Jay Schellen to step in for Alan White for Yes on USA tour

[Steve983]

I saw Yes a couple of times in May including the London show which was magnificent. I hope Alan can make it back to the band when he recovers but if he doesn't it does not mean the end of Yes. When Howe retires, that will be the final test, I'd be quite happy to carry on seeing the band with the right replacement (not sure who) but I wonder if things might become tricky re the ownership of the name. As a said earlier, Long Live Yes.

[Sean]

You'll never stop "Yes"!

[dpt3]

I have; it is. His Stravinsky album is even better!

Henry

Agreed! Any news on whether we can expect a Part II?

[bondegezou]

Agreed! Any news on whether we can expect a Part II?

They performed "Firebird" live and said at the time that they'd release that as well, but I've not seen any discussion of this more recently. Of late, Dylan's been busy touring with Wilko Johnson.

Henry

[Mister Triscuits]

What other bands are doing have no bearing on whether or not the current lineup of Yes is legitimate.

However, if you want my opinion about Soft Machine, it is that they should not have dropped the "Legacy" addendum, because that's exactly what they are.

As far as Gong goes, I have no idea what they are doing these days - I don't follow them. Since Daevid Allen is gone, it's not likely I'd be too impressed with their authenticity.

Another thing to bear in mind is that both Gong and Soft Machine existed in lineups with no original members as long as 40 years ago. That's quite a different situation from Yes.

[JKL2000]

Not a total mindless fanboy---so it matters a lot who is in Yes----and this has become a joke at this point----Love Alan but this is a watered down joke at this point. And to see the greatest prog band turn into a sherwood band is laughable. Howe needs to get back with Jon and Rick---I'll let Trevor play bass lol

I hear ya, but when I saw them, I actually thought Downes held his own, which is surprising because I'd never seen Downes before and didn't think that much of him. But he did a good job live, IMO.

BTW, I'm not really a Yes fanboy at all, if you were adressing me - I'm more of a casual Yes fan. I like them a lot, but haven't really ever gone to great lengths to see them live, am not very familiar with some of the albums, etc. When I saw them on CTTE I hadn't seen them since the Union tour, and was basically just happy to sit down and hear a decent band play Yes songs. I think Jon Davison does a great job, too.

[irongoalie]

No, ARW should get rid of Rabin first, who belongs to the current incarnation of YES. Only Trevor can revive YES at this point, and he allegedly wants to play in a genuine band again, not a project.

Instead Anderson and Wakeman should poach Howe (and Bruford). Only having Rabin, Sherwood and Downes engaged elsewhere (in YES that is), Anderson & Co may come up with something substantially better than ABWH or Union...

Your comments will probably come to fruition, as I am guessing that either at the end of this year, early next, Asia will have released their latest album, and Downes would be engaged with them again...

[battema]

There would be no small irony IMHO, if in 2016 Howe & Downes see Yes kind of fold around them, and then a separate project shows up and re-brands itself as Yes after the fact.

[Tributary Records]

I remember seeing the "Drama" tour and thinking this isn't YES.
To me that was too much of a different band. The 80's stuff was a different band to me as well.

In that sense, Tormato was the last YES album for me. It was the first time I listened to a YES album and thought this
definitely isn't as good as what had come before. It was just like Zeppelin's "In through the Out Door". In other words,
it was over.

I think it's more who has legal rights to the name etc. The casual YES listener who only knows "Owner ....." couldn't care less or even notice if the new singer is the old singer etc..... couldn't name a band member and so on. That's what all this classic rock bands playing State Fair's has turned into. It just is what it is.

Ultimately, when I think of YES, I think of The YES album through Tormato. Everything before is a band finding themselves, everything after is a band losing themselves.

[mx20]

Firstly, best wishes to Mr. White.

Secondly, maybe Howe can find some wiggle room in his tour contracts to swap "Heat Of The Moment" for "Owner Of Lonely Heart"

It just seems extra pointless now to watch not only a band of substitutes, but a band of substitutes playing music that they probably don't even want to play and had no hand in its creation. I think this lineup doing that song (whether or not it's played well and whether or not they do justice to the 70s era during the same concert) shines a spotlight on the business behind the brand name Yes. Of course, I could be misinformed: maybe they've already dropped Owner from the setlist?

