Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 173

Tridaf Section? Chicago Tribune, Friday, April 26, 1991 JMJQDSll On this tour, 8 former members form a great big Yes i m.i st jw Other shows of note Chris Isaak and Marti Jones, Friday at the Riviera: Ever since Isaak's 1985 debut, "Silvertone," countless scribes have praised the strange fellow who looked like a young Elvis and sounded like Roy Orbisons dark side. Isaak's problem was that he didn't fit any radio format Or so it seemed until one Atlanta Top 40 music director was captivated by 'Wicked Game" after hearing it in David Lynch's film "Wild at Heart." The rest. If not history, was at least Isaak's first gold album, "Heart Shaped World," a hit almost a year and a half after first being released. Opener Marti Jones, a smart, likable, witty singer who also could just be the best female pure popster around right now, is in much the same position Isaak was In a few years ago. She's done several excellent albums (produced by new Southern rock Svengali Don Dixon) that won heaps of critical praise but not a jot of airplay or sales.

But Jones, like Isaak, seems just the sort of artist folks would like if only they heard her. If you've got tickets for this sold-out show, get there in time for the opening act Two Nice QMs, Friday at Lounge Ax This four-woman group (there never were just two, and it's doubtful even one would claim to be "nice" or a "gin in the conventional sense of the terms) has come a long way since its self-titled 1989 debut In the process, they've also helped move women's music out of the small-la-belwomen's-bookstore ghetto and freed it from a mind-numbing propensity for folkie cliches and purple platitudes. The Girls prove wit and irreverence are not antithetical to affirmative feminist and lesbian messages and that rock and dance music mix we with tender baJads and elegant harmonies. On their new album "Chios Liked Olivia" (the title is taken from a passage In Virginia WooTs "A Room of One's the writing and wit have gotten Who said anything about art? High finance and hotshot lawyers go a long way toward making old adversaries into cre-ativfrcollaborators again. Consider the assorted members of Yes who recently buried the hatchet after some two years of legal wrangling.

It began when Tony Kaye, Trevor Rabin, Chris Squire and Alan White (who hold the rights to the Yes name) tried to prevent Jon Anderson, Bill Bruford, Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe (who at one point were four-fifths of Yes and part of what some would say was its finest lineup) from using the Yes name or material. This forced Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman Howe to tour'and record dragging their long string of names behind them, though a U.S. District Court judge finally ruled that they could refer to the past connection to Yes in their tour promotion. After that, everyone decided to play nice. Even better, Bruford, Wakeman Howe's label (Arista) offered an "undisclosed sum" to Kaye, Rabin, Squire White's record company (Atco) to release them from their contract.

(Atco did retain the rights to the old Yes catalog and will be releasing a four-CD boxed set of past Yes an in-the-round stage design that debuted on the Yes 1978 tour. The eight reunited Yesmen perform together, solo and in various combinations on the current tour. Sorting out the Yes lineage is like trying to follow one of those long biblical lists of "be-gats." From the time the group formed in 1968 until the recent rapprochement, there have been at least eight editions of the band, and everyone in the current lineup can claim a role in making Yes one of the most successful art-rock bands of the '70s. Yes came of age just as FM rock radio did. Thanks to that outlet, groups like Yes didn't need simple three-minute tunes to be a hit.

In fact, before a more pop-oriented '80s edition of Yes took "Owner of a Lonely Heart" to No. 1, the group had only four hit singles Move," "Roundabout," "America" and "And You and and none was in the Top 10. These days, of course, bands don't devote half an album to one concept piece or elaborate classical-pop fusions. And if they did, FM radio would simply ignore it. But Yes figured that out a long time ago and abandoned baroque experiments for slick corporate rock.

Who said anything about art? Chris Isaak: A slightly delayed hit recording. trivia buffs Pete Banks?) The octet then combined separate studio projects into a new album called "Union." They put finishing touches on. the effort just before starting out in early April on a whirlwind tour dubbed "Yesshows '91: 'Round the World in 80 Dates." (One date is this Tuesday at the Rose-mont Horizon.) For at least part of the tour, the group will use Concert line By Chris Heim tracks and older unrelcased material this summer.) Thus Yes was reborn with all eight fellows, in strict alphabetical order, under its banner. (What? No Tony Banks, Patrick Moraz, Geoff Downes, Trevor Horn, Eddie Jobson or here's one for See Concert line, page 'Ice Ice Baby' '50s style: Big Daddy retro-fits the hits hat would have happened if, just ImI before recording "Ice Ice Baby," f.rSV I 'Lv, 1 Raps" MusiCards series featuring rappers such as M.C. Hammer, Kool Moe Dee and L.L.

