Yes - Heaven and Earth (2014)

http://www.jambase.com/Articles/121132/Tour-Dates-Yes-U.S-Summer-Tour-2014

It's happening!?

Prog-rock legends Yes have just announced a 35-date U.S. summer tour. For their 2014 dates, Yes will perform 1971's Fragile in its entirety as well as every track from 1972's Close To The Edge, followed by an encore of the band's greatest hits and material off their new studio album, Heaven and Earth, which is due on July 8.

This will be the first with Jon Davison, who is also the singer of the Yes-like Glass Hammer (who are probably better than Yes have been over the last 3 decades, but hey). Hopefully he'll give them a bit of a spark!

Cautiously optimistic about this. Fly From Here, while still nowhere near the "return to form" the prog nerds wanted to claim it was, was pretty enjoyable.

No.

This is interesting. I hope tickets aren't ridiculously overpriced.

I loved Fly From Here but I wonder how much of that had to do with Trevor Horn. The two best songs on it were repurposed Buggles/DRama era songs, but the other stuff was pretty good too. Not sure how I feel about Roy Thomas Baker. Either way, I'll probably go see this tour; the 3 album tour last year with Davidson was way better than I expected it to be, and for my first time seeing Yes I wasn't disappointed at all.

there are major jams on 'fly from here' and i feel like poor benoit david got a raw deal from stuck up yes fans, still pissed anderson's out. really excited though to hear what davison has to bring to new music. some of the recent glass hammer albums he sings on do yes better than yes has done yes since 'the ladder'

A friend of mine saw this show last Thursday. Said it was amazing, despite not really being a big Yes fan.

Album July 8th. No preview tracks I'm aware of yet.

album art is out though and typically dean-ian although all of that stuff is pretty yawnsome at this point.

not a big fan of the zebra-stripe font but i'll sort some weight in the crease of that record for sure. word is there's three songs around the 9-10 minute mark but no side-long epics

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/911iuBBojLL._SL1500_.jpg

Saw photos on Instagram from their Royal Albert Hall show this month, and they really do look like long-haired elderly wizards.

http://www.contactmusic.com/pics/ln/20140510/110514_yes_concert/chris-squire-yes-perform-live_4189733.jpg

Either that's a 3/4-scale bass, or Squire's a huge dude.

howe looks like a mummy in that tour press photo

tracklist ~

Believe Again
The Game
Step Beyond
To Ascend
In A World Of Our Own
Light Of The Ages
It Was All We Knew
Subway Walls

they looked horrible in person last year but the show was really good despite that. and I don't think Squire was wearing a spandex jumpsuit as I've seen him do in photos from the past decade so that was... a plus

Listened to a boot of one of their recent CTTE/GFTO shows and honestly besides the dependability of the three o.g. members the whole thing sounds rite and tired. Downes is ... just there and the new, NEW singer is just as boring as the last one. They do sound like a cover band now.

*rote and tired.

read that as CTTE/GTFO

I almost wrote GTFOH !

it's by no means the band in their prime, but I'd never seen them before and it was much better than I was expecting.

i saw the arkestra at a bang on a can marathon a few years back. they looked old too. who gives a shit

The Arkestra put their all into it. These guys are going through the motions.

i've seen both kill it. can't rank them

I saw Yes last summer or year before. They were great, especially Howe.

after listening to the way ELP have sounded ever since that terrible 1992 it makes me glad that Yes at least never was that bad. scouring Youtube Yes sounds alternately tired/unable to keep up (like ELP they wrote compositions that could really only be played by someone at the peak of their powers) and surprisingly nimble, though obviously they're not the dudes they were in the mid-70's.

I'm weirdly excited for this album - Fly from Here had the spectre of "you know a lot of this music was written like, 30 years ago?", so basically...you were hoping it was somewhat like Drama, though obviously it wasn't gonna be as good, and Drama is a little iffy to some. I like the idea of new Yes music, especially with Jon Davison contributing a lot, as Davison does good work with Glass Hammer and isn't like 120 years old. so there's that!!

there were really only a few things on FFH that were that old (they were the best things on the album though). I love Drama, and I really liked FFH. Too bad Horn isn't around again but I'm cautiously optimistic about this.

me too. roy thomas baker is no slouch

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/geoff-downes-yes-new-album/

https://soundcloud.com/thecheezmusic/01-believe-again-radio-rip

they wrote compositions that could really only be played by someone at the peak of their powers

OTM, which is perhaps why I greatly prefer the more pastoral approach of Genesis. It's the arrangement as much as the playing, and while the Genesis guys (or at least Phil and Steve and Tony) are no slouches, they know how/when to tone it down. Yes is pretty much non-stop YES!!!!!!!

it got taken down :( but the initial reviews don't sound too promising.

if Yes knew how to "tone it down" they'd be a totally different band.

anyway, since the preview song is down here's a tune from a modern band called Druckfarben, that definitely sounds a lot like classic Yes. guitarist definitely has the Steve Howe thing down:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUpIsldiIqI

i saw a spock's beard bumper sticker on a suburu wagon, dad dropping his kid off at the jr high school a block from my house

A little voice inside my head said "don't look back, you can never look back."

Well, yeah

damn, that druckfarben song sounds more like yes than the new "yes" song does. thanks for the tip!

Anil Prasad (of Innerviews) got an advance copy of this and he absolutely savaged it. Apparently it's the worst Yes album in the history of Yes and that is fucking saying something.

whoa

it's hard to imagine a worse yes album than talk or open your eyes

where is this review?

its just on facebook. there's a long thread about it but here's what he has to say about it:

"This is an embarrassing, appalling intergalactic explosive turd of an album. It is a complete waste of electricity and hard drive space. Everyone involved should be utterly ashamed of themselves. And you can quote me."

"FFH was a good album. Lots of enjoyable points. Everything about this album is terrible. I'm surprised the production wasn't better. It's third-rate amateur stuff."

"This is coming from someone that knows every note of every Yes album, including the terrible ones. This is the lowest point in the band's history. It is time to at least stop making albums. They can float away into Kansas-like repertoire irrelevancy."

"Yes is over. Face it."

"I don't understand what Steve's contribution to this album is. He's the one guy that has some standards."

"It is clear Yes is nothing without the "Napoleon" presence of an Anderson or Horn -- absolutely nothing. Just a bunch of rudderless players who wouldn't know a good song, arrangement or production if it fell on their heads from the sky."

