Unfortuately I have no excuses. Well, saying that there might be a tiny excuse as my first girlfriend was into Asia. For a spotty faced teenager, even dumbing down to this extent could be entertained for the promise of some late night fumblings. And dumbing down is surely the end result of listening to this kind of twaddle. Fortunately, the album released in 1982 left my ownership many, many years ago but the emotional scarring is still there.
Just to remind those too young or too disinterested, Asia were yet another supergroup. The principal players were Steve Howe and Greg Downes who both came from Yes, John Wetton from King Crimson, and Carl Palmer from of course - Emerson, Lake and Palmer. And they were shit. And they still are shit judging from the information I found out indicating that they are reformed and touring. In fact, just to prove that there is synergy in this world I found out here that the support group on their US tour are none other than The Alan Parsons Project! Now that is scary.
Just so all you disgruntled fans can't complain too much, I have a full list of UK dates . But for the sane ones amongst us pick the one closest to you and make sure you're out of town. Treat yourself, you know you deserve it.
December 1st - Falmouth Pavilion December 2nd - Bournemouth BIC Pavilion December 4th - Liverpool Academy December 5th - Perth Concert Halls (Scotland) December 6th - Glasgow Academy (Scotland) December 7th - Ebbw Vale Leisure Centre (Wales)December 8th - Frome Cheese & Grain December 10th - Newcastle Academy December 11th - Nottingham Rock City December 12th - Oxford Zodiac Club (Academy) December 13th - Manchester Academy December 14th - Wolverhampton Civic December 16th - London Shepherds Bush
If you really fancy it here is their most famous song:
Asia - Heat of the Moment (mp3)which you can buy right here
And for everybody else some alternatives from 1982:
Kate Bush - There Goes A Tenner (mp3) Buy
ABC - Poison Arrow (mp3) Buy
Heaven 17 - Let Me Go (mp3) Buy
Human League - Being Boiled (mp3) Buy
Thirty years seems to fly by extremely quickly. There I was one moment queueing for ages outside the Odeon waiting to catch up with the latest craze. And the very next I'm a middle aged (but twinkle-eyed) sloth reading about who their favourite Star Wars character is based on six films (as outlined in this months 'Empire'). Yes, my Dad was right and life does seem to pass by in an instant (rather like the hyperspace button on the 'Millenium Falcon'). In 1977, the world was still excited by the prospect of space travel. The Apollo missions of 1968-1972 were still a fresh (if rather costly) memory and it seemed only a matter of time before mankind would embark on another feat of exploration. After all the shuttle programme was well into its design phase and hopefully this would realise the ambition of cheaper space travel. 
Just what was I thinking? And to make things even worse I actually possessed three other albums at one point. I first listened to this lot when my brother got the 'Pyramid' album back in the late seventies. They were prog rock and Parsons had infamously engineered Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon' in 1973. Remember readers that this was the height of New Wave and Mr Vicar was deeply immersed in The Cure, Magazine, and The Jam. Somehow I was under the false illusion that I needed to widen my musical horizons by listening to Alan Parsons. I think in retrospect I must have been possessed as there seems to be no other plausible explanation for my foolhardiness. In fact, there may well be some credence to this statement. Parsons used to get all sorts of 'artistes' to work as guests on his albums. They included the likes of Colin "brokenhearted" Blunstone, Arthur Lee, Steve Harley and John Miles. Perhaps they were all under his spell. Needless to say that the aforesaid albums have all been consigned to the album scrapheap and are probably propping up some corner of a charity shop as I write. There I feel better already, but only by degrees as there is worse to come. Oh yes far worse!