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From a time when Yes was West and ABWH – Episode 195

Yes Magazine
Yes Magazine Volume 2 Number 2

In the absence of the ‘happening’ I was expecting this week, I have looked at another of Carl Coppage’s brilliant Yes Magazine scans – this one from January 1990 when Trevor Rabin was leading ‘Yes West’ and ABWH were ebarking on a tour of the US.

  • What can we learn about Yes West vs. ABWH?
  • Did it look like ABWH would continue into a second album?
  • What about Rabin’s Yes West? Were there long-term plans? Did they have a singer?

Listen to the episode and then let me know what you think!

 

Show notes and links

 

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Theme music

The music I use is the last movement of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite. This has been used as introduction music at many Yes concerts. My theme music is not take from a live concert – I put it together from the following two creative commons sources: thanvannispen and archive.org

9 replies on “From a time when Yes was West and ABWH – Episode 195”

Kevin : Hello, and sorry to have been “MIA” for so long ! (This is my first Post since my New Mexico sojourn, glad to be
back, and I will e-mail you shortly regarding some excellent new memorabilia goodies I’ve just purchased on Ebay).

Regarding the “missing” ABWH Live album from this period….I think another factor in the scarcity of Live YES albums
in the 80’s and 90’s was simply the fact that they didn’t sell well, and perhaps Atlantic and Arista didn’t feel it was
worth the production costs, relative to the sales of studio albums from the period (Had YESSHOWS sold that poorly ?)
Although both ABWH and UNION both went Gold, compared to the Platinum and Triple Platinum sales of 90125
and Big Generator, they both were relative “flops” by the standards of the 80’s and early 90’s.

Regarding the ABWH Rehearsal witnessed by the Gottlieb Brothers, there is a pretty decent-quality bootleg
video available of that footage, which is worth checking out, if you can find it… Here’s a Youtube link which
shows Part 2 of the Rehearsal :

Good to be back, and I see I have quite a few episodes to catch up on. Keep up the good work, and as
always thanks for your Tireless efforts with the Podcast !

– Carl Coppage

P.S. : The “New Logo” mentioned in the Roger Dean interview is in fact the “Box Logo” which later surfaced
on the YesYears Box Set, as well as the LADDER album !

Wow! Thanks for that YouTube link! I wondered if that box logo was what Dean was on about – makes a lot of sense. Can’t wait to see your new acquisitions! Thanks Carl.

Hello Kevin,

Once again another interesting episode. Personally I enjoyed both bands but years later find that the Yeswest stuff has aged better. I think that although ABWH sounded more in the classic Yes style song wise, the sound of the production places it very much in the 80s. The same can’t be said of 90125, Big Generator and especially Talk which all sounded years ahead of its time.
Looking forward to the next episode.

Mark Anthony K

Oh one other thing…i checked out the link to that ABWH rehearsal and it’s pretty edited compared to the version I have. The one I got through the Yesfans board is fairly complete with whole versions of songs. I’m thinking there must be an alternative version on YouTube somewhere.

Thanks for an interesting episode. I did want to mention that Steve does appear on “Open Your Eyes” more than just two songs–he appears on every song. All the lead guitar parts on the album are his–a bit like ABWH. Steve has talked about in interviews how the album was hard for he and Jon “to muscle in on.” I think Steve just doesn’t care for the process of “here are some songs–write guitar parts for them.” This was essentially what happened, but Steve understood that the group needed to tour, and needed an album to tour with. They didn’t want to release an album with Rick and not tour with him. When that album (entitled “Know”) was scrapped and the recordings for it released as KTA2, Steve agreed to “take one for the team.” All of this is covered in Yes Magazine from the time, in addition to the long defunct “Yes Information Service” newsletter–the latter of which I wish I had kept copies!

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