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QJQY95A@prodigy.com
I would like to know if the beginning of the song "Siberian
Khatru" is similar to "Hey Joe" by Jimi Hendrix,
though played faster? Is it a hammer on the second string D to E
with the sixth string played open? Thanks.
"Yeah [it is]. Certainly Hendrix
brought a great usage of two string chords into playing, in his
musical lot. And he did that on his Strat to his credit and it
was very tasteful part of his playing that wasn't wild and off
the cuff, but it was very nicely controlled and very melodic.
I don't actually think to myself about Hendrix when I play that
but of course it's got that usage. We do play that on my new CD
ROM that's coming out sometime this year, I do show how I use
that. I start in the seventh fret doing it on the second and third
strings, so I do the same kind of thing but I choose to be on
the second and third strings: the same notes, yeah, a hammer on
the third string and the open E. It's pretty easy stuff, it just
goes through the chords E, A, and Bm, really. What I think what's
neat about the guitar is you can do some things on it that stand
out in people's mind, just a collection of different positions
of notes. That's a pretty popular intro of mine, so get the CD
ROM and learn how to play it!"
From: Ed Torres
Hi Steve. I grew up & got a great deal of my musical guitar
influences from yourself and Jimmy Page. I was wondering what your
thoughts were on JP's acoustic approach to guitar ie: his many beautiful
strange sounding open tunings. And I think every guitar player on
the planet whether they be famous or not would love to hear an acoustic
collabaration with yourself and JP. By the way, thank you for so
many years of being a wonderful role model to me both musically
and morally.
"It's quite a reckoning to observe
how much work Jimmy Page has recorded, and Led Zeppelin was in
a way his golden opportunity like mine has been with Yes, is that
the work he did in there is all intelligent, it's highly integrated,
it's all integral in the whole song. That's because Robert and
him were the leading edge of Led Zeppelin. He did a lot of very
nice acoustic stuff, I agree completely; some of it has that lovely
scrapey sort of sound, almost like an F-hole, he's got a lot of
12 string and other things. He did some nice textual stuff, very,
very nice. [His approach is] very original, very English, it has
a sense of tradition about it, some if has got a medieval sound.
It would be silly to think of any guitarist at any one time other
than when he's so productive that you can't see anything but productivity,
and in that period Jimmy stands out way above a lot of other people.
"I've run into Jimmy; we say hello, we talk, we always seem
to be relaxed with each other. Neither of us has ever taken it
any further it than that, and maybe that's because how it suits
us to be. But I think given a chance me and any other guitarist
would come up with things, and I think that's what's good about
developing your career, is taking these opportunities."
From: Richard Jay
Baruch
Steve, you're the best! Can you tell me what you used to, as you
once told me, overdrive the shit out of the dual showman amp with
the trebley setting (regarding your YESSONGS amplification
on the opening solo of CLOSE TO THE EDGE)?
"The only thing this jogs in my
memory is possibly explaining how I used two of them together
with stereo guitar to drive the leads very loud in the lead pickup
in one amp and the bass pickup in the other. But when I say 'drive
the shit out of it' I most probably drove it with a box, a wah
wah, a fuzz box or distortion one in that period of time. It's
just an amp, you plug into it and turn it up. You want to get
it as loud as you want it. I was never really that much into massive
volume but I like the amp to be a little bit broken up, and I
used to use a Maestro booster box that had quite a nice effect
where it just brought up a bit more, but those were hazy days
[laughs]. But I had JBL speakers in mine, that's what partly gave
that spectral spectrum sound, I think was having JBLs."
And for the other dual showman amp
that you set to sound bassy, are the tone controls not the same
as the settings you mentioned for the trebely amp?- bass on about
3 and treble on full brightness (10?)?
"Well I was right, you obviously
seem to be referring to a stereo guitar setup, a Gibson stereo
in two Fender amps. And one of them would have the lead pickup
like I just explained, and that would have pretty normal settings,
like the treble might be on 8 or 9 or 10, depending. And then
the bass would be on about 3 or 4 and the midrange about 5. And
then the other amp, what I call the bassy amp, that would have
the bass pickup going to it near the neck. So I would still have
treble pretty high but that would get a bassier sound. So whether
you realize or not you're talking about a stereo guitar setup,
I think."
Do you put the bright button on
each amp?
"Yeah. At those times I needed
all the treble I could get, because I was using fifteen inch speakers
in the Dual Showman, which comes with the Dual Showman, and they're
not very good at top end, so even with JBLs I would always have
it up, but nowadays I don't. I have much lower treble settings
than I used to have and I have the same amount of treble. So that
should tell you something about 12 and 15 inch speakers. Also
volume pedals of the day were much more degrading. You put things
through a volume pedal and it sounded dull, but I went for that
sound, so now I don't have any trouble getting treble out of any
guitars because the technologies made pedals and things work much
better and not degrade the sound."
