Yes - Onion or Union?

[KeithCBradbury]

From what Jonathan Elias has said, Wakeman and Howe wouldn't get together in the studio together. Here is what he has to say about when he took over production on what would become "Union:"

Jonathan Elias: " I didn’t realize how dark the baggage was within that band and how much they hated each other... I knew they had broken up many times and shuffled members in and out, I didn’t realize the reason that that happened was because of their egos and personal feelings for each other. I honestly believe I was the central focus of hatred for Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe, who couldn’t stand each other. Even though Jon Anderson was the co-producer of the record, and was constantly urging me to work with other players, which we subsequently did, he took none of the heat because they were so scared of him. I also urged Rick to play a Hammond and not his cheezy midi synthesizers. He didn’t realize the best work they had done was done 20 years earlier. I suppose time has showed I was right by urging them to forget their incarnations as Asia, and other corporate rock entities. I also learned why not to get involved with bands that internal hatreds were more important than the music. I felt the only redeeming value of the whole band was Trevor Rabin who remains the best element in Yes other than Jon. I also find it interesting that 20 years later that Jon is on my new Prayer Cycle follow up record and has nothing to do with the band anymore. I think that speaks volumes."

[KeithCBradbury]

From what I have gathered from the original mix, and this is based on observation of the SARM Demos and NOT insider information, Jon and Rick created some of the demo tracks and Steve Howe layered guitars over them.

I say this because when attempting to separate the vocals (which are mixed INCREDIBLY low), there is synth bleed, but never guitar bleed. The guitar work is very clear, whereas the synths are always hard to distinguish.

"Looking for the Words," in this mix, is comprised of two unfinished elements. One is a Howe/Anderson piece from the SARM Demos, and the other is a Wakeman/Anderson piece recorded at close to the same time, but did not have Howe, therefore did not end up with the original SARM Demos.

If we go back to the 1979 Paris sessions, where Wakeman and Anderson were coming up with songs and Steve Howe hardly appears on them, we can see the EXACT SAME PATTERN. Wakeman and Anderson would come up with a song, record a demo, Howe would get angry because there was nothing for him to really do, he hated the material, and he had no input, and then everyone goes away angry. The Paris sessions led to the split in the band, with Wakeman and Anderson departing for solo adventures, and Yes reforming with the Buggles for the album "Drama."

The SARM Demos are largely Howe recording his parts clearly over tracks layed down by other members. Again, I say this based on working on these mixes, and not based on insider information.

[calyx]

When were the "SARM Demos" supposedly made ? Henry, do you know ?

What I do remember is that Jon invited the others (BWH) for a writing session in the South of France (though not Miraval, apparently) early in 1990 (before or after the final ABWH shows, I'm not sure), and only Julian Colbeck (the 2nd keyboardist for the tour) turned up, so it ended up being Jon, Julian and a couple of roadies recording demos, some of which have been passed as ABWH demos but really aren't.

The June 1990 sessions at Miraval had Howe, Levin and Bruford turning up a day earlier than Jon and making instrumental demos. I'm not sure Wakeman did more than briefly turn up during their stay, as he had solo shows booked during that time.

So I'm not sure where the "SARM Demos" would fit among all that.

[bondegezou]

I went ahead and posted the ABWH 1990 SARM Demos; I don't think I'm completely done with working on them, but I wanted to get them up so those of you familiar with them can hear the difference. Those familiar with the originals know that you can hardly hear Jon. Hopefully, you will find he's better in the mix:

https://www.bitchute.com/video/0bIqq0f3TFtW/

Thanks. Nicely done.

I'm not certain I agree with your summary, "It was Jonathan Elias who grew frustrated with both Wakeman and Howe, resulting in session musicians re-recording many of their parts." That decision was as much Anderson's. (Maybe even more Anderson's?)

[bondegezou]

When were the "SARM Demos" supposedly made ? Henry, do you know ?

