LIMITED EDITION CD
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A limited edition CD, called "Go Play", was printed for sale at this year's Wanee Festival. We still have a few left, so if you're interested, click the button below to get your very own copy. The music was recorded live at Smith's Olde Bar in Atlanta, Georgia on August 19, 2009. Despite the fact that this was our first show in over seven years, the performance is one of our best. |
THE YETI MUSIC PRIMER
Originally, everything that The Yeti Trio played was improvised. With the exception of one Stevie Wonder cover, there were no "songs". When Brooks, Eric, and Vaylor would play together, nobody ever said "ONETWOTHREEFOUR" to start the music. One of the trio would play some idea - frightening or silly or quiet or difficult - and the others would join in, adding their own ideas. Over time, these improvisations began to coalesce into definitive structures and these structures were given names. This gave Brooks, Eric, and Vaylor a simple framework onto which improvisational ideas could be hung, but more importantly, this also gave rise to the ability to construct more complex compositions. The music here is representative of all three of these ideas: complete improvisation (as in "Fmeh"), simple structures ("Bonk 'em on the Noggin with a Wrench, Jim") and complete compositions ("Ennead").  |
Fmeh!Recorded Memorial Day weekend, 2001 at the Brandyhouse in Atlanta, Georgia as part of the now-defunct Z-93 radio show "The Dunhams". This song makes for a great opener because of how frightening it is to start with, and yet it can literally go anywhere at all. By the way, "Fmeh" is the sound a Yeti makes. Download LuncheonThe song which immediately followed "Fmeh" for our show for The Dunhams, Luncheon is the Yeti interpretation of hard-bop. There were lyrics to this song at some point, but nobody has ever attempted to sing them. The one time we tried, the power went out in the studio and a slimy green presence oozed its way under the door. Some things are best left alone. Download FIDOAnother track from The Dunhams show, FIDO began its life as the Tony Williams Lifetime song "Emergency." After battering it sufficiently, we felt that giving it a title meaning "Freaks, Irregulars, Defects, and Oddities" fit quite nicely. This is actually a short version of FIDO - a paltry 10 minutes. It is not unusual for us to be able to play this one for 30 minutes or more. Download Chuck JonesRecorded at the Yeti Lair, about 3 miles off exit 14 on the Himalayan Expressway. The name "Chuck Jones" was a comment on the original improvisation from which this song sprang: a 7 minute masterpiece, just like a Chuck Jones cartoon. Who knew it would mutate into a 20 minute feature film like this? Download The Spazzy LambaThe original name of this song was "Well Rehearsed" because it was really the first Yeti song with a definite structure. After some time, though, the name seemed anachronistic, so we changed it to reflect the two major compositional parts to the song: "Spaz Dance", an instrumental song written by Brooks, and "Thelamba" - the Thelarmis Samba - a particular Latin groove invented by Eric. Download Bonk 'em on the Noggin with a Wrench, JimThis monster improv took place in September of 2000 in Statesboro, Georgia. This piece, more than any other, typifies the Yeti middle period, where instead of songs, we had very simple structures and a lot of improvisation. Download Part 1 Download Part 2 New SocksComfortable, like new socks. Eric likes to play bossa novas. Download EnneadRecorded in Asheville, NC in June of 2002. This is the mother of all Yeti songs - the one we'd all say we're most proud of. Plus, watching Eric play the groove is like watching a mechanical spider play "whack-a-mole". Download |