Obviously, this is all "IMO."

See them/hear them if you enjoy them, but it seems increasingly silly.

[Facelift]

Another thing to bear in mind is that both Gong and Soft Machine existed in lineups with no original members as long as 40 years ago. That's quite a different situation from Yes.

Yes, both are different situations.

In the case of Soft Machine, the analogy isn't at all same. Soft Machine in the 1970s was a band with a pretty small following, which mostly existed to play highly improvised music during live shows. They had no "hits," or any songs at all that have ever been played on commercial radio outside of very limited contexts that occurred ages ago. They are a band known to few and have been heard by even fewer. There is only one person - Mike Ratledge - who could be considered any sort of an "anchor" member of the band, as membership changed all the time in 1970s; sometimes, multiple times in between album recordings. In short, there is very little of a "brand" that exists connected to Soft Machine that could be appropriated decades later by a few of the former members. There is not a repertoire of instantly-recognizable material that could constitute the backbone of the nostalgia-fests that many "legacy" bands indulge in with their tours. This is mostly due to the improvised nature of the music: even if they wanted to play Slightly All the Time every night, for example, there is no "definitive" version of it that could be appropriated for this purpose, unless they were consciously try to re-create note-for-note the version recorded on the Third album - something that they've never previously done and which I can't imagine there'd be any interest in trying. In short, I'll reiterate that although I see no good reason for why Soft Machine Legacy should drop the "Legacy" part of the name and now consider itself Soft Machine proper, what they are doing is not really the same thing as what Yes is doing.

[Dan Roth]

And this Facebook post from Mr. Schellen himself:

There is no drummer that I admire more than Alan White. Consummate creativity, musicianship and the biggest backbeat personality. I am honored to have been asked to keep his chair in YES warmed up for him until he returns to the tour. Warmest well wishes and God speed to you Alan.

[yamishogun]

This is the full version on Facebook from Mr. Schellen:

Aside from Neil Peart, there is no drummer that I admire more than Alan White. Consummate creativity, musicianship and the biggest backbeat personality. I am honored to have been asked to keep his chair in YES warmed up for him until he returns to the tour. Warmest well wishes and God speed to you Alan.

[Dan Roth]

This is the full version on Facebook from Mr. Schellen:

Aside from Neil Peart, there is no drummer that I admire more than Alan White. Consummate creativity, musicianship and the biggest backbeat personality. I am honored to have been asked to keep his chair in YES warmed up for him until he returns to the tour. Warmest well wishes and God speed to you Alan.

"Full version"? lol - No mention of Mr. Peart on his Facebook posting: https://www.facebook.com/jay.schelle...96?pnref=story

[Dave (in MA)]

I note also that Yes and King Crimson are once again the same boat: touring with a stand-in drummer for health reasons

First I've heard that Rieflin's "sabbatical" is health related.

[bondegezou]

Your comments will probably come to fruition, as I am guessing that either at the end of this year, early next, Asia will have released their latest album, and Downes would be engaged with them again...

Downes has his time planned months in advance so that Asia and Yes fit with each other. Asia's activity will already be built into Yes's plans and vice versa.

There would be no small irony IMHO, if in 2016 Howe & Downes see Yes kind of fold around them, and then a separate project shows up and re-brands itself as Yes after the fact.

The other project is pretty much trying to brand itself as Yes right now!

Henry

[bondegezou]

Ultimately, when I think of YES, I think of The YES album through Tormato. Everything before is a band finding themselves, everything after is a band losing themselves.

Yes, a band with a long and sometimes convoluted history, means different things to different people. (There's too much great music on Yes albums after Tormato, to my ears, for me to define the band in those terms.) I think we need to respect those differences, because the arguments over Yes's identity are only going to get commoner!

Henry

[bondegezou]

Firstly, best wishes to Mr. White.

