Great, great song. Wish they had him doing more of that kinda stuff in Yes.
Great, great song. Wish they had him doing more of that kinda stuff in Yes.
Music isn't about chops, or even about talent - it's about sound and the way that sound communicates to people. Mike Keneally
His live CD is stunning! His extended soloing on the song 'Cant Look Away' is one of the greatest i've heard!
To me, Rabin is a solid but rather generic guitarist. Little he does as a guitarist stands out to me, tone-wise or playing-wise. But that doesn’t mean he’s bad by any means.
I personally don’t like his writing at all. I don’t even like his movie soundtracks. I guess 90125 is an OK pop rock album with some “artsy” touches. But to me, it is a pimple on the butt of what Yes was doing in the 70s. Like others, I consider the two periods really different bands, united only by the financial reality of wanting “Yes” plastered on the cover to increase sales of 90125. I also agree about BG and Talk being diminishing returns. To me, the “YesWest” band said pretty much all they had to say on 90125. But those are just my opinions, mileage varies.
I think Howe was really inventive in the 70s, and brought something really unique and totally singular to rock guitar in that period. After the 70s, he has become almost as generic to me as Rabin. Sometimes you can still tell it’s him, but his tone usually sounds like it came out of a pre-set on a digital processor, and his playing and writing is largely uninteresting, with a few exceptions here and there. Again, YMMV.
Bill
I think you got that wrong. It was Yoko's art. I think it may have been the same piece that caught John's attention. The piece was one where there was a ladder in the gallery. You would climb to the top of the ladder, pick up a magnifying glass and look at a piece of paper that was on the ceiling. The paper had the word "yes." John was pleasantly surprised to see something so simple and positive that it struck him. I could be mistaken, but I think it was the same thing that inspired Yes. Although, I may be mixing up two stories.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
Oh, he was upset indeed. He felt Trevor was overplaying and adding guitar to spaces that Steve had intentionally 'left blank'. I believe "Yours Is No Disgrace" was a major trouble spot. He goes on at some length about it on the Classic Artists DVD, although some seventeen years later, so he describes it in a calm manner. What's interesting too is that a bit later on that same DVD, when discussing the Talk album, Steve seems to almost sympathize a bit with Trevor when describing how he had to shoulder the burden of making that album when someone in the band (*cough*Chris*cough*) was 'unavailable' a lot of the time.
Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.
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Another account has him meeting her at an exhibit of her art (perhaps the same one as where the "yes" piece was displayed), and being intrigued by her "Hammer a Nail" piece ... and still another has Lennon donating his handwritten lyrics to "The Word" for a book ("Notations") that she was helping John Cage put together.
Neither of those is as interesting to me as the "yes" story ... but even if it's the true account, I have no idea whether that incident was the actual inspiration for Peter Banks' notion to name the band "Yes!" ...
The hammer and nail part is from the same exhibit. I've heard the interview a few times and am pretty sure it was the ladder piece that moved John so much. I recall him noting how refreshingly positive it was.
In fact, I think there was also an apple on a pedestal (or something) at the same exhibit. Everyone was invited to take a bite from it.
But, I've digressed a bit too far already.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
On one hand, I've always felt bad for Rabin. He was the frontman of Cinema - his band, his songs. Anderson comes along and suddenly he's in the background. Worse, it's Yes and he's not Steve Howe. On the other hand, I don't think there is any way that a Cinema album would have been as successful as the Yes album, 90125. It was a better business decision.
Well, this has all been a bit predictable, hasn't it?
For a long time I've found it absurd that so many classic Yes fans blame Rabin for why they dislike YesWest, as if it was his fault. In fact, Rabin is the only reason those YesWest albums are any good at all. Moreover, far from diminishing returns, the best tracks they made - by far the best musically and also coincidentally the 'proggiest' - were "Final eyes" (on 'Big Generator'), "Miracle of life" (on 'Union') and "Endless Dream" (on 'Talk', for me that line-up's best album by far). Whereas some of the tracks on '90125' are amongst the poorest stuff that line-up did. So, no, I don't subscribe to the argument of diminishing returns.
Mind you, all of the really worst music ever issued under the Yes brand happens to have Steve Howe playing, or almost playing, on it.
What all this really means is that whether music made by Yes is any good or not doesn't really depend on who is in the band ;-)
Music isn't about chops, or even about talent - it's about sound and the way that sound communicates to people. Mike Keneally
yeeaaaahhhhhhhh but he sure got a lot of mileage (and moolah) out of it. i doubt he would admit to not doing it again if given second chance. i get the feeling he is a very shrewd businessman and was probably 'open' to the idea when it was presented to the band by [chris/brian lane/whomever cooked it up].
I'm very grateful he was a part of Cinema/Yes .
Well I don't agree. You can flag up the handful of 'good' tracks ('I'm Running' is one I'd add, 'Lift Me Up' too) but I can flag up 'Almost Like Love', 'Holy Lamb', 'Big Generator', any number of songs on 'Union', 'State Of Play', 'Where Would We Be' and 'Walls'. These are all worse than anything on '90125' as far as I'm concerned ('City Of Love' isn't my favourite though). And I never blamed Rabin for this.
Last edited by JJ88; 01-17-2014 at 02:05 PM.
^It has one of my own personal pet-hates, that 'pitch bend' thing. So I'm blind to the quality of the song!
I think most of their albums after '90125' have had a hodge-podge quality to them, even though some have strong moments.
Ha! That's what I like about it!
Music isn't about chops, or even about talent - it's about sound and the way that sound communicates to people. Mike Keneally
Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.
*** Join me in the Garden of Delights for 3 hours of tune-spinning... every Saturday at 5pm EST on Deep Nuggets radio! www.deepnuggets.com ***
How do you figure? the 90124 tracks are basically Trevor's home demos of the material that occurred long before the band rehearsals or the proper recording of the songs. He could have changed them numerous times not to mention any contributions or input that Chris, Alan, and Tony may have provided before the band entered the studio with Horn.
There are quite a few changes (no pun) from Trevor's demos to the finished product on 90125* but it's pretty clear who the main songwriter was. What I found most interesting about those demos was that the song "Hold On" was actually assembled from two separate songs. The chorus was from Trevor's own song called "Hold On" (although slightly altered) but the verses and main melody came from one called "Moving In".
I do wonder though who came up with the opening keyboard and resulting theme of "Changes", since Trevor's demo just began with the intro verse. Does anyone else recognize a similar theme in this old commercial btw? :
* - 90125 was originally to be called 90104. This has been a true Progatron FunFact!
Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.
*** Join me in the Garden of Delights for 3 hours of tune-spinning... every Saturday at 5pm EST on Deep Nuggets radio! www.deepnuggets.com ***
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