YESFANZ NEWSLETTER 37



	/contacts		(2003)

Topics

The dates for the North American section of the World Tour that has been titled 'Close to the Edge and Back' Tour are as follows:

July 12: Quebec City, QUE - Quebec City Festival
July 13: Toronto, ONT - Molson Amphitheatre
July 15: Columbus, OH - Nationwide Arena
July 16: Hershey, PA - Hersheypark Stadium & Star Pavilion
July 18: Chicago, IL - Charter One Pavilion at Northerly Island
July 19: Detroit, MI - Freedom Hill
July 21: Camden, NJ - Susquehanna Bank Center

July 22: Uncasville, CT - Mohegan Sun Arena
July 23: Boston, MA - Bank of America Pavilion
July 25: Atlantic City, NJ - Borgata Event Center
July 26: Wantagh, NY - Nikon at Jones Beach Theater
July 28: Holmdel, NJ - PNC Bank Arts Center
July 29: Baltimore, MD - Pier 6 Pavilion
July 31: Tampa, FL - Ford Amphitheatre
Aug 1: Miami, FL - Hard Rock Live Arena
Aug 2: Orlando, FL - Hard Rock Live
Aug 4: Atlanta, GA - Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre at Encore Park
Aug 6: Kansas City, MO - Starlight Theatre
Aug 8: Houston, TX - Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
Aug 9: Dallas, TX - Superpages.com Center
Aug 11: Denver, CO - Red Rocks Amphitheatre
Aug 14: Vancouver, BC - General Motors Place
Aug 15: Seattle, WA - WaMu Theater at Qwest Field Events Center
Aug 17: Troutdale, OR - Edgefield

Aug 19: Mountain View, CA - Shoreline Amphitheatre at Mountain View
Aug 20: Anaheim, CA - Honda Center
Aug 22: Universal City, CA - Gibson Amphitheatre

I know that a few YesFANZ members are going to see parts of the tour - Anne Corris is planning to go to Uncasville through to Orlando, Debbie and I are hoping to go to the West Coast - there are probably others who are going please let us know so we can meet up wherever possible.

Billboard announced the 27-date tour with the following article that also mentioned a competition to allow a fan to perform on stage with them on 'Give Love Each Day'. It also mentions that there will be a new live album released this year.

On the 14^th March, Rick Wakeman released the following statement on his website about his non-involvement with the tour.

"Throughout much of last year, e-mails and phone calls were held between Jon, Chris, Steve, Alan and myself as to where we all felt the future for YES lay, and of course, there were conflicting views in many areas! (Nothing new there, but very healthy of course). My major concern was that of over-touring, which I felt YES had done since 2002 with far too many shows, especially in America which for me diminished the "specialness" of the band. I also was concerned for the health of the band, both as a whole and as individuals. It's a matter of public record for instance, that Jon in particular really suffered during the last weeks of the previous YES tour which was extremely worrying for us all.

Over the years, I have had my fair share of "narrow escapes" when it comes to health and I felt that I simply could not do months and months of touring each year anymore and I expressed this to the other guys from the outset. I'm absolutely fine at the moment, but want to stay that way, so I suggested to the new management that we perhaps limited the shows we would do and make each show something special, but this was rejected with the management feeling that lengthy touring was the answer for the band.

It was therefore with an extremely heavy heart that I had to say to the guys that I could not be part of a massive long term touring schedule as I did not feel it right for the band musically and also for the band member's health. We are a democratic band and I accept that I was a sole voice in this thinking.

Chris and I met up a few times and spoke about who I felt would be able to do a good job in the keyboard department and I put forward just two names, my two eldest sons Adam and Oliver. Adam, to be truthful, was not really a "contender" because he is fully committed to Ozzy and is touring constantly. Oliver has worked with Steve of course on various recordings and so there was already a rapport there. I was therefore very happy when Oliver told me that Steve had called him.

I am sad of course not to be walking on stage with the guys on the upcoming tour, but like each member of YES, I have developed a deep inner spiritual feeling that takes over your whole life, and sadly witnessing too many friends around my age, (both musicians and people connected with the business), either departing this world or having serious illness, has played an enormous part in the very difficult decision I had to make.

I truly hope that this is not the end of the Classic Line-Up and that something very special may happen in the not too distant future. In the meantime, I wish the guys, good health, great music and much happiness."

