For no particularly good reason, other than I like it, I’ve been listening to a bunch of fusion and prog-rock lately (I find it good to have on while working), which meant that coincidentally, I’ve heard a bunch of Chick Corea in the days before his death. That’s just an aside to the main point of this piece which is about an almost forgotten fusion album, Mainstream by Quiet Sun.
I remember being introduced to Phil Manzanera’s music in college by someone at WPRB. Although aware of Roxy Music, I didn’t know the names of anyone in the band other than Bryan Ferry, but I learned that Manzanera was the guitarist, and that I liked his solo work better than Roxy. I’ve written about that, and about Manzanera’s background here—and even mentioned both Mainstream and our wonderfully titled featured song—so I won’t repeat myself too much.
As I wrote there, when Manzanera booked studio time in 1975 to record his first solo album, Diamond Head, he reunited his school band, Quiet Sun, to record some music they had previously worked on, but never recorded formally, before the group disbanded in 1972. This was not just a bunch of kids bashing around in their garage, but a talented group of musicians influenced by the Canterbury Scene. In fact, bass player Bill MacCormick had befriended Robert Wyatt (the son of a friend of his mother’s), one of the stalwarts of the scene as a founder of Soft Machine. After Quiet Sun’s first disbanding, MacCormick joined Wyatt’s band Matching Mole, Manzanera joined Roxy Music, keyboard player Dave Jarrett became a teacher, and drummer Charles Hayward played with a number of different groups, including briefly with Gong.
But Manzanera got the band back together in 1975, recording at night after the Diamond Head sessions were done, and working on improving their earlier music with what they had learned in the intervening years (and availing themselves of Brian Eno's synthesizers and treatments). What they turned out was exciting, interesting fusion, one of the most interesting of which is our featured song (and not just because of its title, which apparently was originally the more pedestrian “Dog,” derived from a prior title, “Mummy was a Maoist, Daddy was a running dog capitalist lackey of the bourgeoisie” that songwriter MacCormick’s brother, music journalist Ian MacDonald, revised in the studio). Remarkably, the complex song was reportedly recorded in one take.
That was it for Quiet Sun, although some of the music from the album was later performed by 801, which was led by Manzanera, and included MacCormick. On the great 801 Live album, “Asteroid” was combined with a track from Diamond Head, “East of Echo,” and became “East of Asteroid.” It is also great.
Since its formation in 1968, King Crimson has gone through many different lineups and musicians, and over the years, there has been some sort of official differentiation between “members” and additional musicians who recorded and/or toured with the band, although some people moved between the two statuses. In 2020, we lost three musicians affiliated with King Crimson, two full members, and one who declined the rights and privileges, such as they are, of that status. Two of those remembered here were involved in 1970, the third played during the more recent configuration of King Crimson, from 2013 until his death earlier this year.
Gordon Haskell was a school friend of King Crimson leader Robert Fripp, and played with him in a band when they were teenagers, before moving on to become the bass player in the band Fleur de Lys (and, apparently, briefly sharing a flat with Jimi Hendrix). They also acted as a house band for Atlantic Records, which gave Haskell the opportunity to work with noted producers, including George Martin, Arif Mardin and Glyn Johns. He recorded a solo album in 1969, but it went nowhere.
Meanwhile, his old friend Robert was having problems of his own. After recording In the Court of the Crimson King, a legitimate classic, and touring behind the album, both Ian McDonald and Michael Giles left the band. Then, singer/bass player Greg Lake quit, planning to form Emerson, Lake and Palmer. After hiring, and then sacking, the still unknown Elton John (who got paid £250 for not working) as the vocalist on Crimson’s second record, In The Wake of Poseidon, Lake ultimately agreed to sing on the album (in exchange for Crimson’s PA equipment), but there was one song that Fripp felt wasn’t right for Lake. He approached Haskell, who recalled, “I straight away, without any hesitation, said ‘absolutely not’. I was totally R&B oriented and it wasn’t my sort of music. I didn’t like King Crimson. Anyway, after a while I said I’d think about it, and my wife got to work on me because she wanted a regular income so in the end I joined.” Haskell sang on one song, “Cadence and Cascade,” which is a beautiful ballad, beautifully sung, as you can hear at the link above.
