Letters
Blooldy Well Write
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TRIBAL TALES
Many thanks for your excellent interview with Jon Anderson [Prog 153]. It brought back happy memories of my idle youth and becoming acquainted with Yes. As does his wonderful new album with The Band Geeks: it’s both fresh and nostalgic.
Yes were the soundtrack of my formative years. My introduction to their oeuvre was Yessongs. I knew nothing of the band before then, except by reputation. In a small record store in Reading, the guy behind the counter reverently handed me a pair of headphones for a pre-purchase listen. To this day, the opening track gets me still, when the strains of Stravinsky suddenly give way to sonorous washes from Rick Wakeman’s Mellotron before the full weight of the band kick in with the mighty Siberian Khatru.
It was the first triple album I owned and it set me back a full fiver. But it was worth every hard-earned penny. Not only did it serve as an introductory greatest hits, it had all the verve and energy of being live. It made them my band.
With the meagre funds of a 16-yearold, I bought Tales From Topographic Oceans shortly after its release. It was a sound investment, replayed over and over for many years to come, many in the wake of its prog controversy (a nasty punk conspiracy, if ever there was one). It always sounded pretty damn good to me.