yes: classic or dud? search and destroy

i think the world is ready for anderson bruford moraz banks

i dunno, i find ELP so much more interesting in that regard
the "Emerson, Lake and Powell" album sounds like something straight out of Spinal Tap

how is it that the bruford-era yes rhythm section is so awesome?

http://i52.tinypic.com/2rz3vp2.jpg

MAN - IN - A - WHITE - CAAAAAaaaaarrrrrr

Yes, who canceled the last three shows of their European tour in December due to the illness of lead singer Benoit David, have named Jon Davison as David's replacement for their spring tour of Australia, New Zealand and beyond.

Davison is the lead singer of Glass Hammer, a progressive rock band from Chattanooga, Tennessee.

From Yes' official website and Facebook page:

"Jon Davison will join Yes as lead vocalist for the upcoming dates in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Indonesia and Hawaii. Yes really appreciate Jon Davison joining them for this leg of the tour and are sure this arrangement will satisfy all Yes fans."

GOING FOR THE ONE!

at least this faux-anderson can hit the notes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am_Sszp3q54

I tend to find Anderson the most obvious thing about he band that I dislike. Wonder if I'd feel different if he had a lower voice.
Plus the band seems too busy and I' prefer them more spacious.
But still there's a couple of very interesting lps there in the early 70s, or maybe I should say the first 5 are ok if you can get over Anderson.
& the remastering from 5 years or so ago has even made him more palatable.

I saw the local uber-cover band do a night of Yes, and I was struck by two things. 1) Yes, this music is astoundingly busy and 2) Some of the complexities of the music are so conspicuous that you just know the band made it more complex on purpose to show off - "Hey, let's add another two beats before the vocals come in again!" "Let's all play in different time signatures!" - which is what makes the band so easy to dislike. I get the impression Yes more than most prog bands actually believes that more technical skill is objectively superior to less technical skill. That is, I can imagine Steve Howe (who is an incredible guitarist) searching the ranks of "Best Guitarists Ever" list, and wondering why he falls several rankings below, say, Johnny Ramone.

the answer is because those lists are all awful

and i have no idea how you could listen to early yes and arrive at the above opinion

I like the showoffy bits! Like in "Sound Chaser" where they play that main line at like six different tempos is really cool. IMO the "complex just for the sake of this being prog" is more of a Gentle Giant thing. Also, Yes tends to suck when they're NOT showing off (see: Tales)

I like (early) Yes just fine. But that's, like, two or three albums out of a hell of a lot of music. I was just struck by how insanely complicated it was. I mean, my friend in the band, a guitarist, who can literally play anything, thought it was harder than doing Steely Dan. They had to bring in a ringer for some of the guitar stuff, and the ringer didn't even need to use charts. He did it all from memory! They joked that when they did CCR he needed all the guitar parts transcribed.

Gentle Giant, btw, I always thought was more ... pastoral? A la Genesis.

maybe on their later albums, all I've heard is the early stuff which certainly has some "prog it up" moments. I don't know if the criticism really applies to Yes - I've always thought they were just a good rock band that just wrote longer, more complex tunes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YF1yFRrVPqU&feature=related

Looks like Golum!

I probably posted this in another thread, but I once passed a venue in Philadelphia, I think it was the TLA, and on the marquee it said "Jon Anderson: Work In Progress," and I thought to myself that Jon Anderson is probably the only rock musician pompous enough to perform a "work in progress" for an audience, like as though people in the mid 2000s were so eager to hear what this genius was up to that they'd pay for a preview of an unfinished work.

as someone who doesnt even play music, i still find "close to the edge" a really nice listen, like if theres nothing i want to hear ill usually put it on and it does the trick, great music for a road trip tbh

frogbs is wrong. Tales is awesome.

Stevolende is wrong. Jon's vox sounded good. If you don't like the vox then you've come barking up the wrong thread. You can't be a Yes fan if you don't like Jon's vocals.

I've never once considered Yes as a band that is just showing off like a tuneless Yngwie Malmsteen. They made solid songs that make sense.

Close to the Edge is great and I still think it sounds better on my slightly warped cassette in the car than it does on CD.

Key to Yes vocal greatness is the combination of Jon Anderson and Chris Squire singing together.

