the Who and Yes

Bernd,

>But this might be a problem of the respective musical genres.  Whereas in
good Who songs, everything fits together and all instruments are bouncing off
of each other, popular Yes songs often contain a lot of loosely connected
soloing.
Personally, I prefer the former.<

You can't be serious.  The Who live with Keith Moon was a bunch of
instruments that often sound very loosely connected, i.e., a drummer with
little sense of timekeeping, a bassist who wanted to be the lead instrument
but often had to keep the tempo, a guitarist who shifted from rhythm to
lead... There are Who songs that "fit together" in terms of your
definition/description and most of them are studio productions (that is, if
we limit ourselves to the Moon-era Who).  Undeniably, there are
multi-instrument solos within many great Yes songs ("popular" and "Yes songs"
tend to be oxymoronic, don't you think?).  That was Yes's attempt to go
beyond the standard rock forumla.

>Hm.  Whereas JAE is clearly a rock bassist, I'd say that CS is just a
technically brillant bassist I haven't had the opportunity yet to connect
with something that really `rocks'.<

Squire, too, also said that he felt that Yes didn't fit into the usual mode
of "rock and roll."  It sounds like your definition of "really rocks" is
music that is reliant on power chords (you often mentioned your disdain for
the multi-instrument solos). I, too, really love the Who for the power chords
and Pete's ambivalence toward soloing.  But I look at Squire and Entwistle as
both talented bassists who wanted the bass to stand out melodically within a
popular music medium.  Squire chose to work in a band that employed lengthy
musical passages, more vocal harmonies, and multi-instrument solos, whereas
Entwistle worked with a nonstop drummer and a guitarist who shifted from
rhythm to lead within a song.  I think that Entwistle and Squire could, quite
possibly, swap bands and we'd still see those bands functioning well.  

Here's a thumbnail sketch of Yes and the Who:

YES: all musicians wanted to stand out and so took their turns at having
solos/passages within the song

the Who:  all musicians wanted to stand out and literally fought for
attention all at the same time

I agree with Kevin who later in the same digest said that Entwistle played a
"straight ahead melody" and Squire tended to play around the melody.
 However, I've seen Squire and Yes 4 times and have to argue that Squire is a
passionate player--I have rarely seen rockers who look like they are having
more fun up there than Chris!  Perhaps Kevin's definition of passion reflects
more the willingness within the Who to go off on spontaneous jams.  Yes
tended to avoid jams. (Chris has said as much in several interviews--it's
probably because Jon Anderson wouldn't know when to come back in!)

- --Jim