Rick Wakeman on the radio today.....

I tend to be a bit long winded so bear with me....


Today  I had a great experience.  I have an hour commute from work and usually leave home with a couple CD's to help pass the time.  Today unfortunately I left them at home so I was at the mercy of local radio stations.  My morning was handled by the wit and sarcasm of the 'I-man', but the afternoon I was forced to navigate the morass of country stations... hip-hop stations... and the local rock station whose idea of 'classic-rock' entails  the same 15-20 Zeppelin, Aerosmith, AC/DC, and Skynrd songs repeated ad nauseum.  Well I happened to actually hear something decent on the rock station so I stopped my surfing and dug the nostaglia inducing strains of Bob Segar's 'Night Moves' when the local D.J. comes on to say he has Rick Wakeman on the phone...... HUH!!!!  (as Micky nearly drives off the road... as an aside I live in central North Carolina... not exactly a hot bed of prog rock.... or good rock stations ) 

The D.J. was halfway competent.... he was able (with one noteable exception) to name all the Yes album's Wakeman played on in the 70's.  The exception... perhaps the greatest of all Yes albums but oh well.   Lots of talk about how great a player Wakeman is, and his prodigious recording career.  Things started getting interesting when the talk turned to Yes.  Obviously Yes is on a bit of a hiatus while Jon's voice recovers (doctor's orders) When asked about future Yes plans..  Rick said that he and Steve Howe had lunch today and towards the end of this year we may be seeing the Yes men back in the studio.

However the real treat of the interview for me was to come.......

Wakeman was asked when he felt he was at his creative height... Wakeman replied that it would have been in the early 70's... before the rise of the music business sticking it's nose in recording sessions and the general corporate nature of the rock business.  Great answer Rick... and he proceeded to start to make an analogy to prove his point.....when to my horror... Wakeman was interrupted in mid sentence by the D.J. who proceeded to tell Wakeman to stand by because they needed to go to commercial break.......needless to say.... I projectile spewed Dr. Pepper on my windshield first in laughter then in horror at this..... this outrage and disrespect shown one the great GODS of prog rock.  From Wakeman....dead silence... what was an animated Wakeman previous to the interuption now was silence to the requests to stay on the line for a few minutes... finally the D.J. managed a monotome... alright out of him.   As my speedometer topped 85 and my blood pressure twice that... I waited through 5 MINUTES of commericals.. only to get dead air... then an AC/DC song (Big Balls.... ).  Did Wakeman suffer this outrage and stay on the line.... like a contestant from American Idol would or did he mutter bollocks and hang up on him.. I'll never know.  As I pulled into the driveway..... a second song comes on, the garbage known as Skynyrd saying....'turn it up'... as I turned it off  wondering about the state of corporate rock stations these days.

Let's hope we do see Yes back in the studio.

And if I'd been Rick I'd have hung up. Couldn't the ad break have waited?

Heh, nice story... rude of the DJ!

Blacksword wrote: I like to think Rick hung up and b*ggered off! Commercial radio and TV are there purely as money machines. The commercials pay the wages and for the very existence of the station itself. The guests and the music are almost incidental. It's a shame, and a great irony, or do I mean conspiracy () that Rick was interupted when he was.

I know... after my experience I will never  leave my CD's on the table again.  Other than ESPN radio and NPR, it's a wasteland hahahahha.