Good news for ’80s prog-rock fans: Asia is back in the studio and working on their second reunion album, the band announced this week on their website.

The still untitled album is a follow-up to 2008’s Phoenix, which was a “good” collection of tunes, but frankly not as epic as what fans heard on their 1982 debut record and its 1983 followup Alpha. (Though I’m still captivated by John Wetton’s Extraordinary Life.)

Artist Roger Dean is back to handle the design of the cover, and Mike Paxman (Judie Tzuke, Uriah Heep, Nick Kamen, Status Quo) will handing producer duties.

The new album is expected to be completed by mid-February. If that seems like too long to wait, go back and listen to the official Stuck in the ’80s interview with drummer Carl Palmer. 

[Publicity photo by Mike Inns]

Motley Crüe’s Vince Neil, who looks a little too much like Gwyneth Paltrow in The Royal Tenenbaums in that publicity photo, just gave an excellent interview to Vanity Fair.

The magazine was exploring the rationale behind the just-released FIFTH greatest-hits CD by the Crüe — “I didn’t put it out. Our management company did,” Vince said — but was able to get some juice from the still relevant rocker. Click here for the full interview. Here are some highlights:

IS HE BORED OF BREAST-FLASHING FANS? “I am actually, yeah. After this last tour, it started to get a little
old. I mean, how many boobs can you look at? Sometimes you feel like a
doctor.”

ON THE BAND’S PARTY PAST: “Back in the old days, in the 80s and 90s, we were living like animals.
But it doesn’t happen that way anymore. We were excessive when we were
younger, because we could get away with it and that’s what the times
were like. But these days, we have our fun on the stage and that’s
about it.”

WHAT HE DOES NOW AFTER A SHOW: “Well, sometimes I just want to get back on the tour bus and watch a little Judge Judy. Just relax with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and some Judge Judy and that’s it, man.”

Definitely an interview reading more of, even if you’re not a fan. Click here for the full scoop.

When Equalizer star Edward Woodward died Nov. 16, the event went sadly unannounced here at Stuck in the ’80s. It was just a matter of time ’til the angry e-mails arrived. Luckily, one sympathetic reader by the code name of Milbarge volunteered to write the long overdue tribute to Woodward. Take the mic, Milbarge, the floor is yours.

When I wrote to Spears asking why the blog hadn’t posted the news of the death of actor Edward Woodward, he gave me a chance to compose a tribute to my “actor idol.” Just to clarify, since I took my own blogging pseudonym as an homage to the premier spy spoof film of the ’80s (check out the “Red Scare” movies podcast for more on that one), I can’t really give my heart to the Equalizer. But there is much to admire about the man’s work.

Woodward was a prominent British stage and television actor in the ’60s and ’70s, and his most notable role was probably in the original 1973 version of The Wicker Man. (I hear it’s light years better than the Nic Cage remake.) His two most well-known roles, though, came in the ’80s. (And I’m not even counting his turn in the 1984 version of A Christmas Carol as a very Santa Claus-ian Ghost of Christmas Present opposite George C. Scott’s Scrooge! That one’s still my favorite version of the timeless Dickens tale.)

In 1980, Woodward starred as the title character in Breaker Morant, an excellent Australian film. Morant was a soldier in the Boer War in South Africa who was court-martialed for murdering prisoners. The trial is now widely seen as making Morant and two fellow officers scapegoats for higher-ups eager to end the war. The movie version is simultaneously an excellent courtroom drama, war film, character study, and anti-empire brief. Woodward is superb, utterly believable both as the rough-and-ready soldier (he got his nickname from breaking wild horses) and the classic British officer.

After all this success in Britain and Australia, Woodward gained even greater fame on American prime-time TV. From 1985 to 1989, he was The Equalizer on CBS. Like a one-man British A-Team, Woodward’s character, Robert McCall, was a disillusioned ex-spy who was dedicated to helping ordinary people solve their insurmountable problems. McCall’s intelligence background and facility with weaponry “equalized” the odds. Woodward won a Golden Globe and was nominated for four Emmys for the role. Apparently, the totally rad theme song from The Equalizer didn’t win any awards, but it should have, if only because it was composed by former Police drummer and Stuck in the ’80s fave Stewart Copeland.

After the success of The Equalizer, Woodward appeared now and then in small roles in TV and film. His last noteworthy screen appearance was a few years ago in Hot Fuzz as a villager who clashes with Simon Pegg. He still knew how to handle a gun.

Edward Woodward died Nov. 16 at the age of 79, leaving a wife and four children. He also leaves behind a very strong legacy as an actor with wide range and rugged charm. He’ll remain stuck in our hearts, and stuck in the ’80s.

[AP photo]

This is why Stuck in the ’80s doesn’t do video podcasts.

I liked the Halloween version with the Ghostbusters theme better anyway.

All work and no sequels makes Stephen King a dull boy. That’s why there’s a new installment to The Shining apparently in the works.

This is, of course, ’80s news only because the 1977 book turned into a movie in 1980.

King dropped the bomb at a book reading for his latest book Under The Dome, according to the Torontoist.

“Seems King was
wondering whatever happened to Danny Torrance of The Shining,
who when readers last saw him was recovering from his ordeal at the
Overlook Hotel at a resort in Maine with fellow survivors Wendy
Torrance and chef Dick Halloran (who dies in the Kubrick film version),” the Torontoist reports.
“King remarked that though he ended his 1977 novel on a positive note,
the Overlook was bound to have left young Danny with a lifetime’s worth
of emotional scars. What Danny made of those traumatic experiences, and
with the psychic powers that saved him from his father at the Overlook,
is a question that King believes might make a damn fine sequel.”

The tentative title: Doctor Sleep.

In the very-still tentative plan for a sequel, “Danny is now 40
years old and living in upstate New York, where he works as the
equivalent of an orderly at a hospice for the terminally ill. Danny’s
real job is to visit with patients who are just about to pass on to the
other side, and to help them make that journey with the aid of his
mysterious powers. Danny also has a sideline in betting on the horses,
a trick he learned from his buddy Dick Hallorann.”

Click here to read the full scoop.

TOP 5 PSYCHOTIC LINES FROM ‘THE SHINING’ FILM:

5. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

4. “Hello Danny. Come and play with us. Come and play with us, Danny. Forever… and ever… and ever.”

3. “Wendy? Darling? Light, of my life. I’m not gonna hurt ya. You didn’t
let me finish my sentence. I said, I’m not gonna hurt ya. I’m just
going to bash your brains in.”

2. “Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in. Not by the hair of your
chiny-chin-chin? Well then I’ll huff and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your
house in.”

1. “Heeere’s Johnny!”