Produced by Wayne Hall, Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller

Mark and I had a great conversation with the legendary Michael Tait this week. Here is what the biography on his Mickey's Black Box website says:

"Michael “Mickey” Tait landed in London from his native Australia in 1967. It was his third stop, after Hong Kong and Tehran, in what was meant to be a 3 month “Visit the Motherland” working vacation. His first job was bartending at the Speakeasy, a private club frequented by the who’s who of the music business. Rubbing shoulders with rock stars led to his second job: Road Manager for the newly formed progressive rock band YES.

During his 12 years on the road with YES he advanced the art of stage production and was a driving force in the new field of tour lighting.

He is credited with building the first pedalboard for guitar, the double Mellotron, the flat mirror ball, the 400-watt Leslie speaker box, and one of the first pin matrix lighting consoles. Next came self-contained lighting units consisting of genie lifts in large road cases with integral 4 cell par 64 lamps. These became known as “Tait Towers,” hence the name of his soon-to-be lighting rental company.

Perhaps one of his most important innovations was the portable rotating stage used by Yes in the 1970’s. Inspiration struck Tait while delivering a can of 35mm film to Morgan studios, where YES were recording. The concept, initially met with skepticism, was soon embraced as it gave everyone in the house a better view of the band and also increased the ticket gross dramatically."

Despite recovering from COVID, Michael was generous and open about his recollections of working with Yes, particularly around the time of Tales from Topographic Oceans.

• Was the Tales Tour a turning point for the Yes live production?
• How did Michael get from Yes roadie/van driver to establishing the most successful live production company in the world?
• What about Jon's bathroom at Morgan Studios?

Let us know if you agree with us!

Produced by Wayne Hall, Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller

Unfortunately, this is another week in which Mark and I have been unable to record a new episode. Don't worry though, next week we are interviewing someone who created a huge amount of Yeskit when he worked with the band in the 1970s. We are also taking part in an epic session all about the Steven Wilson remixes of Tales from Topographic Oceans with several of your favourite YMP guests. Those two episodes will (hopefully) be coming up in the next two weeks so look out for those.

This week, on the theme of Yeskit, I'm going to replay the interview we did with the delightful Derek Dearden.

Here's how I introduced the interview in June 2023:

"Unless you have already read my book, Yes The Tormato Story, you may not recognise the name Derek Dearden. However, you have certainly heard the results of his amazing technical wizardry. This is another deep dive episode but it also contains much of interest to any Yes fan. Derek was a delight to speak to when Mark and I interviewed him a few months ago and I’ve been keeping this fascinating interview under wraps so that early readers of the book had a few surprises to discover. If you don’t like spoilers, then consider coming back to this episode at a later date. I won’t be offended.

Quite a bit of this conversation was used in the chapter entitled The Other Drums in my book but even if you have read that, I’m sure you’ll love hearing Derek explaining how it all came about in his own words. To whet your appetite, Derek was employed at Advision as a technician and then went on to found a company very closely associated with Alan White."

• What did Derek Dearden create for Alan White?
• How did it all come about?
• What else did Derek invent?

Let us know if you agree with us!

Produced by Wayne Hall, Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller

Before we start, I’d like to thank everyone who has taken part in the Presale for my new book, the Tales from Topographic Oceans Listening Guide. It’s gone really well and I can now afford to commission book covers, pay for production costs and licences for essential photographs and so on. The Presale is still open to those who have signed up to the e-newsletter over at tormatobook.com and to all YMP Patrons. If you are yet to sign up for the e-newsletter, you’ll receive a message telling you how to access the presale as soon as you subscribe.

Remember that the presale is the only way to purchase signed copies of the forthcoming book and you’ll also receive an exclusive mini-pack of book-based memorabilia. What could be better? So make sure you don’t miss the opportunity to be the proud owner of those fine extras. Finally, almost all the Executive Producer slots have been snapped up. At time of recording this episode there are just 7 remaining so if you’d like to see your name printed towards the front of the Tales book as an official Executive Producer, you’d better get in quickly.

This week, Mark and I were going to talk about our favourite pieces of Yes-related equipment but unfortunately Mark was unavailable in the end due to an emergency situation with his dog, Shadow. So, instead, here is a chapter of the audiobook version of my book, Yes - The Tormato Story that deals with one of the pieces of Yes kit I probably would have mentioned anyway - Rick Wakeman’s Birotron. Incidentally, the audiobook is still available from Audible, Spotify and other fine purveyors of that digital format. As one kind review said about my first foray into authorship which, incidentally, he believes is, “presented as a teenage fan essay”, the audio version is delivered with what he calls a, “clipped late night Radio 2 circa 1990 style”. Hopefully that won’t put you off too much.

Produced by Wayne Hall, Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller

This week, Mark and I took a listen to some of the existing Yes songs and versions that have already been added to official reissued albums and collections and classed as ‘previously unreleased’. We have chosen some of our favourites and discuss what we like about them.

This activity was partly prompted by Yes aficionado Jon Dee who, in his own words on Facebook says the following:

“I’m currently listening to YES playing ‘Eleanor Rigby’… IN THE STUDIO!!

There are 3 takes and it sounds like they’re doing a studio run through. Sounds like a single microphone was used to record it as a demo - but it’s very good quality.
Getting this on top of the multi-tracks for some ‘Time and a Word’ songs has made this a great week!
I have let the record label and management know about this as the first two albums will be getting rereleased at some point.

How many of you would like to hear ‘Eleanor Rigby’ by YES - plus an orchestra free version of ‘No Opportunity’, ‘Sweet Dreams’ and ‘Clear Days’??

‘No Opportunity’ will blow people away when they hear a no orchestra version with Kaye, Squire and Banks far more to the fore. It seriously rocks.

In addition to his full electric guitar track, there is also a Spanish guitar track from Banks on the multi-track for ‘No Opportunity’. Peter plays some very cool acoustic guitar on that track.”

It’s another set of very exciting discoveries for us Yes fans so keep your ears peeled for more news of that, hopefully soon.

• What could we hear in the future?
• What are our favourite previously unreleased songs?
• Could any of them have been on official albums?

Let us know if you agree with us!

Produced by Wayne Hall, Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller

Mark and I had a lot of fun talking about a remarkable video suggested by Rachel Hadaway this week. From a BBC programme called Sounding Out, it features live show footage and interviews with the band from 1971, shortly after Rick Wakeman joined.

It’s full of period charm, as they say, and thankfully available on YouTube now. You might want to watch it before listening to Mark and me banging on about it - or you might not. If you do, there’s a video embedded in the show notes.

• How does the band sound?
• What is the venue like?
• What did each band member say in their interview?

Let us know if you agree with us!