Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS
Produced by Jeffrey Crecelius, Wayne Hall and Preston Frazier
Joining us on the show this week it’s that man again, Geoff Bailie. The redoubtable gentleman of prog helps us to discuss some written and audio contributions from Jeremy North, John Parry, John Thomson, Simon Barrow and Stephen Lambe. Do you agree with any of us? Let us know!
- What could have happened in 1996-7?
- What if Rick Wakeman had stayed?
- What would we be listening to now?
Listen to the episode and let us know what you think!
Join us as a Patron!
If you would like to support the Yes Music Podcast financially and also have access to exclusive activity and opportunities, there is a special page you can use to sign up and 2020 is the time to join us:
Bag yourself a fabulous piece of YMP history before it’s too late…
Head over to the YMP Emporium to…
- Pre-order a YMP Trivia Card Game ‘The Answer Is Yes!’ – going into production very soon
- Order the unique Full Union art print – available now
Show notes and links:
Join us in August to record episode 500 here:
Lots more details to follow…
YMP Patrons:
Producers:
- Jeffrey Crecelius
- Preston Frazier and
- Wayne Hall
Patrons:
| Aaron Steelman | Dave Owen |
| Mark James Lang | Paul Tomei |
| Joost Maglev | David Heyden |
| Martin Kjellberg | Paul Wilson |
| Bob Martilotta | Lind |
| Michael O’Connor | William Hayes |
| Brian Sullivan | David Pannell |
| Miguel Falcão | Lobate Scarp |
| Chris Bandini | David Watkinson |
| Neal Kaforey | Rachel Hadaway |
| Craig Estenes | Dem |
| Paul Hailes | Mark ‘Zarkol’ Baggs |
| Doug Curran | Robert Nasir |
| Fergus Cubbage | Scott Colombo |
| Fred Barringer | Scott Smith |
| Geoff Bailie | Simon Barrow |
| Geoffrey Mason | Stephen Lambe |
| Guy R DeRome | Steve Dill |
| Henrik Antonsson | Steve Perry |
| Hogne Bø Pettersen | Steve Rode |
| IanNB | Steve Scott |
| Jamie McQuinn | Steven Roehr |
| Ken Fuller | Terence Sadler |
| Michael Handerhan | Tim Stannard |
| Jim | Todd Dudley |
| John Cowan | Tony Handley |
| John Holden | Joseph Cottrell |
| John Parry | Keith Hoisington |
| John Thomson | Barry Gorsky |
| Alan Begg | |
Robert and David
Please subscribe!
If you are still listening to the podcast on the website, please consider subscribing so you don’t risk missing anything:
Subscribe on Android
Listen on Stitcher
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
4 replies on “What If…Keystudio, KTA & KTA II – PART 2 with Geoff Bailie – 472”
Another excellent episode. I like the live Keys tracks a lot more than most people apparently. I need to go back and give them another listen as it has been a while. There is a lot of good material among the studio tracks but my problem with them remains that which I have with a lot of post-Drama Yes music – not enough of Chris being Chris, too many root note 4/4 sections and not enough melodic counterpoint. The parts are beautifully played and his sound is as-ever just perfect but there isn’t a lot there that surprises me in the way that he does on the first ten records. Everyone has a right to reassess their role as an artist but I fear that around 1980 someone had a word in his ear along the lines of “you’re going to have to put a lid on all that weird Baroque stuff if you want to keep selling records”. It’s not like the Keystudio tracks don’t have plenty of room for an unleashed Squire to play out more. It’s probably also the first set of studio recordings where a repetitive, on-the- beat snare started to really bug me on a Yes record . Though mostly I love what Rick does get to contribute on these tracks.
Great show – thanks for engaging so much with listener comments! I’m making it a point to listen to Keystudio a couple more times. (But, please, someone, tell me why they used that horrible photograph. They look like a bunch of old guys trying to look cool at a school reunion.)
The conversation produced a heretical thought. Rick was never going to rejoin the band in any kind of stable way, so the promise of the Keys recordings was always a bit of a pipedream. When he was engaged, he did great things. But as Mark or Geoff pointed out, he had so many things going on. So the Keys recordings were probably always going to be a one-off. Maybe what is amazing about Yes is that they have done so many one-offs (or two-offs?) — Relayer, Drama, Keys, Fly From Here — and in the process have remained a vibrant band. Whatever we think of the Heaven & Earth era Yes, how many other bands have carried off this longevity?
I loved this episode. I have to say that I love Mark too so the feeling’s mutual.
As you said Kevin, the thing about YES fans is that the opinions differ. While mine may have been at one extreme and other at the other, I feel I need to flesh out why I said what I did.
I bought the Keys CD as it came out not retrospectively and expected something great, same with the second a short while later. In both cases I felt that the live recordings were meant to suck us in to buying them because the new material wasn’t good enough. That was, I felt to be the case. The new material while ok was pretty bland compared to earlier periods. That continued into their later music too.
I put it down to two factors. Firstly I’d significantly opened my ears to ‘classical’ music and secondly, YES had started to prat about with their MOJO changing members and styles. Face it, Steve and Rick were never great songwriters. I still say that YES never did anything really good since Talk.
However, I was pleased to hear that I think I was not alone in my opinion of the cash grab that YES were on. I think that the majority of the other opinions of the Keys new music was that it was iffy and sometimes OK but they were far more polite than was I
I love you guys, I love this community.
Simon Barrow’s observations speak for me! Thanks everyone for a great episode!