"Yes will continue until the last man is standing. As Sean Tonar says "you can't stop them." As long as one of them is alive they will continue in a stagnant, undignified state. Maybe it'll be four cover band musicians plus Tony Kaye in 10 years. Or robots. Mustn't forget about robots. Anderbot, Rebootford, Wakedroid, Hotswap."

"Open your eyes is much better, yes. I am serious. Believe it."

"The real outrage will occur when this album is released or leaked. It will be a critical bloodbath. Any reviewer that has anything good to say about it will do so because they are afraid to offend the record company taking out full page ads in their magazines."

"The songs are barely songs. They're a loose assemblage of bits and parts all stitched together. There is no coherence or unity in the writing and execution. There are poorly-conceived little instrumental interludes grafted in here and there. The general production/mix of the album is below Yes standards as well. It's a real shock after Fly From Here, which "sounded" great. And it would of course, with Horn behind it."

All this makes it sound like it's some kind of lo-fi avant garde genius.

but will it be better than lulu?

no

over on progressive ears, anil says

"I must apologize to you all.

"I really didn't mean to be so nice when I commented about the album."

http://www.progressiveears.org/forum/showthread.php/8375-New-YES-album-quot-Heaven-And-Earth-quot-due-July-8-U-S-Summer-tour/page45

interest piqued!

Really though, these guys should just stop.

it's never enough until your heart stops beating. the deeper you get, the sweeter the pain. don't give up the game

that's too bad. FFH was excellent, and I don't think the band gave it the airing it deserved, their last big tour after it was a retrospective cover tour (which was good, but still). That would have been a high point to have gone out on.

i'm gonna wait till i hear it. lots of people still say 'the ladder' sucks and that's my second favorite since 'drama'

I really liked Fly From Here so I had decent hopes for this one but, wow, that's... not a good sign. Although I'm oddly anticipating it in a trainwreck kind of way now.

At their worst Yes are terminally boring. I could see this being boring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuI2fev8omE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xhskp7YIic

Hmm, "Believe Again" doesn't sound that terrible.

The songs are barely songs. They're a loose assemblage of bits and parts all stitched together. There is no coherence or unity in the writing and execution.

U.Yes Maple

I agree that the sample doesn't seem so bad but remember that A) this song is over eight minutes long, and B) that chorus sounds really, really limp

It did take a while to remember that it wasn't Jon Anderson singing. New Jon's voice is even more ridiculous than old Jon.

lyrics are just as terrible too

New Jon is an awful singer. He's faking on Anderson by trying to come off "gentle" and "sweet", and it sounds really lame. Jon Anderson has a high and powerful voice, this guy is trying to sound like an angel child and failing.

yeah I preferred Benoit's work on the last album. I know he wasn't a good live singer at all but his work on the record is alright

I never heard Benoit and I don't know how this new singer usually sounds but I find it really unsettling when a singer tries to sound like someone else. Getting a singer with some of the same key virtues makes sense, but trying to copy is just really not nice.

he does clearly seem to be emulating Jon Anderson or what he thinks Anderson would be doing if he were still around. I think he sounds good with Glass Hammer (and I was never distracted that much by his similarity to Anderson) and his songwriting was fine from what I could remember but I don't feel like he's doing heavy lifting songwriting-wise there. meanwhile according to Wikipedia he's the primary guy on here:

1. "Believe Again" Jon Davison, Steve Howe
2. "The Game" Chris Squire, Davison, Gerard Johnson
3. "Step Beyond" Howe, Davison
4. "To Ascend" Davison, Alan White
5. "In a World of Our Own" Davison, Squire
6. "Light of the Ages" Davison
7. "It Was All We Knew" Howe
8. "Subway Walls" Davison, Geoff Downes

I think this kind of says it all, Yes have always felt pretty dysfunctional but having your new guy (who made the band because of his uncanny resemblance to the old guy) write more than twice as many songs as any other member seems extra bizarre

I'll probably do the same with this as I did with the last one. Listen to it once, and then return to the classics.

They couldn't call up a better vocalist from the tribute band bush leagues?

It's not that he wrote twice as many songs as the others but that he collaborated with the other guys individually.

Isn't that lyrics?

Can I just say - I LOVE the sound of this clip. I am a big Geoff Downes fan.

Went ahead and bought the track on iTunes.

It is delightful imo.

Reminds me of the Thai cop in Only God Forgives.

It's not that he wrote twice as many songs as the others but that he collaborated with the other guys individually.

― timellison, Friday, June 13, 2014 11:22 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Isn't that lyrics?

― Naive Teen Idol, Saturday, June 14, 2014 1:07 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

4. "To Ascend" Davison, Alan White

http://www.woundedbird.com/white_alan/8167.jpg

for context, glass hammer is the band people who consider dream theater worthy of serious consideration like to pick on.

i like glass hammer but have never been able to hear the appeal of dream theater. glass hammer isn't chopsy so much as into oxbridge mystical atmospherics (they have two (!) 'lord of the rings' concept albums, and one about c.s. lewis' 'perelandra' series), and their last four or five albums are to yes what the second and third feelies albums are to the velvet underground

if he's just writing lyrics then I guess that's understandable, still kinda weird that these dudes aren't really writing together anymore

Glass Hammer are definitely an easy band to pick on but I really enjoy them; they're not all that original but they are a lot of fun, and honestly I'd much rather see them live right now than this incarnation of Yes. They're one of the few bands that seems to get better with every release.

definitely. i wish that for every 1000 bands that want to sound like the platonic ideal of punk rock, there was at least one band like glass hammer and starcastle that wants to sound like yes. the (listening) world would be a much better place

fleet foxes

i hear way more CSN in fleet foxes than yes . . . although there's CSN in yes, for sure! the decemberists are more like it, particularly on 'the crane wife'

i guess the new cast album, 'arsis,' out-yesses yes a little too

i have to say I was pretty surprised by the number of younger hipsters at the yes show I went to last year. that would have been unthinkable even 5 years ago.

i like glass hammer but have never been able to hear the appeal of dream theater. glass hammer isn't chopsy so much as into oxbridge mystical atmospherics (they have two (!) 'lord of the rings' concept albums, and one about c.s. lewis' 'perelandra' series), and their last four or five albums are to yes what the second and third feelies albums are to the velvet underground

― reggie (qualmsley), Saturday, June 14, 2014 8:21 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha man you are not playing fair, this is an awesome post that i bet makes glass hammer sound 10X better than they really are...

but now i'm gonna listen to them anyway, which album is best?

