GURU: YOU HAD TO LEAVE TO HEAR THE PP GURU's WONDEROUS STORIES !!

The PP Guru is still chugging along with his personal Yes studio album memoirs, and we're currently up to the eighth release of Going for the One.

Notice anything different?


There's a man's bare ass on the cover. C'mon, what else?

That's right, class. Roger Dean did not provide the cover this time around - Hipgnosis did, a British design group formed in 1968 who were a trio who included Aubrey Powell, Peter Christopherson and Storm Thorgerson specialized in making great cover art for Rock albums including many sleeves for Pink Floyd .

Going for the One was initially released on 7/7/77 - the very same day as Styx's landmark album of the Grand Illusion. Prior to this release, Yes was extremely swamped in doing two executive tours behind the last Relayer album, then after each member of the band took a little sabbatical to record a solo album to be released roughly the same time in the summer of 1976 (something that Kiss would mimic later on in their career). Alan White explored calypso and reggae on Ramshackled, Steve Howe went classical and jazz on Beginnings, Patrick Moraz explored South American rhythms while trying to tell us the Story of I, Jon Anderson expanded further on the themes based on Roger Dean's paintings on the Fragile and Close to the Edge album cover on his Olias of Sunhillow outing, and Chris Squire weaved his bass guitar gymnastics through orchestral chamber music on his much acclaimed Fish Out of Water, (with instrumental contributions by Moraz and Bill Bruford).

Yes were getting so big that they begin to start selling out arenas and baseball stadiums- reaching the plateau of headlining a sold out bill at the Jersey Stadium in Roosevelt, N.J, a bill that also included Peter Frampton and the Eagles as supporting acts. People were more geared up to see the Martyn Dean designed stagecraft and the laser light shows that could be seen as far away as the World Trade Center in New York rather than a frizzy haired pop star who's waste of talent was reduced to playing with wah wah pedals on his guitar. The stretching of lights to a sea of skyscrapers was an image that served as an harbinger to what the overall theme of the next album should be.

After further rest and searching for a tax relief amid the advance of punk rock and Elvis Presley come back tours making prog life miserable, Patrick Moraz offered his country of Switzerland as a place for a retreat to record some demos. So the band booked passage and set up shop (forgetting to pack Eddie Offord in his carrying case) at Mountain Studios in Montreux for sking and drinking or anything else that served up as inspiration. Eventually, this idea would begin to back fire on the Swiss poodle Spaceman, due to lingusitic difficulties and a bit of ego acne flare-ups, Moraz somewhat managed to get himself fired after making contributions to four out of the five new tracks ( on the remastered edition released by Rhino Records a couple of years back - the somber Turn of the Century track was once upbeated by a recurring Squire/Moraz jamming riff borrowed loosely from a song called Silently Falling, which appeared on Squire's solo album) with Maestro Jon A penning the album's only hit single, Wonderous Stories which will be the first of many future Yes tunes to paying ode to that world famous peyote pirate, Carlos Castaneda. Moraz went on to have a sucessful twelve year stint with the Moody Blues and was single handly responsible for reshaping their overall sound, landing their first ever collaboration together, Long Distance Voyager to the top of the world's charts in 1981. Eventually they gave him the shaft too.

So maybe now Vangelis was rethinking that offer to join the Yes Camp?

Not quite - for the door was now opened to welcome back that curryaholic capeman himself, Rick Wakeman to the fold - but logistically only as a session player.

Despite Rick's misgivings about Hindu temples, astral traveling, and holy shite scriptures and scrolls of a ancient long forgotten yesterday explored on Tales from Topographic Oceans, Rick felt that the more shorter made more assessible songs such as the title track and the "Phantom of the Opera" pleasing Parallels was more or less of what he and the rest of the band circling the same egg was more of where they should have gone with the music instead of being scattered in all sorts of opposite directions. The epic-length of man's search for Christian deism explored on the fifteen minute plus Awaken, didn't seem to bother Wakeman in the slightest, when he decided to hook up mikes from a St. Martin's cathedral in Vevey to a studio sounding board in Mountain Studios to record it's church organ.

Chris Squire - the one member in the band who originally phoned up Rick at 3 AM to join the band to record Fragile, conspired with the band's manger, Brian Lane once again to get him to resign on the dotted line to become a full-fledged member (Rick's solo career was still on the go) by playing a very nasty trick. At a party to celebrate the final mix of the album- Chris spilled out a sob story of how it would be nearly impossible for the band to find a session player to play Rick's keyboard parts on the road. They're new parts and they couldn't very well teach someone else to play them in the very short time alloted to finish the tour. ' Rick, would be too much of a bother to' - Rick put his hand up and stopped him before he could finish and said he liked the new material so much that he couldn't have imagined anyone else doing it but him. But then Chris pressed on- 'then, you couldn't very well be a session player touring with us- we'd have to pay you a session player's fee and you're worth more than that- you should consider becoming a full time member again'. Rick agreed that it certainly made sense and all in the room shook hands. Rick was officially back in the band again.

