Interviews: Yesed to Death

Before I reformed my wicked ways, I plied the dark alleys of the fourth estate. Touring through my back pages, I intend to report here on some of the bits and pieces that I--and hopefully you--find interesting.

Jon Anderson

“I don’t think you can be too cosmic in life.” This was not all that surprising coming from Jon Anderson, the lead singer and lyricist of the ’70s psychedelic rock supergroup, Yes. I had seen the band in concert and enjoyed their spacey-symphonic adagios, though for the ’80s new wave magazine I edited, for the punk audience we coveted, they would fall into the dinosaur category of pop music. I didn’t image Syd Vicious or Joe Strummer giving much spin time to Tales From Topographic Oceans. Still, I liked Jon instantly. For one, he thought I was African. I have a darkish complexion, but the closest I come to Africa is Sicily (not counting that it’s the original locus of all humanity). Mostly, though, I admired Jon’s staunch defense of his phantasmogorphic worldview. “Reality can be such a drag,” he said, his gossamer voice fluttering out of his lithe body as if he was auditioning to play Legolas, the Mirkwood elf in Lord of the Rings. “Here we are in this physical world and we’re the soft machine. We can dream. We can say that’s a UFO or that’s the moon or that’s a goblin.” As he stepped out of the Narnian wardrobe, checking for wraiths behind his shoulder, his eyes blinked to adjust to the harsh light of reality in a midtown Manhattan hotel room. “What’s the alternative? All these shit wars and fucked up corporate governments? Fuck them.” Whoa, Frodo. What happened to the singing dolphins and “I’ve seen all good people turn their heads each day so satisfied I’m on my way?” But Jon had jumped off the Middle Earth Roundabout and locked his icy pale eyes into my pseudo-African face. “I’ve got a way of getting rid of all the bombs, all the nuclear shit. See, I don’t want some bloke saying they got rid of the fucking things. I want to see the damn things blow up.” He was scaring me, scaring me in a way that Johnny Rotten’s safety pins or Siouxie Banshee’s mascara never did. Maybe it was because, despite the intensity of his eyes, that alto soprano voice remained as whimsical as a 13 year-old girl’s sharing a secret with her best friends. The giggling secret, though, was an apocalyptic light show. “One beautiful evening, we stay up all bloody night, drinks loads of black coffee, eat sandwiches, and watch the explosions in the sky. ‘Hey, that could have been Chicago. That could have been New Orleans.’ I mean, we paid for the fucking things. Let’s see where the money’s gone. Let’s see them set the sky on fire.” Right. Thanks, Jon, I’m as cosmic as the next guy, but I prefer to keep the big bang at a little more of a distance.