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...