Forgot to mention that I've seen Yes on about eight or nine occasions and they've never ever been anything less than superb.

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with sssoul
hm well i confess: for me it depends on which Yes we're talking about, and/or which parts.

true. 1971-1972 yes is cooler than 1989-present stones.

Yes was fantastic for that three album run from The Yes Album through Close to the Edge. For about four years there, I couldn't get their triple live LP Yessongs off my turntable. The interplay between Howe and Squire was particularly riveting.

But then came Topographic Oceans, their first album without Bruford, wherein they lost all sense of how to write a hook, a melody, a song, etc. Things got only a tad better with Relayer. Then the bloody solo albums (Anderson's Olias of Sunhillow may be the worst album I ever bought). The big comeback with Wankman, Going for the One, was OK, but did anyone really care after Tormato?

So I'd have to respond to your question in the affirmative. About the only old school prog that still does it for me is the Fripp-Cross-Wetton-Bruford lineup of King Crimson.

To answer bassplayer's question, No, it is not cool to like Yes. It hasn't been cool to like Yes since the advent of Punk, but among the kids I went to school with in the early and mid-1970s, they were as popular, and as cool, as the Who.

MY NOT COOL TO LIKE BANDS

YES
STYX
REO SPEEDWAGON
AIR SUPPLY
RICHARD MARX

Now that's some real annoying music.

PECMAN

Yes, it is not cool.

Pecman, if you aren't a bassplayer, then you just don't get it. Chris Squire is in my list of all-time faves (and influences), so when I listen to Yes, my perspective is narrowed to what he is playing.

Given that, I will maintain that it IS cool to listen to Yes. They do NOT belong in that list you provided. They DO belong in a list that would include Emerson Lake & Palmer (Greg Lake), King Crimson (Tony Levin) and Rush (Geddy Lee).

smile: i'm not a bass player either, but i dug Squire's playing on the way-early stuff just fine.
i can still sing some of his bass lines, in fact ... but i'll spare you. :E
maybe you could point out some of the parts that groove you a lot -
holding stuff up to the light so that other people can see how fine it is is a great gift.

Are Yes hippies? Not more hippies than ELP. I listened to "Tales from.." and "Relayer" but they didn`t make me curious for more.

Jefferson Airplane is the band. Now they`ve finally reached me after all these years...

Hi Bassplayer617,

No offense taken either way, I just don't dig male singers who sound female...and yes you are correct...Geddy Lee belongs on that list.

I am not talking about individual talent here...Chris Squire is a great bass player...no doubt...but he is a progressive bass player...not a groovin' bass player.

My point is that if I am in a bar, club, or a party...one of the last things I would ever want to hear is the bands I listed...and if the music doesn't fit any of those situations, then I wouldn't classify it as "cool".

But I like some nonsense too so what do I know.......

PECMAN

Yes is allright. Like many others said,their early stuff is good. I saw them once. But they are an acquired taste. If you dig them BAssplayer than that's all that matters.

"It's just some friends of mine and they're busting down the door"

To be honest : Very uncool,including such horrible bands named Genesis,Supertramp,
EmersonLake&Palmer to mention a few.

But if you like them : Feel free to do , don´t be ashamed !

Stones and Yes are kind of at the opposite end of the rock spectrum. Not sure, what response was expected, but unless he's wearing his "Tormato Tour" t-shirt everyday to work I don't think "coolness" factors in too much. Like what you want, cool shouldn't factor in.

