Cat vs. prog-rock

Cats don’t like Yes.

This is hardly surprising as cats are notoriously cool and there are few things that are less cool in 2008 than listening to the meanderings of veteran progressive rock bands. In my defence, I can say that the Bristol drum’n’bass musician Roni Size got me re-appraising Yes and that it took me all of eleven years to follow his call. A few months prior to the release of Reprazent’s “New Forms” album (1997), I heard his track “Natural Ting” that features the Rhodes piano introduction to Yes’ “Sound Chaser” (off the 1974 “Relayer” album) and questioned Roni about the sample when I interviewed him in late 1996. Roni didn’t want to talk about “Natural Thing” lest he got into trouble for his uncredited appropriation of intellectual property, but the track left me curious about “Sound Chaser” which is the closest Yes ever got to being funky (albeit in 6/4 time).

So I purchased a CD copy of “Relayer” in 2007 and was appalled by some of the music I re-encountered there (notably the 22-minute long “Gates Of Delirium” and hastily shelved the album, but something must have impressed me. as I dug “Relayer” out again a few weeks back. I now found myself marvelling at some of the ideas the band had come up with back in 1974, and “Sound Chaser” seemed to have regained much of its old power, too. This set me wondering about the rest of Yes’ work, but listening to some of the snippets at the All Music Guide made me realise that many of the criticisms levelled at Yes were justified from 1972 onwards. I was, however, moved to buy the “Fragile” album (1971), as it contains several short (under seven minutes) pieces I felt I might learn something from as a musician.

On returning home with the remastered and expanded CD that actually cost less than the LP I had bought in 1976, I found that our tabby cat had done a mother of a dump in my wife’ Viviane’s office and other places to boot. I took this to be a sign of his displeasure at my recent musical choices and haven’t dared listen to “Fragile” yet. Cats are definitely too cool for Yes, but perhaps I’ll sneak a listen when he’s asleep.

After all, cats reputedly only spend a third of their lives awake.