Nov 192011
Sounds of the Hall in roughly 33 1/3 minutes!
In this week’s edition of Saturday Night Shut-In a thankful Mr. Moderator plays a varied mix of old, not quite as old, and even fairly new, reflecting along the way on electronics and Jimi Hendrix, who would have had a birthday later this month.
[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/RTH-Saturday-Night-Shut-In-54.mp3|titles=RTH Saturday Night Shut-In, episode 54][Note: The Rock Town Hall feed will enable you to easily download Saturday Night Shut-In episodes to your digital music player. In fact, you can even set your iTunes to search for an automatic download of each week’s podcast.]
A nice show, Mod. Thanks for the shout out and the Go-Betweens song. It literally brought tears to my eyes (I still grieve the death of Grant McLennan, sappy though it is). The Yes tunes were familiar – I was a big fan in high school and probably haven’t listened to those songs since then. Thanks for playing them.
Here’s an earlier Go-Betweens song from an album that you might like.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9NI1BgYP6Y
Good show and thanks for the kudos. You picked one of my all-time favorite Yes songs, too. Not only does it have Howe, but also Chris Squire and Bill Bruford as one of the great rhythm sections. This track is proof that Yes could rock as heavy as anyone when they felt like it.
That’s a good song. I’d never heard of that album. I’ll have to seek it out. Thanks.
When I listen to Yes now I wonder if I missed a worthwhile “escape route” from teenage life when they were in their prime. I never got into prog-rock, fantasy fiction, etc. As I got into my early 20s I would realized that Yes, like those Lord of the Rings movies in my 30s, were a convincing fantasy world. I don’t regularly listen to more than maybe 6 of their songs (totaling 4 hours), but they lay into their licks and they’ve got a pleasing underlying Beatles-style hippie ethos.
I discovered Yes when I was 16 and I subsequently saw them live a couple times in their prime – they could do all that complex music on stage without tapes or recorded tracks, just their awesome musicianship. Here’s everything that’s great about Yes in one single 8:56 track from 1972’s Close to the Edge:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0HnIr6jYWU
Can’t help it and no offense to tony and those who love their Yes: I hear 20 seconds of Jon Anderson’s keening and the endless squoodly-diddleying of the band, and I am sprinting for the exit, so stay the heck out of my way. Absolute fingernails on the blackboard for me. “Hey, wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?” Cue “Starship Trooper.”
As ear-unfriendly as that Renaldo and the Loaf track, though? Not quite.
I felt like you did until I saw them. You really had to see them live, misterioso, preferably in the round. I can’t imagine anyone was capable of liking them before seeing them. Maybe they kind of apply to the See Me, Hear Me thread. Seeing Anderson in a cream-colored dashiki/pouffy shirt playing tambourine during 8-minute instrumental breaks put him in an oddly heroic light. Lots of other weird stuff made more sense, too.
(nodding dubiously)Uh huh.
Even though I hang on your every word and agree with most of your opinions, Mr M, I am squarely with Misterioso here.
Mrs Happiness came with me to Glastonbury once and got heatstroke (it can occasionally happen), and decided she never wanted to go again. When Yes (enough of the classic line-up to make it an event) played she asked if I could go and listen to them on her behalf, and take a couple of nice photos. I had considerable misgivings, but as the weekend wore on I had got myself into a nice mellow open-minded place, and got down the front ready to understand what I had missed in all of the years I had sworn to all who would listen that Yes were the worst and most heinous crime ever to have been inflicted on music. I thought of all the other acts I had disliked before seeing and was then converted by a belter of a set.
So there I was, and on they marched, and I felt the frisson I always get in the presence of legends about to do their thing.
And then they started playing.
I can remember the lump in my stomach forming and twisting as the horrible, horrible, horrible noodly noodly noodling started. I looked around for an escape route and decided that the best thing I could do would be to get out of earshot, preferably before Jon Anderson opened his mouth.
I don’t run, anywhere, ever, but by walking extremely quickly I managed to get out of earshot of the Jazz World Stage in just under 45 seconds. I still shiver whenever I think about it.