I don't know.

The SARM Demos are largely Howe recording his parts clearly over tracks layed down by other members. Again, I say this based on working on these mixes, and not based on insider information.

That is plausible.

I also wonder where the tracks on Howe's Anthology 2 fit into the timeline. I think they have a similar feel to them as the "SARM demos", of Howe in charge.

[bondegezou]

I think Elias is wrong about Howe. Listening to the "SARM Demos" and the Anthology 2 tracks, I think these songs are better slavered with Howe's guitar playing. But I accept that is a matter of taste.

I'm sure Elias was right about Wakeman's contributions though...

[arturs]

I went ahead and posted the ABWH 1990 SARM Demos; I don't think I'm completely done with working on them, but I wanted to get them up so those of you familiar with them can hear the difference. Those familiar with the originals know that you can hardly hear Jon. Hopefully, you will find he's better in the mix:

https://www.bitchute.com/video/0bIqq0f3TFtW/

Thanks. These are very listenable (A first for the SARM demos IMO). These demos further make the case that ABWH2 could have been a very good album.


While I'm here, one thing I'm still curious about after all these years. Philly DJ and Yes booster Ed Sciaky had Bruford on his show sometime in 1990. Jon A had been on the show a little while previous, which I missed. But Ed said that Jon had told him the ABWH2 album was coming along well and that the band had "another Close to the Edge in the can". He asked Bill to expand upon that and Bill's coy reply was that he didn't think it was wise to compare new material to past successes. Is there any evidence, anywhere, that an "epic" that could reasonably be compared to CttE was in fact recorded by ABWH? Or was Jon just likely talking nonsense? All the demos that I have heard, SARM, London demos, consist only of much shorter songs.

[KeithCBradbury]

Thanks. These are very listenable (A first for the SARM demos IMO). These demos further make the case that ABWH2 could have been a very good album.


While I'm here, one thing I'm still curious about after all these years. Philly DJ and Yes booster Ed Sciaky had Bruford on his show sometime in 1990. Jon A had been on the show a little while previous, which I missed. But Ed said that Jon had told him the ABWH2 album was coming along well and that the band had "another Close to the Edge in the can". He asked Bill to expand upon that and Bill's coy reply was that he didn't think it was wise to compare new material to past successes. Is there any evidence, anywhere, that an "epic" that could reasonably be compared to CttE was in fact recorded by ABWH? Or was Jon just likely talking nonsense? All the demos that I have heard, SARM, London demos, consist only of much shorter songs.

Listening to the SARM Demos, and specifically the lyrical differences compared to what appeared on Union, I can surmise that the songs were linked lyrically. For example, in "I Would Have Waited Forever," the phrase "Give and Take" is repeated, which would logically incorporate the upcoming song "Give and Take." Also, "The System" is referenced outside the song "Shock to the System," so it appears Jon was toying with greater thematic elements.

Musically, I think the songs were certainly moving in the right direction for 90's "Yes," but not all the band members were on the same page, apparently.

[KeithCBradbury]

I'm not certain I agree with your summary, "It was Jonathan Elias who grew frustrated with both Wakeman and Howe, resulting in session musicians re-recording many of their parts." That decision was as much Anderson's. (Maybe even more Anderson's?)

You are correct that Jon Anderson had a big hand in it. I am basing much of what I said on Jonathan Elias' interviews, which (of course) may very well be biased:

