Yes (the band) Reissues

[Aftab]

I was finally able to pick up the 3 new YES reissues - Tormato, Drama, and 90125 - 3 of my fave YES projects. I got in to the band around BIG GENERATOR so my first love are these albums that come at the end of the 70's start of the 80's. I know for some diehard YES fans, these might not be their first or second choices, but I love this stuff.

I'm particulary pscyched for DRAMA - it gets such a bum rap because Jon Anderson isn't on it. I think that's what makes it stand out - YES were able to continue sans Anderson (not as sucessful as say Van Halen after DLR, but I digress). Of course, he was back in a couple of years with 90125. The tunes have never sounded better, and the bonus tracks give a look into the creative process (3 of them feature Anderson).

I haven't gotten to hear the other 2, but from the way DRAMA sounds, this is gonna be the best 30 bucks I've spent in a while

Any thoughts?

[hutch head]

You cannot be serious!

[BFrank]

Yeah, I only liked the early stuff, myself - "Yes Album", "Fragile", etc ...

[Guest ariceffron]

get ready to jizz yourself but yes are considereing doing a particular song from DRAMA this upcomming tour! machine messiah. i personally would of liked tempus fugit too but whatever. some of the tormato outtakes are weird.

[Aftab]

You cannot be serious!

totally NOT kidding, but thanks for the 'dis'

There's a lot of music other than Jazz that I listen to - prog stuff, gospel, sarah maclachlan type stuff, classic rock - hey if it's good and well done/played, it's worth a shot.

People ask me what type of music I like - I say "the good kind" and leave it* at that

* a lil' YES joke

Edited March 1, 2004 by Aftab

[Jazzdog]

Drama is my favorite Yes album hands down, and coupled with a remastering of 90125 I couldnt wait for these reissues. I never fully got into Tormato before so I took the plunge again. Needless to say I think these (coupled with Going For the One) are my favorite Yes albums, CTTE aside, I really love this period of the band.

90125 sunds increible in this new mastering job. The original domestic issue sounded absolutley horrible so I was very excited to hear it and now it sounds amazing. The wait certainly paid off. Drama is still excellent and the bonus tracks (with and without Anderson) give a better look into the creative process and complete the cd brilliantly. The bonus tracks with Anderson and Wakeman are certainly not bad, but its easy to see how they became frustrated and left the band in 1980.

As for Tormato, well it certainly has its rough moments for sure. the music sounds as if the core element of the band (Squire, Howe and White) were going into a broader musical direction and Jon and Rick kind of stuck in a mid-70's rut, and this point is clarified even greater by the 1979 cuts released on the back of Drama. Otherwise, tormato sounds fine and the bonus tracks are very cool. Its a shame Countryside didn't make the final cut, as it actually attempts to tell the story behind the title of the album.

90125 is topped off by the alternate cut of "It Can Happen" I never realized how much influence Anderson had over the finished product. His lyrics certainly smooth out the efforts made by Trevor Rabin, but he is clearly out of his element here. After this, I am afraid that the entire band loses the plot and Rabins influence is felt more strongly over BG and Talk...I wont even bother with Union. 90125 is it for me, and aparently it is the last album that will be issued in the Rhino series.

[jazzbo]

How's Tales of Topographic Oceans in new remastering? That's probably the one Yes album I'd most like to hear again. . . .

[Johnny E]

The first concert I ever attended was in 1979...YES - Tormato Tour! I love that album (and most other YES for that matter). I have to say that 90125 and beyond are not my favs. I dodn't dig Trevor Rabin.

Ever hear their version of Paul Simons America? AWESOME!

[Joe G]

Remember that AndersonBrufordWakemanHowe album in the early 90's? I remember liking the first half of it, and feeling that the last few tunes lost some steam. I wonder how it would sound to me now...Wish I had seen that tour, rather than Union.

[Jazzdog]

Yeah it was such an attempt to repeat past glories that it missed the mark for me, as has 90% of the post 90125 Yes

[7/4]

Remember that AndersonBrufordWakemanHowe album in the early 90's? I remember liking the first half of it, and feeling that the last few tunes lost some steam. I wonder how it would sound to me now...Wish I had seen that tour, rather than Union.

I saw AWBH, really liked it. There is a video of one of their shows with Jeff Berlin playing, Levin was sick.

I also saw Union, the first time was "in the round", with Krap seats. The second time, on a regular stage, was amazing. That was also the last time I saw them. Maybe I'll catch them on their next tour.

