GURU: SEASONS WILL PASS YOU BY - THE PP GURU GETS UP, THE PP GURU GETS DOWN!!

The PP Guru continues with his long distance runaround diatribes of the studio albums recorded by one of his favorite bands, Yes while he was growing up. The reason why the PP Guru is archiving his personal rememberances is because he missed the internet submission deadline boat of reciting about his personal favorite live concert to include with the new book and box set that Yes released this week called the Word is Live which spans the first eighteen years of unreleased live recordings from their first BBC sessions on the John Peel Sunday Show all the way up to the 1987's Big Generator tour. It's nearly four hours of historic Yes bliss on 3 CDs and it's available now on Rhino Records. There's also a two disc DVD of the 35 anniversary tour called Songs From Tsongas that's available through Image Entertainment that includes rarely underperformed gems such as Sweet Dreams, the Beatles' cover of Every Little Thing and the 1996 most fan requested side long epic, Mind Drive.


We now harken back to late autumn of 1972. The sounds of pattering rain, chirping birds and tinkling bells evoke passing images of animals grazing in a lush green field on a fragile fragment of earth spiraling on a journey to a new home. A new home that can only exist in peace and tranquity until it's interrupted by a sonic eruption of contentious symphonic bomb bursts that only a evil Phantom of the Opera behind a monster theater organ could concoct is what the PP Guru is trying to describe as the masterpiece 3 song salute to 'Close to the Edge". Yes labored long and hard on this ambitious ingenious beloved classic even while they were touring the UK in support of their previous album, Fragile. For a period of three months, the boys would perform a two hour show and then rush right back out to Advision Studios to set up recording for the 18 and a half minute title track. Jon Anderson would request that tents to be set up along with cardboard cut outs of animals to be placed all along the sound room to get a certain ambient vibe going to get the band motivated. Needless to say, Maestro Jon A 's National Geographic idea got nixed. Nobody wanted to know which sock he was smoking that day.

Ex-Strawbs keyboard player, Rick Wakeman likens the recording process that engineer Eddie Offord utilized when splicing up 30 -40 different sections of analog tape together as putting together a jigsaw puzzle. Even though the band played the title track in its' entirety in the rehearsal room, Offord insisted that they record the enlongated piece of music one minute at a time. The same could be said for the opening of side two, And You and I, where guitarist Steve Howe, practically made the pedal slide guitar, a household name and a harbinger to master outside the arena of glamour bands and tv family pop outfits (the PP Guru is thinking Partridge Family here, folks) .

Nonetheless, persistence and patience payed off in the reward of seeing the album peak at Number 4 in the UK and Number 3 in the US.

Sadly, after the mixing of this album, founding drummer Bill Bruford had decided to leave the band while as the band was peaking to its' infamy to accept an a offer from another world reknowned progressive rock outfit named King Crimson where he would then forge another long lasting friendship with another popular bass player, John Wetton who in turn would form the second world's most famous progressive rock super group, U.K. with young Frank Zappa/Roxy Music violinist/keyboardist prodigy Eddie Jobson, before forming Asia with Geoff Downes and Steve Howe in the early eighties.

Bill Bruford would then be replaced in Yes by former John Lennon/Yoko Ono Band drummer, Alan White for the release of their first live three lp, Yessongs and the complimentary 70 mm film of the same name that was filmed over three nights in London's Rainbow Theater that also showcased some cheesy Roger Dean animation in it.

Favorite lyrical line: Gold stainless nail torn through the distance of man/As they regard the summit- Siberian Khatru (Anderson/Howe/Wakeman)

From this moment on, the PP Guru doesn' have any repressed memories of those early-seventies. 1972 was not such a bad year for the PP Guru's fundamental growth. Oh sure, there were spurts of right uppercrosses from in badly need of a reality check Roger when the PP Guru would wax his eight year old political stance(remember, even Richard M. Nixon was no friend of the PP Guru's even when he was just starting out in the 3rd grade) that he wished that he was old enough to vote for George McGovern and some schmoe should put a freakin' lead capsule right into Nixon's throat right there and then. When the PP Guru cajoled this out loud to some other kids outside during lunchtime recess - some little fat fuck named Anthony with warts all over his face and hands ran up and stabbed the PP Guru right in the palm of his hand with a No 2 pencil. The PP Guru had to go to hospital that day to make sure he didn't get any lead poisoning. Did you know that Superman could even die from lead poisoning? (Pencils have graphite instead of lead - are all East Coast authorities lackwits?)