To find out more about Oliver Wakeman, I suggest that you take a look at his website.

Mike Tiano from Yesworld has announced that 'changes will be coming there soon' and these have started to happen with the brief announcement. An interview with Jon Anderson features in the current Notes from the Edge. It is interesting to note that Rick has been dropped as an official band member on the site.

Recently Jon was interviewed by Billboard and talked about 'Yes preparing four new songs of the "opus" variety -- lengthy, multi-movement compositions along the lines of "Close to the Edge" and "Tales From Topographic Oceans.", He also talked about working with Trevor Rabin again.

More recently Jon has been hospitalised with a severe asthma attack but there is no word as to whether it will affect the tour. He is now home from hospital.

Probably the best source of information on the reformation is Henry Potts website.

During March I had the pleasure to interview Roger Dean about his numerous current projects including an update on the Floating Islands film as well as virtual reality, exhibitions, books, computer games, architecture and his website overhaul - you name it and Roger is involved.

I understand that the Floating Islands project is awaiting the finalisation of the script - when is that due to happen?

We have done two and a half scripts. I'm fully convinced that the script as opposed to the story is very important (laughs) but the person acting as our international sales on this project, someone who has got a lot of experience, said its very good it just needs tweaking. I don't have the experience to judge other than (laughs) seriously I'm convinced I think it needs a major rewrite. David Mousley who is my partner on this feels the same as me and he thinks that we may need to get a small team working on it rather than just one writer but he's been involved in buying and selling his company. A year or so ago he sold his company and now he is buying back part of it so he has been very involved with that and I've been working pretty much on my own on this and I've decided that what we should concentrate on right now and I think its probably mentioned in my interview as well is that we've had the opportunity to build three of the landscapes these virtual landscapes and, you know, Yes fans will go and visit these when they are finished. But because we are building them and we are including in amongst them 'the' Floating Island, the Floating Island of the title, I feel that it will make a great opportunity to do a brief piece of animation that would be at the standard the film would be at. I say brief, I think very brief, I mean my dream length would be the length of Awaken and Soon put together, which is the two tracks which I would like to use with this, but it is more likely to be the length of say Soon. I don't need to explain that do I as your readers would know what I am talking about.

So the Yes landscapes are based upon works that you have already done or are they brand new landscapes?

No, they are very specifically to do with things I have already done. You know the city in the background of Yessongs?

That's one. Its all to do with landscapes on a causeway as a matter of fact. And the other one would be Arches. There will be others as well because, you know, we're in the process of doing them, but the two big pieces of work are Arches and the city in the back of Yessongs.

The virtual reality that they are being created for is that a specific separate project or is this entangled with the Floating Islands project?

It is entirely separate. It's a sort of alternative to Second Life. It's a corporation called VSE - Virtual Space Entertainment - they are a new company but the people on it on the board of the company and the people working on the development side of it are people with a terrific amount of experience. So new company though it is, its people with a great track record.

I don't know the answer to that but I'm hoping that the ones I'm working on will be available before Yes go on tour. That's the sort of schedule I'm working on. The way I'm working too by the way just to be (laughs) an old fashioned way, I'm making large models of them, I mean not virtual models, but real models out of wood, plaster and stuff like that. So I'm making them and I make the next stages for those models that I'd like to be converted into virtual models. But it is quite possible too, because we have talked about this, that some of them will end up as sculptures that will be offered for sale.

I just wanted to ask you one or two more questions about Floating Islands. In the interview that you did recently with Ryan Sparks, you mentioned that there was uncertainty still about whether it was going to be a fully animated movie or a movie that contained both animation and live shots. Is that still the case that there is uncertainty about those options?

There is no uncertainty about how I would prefer to do it. I would prefer to do it as live actors in a fully computer graphics world or mostly computer graphics world. There are some things we could do which would be, as I have said to many people, more like Lord of the Rings than Donald Duck. But there is some, or should I say several, pressures to do it as a more conventional animation. We've had several, by several I mean probably half a dozen in total, proposals, offers, and suggestions of partial funding if we do it in animation in certain territories. There are a whole bunch of countries seeming keen to encourage their animation industries by partially financing movies - and even

Australia

by the way.