Jonathan Elias: "There was no material. Basically, what there was was Steve [Howe] was working on a solo album [later released as Turbulence] and he brought in some things. Jon [Anderson] brought in one or two faint ideas. The problem is they hated each other so much at that point. I couldn't get Jon and Steve to sit down in a room together without me and the only way that Steve would do anything is to wake up and get very stoned and he was no good for the whole day after that. So we would sit down and try to write a few chords and here are my sort of kid pop idols and they couldn't string three chords together without fighting about what they were. And that was just putting Jon and Steve together, and constantly Steve would be badgering me about how he hated Jon's lyrics and how Jon had no good ideas. And Jon would say to me, 'Oh, Steve's just so washed out and Asia was such a horrible thing—look what it did to him.' You had Rick Wakeman who… all he wanted to do was get out there in the mix. And Rick had three or four parts that he would play, the same thing on everything. I would bring a Hammond organ in—he wouldn't touch the Hammond. He said, 'That's old-fashioned.' Not realising… well, he's so out of touch—what good would it have done had he played? I couldn't get these guys to sit down and write material without other people being in the room because of the social reasons. They had just been on the road for so many years and they probably had so many episodes with each other. Half of them couldn't really play any more. I mean, it was really sad. They were just sloppy and tired and old.

There was a lot of time pressure because, really, these guys were just doing it for the money, because they couldn't do anything else. They all tried solo careers and nothing really happened with any of the solo careers, so they realised that they were forced to be together. And the only way they could really make money was touring. They couldn't make money on an album unless it had a pop sensibility and they were so far removed from what a pop sensibility was at that point without Trevor [Rabin]. There were times I tried to push them into that, but they would just bad mouth Trevor, particularly Steve. Ooof, boy, did he hate Trevor! I thought that the stuff that he [Rabin] had done was very fresh, but both Rick, at that point, and Steve would just really nail me because they wanted to have nothing to do with him.

So what happened was we would start writing and they would stop writing. Steve wouldn't listen to one of Rick's parts, Rick wouldn't listen to one of Steve's parts. And all Bill Bruford wanted to know is, 'Is it coming in on budget?'. They didn't care about a note of music. They all thought that Jon was stealing money from them. I guess they had a manager who used to steal money from them or... who knows what creative accounting they had ever done on each other, but none of them ever trusted each other.

They didn't have any initial ideas. I'd say Steve had a couple. Rick didn't have anything.... we took a couple of licks off of Steve's solo album and I would encourage Jon to develop them. And he would say, 'This piece of trash,' and I'd say, 'Jon, this is all that we have and let's make the best of it.' So, there wasn't really this spirit of this magical, wonderful, open-hearted feeling of the word Yes that I expected, which sort of devastated me at first. It took me a couple of weeks to really understand that. I had just worked with Duran Duran and we'd had several number one songs. These [Duran Duran] were guys who could not play their instruments all that great, but they had a good taste level. Then here I was, working with a band [Yes] that I thought technically were good, but they had no taste.

The truth is it wouldn't have been done without the extra musicians. Because the level of distrust between Steve and Jon and Rick again, they just wouldn't work with each other, so we had to put up a guitar track that Steve had done and get a musician to play along with it. It was constant situation with that—their parts had nothing to do with each other, so we really had to bring in the players in order just to get the project physically done." (end quote)

[KeithCBradbury]

Thanks. These are very listenable (A first for the SARM demos IMO). These demos further make the case that ABWH2 could have been a very good album.

Thanks, I appreciate that as these are INCREDIBLY difficult to work with. I'm still not quite done with them, so at some point, I will update what I posted with better mixes. I just wanted to get these up because I like to listen to them when I drive, and I use Bitchute through my phone.

There are some other Yes-related demo compilations on my channel that should be of interest. For ABWH, "Dialog" is a good compilation of more developed demos (that one will be updated in the future). The Jon and Vangelis "Book of Life" clocks in at more than 1 hour, 47 minutes and includes some really good rare stuff mixed in with the various songs from all the different "Page of Life" releases. I'm particularly proud of my "Martian Chronicles" concept album using Yes-related demos and solo material; if this were an official release, I think a lot of people would love it.

