[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Severian

I was once the object of what can only be described as an "intervention", in which four or five of my "math rock" enthusiast friends tried to convince me that Yes was the greatest math rock band in the history of the world.

I laughed at first, thinking it was a joke, and seriously a couple of them looked at me like I'd just defended Hitler. I don't think they ever got over that.

I really tried to listen fairly because these were my friends, but it just felt ridiculous.

Aside from their hits, I've only listened to them a couple of times. It didn't click. Last time was years ago, so I'm thinking I should consider giving it another go.

your friends' appreciation showed good taste but the definition was wrong-- yes is not math rock, math rock is a weak-sauce derivative of prog rock. okay, it's a cleaned-up version, cooler and more intellectual. but it's definitely derivative whereas the ancients were the ones who broke the ground.

as for the ridiculousness, it's definitely there, and in many places. but it's a band with such a long history and personnel changes it's really not one band at all-- at some point there were 2 yes bands if i'm correct, and they had to had to recombine, probably for legal reasons, into one again-- from which their "union" record came out. but that's the 90s and i don't care about that. so i can't know what you heard or what it sounded like.

for me it's back to the 70s where the good stuff happened. just like late-80s sonic youth, in a way.

speaking of 70s and 90s-- i'm almost sure modest mouse uses the opening of "survival" in one of their songs, i just can't pinpoint which one is it. "survival" is one of the best tracks of yes's first album ('yes"). please do not confuse "yes" with "the yes album"-- they're 2 different ones ha ha ha ha. but "yes" is from 1969. so. hm. er.

don't laugh at them again or vincent gallo will hex your colon. he's a huuuuuuuuuge fan. and he's been known to hex colons.