Hmmm I actually thought I wrote a fairly lengthy post here...Oh well me and my buddies from the scrap metal place left work Friday night, cruised around and met some girls at the Dairy Queen. The girls took one car and followed us and everybody went back to Butchie's house where we were up partying late last night, sorry I sound a little punchy - Talk about synchonicity right? As soon as Butchie dropped "Topographic Oceans" on his turntable, well, things got pretty wild, everybody up, and at one point all of us were singing really loud with "The Recealing Science Of God", drunk, and surely out of tune but who the hell cared It was all right dancing to the fine fine music my life was saved by rock and roll.
Yes were indeed cool within the mid-teen set from 1971 - 74, and happily they also made their best records during the period it was cool to like them. I don't listen to them much any more but at 12? They were BRILLIANT! On a tangible level, Bill was a brilliant drummer with chops but more importantly style, Squire and Howe too blazed through "Siberian Khatru", and a long segment from "Fragile" I can't remember the title(s) of (Squire maybe co-wwrote). Other reasons I loved them: the songs (increasingly) seemed hard to play, which was a value of mine then, and the lyrics were Poetic. Now at the time Id never read any poetry, but they helpfully always included the words inside the Roger Dean gatefolds so I felt a little dumb, that even though - or perhaps this confirmed my opinion - I could make neither hide nor hair out of their intricate tapestries of Word, it must have taken great artistry to write "Perpetual Change when everybody else was singing Baby This, baby that, baby please don't go, or I'm back in the saddle, baby I love you.
The coolness quickly evaporated for many with "Topographic". Alan White seemed wrong for Yes, the 80 minute behemoth lacked the rhythmic drive and structural cohesion of earlier long (not THIS long) tracks. The music meandered, without a centre, every 10 or 125 minutes a pretty melody appeared out of nowhere and wake you up muttering "innaresting testures....hmmm" only to disappear agin. And then they toured to stadiums playing ALL FOUR 20 minute tracks (that's 80 min topographic nonstop)from the double whopper CONSECUTIVLY....Oh Wakeman was back with his long flowing hair and long floor length cape covered in white christmas tree bulbs, the kind people drape over their hedges xmas season, so there was at least something compelling to see as he swung his hair as he swept from one keyboard to another. One could argue they were refusing to compromise their visionary art by interrupting the flow with a familiar song or two. One could argue hubris. Look I WAS TWELVE. It LOOKED like ART. Please believe me I had never seen a painting in person! Never read poetry! Nor did anyone in my life listen to classical music, and YES seemed like HARD to UNDERSTAND yet INVIGORATING during '71-72. I did educate myself, really, pretty soon after!
I'M SORRY!!! Please, OH JESUS NOT THE WATERBOARD!!!
Question, What Is Tales From TopO ABOUT????? I do sense great depths of knowledge revealed to the initiated, we've descended into the ocean so far down I feel crampy, so deep it's hard to see anything in the blackness, we're trying to find something in PURE MURK. Cavaet (sp): One may be 'cool' for liking Relayer. Howe & Squire really kick ass, got pretty violent on this late album, who cares Moraz replaced Wakeman, side 1 is as uncommercial as any record to reach # 4, full of intense interplay, dazzling passages, sometimes harsh, even dissonant, full of turmoil and heat. (Just ignore the words)
The lost the cool thing with "Going For The One" not because it was a terrible record (tho you felt their moment over - punk etc laughed at it) but because the cover looked like a RUSH album. PS By the time Bruford left Yes for King Crimson I was getting a little wiser, and felt something genuine and unaffected over at the Court of the K.C. Really, "Starless" "USA" and the raw power "Red" wipe the floor with "Tormato"

lot in your post, john, to respond to--like, was it just last night you picked up some chicks at the DQ, or was that a tale from the early 70s? But more specifically...

"because the cover looked like a RUSH album."
what's the difference between Yes and Rush?

Saw them at MSG in NY back in the late 70's and it was a great show. Lots of drugs being taken back then. Round stage in the middle, good sound, a solid live band.

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Pecman


My point is that if I am in a bar, club, or a party...one of the last things I would ever want to hear is the bands I listed...and if the music doesn't fit any of those situations, then I wouldn't classify it as "cool".
.

If you were at a bar and had already had a few brews and "Renegade" by styx came on are you sure you wouldn't get into it? Think about it dude.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-08-16 23:12 by ryanpow.

Dif between Rush & Si ? Yes wrote better melodies, the core (to me) Howe/Bruford/Squire are more interesting and distinctive than Rush. Also the feel of the usic (Yes) is more natural, it breathes more. Thus at best Yes can rock. The Rush sound (havent heard them since 1980 or so) rigid, forced, weirdly uptight. And you may have to overlook Yes' lyrics or the keyboardists excesses (especially Wakeman) That singer in Rush is such an annoyance that like an howling injured dog or screaming baby one cannot swalk arout it and admire the fauna. And in the case of Yes you are allowed to not know what the hell they're singing about tho it's obviously not going to get you through the the ups & downs of life. Rush ENUNCIATE, forcing their rather simpleminded 'ideas' in your face. . If robots from Saturn came and formed a rock band - phonetically shall we say - then tortured a cat to make it screech into the microphone, could be Rush. Yes offered passages with lovely textures or solid, enjoyable grooves.

