yes: classic or dud? search and destroy

sounds like drama pt. ii. can't help but be a little curious

Trevor Horn needs to lay off the pies. Woah.

i've been playing 'close to the edge' a lot recently.

how is it that the bruford-era yes rhythm section is so awesome? seems like it shouldn't have been that hard for other bands to replicate driving off-beat stuff.

like getting together with your girlfriend from 150 years ago 'just for the sex', here comes the new album by YES

oh god I just posted that

and I guess that the fact that I actually want to hear this record probably makes it okay

now bringing up itunes to play 'it can happen'

you can feed the soul apart!
you reach!

why people feel guilty about listening to 40-year old rock bands but don't think twice about watching 50-year old movies or 100-year old books is beyond me

i guess most people read not watch books, but still

As per teh floatin' grandpa head in teh middle o'photo, my educated guess is - must be Nero Wolfe, surely.

It's Trevor Horn in the middle, guys.

There is good to be found in just about every genre EXCEPT 70's prog

wish I could go back in time and SB....

Alan White is a dead ringer for Douglas Adams

why people feel guilty about listening to 40-year old rock bands but don't think twice about watching 50-year old movies or 100-year old books is beyond me

I dunno if it's because they're old, I think it's because they're Yes...they weren't even cool back then, but now??

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