What a marvelous idea. You take one seasoned musical
genius, put him in a room with a tape deck with all his archive
material, and ask him to play a selection of his hidden treasures from
the dark and murky past. This is exactly what happened here.
Peter Banks, the original and best guitarist from the
band Yes, has trawled his back catalogue for some juicy rare and often
unreleased back catalogue material. He was first asked to concentrate on
his pre-Yes days from the sixties, when we were all reeling and
a-rocking, quaking, and a-shaking, making and breaking, faking and
mistaking, joking and smoking - everybody was loco from those years.
This collection of songs is basically collected from Peter’s early
years 1964-1968, and gives a fascinating insight into a musician’s
formative years.
From his first tentative steps as a young seventeen
year old guitarist with Devil’s Disciples (after which the guitarist
admits in the wonderful booklet that comes with this collection, that he
found the whole experience so terrifying, he doubted he would ever pluck
up the courage again to enter a recording studio. During that 2-hour
session, both the tracks here from the Devil’s Disciples were
recorded) to Peter’s solo spot with Yes on one of their first gigs,
Peter Banks musical birth is laid bare. It certainly isn’t all pretty,
and to keep the listener’s attention, neither is it in chronological
order.
As well as the two Devil’s Disciples tracks (quite
honestly, their take on ‘For Your Love’ does not hold a light to the
Yardbirds’ version), you also get five cuts from Syn, where Peter
Banks first teamed up with bassist Chris Squire. You get to hear ‘Flowerman’,
the single from Syn’s own Rock Opera, in which the band used to dress
up as flowers for the stage production, and then finish the set with a
huge fight featuring gardening implements. The Flowerman also sounds
like very early ‘Spinal Tap’, and is made all the more galling as
you get two versions of it back to back. Obviously, Peter Banks is proud
of it all.
The bulk of the material here, though, comes from the
second band that Banks and Squire formed after ‘Syn’ and were turned
into compost. The magically monikered ‘Mabel Greer’s Toyshop’ the
music takes a cosmic leap forward with versions of ‘Beyond and
Before’ written by Mabel Greer’s Toyshop vocalist Clive Bailey with
Chris Squire, which in a slightly amended version was to go on to be
track one on side one of the debut vinyl recording of Yes.
The almost telepathic understanding between Squire
and Banks is a wonder to listen to as you can hear them establishing the
sound that was to become Yes’ trademark, and still is today even
though Peter Banks has not been in the ranks for over 34 years (mind
you, just about every other jobbing musician has been through Yes ranks
with each guitarist having to copy Banks’ original guitar template).
To kick start the proceedings, Peter Banks has
included a version of Peter Gunn from his jamming band in 1980. Perhaps
breaking the rules a little, but it is well worth the effort as it
literally knocks heads together. A wonderful place to start.
Then to finish off this collection, there are nearly
nine minutes of Peter’s solo section of the Yes set, which used to
come during Yes’ cover of the Byrds ‘I See You’, where the other
musicians would depart the stage (at that time Yes had Chris Squire on
bass, Jon Anderson on vocals, and Tony Kaye on keyboards), leaving our
intrepid guitarist backed only by Bill Bruford on drums, to, in the
vernacular of the day, completely freak out on the guitar. You will
either love it or find it totally boring and pretentious. (This Dog
loves it.)
All the songs are linked together by more sound bites
from Peter Banks’ musical library. The 12-page booklet of this
collection is crammed full of informative facts and funny anecdotes
written in the guitarist’s own hand, with a wonderful Peter Banks Rock
family tree from the era and the necessary embarrassing era photos.
Although this collection does have its weak moments,
they are made up for by the highs that are contained here. For another
insight into this very underrated musician, read his autobiography
“Beyond and Before’’ or, to hear Peter Banks at the peak of his
powers, try the debut album from Flash (1972), the band Peter formed
after he was unceremoniously dumped from Yes, or Peter’s second solo
album Instinct (1993).
The
Magick Papers by Antonio Pineda (ISBN 974-92409-7-9, published by IQ Inc
this year) almost says it all on the front cover, where it proclaims it is
never predictable. This is certainly one book that will have you wondering
if you took the wrong turn somewhere.
Mott’s CD review: Peter Banks - Can I Play You Something?
4
Stars ****