Today (February 5, 2010) is the 53^rd birthday of Nick Laird-Clowes who is best known as part of the British folk rock group The Dream Academy along with Kate St. John and Gilbert Gabriel. The band had one successful single in the U.S. and that was from their debut 1985 self-titled album. "Life In A Northern Town" reached #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February of 1986. It is reported that the song was a tribute to Nick Drake, the British singer-songwriter who tragically died of an antidepressant overdose in 1974. I have always liked this mellow song with an outstanding chorus, so I decided that this week's Flashback Video would be "Life In A Northern Town" by The Dream Academy...

There were two different versions of the music video. That was the first one which was made in 1984 and was directed by Tim Pope filmed in Hebden Bridge near Halifax in Yorkshire, UK. The second version was filmed in 1985 and was directed by Leslie Libman and Larry Williams. It was filmed in and around Newcastle upon Tyne with some scenes filmed in Manchester in the UK and in the USA (near Pittsburgh, PA). The video featured footage from one of their first TV appearances, on the British music show The Tube. Libman also directed other 80s videos like "Manic Monday" by The Bangles, "Mad About You" by Belinda Carlisle and "Sweet Freedom" by Michael McDonald among many others. Here is that second and more popular version of the video...

A cover version of "Life In A Northern Town," recorded by the country music duo Sugarland (with guest vocals from Little Big Town and Jake Owen), was a Top 40 country hit and Grammy Award nominee back in 2008. As for The Dream Academy, all three members of the band remain active recording musicians, each with his or her own career though they last released an album together in 1990 and last toured in 1991. They did have a couple songs included in the John Hughes classic films Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Planes, Trains & Automobiles, but The Dream Academy is surely known as a "one hit wonder" in the U.S. Like I said about Peter Schilling in my last issue, at least they gave us one classic 80s song and that's one more than most musicians ever get.

That'll do it for another issue of Kickin' it Old School. Thanks for reading. If you are interested in reading any of my other 80s related issues, please click there for a summary of those. If you want to see the past issues of Flashback Videos, just type that into the Google Search Box at the top of the right hand column and it should give you a list of all of them. You can also always click on the Archives in the upper left hand column or use that Google Search Box to find any past issues or topics you may have missed. If you are a fan of Kickin' it, PLEASE CLICK ON THE FACEBOOK LOGO in the upper right hand column. This will take you to the Fan Page where I ask you to then click on "Become a Fan". Even if you are not a Facebook member yet, please consider joining and registering as a fan at that page. You can also follow Old School on Twitter by clicking on the FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER LOGO also in the upper right hand column. This will take you the page and you can just click on the box that says "Follow". Even though the blog only updates a couple times a week, I try to send out daily 80s tweets. Let other 80s fans know about it as well! Peace and much love.