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Re: Starcastle



<<Starcastle was really promising for a bit - Yes

was on a kind of hiatus I think, between
"Relayer" and "Going for the One", >>

More like a working holiday. After touring
Relayer, Yes took a break for about 6 months or
so, during which each band member (Steve Howe,
Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, Alan White, and
Patrick Moraz, for those who had trouble keeping
score) recorded a solo album. The band then went
out on tour in 76, with a huge stage set designed
by Roger and Martin Dean, with the intention of
performing material from the solo albums, along
with certain other, older Yessongs. About a week
into the tour, they decided to drop the solo
material, and the show reverted to a sort of
"Best of  Yes up until now" type of setlist. The
stage set was one of the most spetacular ever
used by any band. This was also one of the first
live shows to use lasers (The Who, Blue Öyster
Cult and a few others started using them about
the same time). 

Anyway, after the tour, they went to Switzerland,
to start work on what would become Going For The
One. So there really wasn't much of a hiatus,
apart from while they were making the solo
albums. 

<<the NY press at the time implied that
Starcastle was the "next Yes". Their show was
indeed impressive, but of course they didn't have
that great Roger Dean stage setup... and I
suspect the members of Strawbs, Gentle Giant and
so forth probably had a good laugh at the idea.>>

I met Starcastle's bassist last year at NEARfest
2001. They had a table setup as they were selling
their discs, and also a video the bassist has put
out. I overheard him talking about how Chris
Squire got his whole sound from copying John
Entwistle, so I joined in the conversation. I
told him about how i got interested in
Starcastle, because a couple people told me they
sounded EXACTLY like Yes (and in fact, at least
their first album, DOES sound like Yes). He goes
"Oh, they weren't listening very closely then, we
sounded a bit like Yes because we had the same
influences as Yes". I didn't think to tell him
that a friend mine told me that when he saw
Starcastle back in the 70's, they not only
sounded like Yes, they even DRESSED like Yes,
right down the fur covered pirate boots that
Squire used to wear back then. Would have been
interesting to say what his response to that
would have been.

Starcastle were supposed to play at Progday in
Chapel Hill, NC this coming weekend, but they had
trouble finding a vocalist. They've gotten back
together, but I guess their original singer has
decided the band's music would clash with his
present religious beliefs, and things didn't work
out as planned with the guy they got as his
replacement, so they had to cancel out. 





=====
May you never thirst!
The Scuba Diver Presently Known As Chris

"What do you get when you give a yo-yo to a flock of flamingos?"-James 
Earl Jones

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