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Omer Plays Bass . . . YES - Owner of a Lonely Heart (bass cover) Bass by Chris Squire Bass Used in this Video: Schecter Stargazer, Boss OC-2 (vintage 1982) Hope you have a look and if you do, don’t forget to click 'Like“ and subscribe to the channel Very excited by this video closing out the three-part series on the early ‘80s evolution of prog (P1 and P2 ). This song, ‘Owner of a Lonely Heart’ by one of my top 5 favorite bands, YES, from one of my top 5 favorite albums, “90125”, was an early song in my playing journey that really caught my ear, taught me many things and still amazes me to this day with its elegance, economy and execution. After doing what I think is a note-for-note play-along (compared to the isolated track from the Internet), it is a masterclass in subtle variation and exact attack by one of the greatest - the late Chris Squire. The early ‘80s evolution of prog to shorter, more concise, tight and well written (and frankly more commercially viable) songs continued with YES’s release of “90125” perhaps, along with RUSH’s “Moving Pictures”, the best example of the end of the indulgent ‘70’s “prog-y-ness” to what would become AOR and then classic rock, although RUSH’s evolution perhaps is more remarkable as they did it as a unit who was indulgent and changed rather than with a catalyst as with YES or as a new band like ASIA. YES was a pretty tired band, even after the exciting addition of Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes for the Trevor’s era of YES from “Drama” continuing with the addition of the amazing Trevor Rabin for “90125” and “Big Generator” where Horn moved to the role of producer. After the post “Drama” collapse of YES and a number of attempted new projects for Squire and Alan White on drums (including demos for a band called XYZ - or ex YES/Zep with Jimmy Page that are available on YouTube), Squire and White started working with South African guitarist/singer Trevor Rabin for a new project called Cinema. Adding ex-YES keyboardist Tony Kaye, the record company reportedly felt the album was missing something and suggested bringing ex-YES vocalist Jon Anderson in to do some vocals and then, with Rabin’s philosophic approval, reconstituting Cinema as YES, releasing the band’s most successful album in 1983 – 40 years ago in November – and ‘Owner’ their only #1 single, although a band, album and song that fans of the 4-sided, 81 minute epic “Tales From A Topographic Ocean” would probably not recognize. There is a lot of interesting stuff on “90125” - some of it very proggy, some not - and I poured over it all as a young bass player. I was aware of YES, but tbh most classic YES was well above my skill level at the time and “90125” with the economy of playing on Squire’s parts really taught me a lot about playing the bass. The bass part on ‘Owner’, with an innovative custom-built Electra MPC Outlaw bass that featured plug-in models for effects (on this the octave box and phaser to approximate a synth-bass type tone), is a repetitive part with subtle rests, pushes and stops before the middle Motown-inspired bridge parts and is one of the coolest bass parts ever. As mentioned, I found an isolated bass track and this is pretty note-for-note with similar tone achieved from my vintage Boss OC-2 pedal (based on the serial number it might be one of the first ever made in 1982) set to octave 1, a Boss Bass Chorus pedal (set to warble) and bit of overdrive from my Dingwall OD pedal. I played the part with a pick and recorded the octave and clean with overdrive signal at the same time and then in post, mixed between the 2 signals for the middle break and the synth shots at the beginning and second verse - which are actually Synclavier and not bass on the original recording but again this channel isn’t called “Omer Waits to Play Bass . . .” and they were fun to figure out and play. Oh, and that guitar solo - very crazy with maybe the best use of an Eventide Harmonizer ever!! Rabin, in discussing the track and songwriting distribution (and search YouTube for “90124” to hear Trevor’s demos of most of “90125” – really interesting to see the development of the tracks) said part of it was based on “the fun we had making it”. Well Trevor, I had fun playing it as well. And I tell you, if I couldn’t be a bass player, I would want to play and sing like Rabin. More to come from “90125”. Disclaimer: I am not saying this is exactly how Chris Squire played this song, but it is how I would play it if I was playing it at a gig. For more bass cover videos by Omer visit:
