SOUNDTRACK: ANDERSON BRUFORD WAKEMAN HOWE-Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe (1989).
The band with an amazing pedigree created a band with a preposterous name and an equally preposterous album title. But who cares, right? After the pop frenzy of Big Generator, why shouldn’t the “real” members from Yes (excepting Squire) form a band? They even brought Bruford back (he has said that he didn’t realize all three other guys were part of it, he thought it was a solo recording). Perhaps the most insulted person should be Tony Levin. Not only did I not know he played bass on the album (Bruford brought him over from King crimson), but I can’t even hear him on it! I have listened to this record a couple times recently and I can’t hear any bass at all. It’s like the anti-Chris Squire album!
I remember when this came out I was pretty excited. I remember drawing the album cover (look, kids, Roger Dean is back!), and I remember joking about the preposterous “Teakbois.” But when I listened to it again (first time in probably twenty years), I didn’t recognize a lot, and I liked even less.
The album opens with “Themes,” a six-minute, three-part mini epic which should hearken back to Yes of old. There’s an interesting slow circular keyboard piece and a pretty piano melody and then it gets funky, sort of. About 4 minutes in, it changes to a new thing altogether but again the sounds are so…bleah, the guitars sound pretty good (some great guitar work from Howe) while those keys just sound…. You know I said that Wakeman would never play the sounds on 90125 & Big Generator, but he went even blander on this song.
Track two is only 3 minutes long. It’s dramatic and angry with some good keyboard sounds. It’s probably the best thing on the album.
“Brother of Mine” is another three-part mini epic that runs over 10 minutes. The guitar chords and style remind me of mid 80s Rush. There’s lots of interesting elements and the main verse reminds me of maybe early Genesis or Marillion. Although the solo and other sections seem…obvious instead of groundbreaking. The middle part is pretty good, with a very classic Yes feel. But the final section sounds exactly likes something from a Disney movie, perhaps The Little Mermaid (which came out the same year).
“Birthright” starts off ominous with some interesting percussion. Although all the percussion on this album is rather disappointingly electronic. Not that’s there’s anything inherently wrong with electronic drums, it just seems wasted on someone as amazing as Bruford. It feels vaguely like a Peter Gabriel song. It’s pretty good but it gets a little melodramatic by the end.
“The Meeting” is a treacly ballad. It sounds nice but is nothing special. “Quartet” is the third mini epic. This one is nine minutes and four parts. The first part is folky and reminds me of Simon and Garfunkel. Part 2 references tons of old Yes songs in the lyrics (which seemed to make reviewers of the album giddy) but which really just shows how weak this song is compared to those other songs.
“Teakbois” has got to be the biggest WTF recorded. I’m all for bands embracing other cultures and it’s awesome that after Paul Simon released Graceland other bands added multicultural elements to their sound, but this 7 minute monstrosity sounds like AWBH went to the Caribbean and joined a tourist band. I don’t know if they released many band photos for this album, but this songs makes it seem like this could have been their cover. There is a chorus near the end of the song in which they sing “cool running” and I was relieved to find out that the film with that name came out four years after this song.
“The Order of the Universe” is another 9 minute, four-part epic. Just thinking of this song makes me think of the closing credits for The Lion King (which came out five years after this at least) or something. There are some interesting parts to it. But the “Rock Gives Courage” section is dreadful and Anderson sounds like he’s singing a pop metal band
“Let’s Pretend” closes this album. It’s only 3 minutes long and is co-written by Vangelis. It’s a fine song, completely inoffensive.
So what is up with this disc? Am I imposing a 21st century attitude on it? Am I missing that it was actually really influential (on Disney songwriters anyhow) and that it’s not their fault that other people have poisoned the sound for me? I understand that musicians change and grow, but with these four names, you’d expect something a lot bigger and better than this.
Maybe when I listen to it in another 20 years I’ll actually like it again.
[READ: May 10, 2015] The Shadow Hero
I really enjoy the stories that Gene Luen Yang creates. And this one (which I later found out is actually meant to be an origin story of an already extant character) was really interesting.
The story begins in China. In 1911 the Ch’ing Dynasty collapsed and soon after the Spirits who were born with China and watched over her had to decide what to do. The Dragon, the Phoenix, the Tiger and the Tortoise came to a council. Later, the tortoise left the country with a man who was too drunk to know why he was even on the ship he was sailing on.
Then we see that the story is told by a first person narrator when he says that his mother came to America a few years later. She had high hopes of the prosperity and beauty of the country, but her hopes were dashed by the realization of the ghettos and slums of Chinatown.
His father (the drunk from above) owned a grocery store and Hank (the narrator) helped out. His mother, the stronger-willed of the two was a driver for a rich woman and took no crap from anyone. (more…)
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I knew and liked Ween back in college. I stopped following them once they released their country album, so I was surprised to see just how many records they had released and just how respected they had gotten (relatively of course).
I Just Read About That... 