After completing Poseidon, Fripp regrouped again, adding more musicians, who began work on Lizard, which was jazzier and more avant-garde than the two prior records, and it was not a good experience for Haskell, who sang and played bass on the album. He didn’t like the music, noting that “At the end of one song, ‘Indoor Games’, I just burst out laughing. You can hear it on the album. They thought it was really freaky, that I’d understood the lyrics and my part – but the truth of the matter is, it was a lousy song, the lyrics were ludicrous and my singing was atrocious so I just burst out laughing. And they thought it was wonderful!” Haskell left the band, acrimoniously, during rehearsals for live performances, and later King Crimson for royalties.
After leaving King Crimson, Haskell struggled for years, before having a hit single in England, “How Wonderful You Are” in 2001 and he followed that up with a successful album, Harry’s Bar, in 2002. His next record was not as well-received, and he was released by his label after a dispute. From then on, Haskell continued to release music without much success, and wrote an autobiography, The Road to Harry’s Bar.
Haskell died from cancer on October 15, 2020 at the age of 74. Announcing his death, the official King Crimson website noted, “The
experience was not a happy one for Gordon and he bitterly regretted his
decision to join,” and that Haskell had “come to detest” the song
“Cadence and Cascade,” which is a shame.
Keith Tippett also played on the Poseidon and Lizard albums. Allmusic’s biography of Tippett states that he “held an unparalleled place in British contemporary music,” due to the breadth of his collaborations, the variety of music he wrote and performed, and the influence that he had on other musicians. Tippett's work ranges from free improvisation as a solo pianist and with duos and small groups, to compositions for, and performances with, contemporary classical groups and large-scale works for Jazz Orchestra.
Tippett (whose last name was actually Tippetts, which he changed for the delightful reason that he was tired of seeing his name on posters with the apostrophe after the last “t” and not the “s”), was a classically trained pianist who had formed a jazz band, the Keith Tippett Sextet, which released its first album in 1969. Other members of that band included Elton Dean, later of Soft Machine, and Mark Charig and Nick Evans, who also contributed to King Crimson albums. Tippett was hired to play piano on Poseidon (including some pretty playing on “Cadence and Cascade”), and along with Charig and Evans, played on Lizard and Islands. His influence in King Crimson increased over time, and he claimed that Fripp offered him co-creative control over the band if he would join full time. However, as he remembered, “I didn’t want to join King Crimson, not because I didn’t like King Crimson, I had great respect for the band, but I wanted to be doing other things, I didn’t want to just go out on the road for eighteen months. I had too much love for the sextet and it would have taken me away from the jazz scene.”
One of those things was to put together a 50 piece band, Centipede, that included members of his jazz band, along with members of Soft Machine, King Crimson, and other bands that skirted the progressive rock/jazz genres, along with students from the London School of Music. It released an album, Septober Energy, produced by Fripp (who had appeared live with the band, but was not on the album), in 1971. Melody Maker wrote about this album, “In this one piece he has done more than almost anybody else that comes to mind in breaking down barriers in rock, jazz and classical music” The album was, however, not commercially successful, probably for the reason that it broke so many barriers.
Tippett continued to perform and record improvisational and avant-garde jazz music and jazz/rock with various combinations of musicians, including many from the Canterbury scene, until fairly recently—his discography as a leader and sideman is vast.
Tippett succumbed on June 14, 2020 to a heart attack after two years of recurring illness at the age of 72.
