It’s Music Monday here at the RollerBlog and it is a Yes kind of a day.  As loyal readers of this blog already know, I am a big fan of Yes.  RollerReggie and I bought tickets to see Yes in concert last year and we were extremely disappointed when the tour was canceled.  The good news is that Yes is on tour again, and they’ll be here in Seattle this month.  This time the band will be without lead singer Jon Anderson, so we are still debating whether or not we are going to buy tickets.

What do you think - should we go?

While you mull it over, feel free to rock out to this live footage of “Roundabout”:

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Hey Yes fans!

I found out over the weekend that Yes, one of my favorite bands from the seventies, is going on tour this summer. And, yes, they are stopping in Seattle on August 15, and, yes, Mr. Rollerblog and I have already purchased tickets.

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

Ok, I’m am done screaming now. As you were.

Lest you think this is some sick April Fool’s joke, check out the Tour Dates for Yes on the yesworld web site.

This weekend the RollerBlog clan journeyed to the Olympic Peninsula for our annual camping adventure. Normally we Rollerbloggers are exceptionally planny people. Not so this year. When we finally got around to making reservations a month ago, alas, there were no camping spots to be found that fit our specifications. So we invited ourselves over to my cousin’s place outside of Port Angeles and “camped” in her front yard.

We spent a lot of time driving around in our car this weekend. Driving over the new Tacoma Narrows bridge, driving to my cousin’s house, driving to the beach, driving to Marymere Falls, driving to Hurricane Ridge, driving, driving, driving. To pass the time, we amused ourselves by listening to Artemis Fowl and the Arctic Incident on CD. An altogether pleasant way to pass the time. When we weren’t listening to stories of fairies, the Russian Mafia, and the youngest criminal mastermind in history, we rocked out to Yes.

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I’ve recently become an ardent Yes fan. So, naturally, I have been inflicting my latest musical infatuation on anyone who happens to be riding in the car with me. This weekend I had an audience that was conveniently trapped in the car for hours on end that included my brother (pictured at right), my husband Mr. RollerBlog, and my son RollerBoy. To give my family credit, they patiently indulged my Yes whims. Of course the fact that I was driving along particularly dangerous and windy roads may have had something to do with it…

We had two Yes moments this weekend. The first Yes moment occurred while we were driving alongside Lake Crescent, and I popped in The Yes Album. It was one of those surreal musical moments, where everyone on the car was absorbed in the music, their own thoughts, and the picturesque beauty of the lake as it rolled by outside the car windows.

The second Yes moment happened once we were back in town and eating a fine meal at one of our favorite local eateries, the Elliott Bay Brewery Pub in Burien. As we were absorbed with hungrily consuming fries, a chicken gyro, fish tacos, and a bleu cheese bacon burger, Yes came on the the restaurant’s stereo. A fitting end to the weekend.

Tags Olympic National Park . Olympic Peninsula . Marymere Falls . Hurricane Ridge . Yes . camping . Elliott Bay Brewery Pub

The first time I heard of the band Yes was a few months ago when my husband, Mr Rollerblog, went through Yes phase and began buying their albums like they were going out of style. One day I was surprised to find that we suddenly had nine Yes albums in our collection. Mr Rollerblog is a musician who grew up listening to Yes and other progressive rock bands in the 1970s, and who credits bass player Chris Squire with inspiring him to play the bass guitar. My husband and I don’t always have the same tastes in music, but I decided that I would at least give Yes a try.

So. I have spent the past three days listening to Yes all day, and every day. Yes songs have been running through my head, and at night they have been running through my dreams. At some moments I found myself cringing, other moments laughing out loud, and yet other moments lustily singing along with the lyrics. But most of all, I found myself reveling in pure seventies rockdom.

Yes is the über seventies band: long rocker hair, high vocals and epic science fiction-themed songs lasting 20 minutes or more, with funk-fusion experimental jams on the one hand and jangly sixties era-inspired folky pop on the other. The log below chronicles my journey through five Yes albums from 1970-4.

Favorite Yes Songs: Sweet Dreams, Astral Traveler, Time and a Word, The Prophet, I’ve Seen All Good People, Starship Trooper, Roundabout, The entire Fragile album

The Yes Chronicles

Time and a Word - 1970
Although this album typically gets the worst reviews, it is my favorite one. Time and a Word features over-the-top orchestral accompaniment by strings and horns that at times is undeniably corny – but I think that’s why I like it so much. The songs are short and accessible (as compared with some of their more experimental later 70s work).

The opening song “No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed” begins the album with a wall of massive orchestrated sound, complete with dramatic melodies and a random Western-inspired theme halfway through the song. In the ballad “Clear Days” lead singer John Anderson dabbles in the higher reaches of his vocal range (I swear I thought they had a female vocalist the first time I heard the song). My favorite songs on the album, “Sweet Dreams” and “Time and a Word,” are catchy and sweet. (Who can argue with the lyrics “There’s a time and the time is now…there’s a word and the word is love” ? Awwwww…..)

The Yes Album – 1971
In The Yes Album the quintessential Yes sound begins to emerge. My favorite songs on this album are “I’ve Seen All Good People” and “Starship Trooper”.

Fragile – 1972
My second-favorite Yes album, and the album that catapulted Yes into stardom. Fragile does not include any strings or horns but rocks all that much harder for it. The song lengths also start to get longer, creeping up to 8 and 10 minutes in some cases, but the songs are interesting and have a driving bass line to keeps me rocking all the way through.

It’s hard to pick a favorite song on this one, as I like to listen to the album as a whole, but “Roundabout” comes close (this YouTube video shows some old-school live footage – complete with a keyboardist Rick Wakeman sporting a glittering cape!). If the song “Heart of Sunrise” sounds familiar, it’s undoubtedly due to a memorable scene from the movie Buffalo ’66 in which the song is featured prominently.

Close to the Edge – 1972
Tales from Topographic Oceans - 1974
In these albums the songs start to get almost unbearably long – Close to the Edge includes only 3 songs (one is 18 minutes long) and Tales includes 4 songs that are all about 20 minutes long. There is more of an Eastern, mystical influence in the music, as well as the occasional poppy melodic interlude. When I listen to these albums my mind wanders and I tend to forget that I am listening to music altogether.

Relayer – 1974
Background music Relayer is not. This album is where Yes starts to get really weird. Like the previous two albums, Relayer includes a few very long songs, but unlike the previous two albums the songs wander into discordant and jarring musical zones. “Adventurous” and “experimental” are terms frequently used to describe this album. I listened to it once and that’s more than enough for me.

Note - I have to give my friend Trent credit as the inspiration for the title of this blog post. He advised me to “Say ‘No’ to Yes,” which I politely disagree with, but I thank him for the inspiration just the same.

Tags: Yes . Progressive Rock . Time and a Word . Fragile . Buffalo ‘66 . Roundabout