(With eternal thanks to Dearest Friend of the blog Cee for visual assistance with the physical media. And also many thanks to everyone who has helped spread the word about my coverage of Trevor. I truly appreciate everyone who has taken the time to read the blog and also provide engagement via links and other comments on social media.)
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One never knows how timing will impact certain events, and in this case I'm referring to the fact that I've already reviewed Can't Look Away. I meant to do so last year for the album's 30th anniversary but I didn't meet that deadline; consequently only a few weeks before the announcement of Changes I published my view on Trevor's highest-regarded solo release thus far and so I'm including a link for the sake of context (and for anyone who has not read it and might want to).
There's nothing about this reissue which would make me reconsider my opinion of the album, but I do have an opinion regarding how there should have been a 30th Anniversary Edition of this landmark of Trevor's solo career and for something which purports to be a Deluxe set...well, what is your definition of deluxe? Because I don't think what this is fits mine. But I will concede there probably isn't much that can be done, knowing what I do now regarding the state of Trevor's archives.
Fans will buy the boxset, but there may be fans simply interested in obtaining a new copy of this album, or wondering if the Deluxe set is worth it. And I will answer that with a definite yes, unless you're not interested in bonus content. If you're not, then whatever copy you have is fine. But there is one thing in this version which is worth it to me, is absolutely crucial and the fact that it has actually been included is nothing short of a goddamn miracle. For a boxset which overall has more than a few things wrong with it, there is one thing very much right with this part of it.
What's interesting about this situation is Can't Look Away is an album which has not gone out of print, or not for very long, at least. Even as the licensing might now have reverted to Trevor, 30 years on, even before it was reissued by Voiceprint in 2002 it was still being repressed and sold by WEA over the intervening years and is also the only one of Trevor's solo albums prior to Jacaranda to be continually licensed for streaming. So it's out there, you can buy it from various outlets and/or listen to it online, and if you're a fan you likely already have a copy, perhaps more than one. It's a landmark, and so now the consideration is: how is this album being honored as an actual landmark?
Not very well, I would say. But on the other hand, it's not like Can't Look Away really needs remastering, or even a remix, and beyond Trevor's general inclination not to want to involve himself in archival activities I can understand why he would wish to allow this album to stand as is. It actually sounds wonderful, entirely in keeping with his standards of the time. Of its era, certainly, but it holds up overall. I have no real complaints about any version of the recording which I have listened to over the years. Can't Look Away is engaging and dynamic, with so many layers and details, Trevor's skill in all areas is amply illustrated but particularly in the mix - I have said it before and I'll say it again: Trevor is an amazing mixing engineer. Until he decided to add too many crowd swells to a certain live album, that is...but that's not germane to this essay.
Apropos to this observation, Trevor noted in a 1989 interview for Kerrang!
Well I like going in all different directions and I like to play around with sound, because I love engineering.
He also commented to Chris Welch:
I tried to move ahead a bit and make an album you can sit down to listen all the way through on headphones. I wanted the songs to flow although it wasn't put together as a concept album.
When I interviewed Trevor recently I told him his mixes work on two levels: the surface, when you might hear one of his songs on the radio or playing somewhere, and you enjoy it for what it is. But also below the surface, when you put on headphones and enter the landscape of the song to experience everything which is going on inside of it. Can't Look Away deserves to be listened to closely for all the loving care brought to the whole of its' creation. One thing I will say about this new remaster is the bottom end is a bit more punchy. But otherwise I honestly can't discern any other particular difference with other versions of the album I have. The sound of Can't Look Away is already uniformly excellent and that is one reason it's a landmark. In the year or so I spent listening to it repeatedly in order to write my review, I fell in love with it all over again, and I think that's another reason why it endures both as an album and as an achievement for Trevor - one's opinion of what he can accomplish when perfectly focused and capable is renewed with each playback.
