The best John Wetton Precision/Hiwatt sound

[Pekka]

My favourite was always "Easy Money" from Zurich 11/15/1973 but I think this is even better:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQDvCTRPAa0&feature=related

It's a soundboard recording that's not properly mixed but at least we can hear the bass in it's monstrous glory.

[ack1961]

Amen - Lark's Tongue is one of those songs responsible for me picking up my first bass.

[uwe]

When I saw him with UK this year, his bass sound (playing either a black Victory or a white Zon) wasn't really much different. With Asia, his bass sound is a little more subdued, but still pretty crisp. In the mid-sventies, he was very much perceived as a musican's musician bassist, Bill Bruford once said that at the time Wetton's bass playing was seen as the benchmark of cool.

It's ironic that in those days of his career, Wetton always felt that the singer/songwriter in him was eclipsed in his perception by other musicians by his bass playing about which, he says, he never gave much thought because it came largely intuitive to him. He was not a great rehearser at all.

[nofi]

didn't you use this 'intuitive' angle with someone else. maybe lemmy or lynott.

[uwe]

Lemmy - at least in his style today - is too much a one trick pony to be called intuitive, Phyl Lynott doesn't sound intuitive to me at all, I think he is a "learner". Nothing wrong with that. I'm a learner too.

I met John Wetton backstage with the other Asia guys two years ago (a rock journo I know took me) and Wetton is one of those people who have probably forgotten more about his bass playing than other people will ever learn. He doesn't make a big thing out of it and is very modest about his capabilities ("I guess you could have called me a good bass player in the seventies, but not now, I even have to gaffa the pick to my hand nowadays"). His carpal tunnel syndrome gives him issues and he says that his bass playing today comes - if at all - third after songwriting and singing. He's not a gear guy at all, said he plays the black Victory "when I want to play a black bass" and the Zon "when I want to play a white bass, I have ying and yang days, the Zon is more comfortable to play though so it gets out more often ...". He said nice things about Uriah Heep and Wishbone Ash ("I hope they both still do well."). And when someone from the bystanders (his tour manager who also worked for Uriah Heep) cracked that he (Wetton) joined Heep "just for the money", Wetton was adamant: "That's not true!!! I think Roxy even paid better, but the people in Heep were genuinely nicer (Eddie Jobson has said the same thing about his experience in Roxy Music) and I wanted to play harder music again. Return to Fantasy is a good album." And when I said that I liked his walking bass on that track he seemed genuinely pleased and ever the polite Englishman even said thank you.  

[gearHed289]

He played his new black Zon exclusively when I saw UK in May. Through an SVT head driving a 410 and 115. The tone wasn't much to talk about. Not bad by any means, but it had no "signature" like the old P-bass through Hiwatts or Marshalls that he used to have. I thought his tone on the first Asia album was still the classic crunchy P-bass from the 70s, maybe softened up a hair to fit the material better.

[uwe]

He played his new black Zon exclusively when I saw UK in May. Through an SVT head driving a 410 and 115. The tone wasn't much to talk about. Not bad by any means, but it had no "signature" like the old P-bass through Hiwatts or Marshalls that he used to have. I thought his tone on the first Asia album was still the classic crunchy P-bass from the 70s, maybe softened up a hair to fit the material better.

That could already be a Victory on the debut. I asked the rock journo (who took me backstage) to find that out for us as he prepared the liner notes for the upcoming release of the 30th Anniversary remaster of Asia's debut and has interviewed Wetton many times. Hope he thought about it!

Did Wetton already play a Victory in the Heat of the Moment vid? I don't remember, he certainly had it on the tour and in later videos.

[Denis]

When I saw the original lineup of Asia a year or so ago Wetton played his black Victory the whole show.

[Pekka]

UK albums sound like he used his black maple neck Jazz Bass and on stage he played the '61 P-bass until a black Ibanez Roadster RS800 came along.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=cxWPw1O7sjM#t=241s

Jazz Bass can also be heard on rehearsals for Fripp's "Exposure" albums, John helped Robert out and rehearsed songs with Narada Michael Walden on drums. DGM live have the rehearsals available as a download. The sound isn't very good but what a noise that trio make!

Wetton's singer/songwriter stuff isn't for my taste (can't stand Asia and his first solo "Caught In A Crossfire" is horrible) but 1972-1974 Crimso is the best band in the world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1CMwfnHGUw&feature=related

[uwe]

You'd break his heart with that statement! He's been trying to break out of that "hell of a bass player"-mold since the early seventies. A bit like Andy Fraser who didn't want to be "reduced" to just bass playing either. That King Crimson Red album contains some of the most excruciatingly difficult to find entertaining music ever!  Even proggies have issues with it. UK played one track of it on the recent reunion tour and even by the not so easily digestible UK music standards that track stuck out like a sore thumb and went over the heads of most of the audience.

But I admire you for "understanding" Red. 

[ramone57]

When I saw the original lineup of Asia a year or so ago Wetton played his black Victory the whole show.

you need this, Denis

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gibson-Victory-Bass-Baked-Enamel-Headstock-pin-Made-of-Metal-Super-Detail-/160885613770?pt=Guitar_Accessories&hash=item257587a4ca

[gearHed289]

Red is my favorite pre-80 Crimson album. I like the three early 80's releases best overall. Those were really my introduction to KC.

He used the white P all night when I saw the first Asia tour. Poplar Creek, Hoffman Estates (Chicago), IL, 1982. I was 18 with a gorgeous blond who is now my wife. 

[gweimer]

Red is my favorite pre-80 Crimson album. I like the three early 80's releases best overall. Those were really my introduction to KC.

He used the white P all night when I saw the first Asia tour. Poplar Creek, Hoffman Estates (Chicago), IL, 1982. I was 18 with a gorgeous blond who is now my wife. 

Well, I'm going to be the heretic in the bunch.  My favorite Crimson album is the very last studio release, The Power To Believe.  I look at it as a culmination of all they did before.  Second in line has to be Lark's Tongue in Aspic, for it's stark and brutal passages (LTIA pt 1 opens with a riff more vicious than any Black Sabbath), and some very intense dynamics.  I even like Beat, with the almost hit, "Heartbeat".  So there...

Red does have some nice moments, but it's a little hard to swallow at times.  "One More Red Nightmare" does have some cleverly hidden Beatlesque chords, though.

[uwe]

"I was 18 with a gorgeous blond who is now my wife ..."

Do you remember when we used to dance
And incidents arose from circumstance
One thing led to another we were young
And we would scream together songs unsung

It was the heeeeeeeeeeeat of the mooooooooo-ment
Telling me what my heart meant

Heeeeeeat of the mooooooo-ment!

How romantic! That made my day.

[Hörnisse]

Back in the late 70's a friend played me a live version of 21st Century Schizoid Man and the tone just blew my mind.  Not sure if it was the USA record.  I do know it was Wetton though.