Chris Squire's 3 neck bass guitar

[Richland123]

I just saw this photo of Chris Squire and his 3 neck bass guitar. Pretty interesting and cool.

[Bob C]

Pretty old photo. Chris is young and skinny there. That bass and others used to be described on the gear section of his website (I think). I don't know if they still are. The site has been recently revamped. But I'm sure you can google a description of it. He has lots of cool gear!

[iamthebassman]

Made by Wal.
Top to bottom:
6-string bass, root and octave pairs, tuned A D G.
4-string fretted.
4-string fretless.

[maxgrant]

Yea that looks circa 1975 or so. I would love to hear what that thing sounds like. I didn't know Squire had ever performed with a fretless.

[5StringBlues]

Originally Posted by maxgrant

Yea that looks circa 1975 or so. I would love to hear what that thing sounds like. I didn't know Squire had ever performed with a fretless.

The triple necked bass is only used on one song,"Awaken" from Going For The One,tho it was not recorded with it.He used a Guild fretless on "The Remembering" from Tales From Topographic Oceans.


The pic is from 1977.




EDIT: Here is the fretless Guild:

[Rob W]

The Wal was originally owned by Roger Newell of Rick Wakeman's English Rock Ensemble.

[5StringBlues]

Originally Posted by Rob W

The Wal was originally owned by Roger Newell of Rick Wakeman's English Rock Ensemble.

Here's Roger with the bass.According to the site linked below,it is the second Wal ever made.



A nice close up of the body:



The Wal is now on display at the New York Hard Rock Cafe.


The bass Chris now uses was comissioned from a Japanese luthier some number of years ago.It is pictured here:



More info on the Wal here:http://www4.informatik.uni-erlangen....es.html#Triple Neck

[Bigjohn]

I think it's later than that. Late 70's.

Originally Posted by maxgrant

Yea that looks circa 1975 or so. I would love to hear what that thing sounds like. I didn't know Squire had ever performed with a fretless.

[5StringBlues]

OP's pic is from August 2,1977,as evidenced here: http://forgottenyesterdays.com/graph...?gr=1&gid=1429


It's fairly easy to figure out what year/tour pics of Chris are from due to the fact that he usually wore the same stage outfit each night of said tour.

[Hoover]

Originally Posted by 5StringBlues

The triple necked bass is only used on one song,"Awaken" from Going For The One,tho it was not recorded with it.

It wasn't?

[5StringBlues]

Originally Posted by Hoover

It wasn't?

Chris' website is down right now,so i can't find the article on it,but evidently he recorded Awaken with a fretted and fretless.( Not sure about the middle part ) The story goes that Chris was trying to figure out how he was going to play Awaken onstage and Wakeman brought the triple neck to him,which then had the 6 string neck converted to the root/octave strings rather than regular guitar tuning.


A quote from the Rickenbacker forum:
"When YES recorded Awaken on the Going For The One album,Squire used various basses on the track and for live the tripleneck was the answer to get the different sounds."




I will keep searching for the info and post a link here when/if I find it.



EDIT: I found video on Youtube of Yes recording Awaken.You can see Chris playing a Rickenbacker right around the 8:00 minute mark.It looks like it's his white one with black binding,which I believe is his 8 string Rick. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcNnMtXxmrI


L

[Yerf Dog]

Looks like a leather pickguard.

[5StringBlues]

Originally Posted by Yerf Dog

Looks like a leather pickguard.

Indeed it is.Not uncommon on old Wals evidently.