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It's an intriguing consideration to me that Trevor has always expressed the idea of this album as a personal imperative. As I noted in my review, the narrative has always been that Trevor put his solo career on hold to work with Chris and Alan (and later Tony), although in at least one version, the duo were pitched as a rhythm section which Trevor might be interested in utilizing for his solo work, and since the pair were at loose ends, relatively-speaking, it's not wholly unlikely though it's difficult to imagine one of the best rhythm sections in progressive rock being utilized strictly as sidemen. I've just always wondered when the shift occurred: Trevor Rabin, determined and convinced that his destiny lay as a solo artist, who had ducked and declined any number of offers to join up with a supergroup, then decides to start a band with two guys he doesn't know and whose musical history he's only vaguely familiar with. Now that I think about it...it rather stretches credulity a bit, doesn't it? "The worst jam ever," as Chris Squire once characterized their first musical meeting, must have possessed some all-powerful potential nonetheless. But I think that perhaps it was simply a case of Trevor meeting two talented chaps whom he liked very much from the start, and chemistry really is everything.
Even so, as he gave his time, effort, and material (in the form of songs) to this endeavor, the other identity and agenda continued to live on, and was mentioned every so often, such as his interview for the 9012Live footage in 1984. Suitably armed with the proof of his new(est) success, it seemed only a logical supposition that Trevor could now channel this new(er) star power (with a worldwide audience) into another solo effort. But as the years went on it became more of an actual articulated need. For example, interviews for the promotion of Big Generator featured several mentions of his plans to record a solo album when the tour was completed (and given, as Trevor noted to me in our most recent exchange, how badly interpersonal relations in the band had deteriorated during that period it was no wonder touring was rather more limited), such declarations could be said to mark a definite break in the continuum. Interestingly he asserts in one of those interviews that he doesn't see such activity as apart from his identity, but as a return to it. To who he really is one might wonder? As I noted in my review, there was commentary for Can't Look Away which seemed to characterize Trevor's involvement in Yes as a detour rather than a ongoing journey. And perhaps that "endless highway" of his artistic desire and ambition was actually meant to lead away from those previous wanderings of the past six years.
This comment, from his interview with Dan Neer, seems the most passionate declaration:
"Eventually, we were still touring and I said: 'We gotta stop, we gotta just hang on for a while, I have to do this album. I really want to, it's in my blood, it's in my bones, I've gotta do this album.'"
And yet, there was no real way of escaping the circumstances which made Trevor famous from a worldwide perspective, with even the press release for Can't Look Away referencing plans to record a new Yes album later that same year (which didn't appear to come to pass in terms of actual labor).
In examining the promotional cycle for the album there are some interesting details to learn, but Trevor is having to continually contextualize himself as a member of Yes, given the events which resulted in the release of Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe a few weeks prior to Can't Look Away. When interviewed once more by Sylvie Simmons (this time for RAW magazine), the majority of the article featured commentary on what Trevor referred to as "The Yes Mess." You can also view an example of this in an interview for Canadian music channel Much Music a couple weeks after the album's American release. Most intriguing is the mention of a Union-like scheme rather early in the game, so to speak, which Trevor shows no interest in entertaining. The following year he would tell a journalist that he wasn't ready to go back to Yes until they were prepared to continue on with what he perceived as a more genuine motivation. And then...politics would have their way, as seems to be the case in any version of the band. Also interestingly enough Trevor noted in one interview of the period that he was tired of having to acknowledge the back catalog in a live setting - "We certainly won't do any older stuff. I never wanted to play that stuff in the first place." - but as Fate would have it, the Eighty Dates tour saw the band delving even deeper into that legacy which perhaps was beginning to feel like a stone around his neck.
There's actually a (somewhat) better-quality version of the STHOT video included in this footage.
For additional context, the "liner notes" included this time are not written by Trevor but cobbled together from Wikipedia and some other source. I don't believe he actually contributed liner notes for the 2002 reissue. But let's do a little comparison...