'chronometree' or one of the ones with roger dean covers -- 'the incosolable secret', 'if', or 'cor cordium'? i think davison sings on all three of those

I've been meaning to get something by Glass Hammer for quite a few years, starting with Inconsolable Secret (I heard that was their best).

Other than being generally irked by derivative sounds, I hate that they felt they needed to get a Jon Anderson copyist. It's like saying "yes, we admit we are a tribute band now". Couldn't they have got another famous prog singer to sing his own style?
I assume they need the money, otherwise they would be doing solo projects?

I'm surprised how much more attention these new incarnations of Yes have been getting than Jon Anderson. His voice is understandably lacking some of the energy and power he had but I prefer that to any clone.
Living Tree with Wakeman didn't sound that exciting from the samples but I'm very interested in his serialised Olias sequel.

Get a load of this album cover!
http://www.allmusic.com/album/live-in-sheffield-1980-mw0000491926

rainbow hula hooping to the top of the empire state building

from what i've heard/read anderson is a little like plant -- he can't do yes every night anymore, like percy can't pull off a tour of 02s

there've been whispers of an olias sequel forever but so far nothing. 'the living tree' is okay if you fiend for anderson/wakeman contact highs but nowhere near as good as trevor rabin's most recent solo album, 'jacaranda.' dude's in lindsey buckingham territory

squire sorta did a solo project just last year or the year before, with steve hackett -- "squackett," if you can believe that

anyways yeah i wish too they could cohere as solid if not better than their heyday the way van der graaf generator's been pulling it off these past however many years. but yes has always been more of a miami heat supergroup than a seamless san antonio spurs killing machine

I'm pretty sure the mp3 Open is supposed to be the first part of the Olias sequel, it's a 20min track. He has released a few more mp3 singles but I cant find them on amazon and I don't know if they are further parts of the same thing.

Thanks for the Rabin tip, I know virtually nothing about him other than that he contributed to the creation of Pro-Tools.

"more of a miami heat supergroup than a seamless san antonio spurs killing machine"

Haha, not sure what that means. VDGG never got any new guys did they?

Fly from Here is not the type of project one would associate for a band that is in it for the money.

associate with

vdgg's strength seems to be their group interplay imho whereas the heat live or die by how on fire their solo play is

had no idea "open" is an olias ii overture. haven't listened to that in a while

whatever else it is 'fly from here' is a reminder that trevor horn (producer of malcolm mclaren's solo album and the dude who introduced breakbeats sampling alan white's drums during the 90125 sessions) still looks up to one of his favorite bands, and loves fucking around in the studio with geoff downes. must have been interesting for him to work with benoit david on vocals considering how abominably audiences treated him singing on the 1980 'drama' tour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLkuKXt-nec

really wish they'd figure out it's time to bring vincent gallo in on lead vocals

anyway, here's a Glass Hammer song I really like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMPux-o_J-A

you can definitely play "spot the reference" with these guys, their Chronometree album was all about that, with a bunch of subtle "Karn Evil 9" quotes everywhere. But they're good at what they do and so damn likeable and dorky, even when they're in full blown suck mode they're at least entertaining, which you can't say about most other modern prog groups.

VDGG get together because they have things to write and don't, I think, care that much about how commercially successful their music is (not at all). they're a totally different sort of band.

Again, not sure how that differs from Fly from Here or, conceivably, this new album.

Was watching some Jon Anderson live videos from earlier this year on Youtube -- would much rather hear him sing in a lower key (and we are talking about a half step or a whole step at max) than this other schmuck. But I guess Squire and Howe don't own enough instruments to have a few differently-tuned ones around, ha ha ha. Stylistically, Anderson is still all there, although there are some funny catches which, if they aren't neurological, indicate he might want to see a good voice coach soon. The voice is still there to save .

Why are the not playing together again?

*they

who, anderson and the rest of Yes? He can't commit to long term touring so they canned him.

"Again, not sure how that differs from Fly from Here or, conceivably, this new album."

I think FFH is possibly true, they had work that they wanted to revisit from the Horn years and a clear project they had scoped out (more or less). The new one, I'm not so sure about that.

full song is on spotify now. It's ok, it's definitely on the lighter and more boring side, but it's not terrible. It doesn't have any edges at all though, where FFH had them all over the place. I'd like to hope there's something on this album as good as Into the Storm but based on this I don't feel that's too likely.

This isn't bad. I like the opening melody and arrangement, but the chorus is a little wandery.

Why couldn't Jon "commit"?

Even before getting unceremoniously replaced, Anderson had grown disillusioned with Yes. The group toured relentlessly in the early 2000s, even as Anderson's health declined. "I was coughing so much that the only time I wasn't coughing was onstage," he says. "I just needed a break, but the guys were upset about that."

Anderson travelled on a bus with keyboardist Rick Wakeman, while the other three Yes members (Chris Squire, Alan White and Steve Howe) travelled on another one. "We had the happy car," says Anderson. "They were in the grumpy car."

Anderson keeps a much lighter tour schedule than Yes, who often do five or six shows a week. "I would never do that kind of tour," says Anderson. "It's stupid. Some people haven't got a life I suppose. They want to be on the road all the time." Guitarist Steve Howe performs with ASIA when Yes are off, which means maintaining a punishing schedule. "He hasn't got a home," says Anderson. "He's a journeyman, like Willie Nelson."

Despite all the turmoil, Anderson doesn't completely rule performing with Yes again someday. "If we ever get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame we'll all get together," he says. "We'll give each other a hug and let bygones be bygones." How about a reunion tour? "You never know," he says. "It would have to be two or three shows a week, though."

-- Rolling Stone, 2011

it's grueling to sing those songs. anderson's replacement, benoit david, couldn't manage either, hence davison

anyways good for yes for getting syd arthur to open some shows. sound mirror is nice

Anderson had COPD or lung failure or something too. I can see the band's point. And I don't think they're necessarily sunk without him. He's the most annoying member anyway. There is a snippet of another new song up. It's alright.

Not saying that Yes can't make good music without Jon but I really feel he is a big part of the band's soul and approach.