Yes, excellent musicians, just a different kind of music I don't really care for.

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john r
Oh well me and my buddies from the scrap metal place left work Friday night, cruised around and met some girls at the Dairy Queen. The girls took one car and followed us and everybody went back to Butchie's house where we were up partying late last night, sorry I sound a little punchy - Talk about synchonicity right? As soon as Butchie dropped "Topographic Oceans" on his turntable, well, things got pretty wild.

Butchie's mom was hot.

I saw them for the first time on the 90125 tour and was blown away, I thought it may have been one of the best shows I'd ever seen.

Then saw them on the Big Generator tour, and it was downright awful, I couldn't believe how much a band could put on a fantastic tour one year, and a couple later be absolutely horrible.

Then saw them on the Union Tour, which topped 90125 in my opinion. Haven't seen them since, and quite honestly can't imagine it could get any better than that.

Prog sux. Technical expertise, no soul. Anti-Keith.

It's nice music, but you are not going to get an abundance of Chuck Berry licks. I guess if I wanted something like Yes, I would probably opt for Roxy Music.

Don't mean to offend anybody...but if you are on this board...you probably have excellent taste in music and understand how the Stones are an all around band having done the Blues, R&B, R&R, Doo Wop, Psychadelic (spelled wrong - I know), Rock, Country, Disco, Funk, Soul, Jazz, Reggae, etc....

The one thing Mick & Keith never tried to do is PROGRESSIVE ROCK...Correct?

So if Renegade by STYX comes on the radio at a bar I'm at...I either take a piss or split...

Again, YES is NOT COOL TO LIKE...how many great bands/artists like the Stones, Aerosmith, Eagles, GNR, Eric Clapton, U-2, etc etc...have ever covered songs by STYX, RUSH, YES, ELP, etc...?

Not a chance...and there's a reason for that...

PECMAN

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Pecman
Don't mean to offend anybody...but if you are on this board...you probably have excellent taste in music and understand how the Stones are an all around band having done the Blues, R&B, R&R, Doo Wop, Psychadelic (spelled wrong - I know), Rock, Country, Disco, Funk, Soul, Jazz, Reggae, etc....

The one thing Mick & Keith never tried to do is PROGRESSIVE ROCK...Correct?

So if Renegade by STYX comes on the radio at a bar I'm at...I either take a piss or split...

Again, YES is NOT COOL TO LIKE...how many great bands/artists like the Stones, Aerosmith, Eagles, GNR, Eric Clapton, U-2, etc etc...have ever covered songs by STYX, RUSH, YES, ELP, etc...?

Not a chance...and there's a reason for that...

PECMAN

Lack of musical ability, for a start.

Ronnie even has trouble trying to play some Stones songs!

well... one of my problems with the '73 tour is that it occasionally veers toward potential prog territory, when taylor plays without a leash and Billy's organ is high in the mix, which is often. The sax on "YCAGWYW" also tends to have a lite sound that is very un-Stonesy. It's not so much that this is bad music--and there are isolated aspects of prog that I like, however usually when they are filtered into non-prog bands--but that it doesn't sound like the Stones, which can be unnerving, but also exciting. The cover of IORR also has the pseudo-exalted quality of prog art. Or does it mock this? Hard for me to tell, as a latecomer. One of the nice things about Black and Blue is how it lays these themes to rest. Though only having 8 songs smacks of proggishness, too.

but Styx is just terrible.

" I guess if I wanted something like Yes, I would probably opt for Roxy Music."

Don't EVER compare the great Roxy Music to Yes....

No!

LOGIE.

If there is anybody in the STONES who could handle Progressive Rock it would have been Ron Wood back in the day...that aside...

I'm amazed how many guitar players around the world could sit at the end of their beds and play note for note ERUPTION from Van Halen or Stairway from Zep LIMELIGHT from RUSH, or IRON MAIDEN, YES, whatever...but nobody could play anything on EXILE FROM MAIN STREET note for note...

And YES is still NOT COOL to like................


PECMAN



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-08-19 01:00 by Pecman.

"If there is anybody in the STONES who could handle Progressive Rock it would have been Ron Wood back in the day...that aside..."

Please explain???????