From the description on the Music Glue storefront:
Following the release of another Yes album Big Generator in 1987, Trevor wrote and recorded this album Can't Look Away. Many of the tracks would have been unsuitable for Yes although were certainly in the AOR mold that Yes had been aiming for during the previous five years. Can't Look Away contains a number of hugely catchy and commercial rock tunes including the title track. It is a great AOR album.
From the "liner notes" of the Deluxe set:
In addition to Rabin himself on guitars and lead vocals (and a host of other instruments), Can't... also features fellow Yes member Alan White drumming on some numbers. Stylistically it sits next to that band's 90125 and Big Generator releases.
Wait a minute...which is it?! Is Can't Look Away a YesWest-less YesWest album or not? Well, of course it isn't. I can understand a marketing braintrust expressing something like: if you like that Trevor then you'll like this Trevor too but I think it actually does the music of both concerns a disservice to equate them in such a way. Trevor possesses instincts and preferences for his own music which would be fulfilled by a solo project. If this music is supposed to sound just like all the other music he's recorded then why do a solo album at all? But because this is an album distinctly personal to him, it was both necessary and desirable to create it. However, you could say that in terms of production style and choices Can't Look Away is definitely a member of the same family as 90125 and Big Generator and I find myself thankful that Trevor decided to continue on in the artistic milieu which suited all his abilities rather than some kind of reactionary stripped-down aesthetic.
Wait a minute...which is it?! Is Can't Look Away a YesWest-less YesWest album or not? Well, of course it isn't. I can understand a marketing braintrust expressing something like: if you like that Trevor then you'll like this Trevor too but I think it actually does the music of both concerns a disservice to equate them in such a way. Trevor possesses instincts and preferences for his own music which would be fulfilled by a solo project. If this music is supposed to sound just like all the other music he's recorded then why do a solo album at all? But because this is an album distinctly personal to him, it was both necessary and desirable to create it. However, you could say that in terms of production style and choices Can't Look Away is definitely a member of the same family as 90125 and Big Generator and I find myself thankful that Trevor decided to continue on in the artistic milieu which suited all his abilities rather than some kind of reactionary stripped-down aesthetic.
One of the aspects I find most interesting is the characterization of Trevor's working relationship with producer Bob Ezrin as portrayed in the press of the time. Erzin has lead credit as producer on the album but I find it difficult to believe that he actually guided the sessions as they are so indicative of Trevor's production methodology, both from a historic and stylistic perspective. I feel whatever sounds too indicative of the era is probably down to his suggestion, but that may be unfair. It's obvious Ezrin did contribute a fair amount to the process simply from an examination of the original credits. Returning to my point, it's the way the attendant tension is stated which I find rather telling.
From the press release:
"Because I do a lot of engineering and producing myself, it's tough sometimes for a producer to know where he sits with me," Rabin admits. "But Bob Ezrin quickly became a very astute and aware coach for me. His input was very important, and he managed to find a place for himself amidst the coffee cups and tape reels."
From the Dan Neer interview:
"[...]But there was a period after we'd started where there was not friction, but it was no real understanding of what our roles were to be when it came to the production because he knew I wanted to be involved and I've always been involved in that aspect, that I get involved very much in the engineering side of things, and he wasn't quite used to that. You know, he'd always, or, not always, Dave Gilmour's obviously very involved, but with a lot of artists they like to get involved purely on the creative side musically and leave the knobs to the producer. Well I like to get involved in all areas, so it was a bit difficult initially to find out where we're gonna sit in the studio. But once that had been established it was a great relationship. And it's unusual to say this but I'd work with him again. I didn't think I'd say that. (laughs)"
I find this amusing because for Ezrin it was a reenactment of sorts regarding his participation in the production of the 1979 Pink Floyd album The Wall, as he was hired for the project by its' conceptual mastermind Roger Waters. Infamously by his own admission, he then threw a tantrum when Waters informed him that their lead engineer, James Guthrie, was also going to serve as a producer on the project. Ezrin did not believe that engineers were qualified to produce, apparently not realizing that Guthrie had already been working as a producer for three years prior to being hired by Pink Floyd. But Ezrin's fit of pique was to no avail, proving if nothing else who was truly in charge of the proceedings. So of course I wonder how close he came to throwing another tantrum in the case of Can't Look Away given his inherent prejudice towards engineers who possess what he believes are ideas above their station. Then again, Trevor was also The Talent, and recorded music production is essentially a service industry.
