TIME AND A WORD

Most people think THE YES ALBUM was YES' first album. Few realize they had plunked down two lps into the cuttout bins of history. Jon, Bill,Chris and Tony Kaye are there but Steve Howe isn't. Peter Banks, a much more agressive and jazz oriented guitarist (with a bit of a nod to Townshend) is pretty much sharing his space with a host of orchestra instruments which are really only there for novelty's sake. There are three great moments on this thing all of which show a band searching for direction. Richie Havens' NO OPPORTUNITY NECESSARY, NO EXPERIENCE NEEDED is a YES that existed for those four minutes and would never return. Kind of funky and thick. As masculine as Jon would ever get. ASTRAL TRAVELLER is YES on a psychadellic track to hell. Beautifully recorded it gives us insight on how these guys might've sounded like in their earliest days. The title track is Jon's ode to Hey Jude and it's so beautiful it's the only song from the pre-YES ALBUM that they still play. The rest of the album is just your run of the mill post Haight hippie crud done better by dozens of others. Little did the world know what YES would be laying down in the new decade.