Full circle with ASIA

Here's where my career/hobby comes full circle - Back when I started taking photographs in the late 1970s one of the many dreams I had was to shoot rock bands for their album covers, etc. One of the first bands I pointed my camera at was Rapid City, South Dakota's ASIA. (Not to be confused with the English supergroup Asia that eventually put our local guys out of business.)

Asia recorded two albums in 1979 and 1980. As I shot photos of them I dreamed that maybe I would capture something good enough that they would use it on their next album, whenever that might be. Well, a third album wasn't to be. However, 35 years later the original albums, "ASIA" and "Armed To The Teeth" are again available on one CD from Blood and Iron Records, which is ironically enough a British company. Check out the record label and order your copies of South Dakota rock and roll at www.bloodandironrecords.com.

Now here's the really cool part for me - Blood and Iron Records went looking for live photos of the band to include in the booklet with the CD and stumbled across my concert photo blog. So you will see 11 of my photos inside the booklet.

Not only did they give me a nice credit and thank you, but they even included a photo of a very young me and the band! Sorry to Rob Almendinger that he didn't get a credit for taking that picture backstage at "The Barbarian" in Rapid City. (A copy of the CD will be coming to you Rob.)

The booklet also has a lengthy essay by Asia founding member Mike Coates about each of the songs and the history of the band. Reading how the English supergroup came along and stomped on the South Dakota band's dreams is fascinating. The remastered tunes sound great all these years later too.

These same photos appear in my earlier post about Asia here.