After disbanding a version of King Crimson in 2008 and playing with various Crimson-related musicians before briefly retiring, Fripp decided to form a new King Crimson lineup, this time with three drummers. One of the drummers was Bill Rieflin, who had played with, among others, Ministry, KMFDM, and R.E.M. after Bill Berry left the band. Although mostly known for playing industrial and darker rock music, his stint with R.E.M. and his work on other projects demonstrated the wide scope of his talent. In addition, he was a prolific session musician, recording with artists from Nine Inch Nails to experimental rockers Swans and pop singer Robbie Williams. He released his first solo album, Birth of a Giant in 1999, which included contributions from Fripp and Trey Gunn, who was in King Crimson at the time.
Over the years, Rieflin, who also played keyboards and other instruments, had collaborated with Fripp in a number of different projects, and participated in Fripp’s Guitar Craft project, about which he stated (before joining Crimson), “I couldn't possibly describe in any detail the impact this has had in my life; I can say that it was and continues to be significant. Were I to say "life-changing," this would be true, but it wouldn't begin to communicate the depth of the experience.”
So his inclusion as part of the new “seven-headed monster” configuration of Crimson, along with Fripp, Tony Levin, Mel Collins, Pat Mastelotto, Gavin Harrison (who had played in prior versions of the band), and Jakko Jakszyk, was not surprising. I saw this band play in 2014 and was blown away by the power and intricacy of the percussion work (as well as by the rest of the band, of course). Here’s a video of the three drummers, with Rieflin in the center, “soloing” during rehearsals in 2014, highlighting how they play both in unison and separately.
Rieflin took a “sabbatical” from the band in 2016, but returned in 2017 to create a “Double Quartet” formation, but rather than have four drummers (that would be crazy, right?), he focused on “mellotron, keys and fairy dusting, rather than using drums as a main instrument.” He didn’t appear on the autumn US tour in 2017 (when I saw them again, and they were, again, great), but returned in 2018 before taking another sabbatical in 2019.
Rieflin died on March 24, 2020 from cancer at the age of 59.
You’re probably sick of reading how I learned something interesting in researching my post, but this time, I learned four interesting things. And what better way to spend the continued COVID-19 life slowdown than learning three interesting things about music, right?
First, if you asked me who was older, Andy Summers, former guitarist for The Police, or Robert Fripp, King Crimson guitarist, I probably would have said Fripp. Mostly because he’s been pretty famous since the late 1960s, is generally categorized as being a prog-rocker and usually wears suits these days, while Summers became famous as the guitarist in a punk band in the late 70s-early 80s. But that’s wrong. Summers is 77 (!), while Fripp is 74. I think I knew that Summers played in Soft Machine, and with other bands before The Police, but I guess his time in that band made me think he was younger than he is (Sting is 68 and Stewart Copeland is 67. Henry Padovani, The Police’s original guitarist (!), is also 67.)
The second thing that I learned is that Summers and Fripp first met in the early 1960s, when Summers’ band, Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band, was the regular entertainment at the Bournemouth Majestic Hotel when Fripp was attending Bournemouth College. And when Zoot Money moved to London, Fripp’s band, the Majestic Dance Orchestra, replaced them at the hotel. The Majestic was a Jewish hotel, and the Majestic Dance Orchestra occasionally played weddings and bar mitzvahs. (Interesting thing number three!)
Apparently, the two incredible, but different, guitar players remained friends.
We’ll get to the fourth interesting thing soon.
In 1981 and 1982, when both men had time between their Police and Crimson obligations, they met to jam together, and those sessions ultimately resulted in an album of 13 instrumentals entitled, I Advance Masked. To my ears, much of the album, and particularly the title track, displays some similarity to the interlocking guitar work that Fripp was doing with Adrian Belew in the recently reformed King Crimson, except that Summers and Belew’s styles are very different, so it didn’t sound exactly like Crimson.
