OPO/OOP: YES - Get Yer Prog On!

(contrarion pick: "Beyond and Before" from the 1st lp. haha look I actually picked two)

The thread (Why is a ten minute Neil Young song better than a 10 minute Yessong) is actually really great.

"And You And I" -- beginning that prog tradition of songs about "you" that are actually about "me" (see "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel). The spiritual self, man.

Or "Sound Chaser" Need I say more than "Cha cha chaaa...cha cha"?

I like almost everything on Fragile. I think that's their best and least bombastic/bloated record. Even the "solo" sections amount to cool interludes, and "Heart of the Sunrise"? "Roundabout"? "Long Distance Runaround"? Good stuff.

But my heart belongs to Yessongs - live three albums! "Siberian Khatru!" Awwwwww yeah.

If only we could pinpoint Saddam's bunker. Hmm...

"Peaceful lives will not deliver freedom!"

This is too much. Thanks for starting this thread.

(not)

I think not.

Though I suppose that if I could OPO, then I'd go with "Parallels" which is so incredibly over the top that I'm surprised Wakeman didn't heave the organ out the window.

Did anyone read the Keith Levene feature in the Wire, where he said that the guitar part of PiL's "Poptones" was subliminally inspired by "Wurm"?

A more appropriate title there never was.

1) "Gates of Delerium" (Relayer)
2) "And You and I" (Close to the Edge)
3) "To Be Over" (Relayer)
4) "Awaken" (Going for the One)
5) "Turn of the Century (Going for the One)
6) "Siberian Khatru" (Close to the Edge)
7) "Starship Trooper (The Yes Album)
8) "Ritual (Nous Sommes Du Soleil) - Live version" (Yesshows)
9) "Survival" (Yes)
10) "Something's Coming" (Yesstories)

He uses the pedal steel all the time--actually, I think on almost every Yes album he's been on. In concert, he makes his mouth move silently along with the notes ("wah waaaah") he plays, in that focused "like Yoda, I too have the power" kind of way...

Yes, bunliness... just the word I was thinking of.

So yesterday I'm in Borders in Charing Cross Road and I see The Ultimate Yes on the listening post, pop the cans on and turn up the volume. 'Yours Is No Disgrace' - blimey this is pretty abrasive and....good! Flick to track 3 - 'Roundabout' - holy shit, the bass playing! Chris Squire sounds like Bootsy Collins!! This is great!!
Then I had to go. Should I buy it?

like elvis costello yes shd have stuck w.singles
unlike elvis costello yes shd have sacked their keyb player sooner

Dr.C - the two tracks you mention are on "The Yes Album" and "Fragile" respectively. Both have just been reissued again with bonus tracks. You will like the former, I think. You will be annoyed by the self-indulgent solo stuff on the latter, but I think will dig the four group songs. (Or you could start with the first two LPs, "Yes" and "Time And A Word", also just reissued)

Close To The Edge (and indeed Ultimate Yes) you may not yet be ready for. Baby steps, baby steps...

Jeff - are you now,in the words of Take That, 'back for good'?

(During this same span of time, I picked up King Crimson's Larks Tongues In Aspic, Starless And Bible Black and USA, too. And somebody burned me the Great Deceiver boxed set. To paraphrase Harry Crews, if you can't have too much of something, why have any at all?)

It's been that way for about fifteen years! But more so than ever, yes.

I have a theory that I'm about to start a separate thread on re: prog, sorta...

http://home.hetnet.nl/~timonels/squire2.jpgn

http://yesmuseum.org/images/ChrisCircus-Sept76.JPG

- On the Silent Wings of Freedom
- Tempus Fugit
- The Gates of Delirium
- And You and I
- Beyond and Before
- Heart of the Sunrise
and on, and on, and on....

The Yes albums that I have never heard and am a bit curious to what they sound like are their self-titled debut and "Time and a Word".

"All Good People/Your Move" or whatever is nice too.

Steve Howe is pretty great; Chris Squire and his Rickenbacker bass sound is actually quite dreadful, but from time to time he kind of gets it. Bruford was OK; the keybdists completely irrelevant to the whole thing.