As a matter of fact, at this moment we are talking to an Australian company about doing a big chunk of it and maybe setting up an Australian animation company. That is one of the options we are investigating right now. The others are in the Far East or

Canada

. So (laughs) the issue might be that you can do an animation company that does it without animating the figures, just the backgrounds. That would be my ideal compromise. But I can see that because this is a first film and you know it's now several years and it's about time we got it made. Providing we don't have to compromise on the look of it and the story, I think I will compromise on the technology.

One of the things that I have learnt, from the outside looking in, in the past few years, no matter how real something seems, it ain't necessarily so. (laughs) And in talking to people who have made films, they say what we are going through is absolutely normal. I have to say on the positive side, we've never had a complete blank. We've never done a presentation to someone to say 'this isn't for us'. So that has been very encouraging. What we are having to do then is learn from people saying they want to do it. How to make that a real commitment rather than just words. I mean no one says no in this industry. (laughs) You have to learn that prolonged yeses may yet mean no, I don't know.

When you first introduced the idea in I think it was 2004, you were talking then about how you were hoping it would have some Yes music maybe especially made for the project to go along with it. Is that still part of the plan if it comes to fruition?

Well, all members of the band have spoken enthusiastically about doing that. I have no reason to doubt that. That's definitely what we would like.

In your vision for this, would that be new music or redoing of old music? Or both?

Well it's a very interesting debate and a complicated answer I am afraid. My ideal scenario would be that there would be certain songs that would be completely new. Of course there would be some classic pieces. There are scenes which we have been working on that we have definitely associated with pieces of Yes music and Awaken and Soon are two examples that I have already discussed with you. I would say that my ideal scenario would be that we include quite a few of the classic pieces. Now the question then comes do we look at classic recordings or do we re-record? And I can see both points of view very well. I can see the strong desire to go for the classic recordings and I can see several very good arguments for re-recording. The arguments for re-recording are that the band will earn more with it. You know how ever much you love the originals - a good example is Tales from Topographic Oceans - no matter how much you love the album, Yes simply play it better now. They play it with more fluidity, more nonchalance and more sureness of touch. That's my opinion and I imagine there are millions of Yes fans out there who would think I am an idiot (laughs) - they probably do anyway! But I will say at this point the arguments are about equal for dealing with the classical recordings or new recordings of classic pieces. I would definitely like to see more material as well. Other things too - would you go for a studio recording or live recording? The energy of listening to Awaken live is such that I would always prefer it. But then it's full of imperfections that I know frustrate the band and I just don't hear them.

It's always amazing how the band hears things that worry them that other people just don't see that's there.

Yes, one has to accept that. I mean, I can see it from my point of view there are things about a picture that irritate me and I want to get it right and somebody is saying 'But it doesn't matter'. (laughs) That's nice that it doesn't matter but it still matters to me and I want to do something about it. So I think one has to go with what the band want to do.

Going on from 'Floating Islands', one of the things that fans have said to me in the last year or so has been the lack of updating about the project on your website has left people uncertain about where it stands. The website seems not to have been updated for a while, is there a plan to work on that?

Yes, some time after Easter we are going to have a complete overhaul of the website for a number of reasons, part of which is that this year there is so much happening and we need the website to reflect that. The other is it would just make a lot more sense to carry radio interviews and things on the website. I do them all the time but we don't put them on the website. You know, I guess I've got maybe a dozen interviews that have been on film as well as dozens like you and I are doing and that I did with Ryan Sparks that just don't make it to the website. That's silly and we have got to change all that. And also as I say this is a very busy year. I'm working on this virtual world and I'm hoping that I will be doing a lot of stuff for the Yes tour, certainly working on the graphics already.

Yes. And I've got the opera opening in August where I am doing the sets and my daughter is doing the costumes. And I've got my new book coming out in September. And I've got a major exhibition in San Francisco in September, and I've got one in Tokyo which I don't have the final dates for and one in New York that I don't have the final dates. And I have a touring exhibition in Europe which I thought was to start next year but it looks like it might start this year and that might, though it's not actually settled yet, include pieces of my architecture which are on a truck, so people can walk in and walk around it.

There is a lot of stuff there as you say; can I just go through a few of those individually just to get a bit more information about some of them? I understand that your daughter did the costume design and you have done the set design for the Puccini opera. Is this the first time that you have worked with your daughter in this way?

