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Who’s that under the stage? It’s Casey Young! (And he’s happy to talk about it!) – 444

Produced by Jeffrey Crecelius, Wayne Hall, Preston Frazier and Bill Govier

Casey in that infamous rehearsal video

It was a genuine pleasure to speak to Casey Young this week about his contributions to the 90125 Tour. This conversation was suggested by Keith Hoisington.

  • Why was Casey under the stage?
  • What did he do?
  • How does he feel about his role now?

Listen to the episode and let us know what you think!

Spot Casey in this classic video!

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Show notes and links:

YMP Patrons:

Producers:

  • Jeffrey Crecelius
  • Preston Frazier
  • Bill Govier and
  • Wayne Hall

Patrons:

Aaron Steelman

Dave Owen

Mark James Lang

Paul Tomei

Joost Maglev

David Heyden

Martin Kjellberg

Paul Wilson

Bob Martilotta

Lind

Michael O’Connor

William Hayes
Brian Sullivan

David Pannell

Miguel Falcão

Lobate Scarp

Chris Bandini

David Watkinson

Neal Kaforey

Rachel Hadaway

Craig Estenes

Dem

Paul Hailes

Mark ‘Zarkol’ Baggs

Doug Curran

Robert Nasir

Fergus Cubbage

Scott Colombo

Fred Barringer

Scott Smith
Geoff Bailie

Simon Barrow
Geoffrey Mason

Stephen Lambe

Guy R DeRome

Steve Dill

Henrik Antonsson

Steve Perry

Hogne Bø Pettersen

Steve Rode

IanNB

Steve Scott

Jamie McQuinn

Steven Roehr

Ken Fuller

Terence Sadler

Michael Handerhan

Tim Stannard

Jim

Todd Dudley

John Cowan

Tony Handley

John Holden

Joseph Cottrell

John Parry

Keith Hoisington

John Thomson

Barry Gorsky


Robert and David

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Theme music

The music I use is the last movement of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite. This has been used as introduction music at many Yes concerts. My theme music is not take from a live concert – I put it together from the following two creative commons sources: thanvannispen and archive.org

19 replies on “Who’s that under the stage? It’s Casey Young! (And he’s happy to talk about it!) – 444”

Well done guys on a great episode. Wow…what stories and just how amazingly talented is Casey. I mean it had it all, inside secrets, Vangelis, stories, putting it all in place and perspective in what was a highly important tour. Tech stuff, doubling up, record assistance! Dealings with Jon Tony and Chris, I could go on, he would be one heck of guy to have a drink with, all those names he worked with.

Again chaps – Well done I lived it. Dave

Brilliant interview, guys! I was thrilled that you got him talking about Vangelis, whom I’m also a huge fan of. You can actually hear Casey Young on a Vangelis track. It’s on “Intergalactic Radio Station” on the album Direct, which was recorded in Athens in 1987, and released by Arista in 1988. Casey can be heard giving some sort of DJ like speech at the end of the track. He even says, “Hi, Jon. Let’s break some rules.” Which is supposedly a reference to Jon Anderson about going into the studio and just break all the rules, while making music.

You can hear the track here -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx3FPiHqG8U

I was intrigued that Young said “concerts” about Vangelis. Because Vangelis have done less than 30 concerts in his time as a solo artist. He did do a gig in Los Angeles in 1986, though, which Jon Anderson appeared on as well. The concert was mostly improvised music, but he also included snippets of his most well known tracks.

I laughed when Young talked about all the VIPs backstage. Vangelis. I can believe it, because Vangelis travels in interesting circles. There were lots of celebrities at the LA gig as well. The concert was held at UCLA (the university) and it all was set up pretty fast. Here’s an eyewitness report -> http://elsew.com/data/repla.htm

Once again, thanks!

Thank you for the link, I wish I could have seen that show especially with what Jon performed. I did see them both in London when Jon got up from the audience to sing a few tracks. This was after the audience shouted to Jon to join in, yes me mostly…well and a few others .

I do wish J&V could make up and do a final album.

Really? Which of the Vangelis concerts in London did you go to? He did one in the Royal Festival Hall in 1980, One in Drury Lane in 1979, another one in Royal Festival Hall in 1977 and one in Royal Albert Hall in 1976.

That was awesome Its really great to hear from someone like that because he has all the back story. I could only imagine what is was like for him on that tour.
Great Show Guys!
Cheers

Casey Young has been called the “No.1 Synth Programmer” in Los Angeles. He Worked on hundreds of Records through-out the 1980’s and 1990’s. He is probably in the top five of “All Time Best Synth Programmers” world wide. Casey’s Synth Rigg in LA was controlled by a Master Keyboard, a New England Digital Synclavier which feed four 20 space racks of sample playback modules and Efxs modules. After the racks Casey’s rigg had two tiers of keyboards supporting PPG, Jupiture 8, Yamaha DX7 Controller for 816 racks, EMU II, E III, Prophet 5 and a VS. I think he was limited to 50 output for the studios in LA. He had submixers but didn’t like to use them trying to keep the sign Fat. YES, was so lucky to pull Casey away from his studio dates. He truely is one of the greats in music.

Yes he certainly turns out to be an amazing musician and very much in demand as you say. A great piece of ‘hidden’ Yes lore.

Excellent show, guys. As I’ve commented before here & on Facebook, I met & talked to Casey on the ’84 tour at 5 gigs where I had backstage passes & interviewed & hung with Yes, carrying on from all the previous tours back to ’75. He told me some great stories about working with Madonna, Gary Wright, Manhattan Transfer, Geoff Emerick and others! He sounds the same here as he did in ’84, “hold crap” and all!

Spectacular interview! Casey is so funny and interesting to listen to.
When he recalls memories of Chris talking to him, for example when he told Casey that he could do the extra keyboard work live, one can almost picture Chris saying it…
One of the doubling jobs of Trevor’s guitar solo parts has to be the “Make it Easy” intro – you can really hear it on the 9012 Live video.

Thanks for such a beautiful episode!
M

Thanks Miguel – unsung hero Casey now has a voice – at least in Yes circles. He’s rather well known elsewhere!

Another fine episode. Thank you. It prompts the possible ‘two pence’ question as to whether Casey Young should be regarded as a Yes keyboard player in a similar (but different) way to Tom Brislin.

On a different issue, just a wee clarifier to a social media item you reported involving me. Rick Wakeman is indeed planning to play ‘The Red Planet’ live in Armenia, and hoping that a tour may be possible, COVID notwithstanding. But Dylan Howe has absolutely nothing to do with this, as far as I know. I think you must have seen two contiguous tweets of mine – one on RW and one on Dylan’s birthday (screenshot attached) – and somehow conflated them!

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