Mike Howlett
Mike Howlett (* April 27, 1950 in Lautoka, Fiji) is a musician and producer. He became famous in the first half of the 1970s as bassist of the band Gong. Later he brought in his band Strontium 90 Andy Summers with the other musicians of The Police together. He then joined primarily as a producer of new-wave bands in appearance.
Biography
Howlett was born in Fiji and spent his youth in Sydney ( Australia), where he was the bassist for the band The Affair in the late 1960s. After winning a band contest, he came in 1970 to England, where he hired himself in further minor bands before 1973 on the Space - rock band Gong around guitarist and singer Daevid Allen, whose partner Gilli Smyth, the second guitarist Steve Hillage, keyboardist Tim Blake and saxophonist Didier Malherbe came, the newly formed after the recording of their third album Flying Teapot (1973).
Mike Howlett replaced with the former bassist Francis Moze Gong (Magma). New to the band and the drummer Pierre Moerlen was encountered. This occupation recorded the two albums Angel's Egg ( 1973) and You ( 1974), which form the central Radio Gnome trilogy of the band with the previous album. After Allen, Smyth, Hillage and Blake had left the band and these as Pierre Moerlen 's Gong turned to purely instrumental jazz rock, also Howlett left the band in May 1976.
After leaving Gong Howlett had in 1977 in which, initiated by Nik Turner and Harry Williamson anti-nuclear project Radio Actors and their Single Nuclear Waste, except where Steve Hillage him and Gilli Smyth and Steve Broughton and Sting were involved. In the same year he founded the band Strontium 90, which still belonged to except him and Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland (replacing the originally planned Chris Cutler ). Strontium 90 released only one single, and only played a few concerts, one of which was the occasion of a unique Gong Reunion 1977 in Howlett except with strontium 90 with a gong on stage. Howlett ended then but for now his musical career to continue to hire themselves out as a producer. Andy Summers resigned after the stint with strontium 90 in as a replacement for their former guitarist of the band The Police Sting and Copeland and thus completed their classic line-up.
As a producer Howlett Hits reach with Martha and the Muffins, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Blancmange, A Flock of Seagulls ( including the Grammy Award - winning titles DNA) and China Crisis, he also produced successful albums by Joan Armatrading, The Alarm, Power of Four, Fischer-Z, and others.
As in 1994, the 25th anniversary of the band reformed Gong in their classic lineup, Howlett came even after a long absence from the stage again as a musician in appearance. He participated in several tours between 1996 and 2001 and produced the 2000 released album Zero to Infinity, on which he also plays bass.
After the end of the tour activity of Gong 2001, he lectured at South Thames College, at the University of Glamorgan and at Ealing College of Music and Media. In 2003, he appeared in a joint project with Damo Suzuki ( Can) in the opening act of Daevid Allen's Gong successor project Acid Mothers Gong. During the 2009 studio album released in 2032 by Gong he was playing bass.