The syndicated sci-fi tv shows such as U.F.O and Starlost (a lost child abandoned by Unca Harlan Ellison ) were on the PP Guru's tv hit parade.

The Monster Times.

Comic books were only 20 cents. Jack Kirby's Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth was a perennial favorite of the PP Guru's (now finally being collected in archival form by DC )- along with Luke Cage, Hero For Hire and Combat Kelly & the Deadly Dozen.

The PP Guru used to love to look up the mini-skirt of his third grade teacher, Miss Kirkpatrick during class naptime when he and his classmates were sacked out on blankets and pillows on the floor as she would tiptoe through us. But the PP Guru had to pretend that he was asleep for the entire time as she walked by. This was a skill that could not be applied anywhere else and to think, the PP Guru wouldn't remember anything that he once learned in the third grade. He still applies this technique which he still utilizes on the gritty streets of Los Angeles to this very day.

Ah, to be a young PP Guru again. It would so invigorating to turn back the hands of PP Guru time once again. Moon gate climbed and sent via Turn Around Glider to:

~ Coat

Close to the Edge

Close to the Edge
Album by Yes
Release	September 13, 1972
Recorded	April-June 1972
Genre(s)	Progressive rock
Length	37 min 47 s
Label	Atlantic Records
Producer	Yes and Eddie Offord
Professional reviews
AMG link Rolling Stone (favourable) link Pitchfork (9.0/10) link
Yes chronology
Fragile (1971)	Close to the Edge (1972)	Yessongs (1973)

Close to the Edge is the fifth album by British progressive rock band Yes. In June 1972, just as recording ended, drummer Bill Bruford suddenly left the line-up, forcing Yes to find a replacement before starting a new US tour.

Close To The Edge set a trend for Yes of including a single epic song significantly longer than the others which was followed in the later albums Relayer (which featured "The Gates of Delirium") and Going for the One (1977) (which featured "Awaken").

The religious influences introduced by Jon Anderson which later formed the basis of Tales From Topographic Oceans are already evident in the music and lyrics of all three tracks on Close To The Edge. Renewal and repetition are other main themes; the title track starts and finishes with the same sound effects of running water and birds and in "Siberian Khatru" there is the repetition of two-word phrases.

Painting by Roger Dean featured inside the sleeve of the Yes album Close to the Edge, 1972.

According to the band's official website, Yesworld, the song is inspired by Hermann Hesse's book Siddhartha, an explaination which can cast the cryptic and mysterious lyrics in a new light, tracking the awakening of Hesse's character "close to the edge" of a river (and, symbolically, of the serial lifetimes of his soul) where he experiences a spiritual awakening.

The album was released on Atlantic Records in September 1972. Close To The Edge is widely regarded as one of progressive rock's seminal moments and a masterpiece. It reached #4 in the UK and a career high of #3 in the US.

Track listing

Original release

1. "Close to the Edge" (Jon Anderson/Steve Howe) - 18:41
   1. "The Solid Time of Change"
   2. "Total Mass Retain"
   3. "I Get Up I Get Down"
   4. "Seasons of Man" (song sample - 176K)
2. "And You And I" (John Anderson; Themes by Bill Bruford/Steve Howe/Chris Squire) - 10:08
   1. "Cord of Life"
   2. "Eclipse" (Jon Anderson/Bill Bruford/Steve Howe)
   3. "The Preacher The Teacher"
   4. "Apocalypse"
3. "Siberian Khatru" (Jon Anderson; Themes by Jon Anderson/Steve Howe/Rick Wakeman) - 8:55

Close To The Edge (Atlantic K 50012) reached #4 in the UK. It also reached #3 in the US during a chart stay of 32 weeks.

Remaster

Close To The Edge was remastered and reissued in 2003 with four additional bonus tracks:

1. America [single version]
2. Total Mass Retain [single version]
3. And You and I
   1. "Cord of Life"
   2. "Eclipse"
   3. "The Preacher the Teacher"
   4. "Apocalypse"
4. Siberia [studio run-through of "Siberian Khatru"]

Sources

• Close To The Edge, CD booklet essay, Mike Tiano, c.2003
• AllMusicGuide.com
• "Top Pop Albums 1955-2001", Joel Whitburn, c.2002
• Lyrics' analysis

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Now we're done - Forry Ackerman seems to be key to the THE MONSTER TIMES in my mind, I remember an hour and half phone call with Harlan when I - as a fan - telephoned the man to ask about the "Cordwainer Bird" credit on "The Starlost" ... The Guru doesn't know the amount of Roger Dean LP art Sparky has somewhere either in Encino or Santa Monica - Sparky