There been a lot of talk of band members being very unpleasant but aside from them probably not letting Peter Banks play the Union gig
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20130613004441AAv0Zci
I haven't heard anything substantial. Jon Anderson being a bit bossy doesn't really cover raging asshole territory. I heard Squire is a bad man, but again, no stories to back it up.
There were some tabloidy news reports that Jon's spiritual adviser convinced him not to play a charity gig but it didn't seem reliable.

I'm really curious about the revolving door policy they were so frank about, that they were all willing to replace a member if they found a better substitute. This only seems to have happened with Kaye/Wakeman and Banks/Howe. Anderson was replaced because of his physical problem, others were replaced because they left or had other commitments.
I doubt anyone dared talk about replacing Anderson(before his problems) or Squire to get a better member.

doesn't have any edges at all though, where FFH had them all over the place.

What constitutes an "edge?" I don't remember FFH being any more jarring.

I think what happens in "Believe Again" is that it's mostly developmental within verse/chorus standards. Two instrumental breaks, but they happen at classic points in the structure (middle and end).

But hey, that's over six minutes of song development if you subtract the instrumental breaks. A lot of play with antecedent/consequent phrasing. Verses that start in the middle and don't end the same way as the last one. Choruses with new words.

Middle instrumental break is poignant to me because it's so classic.

this is a band that shed founding members album after album after the debut, until finally, with 'fragile', they supposedly got their 'classic line-up' right, with david bowie's piano player . . . only for their original drummer to jump ship for king crimson after they recorded only one more album ('close to the edge') together. i think squire's the only one who's played on every album. he's like their dwayne wade

xpost

Yeah, Squire is the only constant I believe.

rumor: anderson gave a lot of his songwriting royalties to his young ex-wife in his divorce and that's why they are all pissed at him.

squire isn't on ABWH which is the only thing keeping it from being accepted as a Yes album, although, they include it in the Yes discography on the official site now.

My grasp on Yes lore faded away a long while back, but isn't ABWH when Yes split into two camps and Squire went off with Rabin(?) and others as "Yes"?

yes. I'm just saying that if you go to the Yes official site now and look at the discography, it's right there (along with Symphonic Music of Yes by ABWH) along with all the other yes albums.

lol I wasn't challenging you. I was just remembering in public.

Anderson may be the most "annoying" member to some but I agree with Robert Adam Gilmour : he's integral to the band's spirit. I love "Drama" and - hell - I even like "Fly from Here" but
Yes without just...isn't. And I will say the same about ABWH. Their stuff was ok but sonically Tony Levin couldn't fill that missing piece.

"Yes without Jon just...isnt."

Oh man this heat is melting my brain.
I meant to write "And I will say the same about Squire missing in ABWH".

but you have to admit both Fly from Here and Drama are leagues better than ABWH.

Their stuff was ok but sonically Tony Levin couldn't fill that missing piece.

I disagree with this, Levin is an excellent bass player but I think ABWH's big problem was in the arrangements - you hear a LOT of Jon and a lot of Wakeman's big New Age 'boards but you almost can't tell the bass is there, nor the drums, the mix is so weak that it doesn't matter if they had Bruford or Levin or two monkeys.

yeah ABWH pretty much blows. the arrangements have this bizarre tropical feel that really grates against the booming production on wakeman's keybs. bottom of the barrel along with 'open your eyes'. "long lost brother of mine" is just what? you guys did "heart of the sunrise" -- what the fuck is this?

'drama' slays, even "i am a camera". trevor horn could do no wrong in the studio for a really long time imho. the rehashed stuff on 'fly from here' hits some heights and i'm hoping RTB's coaxed at least one jam jam like "into the storm" from them on the new one. fingers crossed

I think Levin is a fantastic bass player but Squire's tone - his sound - and his vocals are integral to what makes Yes YES.

And yeah I will admit FFH and Drama are much better overall than ABWH but Anderson isn't the weak link here.

you guys did "heart of the sunrise" -- what the fuck is this?

LOL yeah but I think we can ask this about a good chunk of their output post-1980

+1

I will rep for the two Rabin-era records in the 80s but ABWH was an excuse to tour the old stuff, not much else.

yeah ABWH pretty much blows. the arrangements have this bizarre tropical feel that really grates against the booming production on wakeman's keybs.

One word: Teakbois

The production on ABWH has this El Lay slickness about it that sounds like it was peeled off a Toto record. And the mix is all upper midrange and in-yer-face. Just an unpleasant record to listen to on all counts.

y'all are making me think i'd really love abwh

some of it is alright but it's not any better than the ladder or keys to ascension.

Well, that's too harsh actually. I think "The Meeting" is lovely and there are little flashes of beauty - especially between Howe and Wakeman. But it sounds like a record that wants to embrace that classic 70s Yes vibe while still wearing the shiny 90125 gear.

Which is pretty much "beurk".

(I meant my original assessment of it being all around unpleasant was too harsh)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXocjFQ-erw#t=1661

I jumped 20 min in to get a feel for it and see that Bruford plays electronic drums through the whole thing... woof.

Eddie Jobson posted a story about the very brief time he was a member of Yes during the 90215 recording. Never knew he was approached to join after Wakeman's first departure.

Later that year, with the Green Album finally completed, I happened to be visiting London as part of a promotional tour when I received a message (in the U.S.) that ‘Cinema’ was now ‘Yes,’ Jon Anderson had joined the band again, and that the album had come out really well. Oh, and they still needed a keyboard player... When they found out I was actually in London, new boy Trevor Rabin arranged to come round to play me the finished album. Trevor Horn (my favourite producer at the time) had done a fantastic job. All in all, though musically a little superficial, it was a fresh and contemporary recording, and with the ‘Yes’ name, a potential hit song (“Owner of a Lonely Heart”), Atlantic Records, and a well-funded support team behind it, it was clearly destined for considerably more commercial success than my struggling Green Album. With unlimited amounts of money flying around, my living in Connecticut was no problem; Jon was living in France, and Rabin and the new manager were living in Los Angeles. After all these years, maybe it was time for me to finally join Yes?

A couple of days later, we got together in a rehearsal room and thrashed through a few tunes, including ‘Roundabout’ (actually not knowing the song too well, I had to figure out Rick’s tricky keyboard parts on the spot – no easy task). But everyone seemed happy, so I returned to the U.S. as a full member of Yes and with a world tour only two or three months away. There was virtually no contact with anyone for several weeks as I learned all the Yes material in my home studio, although I did attend the mastering of the album with Rabin in New York. In fact, now I think about it, not one single band member ever called me, for any reason, during my entire stint with the group (or since).

