Chris on fretless - The Remembering

[miguelbass]

Hello friends,

I have recorded a new clip, covering "The Remembering" (1st half, as yet). Now this is the only song (and part of Awaken) that i remember (pun intended) where Chris plays a fretless. Did he play a fretless on Onward live back in 96?

I wonder why Chris decided to use a fretless on this one. I think his approach on the fretless is nothing standard, I mean he doesn't want to sound like the "usual" fretless bassist neither tries to play much different than he plays with other basses. In some passages however, he found some ways to take advantage of the fretless neck, with some nice slides/glides.

All in all, I think the bassline on The Remembering doesn't lose its "Squireness", if only is added with a bit of an earthier-woodier sound, that makes it perhaps a bit less in-your-face, but also very sweet in places. Unfortunately, the tone of my cheap j-bass copy (i ripped out the frets) is not as beautiful as Chris' Guild, or I didn't tweak the EQ so well, but anyway here it goes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DvXNtbjwA0

I'd like to hear your opinions about these and other matters that you find interesting.

greetings everyone

Miguel

[just_bassics]

Chris also mentions in one interview that he used the fretless on part of Close to the Edge as well, also that he was very proud of the bass line for The Remembering, as he put it, "More than some other pieces that people go on about".

He used a Guild fretless that is now owned by Vincent Gallo, who has promised to send me some information about it after he gets a chance to get it from storage. I've had a nice Guild for 22 years now that I am very fond of... now, on to hear Miguel's latest recording...

[johnallg]

Miguel, you have a rare talent for digging out bass parts and playing them with both accuracy and authority. I am envious. And also a great memory, to remember all Chris' little adds and variations. Kudos! Another great one.

I have always loved TFTO in its parts and in its entirety. Chris plays very creative and complementary bass parts in this body of work, having it stand out from his other great works. I have always loved his part in The Remembering; I can see why he feels proud of it. I have been luck enough to see Yes play all 4 pieces, not at one time, but some more than once. Always a special happening.

[miguelbass]

Chris also mentions in one interview that he used the fretless on part of Close to the Edge as well, also that he was very proud of the bass line for The Remembering, as he put it, "More than some other pieces that people go on about".

He used a Guild fretless that is now owned by Vincent Gallo, who has promised to send me some information about it after he gets a chance to get it from storage. I've had a nice Guild for 22 years now that I am very fond of... now, on to hear Miguel's latest recording...

Hmmmm that's enlightening, Jim... Come to think of it, that distorted tone on the beginning of "Total Mass Retain" sounds like it... but I need to give it a closer listen.

And great to know about that quote from Chris. As far as I know he is somehow humble about his work, I never saw him prasing so much his own work in a way other musicians (over) do. For him to say that - I suppose he has great care for that bassline. It is really specially beautiful.

Thanks Jim!

Miguel

[miguelbass]

Miguel, you have a rare talent for digging out bass parts and playing them with both accuracy and authority. I am envious. And also a great memory, to remember all Chris' little adds and variations. Kudos! Another great one.

I have always loved TFTO in its parts and in its entirety. Chris plays very creative and complementary bass parts in this body of work, having it stand out from his other great works. I have always loved his part in The Remembering; I can see why he feels proud of it. I have been luck enough to see Yes play all 4 pieces, not at one time, but some more than once. Always a special happening.

Hello John,


The TFTO tour is perhaps the least video-graphed period of Yes... and those songs always brought up mystery in me. It's like being inside a big maze of sounds surrounding you for 80 minutes.
I was attracted at first by TRSoG (to me was the main song), as well as The Ancient , maybe for the weirdness and experimentalism going on. Ritual I already knew from Yesshows.
The Remembering - I thought it took a long time to grow up on me, maybe because the song itself takes a long time to take off... Maybe that's why they dropped it later on the tour...

This summer I got some sign - taking the challenge to explore Chris Squire on fretless and suddenly, the whole song became much much powerful to my ears. I "remembered".

