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Thread: ABWH

  1. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rufus View Post
    I understand quite a big chunk was recorded for the follow -up ,some of which appeared on Union , others in demo form that has appeared on boots .I think it was Bruford who said they should have recorded/ released a second album ?
    I remember listening to Ed Sciaky's Sunday night show (WYSP was it?) around 1990 and he had Bruford on. Apparently Bill had told him offline that the group had "another Close to the Edge in the can" or something like that. He tried to get Bill to repeat that line on the show but Bill demurred, saying that it wouldn't be wise to compare with a 20-year old classic epic, but did strongly hint that the group had in fact composed another epic. I wonder whatever happened to that. I remember being surprised that there was nothing of the sort on Union.

    For the record, I'm with the majority here on the ABWH album. Good first "side", not so good side 2.

  2. #27
    Member Digital_Man's Avatar
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    I'd rate it above Union and the last several YES albums(though maybe not the Ladder)but a step below 90125, BG and Talk. That's just me though.

  3. #28
    Member Sputnik's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ThomasKDye View Post
    But really... no one likes "Let's Pretend"? I think that song's beautiful.
    It's OK. That and The Meeting made my CDR and provide some nice counterpoint to the more rocking stuff (especially since my CDR goes straight from The Meeting to OotU). But when you compare these tracks to the softer moments of the classic period, they really don't measure up, imo, sounding a little sappy and "adult contemporary." So, to me, listenable, but I can't help feeling they could have done better.

    Bill

  4. #29
    Member Digital_Man's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by arturs View Post
    I remember listening to Ed Sciaky's Sunday night show (WYSP was it?) around 1990 and he had Bruford on. Apparently Bill had told him offline that the group had "another Close to the Edge in the can" or something like that. He tried to get Bill to repeat that line on the show but Bill demurred, saying that it wouldn't be wise to compare with a 20-year old classic epic, but did strongly hint that the group had in fact composed another epic. I wonder whatever happened to that. I remember being surprised that there was nothing of the sort on Union.

    For the record, I'm with the majority here on the ABWH album. Good first "side", not so good side 2.
    I lived in PA(Philly area) from 1987-89 and visited before then for most of the decade. I remember listening to Ed's progressive radio show(pretty sure it was on wysp also but it might have been on wioq) in the late eighties but unfortunately missed the show you are talking about since I was in NY at that time(where I'm originally from and lived from 89-98). I do remember hearing Steve Howe critique Jon's "in the city of Angels" album if anyone remembers that. That was pretty funny actually. Steve said that Jon contradicted himself lyrically and that one song was like "kill the whale" where as another song was like "kill the whale" or "nuke the whale" as Ed Sciaky put it. LOL. That seemed interesting to me considering how the songs on the second Asia album contradict themselves lyrically also(she loves me she hates me kind of thing). Although I suppose Steve didn't write any(or many of the lyrics)on Alpha.

    If anyone knows where I can listen to some of these old shows(youtube maybe)I'd be curious. I used to have a bunch of cassettes where I taped interviews with Jon etc. I got so tired of listening to them that I eventually threw them away but now I seriously regret it(even if cassette tapes are somewhat obsolete).
    Last edited by Digital_Man; 10-11-2013 at 03:52 AM.

  5. #30
    Progdog ThomasKDye's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Digital_Man View Post
    Steve said that Jon contradicted himself lyrically
    I've always been massively amused at these two consecutive lines from "Owner of a Lonely Heart":

    Look before you leap
    And don't you hesitate at all...
    Um....

  6. #31
    Don't have the studio version..I do have Evening of Yes Music Plus and Live at the NEC which are better than the studio version IMO and include the better songs if not the whole album.

  7. #32
    Connoisseur of stuff. Obscured's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Paulrus View Post
    the ABWH tour where we got to see 4/5 of the '71-'73 lineup play "Close to the Edge", "And You And I", and more. That was worth it all right there.
    "Awaken" was unreal. Also BB & TLev duo a highlight.
    "Henry Cow always wanted to push itself, so sometimes we would write music that we couldn't actually play – I found that very encouraging." - Lindsay Cooper, 1998
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  8. #33
    Estimated Prophet notallwhowander's Avatar
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    I try every so often with this album, but it doesn't do well by me. I have demurred from getting any Yes of later vintage, until Fly From Here which I enjoy quite a bit. But then, I enjoy Drama quite a bit - more than Going for the One.
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  9. #34
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    Quote Originally Posted by Obscured View Post
    "Awaken" was unreal. Also BB & TLev duo a highlight.
    I am pretty sure ABWH did not play Awaken live.

    It was played on the Union tour though.

  10. #35
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    One thing that is not mentioned much, in light of all of the recycled material on Fly From Here, is that much of ABWH is older material that is recycled/expanded upon.

    Parts of Brother of Mine (Downes), Birthright (Max Bacon), Let's Pretend (Vangelis), Order of the Universe (Rhett Lawrence), and Quarter (Ben Dowling) were older ideas started by ABWH members while on previous projects.

