Andy McCluskey
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| Andy McCluskey | |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | George Andrew McCluskey |
| Born | 24 June 1959 |
| Origin | Heswall, Wirral, England |
| Occupations | singer songwriter record producer keyboardist bassist |
| Instruments | voice bass guitar keyboards |
| Associated acts | VCL XI Equinox Pegasus The Id Dalek I Love You Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark Atomic Kitten |
| Website | www.omd.uk.com |
| Notable instruments | |
| Fender Jazz Bass Rickenbacker bass |
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Andy McCluskey (born George Andrew McCluskey, 24 June 1959, Heswall, Wirral, England) is the lead singer, bass guitarist, and primary songwriter for the band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD). He met Paul Humphreys in school, (Great Meols Primary School, in Elwyn Road; McCluskey lived in nearby Queens Avenue) and played with him in several bands, including Hitlerz Underpantz, VCL XI and The Id. McCluskey then attended Calday Grange Grammar School in West Kirby. McCluskey briefly joined Dalek I Love You as their lead singer, but left because he wanted to sing his own songs.
McCluskey teamed up with Humphreys again to form OMD in the late 1970s. They were successful, especially in their native United Kingdom where they had several hit singles. They are best known in the United States for their song "If You Leave" from the Pretty in Pink soundtrack album.
Humphreys and the rest of the band split with McCluskey in 1989, with McCluskey retaining the OMD name. He released three more albums under the band's moniker including their biggest selling album, Sugar Tax. Due the diminishing sales of the following two albums Liberator and Universal he disbanded the group.
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[edit] Bass technique
McCluskey is right-handed, but originally learned to play bass guitar on a left-handed model. As a result, he plays with the strings "upside down" (i.e., with the lowest-pitched string on the bottom and the highest-pitched one on top), counter to normal practice.[1]
[edit] Atomic Kitten and The Genie Queen
In 1998, McCluskey founded the UK pop group Atomic Kitten. Their song "Whole Again", co-written by McCluskey, was his first UK No.1, and he and his fellow songwriters were nominated for the Ivor Novello Award for excellence in songwriting. In 2002, the band sued to terminate the songwriting/production agreement between themselves and McCluskey.
More recently, McCluskey formed White Noise Records and publishing label where he tried to recreate the formula of Atomic Kitten with Liverpool girl group, The Genie Queen. Even though The Genie Queen were featured in the Observer Music Monthly, they are now more famous as being the band that FIFA World Cup "WAG" Abigail Clancy was in, before she became widely known in the UK tabloid press as girlfriend to the England football player, Peter Crouch.
[edit] OMD Reformation
McCluskey and Humphreys reformed OMD for a performance on German TV in June 2005, with the promise of more gigs to follow. 2007 saw the first tour of the reformed OMD, commemorating the twenty-sixth anniversary of the release of their masterpiece album Architecture & Morality. The album itself was remastered and re-released to coincide.
The band released a CD and DVD of their triumphant Hammersmith Apollo (London) live gig from the 2007 reunion tour in the spring of 2008 before undertaking a short tour to celebrate thirty years as a band in the autumn of 2008, concluding at London's historic Roundhouse venue on 7 October 2008. A compilation of their singles and videos, Messages: Greatest Hits, was released to coincide with the tour. There are tentative plans to play more live gigs and possibly record some new material in 2009.
Paul Humphreys also performs and records with his duo Onetwo with partner Claudia Brücken (formerly of Propaganda). Onetwo supported Erasure on their UK tour in the autumn of 2007.
[edit] External links
- Mini biography at the IMDb website
[edit] Notes
- ^ "A Message from Andy McCluskey of OMD". http://www.watkinsguitars.co.uk/mp3downloads.htm. Retrieved 2009-04-25.