How do you set the middle on each
amp?
"Everything's according to your
taste, not really my taste. It would depend on so many factors:
how good the amp, what condition and servicing the amp's had,
whether the speakers are absolutely perfect, whether they're JBL
speakers, but I would say that's between 3 and 6, anywhere between
there, but that's most probably going to be somewhere in the middle."
From: Kristina
At the end of "The Continental", I seem to hear you murmor
something along with the violin-- I know it is your voice, but it
seems I cannot make it out. What exactly are you saying?
"That's right. Those are three
part harmony voices sung through a megaphone, which was slightly
a take off on the Django period of music which 'The Continental'
was taken from. What I sing is, 'wonderful music, dangerous tune'.
It's taken from the song, the words to the tune. Brilliant violinist
on that, called Graham Preskitt."
From: Paul
Jeffrey Loosley
Many years ago, before Yes, while
you were still in the In Crowd (I was a big fan, I saw the group
several times and I was convinced even then that you were one of
the most remarkable guitar players in the country) I overheard you
in a conversation in Selmers, as it used to be, in the Charing Cross
Road. I was buying my very first guitar and you seemed to be just
hanging about trying out various guitars. While a little rude of
me to eavesdrop it stuck in my mind as you were saying that Eric
Clapton was greatly over-rated, this was of course when everyone
was calling him 'God'. I'm sure you wouldn't recall but do you still
feel the same?
"The comparisons drawn between
gods and guitarists are sometimes sensitive to me and therefore
you are talking about somewhere in the '60s, and I can't be held
to anything I said in the '60s [laughs]. So I've certainly appreciated
Eric's playing through the years and have no criticism on him
at all; he's a remarkable guitarist, and I've been very proud
to be a guitarist partly because there are people like Eric Clapton
who manage to diversify and make their career interesting. So
in a way Eric, along with Jeff Beck and Albert Lee and lots of
other English guitarists have been role models for me as well.
That was a pretty off the cuff statement and I retract it really,
but I think I said it because of the comparison between gods and
guitarists. Obviously that was going a bit far, and I think that
even Eric thought it was going far as well. Subsequently of course
I've had opportunities to spend a little time with Eric. He's
a remarkable guy, just as remarkable as he was in 1969 when he
toured with Delaney and Bonnie, and I met somebody who was very,
very famous and yet very human and unegotistical which was nice.
We crossed paths a lot when Yes were cooking in the '70's."
From: John P. McGuire
I am also very curious to know what
your set up was for the fuzz solos in 'A Venture'. Thanks for all
the great music and inspriration.
"The only fuzz box I was using
on THE YES ALBUM was made by Marshall. I think I've still
got it; I haven't used it for a very long time but it was the
box that we got to make long note on 'Starship Trooper', which
is quite easy to make right on stage, play on stage, and other
times it's very hard to play on stage: if it doesn't want to feed
back it won't feed back. I use a different box now but in those
days we had the Marshall fuzz box through the amp and we just
kind of turned everything up full like you did with all Marshall
products if you can--that's a guitar joke, that everybody plays
Marshalls at full volume because you'd be deaf if you did but
don't play your Marshalls at full volume if you want to have you
hearing when you're a little bit older."
From: Ed Stoerger
First of all,thank you for many years of great music and memories.
Of all the Yes albums you played on, which was the most difficult
to complete?
"At first at I thought the answer
might be TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS because it was a double album,
we had twice as much to do, but there again YESSONGS
was a very large piece of work. People think that live albums
are very easy to do but in my experience that's quite the contrary,
and YESSONGS took a lot of compiling and mixing and stitching
together and it took months to do. But I think the album that's
most difficult to complete was most probably TORMATO,
and that's why after that for a long time I had quite a stigma
about that album. It was difficult to work with Rick playing the
Polymoog, it was somewhat easier when he didn't, obviously, when
we did tracks like 'Madrigal'. So TORMATO was difficult
technically--mixing it, it was one of the records we did not only
without Eddie [Offord] but without an engineer that we were really
all really confident about, and it got tricky with engineers.
But also because the way group's mood was at the time, it was
also difficult to arrange the credits on that record as far as
who wrote what and there was a bit of a sour feeling at the end
of it. But funny enough when I listen to the record on CD now
I find that it's quite lively and a lot of memories were just
because at the end of the record [the] splits were difficult to
arrange. Maybe it was also a difficult time for Yes because the
next thing we did was without Rick and Jon. I suppose there was
a change in direction musically also happening at that time, so
I think that it got a little bit difficult keeping the group through
an easily manageable thing, it got kind of difficult."