[aith01]

You are correct that Jon Anderson had a big hand in it. I am basing much of what I said on Jonathan Elias' interviews, which (of course) may very well be biased:

Jonathan Elias: "There was no material. Basically, what there was was Steve [Howe] was working on a solo album [later released as Turbulence] and he brought in some things. Jon [Anderson] brought in one or two faint ideas. The problem is they hated each other so much at that point. I couldn't get Jon and Steve to sit down in a room together without me and the only way that Steve would do anything is to wake up and get very stoned and he was no good for the whole day after that. So we would sit down and try to write a few chords and here are my sort of kid pop idols and they couldn't string three chords together without fighting about what they were. And that was just putting Jon and Steve together, and constantly Steve would be badgering me about how he hated Jon's lyrics and how Jon had no good ideas. And Jon would say to me, 'Oh, Steve's just so washed out and Asia was such a horrible thing—look what it did to him.' You had Rick Wakeman who… all he wanted to do was get out there in the mix. And Rick had three or four parts that he would play, the same thing on everything. I would bring a Hammond organ in—he wouldn't touch the Hammond. He said, 'That's old-fashioned.' Not realising… well, he's so out of touch—what good would it have done had he played? I couldn't get these guys to sit down and write material without other people being in the room because of the social reasons. They had just been on the road for so many years and they probably had so many episodes with each other. Half of them couldn't really play any more. I mean, it was really sad. They were just sloppy and tired and old.

There was a lot of time pressure because, really, these guys were just doing it for the money, because they couldn't do anything else. They all tried solo careers and nothing really happened with any of the solo careers, so they realised that they were forced to be together. And the only way they could really make money was touring. They couldn't make money on an album unless it had a pop sensibility and they were so far removed from what a pop sensibility was at that point without Trevor [Rabin]. There were times I tried to push them into that, but they would just bad mouth Trevor, particularly Steve. Ooof, boy, did he hate Trevor! I thought that the stuff that he [Rabin] had done was very fresh, but both Rick, at that point, and Steve would just really nail me because they wanted to have nothing to do with him.

So what happened was we would start writing and they would stop writing. Steve wouldn't listen to one of Rick's parts, Rick wouldn't listen to one of Steve's parts. And all Bill Bruford wanted to know is, 'Is it coming in on budget?'. They didn't care about a note of music. They all thought that Jon was stealing money from them. I guess they had a manager who used to steal money from them or... who knows what creative accounting they had ever done on each other, but none of them ever trusted each other.

They didn't have any initial ideas. I'd say Steve had a couple. Rick didn't have anything.... we took a couple of licks off of Steve's solo album and I would encourage Jon to develop them. And he would say, 'This piece of trash,' and I'd say, 'Jon, this is all that we have and let's make the best of it.' So, there wasn't really this spirit of this magical, wonderful, open-hearted feeling of the word Yes that I expected, which sort of devastated me at first. It took me a couple of weeks to really understand that. I had just worked with Duran Duran and we'd had several number one songs. These [Duran Duran] were guys who could not play their instruments all that great, but they had a good taste level. Then here I was, working with a band [Yes] that I thought technically were good, but they had no taste.

The truth is it wouldn't have been done without the extra musicians. Because the level of distrust between Steve and Jon and Rick again, they just wouldn't work with each other, so we had to put up a guitar track that Steve had done and get a musician to play along with it. It was constant situation with that—their parts had nothing to do with each other, so we really had to bring in the players in order just to get the project physically done." (end quote)

That is really interesting reading. Thanks for sharing that!

[Halmyre]

There's a TV drama to be made out of this. It makes 'The Sopranos' look like 'Happy Days'.

[Piskie]

What is it the sleeve notes say... "one album of enormous effort and creation"... pass me the sick bag

[aith01]

I’m actually a fan of Union. It’s not the most consistent Yes record ever, but the strong material there is among my favorite latter-day Yes stuff. And it’s probably in no small part due to Elias and Haun and the other musicians who contributed. They did good work.

[zeprogmeister]

I'm a big Rick fan but I think he always prioritized his solo career and viewed Yes as a side hustle, and wasn't available all that much, especially during this time.

