Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 25 of 26

Thread: The Perfect Union

  1. #1

    The Perfect Union

    I've always thought that in spite of all the criticism leveled at Yes' Union, it's a fairly decent album. But more than that, I've always thought that the ABWH material on there is so good, and that with a different production approach it could have made up a 2nd ABWH album which was better than the first - which in itself was pretty good for what it was. A song like Silent Talking really took the Yes sound in a new, exciting and pretty progressive direction - without rehashing too much 70s stuff.

    So I was very excited to finally lay my hands on The Perfect Union, which contains the earlier versions of the ABWH material that I believe was released on a ltd ed promo meant for the Japanese vendors or something like that. These versions are much more vibrant than the ones on Union, with Steve Howe more upfront in the mix and generally more present, and with a bit more grit to the rhythm section. A song like Take the Water to the Mountain comes to life in a pretty amazing way, with lots of great soloing from Steve, a killer, earth-shaking bass tone from Tony and some great harmonizing between Jon and Chris at the end.

    Opinions? Do those promo songs bear witness to a pretty great album that could've been?

  2. #2
    You know, I've never heard these other versions...but as a (apparently fellow) weirdo who actually likes Union, I'm pretty curious now.
    If you're actually reading this then chances are you already have my last album but if NOT and you're curious:
    https://battema.bandcamp.com/

    Also, Ephemeral Sun: it's a thing and we like making things that might be your thing: https://ephemeralsun.bandcamp.com

  3. #3
    Member
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    W MI
    Posts
    155
    How could one find same?

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by battema View Post
    You know, I've never heard these other versions...but as a (apparently fellow) weirdo who actually likes Union, I'm pretty curious now.
    Another weirdo here, I guess. It was my first Yes album, so I didn't care WHO was playing on it when I bought it, so the personnel issues weren't a concern to me. I also didn't compare it to any past recordings, so to my ears it was different than anything I had heard at the time. Since that time I've discovered it pails to most of Yes' previous work, but I can still appreciate it. I'd be interested in hearing this recording. I think "Silent Talking" is a good example of a piece that had some potential, not all of which was realized in its final recording.
    ProgEars and other prog posters & prints: http://www.michaelphipps.net
    .*AWAKEN*. gentle
    MASS -touch-

  5. #5
    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    Westchester, NY
    Posts
    16,529
    Quote Originally Posted by Jacob Holm-Lupo View Post
    I've always thought that in spite of all the criticism leveled at Yes' Union, it's a fairly decent album. But more than that, I've always thought that the ABWH material on there is so good, and that with a different production approach it could have made up a 2nd ABWH album which was better than the first - which in itself was pretty good for what it was. A song like Silent Talking really took the Yes sound in a new, exciting and pretty progressive direction - without rehashing too much 70s stuff.

    So I was very excited to finally lay my hands on The Perfect Union, which contains the earlier versions of the ABWH material that I believe was released on a ltd ed promo meant for the Japanese vendors or something like that. These versions are much more vibrant than the ones on Union, with Steve Howe more upfront in the mix and generally more present, and with a bit more grit to the rhythm section. A song like Take the Water to the Mountain comes to life in a pretty amazing way, with lots of great soloing from Steve, a killer, earth-shaking bass tone from Tony and some great harmonizing between Jon and Chris at the end.

    Opinions? Do those promo songs bear witness to a pretty great album that could've been?
    Does Perfect Union have that song The Flags that Fly, or is that from a different thing?

  6. #6
    Member rcarlberg's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Seattle
    Posts
    7,765
    I also like Union, and I had been following the band since The Yes Album. I didn't think Union was any more bombastic or pompous than any other albums they'd done up to that time. Yes purists had lots of non-musical reasons to dislike Union, as far as I could tell.

    As to the demo versions, I'd like to hear them but only if I can do it cheaply and easily. Are they downloadable anywhere?

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Jacob Holm-Lupo View Post
    These versions are much more vibrant than the ones on Union, with Steve Howe more upfront in the mix
    Or Jimmy Haun-- I believe there are a few "ABWH" songs on Union that Steve Howe never played. I leave that to the experts tho.

