Omer Plays Bass . . . ASIA – Only Time Will Tell (bass cover)
Bass by John Wetton
Bass Used in this Video: Dingwall Guitars Super PJ, Dingwall 35th Anniversary Custom Design Drive Pedal
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As I have noted in past articles 1982 was an important year of music for me with many of my favourite albums from many of my favourite bands released – Toto, RUSH, YES, Streetheart, Roxy Music, Peter Gabriel and a whole lot more – I could go on and on by genre. I got a Sanyo Walkman that spring and that changed so many things in my music listening life and I discovered the bass which changed everything for me.
In 1982, prog was also changing, as noted in the article for The Buggles (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaLBGJjTLLU) with shorter, more concise, tight and well written (and frankly more commercially viable) songs, with the indulgent ‘70’s “prog-y-ness” being consumed by what would become AOR and then classic rock. YES and the influence of Horn and Downes on the band, and the general exhaustion that prog was probably feeling had a lot to do with this as the early ‘80s gave rise to three of the great prog albums in this genre – “Moving Pictures” from RUSH (released in ‘81 sandwiched between “Permanent Waves” and “Signals”), “90125” from YES (in ’82 sandwiched between what I think is the best period of YES - the Trevor’s era of Horn/Rabin “Drama” to “Big Generator”), and the two albums from ASIA , one of the great prog supergroups - featuring the classic lineup of Steve Howe (ex-YES), Geoff Downes (ex-YES and Buggles), Carl Palmer (ex-ELP) and one of the best prog singer/bass players, the late John Wetton (ex-Crimson, U.K., Roxy Music, Uriah Heep).
There is a lot of similarity between the ASIA and YES albums of the period and the common thread is the Buggles with Horn and Downes bringing that sensibility to the subsequent projects after their time in YES. Horn’s production on the YES albums was better and maybe the playing was as well, but there is something that rocks more about ASIA, loud on the radio in the car and belting out those choruses. ‘Only Time Will Tell’ was the second single off the first ASIA album not dissimilar from the other bigger hit ‘Heat of the Moment’ featuring big lush vocals, well played interesting parts and catchy hooks. With Howe, Downes and Palmer there is not much to say about their playing as it is considered elite, but John Wetton, I think doesn’t get the credit he deserves as a bass player from his time with his most notable stints in King Crimson (with Robert Fripp and replacing Greg Lake who replaced him in ASIA – see prog is complicated) and U.K. (with ex-YES and Crimson Bill Bruford and Allan Holdsworth). Wetton always had great overdriven Hiwatt tone played with a pick, with very melodic however not overly difficult parts compared to his contemporaries like Chris Squire, but try playing some of the odd signature parts Wetton plays and sing in that full, rich baritone voice he has. Not an easy task. To be honest, this part, like most of Wetton’s, is not that different from a lot of Squire’s parts with YES in this period and Chris is praised for his economy.
For tone, my Dingwall Drive pedal, along with my Super PJ and a pick is the key to get that growly overdriven tone that I think is pretty close to the tone on this album. It’s harder than it may seem to just play those heavy quarter note, down picked parts for the whole song. I did a cool finger pick thing on the keyboard bass part in the slow intro to the verses with lots of chorus. The turnaround part in the middle towards the end may or may not be played this way - I’m playing it differently from all the other videos I found on YouTube, but it is played like this in live clips of ASIA with Wetton. There is so much mushy synthy-pad bottom and multi-tracked parts on this track it makes it difficult to pick out some of the parts, but very careful listening with headphones tells me I may be right with what I played. Very cool bass part and a song that just snapshots prog of this period.
Disclaimer: I am not saying this is exactly how John Wetton played this song, but it is how I would play it if I was playing it at a gig.
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