Something like "Heart of the Sunrise" is interesting...as a collection of riffs, bleeps and blurps, etc., but as something coherent and ultimately worth my time, nope. My older bros listened to that shit all the time and it's in my DNA. "Topographic Oceans" and "Relayer" too, I went to see them play "Relayer" when I was about 8 years old or something.

"Roundabout" is classic, actually, but I just don't know why I'd ever want to listen to it. More of a coherent whatever than "Heart of the Sunrise," but still basically some blurps, beeps, semi-funky riff-based shit, I guess Andy Partridge listened to this a lot.

Also, their long version of "America" isn't bad.

All in all, I have somewhat more respect for them now than I did a few years ago. They're still ridiculous and for me a waste of time, but there was something there, something...mystical, OK, which really comes thru on "Siberian." Plus that track really, really rocks, it's really what-the-fuck strange. As is a lot of that "Close to the Edge" album, which is a very neurotic kind of thing. There are some moments of real beauty on both the title "suite" and "And You and I," but it's all hampered by the words, the idea that they're still this post-Beatles band...had it all been instrumental, I would have been far happier.

Except for of course the great "Khatru," which I am going to listen to right now!

BLASPHEEEEMER!!!

And, yeah, it's almost fucking embarrassing how much I love the 'big 3' albums. I feel like I appreciate them more now than in middle school after getting into minimalism and IDM/electronica. The more I listen the more I find Fragile and Close to the Edge pretty much flawless. Even the cheesy "Cans and Brahms" kind of appeals just in the simplistic themes glowing through the 70 organ sound.

Oh, yeah: And every note of "Clap". [Not "THE Clap!] A perfect comopsition.

Oh, seriously? Um, have to be 'Roundabout' I guess. Too hard. Yes albums only work as complete pieces for me.

http://www.yesworld.com/

Click on "News" and scroll down

I think that's the best part of the song! :)

i prefer tony kaye to rick wakeman, though.

And now for a comment four years after the fact....

i prefer tony kaye to rick wakeman, though.

That's `cos Rick Wakeman's an asshole.

Actually, have to counter this: Wakeman by all accounts is among the nicest and fully approachable member of Yes running on decades now. The only one who arguably bests him is drummer Alan White, while the other three (Anderson, Squire, Howe), well....

1) "Gates of Delerium" (Relayer)
2) "And You and I" (Close to the Edge)

-- Joe (Joe), Tuesday, 25 March 2003 21:26 (5 years ago) Bookmark Link

Joe completely and utterly OTM, 5 whole years ago. Assuming these are ranked. :)

I've heard Wakeman's a good guy too.

Tossup here for me among South Side of the Sky, Gates of Delerium and Parallels.

I fully withdraw my asinine remarks about "South Side of the Sky" above - it's a cinemascopic gem start-to-finish, hypothermic-delerium middle section included.

My reasons for decrying Walkeman have more to do with staging King Arthur on Ice and for allegedly being instrumental in getting the Sex Pisols dropped from A&M records, not that any of this really matters any more (or even then). I'm sure he's a nice enough gent.

"glambazoidal fashion catasrophe" is such a great phrase

Close to the Edge is my favorite because it reminds me of This Heat.

Ceasar's Palace
Morning glory
Silly human race

jon anderson quit yes and they are going tour with a replacement. this is current news and not from 1980. what a terrible idea, hang it up! (anderson has some lung disease and was told to not tour, I guess. still).

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1045969/Yes-original-Spinal-Tap-says-Rick-Wakeman-Seventies-prog-rock-supergroup.html

I had a dream, once a dream...
...that I was part of the 'Yes Army,' a rival gang to the Kiss Army. We had matching navy blue t-shirts. On the back, in white, was a couplet from Don't Kill the Whale:
In beauty, vision, do we offer much?
If we reason with destiny – gonna lose our touch!
The Kiss Army was coming to a bowling ally, to bowl, so we all hid behind the pins, and when they least expected it, we came out with switchblades. Rumble ensued.

I like "I Get Up I Get Down" except for the 90-odd seconds of unaccompanied Rick Wakeman cathedral organ. Hurts my ears!

Bah, no way, that's the only way I could get my gothics buds to accept the cassette was acceptable car listening. "Here comes the SPOOKY PART!"

That minute and a half got them to sit through the other 18?

there was something there, something...mystical, OK