From Here to Inifinity

Album: From Here to Infinity Album: Rock Infinity
Artist: Jim Ladd's Headsets Artist: various artists
2007 Purple Pyramid Records
MP3 download

No credits are given apart from the acts as labelled. Partial credits from contemporary information:
Billy Sherwood: bass (5), backing vocals (5), unknown (1, 3, 8, 14, 16)
Jim Ladd: voice (1, 6, 8, 10, 13, 14)
DJ Pat "Paraquat" Kelly: voices (1)
DJ Joe Reiling: voices (1)
Damian Bragdon (1)
John Densmore (1)
Malcolm McDowell: narration (2, 12)
John Waite (4)
Tony Kaye (5, 16)
Alan White (5, 16)
Rick Wakeman (5)
Steve Howe (5)
Mickey Thomas: lead vocals (5)
James "JY" Young (7)
Slash (7)
Tommy Shaw (7)
Benmont Tench (9)
Jackson Browne (11)
Robby Krieger (11)
George Thorogood (15)

Tracks [where there are two acts listed, these are the respective credits for the From Here to Infinity and the Rock Infinity release]:
1. Billy Sherwood / Star Captain: From Here To Infinity (Part 1) (1:55)
2. Malcolm McDowell: Sea of Stars (1:36)
3. Billy Sherwood: Have You Seen the Stars Tonight? (2:01)
4. John Waite: Space Oddity (4:53)
5. Mickey Thomas: Starship Trooper (8:36)
6. Jim Ladd / Star Captain: Aviators and Privateers (0:51)
7. James Young / Slash: Gypsy (3:35)
8. Billy Sherwood / Star Captain: The Endless Voyage (2:05)
9. Benmont Tench / Star Captain: Looking Back (3:05)
10. Jim Ladd / Star Captain: From Here to Infinity (Part 2) (1:00)
11. Jackson Browne, Robby Krieger / Jackson Browne: Across the Universe (4:38)
12. Jim Ladd / Malcolm McDowell: Montague (2:01)
13. Jim Ladd / Star Captain: From Here to Infinity (Part 3) (0:43)
14. Billy Sherwood / Star Captain: Epilogue (1:24)
15. George Thorogood: Purple People Eater (4:17)
16. [track not included] / Alan White: More Than a Feeling (4:39)

Notes: (2) is narrated over the same musical theme as (3), as (6) is over the same musical theme as (7). (13) continues from (6). The very end of track 3 is missing on at least some digital versions.

Radio DJ Jim Ladd has for some years had a freeform radio show under the name Headsets. The improvised shows add effects and spoken word material to other artists' songs. Ladd and Sherwood then started working together with the idea for a series of albums based on Ladd's show, with the first having a theme of space. This first album was then released as a digital download only through Purple Pyramid (a subsidiary of Cleopatra, the label who have been releasing Sherwood's many tribute albums). It mixes covers of well-known songs with space themes—(4) was originally by David Bowie, (7) was originally by Fleetwood Mac, (11) was originally by The Beatles, and (5) of course was originally by Yes—produced and organised by Sherwood, with an original song by Sherwood (track 3) and tracks of an ambient nature by Sherwood backing speech by Ladd and others.

However, Sherwood and Ladd objected to the record label's digital release plan. As a concept album to be listened to in one go, they felt splitting the album into separate MP3s was wrong. Indeed, the digital format does disrupt the segueways between pieces. Quite what happened is unclear, but a physical release of the album never appeared. From Here to Infinity was largely written out of history. Later the same year, From Here to Infinity was re-released as Rock Infinity, shorn of the Jim Ladd's Headsets name but with a bonus track, a mediocre cover of Boston's "More Than a Feeling" by Sherwood, White and Kaye that was originally recorded for another Cleopatra release, '70s Box: The Sound of a Decade. Sherwood and Ladd rapidly released a different first Headsets album following a space theme, Chapter 1: Alone Out Here, released 2008 and largely built around original songs by Sherwood and covers of his work in prior bands.In 2009, "Across the Universe" was re-used on Abbey Road, a Beatles tribute album largely assembled by Sherwood and also on Cleopatra.

From a Yes fan perspective, most notable here is a cover of "Starship Trooper": while Starship's Mickey Thomas does vocals, the rest of the track is performed by Yesmen—Sherwood on bass, White on drums, Howe on guitar, Kaye and Wakeman on keys. The arrangement follows that done by Rick Wakeman in recent live versions in that part 3, "Wurm", is done as a keyboard soloing opportunity rather than the guitar-based version of the original.It is also the only studio recording of the piece with White drumming, and it is interesting to here is way of playing the track live in the studio setting. With five Yesmen together on this one track, this is the most members of Yes ever to play together outside of a Yes release. It is also the only studio recording to feature both Kaye and Wakeman, and the most recent time Howe or White has played with Wakeman, or that Howe has played with Kaye. That said, I presume the parts for the recording were assembled separately in some cases, so I doubt Howe and Wakeman were ever in the studio with Sherwood, Kaye and White. Also notable is (7), which re-unites Young and Shaw from Styx with Guns N'Roses' Slash. (HP, 25 Apr 09)

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