  8. #8
    Member rcarlberg's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Seattle
    Posts
    7,765
    Quote Originally Posted by rcarlberg View Post
    Are they downloadable anywhere?
    Four videos on YT:

  9. #9
    Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Posts
    4,485
    As it stands, it's very flawed, but I'd say it at least has some decent songs amongst the sprawl, and those songs do still feel like Yes to me. That's more than I can say for Open Your Eyes (not a lover of Talk either).

  10. #10
    Member bill g's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Near Mount Rainier
    Posts
    2,646
    Yeah, funny all the songs I love on Union were ABWH- 'Silent Talking', and 'I Would Have Waited Forever' I always thought were great, and there's a good middle section in 'Shock To The System'. Be interesting to hear 'The Perfect Union'

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by bRETT View Post
    Or Jimmy Haun-- I believe there are a few "ABWH" songs on Union that Steve Howe never played. I leave that to the experts tho.
    Yes, Jimmy Haun was brought in to replace a number of Steve's parts without his knowledge. I suspect the parts on "The Perfect Union" recordings are Steve.
    ProgEars and other prog posters & prints: http://www.michaelphipps.net
    .*AWAKEN*. gentle
    MASS -touch-

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by ProgArtist View Post
    Yes, Jimmy Haun was brought in to replace a number of Steve's parts without his knowledge. I suspect the parts on "The Perfect Union" recordings are Steve.
    Old interview with some dude named Henry on a website that doesn't get referenced much around here, Haun lays out what he played on Union.

    http://www.bondegezou.co.uk/iv/jhinterview.htm

    Most of his work is present on Perfect Union. Remember, Perfect Union is a boot of the promo that the label sent out pre-release, so while the tracks were reworked a lot before the album came out, Howe had laid down his parts and moved on by that point, and Haun was already in the mix. IIRC that is. Henry probably knows best...

  13. #13
    (actually, Perfect Union contains a bunch of random stuff at the end, after the prerelease version of the album too, right? Dunno what input how had on that stuff).

  14. #14
    Ah, I see. Thanks!
    ProgEars and other prog posters & prints: http://www.michaelphipps.net
    .*AWAKEN*. gentle
    MASS -touch-

  15. #15
    Interesting. I've never actually listened to Union, as I just figured why bother? I wasn't aware of it when it came out, for some reason (probably because I was in the nothing good ever came out after 1979 mindset back then and was just discovering all the great 70's prog). Later, after I was a fan of Yes, I just took friends word for it that it wasn't worth hearing (some of them hadn't even heard it either, they were just going by the general reviews from Yes fans that it was terrible.......and probably Wakeman's comments).

    All that said, I did like ABWH, and would be very interested to hear this version. Even Bill Bruford was excited about the next ABWH album, until it became apparent it wasn't going to happen because the clarion call of the Yes name had the record company and some of the other band members in it's thrall.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by ProgArtist View Post
    Yes, Jimmy Haun was brought in to replace a number of Steve's parts without his knowledge. I suspect the parts on "The Perfect Union" recordings are Steve.
    Hard to tell though, since Haun's instructions were to sound as much like Steve as possible (which he proved to be really good at). I'm sure a lot of Steve parts were cut, but there are probably a few songs he never worked on at all. Also seems that Wakeman was involved even less.

  17. #17
    The thing is , Rick (and also Bill) recorded their contributions mostly as MIDI data, which is not sound, just musical data, that can be re-routed to other sound sources and changed and manipulated in every way - which happened indeed, as Elias and Anderson deemed their input not to be 'contemporary' enough.

  18. #18
    Check the link I posted to Henry's interview with Haun above. He outlines exactly how little Howe made it to the album. You're right though, there are several songs that Howe is not on. Haun speculates that Howe probably never even heard Without Hope.

  19. #19
    Well, I'm no Haun expert, but especially on the extended and rather different version of Take the Water to the Mountain I think it's quite definitely Howe soloing. I wish I could share it, but it's not on YT (most of the best stuff from Perfect Union is not) and I can't upload audio files here.