So as everyone left to mingle about the party - Rick couldn't help notice but spot this week's Melody Maker had the headlines already blaring in large black font: RICK WAKEMAN BACK IN YES! Rick found Brian Lane again and asked him how the press wound up with this story, or better yet, what would've happened if he had said no? Well, Brian said as he clasped his hand around his shoulder, 'That's a risk a manager has to take.'

The PP Guru was starting to become a tenderfoot Yes Fan roughly around this time in his history. He already had Fragile, but by the time he was finishing up the seventh grade, he had succumbed to peer pressure of becoming a Led Zep head accomplice to carry out a petty crime wave spree in their name. The PP Guru dabbled in shoplifting candy, Creem magazines, and smoked a little giggle weed to Rush 2112. He got talked into ordering records and eight track tapes from Columbia House and RCA clubs using bogus names and using his neighbors' address to send them to and waited for the packages to arrive. He and the Parsippany Parasites gang of tough tots in training would then go out and sell them for three dollars a pop to other hapless students at Central Junior High School whose parents wouldn't give them the allowance to purchase their own albums at the nearest Two Guys. The PP Guru had his own racket on the side when he would he would wait for people to put out their subscription payments for the Newark Star Ledger in neat little manilla envelopes in his apartment complex and ransack his entire 26 building plus apartment complex. No one suspected the PP Guru of this low level larceny because the PP Guru had his own PAPER ROUTES on the side, delivering the Morristown Daily Record and the Pennysaver.

The PP Guru used some of that money that he swindled to buy his very subscription to
Circus Magazine, a very prestine colorful and picturesque magazine that happened to be a rock and roll magazine with a lot of clout, in not only covering the music scene but also had articles on popular tv shows and fashion trends. The very copy of Circus Magazine that came in the mail for the PP Guru that summer had none other than Rick Wakeman on the cover (to talk about the new Yes album . The PP Guru was so excited that he had to take the magazine to show off to his friends at the pool located at his apartment complex.

However, the pool lifeguard working there at the time didn't really take a shine to the PP Guru's shenanigans. The PP Guru entered the pool area without his pool badge and even though the PP Guru was fully clothed and had no intention of going swimming (...yet) he wanted to show his friends like David Ben -Shimer, David Paskar, and Martin Nelson his new shiny glossy magazine with Rick Wakeman on the cover- but for some reason, the lifeguard told the PP Guru to come back with his bathing suit and his badge. The PP Guru said no and sat down on a lounge chair and proceeded to show off his magazine. The lifeguard was persistent on embarrassing the PP Guru in front of his friends - that the PP Guru angerily turned around and told the lifeguard that if he didn't stop bothering the PP Guru, the PP Guru was going to grab a gun and shoot his mother in the head. Then the PP Guru felt himself being roughly picked up with two hands. The PP Guru tried to put a struggle, but it was useless - his strong sage muscles weren't developed enough, so he reluctantly got tossed into the drink with both his clothes on and his new magazine in tow. The PP Guru emerged out of the pool more fucking furious than the Sub-Mariner ever was and with his teeny tiny voice of testicle dropping testoterone, he let out a barrage of expletives at the peon lifeguard. C U next Tuesday was even uttered, if the PP Guru remembers correctly. This mind set back of an episode even carried out the parking lot, and as the PP Guru inched his way towards home, cursing and screaming, but all the while coming to the stark realization that he can't walk in the front door of his apartment with his clothes all soaking wet and a magazine that had a mailing label with his name on it- not with his mother busy doing housework. The PP Guru had to go across the street where the Central Junior High baseball field was and sit on a bench to dry off. The magazine's pages were nothing a bleeding colored mess soggily stuck together.

The PP Guru would just sit here and dry off- but then something else hit him, a distant memory of someone he spotted at the pool who saw this whole episode go down-

Oh no- the PP Guru forgot! the PP Guru's step cousin from Rhode Island was visiting down for the summer. The niece to in sorely need of a Reality Check Roger was a basketcase herself- when she bonded with the PP Guru's half-sister and wound up being more of a pain in a ass than his half sister ever was. The step cousin who would always call the PP Guru ski slope nose , due to a accident to his protuberence suffered that caused him to quit the little league. She was there! She saw the whole thing happened while sitting in the bleachers of a home game. The same step cousin who used to sleepwalk at night, frightning the PP Guru nearly to death when she kept repeating the word asshole, asshole, asshole, over and over like a broken record while the PP Guru was out in the living room (his temporary bedroom at the time) watching a first season episode of SNL. The same stepcousin who would wet the PP Guru's bed at night. (OH! The stink of teenage female urine!) The same stepcousin who jumped up and down on that same bed, breaking the bedsprings and almost crushed the family cat in the process. The same twelve year old stepcousin who was also a goddamn fucking...

... tattletale.

And sure enough before the PP Guru put two and two together, a blue blazing Cadiallic comes roaring across the baseball field diamond towards the PP Guru.

Christine - The boat that nearly ran down the PP Guru readies it's headlights for it's next victim.