[ralphie_boy]

How's Tales of Topographic Oceans in new remastering? That's probably the one Yes album I'd most like to hear again. . . .

That's the one "classic" YES album that I've never heard and always meant to check out. My favorites are Close to the Edge and Relayer.

[HWright]

I bought the Rhino Remaster of "Tales from Topographic Oceans" and must say I was impressed.

It is quite an improvement over previous Western remasters (I can't speak for anything available in Japan), as are all the other reissues from the excellent Rhino Yes series. "Tales" especially benefits because it sounded a bit muddy on CD in the past. I know it's a rather controversial album and many people hate it, but I was never in that camp personally. It's not my favorite Yes album by any means (I like "Fragile" and "Close to the Edge" best), but I've always been willing to give it a fair shake and certainly now that I have the Rhino version I like it better. Even more interesting are the early rehearsal/out-takes that are included as a bonus on the second disc. The singing is a little off-mike and under-rehearsed but the band are on fire, often provided more inspiring instrumental performances than on the official takes.

By the way, this is also true for "Relayer," the follow-up to "Tales," as it has also been improved by remastering and also has some good out-takes with a lot of energy.

Edited March 2, 2004 by HWright

[Jazzdog]

I bought the Rhino Remaster of "Tales from Topographic Oceans" and must say I was impressed.

Y aknow, I never loved it, but I am considering getting that and Relayer. In high school, my friends and I used to sit around, smoke pot and listen to Tales, I have very good memories of that time, and little of it have to do with the music. I remember I used to be obsessed with The Wall and I used to watch it every day after I came home from school. I guess it just felt comforting at the time.

Ahhhhhh, the folly of youth!!!

[jazzbo]

Thanks for the information Mr. Wright!

[HWright]

You're welcome, Jazzbo.

While on the topic of Yes and Progressive Rock, I wonder if anyone read Bill Martin's book on Yes (1) and if they did, did they also read his more general work about progressive rock and what did they think of it? I read the Martin book on Yes and while I did not like everything about it, it is the only book about Yes that I have read that takes "Tales" seriously and it helped me to learn to appreciate that album.

(1) Music of Yes: Structure and Vision in Progressive Rock (Feedback - The Series in Contemporary Music) by Bill Martin

(2) Listening to the Future: The Time of Progressive Rock, 1968-1978 (Feedback (Chicago, Ill.), V. 2.) by Bill Martin

Edited March 2, 2004 by HWright

[A Lark Ascending]

Yes were my favourite band as a 16 year old in their early 70s heydey. I loved Topographic from the off and have never been part of the disowning of it. I really think it just suffered for being a very long piece put out in lavish style and promoted with over the top stage sets at the very time when the critics were ready to rip into the musical style it represented. Topographic was just in the wrong place at the wrong time (if it had come out a year earlier it would probably have been hailed as an artistic masterpiece - which would have been equally misguided; its a very good, very imaginative rock record...with silly lyrics!).

I bought the remaster. One thing which is different is the opening. Instead of the sudden start with Andersons vocal you get a long fade in that was never there on vinyl.

'Relayer' bored me and 'Going for the One' sounded half-baked so I lost sight of Yes at that point. I did buy a CD of there's in the mid-90s but found it dull and forgot them again.

However,...

I read on this here board some great enthusiasm for 'Magnification', their last CD. So I took another chance...and I love it. No keyboard player so no squiggly synths. An orchestra to fill out the sound which does so without sounding like cod-Tchaikovsky. Really good songwriting, on a par with the glory days.

I'd urge anyone who things Yes are Yes-terdays men to give it a listen. A very entertaining record.

....................

Chris Welch has written an interesting bio of Yes. He was a Melody Maker writer who championed the band in their heyday. As a result its a bit cloying but is a solid account of their rise; and of the wars of the 80s and 90s!!!! Hell hath no furry like a peace-loving hippy spurned.

There is a wonderful account of a manic day in their lives when they were still a struggling B-list band that I posted here in another context a while back:

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=4880

Worth a read if you want an idea of Yes before the costumes and fancy stage sets!

Edited March 2, 2004 by Bev Stapleton

[Aggie87]

Glad to see you like Magnification, Bev! I have been recommending that album to anyone who ever used to like 70's era Yes. I saw their last three tours in Stuttgart, and the Magnification tour (aka "YesSymphonic") was wonderful, even though technically they cheated and included a keyboard player (a guy named Tom Brislin) along with the orchestra.

