Hollies. The Hollies. Depending on who you believe it was anywhere in between 1981-1988, for a period of one or seven years. Discogs claims he played for them the whole seven but I don't quite believe them. That timeline would go across all these other projects save for "Telekon" and maybe, "It Spoke to Me of You", being that I know nothing about it, release date or otherwise. He's mysterious this Denis Haines. I can't even find a picture of the guy! Fact checker's, feel free to set me straight as I culled all this info together from lots of random places, including one particularly informative Ebay auction. So honestly, it could all be wrong.