(Laughs) Yeah, work with me. You know we've sat in the same studio for all her life and she's been working on my paintings, whether I have asked her too or not, since she was old enough to hold a paint brush. The painting I did for Union, which was a 6 foot by 4 foot painting, she painted the whole background when she was about 2 or 3. All random marks but she covered the whole of the 6 foot by 4 foot canvas. I didn't think she would, I thought that she would make a few squiggles and that would be it. She covered the whole canvas and I left all of the marks she made and you can see them in the painting now. I've used them as texture. Obviously she wasn't painting a picture but I have left them as texture in that painting. So my experience of working with her has been that we share the space but she has been incredibly resistant to me actually teaching her. If I had the temerity to suggest that she do something, it would be seriously fought (laughs). When they asked me to do the opera, they asked me if I would do the costumes and the sets or just the sets. Before I said what I would want to do I said that I would think about it because I was very happy to do the sets. The costumes actually looked like a much bigger job. There are only three sets but there are over a hundred costumes. And I talked to my daughter about it and said would you be interested in helping on this. I didn't imagine that she would have time to more than help out. Then she said she would. In the end she did it all and I had no involvement in that. It was a big job. As I say there was close to a hundred costumes required whereas only three sets.

You mentioned that the opera is being staged in August. Whereabouts is it being staged?

The answer to that is odd. I have worked with friends who have produced operas before but this is the first big opera I should be saying.

One of the things that you mentioned coming up is the Dragon's Dreams book. Is that the book you mentioned a year or so ago that you were hoping to come out about a year back?

Can you tell us what is actually going to be in that book, what work of yours is included in this particular volume?

Well, it's all new material of course. When I did 'Views' it was done 6 or 7 years after I left college and I put pretty much everything I had done into it. Then when I did 'Magnetic Storm', I hadn't done a lot of new paintings but I still filled it with stuff I'd done. But this book would have to be five times bigger than those two put together to put everything in because its 25 years since I've done a book. A lot of material has been done in that time. So the book unfortunately doesn't have everything that I have done in it. It has a lot and I have pretty much all of the important things but there is a surprising amount that I am not putting in it. It will be 224 pages, whereas the other two were 160 pages.

You mentioned to me in one of the previous interviews that you planned to re-release the other two books with it as a sort of packaged set. Is that still on the cards?

Well that's what I wanted but the publishers want to do them one at a time so that the Dragon's Dream book will come out in September and I think the next one Views will come out in 6 months and then the next one 6 months after that. That's my understanding at the moment. We're also going to release some of the Album Cover Album books we worked on too so they look as if they are going to fill up a program of books. I am going to do other new books. I need a separate book on architecture and I really want to do a book on creativity. I've been asked so many times because I give lectures on the subject to put it in a small book. I am quite keen to do that so that will come out within a year or 18 months.

There is so much variety in that work as well, that's what intrigues me with what you have been doing and plan to do this year. It's not just the one field, it's so many different fields.

Well, yes it is. The only things that I have talked to you about are projects that to some degree have been nailed down. A lot of it, the new book, I've got a lot of work to do in the next few weeks to get it delivered. The work for the virtual world, the exhibitions involve work that I have already done.

The travelling exhibition in Europe, you mentioned that it was possibly going to start this year, what parts of Europe are it heading through?

The curator of the exhibition, his name is Jonathan Paul, he says only it will definitely start in

Germany

. I don't know anything more than that at the moment.

That's a pretty long period so there are plenty of opportunities for people in Europe to catch up on it somewhere.

And I presume that when the website is updated there will be information about where to catch it on the site?

The other exhibitions that you mentioned in San Francisco, New York and Tokyo are they the same exhibition travelling to those sites or are they actually different?

They will be completely different. At the moment fortunately I have enough material for three simultaneous exhibitions. The only area there will be overlap will be limited edition prints but the paintings there is enough for the three.

That makes even more complicated for you to follow those exhibitions around as well. You will attend the opening for each of those?

What I normally do is agree with the gallery or the museum for a few days so when I went to do that show in the Glebe gallery in

Australia

, I had three formal days when I would be there and it was publicised that I would be there on those three days. And that's quite a normal way. I mean I might be there much more but you know that's more informal. In San Francisco they have a tendency to ask when I am in the vicinity and they will ask me to talk to clients when I am there but that's not the same as formally announcing that I will be there.