The illusion of ‘equal membership’ soon became apparently false, especially once the filming of the “Owner of a Lonely Heart” video took place. Lord Squire’s indulgences (and the ubiquitous Bentley) were back in my face, and money was being squandered at an alarming rate. It was time-warp back to the 1970s. Roadies followed you around making sure you never had to lift even the smallest bag, and Chris was insisting on a private Boeing 707 for the tour! The grand lifestyle was being funded once again and egos were newly inflated. Despite my considerable experiences with Roxy, Zappa, UK, and Tull (a wonderful group of guys who treated me with considerable respect), and with more than 30 albums and a self-managed solo career under my belt, no one was interested in any wisdom I may have been able to impart, on any subject… even on the keyboard rig design which had already been decided upon. It was an inflated ‘Spinal Tap’ on so many levels, and I had unwittingly been sucked back into almost the same world of disregard that I had rejected so many years earlier. But I had made a commitment and I wanted to see it through.

Several weeks later, back in the U.S. where I continued to work on the considerable Yes repertoire, I did finally receive a phone call from someone—it was the manager who had been given the unceremonious task of informing me that Tony Kaye was re-joining the group and would be sharing keyboard duties with me. No discussion, no conferring… a done deal. And the reason? They needed three original members to put to rest a dispute with Brian Lane (their old manager), Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman regarding the legitimacy of the new band using the ‘Yes’ name. My youthful instincts were reawakened, there were red flags waving, and sirens going off... why was I doing this exactly? Still no call from anyone in the band, no discussions of alternate remedies, no apologies, just take it or leave it… so I hearkened to the words of their own song and chose to ‘leave it.’

Of course, the album and world tour went on to enormous success; Tony Kaye’s playing was supplemented by another player hidden off-stage; and the embarrassingly lame video had to be edited at the insistence of the BBC (to remove the disgusting ‘maggot’ scene), during which time they also removed as many of my scenes as possible.

Thanks, guys. All in all, the most disrespectful and unpleasant of all my band experiences (as brief as it was), and, with the occasional derisive remark from Squire or Allan White still showing up on the internet, one that still causes me undeserved anguish, embarrassment, and regret.

Post-script 1: The above description of the smug coterie that made up much of the British music-business elite in the ‘70s and ‘80s also serves the purpose of explaining much of the ill-feeling left percolating in the memories of more than a few of us more music-focused professionals. It also explains, in some part, the continuingly rude behaviour of some of that scene’s most indulgent subscribers (not mentioning any particular Arschlock by name, of course). It is ironic that those most included in that most exclusionary clique, now seem to be the most embittered and malicious.

Post-script 2: Some might ask why I would have a Yes page on the website. My answer is that I don’t have a category for ‘Bands I Didn’t Join and Should Have’ or for ‘Bands I Did Join and Shouldn’t Have.’ It was not a Guest Appearance; I was a member; there is a long history of connectivity (from Bruford to Asia); I am still in the video; I have pictures; it is part of my story.

Post-script 3: Jon Anderson has always been friendly, welcoming and respectful. His only culpability in this hurtful episode was in being so passive.

That is quite the commentary on the prog scene. Yikes.

Thanks for that, I've heard that Dave Stewart (Egg and many other bands) and Bruford have plenty of dirt to tell. I've always wanted to read Bruford's autobiography, apparently lots of fights with Squire.

Just looking up lots of members and what they are doing now, I'd never heard of Prog Collective? Anyone?

It's not good.

Even watching Squire, White and sometimes Howe speaking in recent interviews you get a strong whiff of not-very-nice. Too bad for Jobson - getting yanked around like that.

you can guess more why anderson might not want to spend his 60s/70s on tour with them, for sure. there's probably lots of bizarre overachiever jedi mind games going on backstage about this and that, i bet

I always found Howe immensely charming from watching interviews. Whenever I watch one of those Yes or general prog documentaries, I always want him to get more screen time.

I think there are some serious class and North-South issues in Yes and there always have been.

anderson delivered milk as a boy in lancashire iirc

I find it funny when Anderson talked about the class divide because he just seems like a guy from another planet. Wakeman has always had that affable bloke thing. Bruford in old footage sounds astonishingly posh, he seems to have lost that a bit.

Not that there's anything wrong with posh mannerisms.

wiat tony kaye didn't play on 90125? I didn't realize that. He only joined after the album was done?

oh just read up on it. what a mess.

Another clip up this morning.

whole album leaked

so far it just sounds kind of wimpy and generic.

this is not a good album

I'm not gonna seek out a DL - I'll wait for it to hit Spotify/Rdio.

you aren't missing anything. believe again is the best track on here. imagine a whole album of. . . 'the man you always wanted me to be' or 'it will be a good day'. a little of that is fine, 60 minutes is really , really dull. this reminds me of what I imagine a new Styx or Kansas album sounds like.

subway walls is also alright but it's no Into the Storm

I think there are some serious class and North-South issues in Yes and there always have been.

― Three Word Username, Friday, June 20, 2014 12:34 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

If somebody could enlighten a yank on this I'm curious.

Going back a bit...I've had a few pops so excuse the effusiveness.

I've spent the last several days digging into Fly From Here. Honestly, it's a really, really good record.

The suite is, at it's worst, very listenable. Part 1 is as good as anything they've jammed on for a really long time, full of classic Trevor Horn groove transpositions and Squire counterpoint. Madman Across the Airfield is a total jam. And yes, Into the Storm is Tempus Fugit-level good – a Squire jam that transcends.

Benoit may not be much as a Jon imitator but he does an excellent Trevor. Actually, if FFH does anything, it's that it takes Trevor Horn from a somewhat aberrational stopgap role in Yes (replacing Jon for one record, producing another 1 1/2) to being one of the core players in the Yes story – where Drama and 90125/Big Generator left you feeling like he was transplanted into and self-consciously dragging the band into the modern world respectively, FFH recasts him as one of the key composers and aestheticians in the band's history.

Ok, back to the new one...all I can add is that Believe Again, if nothing else, is a nice sequel and a bit of an earworm. And it may be nothing else.

Wow. Listening to all of "Believe Again" now. This could be anyone - literally. Howe's signature sound is nowhere here, Downes keys sound like tinny plug-ins. Dull mix. smdh.

