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Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Wayne Hall, Ken Fuller and Jeffrey Crecelius
This week Mark and I took a careful look at the iconic Chris Squire Star Licks video from 1990. Chris is at his relaxed and chatty best and shows off his skills, his guitars and his pedal board. It’s a wonderful time capsule of Yes goodness and Mark and I hugely enjoyed chatting about our reactions to it. The conversation goes down a couple of unexpected routes and we venture, predictably, into the weeds of both kit and musical theory! I promise it’s not tedious though – how could it be with your two favourite podcast hosts in tandem?
You’ll find the videos we talk about below.
- What secrets does Chris share?
- What kit does he show off?
- What do we learn about Yes music from his bass lines here?
See if you agree with us and then leave a comment below.
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Producers:
- Joseph Cottrell
- Wayne Hall
- Ken Fuller
- Jeffrey Crecelius
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8 replies on “A Chris Squire Master Class – 694”
I actually bought this on DVD after my VHS copy was worn out! I’m not sure if the DVD was released by the original copyright holder though.
Did you check out the booklet that came with it with scores? There are a lot of mistakes in there. The Sound Chaser riff was written as 7 sets of triplets in a 7/4 time. Bonkers…
When he demonstrates the long neck Tobias bass in F, did you notice what he was playing? It’s the 5/4 riff from Footprints from KTA2. Six years before it was released!
The longer version of that bass with the BEAD tuning was used on Shock to the System in the Union tour and you can see that on several videos. The cool thing about these basses is that they do have the two dotted fret markers on EADG and it extends down from there. That’s how you can recognize the other one with one fret more.
That bass also showed up on Fly From Here pt 2 and Turn of the Century during the Fly From Here tour, though I wonder if it’s the same. It looks more brown on videos I see now. Chris needed it on both songs to get that open low C sound and add melodies on top of that.
I think the Photon bass shows up on Conspiracy recordings from time to time. I’m pretty sure but not definitively that it’s on the “guitar” solo of Red Light Ahead. I’d have to check the live recordings again to see if it was actually used there.
I was hyper focused a lot on that Star Licks video in my youth and learnt a lot of my own playing from there. Thanks for the wonderful podcast about it!
I don’t have the VHS yet – it’s on its way to me as we speak. Will have a look at the printed material, of course. Thanks for the KTA spot – yes indeed I missed that! Also, many thanks for the other bass spotting. THat Photon is an amazing instrument!
I forgot to mention the obvious fact that Chris is playing the Open Your Eyes lick on the Photon bass, again 6 years before release and a Yes/Conspiracy hybrid.
I also seem to remember the Photon bass being heavily featured on Be The One from KTA1. Not sure if I can find the evidence though.
Did you guys notice the continuity error during the demo of the Tobias long 4 string bass? When he counts to 5 for the 5/4 part of Footprints he’s not holding the Tobias but the Rick
I need to listen again to KTA to hear this!
I came here to say that too, Joost. 🙂
Chris gave an interview to Bassist magazine in January 1997 – my copy is quite dog-eared now! – and he said, “I’m not playing a bass on [Be The One], I’m playing what was developed as a synthesiser guitar called a Photon, an early attempt at a synthesiser bass. The synthesiser part didn’t work, but it still sounds great. The bass on that track is Steve Howe on a 5-string here and there, but Rick played most of the bass parts on keyboards.”
Fantastic stuff – many thanks for the comment, Becky!
As for the Ranney 8-string, Chris also played it live for the song, It Will Be a Good Day, from The Ladder, so I assume he used it in the studio as well – the bass part was certainly recorded with an 8-string.
Aha – well I’ve heard it love then. I was at the Birmingham Ladder Tour show. Thanks again.