Secondly, maybe Howe can find some wiggle room in his tour contracts to swap "Heat Of The Moment" for "Owner Of Lonely Heart"

It just seems extra pointless now to watch not only a band of substitutes, but a band of substitutes playing music that they probably don't even want to play and had no hand in its creation. I think this lineup doing that song (whether or not it's played well and whether or not they do justice to the 70s era during the same concert) shines a spotlight on the business behind the brand name Yes. Of course, I could be misinformed: maybe they've already dropped Owner from the setlist?

"Owner..." is still in the set list. Howe, compared to a few years ago, has warmed to the song: he speaks about it more positively now and plays it with gusto. Sherwood and Davison, IIRC, are both fans of the song too.

Henry

[JJ88]

Yes, both are different situations.

In the case of Soft Machine, the analogy isn't at all same. Soft Machine in the 1970s was a band with a pretty small following, which mostly existed to play highly improvised music during live shows. They had no "hits," or any songs at all that have ever been played on commercial radio outside of very limited contexts that occurred ages ago. They are a band known to few and have been heard by even fewer. There is only one person - Mike Ratledge - who could be considered any sort of an "anchor" member of the band, as membership changed all the time in 1970s; sometimes, multiple times in between album recordings. .

I think even with Soft Machine, the name probably should have changed somewhere around Bundles. It's still worthwhile music but there wasn't much connection to the original band, in personnel or in musical direction.

I predict choppy waters ahead for the Yes name, given there is now a rival band. As Henry says, that rival band are already being very creative with the press releases.

ARW's website makes a claim that they 'are to reform the definitive Yes line-up as Anderson Rabin and Wakeman'!

http://www.arw-tour.com/

^You make that comparison with Hackett regularly, it's still not convincing. There is no prefix with this 'Yes' line-up.

[Mister Triscuits]

I predict choppy waters ahead for the Yes name, given there is now a rival band.

One that uses its members' names instead of a band name, too, as if to say "These are the real guys." Is it 1989 already?

[Facelift]

I think even with Soft Machine, the name probably should have changed somewhere around Bundles. It's still worthwhile music but there wasn't much connection to the original band, in personnel or in musical direction.

Agreed. However, Soft Machine's personnel between Seven and Bundles simply amounted to acquiring Alan Holdsworth. So I can understand why they didn't change the name. The personnel changes between Bundles and Softs were greater, but it sounded very similar to Bundles, so...

Soft Machine was constantly changing its members and its sound. And each version of the band concentrated first and foremost on its own material. The older material that any given version played was usually radically re-worked to reflect that current lineup's style. The Bundles and Softs lineups of Soft Machine existed to make their own music, not to keep getting paid to use the name and play a roster of back-catalog crowd-pleasers in perpetuity.

I predict choppy waters ahead for the Yes name, given there is now a rival band. As Henry says, that rival band are already being very creative with the press releases.

Legally, I don't think the waters are all that choppy. Unless I'm mistaken, the Yes name is completely owned by Howe and White. Reuniting with Anderson and/or Wakeman would result in the latter being hired hands, unless some sort of buy-in was arranged. While Wakeman probably would be fine with this, I'd imagine it wouldn't sit well with Anderson.

Money always talks the loudest with these guys, though, so I guess anything is still possible.

[Paulrus]

ARW's website makes a claim that they 'are to reform the definitive Yes line-up as Anderson Rabin and Wakeman'!

http://www.arw-tour.com/

Brian Lane is kinda like Donald Trump. Just saying it makes it true.

[zumacraig]

Who goes to see Yes? How do they fill these sheds. Whenever they play in my town they are giving away tickets. I mean, how many times do you need to hear CttE at half the speed?

[moecurlythanu]

There would be no small irony IMHO, if in 2016 Howe & Downes see Yes kind of fold around them, and then a separate project shows up and re-brands itself as Yes after the fact.

This would cause a great rending in the fabric of the Universe...

There can be only ONE!

[Scott Bails]

We need a "Is Yes still Prog?" conversation in this thread. It's not boring enough yet.