Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller Mark and I had a great time this week thinking about interesting or unusual Yes musical textures. We both came up with 3 examples that we thought were surprising or different so do have a look below to hear the clips we are referring to and add your own examples to the comments section. You may be surprised with some of our suggestions - that’s somewhat the idea, after all. * What interesting textures can you think...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller This week Mark and I attempted to choose 3 Peter Banks era Yes songs each. As you’ll hear, we turned out to be thinking along similar lines but it was still a very enjoyable experience listening to the earliest days of the band and discussing what made Yes unique even at that stage. Yesterdays label This topic was partly in response to a tweet or X post or whatever they are now called from Phil (Primarily_Prog)...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller Geoff Bailie and some other bloke It was lovely to welcome back onto the YMP our friend and patron, Geoff Bailie this week. Mark and I spoke to him about the recent news that Yes will be on tour with Deep Purple in the US and Canada this Summer. What do you think of that idea? Well, self-confessed Deep Purple fan Geoff shares some thoughts with us and we discuss pretty much every aspect of the forthcoming tour, as you...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller It seems like a long time since the last episode but it’s not. Anyway, it was delightful to speak to a warm and friendly unsung hero of Yes last week. As you will hear, despite being very keen to be involved, Mark wasn’t able to join in the conversation due to timing and technical issues but he will be back next week. Genaro actually contacted me quite some time ago and introduced himself. It’s taken...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller I'm publishing this episode on Good Friday so there's been no time for the usual news roundup. However, Mark and I did manage to talk about 'Talk' receiving the box set treatment. We discuss what's going to be included - and what doesn't seem to be included as well. It one of our favourite Yes albums so there's plenty to be excited about in this release. * In what sense is Talk 'lost'? *...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller We were delighted to be able to speak to Jay Schellen this week about the upcoming Yes UK and Europe Tour and many other topics, particularly his relationship with the late, great Alan White. As you will hear, Jay's connections with Yes are numerous and he is a truly talented all-round musician, not 'just' a drummer. Stand by for surprising stories, tennis and visits to the pub... * How did Jay find...

This week Mark and I were due to have a conversation with Jay Schellen about the forthcoming Yes tour of the UK and Europe. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen for reasons outside our control. We will be speaking to Jay on Monday instead so I’m afraid you’ll have to wait just a little bit longer for that. In the meantime in this very short episode, I thought I’d mention some of the interesting things I have found out about the (relatively) new Yes drummer. See how many of these facts you...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller This week would have been Chris Squire’s 76th birthday. To celebrate his legacy, Mark and I chose 3 of our favourite Squire bass lines and also chatted about his signature sound and how he achieved it. Make sure you add your own selections to the comments on the show notes for this episode and let’s celebrate the legacy of the world’s greatest bassist together. * What are your favourite Squire bass lines? *...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller Mark and I had a fun time this week re-watching the ABWH Brother of Mine video and the new Mirror to the Sky one. Listen out for our thoughts in a few minutes’ time and see if you can count how many times I call the song Long Lost Brother of Mine by mistake. Also, do check out the show notes below before or during listening to Mark and me banging on because I’ve added lots of screenshots from the videos that we refer to in...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller After a short break, Mark and I are back to consider what Geoff Downes was doing before being asked to rejoin Yes for the recording of Fly From Here, released in 2011, shortly before the Yes Music Podcast was established. We have been listening to the John Wetton album, Raised in Captivity which includes many prog rock heroes so listen out for our thoughts on that and what, if anything, we learned about why Geoff was...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller This week, Mark and I talked about the situation in Yes at the time Geoff Downes rejoined for Fly From Here - around 2010-11. It's a contentious time - but then again when isn't with Yes? Oliver Wakeman had to make way for the return of Downes who had worked very closely with Steve Howe in Asia for many years and, when Trevor Horn was brought in to produce the new album, perhaps the writing was on the wall for a Downes...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller This week, Mark and I had a great conversation about Yes ephemera - what do I mean by that? Well it’s stuff that would certainly have disappeared if it wasn’t for people like Steve Sullivan, Pete Whipple and Geoffrey Mason over at forgotten-yesterdays.com who collect and share all sorts of items on that amazing site. As on other occasions, it’s best if you take a look at the images below either as you listen or afterwards...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller As you will hear, the title of this week’s episode is a bit misleading. Mark and I have been choosing some of our favourite slower, calmer songs or parts of songs from the extensive Yes catalogue to talk about this week. There are plenty to choose from given the remarkable ability of Yes to create contrasting musical experiences within an album or even a single song, as I’m sure you know. See what you think of our...