Why, it's in sorely need of a Reality Check Roger coming to try to mow the PP Guru down. Again. The PP Guru runs into the woods behind him to lose in sorely need of a Reality Check Roger and spends his first night in the cemetary just adjacent to where l old soldiers of the Revolution and the Civil War are buried. The in sorely need of a Reality Check Roger has been fuming all summer long that the young PP Guru had disobeyed his direct order of getting a haircut and wasn't allowed to see the first Star Wars movie until he did.

Ahhhhh, but the PP Guru already put his thumb out on Route 287 and hitched a ride to the Morris County Mall in Cedar Knolls to wait on line to see it earlier that summer- but in the sorely need of a Reality Check Roger didn't know that-

That was the first of many splendorous hair splintering incidents that the PP Guru had managed to outsmart his main nemesis, the in sorely need of a Reality Check Roger who was always threatening to send him off to military school.

Album personnel: Jon Anderson, Harp & vocals, Steve Howe, steel & electric guitars- very bad back up vocals, Chris Squire, bass guitars and very superb back up vocals, Rick Wakeman, keyboards and church organ, & Alan White, drums & tuned percussion. Favorite all-time lyric line: Now the verses I've sang don't add much weight to the story in my head/ So I'm thinking I should go and write a punchline/ But they're so hard to find in my cosmic mind / So I'll take a look out of the window - Going For the One, Jon Anderson.

The truth of sport plays rings around:

~

Coat
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Going for the One

Going for the One
Album by Yes
Release	July 7, 1977
Recorded	Late 1976 - Spring 1977
Genre(s)	Progressive rock
Length	38 min 49 s
Label	Atlantic Records
Producer	Yes
Professional reviews
Allmusic.com link
Yes chronology
Yesterdays (1975)	Going for the One (1977)	Tormato (1978)

Going for the One is the tenth album by British progressive rock band Yes. It was released in 1977 after an extended break for solo activity, and is especially notable for marking the return of keyboardist Rick Wakeman, who had departed in 1974 in the aftermath of the Tales From Topographic Oceans tour. His re-entry was faciliated by the firing of Patrick Moraz, after having only played on Relayer, due to creative differences.

After their extended break, the group regrouped in Switzerland, refreshed, and ready to record in late 1976. After constructing epic tracks for the last few years, Yes felt inspired to scale things back a bit and recorded some of their most direct and concise material in ages. Wakeman also varied his sound by largely forsaking his mellotron and experimenting with church organ to pleasing effect on "Parallels" and the sole extended track, "Awaken".

After many successive album covers with Roger Dean, Yes - who also produced the album entirely by themselves - commissioned Hipgnosis to create the artwork for Going For The One instead.

“Yesfamily Coverstories: Here we come to the first album since The Yes Album to have something other than a Roger Dean cover. This was not necessarily a slight of Roger, however. They still used his logo, and in fact the design company, Hipgnosis, was led by Storm Thorgerson, whom Roger knew. In fact, the publishing company Dean launched called Paper Tiger later published a book full of Hipgnosis album cover designs, "Walk Away Rene," and Storm was co-editor of some of the Album Cover Albums.

The Going For the One design appears in "Walk Away Rene." It shows a naked guy (could it be the blue naked boy from Yesterdays grown up? Nah.) standing before a dizzying array of buildings. Feeding into or out of him are rays of various designs and colors. It may remind us of the line, "I feel lost in the city" from "Heart of the Sunrise," but that was on a different album. I see it as a contrast between man's ultimately natural state (naked) and ultimately unnatural state (surrounded by skyscrapers).

The buildings, by the way, are from Century City in Los Angeles”

Yes' return, at the height of the punk movement that so despised them, was an unexpectedly successful one, with Going For The One reaching the pinnacle of the UK charts and even having a Top 10 hit single with "Wonderous Stories" - something that would have been considered impossible during the days of Tales From Topographic Oceans.

With its confident and natural qualities, Going For The One is still generally regarded by most critics as one of Yes' finest albums.

Track listing

1. "Going For The One" (Jon Anderson) - 5:32
2. "Turn Of The Century" (Jon Anderson/Steve Howe/Alan White) - 7:56
3. "Parallels" (Chris Squire) - 5:53
4. "Wonderous Stories" (Jon Anderson) - 3:49
5. "Awaken" (Jon Anderson/Steve Howe) - 15:31

Going For The One (Atlantic K 50379) reached #1 in the UK. It also reached #8 in the US during a chart stay of 21 weeks.

Going For The One was remastered and reissued in 2003 with several bonus tracks.

Personnel

• Jon Anderson: Vocals, percussion
• Chris Squire: Bass guitar, vocals
• Steve Howe: Electric and acoustic guitars, vachalia, vocal
• Rick Wakeman: Piano, organ, moog, synthesizers
• Alan White: Drums, percussion
  

Sources

• Going For The One, CD booklet essay, Tim Jones, c.2003
• AllMusicGuide.com
• "Top Pop Albums 1955-2001", Joel Whitburn, c.2002

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Sparky was already a 1st generation Los Angeles 'faux punker' by this time - being way ahead of the curve.