"In the days of summer so long
We danced as evening sang their song"

i feel happy that you could presence such a happening like a TFTO tour gig, John! If not a little bit envious too

Miguel

[woodyng]

hi miguel,your question about chris and fretless playing....i am not sure but i think the martin bass he used on the acoustic set for the 40th anniversary tour was a lined fretless. there is a solo on the 2nd conspiracy album on the title track that certainly sounds like a fretless bass,but whether chris or billy played that,is hard to say. i got to see yes perform the whole of TFTO in memphis many many (1970's) years ago,but don't remember so much,other than it being a great concert-i do seem to remember chris maybe playing the fretless bass on a stand ala steve howe.the venue for the concert was a giant flat room with folding metal chairs,and my seats were pretty far back..... also, on the talk tour,chris played an EUB on "where will you be".

[just_bassics]

Miguel, here's the exact quote, from Yesstories (Tim Morse) as quoted from British Rock Guitar:

"One of the nicest thing I think I've ever played is on side two of TFTO, The Remembering. It's a really quiet song and the bass playing is really gentle. I was playing a Guild fretless and although it's not a hard sound or amazingly fast, I'm prouder of that than I am about some of the things I've played that people rave about. That section starts with a very interesting chord sequence. The key shifts for every bar, and the bass line just happens to bind it all together somehow by following a weird kind of scale. It's a very successful piece of arranging, and when I hear it, I definitely feel that I couldn't have played anything righter, and one doesn't often get that feeling." Chris Squire, 1976, British Rock Guitar

I've always felt that TFTO was an amazing and very special piece of music. I listen to and compose classical music as well as rock, and Tales is unequaled, IMO, except for the other great classical works. I get tired of hearing the critics, even certain band members and techs who put it down. I am happy that it was finished and released and was fortunate enough to see it performed in it's entirety in 1974. Side three blew me away! Fifteen minutes of absolute maddness followed by some of the best classical guitar playing in modern rock music. Three minute songs are nice but I prefer longer, developed works that take their time. Perhaps that is why I like classical music as well.

So, Miguel, I had a chance to review your latest video and, once again, Bravo! I am a video editor as well and appreciate your sense of visual perspective. Keep it up!

[miguelbass]

Jim, that was very cool of you to transcribe Chris' words about this tune. I can relate to that. Many times I did a bassline of my own that with time I became very critic about it. I'm not sure if this is a bass player's thing only, maybe not only. But it sure happens a lot.

Again, by his quote - it's almost terrifying how "down to earth" Chris talks about his work, very un-technical or un-theoretical about it. He justifies how happy he was with the result based on his feelings only. That is perhaps why Chris' playing touches people in a special way - his playing is first of all so... human. I hope you get the point of what I mean by human, related to feelings.

I also listen from classical to jazz to whatever, I think the term prog-rock is maybe to restricting when it comes to Yes. I can be a Yes "fundamentalist" sometimes, but "prog" is not all. Anyway labels are something relative... but Yes is Yes, and surely Chris is Chris.

I will be very happy to get suggestions on the video field. It's not of course my first purpose of my clips, I just started learning to use some basic tools, so all you see is really experimenting with the material I have available, with a help from a great friend - I don't have "Rickenbackers" for video editing, but I did get some fun and it's being exciting to do something as "The time between the notes relates the colour to the scenes"

Miguel

[miguelbass]

Hi Woody,

Thanks for your added info and sharing your memories! Carrying on the fretless Squire-quest, now I recall that there is a Warwick fretless on "Dreamtime" from Magnification.

Now regarding WWYB, I think Chris played his Extra Long Scale Tobias (fretted) standing on a stool, at least on the video bootlegs I have seen so far. It does get the feel of an upright, as gravity does play it's role.

There is also "Run Through the Light", but that is Trevor Horn playing it.

Miguel

[johnallg]

Hello John,

The TFTO tour is perhaps the least video-graphed period of Yes... and those songs always brought up mystery in me. It's like being inside a big maze of sounds surrounding you for 80 minutes.
I was attracted at first by TRSoG (to me was the main song), as well as The Ancient , maybe for the weirdness and experimentalism going on. Ritual I already knew from Yesshows.
The Remembering - I thought it took a long time to grow up on me, maybe because the song itself takes a long time to take off... Maybe that's why they dropped it later on the tour...

