Yes Music Podcast · Kevin Mulryne and Mark Anthony K

The earliest online Yes conversations with Henry Potts - 689

·49 min·3 clips

Henry found alt.music.yes, and the earliest online Yes discussion he found dated to 1982.

1. Yes Music Podcast episode 689 focuses on Henry Potts and the earliest online Yes conversations. 2. Kevin Mulrine hosts, Mark-Anthony Kaye co-hosts, and Henry Potts appears as the guest because he tracked Yes fandom online from the early 1990s. 3. The episode asks how Yes fans moved from Usenet and email lists to websites, forums, and social media. 4. Henry says he first used the internet at university in the early 1990s, mainly for email to classmates like Ben. 5. He describes Usenet as a separate internet protocol with groups, threads, and plain-text ASCII posts. 6. Henry names alt.music.yes and alt.music.progressive as the key Yes discussion spaces he found. 7. He says the earliest online Yes discussion he could locate dated to 1982. 8. Henry explains that Yes debates on alt.music.progressive often turned into arguments over 70s lineups and 80s lineups. 9. He says alt.music.yes was created so Yes fans could move their arguments out of the broader progressive-rock group. 10. Henry describes dial-up use as downloading messages, hanging up, reading offline, and uploading replies later. 11. He says those conversations were still long and could run for weeks despite the slow technology. 12. Henry calls the period around 1993 the “eternal September,” when internet access widened beyond universities. 13. He says Notes from the Edge began as an email newsletter, and he read the archive from issue one. 14. Henry notes that Notes from the Edge later became more professional and closer to the band. 15. He identifies YesFans.com as the first big web-based forum he knew and says it dominated Yes discussion for years. 16. Henry mentions Forgotten Yesterdays, Yescography, and his own FAQ work as mid-1990s projects that grew into larger resources. 17. The conversation is detailed and technical, with Kevin and Mark asking follow-up questions about old systems and fan culture. 18. Mark adds the perspective of a working musician who sees live chats, email updates, and stream-based interaction as useful fan tools. 19. Anyone interested in Yes fan history, early internet culture, or archive sites will get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners wanting only current Yes news or short chat may find the technical detail less useful.

As heard by us

A close look at how early Yes fandom moved online.

This episode looks back at some of the earliest Yes discussion online, with Henry Potts joining Kevin Mulrine and Mark-Anthony Kaye to revisit the conversations they found in the early 1990s.

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Why you'd press play

For when you want the early internet of Yes fandom, from Usenet to Notes from the Edge, in one clear sit-down.

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