Today would have been Chris Squire's 71st birthday

[Bassman Sam]

As the title says. He was just a massive influence to me and I bought my first Rickenbacker due to him.

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[wateroftyne]

Despite being a huge Rush & Genesis fan, I completely avoided Yes for decades - they just seemed flowery and bloated.

I'm kicking myself now - I absolutely love 'em, and CS was magnificent. I wish I'd seen them live.

 

[Bassman Sam]

29 minutes ago, wateroftyne said:

Despite being a huge Rush & Genesis fan, I completely avoided Yes for decades - they just seemed flowery and bloated.

I'm kicking myself now - I absolutely love 'em, and CS was magnificent. I wish I'd seen them live.

 

I was lucky enough to see them live around 5 times. Just magical and what a bassist.

[NikNik]

He was my main bass influence when starting out. Loved his tone but never got anywhere near it with any of the Ricks I bought,  even the CS.

 

A legend.

[toneknob]

Had a listen to Relayer today just cos. Awesome

 

[Skinnyman]

15 minutes ago, toneknob said:

Had a listen to Relayer today just cos. Awesome

 

What a very good idea.

I was lucky enough to see Yes quite a few times and CS, in his prime, was as superb as everyone has said.

I saw them on the tour after he'd died - before the show started, as a tribute, they played 'Onward' over the PA while lighting a white Rickenbacker with a single spot. It was incredibly moving. Billy Sherwood did a good job in the circumstances but they were very, very big boots to fill.

[White Cloud]

Sadly missed... a true giant of rock bass. Up there (no pun intended) with Entwistle and Bruce imo.

I saw Yes only once, on the Symphonic tour - a staggering show. Chris was immense and that show is in my top 3 favourites. Unforgettable.  

I also loved both CS  solo albums. 

Thanks for the memories and the sounds Chris, wherever you are.

[Skinnyman]

2 minutes ago, White Cloud said:

Sadly missed... a true giant of rock bass. Up there (no pun intended) with Entwistle and Bruce imo.

I saw Yes only once, on the Symphonic tour - a staggering show. Chris was immense and that show is in my top 3 favourites. Unforgettable.  

I also loved both CS  solo albums. 

Thanks for the memories and the sounds Chris, wherever you are.

That Symphonic tour was awesome. I saw them in Brighton and you're right, he was immense.

Two solo albums? I have FOOW and the one he did with Steve Hackett but i wasn't aware of a second solo album....

[White Cloud]

6 minutes ago, Skinnyman said:

That Symphonic tour was awesome. I saw them in Brighton and you're right, he was immense.

Two solo albums? I have FOOW and the one he did with Steve Hackett but i wasn't aware of a second solo album....

Chris Squires Swiss choir.. a festive collection of classics in a prog style. It also features Mr Hackett on guitar!

Awesome!

[Skinnyman]

2 minutes ago, White Cloud said:

Chris Squires Swiss choir.. a festive collection of classics in a prog style. It also features Mr Hackett on guitar!

Awesome!

Thanks!

[toneknob]

1 hour ago, White Cloud said:

Chris Squires Swiss choir.. a festive collection of classics in a prog style. It also features Mr Hackett on guitar!

Awesome!

This sounds like it should be recurring comic strip in Viz

 

[NikNik]

As an aside, it's well known that Chris was a hedonist and liked a drink.

At an event several years ago, a catering girl who had done a Yes tour told us that Chris' on-stage tipple was a Pint measure (or something akin to it) of brandy and white wine! I can't recall the proportions but another tech and I ordered them at the bar one night. With another, empty glass we experimented with proportions but each time we found the combo undrinkable.

Rock on, Chris, you were some machine.

[Spoombung]

Squire = God

[4000]

18 hours ago, wateroftyne said:

Despite being a huge Rush & Genesis fan, I completely avoided Yes for decades - they just seemed flowery and bloated.

I'm kicking myself now - I absolutely love 'em, and CS was magnificent. I wish I'd seen them live.

