Who Wore It Better? Round 2: Yes vs. Kesha

Yes (1977) vs. Kesha (2017)

New Zodiac Trio Album 2016

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE from Fortman (ASCAP)

Dreamtime, a newly released contemporary classical CD by the Zodiac Trio, is now available on the Blue Griffin Recording label. Of personal interest is the track "Libra" which was written by Noel Fortman in 2013 (using his own algorithmic composition methods) while he was just a 1st-semester freshman at the University of Illinois School of Music at Urbana-Champaign.

"Libra" is presented as the 4th movement of a 12 part suite of short works entitled "Zodiac: Across The Universe." This unique chamber suite for clarinet, violin & piano resulted from an online call-for-score by the Zodiac Trio themselves. They chose Noel's piece to combine with 11 other selections after auditioning around a hundred submissions from composers all around the world. The suite was previously debuted at live concerts on the trio's multi-city tour of China in November 2013. Their Dreamtime album features the World Premiere Recording of "Zodiac: Across The Universe" (along with several other world premieres) from sessions last year at Blue Griffin's Ballroom Studio in Lansing, Michigan.

Noel Fortman is currently in his 3rd year of studies at UIUC, now pursuing two concurrent bachelor degrees in Computer Science+Linguistics and Music Composition. Having participated in last summer's Workshop in Algorithmic Computer Music on the campus of UC-Santa Cruz, Noel is extremely excited to be returning to California this summer for a coveted 12 week software engineering internship with Google at their Mountain View Googleplex.

Silently Falling...

... filled the air with a magic sound.

Chris Squire (1948-2015)

Supporting the next Zodiac Trio CD

In November of 2013, the chamber music group The Zodiac Trio premiered a 12 movement suite live in China which featured a 1-minute piece, "Libra," composed by my son NoelF.

"Zodiac: Across The Universe" will now be featured as a World Premiere Recording on a studio CD to be recorded in February 2015. Their crowdfunding campaign will run through 1/11/15, if you feel like being a "patron of the arts": Zodiac Trio KickStarter page

UPDATE 1/9/15: The Zodiac Trio's studio CD project has reached its $9500 goal with more than 2 days remaining... If any of you reading this helped in some way, we thank you for your support!

Voices For Fripp

Robert Fripp and his massive influence on the Rock Hall inductees for 2014:

Nirvana
From a May 1995 Robert Fripp interview in Rock & Folk Magazine: "Did
you know that Kurt Cobain was a big fan of your album Red?"

(Fripp) "I found out through John Wetton last year. The producer of the
first Nirvana records [...] told John that Red was an important record
to Kurt."

Hall & Oates
Hall's first solo album Sacred Songs was produced by Fripp, who also
played on the album. Hall also sang on Fripp's solo album Exposure.

Peter Gabriel
His first solo album featured Fripp on guitar. Then Fripp produced (and
played on) Gabriel's second album. Gabriel also sang on Fripp's album Exposure.

Linda Ronstadt
When she sang with Phoebe Snow on "Saturday Night Live" in 1979, Fripp
was one of the guitarists. I don't know why. Go figure.

http://www.dgmlive.com/vision.htm?&show=1642&id=3088

E Street Band
Roy Bittan played piano on Peter Gabriel's second album, which was produced (and played on) by Fripp. (I mentioned that already, didn't I...)

Cat Stevens
His album Mona Bone Jakon features an appearance on flute by Peter
Gabriel who, as I've mentioned, later worked with Fripp. (Gotta stretch
here to make this work...) Fripp also recorded Show Of Hands featuring
a viola player named Cat(hy) Stevens. (Still stretching...)

KISS
Well, the name KISS does start with the same first two letters as King
Crimson, so that means they used to be very near each other
alphabetically in the record store bins, right? (Reeeeaaaally stretching
for this one...)

OK, I got it. From an April 2010 interview with Gene Simmons: "I
listened to everything, R'n'B, Beatles and stuff, and then really
started to hone in on the early great sixties anglo bands, I'm a big
anglophile. One listen to 21st Century Schizoid Man, by... you don't
know what I mean, right?"

Roadrunner Records UK: "21st Century Schizoid Man - rings a bell but I
couldn't tell you who it's by off the top of my head."

(Simmons) "Look it up."

Music by "yeselpkrimson-son"

Not Yes-related, nor even prog-related at all... It's contemporary classical chamber music, live from the Zodiac Trio's 2013 tour of China.

My 18-year-old son, NoelF, composed the 4th movement "Libra." (It starts at about 3:14)

Stand For The Frail (Demo)

It took a while, but this sixth entry in the series of "unreleased Nashville demo recordings" was recently discovered, making a complete double trilogy of "Bobby & the Yup family" acetates from 1959. But this one just features Bobby solo: a voice (of sorts), a guitar, and a mouth harp... exploring the "protest song" genre way back when.

He thought YES would be a good band name. . .

(1947-2013)

To Peter Banks,

With a wave and a thanks,

We say goodbye to all that.

The Brotherhood of the Traveling YesPants

The tale... no, the legend... of The Brotherhood of the Traveling YesPants begins in the hazy 1970s with none other than the iconic Jon Anderson:

Over the decades, several have tried to join The Brotherhood, with varying success:

“Look, Christopher! I am wearing Jon’s YesPants! Trés chic, no?” “No. You’re fired.”

“I thought the memo read white specs, not white slacks.”

(Alan read the memo correctly and was a skillful ballplayer in his day.)

Ideally, the Traveling YesPants should always remain with the lead singer...

... because they might otherwise get stretched out beyond repair!

The Traveling YesPants, today...

... and perhaps tomorrow? Joining The Brotherhood, Will?

Postscript: Until the Traveling YesPants are returned one day to the founder of The Brotherhood, they seem destined to be saddled with a curse:

Owner of a Lonely Shart.

 

Who Wore It Better? Round 1: Kate vs. Katniss

Not Yes-related at all, but:

                 Kate Bush (1985)            “Katniss” from The Hunger Games (2012)