This album is awful.

I dunno – that opening riff with the volume pedal dynamics sounds like pure Steve Howe to me. It's a really nice little riff.

That said, this wouldn't be the first time Yes seemed like they got their act together (Going for the One) only to piss it away almost immediately (Tormato).

The implication being Yes didn't have their act together on Relayer?

I was going to say...

well, GFTO came after a 3-year layoff which was rather significant at the time. compare to say ELP's Works, Vol. 1 - Yes definitely seemed to still have it going for them, hell GFTO even hit #1 for a brief period. but that's besides the point...

I d/led the leak out of curiosity, it's almost hilariously trite - there are moments where you think "oh yeah that's Squire" or "that definitely sounds like Steve Howe" but man, this is so fluffed up and amounts to so little. there were some parts I dug at first listen because they were kinda catchy but it sounds like this takes the sort of anthemic AOR of "Walls" from Talk and neuters it even further. even though Anil Prasad tends to be quite opinionated sometimes I think he's on the money with this one...the critics are going to savage this.

boring boring boring boring. deadly dull. maybe their most boring record, it doesn't even fail in spectacularly bad ways like Talk or Tormato, it just sit there. completely unnecessary and irrelevant; makes FFH sound like Fragile.

"If somebody could enlighten a yank on this I'm curious."

Bruford, Howe, and Wakeman all from old money around London and went to fancy schools, Squire came from no money but went to fancy schools because of his boy sopranism, Anderson a milkman's boy from the North. Bruford and Anderson have both gone on record as saying that accent and education have played a large role in the tension in the Yes formations throughout the years ("These three-way fights with Chris and Jon where none of us could understand each other"), with Bruford (the fanciest of them all in terms of background) having over the years come more and more around to Anderson's way of seeing things.

to be positive, I do like "Step Beyond" - it's maybe the dinkiest song they've ever come up with, with those doodly-diddly-doodly-doo keyboards and all, but the vocals are nice

this really does sound like Jon Davison and four corpses. cripes.

at the same time the melodies are so agreeable that it's hard to actively dislike. hell if the tempos had been kicked up a few notches and had Squire/Howe bothered to show up this may actually be alright. though any goodwill I may have runs out right when "In a World Of Our Own" shows up - Chris Squire wrote this????

I tried to give it a second listen but just couldn't. Doing that would just turn me off from listening to any Yes for a long time. This is why I avoid "Tormato" - which I now have to rank high above this beige, lifeless lump of sad haha.
Have never listened to "The Ladder" or "Talk" ( don't ever plan to) but I can't imagine they're as goofy as this.

Thanks for the explanation TWU, i never realized that.

xp - you at least need to hear "Homeworld" off The Ladder - IMO one of their greatest songs and one of the few post-Drama tunes that matches up with their classics. To be honest I never minded Tormato much - it's goofy as hell, but the band clearly still had their chops, and there's still some energy (albeit misguided in places). It's not great but sadly it's better than a lot of what came after.

I fucking LOVE Tormato! Never understood the dislike. It's a really fun album.

"homeworld" is awesome and so is "new languages"

first impression with this new one is it sounds like squire white downes and howe. the tempos are sloooooooooww. hard to hear this yet as yes (more like starcastle rehearsals) until "to ascend"

like i wish there was as much proggy intricacy and intensity in this as there is in like owen pallet's "riverbed"

but it picks up a little in the second half for sure after that sloooooooooow beginning

After my immensely fruitful return to Topographic Oceans, I returned to Going For The One.
I had always thought it was very overrated but the consistent praise of "Awaken" by fans made me think I was probably missing something; since I love the Yes epics so much, I couldn't resist going back.

I had indeed underestimated GFTO. There is a lot of detail going on in the album that I never picked up before.
"Awaken" is easily the best thing on it, those "master of images" parts where it sounds like you are rising into heaven are incredible; the watery ending is gorgeous too.
The other tracks have a number of atmospheric and powerful moments, appealingly odd touches in some of the lyrics too.

I still feel some of the songs aren't quite all they could have been. Maybe the warm-up section of "Awaken" is too long.
I think the chorus of "Wonderous Stories" is the weakest part, it breaks up the hypnotic mystery of the rest of the song.
Probably a few other bits could have been different too but the examples above are the only things that really stuck out.

But still, wow, I can't believe I missed so much of the great stuff on the album first time around.

I just found out the other day that Anderson guested on a Glass Hammer album.

Doubt I'll ever get Heaven And Earth. I've still to get 13 Yes albums and piles of solo albums I'd prefer.

Glad to read you've come around to GFTO! I don't understand why some hear bad production on this. I think it's one of their most majestic and -except maybe for the title track which can border on the claustrophobic (though I love it!) - expansive sounding productions. "Tormato", for me, is pretty much ruined by its tinny mix and cluttered production.

GFTO always sounds like it needs a touch more treble to my ears.

Tormato has some good songs on it, it's an admirable Failure. So, for that matter, is Union. I rank both of them above this, because at least they aren't this dull.

Davidson is the least of the problems on the record. And since Downes wrote one of the only half-good songs here, I think the problem must be with squire and howe now; they soundlike they just phoned these compositions in, and no-one seems to have put much thought into arranging anything. get trevor horn back and let him and downes write the next album, if you must make another one.

After my immensely fruitful return to Topographic Oceans, I returned to Going For The One.
I had always thought it was very overrated but the consistent praise of "Awaken" by fans made me think I was probably missing something; since I love the Yes epics so much, I couldn't resist going back.

I had indeed underestimated GFTO. There is a lot of detail going on in the album that I never picked up before.
"Awaken" is easily the best thing on it, those "master of images" parts where it sounds like you are rising into heaven are incredible; the watery ending is gorgeous too.
The other tracks have a number of atmospheric and powerful moments, appealingly odd touches in some of the lyrics too.

I still feel some of the songs aren't quite all they could have been. Maybe the warm-up section of "Awaken" is too long.
I think the chorus of "Wonderous Stories" is the weakest part, it breaks up the hypnotic mystery of the rest of the song.
Probably a few other bits could have been different too but the examples above are the only things that really stuck out.