The 03/04 Rhino remasters are all very good, imho. They all include extra music, as well as significant sound upgrades. Even the earliest titles ("Yes" and "Time and a Word"), while not classic Yes albums, have some interesting bonus tracks. The classic sequence of albums - generally considered "The Yes Album" through "Going for the One" (or maybe through "Drama" if you're generous) all sound GREAT. Even the remaster of 90125 is a significant improvement over the original cd.

Unfortunately the remasters appear to end with 90125. I wish they would have continued with Big Generator and ABWH at least, maybe Union as well. I don't have as much a proble with Union as alot of Yes fans do, but it's definitely an album with a split personality.

In short, if you like Yes at all, pick up the Rhino remasters of the album(s) you're interested in. They sound great!

[Jazzdog]

I'll be that generous person. 90125 was the first album I ever purchased, so naturally I have a soft spot for it, but you can say that after that, they are a different band. But I still love that album as much as I did when I was a kid. I used to hang out at my local mall store and stare at the covers of Fragile and Topographic for hours after school and I always wondered what they sounded like, but I was afraid of them, they looked so imposing with the futuristic landscapes and "mountans coming out of the skies". I had no clue what they sounded like, though I had some idea. I lost touch with Yes over the years, having an inceasingly difficult time with Jon Anderson's Metaphysical (read:bullshit) meanderings, that I forgot about the truly awe inspiring tunes they created. Maybe thats why Drama became my favorite album!

[HWright]

A comment about Chris Welch's book on Yes, which Bev mentioned:

I read the book and recommend it as well. Unfortunately, his section on Yes in the studio during 1972-1974 seems to me problematic. He quotes the negative views of several band members regarding "Close to the Edge" and "Tales," without providing any alternate points of view (positive views) from other band members who are being implicitly (or perhaps explicitly, I don't have the book to hand) criticized.

It seems to me that a split developed in the group during that period. Certainly the fact that both Bufford and Wakeman ended up quiting shows that there were significant internal strains. Now perhaps there is some truth to the allegations that the albums in question were primarily made up of fragments and left-overs from inconclusive sessions, but it seems to me an exageration to suggest that engineer Eddie Oford (spelling?) created them in the editing room. Still, I'm not saying one should necessarily accept the version of events presented in Jon Anderson's liner notes for "Tales," for instance, which suggests that he and Steve Howe knew what they were doing the whole time and that it came out exactly the way they planned from the beginning. Perhaps there is a bit of truth in both accounts...

In any case it seems to me that what really matters is the final product, the albums. A lot of Yes fans enjoy them, even if there is some disagreement about their relative merits. However, by reporting negative views of the production of the albums outside of a broader context, it seems to me that Welch does the albums and the group a disservice. After all, if you are a fan of Yes and you read Welch's book, are you going to want to check out albums that some members of the band trashed in the pages of an otherwise rather adulatory biography?

Edited March 3, 2004 by HWright

[A Lark Ascending]

I wonder if Welch's caution about these two albums might be quite personal. He went from being one of the frontline rock journalists to a ridiculed supporter of the 'dinosaurs' very quickly during the UK punk revolution. I wonder if standing up for those records still brings back tough memories.

There's a great interview with Bill Bruford in the March Jazz Review, full of his usually stand-offish perspective of his prog-rock associations. I found this interesting.

"I imagine that without jazz, art-rock or progrock or whatever you want to call it wouldn't have happened, would it? Wasn't it an extension of the pursuit of complexity in jazz?

Well, I think you're probably mistaken there. My understanding is that jazz was the one element that really wasn't there at all.

Not in terms of improvisation or complexity or harmonic wilfulness?

Well, the harmony's all Anglican church harmony. And improvisation? No, there wasn't really improvisation. There were extended rhythm and blues guitar solos, Eric Clapton style over a pentatonic scale. There wasn't really improv. So I think jazz was the only element that wasn't there, and I was the one token guy in those groups that knew a bit about jazz and was still trying to make my drums sound like Joe Morello, Art Blakey and Max Roach.

So prog was perhaps more a blend of rock, folk and classical music?

