Any time I get the chance to read a book about progressive rock of the 70s — and it’s positive; in fact, lovingly penned — I am all for it. Yes Is The Answer (And Other Prog Rock Tales) is a compilation of essays about progressive rock from the likes of Rick Moody, Seth Greenland, Tom Junod, Beth Lisick and many other well-known writers of TV, movies, books and articles.
Yes, there are tales about Yes here (sorry, no tales of topographic oceans), and there are also pieces about Genesis, The Incredible String Band, Styx, Pink Floyd…you name it.
Editors Marc Weingarten and Tyson Cornell have amassed a really great grouping of writers who know of what they write and seem to love this music they write about.
I’m as fond of the early concert reviews — Seth Greenland’s description of seeing the Nice and Keith Emerson stabbing his organ, Larry Karaszewki’s piece on Todd Rundgren and Utopia’s infamous Ra tour — as I am of the suburban tales of how all this great music affected the authors’ lives.
In one story, Peter Gabriel provides the inspiration for a harrowing “Out, Angels Out” by Tom Junod. There’s even the sprawling “A Clockwork Wall” by Rodrigo Fresan, a piece about Roger Waters and The Wall, translated from Spanish.
As Weingarten says in the intro: “When you’re a young boy looking up at a man with flowing blonde hair negotiating a groaning bank of very complicated circuitry, it’s like you’ve come face to face with some kind of earthly God. Or Thor with a Moog,”
~ Ralph Greco, Jr.