Not being a guitarist, or really a musician of any sort, I’ll let Summers describe how his and Fripp’s styles were different:
We’re still pretty much polar opposites in our playing. Robert over the years has gone down one line, the polyrhythmic single-line approach, and he’s brought it to a degree of perfection where he can improvise on it and play it like no other guitarist in the world. His strengths are playing the sort of fuzz solo, very quirky and very rhythmic. I’m classically-trained, came up playing pop and blues (Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band, Soft Machine, Animals, etc.), a regular rock soloist in many ways. It’s hard, but it clicks. Robert gives the music a spine, he’s the masculine element, and I probably represent the feminine side of the duo, but out of it a whole new personality emerges. It’s a beautiful form of alchemy.
The song, remarkably, also spawned a very bad video:
So, what’s the fourth thing?
The title of the song and album was derived from something that none other than René Descartes once wrote in a diary, and which supposedly became the second most famous thing he ever said (although I admit to never having heard it before): “larvatus prodeo,” which sounds like a Harry Potter spell, but means, “masked, I advance.” Apparently, it relates to how Descartes had to disguise his true self to succeed.
OK—there’s a fifth thing I learned, although it isn’t as interesting as the other stuff. On the DGM Live website, the official site for Fripp/Crimson and related projects (and projekcts), Fripp often publishes a daily diary, and since March, he occasionally titles them “I Advance Masked,” and includes a picture of him in a mask. Here’s one recent example.
And so I move, seamlessly, from one Soft Machine alumnus to another, from Robert Wyatt to Kevin Ayers, together the rhythm section in the original line-up. Kevin is no longer with us, my buddy J.David penning some words at the time of his demise, but he is a fella that gave me great teenaged pleasure, with his uber-cool image, his prog credentials, so important to me at that time, but mainly, through his gloriously quirky and quixotic songs, often exhilaratingly bonkers, as indeed is this. Duck call percussion?
I came to Ayers a little behind the loop, via the teenage prodigy he had earlier hired on bass for his band, The Whole Wide World, one Mike Oldfield. Soft Machine were too clever and a bit old for me, but Tubular Bells was a sensation for me, upon its 1973 release, introducing me to any number of connections, as I perused the back story and looked at the names of his address book, mustered together for the live performances. Whilst I don't think Ayers was involved in the latter, I was particularly taken with his peculiarly english style of singing, espousing the usual transatlantic twang, then and now still so prevalent. It reminded me of another very english vocalist, early Pink Floyd focal piece and front man, Syd Barrett, exemplarised in this later solo track.
What I didn't know was that 'O Wot a Dream' was actually about Barrett, and that, after Barrett's lysergic exit from Pink Floyd, the two actually performed together on the above clip, 'Singing a Song in the Morning (Religious Experience)', the compelling guitar calisthenic being performed by Barrett, I have to say somewhat against the myth around his having entirely lost it. Still, the record company still saw fit to cut the end coda from the original cut, it taking until a re-release for it to see light of day. In this brief interview, a looking seriously out of it Ayers mentions the relationship at the very end of the clip, about 5.25.
As arguably an ill-fitting tribute to both, here is a poor quality recording of a less than 100% Ayers performing 'O Wot a Dream' at a 2007 Syd Barrett memorial concert. I think I probably prefer the duck call on the studio version to the jaw's harp. Finally, in case any might wonder, why the spelling, wy the wot, if you will? Personally I think this just adds to the overall anglocentricism of the song, but, who knows, maybe it was to avoid any confusion with this.
The original lineup of U.K. brought together some of the best at their instruments British prog rockers. The band was formed in the late 1970s by drummer Bill Bruford, who had played in Yes and King Crimson, and singer/bassist John Wetton, who had played with Bruford in King Crimson and had also been part of Roxy Music and Uriah Heep. Bruford and Wetton each recruited another musician, with Bruford bringing Allan Holdsworth, who had been with Soft Machine, Tony Williams’ Lifeline, Gong, and Jean-Luc Ponty, as well having played on Bruford’s debut solo album, and Wetton inviting Eddie Jobson, a keyboard player and violinist who had played with him in Roxy Music, and who was in Frank Zappa’s band.
