ONE LIVE BADGER

One Live Badger was one of the many albums that emerged from the early seventies art rock effusion that owed a lot to the creative talents of Roger Dean. In the early seventies his sureal concepts and paintings began to adorn the covers of albums such as Uriah Heep's Demons & Wizards and Fragile by Yes where the music contained as much allure as Dean's canvasses. Unfortunately this is not the case here despite some lively moments from ex-Yesman Tony Kaye's keyboards interacting with Brian Parrish's respectable rhythm and lead guitar licks. The association between these 6 enlogated Three Dog Night meets Grand Funk Railroad spiritual rave-ups and the hyperboreal image of two ( rather cute ) little Badgers weathering out a storm has always eluded me. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad record and the live enviroment certainly compliments the energy and spontaneity of the pieces which get into some cool jamming moments but it lacks the substance ( unless you want to consider the religious overtones in the lyrics ) that you would expect from an album embelished with Roger Dean artwork. Original vinyl editions had a pop-up badger which confused things even more. But at the time I guess kids were just thrilled with the novelty of having a record with a Roger Dean cover.

Invariably, someone who picks the CD edition up for the first time in 2010 will be overcome by the Dean artwork and will be further thrown off by the knowledge that Tony Kaye was the original keyboard player for prog leviathans Yes and swayed further still by the fact that it was produced by Yes guru man Jon Anderson. The best preparation for this anamoly would be to forget about the two cuddly badgers and think of the album as an extension of Yes' 1970 album Time And A Word when they were still in a sixties groove. Things started to get too serious on the subsequent Yes Album after which Kaye was given his pink slip and One Live Badger sort of de-mystifies at least some musical reasons for this departure with it's bluesy, upbeat and sometimes funky compositions .

Not a monumental catastrophe by a long shot but an album that will come under scrutiny by hard core fans of Yes music with Roger Dean covers from the same period. Proceed with caution and beware of badgers.