Yak

YAK were formed following the collapse of cult band Acid Fantasy who toured in and around, but mostly in, Toot Hill Village Hall in Essex between '78 & '81. Although ‘the Fantasy’ never made it big, never in fact gigging at all, it is interesting to note that following the demolition of the said village hall, a themed housing estate has now been constructed on the site - albeit on a different theme.

The Drummer, John Wynn was determined to move on, and soon got together with old school chum and ex-Blohm und Voss guitarist Robin Hodder. The keyboard player from the Fantasy was contacted, and together with bassist Simon Snell from Theydon Bois, the four piece took shape.

Playing was initially at the River Way Rehearsal Studios in Loughton. However, after John's mother's neighbours complained, operations were moved to a detached property on York Hill - on the proviso that Robin's parents were out. A few recordings exist of the early rehearsals at York Hill, and these have been carefully archived away. These early recordings are in fact available to the specialist YAK connoisseur reasonably priced from Ruskin Studios, Northampton - although a medical certificate will be required before these can be purchased :-).

The music was initially a mix of Rolling Stones covers, well one anyway, the first few bars of several Santana tracks and ruthless jamming mainly in the key of A and occasionally D minor. Then the YAK ideas and riffs started to emerge. These were a radical departure from the, till then, standard time signatures, as musical ideas in 7/8, 5/4 and 3/4 time emerged.

The bands followers, mainly Nigel Astell and Andy Nettleton were enthralled by the new sounds - so much so that they were later moved to relocate respectively to America and Arabia!

Rehearsals were regular, occurring every few weeks in Loughton and even on two occasions in a remote cottage in the depths of the Suffolk countryside - incidentally the cottage has since been re-developed into a housing estate.

Finally in 1984 after about four or five YAK ideas had been practised to some degree the band split after a bitter row over whether it really was necessary - let alone practical - to play in 37/8 time. In protest, Robin retreated to his college town of Northampton where he lives now. Sy Snell moved to Walthamstow and John disappeared from the radar for many years. Thanks however to the internet and the investigative IT excellence of Mr Snell, John has been re-discovered living on Mars.

During this time, I have tried to keep the YAK concept alive, and have over the past 20 or so years made a number of multi-tracked taped recordings of most of the Yak musical ideas, with the long-term ambition of one day actually finishing them off and releasing them on CD - ha ha.

Martin Morgan