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There's one other plus to Starcastle. I met Gary Strater at Nearfest 2001 - he was selling the Starcastle CD that's on AM and contains alternate versions of several classic Starcastle tracks and a few new pieces as well - and he's a heck of a nice guy. I was taking a break during one of the bands (I can only sit in a seat for so long before getting real antsy, so I was having a beer, listening to After Crying, peeking in occasionally, and talking with Gary.) He confirmed that they were working on some new material. There was also a guy attending Nearfest that was nearly Herb Schildt's (keyboardist) double, and we had a laugh over that - I even said "Isn't that one of your bandmates?"
Yeah, they were kind of derivative of Yes. So what? They didn't steal riffs - all their compositions were original - did anyone ever actually mistake them for Yes? If you're going to be inspired and heavily influenced by a band, there's choices that are much worse...
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