We would certainly love you to bring your exhibition down here to Sydney again because that was such a lot of fun in 2003 when you came.

Yeah, I'd love to do that too. I'd definitely love to do that. One of the other things that I haven't mentioned to you yet is that I'm hoping that, probably not this year but early next year to start building some houses. I've been working with a good friend to build some houses on Hawaii. Now there are a number of things that he has to sort out about planning but I think in broad terms I will be doing three or four houses in Hawaii and I've got some requests to do a hotel and we are still working on other bigger projects where planning is delaying as much as, you know, the problems that we are having with the film. So all those things are still going on in the background, it's frustrating how long things take.

Yes, especially when you have got to get approvals and things for planning. Are you planning to build anything in

Australia

Well I talked to Robert (Forbes) about a few schemes and he has had a few ideas. I know nothing that is currently alive in

Australia

. Ask Robert, he might know.

I think probably that's it. I think that what's happening is that he sees possibilities and follows them up.

As you are probably aware we are working on trying to convince Yes to come back down here in this tour. I don't know what chances there are of that but if we are successful we would try to have it happen again with Yes and yourself.

That would be terrific fun; I really enjoyed it that last time. I love

Australia

, amazing place.

He took some photos and one of our friends, Lew, touched up the photos to make it like 'Floating Islands' in the mountains - Robert probably sent you a copy of that.

We are planning to use that touched up photo as a cover of an album we are putting together with our own member's music.

Will do when it's finished, we are working on all that at the moment. It looks really good. It captures the ambience of

Australia

and also it's got the obvious reference to your work. But its still in the early stages, a bit like you were saying, it's still got all the touch up stuff to do yet.

I am sort of ambivalent about this. A few years ago I was working with Kai Krause who developed some amazing pieces of software that were add-ons to Photoshop and he did invent a few that made it possible for people to do logos like me with a few clicks of a button. I'm not saying that I think that this is wonderful

That's the amazing thing it opens up creativity to a broader range of people doesn't it.

It does, yes, it's definitely interesting. I mean, it allows us to do, you know in thinking about the story for this film; the locations in a way were obvious. The story within the story is something we have been thinking about for 35 years. But the opportunities for not just be it in characters, back stories and parallel and intertwining subplots but to really develop and bare the whole culture is just a fascinating thing and it's great fun doing that. You know language and even designing money and postage stamps and things like that. We've looked at all of that and it is just so much fun doing it.

It is almost endless and it means though that you can develop characters in depth and you know build real lives as well as real personalities. I don't mean 'real' real but I mean give them serious credibility and depth. And I am very desperate for it to happen I've got to tell you (laughs).

It sounds like it; I mean it's tantalising to consider how close it is in a certain way.

Well it's close in some ways. It always comes round to money in the end. We did lose some money and if we hadn't done that, this would have been a complete non-starter but we raised enough to take us to the point where we are all fairly convinced that a lot of effort and we'll be there. It might not be, it might be that it needs two or three or four serious efforts but each time one does it one's got one's fingers firmly under the rock. (laughs) It's impossible to let go now.

I guess in a sense that's where the website becomes so important to continue to generate the interest and the reality that the project, and other projects, is still alive.

Yes, and I think I've learnt that I should make a much bigger contribution to the website. It's going to have to be quite different to how it's been. It will be good too, good for me.

I have noticed because Mike Tiano has been on my case about giving him some graphics (laughs).

I think in a sense that Yesworld needed a makeover for a bit of time as well. It seemed to me that it was a 90's type of website and just getting a bit behind the times.

It's one of those things that it's a great deal of constant attention, it's like keeping a diary, which incidentally I do, but I need to keep much more of a working update. We are setting up the protocols for doing that.

I'm on the editorial panel for a website so I certainly know how much attention these things need. It's a bit like a daily newspaper, unless you are looking at it every day you are missing out.

Yes, and it sometimes seems to me that, for example, the updating on the movie thing, that what's been missing is the excitement that we have all felt with some investor coming along and say 'Here, I've just got the thing you need financially, do this that and the other and the money will be there.' And then 6 months later we've done all these things and it's not happened. And the disappointment. I mean the website doesn't reflect any of those ups and downs, and the truth of the matter is that any project we put together is just full of those ups and downs.

