Media Watch: PROG issue 151

In the new issue of PROG (Marillion on the cover), is an article regarding the making of Talk, featuring interviews with surviving YesWest members Trevor, Tony Kaye, and Jon Anderson.  This issue is on-sale now in all the usual places.

Media Watch: new interview

Making a third appearance on the Yesshift podcast, Trevor discusses the reissue/remaster of Talk.

Flashback Friday: golden oldie

Thanks to a tip-off from a regular reader...this is an upload - I believe - of a track from one of the Lekker Kitaar albums which Trevor recorded under his Trevor Terblanche pseudonym.  Most of that material is instrumental, so it's still my best guess as to the actual source, since this features Trevor also singing the song in question which does appear to be based on John Lennon's cover (from the Rock n'Roll release) of Ben E. King's 1961 classic in terms of arrangement.  It is worth noting that all three of those albums each had a Beatles-related song included in the tracklist.

Talk 30th Anniversary box set release

Announced today (although I will say that I had received word of this a couple months back) is a long-awaited re-release for Talk, the 1994 album which marked the last time we would hear the full YesWest lineup on record.

It's wonderful to see this "lost" classic get the full archival treatment, from a very interestingly titled distributor, Spirit of Unicorn Music.  The release is scheduled for May 24th on vinyl and CD, featuring a bonus disc of edits, demos, and instrumental versions as well as a full live show from the Finger Lakes Performing Arts Center in Canandaguia, New York on June 19th, 1994.

The press release contains one particular piece of information which is historically interesting:

Talk was also one of the first albums to be recorded and edited entirely digitally, without using traditional audio tape. It was a groundbreaking move at the time, but the technology, as advanced as it was, was not without its problems. In January 1994, Northridge in the San Fernando Valley in California was hit by an earthquake measuring 6.7 on the Richter Scale, and production had to be halted as the early Apple Mac computers they were working on were being affected by the tremors. To put the technology into context now, in its unedited form, Talk took up 34GB of memory, which today could be transferred via a flash drive in seconds.

I imagine there were any number of albums being recorded at the time which were affected by the Northridge Quake but another which has been publicly documented is The Black Crowes' third album Amorica, also released in 1994. 

And this is a perfect time to get into the Talk frame of mind with my essay on the album from 2016.

https://rabinesque.blogspot.com/2016/03/talk-and-modern-sound-of-yeswest.html

update: stringing for Joe

Announced today is the release date for Joe Bonamassa's new Live at the Hollywood Bowl, presenting the show from 2023 which featured orchestral arrangements from Trevor as well as David Campbell and Jeff Bova.

The release will encompass the following formats: CD/DVD, CD/BR, 2 LP Vinyl (180-gram), and digital streaming/purchase and is on sale May 17th.

Media Watch: Rock Classics: 90125

(With thanks to highfell on Yesfans.)

A new entry in the Rock Classics book series - examining albums in the Classic Rock canon - is an examination of 90125 by Stephen Lambe, author of Yes: Every Album, Every Song and co-author of Classics: Yes in the 1980s. The book will be published in July of this year.

Against the odds, the astonishing 90125 (1983), became Yes’ best-selling album. Featuring new interviews with several of the main protagonists, including Jon Anderson and Trevor Rabin, this book traces the complicated story of the album from its 1981 demos to the conclusion of Yes’ massive world tour in 1985.

90125 was never intended to be a recording by one of the 1970s leading rock bands, but a combination of commercial expediency and luck saw a release by Cinema - featuring Yes stalwarts Chris Squire, Alan White and Tony Kaye alongside Trevor Rabin - become Yes following the last-minute recruitment of Jon Anderson. A US number one hit single "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" led to a triple platinum record and a massive world tour, giving this band a new lease of life in the 1980s.

90125 is reviewed in full, and the book also includes a detailed look at the somewhat complex and contrived process that created it, followed by an examination of the album’s legacy and remarkable afterlife.

As is noted in his bio: His piece about the album for PROG magazine was the inspiration for this book., then I imagine we can expect that the book will contain interview excerpts not previously published in last year's PROG cover story.

You can preorder it from Burning Shed via this link:

https://burningshed.com/store/sonicbond/stephen-lambe_rock-classics-yes-90125_book

A pleasant surprise!

Yesterday, Trevor announced that he would be releasing the demo version of "Fragile" - previously only available as a bonus track on the deluxe Rio release - to streaming services.

As stated in the social media post:

I’m particularly pleased with the space, in terms of production, and happy with the simplicity of the lyric. Life is harsh, fickle and Fragile. My intention regarding the guitar solo was for it to drip onto the “page” so to speak.

Given that he wrote this song to spec for Agent X's showrunner, I'm assuming that the lyrics at least somewhat reflect the narrative concerns of the series as a whole (or perhaps only the last episode).