I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: YES-9012Live: The Solos (1985).

Yes had released live albums before, and most of them had been quite indulgent, but none were as strange and indulgent as this live EP–a tie in with the popularity of 90125.  And yes, I have it on LP.

There are seven songs (in 33 minutes).  Two of them are proper songs from 90125.  The other five are the titular “solos.”

The two songs, “Hold On” and “Changes” both sound quite good.  The are notably less perfect than the album which is to be expected, but it’s still a little disconcerting given how perfect that album is.  The guitars are heavy and Anderson (and the other singer) sound in very good form.

Then there’s the solos:

“Si” is a rather uninspired keyboard solo.  It lasts 2:30 and the biggest cheers come when he starts playing “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.”  I just have to wonder what Wakeman would have done with this–or if his head would have exploded at the sound of the disc.

“Solly’s Beard” is the guitar solo from Trevor Rabin.  Not unlike Howe, he plays mostly classical guitar.  It’s a good solo, although really not that mindblowing (or even as interesting as Howe’s “Clap”).  There are some keyboards in the background too, which I guess means this isn’t a solo.

“Soon” is Anderson’s solo.  He sings the end of “The Gates of Delirium” from Relayer.  I imagine that’s the only thing you’d hear from that album, so it’s a nice addition.

Chris Squire and Alan White get two solos together (so I guess they are duos, but then the title of the album is wrong).  The first is Squire playing “Amazing Grace,” which bleeds into the 8 minute “Whitefish.”  This is actually a medley of a few past performances like: “The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus),” “Tempus Fugit” and “Sound Chaser.”  Since Anderson said he would never sing anything off Drama, you can only hear “Tempus Fugit” during this solo.

I’m not really sure anyone needs to hear this more than once or twice, but it was fun to dig it out all these years later.

[READ: April 25, 2015] The Lost Colony

I really enjoyed the graphic style of this book.  It has a look of a wood press–thick lines and dark colors.  It was also very cartoony, which was a great way to address many of the issues that were brought up here–especially slavery.

The book opens with a man in a green suit and bowler hat hanging up signs for a slave auction.  There’ a little girl, Bertha Snodgrass, who sees the sign and thinks that she can afford one.  She follows the stranger as he heads to an island (the lost island presumably) in which Alexander Hamilton Snodgrass seems to have made himself president and treasurer.  There are black and white people on this island.

Obviously, there’ a lot of racial issues in this story.  There’s a “Chinaman” named Pepe Wong who dresses in a “bathrobe” and offers Chinese medicine but also speaks in Spanish (Madre dios!).  There’s a black woman who distrusts the heathen Chinaman and wants nothing to do with the slave auction.

The main action seems to come from Dr Wong trying to get the stranger off of the island.  He gives the man some strange medicine and convinces him to take it with the promise of meeting Rex Carter.  A.H. Snodgrass is also keen on keeping the stranger off the island.

In the meantime Rex Carter is in the process of inventing a machine that will make slavery obsolete.

While all of these high level shenanigans are going on, Bertha sneaks back to the mainland with some “Snodgrass” dollars to buy a slave who will help her cook and clean and care for her brother.  But the auctioneer won’t take her fake money.  Except that there’s a slave–tiny and worthless–who is chained up.  He tells Bertha that she can buy him.  When the auctioneer leaves, she unlocks this tint slave boy and takes him home with her.

The end of the story leaves a lot of things up in the air–especially the state of the slave boy Louis (this book is only part one).

I have to admit I found a lot of this story to be very confusing in the details–the drugs and hallucinogens (in the book) didn’t help–but I enjoyed the book and am looking forward to reading the second part to figure out what just happened in the first part.