Yes Music Podcast

Established in 2011 and produced by Joseph Cottrell, Wayne Hall, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller This week Mark and I welcomed our longstanding friend, Preston Frazier, onto the show to talk about his (relatively) new book, 'Yes Indeed - Yes without Jon Anderson'. It's a fascinating and very different kind of Yes book, as you'll discover. As always, Preston was full of fun, even when we posed him...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Wayne Hall, Ken Fuller and Jeffrey Crecelius Mark and I return for the first time in the 15th year of the YMP this week to discuss some of what we believe are the most important aspects of the classic Chris Squire solo album, Fish Out Of Water. I do mention that it's 50 years since its release but, as you probably know, we are a bit late to the party. The official rele...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Wayne Hall, Ken Fuller and Jeffrey Crecelius Here is a short selection of Yuletide messages and other pieces of audio to finish off 2025. Many thanks to Michael Handerhan for his review of the (fairly) recent Yes show he attended and to Stephen Lambe for his audio feedback on last week's quiz. Thank you to everyone who has listened and/or been in touch in any way this...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Wayne Hall, Ken Fuller and Jeffrey Crecelius This week Mark and I recorded what turned into a Christmas quiz. As you will hear, we even diverted into other aspects of the holiday season at the end, so look out for that. As a dedicated Yes fan, you'll want to take part in the quiz yourself by keeping track of your own answers and scores and then adding them to the show...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Wayne Hall, Ken Fuller and Jeffrey Crecelius Well, here we are - 14 years and 700 episodes of the Yes Music Podcast. Thank you to Miguel Falcão who has created the new jingles for 700 episodes and thank you to everyone who has sent messages of congratulation. I've inserted the audio ones fairly randomly throughout the show but I'll start with a few written ones. Over o...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Wayne Hall, Ken Fuller and Jeffrey Crecelius The Yes-a-verse went into meltdown this week over a new release of the Wembley BBC concert recording. As you will hear, it's a bit of a twisted tale so I was grateful to have Mark to help me wade through the marshy world of bootlegs. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this release, the BBC concert recording from 1978 or anyt...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Wayne Hall, Ken Fuller and Jeffrey Crecelius This week, Mark and I had a lovely time trying to outwit each other with another round of the Yes Guess Who game. I simplified the rules, as you'll hear, and it went rather more smoothly as a result. What fun we had. Do play along yourself and let us know how you did in the comments on this week's show notes. Who did we choo...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Wayne Hall, Ken Fuller and Jeffrey Crecelius From a tiny idea I had about Jon Anderson's use of instruments live with Yes, Mark and I managed to bang on for ages again this week. Hopefully, you will find the discussion as interesting as we did, particularly as I noticed some definite links between the band's sonic changes over the decades, Jon's development as a musici...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Wayne Hall, Ken Fuller and Jeffrey Crecelius As you will hear, I was looking at one of the amazing photos in the Barry Plummer Calendar (available now from YesMusicBooks.com ) recently, when I noticed something peculiar about Chris Squire. I think what Barry has captured is a unique moment in Yes concert history. I don't think Chris ever did this in any other situation...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Wayne Hall, Ken Fuller and Jeffrey Crecelius In last week's episode about Chris Squire's Star Licks video, I was intrigued to notice that Trevor Rabin had also produced one and I had never watched it. Now that we are blessed with YouTube and the efforts of dedicated fans like, in this case, @YesSource, we can all enjoy watching Trevor in all his 1992 glory as he discus...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Wayne Hall, Ken Fuller and Jeffrey Crecelius This week Mark and I took a careful look at the iconic Chris Squire Star Licks video from 1990. Chris is at his relaxed and chatty best and shows off his skills, his guitars and his pedal board. It's a wonderful time capsule of Yes goodness and Mark and I hugely enjoyed chatting about our reactions to it. The conversation go...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Wayne Hall, Ken Fuller and Jeffrey Crecelius After the emergence online of another Drama Tour video - with sound - by James Ferrani on YouTube, Mark and I took a careful look at his 2 videos from consecutive days on the 1980 Drama Tour that featured Buggles men Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes. There are at least 2 revelations contained in the videos that I don't believe a...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Wayne Hall, Ken Fuller and Jeffrey Crecelius Following a suggestion from the latest member of the Patreon YMP group, Thomas DeVries, Mark and I delved into Yes sporting links this week. It was great fun to learn about all the ways in which music and sport have collided over the decades and we were helped out by several kind contributors Dave Watkinson, Henry Potts, Geo...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Wayne Hall, Jeffrey Crecelius, and Ken Fuller This week it was a pleasure to welcome Billy Sherwood to the YMP once again. We spoke to him just before a rehearsal at Mickey's Black Box rehearsal facility as the band prepared for the 2025 Fragile Tour of the US. Since that conversation, Yes have played 2 concerts. We spoke to Billy about the tour, his gear and the new Y...

