Earthworks I / Yes
A cold January in central Germany recording Earthworks’ third CD, with friend David Torn, producing. Work starts, almost to the hour, that the “100 hour” First Gulf War starts, and concludes, almost to the hour, that it ends. There can be no title other than “All Heaven Broke Loose”. A difficult album, and the beginning of a loss of confidence that begins to dog Bill from now on.
Two thousand gigs completed on 16 January ’91.
As if sleep-walking, Bill is astonished to find he has re-joined the Yes behemoth, with 8 musicians – the entire cast of “Dallas” re-united. It is ghastly, macabre, and over-blown, but also un-missable.
At Madison Square Gardens on 15 June ’91, the world’s most expensive drum-kit, $40,000 worth of two Simmons SDX units in tandem, stalls completely, and Bill performs a humiliating drum “duet” on acoustic hi-hat, snare, and cymbal opposite the thundering Alan White.
After four months, it’s too much. The tour was presumably in support of some album or another, but it’s not one that Bill ever played again, once recorded.
Relief, again, in Earthworks concerts in Europe and Japan as the leaves turn and Fall descends.