U.K., the one and only album recorded by this lineup is considered by many to be a prog-rock classic. Excellent playing (of course) on interesting, unusual songs, featuring a true fusion of rock, jazz and classical influences, has made this one of my favorites—which is not surprising, considering that Bruford is probably my favorite drummer, Holdsworth is my favorite guitarist, and I have lots of respect for both Wetton and Jobson.
That being said, I have to admit that “Mental Medication” is not one of my favorite songs from the album. There’s something about Wetton’s vocals, particularly at the beginning, that I don’t love. But there’s a thrilling four minute stretch of instrumental music, including a guitar solo from Holdsworth that is both jaw dropping and subtle at the same time, and a violin solo from Jobson, all over Wetton’s stellar bass playing and Bruford’s signature drumming, that makes it worth a listen.
Sadly, after some extensive touring, tensions in the band led to Wetton and Jobson “firing” Holdsworth, and Bruford also left. Rather than find a new guitarist, the remaining members brought in drummer Terry Bozzio, also from Frank Zappa’s band, and recorded Danger Money as a trio. It isn’t a bad album, and actually spawned a minor hit, “Nothing to Lose.” After a live album, Wetton and Jobson themselves disagreed on the future of the band, and they broke up. A couple of years later Wetton formed Asia, with Steve Howe, Carl Palmer and Geoff Downes, which definitely sounded a lot like what U.K. might have sounded like if it tried for a more commercial sound.
Bruford took some of the songs that he had written for a second U.K. album and used them on his second solo album, the great One of a Kind (which also featured Holdsworth on guitar).
There were a few Wetton/Jobson led reunions of U.K. over the years, featuring various drummers and guitarists, but the original lineup never got back together.
Sadly, both Wetton and Holdsworth died in 2017, which I commemorated here.
Well, he came, he emptied his sack and he's gone again. Shh, don't say his name but, if I am not mistaken, perhaps a first for SMM, this is the first time we have got this far with nary a mention of, you know. Is that good, is that bad? I don't know but certainly hope you had a good one, whatever that entailed. Today my aim is simple, a simple sonic blast of palate cleanser, to wash any lingering acid from your over-stimulated digestive tract. With Soft Machine...... Yes that Soft Machine, that impenetrable jazz-noodle-rock on your big brothers record shelf, beloved of mathematicians and men with moustaches. But dispel that bad memory. It is true, from whimsical and exasperating twiddly rock to complex geometric abstracts and jazzy atonals, the Softs are generally remembered in these two ways, yet, after sole original member, Mike Ratledge, left in 1976, they embarked upon a gentler last period. Although he appears on 2 tracks in the album from which this track appears, 'Softs', it is very much now the baby of Karl Jenkins, switching from saxophones to keyboards and writing most of the material. Guitar duties had been passed from Allan Holdsworth (R.I.P.) to John Etheridge, bass and drums accommodated efficiently by Roy Babbington and John Marshall respectively. On reeds, albeit only for a brief 6 month tenureship, was Alan, cousin of Rick, Wakeman.
It is no surprise that Jenkins, on the eventual demise of the band, moved into film and soundtrack work and is now one of UK's premier new classical composers, at least as far as the classical music "charts" would say. You may know him better, as they say on the Simpsons, as the author of this:
Adiemus. And that is Jenkins with the baton and extravagant 'tache.
At the time of writing Etheridge, Babbington and Marshall have revived the Soft Machine name and tour extensively, along with reeds and keys man Theo Travis.
It's boxing day and nothings loading. I'm sure you can source it should you so choose. And anyhow. But do.
