^^^ Edit to above...
I just listened to the Source 2 10-28-78 show and it is not as good as the This and That mix. Whoever did This and That absolutely KILLED it! Drums and bass sound amazing! If you want a great representation of what was broadcast by KBFH and a sense of how good the old vinyl of In the Round sounded, you can do worse than this version! If you want all the stuff that was not broadcast, you have to cast a slightly wider net.
Bill
I am downloading This & That, plus The Complete Evening Show (SB) - at some point I'll do an A/B and make some decisions as to what makes it to the main computer and what stays on the external drive.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
I listened to this again the other day and the sound is much better than I remember, actually.Originally Posted by thos
Also listened to the MSG 1974 show where they did Tales... in full and thought, hmm, this sounds really crappy and it's also mono- not how I remembered it. Well that's because there are two audience sources of the same show. The other one is indeed a far better recording, Squire's bass is somewhat boomy but everything else is pretty clear. Quite an exceptional performance of the album IMHO, and Wakeman's solo in 'The Remembering' is magnificent...the album version could have done with that.
Partly inspired by this post, I have been listening again to this show. I agree, the long Wakeman section towards the end of the Remembering is remarkable. He seems to be perpetually on the verge of completely losing his way, yet he keeps pulling it back. There are moments when he seems to be about to quote explicitly from instrumental refrains from Journey. But perhaps most striking is the combination of a slow, spacey, tempo with the combination of mellotron + moog, creating a very different musical pallette to what we're used to from Wakeman.
All of that said, though, for me the standout track is The Ancient - which is about as far out as Yes may ever have gone in a live performance. There are so many little embellishments on, & excursions from, the recorded version...& it is consistently exhilarating throughout. Stunning!
Rick Wakeman said decades later in an interview that an MSG show was the only time Tales... ever worked live. He doesn't specify which MSG show, but this was definitely an 'on' night. I've listened to a Boston show some days later and it did seem a lesser performance all round.
I know Tales... is a bit of a whipping boy, including by Wakeman himself, but I think there's a lot of great music on it. And it had some of Wakeman's best ever work- his sound choices were certainly at their best.
Tales is one of my fave Yes albums and certainly light years better than anything that Wakeman did solo.
I always think Rick has painted himself into a corner on this one. He clearly did not enjoy the studio experience, and that is perhaps understandable, as he was on different drugs (booze) to the rest of them and probably did not get the funny side of insect infested keyboards caused by the inhabitants of the "bucolic" straw-bales.
Since release it has always polarised critical and fan opinion, and Rick has sided with the popular one that Yes had over-reached themselves, were in the dinosaur camp and were worthy of mirth and ridicule. Having said this so often, he needs to keep a consistent view.
Personally I love Tales, it contains some of their most intriguing material, and if it meanders a little in places, that all adds to its overall charm.
I have always skipped their TfTO tour, because I assumed it'd be a snoozefest like the studio album, but now listening to this MSG '74 set I can hear the band were already getting ready for Relayer. There's some manic energy and serious instrumental pyrotechnics throughout the show.
The sound quality could have been better though... Are there any other TfTO performances (from the same tour) floating around, which would be rendered in this style, but with improved sonics?
Last edited by Jay.Dee; 06-19-2019 at 02:59 PM.
Sadly the tour was never multi-tracked. I don't even think there any soundboards. A terrible shame.
'The Remembering' was dropped even during the tour. I don't rate it very highly on the album but I love that live version. I think 'Ritual' was also consistently stronger live. 'Ritual' reached even greater heights with Moraz, the only Wakeman-era track I think he improved upon.
I like Wakeman but surely no progressive rock venture was more ridiculous than 'King Arthur On Ice', and he must know that too!
Is there over-reach on Tales? Certainly- I do prefer the albums either side of it. But I do wonder sometimes how many who blithely dismiss it and use it as a 'symbol' of something, have heard it in the first place. There wasn't any extraneous 'on ice' tomfoolery, it was purely a musical statement.
Last edited by JJ88; 06-19-2019 at 11:50 AM.
I'm not sure if it was Moraz who "improved" Ritual, so much as it was another one of those cases where you record something new in the studio, but it comes out relatively tame, but then you take it onstage, and "oomph" factor gets amped up somehow. That's why I think some bands like road testing their new material before recording it. I think Fripp suggested once that Beat and Three Of A Perfect Pair weren't as good as Discipline, because they didn't get to road test the material beforehand the way they had done with Discipline, as one example.
I don't know how many people have actually sat through the entire video, but it was up on Youtube at one point, maybe still is. Anyway, some years back I actually watched the whole thing. Except for the sword fighting knights (who were wearing these costumes that were meant to look like they were riding horses), I thought it was a rather beautiful spectacular.I like Wakeman but surely no progressive rock venture was more ridiculous than 'King Arthur On Ice', and he must know that too!
