Hop-Scotch

Hop-Scotch is an British-American post-punk band with a career spanning more than four decades, having formed in Gibraltar in 1972. Their music is classified as new wave and no wave, but they are, for the most part, a post-punk band.

For a long time, the band have been quite popular with the indie music scene as well as the mainstream and are considered influential to many artists, and have sold more than 14 million concert tickets and over 16 million albums. They are one of the only quintessential 1980s bands that have survived to date.

They released their first album, The Race, in 1975 on Island Records in the United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, and New Zealand, and A&amp;M Records in the Americas, Yugoslavia, Japan, and Australia.

They are currently signed to EVOLVE Records and Roadrunner Records, they have been signed to Interscope Records, Vendetta Records, Island Records, and A&amp;M Records in the past

The beginnings (1972-1975)
Massimiliano Di Traglia and Jackson Doe met in the Reclamation Areas of Westside, Gibraltar at the now-closed Musicator record shop. The shop mainly stocked psychedelic and glam rock that was invading the charts at the time in the US and UK, as well as a small amount of progressive rock. Jackson was at that point an RAF cadet, but he was also teaching himself to play guitar at the same stage. The band's style originally incorporated many aspects of the music that they listened to at Musicator.

In mid-1973, the band gave their first performance at the Café de Paris in London, under the name 'The Clean Community'. Around this time the Israeli avant-garde artist Tommy Zion, the Vincentian-born American guitarist Mark Venkman, and the Italian-British Inzaghi brothers also joined.

Some time after, the band released a demo tape, and changed their name to Hop-Scotch, which was originally spelled as one word: Jackson wanted to add the hyphen 'so it would look more original'.

In 1975, the band hired Americans Stacy Mészöly and Mark Garfield, Brazilian-Canadian Mike J, and French-Canadian jazz drummer Pierre Alméras for their first album, The Race, a rock musical about sprint car racing. It hit #10 on the Billboard 200 and has sold over 11 million copies.

Start of success (1975-1979)
In 1976, they released their second album, The Last Stand, which was a rock musical about an American boy and a Japanese girl who fall in love. It showed off Massimiliano Di Traglia's keyboard work and Jackson Doe's guitar skills, plus Massimiliano, Jackson, and Stacy's vocal stylings.

Current

 * Massimiliano Di Traglia - vocals, keyboards (1972-present)
 * Jackson Doe - vocals, electric guitar (1972-present)
 * Stacy Mészöly - vocals, rhythm guitar (1975-present)
 * Dhimitër Toçi - lead and rhythm guitar, backing vocals (2000-present)
 * Umeko Izumikawa - lead and rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1996-present)
 * Mark Venkman - lead and rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1973-present)
 * Sebastiaan van der Westhuizen - bass guitar, backing vocals (2011-present)
 * Vincenzio and Nunzio Inzaghi - keyboards, backing vocals (1973-2002, 2009-present for Vincenzio; 1973-present for Nunzio)
 * D-Money - keyboards, backing vocals (2002-present)
 * Setsuna Kishinouyei - drums, percussion (2015-present)

Former

 * Tommy Zion - lead and rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1973-1998) (now retired)
 * Mark Garfield - bass guitar, backing vocals (1975-2011) (now retired)
 * Pierre Alméras - drums, percussion (1975-1998) (deceased)
 * Mike J - lead and rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1975-1995) (now retired)
 * Bob Schlitz - drums, percussion (1999-2015) (now with The Bob Schlitz Band)

Albums

 * The Race (1975)
 * The Last Stand (1976)
 * Testing (1977)
 * The Electronic Sound of the Future (1978)
 * Piano (1979)
 * Go Forth! (1980)

EPs

 * At Your Service (1986)
 * Quantum (1988)

Soundtracks

 * Soundtrack to The Last Stand: The Musical (1994)
 * The Sounds of Timothy Goes to School (2001) (as "Hop Scotch + Friends")