Thank you for all the warm welcomes, everyone! So nice to know that I'm among friends, some new, some old.
Yes, Darkest Dreamer, I do have some photos of me trying to look like Sylvian. I haven't scanned them, tho, and I'm not in a hurry to since I looked like Nick Rhodes after a three-day binge! Very not attractive, I'm afraid.
Other "eighties" bands that occasionally visit my turntable: Talk Talk, Gary Numan, Psychedelic Furs... and from this side of the Atlantic, I loved Van Halen (with David Lee Roth), Run-DMC and almost any Minneapolis Funk (Prince, The Time, Jesse Johnson, and Ingrid's one and only release gets a spin every once in a while).
I should look into Simple Minds, tho. I'm familiar with their "hits", but I've heard wonderful things about their less-well-known first few albums ("Reel to Real Cacophony" and the like). Have you listened to these albums much? Any thoughts?
Kera, I've seen your photos on MySpace (which is how I found this site), and you've got the Sylvian look NAILED!!! Put a bowl of rice in one hand, chopsticks in the other and a picture of Chairman Mao on the wall and you'd have me fooled. But what's up with the bass? You play?
godisinthesilences & krausy: yup, it's me, Marcello Mastroianni, the one who isn't famous and doesn't speak a word of Italian. So nice to have reconnected with both of you!
cheers, all!
-- Marcello