There was a time and place when the idea of a “supergroup” combining the members of Hatfield and the North and Gilgamesh would have been a big deal. That time was the late 1970s, and the place was England, particularly Canterbury. I’ve written in the past about the so-called “Canterbury Scene,” focusing mostly on the bands Gong and Soft Machine, but there were many other groups, often with overlapping membership, that created interesting music at that time and in that place. These musicians were, for the most part, profoundly talented, extremely adventurous, and mostly forgotten, certainly on this side of the Atlantic.
Hatfield and the North was one of the best regarded bands from this scene. After the usual musical chairs, its membership essentially solidified as vocalist/bassist Richard Sinclair (formerly of Caravan, later of Camel), guitarist Phil Miller (formerly of Matching Mole), drummer Pip Pyle (formerly, and later, of Gong), and keyboardist Dave Stewart (formerly of Egg and not the guy from the Eurythmics, but later of Bruford), and a trio of female singers known as the Northettes, Barbara Gaskin, Amanda Parsons and Ann Rosenthal. Gilgamesh was somewhat lesser known, was organized around keyboard player Alan Gowen, and included, among others, guitarist Phil Lee and bassist Neil Murray (later of Whitesnake and Black Sabbath). Both bands played music that was a fusion of rock, jazz and classical influences.
The new band, which came to be called “National Health,” was to include most members of both, but, of course, that was unlikely to work out. Initially, Bill Bruford was the drummer, but he was replaced by Pyle, Murray replaced Mont Campbell as bassist, and by the time the self-titled debut album was released, Gowan was credited only as a guest, along with Parsons, the only Northette to participate. Nevertheless, they created a great album, if maybe not quite a masterpiece. Mostly instrumental, it is complex, interesting prog rock without much of the pompousness that has given the genre a bad name.
Leadoff track, “Tenemos Roads,” a 14 and a half minute piece written by Stewart, has a catchy opening theme and a long instrumental section before Parsons’ ethereal vocals enter. Prog rock songs often have spacy lyrics, and “Tenemos Roads” is part of that tradition. Something about a place in the stars, and history and men making war and fish living in the sea. Whatever. After a bit of spacy noodling, the song picks up again, and almost rocks out to the end.
I know that may not sound all that enticing, but trust me, it is really good, so give it a listen.
National Health released a maybe even better album the next year, Of Queues And Cures, and then went into hibernation, reuniting in 1982 for D.S. Al Coda, a tribute to Gowen, who had died the previous year of leukemia. And that was pretty much it from this particular combination of musicians, except for some live releases and Missing Piece, a collection of early songs featuring Bruford, Steve Hillage and others.
As we wind down the In Memoriam theme and move on to (I hope) happier discussions, I decided to wedge in another pair of tributes, this time to musicians who played on early albums by prog bands, and then left. In both cases, the bands reached significant popularity after their departure, while the musicians went on to long careers, mostly under the mainstream radar.
Let’s start with Kevin Ayers. Born in England, he was raised in Malaysia, and seemed to have taken a more stereotypical tropical approach to life. An early member of what later became known as the “Canterbury Scene,” he joined the Wilde Flowers, sort of the “mothership” of the scene. The Wilde Flowers split, essentially forming two bands: Caravan and Soft Machine, in which Ayers played bass and guitar, sang and wrote songs. Initially Soft Machine also included Robert Wyatt on drums and vocals, Daevid Allen on guitar and Mike Ratledge on organ. Unfortunately, after some gigs in France, Allen was refused entry back to England, so he stayed in France and formed Gong (which turned out pretty well for him).
As a trio, Soft Machine toured the United States, opening for Jimi Hendrix, a pretty good gig, I’d have to think, and recorded their first album, The Soft Machine in New York. The album, which is as much an odd psychedelic album as it was a proto-prog rock collection, is one of those albums that is considered very influential but is probably rarely played, and that’s too bad. The track featured above, "We Did it Again," was written by Ayers, and he sings lead. You can hear the diverse influences, including blues, psychedelic rock and prog, in the song. Imagine, if you can, hearing it go on for 45 minutes, in 1968, at a concert, especially if you were under the influence. Apparently, it was an almost religious experience.