From: MHJr@aol.com
I've been playing my strat for over 25 years through a '65 Bandmaster
and always wanted to add a Gibson ES 175 since I heard you play
it in 1974. Finally in a situation where I can seriously consider
it. I've been looking at an ES 165 which is basically the 175 with
a single 490 pick up - not as hot as the Classic 57's but still
the same wonderful feel and tone to the guitar - and a lot less
expensive - the cost difference may allow me to finally pick up
a second amp to play in stereo. Other than the obvious inability
to switch tones on the fly, any advice on this purchase?
"I don't know the model actually
myself offhand, although I thought I knew them all but this might
be a more recent model inclusion. Usually a single pickup 175
is called a 175, and a double pickup's called a 175D. If you like
this guitar, if you played it and it sounds good to you, and it
sounds like you have, don't hesitate, that's a feeling. There's
no label or sign that they can put on the guitar to guarantee
that it's good, whether it's a Super 400, or a cheap model. I
recently played a new guitar Martin brought out called a .001,
and it's just like my .018, but it's cheap. It's made with American
woods and it's brilliant, absolutely brilliant. So there you go,
another example. If you like something and it sounds right to
you it doesn't have to be expensive to be good, and in fact sometimes
the more expensive decorative guitars aren't always as good, actually,
as some of the more road tested models that people have played
for years.
"They often said pictures of early
blues guitarists playing any kind of decent guitar, the guitars
were usually owned by the photographer; he had more money than
the musician, so when Big Bill Broonzy was pictured with a Gibson,
the story is he never had a Gibson, he never had enough money
for a Gibson. But there again but guitars at that time were like--everything
was a different ratio of money but they were expensive then and
they maybe couldn't afford it. So there you are. The virtues of
a reasonably priced guitar are endless and that's why I play a
175, because it wasn't really the most expensive one then. It
wasn't like I was trying to buy a Rolls Royce, I went out and
bought a Mercedes instead. So I did the same thing with the guitar,
I didn't go for a Gibson Super 400 because it was expensive but
I went for a guitar that I saw Wes [Montgomery] play, and I saw
a lot of other people play this guitar, particularly Jim Hall,
jazz guitarist, people like him, and a lot of intelligent English
guitarists also played it; Jaudd Proctor, if you can believe that
name, is a very fine guitarist."
From: Robert Don
Have you read the liner notes included with the new Yes CD SOMETHING'S
COMING THE BBC RECORDINGS 1969-1970? They include the following
comments by Peter Banks in regard to you:
"My successor, Steve Howe, may delude himself with the
myth that Yes started and ended with his involvement (I know that
he does not shake hands with people and in his case, I would certainly
endorse his policy)."
I have never read or heard you criticize Peter Banks, so why after
all these years is he making these comments about you?
"I'd personally like to lay this
whole myth to rest. For some time I had to tolerate some pretty
banal comments every time somebody comes to me with something
either I'm supposed to have said about Peter or Peter said about
me and all I can say is all that stuff is crap. I've repeatedly
commended Peter on his work on TIME AND A WORD and YES
all over the world, on repeated interviews, on articles I've done,
not because I'm obliged to at all but because I damn well think
it's great. And I've never knocked Peter in the last 20 years
that I can think of ever, I've never had a reason to. He was supportive
of Yes when I joined, he came to the shows and saw Yes growing,
he came to L.A., he saw us then. I never blocked him with playing
with us on UNION, and the fact that he thinks I'm deluded--and
I'm certainly not deluded or mystified by my success in Yes at
all, I know exactly what was going on, and I knew what exactly
what was going on before. In my interviews I've said often that
it was an easy place for me to fit into because Peter was playing
styles and guitar that I understood and I could carry on with.
I think I've given Peter fair credit for what he's done, and I
will continue to, even if Peter in any way or at any time says
derogatory things about that or me, I refuse to change my tune
which is that he's shown everybody that he's a fine guitarist
and this is below the belt for me; it's too low for me, so I can't
get into that kind of bitchiness, I don't think it's appropriate,
I think it's very inappropriate that he should think I'm misguided
about anything about Yes. I was there for ten years then, and
I'm still there now so obviously I do have a pretty clear picture
of what's going on with Yes, and I've said often in this statement
a very clear idea of how much good work Peter put into Yes before
I came along. It's not my fault they asked me to join. So I really
feel I don't even have a hatchet to bury on this one, so good
luck Peter, and talk to me."
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