Of course the tour was quite good.

[KeithCBradbury]

Rick was frequently the odd duck in the group. He wasn't interested in the vegetarian phase of the band, didn't want to fly across the US with the rest of the band (he bought a van and drove), and was always using the latest keyboards, at times abandoning classics (Hammond Organ, Mellotron, Moogs) for later, cheaper sounds. He had a hard time with the freestyle "feeling it" sessions during Tales from Topographical Oceans, wanting more structure, rehearsal, and solid compositions. He was more than happy to do his own thing and has put out so many solo albums (most of them mediocre at best), he eclipses the rest of the band's catalog in total.

At one time, Wakeman was homeless, penniless, and sleeping on a park bench. When working on "Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table," he chose musicians he had played with in a pub years prior, rather than studio musicians. He was going between working on this project to "Topographic Oceans," and he despised the Yes sessions where everyone sat around for what felt like forever.

[arturs]

I’m actually a fan of Union. It’s not the most consistent Yes record ever, but the strong material there is among my favorite latter-day Yes stuff. And it’s probably in no small part due to Elias and Haun and the other musicians who contributed. They did good work.

I agree Union has stood the test of time better than I would have guessed. I believe that somewhere earlier in this thread I had shared my Union playlist where I deleted a few tracks and the rest, resequenced, makes up a pretty darn good album.

And the SARM demos remastered suggest that had the ABWH tracks actually been completed by the real group, it could have been even better. Not that the substitute players were bad, far from it, but there's an over-production issue that sometimes gets to be grating.

[KeithCBradbury]

For a fun project, I split Union into two separate albums:

Yes: West (Approx. 34 minutes runtime)
https://www.bitchute.com/video/rSg83avBn0au/

ABWH: Dialog (Approx. 1 hour, 2 minutes runtime)
https://www.bitchute.com/video/QXYNvwOoQXkl/

I used, where possible, extended versions, near-complete demos, etc, to represent two separate albums with very little similarity to each other.

[the winter tree]

I think Union came out quite well, everything considered. Elias did his job as a producer with what he had to work with
and delivered a marketable, though uncohesive, product. I'm sure it was very difficult trying to work with these guys. I think Tony Levin and Jimmy Haun are the stars of the show.
I do wish they would have just done ABWH 2 instead of the phony "Union".
I bought a BMG Music release entitled "Re-Union" that trimmed it down to 10 songs:

1) I Would Have Waited
2) Shock
3) Masquerade
4) Lift Me Up
5) Without Hope
6) Saving My Heart
7) Miracle
8) Silent Talking
9) The More We Live
10) Holding On

If you substitute "Take the Water" for "Saving" then that would be a very solid album.

[vostoklake]

From what I have gathered from the original mix, and this is based on observation of the SARM Demos and NOT insider information, Jon and Rick created some of the demo tracks and Steve Howe layered guitars over them.

You seem to be assuming that the keyboards you're hearing in the mix are Wakeman. With the exception of "Looking for the words", they don't sound like Wakeman. They're simply pads and block chords which could have been played by Anderson or anyone else. And most of these songs are based on Steve Howe demos, which makes me very dubious that he would have given them to Jon/Rick to record and him to solo over the top.

[Piskie]

Onion or union there's definately a shallot of folks playing on that album...

[KeithCBradbury]

You seem to be assuming that the keyboards you're hearing in the mix are Wakeman. With the exception of "Looking for the words", they don't sound like Wakeman. They're simply pads and block chords which could have been played by Anderson or anyone else. And most of these songs are based on Steve Howe demos, which makes me very dubious that he would have given them to Jon/Rick to record and him to solo over the top.

That is a very real possibility. The keyboards are very light. However, they do not sound anything like the non-Wakeman keyboards on Jon's demos from "Watching the Flags that Fly" which were created around 1990 (the same year as the SARM demos). They appear to be a step ahead from those demos.

