why late at night in the u.s. does ilm get all yessed out

You guys must really love yes to give them a chance in 2023. Beyond my ken. Cheers

ditto

I have posted in this thread about 4000 times so yeah I’d say

if it's a post about ween or soul coughing or end-stage yes, i know it's our best beloved frogbs

#frogs

this album def isn't terrible like Heaven and Earth, but it wasn't very memorable after my first listen today. but I was very mildly surprised not to hate it.

What do you mean end stage, this band’s kicking around another 30 years

<3

gave it another listen today and my opinion holds: it's not offensive, but it kind of went in one ear and out the other. at least there weren't any songs I skipped though.

Thinking about the recent Peter Gabriel setlists, and imagining the probable unlikelihood of Jon Anderson doing a solo show where the earliest song he performs is from 1977.

if given the choice tonight i'd probably go see jon perform olias of sunhillow rather than pete's tour. the cordial relationships between pete and the other guys though would make me want to see him reunited with genesis -- mostly because besides the guy who replaced phil on calling all stations, no genesister was ever forced out -- way more than jon teaming back up with steve. there's something karmic in anderson ending up in this position, it's sad to say. pete left genesis on awkward but not fatally acrimonious terms. jon forced how many members out of yes, to "improve" the band? banks is out, howe is in. the very next album, kaye is out, and wakeman is in. there's lots of musical chairs in bands, sure, but after all these years, jon's the only living original member, while the first replacement he recruited way back in the day now owns the rights to the name of his band

In an interview done in the late 90s (so after Union), Bill Bruford portrayed Anderson as someone constantly caught running on the record company hamster wheel, taking big advances and then striving to live up to past successes. Maybe that has changed as the music business itself has collapsed. It is sort of funny that he was such a dictator in the group when his public image was Mr. Spiritual Seeker.

The decision to bring in Howe and Wakeman was for legitimate artistic reasons, you can tell on Time and a Word the direction they want to go but they just didn't have the chops yet. so they pick up Howe and right from the first second on The Yes Album you can tell he was the missing piece. then Wakeman on Fragile, kind of the same thing. after that it was all business, almost with Moneyball-like efficiency, particularly when it came to picking up guys like Moraz - that band Refugee was marketed as a sort of reformation of The Nice, with some Swiss dude in Emerson's place, but if you really break it down like 80% of the writing is Moraz, including pretty much all the good parts. So Yes grabbing him was a real shrewd movie. And then kicking him to the curb as soon as Wakeman wanted back in...well that's Yes too. Remember the only reason Kaye was tabbed to replace Jobson for 90125 is so that legally they could call themselves "Yes" again. They've always been pretty ruthless in that way. Speaking of karma how about the decision to go after Jon Davison? Glass Hammer picked him as vocalist solely because of his similarity to Jon Anderson, I think. And he wound up being so good at it that Yes themselves stole him away. I think that's pretty funny.

I actually didn't know it was Jon's doing to get Howe and Wakeman but it makes sense. I always thought Jon was the dude who made Yes go the extra mile back in their heyday - I think about the story of him recording Olias, pulling these 40-hour marathon sessions that would end until he passed out, only to wake up and find parts of the record were finished that he didn't even remember doing, idk I don't really see any of the other members of the band going that hard. He also seems like he would be an obnoxious dude to work with - Glass Hammer actually got him to appear on an album, but apparently he had this strict rule about not singing any words he didn't write himself, so his contributions are just "dee dee" and "daa daa" here and there. But he's still a legend and I love him on principle, so I really hope this new band does come around.

Somehow strange to me that yes and crimson and purple could go through all these personnel changes and still exist as opposed to others that had the same members more or less

Squire was supposedly a tough guy to deal with, as well. I wouldn't lay all the power move stuff solely on Anderson.

As an old friend did the orchestral arrangements on Mirror to the Sky, I gave it a loyalty listen, and I'm honestly impressed - way better than I was expecting, the title track an immediate standout. Perhaps seeing the current line-up last year has helped me accept them as a legit band. Now on the second play and enjoying it even more.

did a record show on Sunday and only got a few things including my 3rd copy of Drama, listening now and I was right, I shouldn't have sold my 2nd one (1st one was in high school eons ago, also long gone)

Howe really shreds on this one imho

can't remember who coined "Yuggles" but lol

i wanna get yessed out right now

join me

what's your poison?

well right now it's Drama, god I still remember every fuckin word of this record from 9th grade

oh you're doing Yuggles!

why not, i'm in

this LP is VG with some surface noise, I foresee a 4th copy in my future someday

i'm just streaming it on youtube

miss my yes albums tho. i don't think any of em were as clean as your 3rd copy of drama but they were good yes albums

this album def has a 'i can't tell if i'm listening to yes or the buggles' thing goin on, it's the battletoads/double dragon of rock.

i find myself playing "which band am i listening to?", for this reason i'm only somewhat yessed out.