Correct - that's exactly where it came from, and particularly from the extended song form of classical music - which all the middle-class guys learned at school anyway. They all wanted to be Sibelius. And they tended to be choristers too, so church and classical music was in their blood. I mean, Rick Wakeman, to this day, hasn't got a note of jazz in him. It's absolutely uncanny. He could sit here and play something for half an hour and you wouldn't hear one note of jazz - pure as the driven snow. It's all white-note music and there's no jazz phrasing in it. Not only is there not a flattened fifth or a seventh, it's all arpeggiated, like classical music - it has no jazz phrasing, no call and response or anything of that sort. And he was typical of the genre - there was no jazz in those groups at all.

And take a look at this interview with Anderson from last July if you want evidence that Anderson is off with the faeries!

'The idea is to unravel the onion'

In his quest for answers, Jon Anderson has worked with angels, ducks and a cardboard cow. Alexis Petridis meets the man who gave us Yes, the proggest rockers of them all

Wednesday July 30, 2003

The Guardian

Anderson: less a wide-eyed hippy than a hard-headed operator. Photo: Eamonn McCabe

Jon Anderson has kindly decided to explain the meaning of life to me. "Right, this table," says the lead singer of Yes, gesturing towards the coffee table, "is the world as we know it. There are mountains, valleys, animals and interdimensional energies that we don't know about." He pauses. "Or maybe we do. Actually, I know a lot of people that do. Interdimensional energies," he nods sagely, "are a very powerful thing."

But back to the table. "The human experience is as big as that," he says, picking up an ashtray, "compared to everything else that's going on. The horrible stuff, the terrible daily shit that you read about, is as big as that. The people that live in Seville or Detroit - although it's tough in Detroit sometimes - or Calcutta - kinda funky! - South America, South Africa, all these people are getting on with life." He grabs a box of matches and rattles it. "This is the media, CNN, everything that's happening in Israel and Arabia. It's a very small part of life, but because we're connected to the media we think that's what life's all about, and it ain't."

He's completely lost me, so he tries a different tack. "If you start wondering about birdcalls and, erm, why birds are alive and what they seem to do around us, and trees and nature and so forth, which me and my wife Jane do... We're just such bird-lovers. We were there in the park today, just feeding the ducks. We were loving the baby ducks. And what's wrong with that?"

What indeed? Nevertheless, we seem to have strayed from the whole meaning of life issue. "Well, it was a beautiful moment. And you think life is a beautiful thing and you've got to live accordingly. You've got to magnify all your better feelings and better urges and better conscious ideas and that's your life's evolvement. There's only one reason we live. It's very simple. To find the creator. That's just my understanding," he adds quickly. "I'm still working on it."

I'm growing to like Jon Anderson - it's hard not to warm to someone who is willing to let you in on the meaning of life within minutes of meeting you - but he is a rock star from an entirely alien era. His conversation is pitched somewhere between David Icke and Smashey and Nicey. He is wont to say things like "In the early 90s, a lovely lil' lady from Hawaii came by who was able to ignite my third eye" with a deadly earnestness. He also claims to have been visited by angels in a hotel room in Las Vegas. They told him to remember William Blake. This was, understandably, "a very sobering experience". His personal philosophy ("I say to my beautiful wife Jane, I wouldn't have met you if I hadn't gone through my whole life to get to you when we met") can be as inscrutable as his lyrics, which in Yes's early-1970s heyday spawned a cottage industry in explicatory pamphlets.

If Anderson seems a little peculiar, it's nothing compared with the music of Yes. At a time when it is frequently claimed that progressive rock is back, in the shape of Radiohead, Elbow and the Mars Volta, it's certainly instructive to listen to the genuine article. A quick spin of early-1970s albums such as Close to the Edge or Fragile reveals that rumours of prog's resurrection are premature. No current band bears even the remotest resemblance to Yes. Their songs appear to last for months, packed with tricksy, neurotic riffs, lurching shifts in tempo and time signature and twiddly keyboard solos that stretch into the middle of next week.

That's before you get to the words, which beggar belief. They somehow contrive to be completely incomprehensible and deeply portentous. "As the silence of seasons on we relive abridge sails afloat," pipes Anderson on The Remembering: High the Memory, from 1974's Tales From Topographic Oceans, his Accrington vowels adding perhaps an element of pathos to the purple prose. "As to call light the soul shall sing of the velvet sailors course on." And that is one of his more accessible lyrics.

Unsurprisingly, Anderson is still big on their mystical significance: "I'm still working it out myself as my consciousness evolves." Yes's keyboard player, Rick Wakeman, a beer-and-skittles character who famously ate a curry on stage at Manchester Free Trade Hall during one of Tales From Topographic Oceans' more recherché passages, has cruelly suggested that Anderson didn't have a clue what he was singing about.