They made solid songs that make sense.

I love "I've Seen All Good People," but how does the country-boogie breakdown make any sense whatsoever?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H49r9y5eEU

I can imagine Steve Howe (who is an incredible guitarist) searching the ranks of "Best Guitarists Ever" list, and wondering why he falls several rankings below, say, Johnny Ramone.

I would wonder about this too. I don't think you need to fetishize complexity to question it: what makes Johnny Ramone one of the best guitarists ever? If you'd picked someone like the Edge or someone like Clapton, I could see where you were coming from (and I think Howe could too).

I do think that much of what Yes did was tightly composed and doesn't just sound flashy or wilfully complex to me, e.g. on Close to the Edge.

exactly. Close to the Edge (the entire record, not just the song) is amazingly tight as a whole

No one would ever doubt the "tightness" of Yes.

When Yes is tight, it might be gross

Howe is subtle, I think. If he's falling low on lists like that, it might actually be that he's a little underrated.

Even when he's subtle he's awfully prodigious. So, yeah, subtle in that it doesn't always sound like flash, but the dude rarely takes the easy road. But, like, Steve Hackett - that dude is subtle.

Steve Howe is a master of coming up with unobtrusive rhythm parts that you will never be able to figure out how to play

we've never had a Steve Hackett thread, huh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt1_g8zVf1o&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONm1gNPWq9g

Man that Fish Out of Water LP is fantastic

^^^^^

Something I really appreciate about Howe is that he is one guy who has been able to integrate elements of the classical guitar tradition into the rock idiom. There's this huge, rich tradition with a technical approach that's pretty fundamentally different from how most blues/jazz/pop guitarists approach the instrument that's just there, begging to be drawn on. Yet hardly anyone does, even the metal guys who talk about their classical training. (And of course Howe doesn't limit himself to that tradition! He's just as comfortable throwing in some country picking or ripping out a heavy fusion solo.)

Really? Fish Out of Water. Hm, it's got Bruford and Moraz on it. I'll look for it.

howe is totally awesome, one of my favorite guitar dudes

xpost, Yeah, but those prog guys, from Genesis to even early Rush, were all about busting out the classical moves; that's one element that made them so hated by the punks, not just their technical proficiency but the fact that they showed it off by way of the most staid and stuffy tradition. And some of the worst metal guys are the ones that do incorporate classical elements. Search anddestroy one Yngwie Malmsteen. Obviously someone like Richard Thompson is as good as Howe, but without the taint of prog (as much as I like prog, and Steve Howe's playing!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpEWNVy0bYI

Most of the 'classical moves' in prog and metal don't really seem to have that much to do with the actual Spanish (or even English)-derived fingerpicked tradition on the nylon-stringed classical guitar though. I'm not a classical guitar professional but my training is in classical guitar and most shred-metal guys don't do what I (try to) do: more like Bach or Paganini melodies transcribed for a flatpicked style.

In the case of Hackett, I just don't think he sounded like a very good classical player on something like "Horizons". (Seriously, look up any professional - or even student - performance of the Bach prelude he's quoting.) Howe actually played like someone who understood the tradition, could comfortably work within it and create original work in it (at a higher level of, yes, difficulty than "Stairway to Heaven" or the intro to "Farewell to Kings") and actually integrate it into rock music.

(What makes classical music staid and stuffy btw?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlXlaOeYl2c

(Not my favourite performance but a perfectly good one that is available on Youtube)

After posting all of that, I'm thinking back on Yes and wondering how much of Howe's fingerpicking and contrapuntal guitar technique was actually coming from folk and country rather than classical. There's "Mood for a Day" and bits of "Roundabout" of course... will need to pull those records out again...

(Really like Richard Thompson too, btw!)

I think Howe is on record as being massively influenced by country music.

Sund4r OTM, most of what is being referred to as 'classically influenced' prog or metal electric gtr playing is basically guitarists imitating virtuoso violinists. There is precious little drawn from classical guitar technique.

Also, Gentle Giant are the wrong whipping boy upthread. They may have been complex (in a way that was GENUINELY influenced by classical and baroque music) but they were very tight, tight in the way that Discipline era KC was tight.