Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Mellotronists
Subject: Re: [Mellotronists] YES & Rick
From: ferrograph@...
Date: 2002-05-10
(andy t)
<< One thing I do credit Yes with doing is keeping the mellotron flame alive
for more than a decade. >>
that would be rick, for his work with the band..... and his incendiary
retirement of the thing afterwards. :-)
bit of a bad gambler when it came to keyboards, after that; he started so
brightly, designing the front of the p5 by nicking the front of a minimoog
and restyling it after bang&olufsen, but then came the birotron, the elcaset
of keyboards, and then an endorsement or somesuch with cheetah....
does moraz still own a machine? what does he do for one since mark glinsky
left florida? I tried to acquire the moraz-rack once, but I believe it's
still in germany somewhere.
"yes album" has no 'tron, affirming andy's contention that squire's rick,
rather than rick wakeman, has provided the band's history with an always
obvious consistent element, changing the history of rock bass in the process.
bruford attributes his development of a very rimmy snare style to having to
compete with the other rick in the band too; I bought ABWH thinking that the
four of them ought to be able to make a decent fist of it, especially with
bruford's work away from the band being pretty strong, but the lack of squire
ultimately costs the album the few "oh well, it was the 80s" points it might
have in my house.
meanwhile a badly recorded bbc sessions set I got on double cd, of "yes"
album (not "yes album") songs and earlier, stayed in the walkman for weeks.
but then I am a bassist. these songs already demonstrate the band's interest
in strings, though, and "space oddity" was everywhere by then, so making a
move on rick was obvious.
now, about this new standard set. does it have a name yet?
duncan/1974 rickenbacker 4001s, 1996 rickenbacker 4003/5 and a mellotron. and
some biros.