    The 2nd disc of Perfect Union is a bit random as someone mentioned. Some Yes West demos/rough mixes, some stuff that sounds more like the demos from that ABWH demo boot, and oddly enough the two songs from that Eddie Jobson single he did in '76 or thereabouts. But disc 1 is a keeper.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by JKL2000 View Post
    Does Perfect Union have that song The Flags that Fly, or is that from a different thing?
    Different.

    Henry
    Where Are They Now? Yes news: http://www.bondegezou.co.uk/wh_now.htm
    Blogdegezou, the accompanying blog: http://bondegezou.blogspot.com/

  21. #21
    Member rcarlberg's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Seattle
    Posts
    7,765
    Quote Originally Posted by sphinx View Post
    The thing is , Rick (and also Bill) recorded their contributions mostly as MIDI data
    MIDI drums????

  22. #22
    Progdog ThomasKDye's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Vallejo, CA
    Posts
    1,012
    You know, I have this vision that what was happening at that time is that the seven musicians who once formed part of Yes were saying "Now management's telling us what? What project is this? What are we doing?" Meanwhile, Jon Anderson was being his weird diaphanous self as usual and yet somehow trying to pull strings. Meanwhile Arista, Brian Lane and God knows who else were making phone calls and dictating letters to secretaries pulling people this way and that. In the meantime, Jonathan Elias is looking at this trainwreck of activity and trying to get something resembling a record together. And in the end, it's a mishmash of Trevor Rabin, Billy Sherwood (okay, for one song, but still, it's all him), Jon Anderson, and various musicians sucked into the black hole of whatever Yes was supposed to be.

    But the tour's where the real money's at anyway, and getting eight people to perform on a stage together is apparently ten times easier than making a damn record. So bizarre.
    "Arf." -- Frank Zappa, "Beauty Knows No Pain" (live version)

  23. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by ThomasKDye View Post
    You know, I have this vision that what was happening at that time is that the seven musicians who once formed part of Yes were saying "Now management's telling us what? What project is this? What are we doing?" Meanwhile, Jon Anderson was being his weird diaphanous self as usual and yet somehow trying to pull strings. Meanwhile Arista, Brian Lane and God knows who else were making phone calls and dictating letters to secretaries pulling people this way and that. In the meantime, Jonathan Elias is looking at this trainwreck of activity and trying to get something resembling a record together. And in the end, it's a mishmash of Trevor Rabin, Billy Sherwood (okay, for one song, but still, it's all him), Jon Anderson, and various musicians sucked into the black hole of whatever Yes was supposed to be.
    The chaos on the ABWH side was all before the Union happened. The album was cobbled together from material both sides already had, with not much work done after the Union: some Squire b/v's added to some of the ABWH tracks, Anderson added to the YesWest songs.

    Henry
    Where Are They Now? Yes news: http://www.bondegezou.co.uk/wh_now.htm
    Blogdegezou, the accompanying blog: http://bondegezou.blogspot.com/

  24. #24
    Progdog ThomasKDye's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Vallejo, CA
    Posts
    1,012
    Quote Originally Posted by bondegezou View Post
    The chaos on the ABWH side was all before the Union happened. The album was cobbled together from material both sides already had, with not much work done after the Union: some Squire b/v's added to some of the ABWH tracks, Anderson added to the YesWest songs.

    Henry
    Understood. Still, though.. how could Steve Howe not know that "Shock to the System's" ending had changed until after the album was released and he was already on the tour plane? I just have this idea once management stepped in and the Union project happened, Howe, Wakeman and Bruford had already checked out of the material and didn't check back in.
    "Arf." -- Frank Zappa, "Beauty Knows No Pain" (live version)

  25. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by rcarlberg View Post
    MIDI drums????
    Yes, Bill used mostly electronic drums (Simmons sdx) at this time (and especially for ABWH) and you can record your playing easily also as pure MIDI data into a sequencer as well as audio on tape.
    Last edited by sphinx; 04-16-2016 at 03:26 AM. Reason: big X keeps turning into a smiley

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •