The Dream Academy
 Gilbert
Gabriel, Kate St. John and Nick Laird-Clowes were born in London
in the late 1950s and were probably too young to attend Woodstock
or to remember such early '60s events as JFK's
assassination or The Beatles' first
album.
But that didn't stop them from writing songs about these and
other '60s landmark events.
The '60s connections didn't end with the subject matter.
The band's dreamy music featured orchestration rare in the
early '80s' synth-pop landscape, and band member Kate St. John's
oboe and sax were integral to the band's music, not just
incidental background noise filling in for the digital shallowness
of keyboards.
The '60s motif was also present in their look - sporting Nehru
collars and opting for long, free hair in an era when mousse was
the order of the day.
And to complete the '60s theme Dream Academy's eponymous album
was co-produced by Dave Gilmour, the sixties psychedelia master of
Pink Floyd fame.
While reminiscent of The Beatles and their Merseybeat
contemporaries, the Dream Academy's music was more similar in
sound to the Liverpool sound of the late '70s, when such groups as
Deaf School, the Teardrop Explodes,
and Echo and the Bunnymen
rediscovered the subtle side of the guitar and put some art back
into rock.
The Dream Academy's textured use of guitar and Hammond Organ
would reappear a few years later in such 'Manchester sound' bands
as The Stone Roses, The
Charlatans, and Inspiral Carpets.
The single Life In A Northern Town was their lone
venture into the world of pop success. The Love Parade was
released as a follow up single, but it barely moved up the charts
and seems to have been largely forgotten by stations that continue
to play Life in a Northern Town.
Even less notice was taken when they released albums in 1987
and 1990. To their credit the Dream Academy did make the sound
track of a John Hughes film with their instrumental cover of The
Smiths Please Please Please let Me Get What I Want.
Ah-hey ah-ma-ma-ma, indeed!
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