When I first interviewed Trevor in 2012, one of the more random sort of questions I asked him involved the "howling" vocalization in the rideout of STHOT. I thought maybe it was Solly because it does sound like an actual dog, but Trevor said it was his voice, a suggestion from Ezrin, and referred to his co-producer as "crazy." Now whether this was in general or just specific to that particular suggestion I don't know...make of it what you will.
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You're the jacaranda in my morning, you're my laser in the night.
Love is something that you shouldn't do, when the spoils of life aren't meant for you.
Radio industry magazine ads for the singles from Can't Look Away
As I've previously opined upon the album I can move right along to the extras. The bonus content is assigned its own disc, and nothing is missing! That is amazing. So now to examine each piece...
Single/promo edits
There is an edit of STHOT, labeled with a running time of 4:22, which is used in the video. Sure, its inclusion is not necessarily necessary but let's talk about being completist (supposedly the philosophy of this boxset) versus being lazy (a quality which has been demonstrated in its actual execution many times over). So yes, I think it should have been included as well. Because I was curious, I viewed my copy of the video - which is complete because it's from a pre-broadcast source - and the total running time is 4:31. The music begins seven seconds in, and there is two seconds of silence at the end (as we freeze on that final shot of Trevor's arms). So I believe my assertion is correct in this case. You can consider it redundant for me to provide another source of the video in this entry, but it's solely to prove my point.
This is not quite 4:22, but close enough.
"Sorrow (Your Heart)" and "I Can't Look Away" are both needledrops (i.e. I can detect vinyl noise) sourced from the 12" releases. I don't understand why they couldn't have been sourced from the CD versions, as both are available on the collectors' market (as example, I have CD copies myself). I will say this about the latter song - I tend to believe its mix has been "goosed" a bit because it really roars out of the speakers.
STHOT demo
This is the very best thing about this edition of Can't Look Away, in my opinion as a fan and a collector. Previously available solely on a couple of overseas 12" releases (and fairly rare to encounter in the marketplace), the original demo is pretty revelatory. That beat, for example, WOW it's funky. In my album review I stated the structure of this song echoes "Owner" to a degree, but it is really obvious on the demo. I can picture someone - maybe Trevor, maybe Ezrin - deciding it needed to be fundamentally altered. As long-time fans are aware, Trevor's demos are pretty complete unto themselves, so to hear such a difference between the versions is really interesting to me. I'm ready to make a new version of 90124 with this demo replacing "Would You Feel My Love" (because yes, I still need two versions of "Hold On").
I don't really detect any vinyl noise on this, so it could be sourced from the actual recording? That would be great if true. It's interesting that the demo was only available on certain versions of the single and not in the territories you'd expect.
Up Close with Dan Neer interview
This interview from 1989 has been in circulation for a while now, and it is certainly one of the best of the album's promotional cycle. The source is the actual vinyl broadcast promo sent to radio stations. The answers-only section is standard practice even now for press calls, as some stations like to edit their own playbacks. Neer has been well-known for decades as a New York area DJ/interviewer and is thoroughly professional, although it's all too tempting merely to listen to Trevor's dulcet mannered diction - it's always interesting to compare his accent now to the way it was 20-30 years ago.
The track-by-track breakdown is enlightening, and the discussion of Trevor's career and methodology is the kind of in-depth content Rabinites are always longing to discover and absorb. The audio quality is excellent, and frankly I'm surprised but also pleased.
One really fascinating part of their exchange to me is this:
You began studying classical music. What instrument did you play?