I remember hearing Tempus Fugit as a child and thinking it was the coolest song ever. At 15 I was convinced it was Styx and downloaded a bunch of their albums trying to find it. Little did I know it was a band I was already getting into! It was so awesome to get to the end of this record and be like…holy shit it’s THAT song

One of the guys from Glass Hammer is on a sword and sorcery discord I go to, he writes fantasy books too (shocking, I know).

I don't see myself getting around to all the later Yes albums for a long time because the solo albums are so much more exciting.

well right now it's Drama, god I still remember every fuckin word of this record from 9th grade

― broken breakbeat (sleeve), Wednesday, May 24, 2023 4:43 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

oh you're doing Yuggles!

― No, 𝘐'𝘮 Breathless! (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, May 24, 2023 4:45 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

why not, i'm in

― No, 𝘐'𝘮 Breathless! (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, May 24, 2023

I've probably mentioned this before, but it's still amazing that the now-closed Grumpy's Bar in downtown Minneapolis (the Northeast outpost is still standing, thankfully) featured "Machine Messiah" on its karaoke list. How does that (really) happen? Who signed off on that?

I was really tempted to try it, but the prospect of standing on stage under the lights for 10 minutes, with maybe half of that featuring any vocals whatsoever, with everyone waiting and watching, seemed way too daunting.

I've learned the hard way (doing Deacon Blues) that karaoke tracks with lengthy instrumental sections don't work well.

Haha, shades of SCTV's Dave Thomas as Richard Harris doing MacArthur Park

standing on stage under the lights for 10 minutes, with maybe half of that featuring any vocals whatsoever, with everyone waiting and watching

This karaoke option was a means to get you to empathize with 1980 Trevor Horn.

I've learned the hard way (doing Deacon Blues) that karaoke tracks with lengthy instrumental sections don't work well.

That's why you've got to bring your tenor sax with you to karaoke.

shades of SCTV's Dave Thomas as Richard Harris doing MacArthur Park

"Who threw that brick?!?"

Will admit to feeling anxious about the consequences of playing just what I feel.

finally getting around to the new one. despite the glaring missteps that frogbs totally calls upthread, the high points are good enough to make this easily my favorite of the David/Davison era. the title track is really good and I totally agree that cutting the awful "Luminosity"/"Living Out the Dream" pairing and shifting the "bonus tracks" to the main album would have made this even better.

I am not listening to Yes tonight I am listening to STARCASTLE which I'll be honest is so much more fun and direct than most Yes music, plus the album I'm listening to (Fountains of Light) is produced by Roy Thomas Baker so it's got this real punchy sound to it. Plus the keyboards sound like casino slot machines! what's not to like?

Ha! Fun band! Never heard them before. Thanks for the recommendation.

I like Starcastle, and long for a world where I can start a band that sort of sounds like Yes and score a record deal, was not aware that the lead singer also sang lead on the first REO Speedwagon record!

It's ok, it's no Starcastle

seems to be very little footage of them in their heyday but here's a minute and a half from 1977 which is pretty hilarious. fits the description I heard from a guy who'd actually seen them around this time - "felt like I was seeing Spinal Tap"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AbIyP7xmVE

cut to the crowd is kinda sad, nobody seems to be paying attention to the band at all. maybe they weren't loud enough??

that's a big crowd! love that footage, thx

Looks like that clip of the crowd is either before or after the concert, probably after, given its chronology.

hmmm yeah you're probably right, I mean the footage doesn't sync up with the music anyway. I mean you see Luttrell strut (??) up to the mic at :54 although in the audio he's clearly singing already

I like Starcastle, and long for a world where I can start a band that sort of sounds like Yes and score a record deal

the funny thing is their first record was released in 1976 which implies that this band was signed to fill the void from Yes breaking up. now that I mention it what this band really reminds me of are those reviews of Olias of Sunhillow where the author clearly hates the album but writes about it in a way that makes it sound awesome

also I just found out they made a comeback record in 2007 which I'm listening to now - it's pretty good! it's a bit Pro Tooled up and I'm pretty sure this isn't their original singer but it kinda sounds to me like "what if Heaven and Earth didn't suck"

I now realize I get Starcastle and Fireballet confused.

author clearly hates the album but writes about it in a way that makes it sound awesome

― frogbs, Wednesday, 5 July 2023 16:03 (three hours ago

Love reviews like that, jerky sounding music journalists being scathing about something great yet they describe it fairly well

all-time classic in that genre:

The Cardiacs didn't make it easy to like their second album, too happy to let their whirligig of shattered atonal pop come apart at its seams. The band's technique for hoisting a radical thrill out of audience discomfort was pushed to extremes ("Fast Robert," "Baby Heart Dirt") and it suddenly felt forced and phony, like a poor Dadaist trying to make do in a world of Starter jackets and Technotronic. Great for those who liked staticy hip-hop, piercing keyboards, Long Ranger harmonicas, and the sound of a tape deck being clicked off, less so for those who didn't.

I like Starcastle, and long for a world where I can start a band that sort of sounds like Yes and score a record deal

as hard as it is to believe, such a world once existed

https://rateyourmusic.com/list/ashratom/usa-midwest-ontario-progressive-rock-1970s_early-80s/