Cool J. Both the rap and Super Stars scries are sold in 10-card packs. Two great voices: One of Chicago's all-time-great radio deejays, Dick Biondi, turns up on "The Best of Rick Nelson Vol. 2, a new compilation of Nelson tunes released by EMI Records. Biondi is heard doing a July, 1960, on-air plug for the then-current Imperial Records LP "More Songs by Ricky" the ever-restrained deejay describing Nelson's latest hunk of wax as "tremendous" (once) and "fabulous" (three times).

EMI's Nelson compilation is part of that label's ongoing "Legends of Rock 'n' Roll" scries, which has also seen the release of a solid Ike and Tina Turner "best of" package that includes "A Fool in Love," "It's Gonna Work Out Fine," "Honky Tonk Women" and "Nutbush City Limits." All kinds of Isleys: If you're an Islcy Brothers fan, these are good times. Four new CD compilations of Islcy material have recently hit the marketplace. As part of its "Legends of Rock 'n Roll" scries, EMI Records has released "The Isley Brothers: The Complete UA Sessions," a compilation of recordings made for United Artists-family labels in 1963 and 1964. Rhino Records, meanwhile, has released "The Islcy Brothers Story Vol. 1: Rockin' Soul," which covers Islcy recordings made for various labels between 1959 and 1968, and "The Islcy Brothers Story Vol.

2: The T-Neck Years," a two-CD entry that covers recordings made by the Isleys for See Pop shorts, mgn Vanilla Ice had experienced a momentary mental short-circuit that left him convinced he was a 1950s rock 'n roll star? You can find out on "Cutting Their Own Groove," the just-released third album (on Rhino Records) by a Los Angeles outfit known as Big Daddy. An eight-member band that performs current-day songs in a variety of '50s and early '60s musical styles, Big Daddy retro-fits "Ice-Ice Baby" to sound like a Chuck Berry workout, complete with Johnny B. Goode or in this case, Vanilla B. Goode guitar. Elsewhere on the album, Big Daddy turns Paul Simon's "Graceland" into (what else?) an Elvis PresleyJordanaires-style number, invests the Talking Heads' "Once in a Lifetime" with a Harry calypso rhythm and makes Guns N' Roses Welcome to the Jungle" sound like the Tokens' "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." And, for good measure, Big Daddy takes a crack at "Nothing Compares 2 opening with a bit of the National Anthem and a cry of "Where's my and then shifting into a Little Richard-style romp complete with falsetto woo's and wop-bop-a-loo-bops.

The members of Big Daddy like to tell Cople they were taken captive in 1959 by otian revolutionaries while on a Southeast Asian tour. Released some 24 years later, they say, they began playing modern tunes, the only way they knew how, oldies stylcT Whatever, they serve up some funny songs. Look.what J.fouad; Ji thctca Pro Set's Billy Idol trading card. The '60s Dick Biondi: A plug for Ricky. valuable rock roll 45's that appeared recently in Goldmine, a bi-weckly magazine geared toward the collectors' market.

Trade yon a Rart for a Slaughter Pro Set, a Dallas-based concern that has manufactured trading cards featuring stars of the NFL, NHL and PGA, has turned its attention from sports to pop music with two new scries of cards. The 260ard Pro Set Super Stars MusiCards series features performers in five categories: pop, hip-noprap, heavy metal, "legends" (the Who being one entry here) and historic concerts (posters from shows such as a Muddy Waters concert at the Fillmore Auditorium in 1966). In a joint venture with MTV, Pro Set is manufacturing a lOOrcard "Vol MTVJ Pop shorts By Tom Popson hidden in your attic? Probably not. Probably the only thing you'll find hiding up there is a malevolent presence from another dimension that will shrivel your soul and cause the pictures on your walls to whirl around violently. But if you want to poke around up there anyway and we wouldn't advise it look for a promotional copy of a 45 r.p.m.

single, flAsk Me WhyAnna," by the Beatles. The 1964 release (Vee-Jay DJ 8) with a value estimated at a cool Jift. of JQQ,.