Still, a song like "We Make Believe" which appears on "Watching the Flags that Fly" has enough keyboard flourish that it could be Wakeman (it's doubtful that is Jon), and that is the foundation of "Make Believe," which is a SARM Demo. There is a progression to the demos. "Take the Water to the Mountain" also appears on "Watching the Flags that Fly," so this appears to predate SARM by one step.

For those unfamiliar with "Watching the Flags that Fly," this is a compilation of demos from 1990 that Jon released in 2006. Some of the material would re-recorded to be utilized in Union, while much of it was abandoned.

[bondegezou]

That is really interesting reading. Thanks for sharing that!

The interview is at http://www.bondegezou.co.uk/iv/jeinterview.htm

and the companion interview by Jimmy Haun is at http://www.bondegezou.co.uk/iv/jhinterview.htm

[KeithCBradbury]

The interview is at http://www.bondegezou.co.uk/iv/jeinterview.htm

and the companion interview by Jimmy Haun is at http://www.bondegezou.co.uk/iv/jhinterview.htm

This part is VERY helpful, as to what is on Union (Jimmy Haun):

Track 1: "I Would Have Waited Forever". The opening riff is me (Arista wanted this sort of a "Starship Trooper" thing), then Steve really just played the recurring single thread line at 0:24 to 0:49 and the end solo. I played all the other guitars (electrics, acoustic, some effect overdubs).

Track 2: "Shock to the System". Must have been a shock to Steve's system—there is simply no Steve Howe on that at all! Steve had, of course, written the opening riff (which I ended up replacing for sonic reasons). I think this was my favorite track because I got to write most of the riffs and there was this new section we came up with and tacked on at 4:10 and the riff is very reminiscent of "Gates of Delirium". And I had to replace some of the bass! (Tony Levin left his bass at the studio so we got his exact sound and added the sections.) I guess Steve refused to play this section live. (This is the track that Rabin played for Steve on the plane during the Union tour and Steve's mouth dropped.)

Track 5: "Without Hope You Cannot Start the Day". Once again there is no Steve Howe on this at all (I don't think Steve ever even heard this song). Jon and Jonathan wrote this one.

Track 8: "Silent Talking". I replaced the main riff because there were timing discrepancies and I tried to get as close to Steve Howe's sound as I could. There are a couple of riffs that were kept of Steve's, where you can hear his tone is a little different, like at 0:46 to 1:03.

Track 11: "Dangerous". No Steve here. Not one of my favorites on the album but the one I guess I was "featured" on, oh well.

Track 12: "Holding On". Steve just played the first main riff at 0:31 to 0:47 and that's it folks. There is a lot of riffing on this especially toward the end, but it is all me and I think it's a pretty good likeness of Steve.

Track 14: "Take the Water to the Mountain". No Steve here either. Lots of Howe likenesses though.

Track 15: "Give and Take". It starts out Steve on the main melody and I did harmonics over that. I played all of the verses as well as the chorus. Steve's sound is basically the distorted thinner sound that never changes tone. It was that way on all his tracks and I think the powers that be felt there needed to be more colors from the guitars, hence my involvement.

It would be nice to get some input on exactly what were the 1990 SARM Demos and at what point did they he get involved... I'm assuming post-SARM. I know that ABWH were on tour in 1989 and 1990, so some of these demos probably had their origin as they were touring... it's possible that some of the band members got together and came up with bits and pieces... that is, when they could work together apart from the actual tour.

[Frumious B]

I went ahead and posted the ABWH 1990 SARM Demos; I don't think I'm completely done with working on them, but I wanted to get them up so those of you familiar with them can hear the difference. Those familiar with the originals know that you can hardly hear Jon. Hopefully, you will find he's better in the mix:

https://www.bitchute.com/video/0bIqq0f3TFtW/

Nice improvement! I’d love a download of the upgraded version to replace what I have.