  11. #36
    ABWH is a total mess. The first half isn't bad, the second half is dreadful. None of the longer "multi-part" songs cohere, even where there are good 'components' to work with ("Brother of Mine"). I was disappointed from day one, and my opinion of this album hasn't improved. Maybe it was just the weight of expectations bringing ABWH down, but I find all of the YesWest albums to be more enjoyable.

    Oddly enough, I'm probably one of the few people out there who thinks that Union is by far the better of the two albums. Criticize Jonathan Elias all you want, but he managed to turn that mishmash of disinterest and swollen egos into something reasonably listenable. It can't have been easy.

  12. #37
    Connoisseur of stuff. Obscured's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jrw View Post
    I am pretty sure ABWH did not play Awaken live.

    It was played on the Union tour though.
    Yes (ahem) you are correct.
    "Henry Cow always wanted to push itself, so sometimes we would write music that we couldn't actually play – I found that very encouraging." - Lindsay Cooper, 1998
    "I have nothing to do with Endless River. Phew! This is not rocket science people, get a grip." - Roger Waters, 2014
    "I'm a collector. And I've always just seemed to collect personalities." - David Bowie, 1973

  13. #38
    Member Digital_Man's Avatar
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    ^ That's how I remember it as well. Considering that BB did not play on "awaken" that makes sense. ABWH did however play Close to the Edge(the song)in it's entirety. I distinctly remember the dry ice smoke(almost as if it was last night).

  14. #39
    The thing I seem to remember about their show at the Ahoy in Rotterdam, is that the sound was crisp and clear. Normally the sound in that hall is awful and muffled, but not that night. And CTTE was an absolute highlight, indeed.
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  15. #40
    As a longtime, committed (ie I will buy any product they release) fan, I was/am disappointed. Frankly, I don't care if it is Yes or not. It is clearly part of the "Yes family" - so I include it with Bruford, Rabin, Circa, World Trade, Esquire (a few tracks anyway) etc. This was the CD that made me realise how much Chris Squire was the reason I liked Yes, and how much I hated electronic drums and cheesy synth patches. I was rather chuffed with the making of video I picked up in the eighties though, and was please they had made the effort.
    Whenever I compile a list of Yes songs to listen to, I don't include any from this one or The Ladder. Every other one (bar Yes and time and a Word) are regularly represented. How people rank it above 90125 is beyond me - but I like 4 tracks off Open Your Eyes!!
    I certainly hope any new material doesn't sound like this one. And I also prefer Union - better songs, better production, better playing....

  16. #41
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    no chris. no YES. but let’s not be overtly harsh... it’s a project by anderson with the main objective being a reconnection with YES’s illustrous past, that, according to him had become lost during the YesWest-years. hence, i have always viewed it as a jon anderson solo album with added vintage YESisms. however, within a very modest but very firm pocket of time, it has served an important purpose: it has introduced a younger generation of fans, whose interest in YES was initially sparked by the band’s 1980s work and who are not prone to compare this with their 1970’s heritage, to the band’s history and cultural relevance. that purpose is not to be underestimated, whether it happened by design or not. especially in context with the very successful tour that they did. i consider myself part of this generation and ABWH live was my first ever brush with a YES in concert experience. hey, seeing bruford, wakeman and howe frolic about in make-up is proof to me that they were heavily into this, enjoyed it while it lasted and had sufficient self-confidence.

    ABWH will remain an isolated, but purposeful peculiarity in YES’ canon. squire’s absence denies it the YES status. live they almost morphed into YES... but not quite.

  17. #42
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    I LOVED the album when it came out and thought it was a return to form (although I also like 90125 and BG, but BG was a bit of a letdown and came way too late anyway).
    I haven't listened to it for a long time, I think it didn't age well (as others have said: the drum sound and the keyboard sounds were ok then, but are hard to bear now).
    Still, the CD is filed under "Y" in my collection, and not under "A". ;-)

  18. #43
    God, you lot are miserable sometimes. Admittedly I wasn't alive in 1973, so didn't have the disillusionment experience with Yes quite like some of you (which isn't to say I didn't have such an experience myself when 'Open Your Eyes', and to a lesser degree 'Fly From Here', came out). I've always liked almost all of ABWH very much, and it's simply a Yes album to me (and let's not forget a couple of tracks were included on the big boxed set "The Word is...").

    Yes, Bruford's penchant for electronic drums makes the percussion sound a bit dated, but he plays them amazingly (of course!), and creates parts for these songs that have far more imagination than anything Alan White has done in Yes since the early 70s.

    Yes, Wakeman's reliance on Korg M-1 patches makes some of the tooting keyboard solo lines sound naffer than had he used vintage keys, but all is forgiven for his piano playing on "The Meeting", and it was fantastic to hear precocious and charismatic synth soloing ("The Order of the Universe") like Tony Kaye had never done, and especially not in YesWest.

