Chris Squire RIP

[Eanna]

It is with great sadness we learn that Chris Squire, legendary bassist with Yes, has passed away today.

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-33306933

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.

[dante]

A great loss to prog rock:(

[Mr Arkadin]

Absolutely gutted by this news. I saw Yes last year and was hoping he'd rejoin soon.

He's the reason I own a Ric bass. Huge inspiration, unique bass sound and style.

RIP

[Nestor]

He was my first bass player to look at and learn. An amazing musician: THANK YOU FOR WHAT YOU GAVE US!

[stonberg]

Gonna be blasting Close to the Edge out this evening!

[hubird]

He has earned his spurs, that's definitely true, and he's one of the greatest and renewing bass players in rock history.
But I never liked the concept of 'sophisticated' intelligent rock, or -for that matter- the sound of his bass.
But that's just me

Strange enough there's one song of Yes which I liked a lot at the time, and re-listening it now it still does: Your move.
It has the capacity of making the sound waves whirling and 'phasing' through my mind.
Those high voices which seem to go nowhere create fascination ánd expectation, dunno. The great use of open vowels, as a selection criterium for rhythmic placing of the words. just magic.
And the bass is kept darker as elsewhere, lucky me.

There's a (doubled) kick only on the first beat of each bar only, which holds back the typical rock drum concept, good for me
The combined voices in the first part are already thrilling to me, but really eclectic it get's with Diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit didda / Diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit didda
With a great baseline capturing the whole diidit line downward, and up again at the end.
Really great

Not surprisingly I like this text part the most, as I usually don't like 'content' in music anymore (to avoid the typical (rock or pop) song structures, not really applicable on Yes, definitely true).


It's strange that (only) one single piece of a band or even it's style of music, that I don't have connection with, can make me feel that happy.
Playing it all the time while writing.
Brutal stereo mix also, no delay/reverb shit, and that 'flute organ' drives me crazy

As far as I know this is far more than I achieved in my musical life.

So Yes, Chris Squire, my respect, anyway, RIP.


Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rpBUD0hjaI
at 22:24. Preferrably at 2:42 tho

[dante]

Well I liked pretty much all thier stuff. Topographic Oceans had a certain charm at the time and proved that you could really immerse oneself in a long listening experience similar to classical music. But I can understand Wakeman leaving after that one when you compare to his more pop type epics that followed. Meanwhile Yes kicked back into high energy mode with kick ass Relayer and Patrick Moraz blew me away so much I followed on with The Story of I which took Prog to a whole new place. Although his releases after that didn't have quite the same edge.

Some of the later stuff was quite good as well and they helped pioneer the whole digital Record to hard drive thing as well.

Maybe hubird you could revisit Tales if you want something 'less typically rock' in a conventional sense. It's way more poetical and story telling - although I never quite worked out what the story was about - maybe 6 stages of evolution ? One per side.

And what does 'Topographic' mean anyway ?

Squire was the only member to play on all Yes albums. Another good bit of rock trivea..

[garyb]

Topographic is a type of map that shows the details of the land's features.

the title of the album means that they wanted an impressive sounding name....