This summer I got some sign - taking the challenge to explore Chris Squire on fretless and suddenly, the whole song became much much powerful to my ears. I "remembered".

"In the days of summer so long
We danced as evening sang their song"

i feel happy that you could presence such a happening like a TFTO tour gig, John! If not a little bit envious too

Miguel

Miguel,

"It's like being inside a big maze of sounds surrounding you for 80 minutes." Yes - themes within themes within themes!

My seeing Yes play TTFO was also back in the 70s, back when you could take a camera into the shows. I have color slides and b&w pictures that are really quite good, if I say so myself (not bragging, I hope). For me, The Ritual has always been my favorite, followed by The Remembering (something about listening to it on a hot summer afternoon in hard sunlight) - TRSoG and The Ancient follow closely behind. I also feel if you are going to listen, the whole work really needs to be heard in one sitting completely through. The ending of Ritual always reminds me of the coming of the dawn after a long trip.

Chris is "down to earth" about his work. He seems somewhat abashed when you express gratitude for what he has done in his musical career. When I met him at the RIC 75th at the Hollywood HOB, he seemed concerned about his performance coming up that evening. As we were chatting, I told him he always put on a great show and he said, "Yeah, well, we'll see how that this evening." He went onstage and played Hold Out Your Hand/You By My Side for the first time live in 30 years. He nailed it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbSJfpSEVf4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DL7jK986tw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcrybczkrxM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk5_DTKB1Bc

Always a pleasure, Miguel. And thanks for the quote Jim!

[miguelbass]

Hi John, forgot to say thanks for your story and links. I just finished recording the second half of the bass cover.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12U9azs2Zr0

I discovered some more beautiful details in Chris's playing on that huge masterpiece. At the end of the day it remains of of my favourite songs that I would never have
thought of... a very intense build-up, especially demanding to play some passages since I rarely play fretless. Hope you enjoy the rest of the cover.
A nice weekend to everyone!

M

[johnallg]

Miguel, I am speechless.... totally awesome. I am so impressed that you can figure out the whole piece and play the exotic parts with the accenting Chris gives it. You are completely locked into the song and with Alan. Kudos, kudos, kudos.....

I keep getting caught with the melodies, Steve's parts, and the keyboards, and loose Chris's path in the process. As I usually do on these full compositions.

[just_bassics]

Great work as always, Miguel! On to Side three!!!

[miguelbass]

Dear John and Jim,

thanks for your comments. I thought about it, after making the clip, that it might be too much of a big step for me to cover this song as, like I said, this wasn't one of the songs that I initially knew the bassline by heart. Many of the songs I covered before were imprinted for many years in my thoughts. This one I admit that I foolishly overlooked, comparing with , for example, sides 1 and 4 of TFTO. However something compelled me to do it this last summer, I felt like it was meant to be that way and I keep listening to it and the more i did the more I felt absorbed by the whole music. I agree that the keyboards, guitar and vocal work are themselves quite appealing and can distract from focusing on the bassline.

It was very rewarding to learn from you in the forum Chris' own comments about this song. It's huge, and alike other first covers i did in the past, I may realize that I have yet missed some notes on the way, still I think this effort was aready worth it. Glad you appreciated it!

As for side 3, well... for now my policy was meant to be visiting a song per album, I guess I will stick to it for now, but for sure that Tales is a magnificent masterpiece that it seems many people love or just can't pick up on... I always respected very much this album, although i can't say it's my favourite it is maybe the album that provokes the biggest mystery on me, also by the fact of having so little live footage available, especially on video.
It must have been one of the most spectacular periods of Yes as a live band.

Miguel

[ajish4]

Miguel, I am speechless.... totally awesome. I am so impressed that you can figure out the whole piece and play the exotic parts with the accenting Chris gives it. You are completely locked into the song and with Alan. Kudos, kudos, kudos.....

I keep getting caught with the melodies, Steve's parts, and the keyboards, and loose Chris's path in the process. As I usually do on these full compositions.

I don't know how you do it Miguel, that's amazing...dammit, if you lived in the USA, I'd be asking you for some lessons!

FANTASTIC, just wonderful.....