he will always have a place in your heart hotel.

Rest in peace, Dan Fogelberg.

they are back too!

You are happy to discover that two of your favorite pop singer-songwriters, Joshua Kadison ("Jessie", "Beautiful in My Eyes") and Conner Reeves ("Earthbound", "My Father's Son"), have released new material.

Kadison's two new EPs are The Venice Beach Sessions, Parts 1 and 2; Reeves' EP is titled Welcome to the Future. Sample tracks are available either as downloads or streaming audio.

"Earthbound" in particular brings back lots of memories.

Across The Borders, and Through The Barricades

"Live from the NEC" was filmed on December 16th & 17th, 1986.

DVD concert track listing:

• Cross The Line
• Highly Strung
• Virgin
• How Many Lies
• With The Pride
• Gold
• Lifeline
• Through The Barricades
• Chant No. 1 (I Don't Need This Pressure On)
• To Cut A Long Story Short
• True
• Revenge For Love
• Fight For Ourselves

Music video listing:

• Fight For Ourselves
• Through The Barricades
• Raw
• Raw (Amnesia mix)
• Be Free With Your Love
• Crashed Into Love
• plus a short documentary on the making of "Fight For Ourselves"

All the extra music videos are culled from the two albums recorded under the Columbia Records-Sony Music label, "...Barricades", and "Heart Like A Sky". The DVD is released by Sony Music, so little surprise that videos of songs recorded during Spandau's contract tenure with Chrysalis Records have not been included.

The DVD also contains a commentary track, by Gary and Martin Kemp. Here is an excerpt. As Gary explains: "'[Through The] Barricades' is a song about a relationship across the religious divide of Belfast." Spandau was based in Dublin for the recording of the Barricades album. Gary traveled to Belfast, and as he recalls, he saw barricades, literally. This was to provide inspiration for the song, as well as the full title of the album promotion tour: Across The Borders, and Through The Barricades.

Cross The Line, and Fight For Ourselves

Today you went shopping and to the movies with Burcu and Nazli. While at Best Buy, you picked up Dream Theater's 2-DVD "Live at the Budokan", and Spandau Ballet's "Live from the National Exhibition Center (NEC)" remastered DVD. The latter was filmed during Spandau's "Through the Barricades" tour. "Barricades" is one of your favorite albums, because several of its tracks are unabashedly socio-political, about the right to question, to resist, and to love across divides: Cross the Lines, Fight for Ourselves, How Many Lies, and of course, Through the Barricades, etc.

And it is a fitting coincidence that Burcu suggested we watch "V for Vendetta". Lots of thanks and gratitude, Burcu, for your excellent choice.

More on "...Vendetta" and "Live from the NEC" in subsequent entries.

turn back the clock and remember: Clark Datchler

You shamelessly, uh, draw upon shyuech's blog for inspiration. It is winter time in The Land of the 3 Cs, and grasshoppers do hibernate. So, no pictures of the world outside, until March 2006 or so. So, what to do? How about digging through one's CD collection and writing the first of a series of short entries about certain singers and their hard to find albums that you consider yourself lucky to own? You are sure shyuech will enjoy this one in particular.

First up: former Johnny Hates Jazz vocalist, Clark Datchler, and his post-JHJ solo album, Raindance. A 1990 release under Virgin Records. You bought it at Chua Joo Huat (Far East Plaza) years ago. You have yet to put up a scan of the album cover, but googling turns up at least two discographies: [1] and [2]. Thanks to info from JHJ/Datchler fan, John Berge, you learn that this is not Datchler's first solo release.

1. the state of play
2. drowning my sorrows
3. crown of thorns
4. close to the edge
5. it's better this way
6. the last emotion
7. raindance
8. heart of hearts
9. true confessions
10. autumn years

Your favorite song from the album is "Crown of Thorns". You think its lyrics resonate quite ironically and eerily with current world affairs:

Holy men talk of hunger
while standing beneath a cross of gold
And there are preachers on the TV
in their thousand dollar suits, who sell your soul
...
To think you died for what you believed in
only to be exploited and used
Now you're supermen from the promised land
just a vision of Hollywood
...
So many countries torn by their idols
Too many prophets screaming for blood
And they only hear what they want to hear
when it comes to God up above

They Wrote Their Own Songs

shyuech's notification that Bananarama have released a new album, has spurred this grasshopper to recall a whole bunch of pop acts that found fame primarily during the 1980s. Artistes -- and this word is used quite deliberately -- most of whom wrote their own songs. Oh, okay, those that relied fully upon formulaic, SAW-type songwriting and production, such as Big Fun and NKOTB, need not apply.

• ABC
• A-Ha
• Blue Mercedes
• Breathe
• Bros
• Brother Beyond
• Climie Fisher
• Crowded House
• Deacon Blue
• Duran Duran
• Fine Young Cannibals
• Go West
• Hue and Cry
• Johnny Hates Jazz
• Level 42
• Living in a Box
• Prefab Sprout
• Spandau Ballet
• Tears for Fears
• Wang Chung
• Waterfront
• Wet Wet Wet
• Wham!

Nor have Depeche Mode, Erasure, Human League, OMD, Scritti Politti, to name a few, been forgotten. U2 are in a class of their own. Not too shabby for the Dark Ages of Music.