"How I Fell In Love With:" The Dream Academy

This post goes out by special request of Brandon, so even though this memory is a little fuzzier than others, it's no less important to me. Just forgive me if the chronology is way off. Not that anyone other than myself could really ever know.

First, let me say that The Dream Academy is a different type of band than many that I have grown to love over the years, and is also one of the few that I've never had the opportunity to experience live. Whereas most of the bands I like tend to be in a new wave/dance/rock vibe, The Dream Academy is more classical, ethereal and mellow. Of course, Dream Academy takes those elements and applies pop sensibilities to them, as evidenced in their (only) massive hit, "Life In A Northern Town."

The way in which I was introduced to this band is still part of one of my fondest childhood memories. Growing up in a relatively poor household on a farm, money was very limited and although I never really felt it was much of a constraint when I was young, it did mean that there wasn't much money to buy lots of new albums with. Luckily, my resourcefulness coupled with my fondness for music that was just a few years out-of-date meant that I was able to begin building a fairly impressive music collection at a young age even on my tight budget. One place where, like a fountain of champagne, music flowed freely into my hands for the very low price of one American dollar, was TG&Y in Russell, Kansas. As an aside, I must say that TG&Y was one of my favorite places. A forlorn and fated dusty old discount store, it was inevitable that due to declining population in the area and the sinking economy, TG&Y would be closing it's doors any day. In fact, it was surprising the store was even still open. But I loved it, with it's outdated merchandise and it's bored looking employees. I remember once I found a Duran Duran t-shirt there for $2. When I was really young, my parents used to turn me loose in the store with a whole dollar that I could spend on whatever I wanted. Later, in junior high, they sat up a bin of $1 cassette tapes and a shelf full of $1 vinyl albums. I found that one American dollar could still work for me.

Here's where my chronology is slightly messed up. If my memory serves me well, the first Dream Academy purchase I made was a cassette tape of "Remembrance Days." I'm pretty sure I was attracted to the album by the cover art, which features the trio sitting on an ornate purple velvet couch, wearing brightly colored outfits. Yellow and white flowers featured prominently in the artwork as well. The trio bore a striking resemblance to my favorite band at the time, the Thompson Twins. In fact it was uncanny: A long haired, neo-hippy lead singer who seemed vaguely androgynous, a quiet black guy with crazy hair, and a smart-looking blond girl who played various odd instruments. One of the instruments she (being Kate St. John) played was the oboe, which was particularly fascinating to me since I myself played oboe in my school band.
The album itself first seemed a little boring for my pop sensibilities, and I was disappointed that I didn't recognize any of the songs from radio. However, I did find some favorites, which included "Power To Believe" (featured in the movie "Planes Tranes and Automobiles" although I didn't remember it - but I did see it later in life and confirmed) and "Here" which featured a magnificent oboe solo.

I filed the tape away in my alphabetically-organized cassette case and thought little about it for quite some time. Then, in 1991, my eighth-grade year, I was shopping at a Wal-Mart or some such superstore (the kind that were putting stores like TG&Y out of business) when something in the "cassingles" section caught my eye: "Love" by The Dream Academy, with it's brightly colored, floral artwork. (As I remember it, this happened also in Great Bend, KS - see previous blog about my discovery of Scritti Politti's "Cupid & Psyche") I liked the song enough that, even after reading Rolling Stone's negative review of it's parent album, "A Different Kind Of Weather", I was interested enough to purchase it. I liked the album's aesthetic a lot and I specifically remember the house-on-stilts which was pictured on the back of the CD (yes, this was the dawn of the compact disc). One day on the way home from Hays, my mom decided for some reason to take a detour on a dirt road we had never been on and out the car window I saw a house that looked very similar, sitting next to a pond, and I had made a mental note to somehow come back to this location by myself one day; unfortunately I never did.

Now, I think it was at this point that I realized that Dream Academy had done that "hey ma ma ma ma" song ("Life In A Northern Town") and that I had seen a vinyl copy of that album at TG&Y. I do specifically remember that the day I purchased that album (the debut album) I was on a school trip to Russell for the County Spelling Bee. I don't remember how well I did, or which word had stumped me, but I do remember Mr. Kenyon taking us all to Martino's pizza to celebrate and I remember buying that record in TG&Y. I remember my biggest delight was the instantaneous realization upon playing the record at home that evening that "Edge of Forever" was THAT SONG that I had loved in the movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" but never knew what it was. So, there were two songs on the album I already loved, and grew to appreciate the whole album as it has some really strong points and is pretty widely accepted as their best work.

Thinking back, this chronology does seem very odd as to me it seemed like this process took place over many years. However in reality it could have only happened throughout 7th and 8th grade, although I guess that was one of the golden eras for discovering music, in my life anyway, and because I discovered so many of the bands that I still love to this day during that time period, it seems like a much broader range.

After obtaining all three original albums, I went about collecting various singles and rare items. One of my brother's favorites of these was the promo cassette of the debut album, which was packaged in a tiny pillowcase and featured a fold-out cardboard insert with colorful pictures of the band and biographical information.

It wasn't until years later that I got to read about Nick Laird-Clowes, the band's lead singer, who is one of the most fascinating figures in pop to me. Apparently he ran away from home at a young age and ended up hanging out with very important people like John Lennon and David Gilmour. It's not easy to find a lot of biographical information on him as he is a pretty private person. I do know that years later, he re-emerged with a solo project and album, "Mona Lisa Overdrive", under the name Trashmonk.

To this day, I still consider The Dream Academy as one of my life-long inspirations and influence on my own music.