I think the other important aspect is the interactivity that's often needed with these things to allow people to contribute and to interact with you.

I saw it for the first time about a week ago on the Asia website. I was really impressed with that, it captures the phoenix symbol so well. I think the black colouration with the symbol just grabbed me as soon as I saw that.

Actually that's interesting because the week before they did that we thought the painting was going to be the cover.

Yes. I've also done a whole bunch of stuff for Tetris. I suppose I should tell you about that the next time we talk.

That would be good - that's the game that has all the shapes pouring down, is that the one?

That's the one, yes. I think it is probably the biggest selling game of all time isn't it?

I don't know, I've played it. I suppose most people have if you have ever been near a computer game. It's pretty addictive.

I did the logo for them in 1995 so that's 13 years ago but it hardly shows up because they have allowed all the sublicenses to redo their packaging and right now we are taking a new policy I hope in that we are going to control the design look, make a much more stronger brand name of it.

I mean I think that I wasn't really aware that you had done the original Tetris logo way back in the 90s

Well I think that's part of the problem. Because for every copy of a Yes album sold, Tetris has probably sold a hundred games and it should be better known and I think it's this question of making a much more insistent management policy towards maintaining a brand identity. They have been rather gentle towards their sublicenses and they have all done their own version of it.

When Earl Grey and Smatt from Yesfans were watching Circa: rehearse a few weeks back, I set them the task to ask Billy Sherwood if he would speak with me by phone for our YesFANZ newsletter and for Yesfans too. He very willingly agreed so early Monday morning in

Australia

on April 28^th, mid-afternoon on Sunday in LA, I caught up with Billy on his cellphone as he was driving back from a busy schedule.

How are things over there with all your different projects - what is the main thing on your agenda at the moment?

I was just writing Christmas songs for this Master Source music company that I do some freelance work for and so it has been a lot of work and I've written about eight songs in the last 30 days. I've just been head down on that and I've recently completed a theme for a Japanese anime' cartoon for a company I do work for called Camp Chaos. So just busy working, nothing really life changing, but just damned busy.

The Christmas songs that you have just mentioned, in what context would they be used?

Television and film. I write a lot for this company out here called Master Source and I had some success with some Christmas music in the past with them and they called me to write another group of songs. So its like I said, its just behind the scenes busy work but its still work.

Yes we have actually got Jaxx at Springfield, Virginia on May 2, then we go to Philly and play the RoSfest on May 3, then we have a day off and go to New York to play BB Kings. So its going to be fun. I'm looking forward to playing these shows.

And will you be playing a similar kind of set to the one you were playing in January?

I don't know how many people in

Australia

have bought the Circa: album, but its certainly a remarkably good album, its been one of my favourite albums of the last year.

Wow, cool man. We enjoyed making it and you know the most important thing was that we really had a good time hanging out and making music in the studio and I think that translates into the music and its one of those records and for me its one of those bands where it is really a pleasure to work with everybody you know.

We worked on it for probably a year, something like that. It's been a while now but over a year we began work on it. I think it will be faster the next time because now we know what we are. When we created that record it started in a unique way then kind of ended up in another direction. We were discussing when it all started perhaps, you know I make those tribute record with various artists, and I thought wouldn't it be interesting to get everyone from Yes to participate in an original work. Not Yes, but just everyone from Yes participating. And I soon started realising that that was going to be a logistic nightmare. It was really more of a dream than a reality. I then started changing, it became, I got more serious about like, well, let's start looking at this more like a band. And during the writing and everything Jimmy (Hahn) jumped on board and Alan (White) officially was in there but in shaping up the band it took a while to figure out what we were. And like I said now that we know we are, I think that it's going to be a quicker process to make an album the next time.

Well I think we'll start with myself, Tony and Jimmy plucking around with some ideas in July when Alan is doing the Yes tour and the plan is you know in July/August to have some intense writing sessions and then when Alan gets back to pull him into that loop, get his thoughts on the writing and include him a bit on that and then track some drums and then hopefully we are on our way to a new record. I wouldn't say that it would be done in two months but at least we are focused on what we want to do in those two months.

And do you envisage the style of the second album to be similar to the first? Or do you envisage a different direction in any way?

Well it will still live in the same neighbourhood but it will just be an evolution of what we are thinking musically then. It's still going to be us, the four of us and it's still going to have that flavour that we can't get away from if we wanted to (laughs).