 

It'll come as no surprise to most that Yes are arguably my favourite band and Chris is without doubt my favourite bassist, but I also came to him late and in a rather Roundabout (sorry) way. I'd heard some of Relayer - as low level background music - when in my mid teens at a friend's one night, and remember I initially struggled to get my head round (a) Jon's voice and accent (in spite of me also being Northern) and (b) Sound Chaser, although I was aware that they were the favourite band of the cool set (yes, really) of 6th formers. At that point Chris didn't really register; I hadn't started playing yet.

When I started playing bass I bought a Ric because of Lemmy, Geddy, Roger and Glenn; oh, and Gaye Advert, and Martin Roach, who was at the time bassist in the Blackpool Jazz Orchestra, who my dad played with. At the first gig I played, which was at my old school 6th form (I'd left by then but the rest of the band were still there), at the end of the gig one of the cool set said "bet you wish you could play like Chris Squire". I answered "I can" (I couldn't), with youthful ignorance and stupidity, not having any idea what he actually played like.

Then a couple of years down the line I read in The Rickenbacker Book that Chris was famous for using Rickenbackers, so I thought I better check him out. I bought Classic Yes and that was it. Fave band, fave bassist. I was lucky enough to see him with Yes 5 or 6 times, and met him twice. The first time I told him that I had been playing bass for 30-odd years and that in my opinion he was the best there was. He said a very heartfelt thank you, which is a memory I'll always cherish. Thankfully I've also got the signed programmes to remind me.

When he died I was in a pretty bad place anyway and also was still shellshocked from the number of other heroes who we'd recently lost, and it didn't really sink in. At the tail end of last year I was watching Yes at Glasto on Youtube and it suddenly registered with me that I'd never be able to see him again and I finally broke down.

I miss you Chris, as I'm sure do thousands of others. R.I.P.

As an aside, I also got to see Entwistle twice with The Who, although annoyingly I only heard him when they raised his level for solos. If he'd known how low he was in the mix, I'm sure he'd have gone bananas.

 

 

 

 

[Daz39]

I heard bits of them over the years (mainly OOALH and snatches of Close to the Edge): my prog route was Floyd > Rush + Dream Theater. 

On a whim (because Newcastle had a brilliant music store called Windows that sold instruments and CDs), I got Keys to Ascension 1+2, mainly because I'd always stopped to look at Roger Dean's artwork. Holy macaroni, what a noise the bass made (the rest weren't half bad either). After that I quickly worked my way through the 70s stuff.

Echoing above: although tracks like Awaken or America (no wait, Siberian Khatru. No, Heart of the Sunrise...) are my fave Chris tracks, I think Relayer is my favourite Yes album. It's everything people (pffftt) hate about Prog, and it's utterly sublime.

[jacko]

16 hours ago, White Cloud said:

Chris Squires Swiss choir.. a festive collection of classics in a prog style. It also features Mr Hackett on guitar!

Awesome!

...and has Run with the Fox.  IMO the best xmas single ever.  He also did at least one album with Billy Sherwood - Conspiracy.

I've been a Yes fan since my bro turned me on to them. At the time I'd learned a little ragtime fingerpicking and I started trying to learn Mood for a Day.  However, said Bro took me to see them at Newcastle city hall around 74/75 and once I'd seen how much fun Chris was having I've rarely touched the guitar since.  CS has been a huge influence on my playing and I've seen Yes at least a couple of dozen times in the past 40 odd years.  Last time was a year ago and I was terribly disappointed with the overall playing. Howe was missing runs, Downs was just rubbish, White didn't even make the stage till the encore BUT worst of all was Billy Sherwood's playing, tone and overall volume. He had no compression and just drowned out the rest of the band a lot of the time . First time I've ever left a Yes gig before they'd finished but Starship trooper was appalling.  We weren't the only ones.  

  

Edited March 5, 2019 by jacko
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[visog]

Yes me too on all the above... I saw Chris first on the Yesshows Drama tour - he was awesome. I don't think he gets the credit he deserves for his sound innovation. He got into bi-amping early on, and blending a guitar amp for his treble pick-up (bridge presumably) and a regular bass amp for his bass. Great tone... I've read that the 'Ricko-sound' was in part due to him. Not sure how true that is. I'm sure the experts will chime in. 