But still, wow, I can't believe I missed so much of the great stuff on the album first time around.

akm otm -- there's nothing here a fraction as dynamic as say "life on a film set," not on first listen at least

The above clip where Squire is using a Jazz Bass should be required watching for any weenie who does not understand that "Squire's new thing" was alays just Motown licks with new roundwound strings on a Rickenbacker. With the Jazz, he just sounds like a very good, somewhat aggressive player, not the mythical lead bassist people talk about when they don't know what they're talking about.

I misjudged Fly From Here- I'm listening to it again more or less for the first time since it came out. It's pretty decent, with alot more life and a more punchy production job than I originally gave it credit for.

That said, I've not spun the new one yet.

I fucking LOVE Tormato! Never understood the dislike. It's a really fun album.

Tormato is a frustrating record. For every moment that is potentially classic about it—the opening section to "Future Times," the blistering riff in "Release Release," the whole of "On the Silent Wings of Freedom"—there are two or three other things that drag it down – the blech "Rejoice" conclusion to "Future Times," the WTF of the drum solo and audience applause(!!!) in the middle of "Release Release," the straight-up oddness of things like "Circus of Heaven" and "Arriving UFO" (the sequence of which pretty much tanks side 2). Topped off by a production/mix which sounds like it was done in a dingy broom closet.

Which again, just makes me think that, for all their collective talent and abilities, these guys have a hard time holding things together for very long.

A lot of people hate "Circus Of Heaven" And find it sickeningly sentimental, I love it, actually I adore it. I used to sing it when I went walking in the fields, haha.

I don't remember most of the songs by name, a lot of the bonus tracks were amazing, some of which are demos of songs that got fleshed out on Anderson's solo album Song Of Seven.

In the Classic Artists:Yes documentary, they said that the "concept" is of the members not trying to make a focused whole. The image on the back cover of them all looking in a different direction is intentional.

I think they just wanted to bang out an album, and while I don't think that approach is the best thing for them, I can understand why they'd do that after all those intensely focused albums.
But I think the energy and fun shows, it's an album I feel good about putting on.

The weird thing about the lousy sound on Tormato is that I think the individual instruments (except for Wakeman's angry clarinet wasps) sound really good, but the whole of it is lousy. In a sense, Future Times/Rejoice is the album in a nutshell -- the amazing opening, some of the best Chris Squire playing, ever gets followed by a weird (but not bad) Anderson New Age number which Squire completely sabotages with his shit overplaying.

Also the drum solo and applause of Release Release is, I think, in some way related to the lyrics which seem to be about how prog needs to borrow punk's intensity and power but leave off that nasty nihilism.

At Fopp today I bought Yes, Time And A Word, Yessongs, Drama and 90125.

Was surprised to see there was a Yes album collection with Going For The One, Tormato, Drama, 90125 and Big Generator.
I'm really delighted by these super cheap album collections, I bought a Mahavishnu Orchestra one recently and today I splashed out on Judas Priest, Sisters Of Mercy and Incredible String Band collections. The only thing that stopped me buying the two Tangerine Dream Virgin collections is that the albums are crammed across different discs instead of each album getting its own disc, that really bugs me when that happens.
Wish there was more of these for prog bands, so many prolific bands would really benefit from them.

fuck me if some of this album hasn't turned into kind of an earworm. . . the game, believe again, and it was all we knew, in particular. it was all we knew chugs around a bit like some late period REM song. It doesn't sound anything like Yes but I kind of like it.

The only thing that stopped me buying the two Tangerine Dream Virgin collections is that the albums are crammed across different discs instead of each album getting its own disc, that really bugs me when that happens.

I bought a Robin Trower set like that - 5 albums on 3 CDs, but some of them were split up: Side One on Disc 2, Side Two on Disc 3. I didn't mind because I was just gonna put them all in my iPod, but yeah, weird.

It was my Bongwater collection that had that quality. I'm so glad I already had Power Of Pussy; it might sound minor but somehow searching for the track to start the album and changing discs in middle of it spoils it a bit (unlike a vinyl, it isn't in the actual middle of the album but a bit close to the beginning or end).
I understand why a record company would rather use up less discs though.

I don't know if that Yes collection had the bonus tracks because sometimes these things don't. The Tangerine Dream collections seemed to have all the bonus tracks.

best thing i've read all morning -- "this album does well what love beach did badly"

hey, Love Beach was alright! I mean, this certainly isn't good, but....

fuck me if some of this album hasn't turned into kind of an earworm. . . the game, believe again, and it was all we knew, in particular. it was all we knew chugs around a bit like some late period REM song. It doesn't sound anything like Yes but I kind of like it.

i kinda agree with this - the songs do get stuck in your head. they're shockingly lethargic but the melodies do work. it's definitely very different.

You guys are true fans that you can actually listen to this more than a couple of times.

don't worry i'm going to stop pretty soon

hahaha!

Hate to derail the thread again with "Tormato" bits but I was digging around and found this : http://ultimateclassicrock.com/yes-tormato/

One of the interesting reasons why that album doesn't sound as good as it could have. I still think Wakeman's Polymoogs helped kill it, though - and I love Wakeman.

well I'm doing the Quietus review, so I might as well search for the good

maybe this is damning with faint praise but i'm enjoying this when songs randomly pop up on a playlist with other new stuff (dead rider, black bananas, mastodon, bear in heaven, new eno/hyde, mike cooper, and comet control). the tempos i can handle in doses and the straight-edgy commitment to optimism is refreshing when i'm not expecting it. but the album in proper order straight through is still something i haven't been able to manage more than once, and i'm a sucker for this shit

Nothing I like about Yes appears to be evident on this album.

great review, frogbs! totally agree. really curious that they managed to deliver the goods on 'fly from here' without that experience seeming to impact this lethargic performance one bit

an interview with the new guy, how he got involved, what his role was in writing/recording, etc

http://music.allaccess.com/yes-singer-jon-juano-davison-jon-d-interview-talks-about-heaven-earth/

hah, didnt know it was up already! I have no clue when this thing actually releases. I've heard 3 different dates. I think that's the first real negative review I've posted up there, but I hope I got the point across that the songwriting is mostly fine; it's the incredibly slow tempos and lifeless performances that tank it. Sadly they edited a few bits out of it, my conclusion was supposed to be "buy a Glass Hammer album instead"

An incisive review, Nick. Shame about your being edited as it was good advice. Certainly the Glass Hammer comparison is inescapable with Jon Davison fronting this album. To that end, GH's 2010 album, IF, readily walks all over this one. I was less smitten by the other Glass Hammer releases with JD... or otherwise, I suppose.