If you ask me, the big problem with most of Wakeman's solo stuff, or at least the ones I've heard (which are Six Wives..., Journey..., and that live performance of King Arthur) is that he's not a very good songwriter or composer. I think he's got a similar problem Emerson had, i.e. "not so good at writing songs" (as per Greg Lake's explanation of what his job as producer of the early 70's ELP records). So you've got all these clever keyboard licks in search of a decent composition or song. I think Rick's strong suit might have been taking the work of Mssrs. Squire, Howe and Anderson and sort of adding his embroidery to them.
Wakeman said once that there were lots of good melodies on Tales that got "bled to death" by the padding. To me, I can sort of hear what he's talking about. I can hear where there's bit that maybe go on a bit longer than they should (such as the steel solo on The Ancient, or all those repeats during the first section of Ritual). But I'm not sure I would change anything if I had the power to do so. I once did an edit of Close To The Edge, just as a sort of intellectual exercise to see if I could come up with a "single edit" or whatever that I thought "worked". Maybe I should try seeing if I could do something similar to Tales.Is there over-reach on Tales? Certainly- I do prefer the albums either side of it. But I do wonder sometimes how many who blithely dismiss it and use it as a 'symbol' of something, have heard it in the first place. There wasn't any extraneous 'on ice' tomfoolery, it was purely a musical statement.
Be sure to put your version up on youtube! There are already a couple shortened versions of Tales on there.
I'd have to see if I still have Windows Movie Maker or whatever it's called. But if I can make a video, as it were, I'll probably post it. Come to think of it, I should post what I did with Close To The Edge, too.
Guitar Geek wrote "Wakeman said once that there were lots of good melodies on Tales that got "bled to death" by the padding. To me, I can sort of hear what he's talking about. I can hear where there's bit that maybe go on a bit longer than they should (such as the steel solo on The Ancient, or all those repeats during the first section of Ritual)."
Funnily enough, for me, the padding is on sides 1 & 2 - I think both The Ancient & Ritual are "essential" (although, having said that, I think The Ancient is even more outstanding in the MSG show, &, as JJ has said, Ritual took off to another dimension in the Moraz live incarnations, such as the Cobo Hall performance).
Oh yeah, there's things on all four sides that I'd cut. I think the problem was that Jon Anderson had made up his mind that this was going to be a double LP, and nobody was going to change his mind on the matter. I think the problem was, this was another instance where there was too much material for a single LP, but not enough, really, for a double LP. And guess what, I just found my CD copy of Tales (remastered edition from circa 2003, with the extended intro on Revealing Science To God. I'll have to see what I can do it!
All I've ever heard / read from Jon was that he saw 4 interlocking movements. He was into (and had been during the writing of CTTE) classical music. They could have made it a single album with 2 songs of 10-12 mins on each side. But that just opens up the can of worms again of "what" do you cut.. others have pointed out.. they bleed the melodies to death.. Perhaps extending the songs in a live setting would have worked better.. using MSG '74 as an example..
Wasn't the "On Ice" part just a necessity because the venue (Wembley Empire Pool) had been iced over for a Christmas season of Disney On Ice performances, so rather than leave a huge void where nothing happened, Rick thought "let's go crazy!"
It would probably have ended up as 5 songs, as the two parts of The Ancient are so dissimilar. I would be interested to hear a shortened version, though I do love Tales in it's full glory.
I don't think 'The Revealing...' has much padding, I think of that as one of their strongest epics. But 'The Remembering' has a lot and doesn't flow as well, IMHO. It's my least favourite of their 70s longer tracks.
The only thing I'd get rid of on Tales is the tribal drum section on Ritual. It goes on waaay to long IMHO.
To each their own I guess, I love that section.
Personally I would dump the first half of Ancient.. I get what they were doing but again.. do that in concert.. Leaves of Green is one of my favorite sections from Tales.. that and the ending of Ritual.
There isn't enough Tales.
lol
It should've been a triple studio affair.
There's a perspective you don't see every day.
Perhaps finding the happy medium is harder than we know.
Well, there is a fair bit of repetition in the middle of the piece, where entire sections get repeated. I would cut out a couple of the repeated bits, is all.
I wouldn't cut the entire thing, but I might be inclined to shorten it a bit. I had the understand that the bass solo and the drum circle thing were meant to reflect the struggle between good or evil (or something like that), so to me you have to have both, but maybe each could be a little shorter.The only thing I'd get rid of on Tales is the tribal drum section on Ritual. It goes on waaay to long IMHO.
BTW, speaking of the drum circle bit, I remember when they were playing Ritual regularly, circa 2000-2001, and it was noted by some that Howe wasn't participating in the drum circle. I remember one wisecrack I heard was that he was probably afraid his arms would break off if he tried drumming in his present condition. And that makes me think of Squire's crack that Steve was the only band member who was still a vegetarian, "Which is why he looks like a fucking twig!".
I recently watched the second disc from QPR and don't recall seeing him participate in the drumming there either.. as I recall Igor had a hand in that drumming section.. but Moraz looked very busy behind the keyboards.. which brings up another point that has been made over the years.. the "growling" part appeared to my eyes to have been created by Moraz.
I read a similar quote, but it was "a fucking stick insect".
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