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller This week's episode is a rather visual one so you will probably want to listen after (or concurrently with) looking at the images below. Mark and I discuss some of the most instantly identifiable (for Yes fans) images which don't include the name of the band. We start off with a quiz for Mark using the first set of images below and then we head off down Yes, Jon Anderson, Roger Dean and some other associated rabbit...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller Happy New Year to you. I hope you had a great time whatever you were celebrating in mid-winter or mid-summer or something else depending on where you are on the globe. This week, Mark and I return to the second part of our discussion around why Rick Wakeman wanted Larry Fast to help him out on Tales from Topographic Oceans. We listened to Electronic Realizations For Rock Orchestra by Synergy on which Larry played...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller This week Mark and I are once again indebted to Doug Curran for setting us off to find out more about keyboard innovator Larry Fast and his Tales from Topographic Oceans connections. As you will hear, Larry was involved in the sound of the keyboards on Tales, something I did not realise until Doug posted a happy birthday message to Larry on the YMP Facebook Discussion Group last week. How much did you know about Larry’s...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller Mark and I had a great conversation with Ian Hartley this week. As mentioned last week, Ian has produced his own 50th Anniversary box set of Tales from Topographic Oceans and we were keen to know what motivated him, how he went about it and how it fitted in with his own Yes story. If you haven’t already watched Ian’s YouTube video where he unboxes his own box and also shows off some of his Tales collection, then please do -...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller This week Mark and I take a look at and have a chat about what Yes fan Ian Hartley has done to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Tales from Topographic Oceans. A chap after our own 5%-er hearts, he has taken things very much into his own hands as you will hear. If you want to understand fully what we are banging on about (if that’s even possible) then watch the video Ian made of the set which I have embedded below....

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller We continue our Tales from topographic oceans obsession this week with a look at 3 very different live recordings of side 4, Ritual - Nous Sommes du Soleil. The 3 different performances are included in the show notes below. They are from Yesshows (1980) , Symphonic Live (2002) and Topographic Drama (2017). This means we have the following musicians to listen to: Anderson, Squire, White, Moraz, Howe, Downes, Brislin,...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller It was a delight to welcome the bass maestro Miguel Falcão back onto the YMP this week. As you would expect, he knows a lot about how Chris Squire created the bass lines for Tales from Topographic Oceans. You may have heard Miguel's bass covers of both The Ancient and The Remembering, and if not they are embedded below. We found out many things including what basses Chris used to record and play Tales live. So stand...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller We had a great conversation with veteran music journalist Steve Rosen this week. Steve has interviewed almost all members of Yes over the decades, although they weren't always 'easy' sessions, as you will hear! Steve also spent a great deal of time with the iconic guitarist Edward Van Halen and has recently published a book, 'Tonechaser' about this relationship, which helps the reader to understand the personality of...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller In the week of the 40th anniversary of 90125, Mark and I looked at Trevor Rabin's 90124 which contains a lot of source material for the classic from 1983. 90124 appeared in 2003 on the 20th anniversary of the globally-successful Yes album and contains all of Trevor's demos of songs such as Hold On, Changes, Owner of a Lonely Heart and Cinema. A truly fascinating listen, there are also demos of later Yes songs like Where Will...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller We took a break from Tales from Topographic Oceans this week to consider what Yes were up to in the 1980s. Across just four albums (if you are happy to call ABWH a Yes album), Yes music was somewhat different to what had come before. You are probably aware that our friends and YMP Patrons Stephen Lambe and Dave Watkinson wrote a whole book about Yes in the 1980s so don't forget to check that out if you don't already...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller This week we are back to the epic in-depth study of Tales from Topographic Oceans. We asked the ever-generous drummer of Yes tribute band Total Mass Retain Joe Cass to join us to talk about Alan White’s contribution to the classic album. You won’t be surprised to hear that Joe managed to help us to uncover a wealth of detail about the percussion on the album and the musical and personal character of the late deeply missed...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller We had yet another lovely conversation with a relatively unsung hero of the Yes story this week. As you’ll hear, you have probably seen Jeff Cumins’ work, even if you don’t realise it. He has a long and distinguished career as an artist and illustrator and revealed fascinating insights that neither Mark nor I had heard before. I’m sure you’ll enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed talking to him. Do check out the images in...