Either way, the overall effect makes Radiohead sound like Bill Haley and the Comets. You can scarcely believe that anything this arcane ever found an audience. But it did. Formed in 1968, by the mid-1970s Yes were vastly successful, particularly in the US. They still hold a record for selling out Madison Square Gardens for seven consecutive nights in 1977. Their success bred staggering indulgence. Capes were worn on stage and mansions were bought in the countryside. Steve Howe would fly his Gibson guitar in its own seat on Concorde. When Yes could not decide whether to record an album in London or "in a forest at the dead of night" (the latter, it scarcely needs explaining, was Anderson's idea), a compromise was reached: the album was recorded in a Willesden studio decorated with bales of hay and a cardboard cow with electrically powered moveable udders.

Nevertheless, despite the loon pants, the mystical lyrics and the third eye, Anderson emerges from Yes's history as less a wide-eyed hippy than a hard-headed operator, perhaps as a result of a tough childhood spent working as a farmhand. He may be the only rock star in history to have been compared to three different dictators. His nickname within Yes was Napoleon, but departing drummer Bill Bruford went further, noting Anderson's similarity to Hitler and Stalin. When I mention this, he looks momentarily nonplussed - "Stalin?" - before sternly defending himself.

"I just wanted to build and grow and develop, so that there was a reason for why we became successful. Because I believed and still believe that success is only part of the story. It makes you want to get better and better so as not to let yourself down and not to let the people down who like what you do and you don't waste your success. So I would be very, very hard if I saw anybody in the band not having respect for their talent. I hated that. There's a lot of people out there with more talent, but just didn't get the break. I've seen them. I've heard them." He reels this off as if he's said it many times before. You suspect the other members of Yes may have heard similar monologues.

However, not even Anderson's cheerleading could stop punk rock, which left double concept albums based on Paramhansa Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi looking slightly de trop. In its aftermath, as Wakeman once put it with characteristic delicacy, Yes "were about as welcome as a fart in a Chanel factory". The subsequent years have been an endless cycle of acrimonious departures and reformations fuelled by financial necessity: in their pomp, the members of Yes apparently spent most of their money as quickly as they made it. Although their music has never undergone the kind of critical reappraisal afforded Pink Floyd, they can still pack stadiums with dutiful fans who subscribe to Homer Simpson's philosophy of music: "Everyone knows rock attained perfection in 1974. It's a scientific fact."

"It's tough at the moment," says Anderson. "Everybody in the band wants to be appreciated for who we are, enjoyed by the media for what we are - 35 years is a long time to be a band. We'd love more people to come and see the band, and that takes good publicity and good promotion. Wheels are very slowly turning in that direction. There's going to be a 'Best of' coming out. The wheels are in motion to try and reassure us that we didn't spend the last 35 years going downhill."

Anderson suddenly sounds rather reflective and glum. Then, perhaps remembering one of his many "experiences with other conscious energies that have instilled a realisation that all is well", he brightens. "Still, we have survived. Nobody's dead yet. I'm amazed at how well we play on stage every night. It's a continuation of growth. It's part of a natural understanding that we went through the hippy 60s in order to enter the 21st century, in order to have the golden age, if you want to call it a word. We're still growing into that place of higher consciousness, we are becoming a global conscience. The idea is to unravel the onion and let go of the ego and evolve to that place where you perceive everything to be a beautiful experience rather than a daunting experience."

He's lost me again - we appear to be heading inexorably back towards the realms of interdimensional energies and loving the baby ducks - but Anderson seems happy enough. "The state of things at the moment," he smiles, "is incredibly beautiful."

[HWright]

That Guardian piece is very funny! Thanks for sharing it.

[7/4]

"As to call light the soul shall sing of the velvet sailors course on."

The velvet sailors?

Nice article though!

[Aftab]

CD UNIVERSE BEST SELLERS 3/5/04

1. The Dark Horse Years 1976-1992 - Harrison, George

2. 90125 - Yes

3. Drama - Yes

4. Tormato - Yes

5. Feels Like Home - Jones, Norah

'nuff said

[Quincy]

CD UNIVERSE BEST SELLERS 3/5/04

1. The Dark Horse Years 1976-1992 - Harrison, George

2. 90125 - Yes

3. Drama - Yes

4. Tormato - Yes

5. Feels Like Home - Jones, Norah

'nuff said

I didn't know that Ravi Shanker played with Yes, let alone fathered any members!