This week, Mark and I spoke to the redoubtable David Watkinson who has published another fabulous Yessay (see what he did there?) on Forgotten-Yesterdays.com. This time, it's about a subject that might appear a bit dry - the band's accounts books from 1969-1970. In fact, there is a huge amount that can be gleaned from the documents as you will hear in a few minutes' time. Can you guess what are th...

In a different kind of time travel this week, Mark and I welcomed Henry Potts back onto the show to talk about his recollections of the first Yes online discussions he was involved with in the early 1990s. After I posted some photos of the Yes fanzines I have in my collection on the Patreon group, Simon Barrow suggested we speak to Henry who has always been at the vanguard of Yes fans on the inter...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Wayne Hall, Ken Fuller and Jeffrey Crecelius This week, Mark and I considered what makes Talk from 1994 a great Yes album. The final Yes record featuring Trevor Rabin was a tour-de-force of progressive rock in many ways but what do you think Mark and I chose as our reasons to focus on? Perhaps we chose the same aspects as you would, perhaps not. In any case, do please...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Wayne Hall, Jeffrey Crecelius, and Ken Fuller Mark and I spent some time this week searching through both our memory banks and our shelves of Yes-related records. We wanted to uncover and promote some lesser-known deep cuts on albums that Yes men have been involved with outside the main group. We each came up with 3 songs you may not have heard or you may have forgotte...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Wayne Hall, Ken Fuller and Jeffrey Crecelius In a truly epic episode this week, I had a lovely conversation with Steve Howe about the re-release of two of his solo albums, Portraits of Bob Dylan and Natural Timbre. Then, Mark and I enjoyed goofing around asking each other to guess the Yes men being referred to in various quotations. Do play along with that yourself aft...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Wayne Hall, Ken Fuller and Jeffrey Crecelius It was great to think a little about what might make up Yes' authenticity this week. Is it possible to define what makes the output of a band - or any kind of artistic endeavour 'authentic'? Rather than try and come up with a definition of authenticity (which is probably a loftier aim than we had time for this week), Mark an...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Wayne Hall, Jeffrey Crecelius, and Ken Fuller This week Mark and I set off once again in our YMP Yes Time Machines, this time to visit Yes concerts that also featured fascinating support bands, or bands on the same bill that we would loved to have seen. According to the essential Forgotten Yesterdays website, there have been 599 bands who have either supported or playe...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Wayne Hall, Ken Fuller and Jeffrey Crecelius This week, Mark and I discussed the 'solo' songs on Fragile. Each band member contributed an individual project, some with more success than others. The style and approaches used by Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe and Squire are very different and they certainly prompted an interesting discussion as you'll hear. With Yes so...

This week Mark and I had all sorts of fun thinking about whether there are any short Yes epics - or if this idea is even possible. We set ourselves the restriction of only choosing Yes songs less than 6mins in duration so can you guess what we came up with and how we justified our choices? It was sad to hear that Ozzy Osbourne died this week, only a few weeks after performing his last ever concert...

Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Wayne Hall, Jeffrey Crecelius, and Ken Fuller This week, Mark and I returned to the show to talk about the Yes classic album, 90125 from 1983. It is clearly, we believe, a great album but what makes it a great Yes album? It wasn't originally going to be a Yes album at all and only became one at the last possible moment when Jon Anderson arrived on the scene. The band C...

This week I'd like to celebrate the release of my second book, Tales from Topographic Oceans - Yes Album Listening Guide - a title almost as lengthy as the record itself. It's been a very long and sometimes challenging process to prepare the book for publication - much like the record itself. However, it's finally here and you can buy it from all the usual places. If you haven't yet ordered your c...