40 Year Itch : A Moment's Answer To The Dream

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When I was writing "Close to the Edge" With Steve (Howe), I was reading a lot about spirituality and how it stretches across the entire world. There's a connection, like all rivers lead to the same ocean, so I thought, you know, "close to the edge, down by the river". And it's like people say "Close to the Edge" is about  disaster, but no , it's about realization! We're on this journey and the only reason we live is to find the divine. To find God from within 

   -Jon Anderson

interviewed by Sea Of Tranquility

   As previously stated just this week,  there was a time when people would set the needle down and really listen to side long symphonic rock tracks like "Close to the Edge" . To me it  sounds for the first few minutes like every idea these stellar musicians ever had got tossed into a blender. Ah! But that's just one half of one movement. Things get funky, then ethereal, then churchy and then the whole thing drives down the autobahn in a tank before crashing into a tree full of birds.

    "For You And I" is lovely. The second of its four movements, "Eclipse" was released as a single in the US and just missed cracking the Top 40. Finally there's 9 minutes of the vigorous "Siberian Khatru". I listen in awe to the bass lines of Chris Squire. ( But sometimes I get the feeling that's the whole point of Yes: "Be in awe of  us!").

This would be the last album to feature Bruford who quit Yes to join King Crimson just days before a US tour. Enter Alan White to the rescue ( see interview) who had to learn how to play these oddly tempo'd tunes. Yes would spend years trying to top Close To The Edge. The band has their moments but this, The Yes Album and Fragile are still the highlights in my opinion.

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5 Albums Every Boarding School Kid Had in 1978 (except me)

It was the fall of 1978. I was 13 years old. My dad dropped me off at my boarding school. I had what he had when his father dropped him off: six Brooks Brothers button down shirts, three white, three blue; two pairs of gray flannels and three pairs of khaki trousers, a tweed jacket, a blue blazer, half a dozen ties.
One pair of loafers. One pair of sneakers. An extra pillow. A bathrobe.
As my dad was leaving, a limousine pulled up. Another 13 year old emerged. He watched the chauffeur carry in suitcase after suitcase, boxes upon boxes and a stereo system so immense he could only carry one component at a time.
Man, I was in over my head from day one.
As I struggled with my studies, I heard the muffled sounds of the same five albums emanating from every room. Here now: the 5 albums every boarding school boy owned in the fall of 1978.

1.Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon



2. Yes - Fragile



3. Led Zeppelin - ZOSO



4. Boston -Boston



5. Fleetwood Mac - Rumours



OK So there aren't any surprises here. It's a sensible list of sensible albums, exactly what you might expect from future Wall Street titans, lawyers, doctors and CEO's. And they all sounded amazing on those monumental stereo systems.
How did I know I was in trouble?
My 1978 collection of cassettes (that I played in mono) ...in a future post....

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6 Songs with Alan White #6 YES "Owner of a Lonely Heart" 1983

Released in 1983, the single "Owner of a Lonely Heart" is the only #1 hit for Yes in the U.S. It came from the album 90125 which marked the return of Jon Anderson to the band (guitarist Steve Howe was still off on other projects), and featured the production of The Buggles's ("Video Killed The Radio Star") Trevor Horn, who would later form Art of Noise. South African guitarist Trevor Rabin was the newest addition to the band.

Alan: We had Trevor Rabin come into the band and he had a slightly more commercial songwriting style. But we added all those background rhythms and bass parts and keyboard parts and that made it into something else.So (90125) was a combination of being more commercial but still coming up with something different.

Yes recorded the Grammy winning instrumental "Cinema" in one take. But the album barely topped 40 minutes and as sessions drew to an end, the band needed one more song.

Alan: And Trevor Rabin came up to me and said "I've got this song
and it might work. I don't know."
So I went around to his apartment that night and i listened to it and I was like "No, we can do that. Why don't we try it tomorrow?"
And we tried it, and it started to gel, and it sounded really, really good
and Trevor Horn said we needed to do it properly.

To get what would become known as the Art of Noise sound, Horn wanted to isolate Alan's drums not just from the rest of the band, but each drum from the rest of the drum kit. That came as a surprise to Alan.


One of the recording engineers came in and took away the cymbals and I said "What are you doing?"
He said "No. He wants you just to do it with the drums and then we'll put the cymbals in later."
So I said "O.K." and we tried it like that.
Next thing he comes in and he takes all the tom toms away so I had a bass drum, a snare drum and high hat.
and I was playing that and then he came in and took the high hat away.
I just had the bass drum and snare drum and that's how we started the song.
We filled the rest in later.

As we wrapped up our time with Alan, 1001Songs had to admit how impressed we were with his ability to play so many time signatures at the same time. After all 1001Songs can't even tap the steering wheel in time to any song. At all.

