Feb 26: Y is for Yes

An A-Z of bands suggested by the Spotify algorithm. 

Coming to the end now... still chance to share yours.

I've been listening to YES's music since the late 1970s.

I've had the pleasure of seeing them play live quite a few times over the years too in various line-ups, and also seen some of the various incarnations of the band, and also some of the spin offs including Anderson, Wakeman, Bruford and Howe (with Tony Levin), the Buggles version, and solo sets as well, such as Steve Howe in a church in York and Rick Wakeman in a theatre in King's Lynn where Shakespeare also performed.

YES has had a number of line-ups over the years, but the classic line-up featured Steve Howe, Alan White, Chris Squire, Rick Wakeman and Jon Anderson.

The last time I saw the band live was in Nottingham and it featured everyone apart from Rick Wakeman, who was replaced by Igor Khoroshev. I have my ticket stub from the gig which will feature on the blog too.

His parts are now played by Geoff Downes - which continues the Buggles influence.

The early albums included Tony Kaye and Bill Bruford.

For me, the classic album is 'Close to the Edge'. It features the most interesting musical arrangements of tracks, with real power and emotion.

Another great track is 'Soundchaser' from the album 'Relayer'. A great busy proggy song...

I'm a fan of the Rabin era albums with an 80s' feel... '90125' and 'Talk' (1994) - some good moments there. I remember playing it loud ...

Plus I like the fact that Eddie Jobson joined Yes. recorded the video for 'Owner of a Lonely Heart' and then left... and had to be edited out... although he can still be seen... Eddie will appear several times in the blog, as he's one of my favourite musicians.

One of their later albums which divides opinion with fans is 'Union', particularly as some of the playing was done by session musicians and not the band, and it had a lot of different producers and messing around, plus a lot of session musicians augmenting the sound. Rick Wakeman apparently referred to the album as 'Onion' because it made him cry.

Having said that, the tour they did to support the album was excellent. I remember their circular stage at Wembley - which is a bit of a shed. I had a decent seat and the sound wasn't too terrible - that was the only time I saw Trevor Rabin shredding - missing out on the later tour with Anderson and Wakeman.

Wakeman famously ordered a curry one night during the Tales from Topographic Oceans tour: a nicely geographical name for an album if ever there was one.

According to the Music Radar piece:

Mid-song in fact. A chicken vindaloo, pilau rice, poppadoms, a stuffed paratha, Bombay aloo and a bhindi bhaji to be precise. All laid out atop the Hammond, keyboards and Mellotron in front of the audience and a band of vegetarians…

The central inspiration for Tales From Topographic Oceans was Paramahansa Yogananda’s (1893-1952) book Autobiography Of A Yogi. 

Jon Anderson was deeply impressed by Yogi’s biography, which also inspired Apple’s Steve Jobs apparently.

This album was one of many that had Roger Dean's logo and artwork on the cover - often featuring 'impossible' topography, such as the classic cover for possibly their finest album - I played my vinyl copy of this album a lot: 'Close to the Edge'. This was released in 1972.

They have had their geographical moments as well.

The album 'Tormato' , released in 1978, had an image of Yes Tor on its cover, and a map of the Tor and other landscapes nearby printed on the inner liner.

There's a disputed story about the creation of the cover:

Howe pitched the album's original title of Yes Tor, referring to Yes Tor, the second highest hill on Dartmoor, an area of moorland in Devon, England. During the development of the album, a tomato was thrown at the artwork resulting in its title and cover being changed accordingly. RickWakeman claimed to have done this as he recalled the band were disappointed with the initial artwork despite finding it expensive. Steve Howe claimed it was a Hipgnosis employee who threw the tomato, which insulted him. This was corroborated by Alan White, who stated that the band was unable to decide on a cover and the tomato was thrown by Hipgnosis designer Aubrey Powell - who I've already mentioned: 

"I think Po ... put a picture of a guy with divining sticks on the front. Po took the artwork home one night and decided it wasn't working. So he threw a tomato at it".

More Yes-related posts to come as the year progresses.... such as the Trevor Horn / 'Buggles' era...

Which 'Y' band comes up on your algorithm?