Digitisation 3 - Per Ardua ad Astra

Well here we are - pure 80s stadium, dinosaur, supergroup rock. As my tweet @kevinmulryne while I was Digitising This, this has to be the funniest music I have heard. It's laugh-out-loud stuff - go and listen first to Voice of America. Also, of course fantastic and wonderful music to take you back to what you were doing circa. 1985.

Once again @GaryJDay managed to guess the artist via a few Twitter clues - it is, of course, Asia - rock royalty from a variety of sources. The original line-up appears to be out on tour this year - Steve Howe fresh from touring with Yes - without Jon Anderson and cut short because of the problem with Chris Squire's leg...

The line-up on this album is John Wetton, Geoff Downes, Carl Palmer and Mandy Meyer:





I actually remember being interested in Asia because of the Yes connection - the original guitarist for Asia was Steve Howe, long-time Yes legend. Also, of course, Geoff Downes played keyboards with Yes in the Trevor Horn period on Drama. The rest of the story can be found on Wikipedia - no need to repeat it here!

Another draw for me, of course, was the artwork by Roger Dean - most famous for his Yes album covers.

I never got into ELP, featuring Carl Palmer on drums but his no-nonsense style certainly fits the bill here.

Digitisation was uneventful (thankfully) apart from picking up the dog barking part of the way through...

Digitisation number 2 - royalty

I held a quick competition on Twitter to see if anyone could guess the identity of this album.

Here were the clues:

1. Band from Coventry
2. Lead singer left to be a presenter on the young MTV
3. Second 'difficult' album.

@GaryJDay got it right!


I felt I should follow this band when they came out with the hit, 'Love and Pride', as I lived near Coventry and my favourite radio station at the time. Mercia Sound, were promoting them. I also entered and won a competition on Mercia Sound around this time and received a vinyl promo copy of a 'Bangles' album...

Anyway, listening to this now, I really rather like it - especially 'Alone Without You' - the biggest single and 'Sugar Candy Mountain Buddhas'.

Oh yes, just getting the links from YouTube reminded of the King trademark - spray painted Dr. Martin's boots!

The digitising process appeared to be going well until I played the files back. It turns out that the four-track tape deck also mixes in sounds through its integrated microphone - even though it is switched off! So at the beginning of the first track you can hear my telephone ringing! I couldn't be bothered to do it again...it's like history of the process I suppose.

I also got the process for making the MP3s sorted and transferred a couple of tracks to iTunes.

On to the next!!