I played piano, I started when I was about six years old - and contrary to popular belief, I was never a great student, I was an awful student and played most of the things by ear. And it took me a long time to become a good reader, and I became a good reader only because I started doing session work at about fifteen years old, and I started getting booked a lot doing sessions and realized, you know, the more difficult sessions that happened, that my reading had to be good so I was forced to become a good reader.
Contrast that with what Trevor notes in this 2016 interview with Record Collector:
I listen to classical composers, and I have a lot of vinyl and still buy it when we’re on tour, though it’s stuck in boxes somewhere – The Beatles, Haydn, Stevie Wonder, jazz-fusion, a lot of metal. I learned piano from five, as did all the siblings, as my parents were musicians. So I could read music before I could read English. I practiced every day for an hour, when all I wanted to do was go out to play football.
I suspect the truth lies somewhere between, as they say.
Songs from 12/5/89
I don't want to discuss this out of context (meaning: I want to save it for my review of the Boston show) but I will opine that while I understand why the tracklist had to be split due to space, I don't think this was the best choice to make. But I also understand the logic in including two consecutive tracks. Ultimately it just doesn't feel thematically cohesive and the first thing I want to do is either listen to my original copy of this recording or make a playlist where it's reunited once again. I don't want to listen to a random chunk of this show outside of the whole. If it had been up to me I think - well, first of all if it had been up to me we wouldn't be in this conundrum to begin with - I would have gone with Solly and STHOT instead. But time-wise that probably wouldn't have sufficed.
It's just messy, that's my opinion. But I imagine not everyone shares that viewpoint and that's fine.
Now let's talk about what is right and wrong with the CD booklet.
Wrong
Again, there are TWO errors in the song titles in the booklet and on the disc. The 2002 reissue didn't have any errors in the track listing. So how it can be wrong now? In fact none of the original reissues contained errors of this nature. It just boggles my mind that the same company can be involved in two different archival projects and make so many mistakes on one of them.
(But that reminds me of a point I meant to raise in my review originally - "Etoile Noir" should actually be "étoile noire" because it's a feminine noun and thus its postnominal adjective should be feminine as well. I imagine Trevor might have consulted with his sister regarding this usage of French but maybe not.)
"Liner notes" - which I mentioned above, but if Trevor didn't desire to contribute something new then the album deserved better than cut-and-pasting from Wikipedia, for f#%k's sake.
The year of release is also incorrect, which I assume is a typo, but still.
The credits are missing numerous attributions. Duncan sang on six songs, not one. The Passion Brokers, who sang on four songs, aren't even mentioned. Neither is Denny Fongheiser, who played drums on "Eyes Of Love." Bob Ezrin is not credited with backing vocals on two songs nor for co-writing on "I Can't Look Away" and there's no co-writing credits for lyricist Anthony Moore or Trevor's father Godfrey. If all of the information was not going to be reprised from the original release then at least that which was included should have been correct and complete. This is simply shoddy work. Again, absolutely no excuse for allowing it to be incorrect.
Right
There's only ONE thing...more photos from Lisa Powers' shoot and that was a good decision. A very good decision. My only quibble is that there's no selection from the "desert" setup, which is represented on the original cover (stormy skies, desert, hanger/train station).
The auteur of Can't Look Away, or, as I like to call him: Peak Trevor.
Although I also don't understand why the original back cover grouping (featuring the three backdrops) couldn't have been used on page two rather than just the middle photo.
Remember, this is the benchmark - the name graphic for the entire boxset is taken from this album. It's important. But apparently not important enough to get some basic and crucial details correct.
Can't Look Away deserves far better than this, but I'm also aware that it wasn't likely to be reissued at all had this project not been formulated and championed by Rob Ayling. But he failed in some aspects nonetheless, whatever intentions he possessed notwithstanding, and that's just...too depressing to consider for any length of time. Thankfully, the album itself cannot be diminished by this lazy attempt towards contextualization for future relevance and discovery. Whoever does subsequently find and develop an attachment to it (and to Trevor's music as a whole, one would hope) will do so simply because it is a landmark for all time.