Alan:You've got to have independence between your limbs . Number One:
you've got to get this hand to do one thing while the other one does something else and the same with your legs. Then it becomes a mind thing.
You must be able to play one rhythm but listen to another one at the same time.It might be the Gemini in me. it might be the two people inside me, but it's like you just have to split your head and be able to coordinate your limbs and just feel it as well.

Sounds like it might take a lot of practice

Alan: The answer is just to play odd rhythms like 5/4, 7/4, 9/4 but it make it feel like people can dance to it.

I'll get right on it.
Thanks to Alan White. Yes's newest album Fly From Here will be released July 12 in the US.

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6 Songs with Alan White #5 "Siberian Khatru (live) " 1973

In his third year as a session and touring drummer Alan White shared an apartment with Yes and Emerson Lake and Palmer recording engineer Eddy Offord. One night Offord invited White to stop by a sewing shop on the West End of London where he met the members of Yes.



Alan: They were actually rehearsing for Close To The Edge and they were playing and (drummer) Bill Bruford had to leave because he was going to dinner with somebody.And Eddy said "Well Alan can play the drums.Why don't you play the song (Siberian Khatru) so everybody can go through it?" So it's basically bar of 8, bar of 7 intro and I was quite used to that because of the band I was playing in so I just got into it and played it and they all kind of went "He knows how to do this stuff".

Skip ahead two to three week later: Bill Bruford has left the band to join King Crimson. Alan is finishing up a European tour with Joe Cocker when he gets a phone call.



Alan:(Jon Anderson said) "We want you to join the band. We know you can do this. Just listen to the music", and he said "This is the set list."
  He said "We've got a gig on Monday in Dallas, Texas" and I said "Are you joking? I can't learn all this stuff in that time."
   He said "We just have to go for it" so that's what I did.

Alan smack in the middle of Yes, 1973


By this time Yes had already recorded five albums including two classics, The Yes Album and Close to the Edge. Alan had his work cut out for him.



Alan: It's not like riding a bicycle like some songs.When you play songs like ( the 19 minute )"Close to the Edge" or "Tempus Fugit" from Drama, those songs are just a whole thing you have to go through. Lots of mood changes and different tempos. You just have to,over the years, get it into your head.

It always seemed a bit unfair to Alan that Yes recorded its three disc live album (Yessongs) and concert film on his first tour. But as he approaches 40 years with the band, he says he doesn't spend much time looking back.




Alan: Yes has always been a great vehicle for me to study and move forward. This is the kind of band that doesn't look at the horizon. They always try to see over it and try to create something new. And that, to me, presents a kind of challenge that I like to take on. I always like something new to go for.

Next: "Owner of a Lonely Heart"

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6 Songs with Alan White: #1 "Cold Turkey" live in Toronto 1969

Best known as the drummer of Yes for more than 30 years, Alan White has also played on some of the greatest recordings in rock history. 1001Songs asked Alan to talk about six of those recordings, beginning with the concert that helped John Lennon decide he didn't need The Beatles anymore.

Alan was only twenty years old when he heard John and Yoko had seen one of his London gigs with his band, Blue Chips.

I got a call the next day saying "I saw you playing last night."
He said "You're really good".
He said "I got a gig for you.Do you want to come and jump into it 'cuz we wont have any time for rehearsals?"
I thought it was a friend of mine just making a joke on me so I put the phone down. I got a call about ten minutes later. He said "No! It's really me." And at that time I almost fell off my chair.


The next day Alan walked into a room and met John and Yoko and bass player Klaus Voorman ( from Manfred Mann. He also designed The Beatles Revolver album)

John said "I forgot to tell you. Eric Clapton's playing guitar and I went (surprised facial expression) "Oh really?"

That day they boarded the plane from London to Toronto.

We went to the back of the plane. There was nobody on the plane
at the back. So two acoustic guitars ( Eric and John). He gave me a set of drumsticks and I played on the back of the seat in front of me and that was the rehearsal for the show.

They landed and got to the Toronto gig with just 45 minutes to spare.

I didn't get any nerves at all about any of that. And I was flung right into this, and it's called "Rising to the Occasion". You just deal with it.
The only thing that perturbed me a little bit is when we got there, Little Richard was on stage, which was incredible, and Gene Vincent was walking around backstage.

The stage crew helped build a drum set for Alan.

John went 1-2-3-4 and that was it.

The set contained a number of rock standards John and Eric knew. "Blue Suede Shoes", "Money" and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy". Then Yoko began singing.



That's the other thing I found very strange because we were in the middle of a number and she got in a bag and laid on the floor at John's feet and was screaming into the microphone. I kept thinking it the feedback coming back from the speakers.

Alan is second from the left, between Klaus and Yoko.

Alan on far left, EC, Klaus and John & Yoko



TOMORROW: "Instant Karma"

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