For those craving some CS tones and lines, I recommend Miguel Falcao's channel for faithful reproductions and with the type of basses Chris used...

https://www.youtube.com/user/miguelbass

 

[White Cloud]

3 hours ago, jacko said:

...and has Run with the Fox.  IMO the best xmas single ever.  

  

Totally agree. In fact, I love the entire Swiss choir album.

[NikNik]

On 04/03/2019 at 17:49, Bassman Sam said:

As the title says. He was just a massive influence to me and I bought my first Rickenbacker due to him.

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Leonine and Godlike. No sure about that Spiderman cape, though....

[4000]

20 hours ago, visog said:

Yes me too on all the above... I saw Chris first on the Yesshows Drama tour - he was awesome. I don't think he gets the credit he deserves for his sound innovation. He got into bi-amping early on, and blending a guitar amp for his treble pick-up (bridge presumably) and a regular bass amp for his bass. Great tone... I've read that the 'Ricko-sound' was in part due to him. Not sure how true that is. I'm sure the experts will chime in. 

For those craving some CS tones and lines, I recommend Miguel Falcao's channel for faithful reproductions and with the type of basses Chris used...

https://www.youtube.com/user/miguelbass

 

He's said in numerous interviews that he started using stereo for two reasons; one was to bring the level of his notoriously weedy original horseshoe treble pickup up to something like the level of the neck pickup (his bass was originally mono), and one was so that he could use different effects on each pickup (for instance he said the fuzz sounded terrible on his treble pickup). He didn't bi-amp as such, i.e. splitting the frequencies. The Rick-O-Sound was also available pre-Chris, he just wasn't aware of it. John Hall does credit him with having made the most of using stereo though.  

[4000]

23 hours ago, Daz39 said:

I think Relayer is my favourite Yes album. It's everything people (pffftt) hate about Prog, and it's utterly sublime.

It most certainly is, on both counts. Gates in particular is just incredible.

Edited March 6, 2019 by 4000

[toneknob]

12 minutes ago, 4000 said:

It most certainly is, on both counts. Gates in particular is just incredible.

Agree with all of that. It's more jazz rock really. Anyway check out the live version on Yesshows, it's about 115% of the studio version.

 

[Daz39]

13 minutes ago, toneknob said:

Agree with all of that. It's more jazz rock really. Anyway check out the live version on Yesshows, it's about 115% of the studio version.

 

Yes - Mr Moraz brought a definite jazzy influence with the Keys on the album. Gates is madness - the opening sections where you could be forgiven for thinking the guitars and drums are out of step with each other as if it's sort of free-time plodding, but then bang it's back on track.

I still have Topographic Oceans, and whilst it's so jam-like that Rick Wakeman hates it, there are sections of magic across all 4 tracks - I suppose modern bands would release it as the Studio Outtakes  

[toneknob]

3 minutes ago, Daz39 said:

Yes - Mr Moraz brought a definite jazzy influence with the Keys on the album. Gates is madness - the opening sections where you could be forgiven for thinking the guitars and drums are out of step with each other as if it's sort of free-time plodding, but then bang it's back on track.

I still have Topographic Oceans, and whilst it's so jam-like that Rick Wakeman hates it, there are sections of magic across all 4 tracks - I suppose modern bands would release it as the Studio Outtakes  

I never really got Toby's in its full glory. Again much prefer the potted version on Yesshows (which is still over half an hour long).

[NikNik]

24 minutes ago, Daz39 said:

Yes - Mr Moraz brought a definite jazzy influence with the Keys on the album. Gates is madness - the opening sections where you could be forgiven for thinking the guitars and drums are out of step with each other as if it's sort of free-time plodding, but then bang it's back on track.

I still have Topographic Oceans, and whilst it's so jam-like that Rick Wakeman hates it, there are sections of magic across all 4 tracks - I suppose modern bands would release it as the Studio Outtakes  

TOTO was panned by critics when it first came out. I bought a pristine s/h copy along with GFTO when the latter was released. I mainly bought TOTO for Ritual but my fav piece is TRSOG.