Re. the speed, I'd heard it was Howe slowing the pace, rather than White. Their live sets have apparently improved somewhat but Heaven and Earth still falls victim to arthritic tempos.

'it was all we knew' is out and out unbearable. Subway walls is the only one with any life in it. Bummer

yeah I can pretty much recommend any Glass Hammer album from Lex Rex on (I like Chronometree a lot too, but I feel like you need to be really familiar with ELP's work to really get it), plus the two Druckfarben albums. there's really a lot of good prog still being released, it's kind of a shame that none of it gets even a quarter of the press that this lukewarm Yes album does.

hell the new morrissey album has better proggy moments on it than the new yes. besides glass hammer, motorpsycho has been on fire lately. having the dungen guy in the band hasn't hurt. 'the death defying unicorn' is better than most "classic" 70s symph prog i've heard, and is on par with the best yes, crimson, rush, camel, tull, etc. it is too bad not more people pay attention but i'm glad enough do to keep this stuff coming

I need to check out some more recent prog offerings, but this year's Gazpacho record is a good one. https://soundcloud.com/kscopemusic/sets/gazpacho-demon

I like the concept behind it a lot:

Demon is inspired by a conversation Thomas had with his father a few years ago where he spoke of a dark force moving through history. During the conversation his father recalled a business visit to Prague in the seventies where he visited the family of some of his hosts.

The family lived in an old apartment, recently renovated after a fire. In the debris, an old manuscript was found. The manuscript was written by a previous resident, for which no records existed other than that his rent had been pre-paid for many years.

Written over two years, the band have described Demon as the ‘most complicated and strange album Gazpacho has ever made’ and whether the manuscript is truly the work of an obsessed madman or an urban legend it has certainly provided the basis for an interesting twist on a concept album.

The manuscript contained various ramblings and diagrams which formed the basis of a diary, of sorts, of the man. He claimed to have discovered the source of what he called an evil presence in the world. This presence, ‘The Demon’, was an actual intelligent will, with no mercy and a desire for bad things to happen. The author wrote as if he had lived for thousands of years stalking this presence and the manuscript contains references to outdated branches of mathematics, pagan religions unknown to the present world and an eyewitness account of the bubonic plague. So crazed were the writings that the document was donated to the Strahov Library in Prague, where it was thought it would be of interest to students of psychiatry.

The thought of this mysterious figure that had lived through the ages, hunting the ‘Demon’, seemed like too good an idea not to write about. Thomas presented the idea to the band who were just as inspired by the story, and with Jan Henrik, he started writing the lyrics based on what they thought the manuscript would reveal, drawing inspiration from previously ‘discovered’ diaries and manifests.

The story is told in four parts, ending with ‘Death Room’ which are the last words of the unfinished manuscript written just before the disappearance of the unknown writer.

xp - you should link some good Motorpsycho here, that definitely sounds intriguing

'the death defying unicorn' is better than most "classic" 70s symph prog i've heard

This is something I've found myself more and more in agreement with, not so much this album (which I haven't heard) but that newer bands could pump out material of that quality. It sucks that this kind of music doesn't really have any money behind it anymore; I don't know how many groups could do something on the level of Close to the Edge, which apparently took hundreds of hours worth of takes and edits and rewrites to get as you hear it on the album (which I believe is what motivated Bruford to jump ship), but the talent is there. That said I've been shocked at how intricate and well-made a lot of post-80's prog is even though such bands are basically unknown.

not saying this is the best song on the album, but to keep this kind of relevant to the thread, around four minutes into this they bite "changes" from '90125'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXydZtoHq0E

(wobbler is another recent band that does this all pretty well, by the way. and again to stick to the thread -- 'sound mirror,' the latest album by syd arthur, the band opening for yes this tour, has some great stuff on it)

(sorry! the passage i'm talking about is around 2:45 into it, through a little past the three minute point)

sounds like they do it twice! definitely will be checking this band, I've always loved that style of drumming but have trouble getting into all-out metal.

I had heard the first Wobbler album a while back and my impression was that it was good but very much reminded me of "Tarkus". I think I was hung up at the time on how unoriginal it sounded but strangely nowadays this doesn't bother me at all about Glass Hammer (who sound unoriginal at first listen but once you get to know them, they really do have their own distinct style)

I think the majority of newer prog bands have a problem in that they are too reverent to their heroes, as if they place themselves beneath Yes and dislike the idea of a new band surpassing Close To The Edge.
The thing I like about metal is that they have a great deal of respect for the past but place no limits on their ambitions, not content to live in the shadows of other bands.
For me early Emperor, Immortal, Wolves In The Throne Room, Deathspell Omega and some Death (I'm sure I'll find much more eventually) pushes my symphonic prog buttons very satisfyingly, even if they aren't regarded as part of that tradition all the time.

Relatively mainstream bands like Mew, Battles, White Denim and Field Music have made some excellent prog but I feel the prog community hasn't embraced them because there hasn't been enough explicit pledging of allegiance to the older bands (despite the occasional favourable mention of these bands in interviews). But then Ruins are pure prog fanboys yet they never got the kind of coverage they deserve. But I confess I haven't bought Prog magazine in a couple of years and rarely visit Prog Archives.

I think Devil Doll's 90s albums Sacrilegium and Dies Irae are as good as any prog classics, but the vocals are likely to put off most(?) people. That guy somehow had incredible resources with orchestras, choirs and opera singers. Some of my all-time favourite music. A truly fascinating mixture of ingredients.

I've heard that Diagonal are excellent.

I saw Yes on the recent 3 album tour in Southend (can't believe I saw Yes in Southend, it's not 1969) and I have to admit I was surprised, and then blown away, by how good Jon Davison was.

last time i saw (1998? 99?) it was so vegas i've been afraid to go back. how was everyone else compared to davison?

diagonal has the right sounds and the right idea but nothing on either of their two albums i've heard has totally blown me away

they were really good last year with davison. won't be going this year though, too much of the same set and tix were almost twice as much (plus they aren't playing in SF, would have to go down to san jose).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_njJRAB9HGw

this was news to me, i found a nine year old thread about it but i think the statute has passed and now is a good time to imagine a world in which robert downey jr is the lead singer of yes

wow an opportunity to admit I have watched this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1crxmBTxRlM

Out today. On Spotify now.