A lost page from the book of Yes...

I'm a bit of a weird dude when it comes to Yes. Bit of a contrarian, maybe. I mean, I like Jon Anderson just fine with his beautiful high voice, and his penchant for unicorns'n'elves'n'shit. But I prefer Yes' other vocalists. Except for Jon Davison, now that dude totally sucks. But yeah, those other guys. This has, of course, to do with my own history with Yes. My first Yes album was that unloved album of the tail end of their classic era, Drama. So I'm down with the BugglYes. And I thought that Fly From Here, an album involving both ex-Buggles, was a really strong Yes album, so I'm down with Benoit David also. Unfortunately, of course, both of these dudes didn't last. The BugglYes called it quits after that one totally underrated album, and the David-led line-up...well, that is another matter entirely. Recruited in the band to replace an ailing Jon Anderson who didn't want to go out on the road (something that Anderson took really badly, who'd hoped they'd wait for his recovery), David got his pink slip pretty soon after Fly From Here when he developed his own health problems with a respiratory illness. But the band wasn't done doing him dirty! To add insult to injury, quite literally in this case, they revised Fly From Here a couple of years later and replaced all of David's lead vocals with those of producer and Drama-era singer Trevor Horn. That's some cold shit right there. But Yes have stopped being a band a good long while ago, they are, and have been for a long time now, a business endeavor, and if you're not a part of the ongoing business, then you're a problem. 

Another person who wasn't around long enough to see Fly From Here, but was involved in its making: Oliver Wakeman, who replaced his dad Rick, who left when Anderson went/was forced to go, for touring with the group. He was working on possible songs for a studio album before he left/was forced to leave and be replaced by Geoff Downs for being "closer to the material" that had its roots in the Drama era. Most of the material he worked on was replaced by that other, old/new material from the BugglYes. But a couple of years later, Wakeman reworked some of this material, with the authorization of Yes, adding newly finished piano parts to a David composition from the time (and a lead vocal from a later, unrelated album) to three Yes outtakes/early songs from 2010. So, he basically had enough material for an EP, but Yes, never ones to fail to monetize their fan base's faithfulness, added a double live album already issued in 2011, so they could market the whole thing as a mini-boxset. The live album is fine, with Benoit in fine vocal form and the set list having some songs rarely played at the time. But still, Yes were and are the kings of recycling and reselling. The 'new' music coming out of this project is well worth hearing, though, as all four are very fine songs.

Which, finally, brings us to the One Buck Record of the day. From A Page (A Single Page) owes its subtitle to the fact that I greatly condensed the mini-boxset. There's the four studio songs, plus a selection of my favorites from the live album, which of course includes the Drama tracks "Tempus Fugit" and "Machine Messiah"; old favorites like "And You And I" and "I've Seen All Good People", a really good version of "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" and a lovely rendering of "Onward". 

We will be seeing Yes again on these pages, but for now, dear reader,turn the page to From A Page (A Single Page)...