    Yes, Anderson's lyrics are banal or incoherent. That's the way it's always been, folks!

    OK, so the late 1980s production hasn't aged as well as the analogue gear used in the early 70s. But on the whole I think ABWH is easily the best Yes album of the 80s (and, yes, I include 'Drama' in that - three good songs on 'Drama' doesn't make it any more consistent or better than ABWH). Also, because there's a sense of adventure, flamboyance and unpredictability in some of the music-making from the four core participants, it's infinitely superior to 'Union' (which, by the way, I like better than a lot of Yes fans seem to admit to - but weirdly the YesWest tracks are the best; probably because the ABWH tracks have too little BWH in them).

    Also, ABWH's live "An Evening of Yes Music plus" is, for me, one of the best live Yes albums. I don't mind Bruford's drum sound when I hear the way he plays 'Heart of the sunrise' and 'Long distance runaround', and I don't mind being heretical for liking ABWH's live version of 'Close to the edge' quite a lot. Moreover, their 'Starship trooper' - though flawed - has more spirit than most subsequent live versions I've heard featuring Squire and White.

    It's a crying shame that the egos and short-sightedness of some members prevented ABWH from having a longer-term life of it's own.

  19. #44
    Quote Originally Posted by arturs View Post
    I remember listening to Ed Sciaky's Sunday night show (WYSP was it?) around 1990 and he had Bruford on. Apparently Bill had told him offline that the group had "another Close to the Edge in the can" or something like that. He tried to get Bill to repeat that line on the show but Bill demurred, saying that it wouldn't be wise to compare with a 20-year old classic epic, but did strongly hint that the group had in fact composed another epic. I wonder whatever happened to that. I remember being surprised that there was nothing of the sort on Union.
    There is nothing in the various demos etc. that have surfaced (and there's a fair few of those) that suggest anything like that.

    Quote Originally Posted by jrw View Post
    Parts of Brother of Mine (Downes), Birthright (Max Bacon), Let's Pretend (Vangelis), Order of the Universe (Rhett Lawrence), and Quarter (Ben Dowling) were older ideas started by ABWH members while on previous projects.
    And "The Meeting" was a previously released Wakeman instrumental with Anderson adding a vocal line.

    Henry
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  20. #45
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    People often forget to mention the biggest issue with so much recycled material being used on FFH was the 30 year gap.

    I think it's a great shame that the Union thing happened at all. I think it would have been good to have had Jon Anderson in both groups, both doing different things. ABWH performed well commercially even without the Yes name, after all. Whilst the album has problems, I like it more than most of the later albums. I find many of those compromises, a mish mash of '70s' and '80s' Yes that don't satisfy fully. Even 'The Ladder' which I like much of comes under that category.
    Last edited by JJ88; 10-11-2013 at 06:31 AM.

  21. #46
    Quote Originally Posted by JJ88 View Post
    People often forget to mention the biggest issue with so much recycled material being used on FFH was the 30 year gap.
    It would have been tricky for any material on ABWH to have been recycled after a 30 year gap...

    Most of the material on ABWH dates back only a few years, although some goes back at least 5 years. "Children of Light", which missed the final cut, appears to have dated back at least 10 years.

    Henry
    Last edited by bondegezou; 10-11-2013 at 08:58 AM.
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  22. #47
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    Quote Originally Posted by bondegezou View Post
    "Children of Light", which missed the final cut, appears to have dated back at least 10 years.

    the lyrics to this one (albeit titled “distant thunder”) were printed in the UNiON tour programme, next to the article about jon.

  23. #48
    Member Phlakaton's Avatar
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    I like a few tracks from it. I can say the same about several Yes albums too. It is what it is and when it pops up on my rotation I dont run away.

  24. #49
    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ThomasKDye View Post
    I'm embarrassed to admit that I like everything on the album. But it has more to do for nostalgic fuzzies than anything else; I got it when all the lengthy song cycles seemed really cool and mystical. My main complaint now is the usual annoyances that eighties digital production with no bottom end doesn't age well.

    But really... no one likes "Let's Pretend"? I think that song's beautiful.
    I'm with you - I wasn't crazy about 90125 (and of course OoaLH had been played into the ground) and never even bothered with a full listen to Big Genitalia as it seemed so dire, so I'd written Yes off at that point. When ABWH came out it seemed better than either of those albums, and I lived three blocks away from Madison Square Garden and worked two blocks away (if you can believe that) so when ABWH played at the Garden with Tony Levin, it was like they were playing in my back yard. Add in the fact that the Garden was half-empty and it was incredibly easy and relaxing to sit there and at your leisure, and it was one of the most enjoyable concert experiences ever.

  25. #50
    Quote Originally Posted by iguana View Post
    the lyrics to this one (albeit titled “distant thunder”) were printed in the UNiON tour programme, next to the article about jon.
    "Distant Thunder" was going to be on the aborted late '80s Jon & Vangelis album, as was "Let's Pretend", but Anderson has said the song actually dates back to the late '70s.

    Henry
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