No, I certainly don't. Along the way you get a few people, 'You know man it's so much like this that and the other'. Well the reality is it is what we are. We are writing music and you know that's what it comes out to be. I'm very proud of living in that area of music and I'm happy to be there so I think it will be just an evolution of the Circa: sound.

You mentioned that you have got the same setlist coming up next week; I think that the thing that struck me and it is in the DVD of course, is the long medley of various Yes songs put together. I am curious as to how you chose some of those songs as some of them are a bit left field?

Well, I had the idea to pull something like that off when I joined Yes in the Open Your Eyes tour. But the idea was quickly kind of chucked out but in this arena it just seemed like we could pull it off. So we were sort of discussing some music Tony and I and we really kind of together just sat there and talked about each record and talked about it musically and we were wondering would this get into that and what would it be like to go from here to there and just discussing it. And then we mapped it out by taking these chunks off of the records and entered them together what we were going to play. Of course that is very choppy and non-musical. The trick was to figure out how to make it musical and play it as one fluent thing. It's almost become it's own piece of music in itself. Now obviously Yes music but its own arrangement, not bad thing you know. My goal was to capture the thrill of the evolution of the whole process of Yes from beginning to end. We left off Magnification. I looked at that record for something exciting to end the whole thing with but I just couldn't find anything so we left it at Lightning Strikes but I think we pretty well covered every record. That was one of the main goals. When we were working on the stuff in rehearsal of course and the guys said 'you could put this here and that there' but I kept saying that it has to be chronological or you are going to have people writing letters into us. (laughs)

It was very important to me to maintain it and we did and now we've played that thing quite a few times now. It's a cruise and a lot of fun to play.

The excerpt that struck me, because you just don't really hear it much, was Harold Land. That was really a left field one.

Well I thought when this began how cool it would be for Tony Kaye to open this thing with his vintage stuff he created to get Yes started in the beginning. So doing all those obscure pieces you know some of them you have never heard live. It just kind of gave us our own identity on that perspective of how to do things as far as Yes music goes.

As you get your second album out, have you got plans of where you are going to take Circa:?

We are still going to continue to distribute it ourselves because it's been very very good and very easy. And the fans are digging it because there is such a direct contact with the band. So I think we will just put that other record into the store and I will make everyone aware that it is there as I did with the first two pieces. The idea for us is it is a long slow journey as opposed to looking for some quick pay off in terms of record sales. We could just sign with a label, I have had a few offers and it just didn't make enough sense to do. I just kept feeling like we are going to lose that intimacy and direct contact thing. And I think in this modern age with the Internet it can be achieved and I think with what we are doing we don't need that middle man. We just do it ourselves. So that's going to be the plan of attack for the next record as well.

That has been cancelled. Well, Alan's tour with Yes kind of came up after the fact. We had a sub-drummer lined up to do it but at the end of the day we kind of rethought about things and it just seemed like a better plan laid before us accidentally. We'll just head into the studio July/August and it's hotter than hell out there anyway, lets stand in an air conditioned studio. Unfortunately we had to cancel that. We were looking forward to getting over there but obviously without AW it's a different thing and we wanted to just maintain it. It's a shame; we'll get over to Europe at some point.

Is attendance at festivals something that you have purposefully planned - I notice that you have been at a few festivals now?

No - but it seems like a cool place to be. I mean the Baja Prog Festival was such a pleasure to play, really nice people, sold out and great venue. And you know, there's the people there, prog festivals. If anyone is going to get the music, they will, the people who like prog. It just makes sense and I guess the powers to be that book us it just kind of came to them. You know RoSfest came through the MySpace. I was actually contacted by George directly. There is another case where the Internet is a wonderful thing. You can kind of think about something and then try to implement it and make it happen. It seems like these prog festivals are things to do for us. And even though we are kind of a known entity with the Yes connection, we are very much an unknown entity to the promoters. So that is why we are having to fight tooth and nail to get as many gigs as we can and that would be good so that we can do more.

No because I didn't want to do anything until we really see AW's schedule which at the moment it looks like September when he's finished at the end of August with Yes for a while. So as his tour nears the end we are going to be talking to the agent about booking some things and hope we get things rolling again and just keep the band playing gigs here there and everywhere as best we can.