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

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!

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.

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