Later, in 1968, Soft Machine recruited a guitarist named Andy Summers to replace Allen, and he toured with the band on some more American dates, including opening for Hendrix again, before Ayers had Summers fired. Summers, of course, did fine for himself, joining a little trio in 1997 called The Police. (There must not have been hard feelings between Ayers and Summers, who later played with him).
Ayers, however, decided the touring grind was too much, sold his bass to Noel Redding of Hendrix’s band, and went off to Ibiza to hang out with Daevid Allen. I have to believe that the gentlemen enjoyed themselves pharmacologically, as befit the times, and Ayers wrote a bunch of songs that are featured on his first solo album. Through the next decades, Ayers recorded and toured with a wide variety of musicians, releasing uncategorizable albums that delighted and confounded the music world. Interestingly, one of Ayers longest musical collaborations was with guitarist Ollie Halsall, the mostly uncredited guitarist for the Beatles parody band The Rutles.
Ayers rarely seemed interested in commercial success, and he never had much, due to his musical tastes, laid back personality and, unfortunately, substance abuse issues.
In the late 1990s, Ayers reappeared, but it wasn’t until 2007 that he released The Unfairground to critical acclaim and, of course, few sales. He died on February 18, 2013 in France.
Soft Machine, in Ayers’ absence, with a regularly changing cast of members, moved gradually away from psychedelia and prog toward fusion (but generally the interesting kind, especially the fascinating Third album). Allmusic considers them to be one of the more influential bands of their era.
Peter Banks was the first guitarist in Yes, and appeared on their first two albums. Was he a good guitarist? A couple of influential DJs from the BBC refer to him as the “Architect of Progressive Rock.” Gibson Guitar named him as one of the "10 Great Prog Rock Guitarists." So yeah, he was. The song above, "Beyond and Before," is the first song on the first Yes album, and Banks plays the first note, and follows that with some fine playing. So, what happened?
Artistic differences, of course. Yes was formed in mid-1968, and the initial lineup was Banks, Jon Anderson on vocals, Chris Squire on bass, Tony Kaye on keyboards, and my favorite drummer, Bill Bruford. Of course, they needed a name, and after considering Anderson’s suggestion, Life, and Squire’s suggestion, World, they agreed on Yes! (suggested by Banks, and including the exclamation point). They began to perform live, Bruford decided to quit the band and return to university, but luckily was lured back. In 1969, the band recorded and released a self-titled debut album (without the !), consisting of original songs, and two covers. Although the album failed to chart, it received generally positive reviews.
The band began to work on its followup, Time and A Word, but Anderson and Squire wanted to use an orchestra, which was still kind of a radical idea. Banks wasn’t pleased by this in theory, and when he found out that the arrangements were going to pretty much replace him (and Kaye), he became really miffed. The album was released, it did O.K., although there were some negative reviews of the use of the orchestra, the band did a tour, and the disgruntled Banks was given the boot. He was replaced by Steve Howe. (Kaye lasted one more album (The Yes Album, the band’s commercial breakthrough) and tour before being replaced by Rick Wakeman).
After a while supporting others, Banks and Kaye reunited to form Flash, which not surprisingly sounded like Yes and had minimal success in its short life, after which Banks worked as a sideman, appeared on tribute albums and released solo material (check out this one featuring Jan Akkerman of Focus, Phil Collins, John Wetton and Steve Hackett). He wasn’t even part of a Flash reunion in the early 2000s. but toured and released an album in 2006 as part of a band called Harmony in Diversity. He passed away on March 7, 2013.
Of course, Yes went on to enormous fame, with an oft-changing revolving door lineup (that, however, never again included Banks). Their most recent album featured only Squire from the original lineup, and they still tour regularly.
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