No rest for the wicked! (New and Improved)

So it is done as well as it could be done!

My cover of the 1968 classic "Sympathy for the Devil" is done and posted to You Tube. It still is not perfect but it is at least good.

I am floored by the amount of time that I have devoted to this last project!

Here are some stats on my project and some facts about the original song:

The original was written by Jagger in 67-68 he had set it to a folk rhythm and had reportedly played it for the other band members a few times before Richards suggested a rhythm change to a samba and adding percussion. The song was recorded for the album Beggars Banquet with Richards playing bass and the lead guitar, Nicky Hopkins on piano, Rocky Dijon on the congas and Bill Wyman doing the maracas.

The Do-Do's were done by Jagger, Richards and their manager Jimmy Miller. Not as most people think by Anita Pallenberg and Marianne Faithful.

The song was not being played at The Altamont Speedway Free Concert of Dec 6 1969.

This is the event where Merideth Hunter lost his life to the blade of a Hell's Angel.

He was reported to have been tweeked on Meth and blasted on booze when he charged the stage. The Angels in the front kicked his ass back into the crowd where Meredith regrouped and with a crazed look in his eye and a pistol in his pocket went back a final time.

Less than 6 months before this an event was held on the other side of the Continent, it had more people attend and pretty much all the talent of the day performed at it with little incident or bodily harm.

It was Woodstock, the ultimate festival of Peace!

This is in part why I chose this song to cover. It marks the end of the hippy era.

The Summer of Love turned to a Winter of Self.

Our times of need turned to timely greed.

Some anal factoids about the cover.

My cover version had 8 drum tracks mixed down and then another 3 added, so a total of 4 show up on the file but in fact 11 were used!

To explain: I do not have a drummer so I use a very simple rhythm machine and record multiple drum patterns and then make a drum line that I like with those tracks.

There were 6 original guitar tracks and in the spirit of good sonic taste I took 2 out. This allows me to have a more live feel to the song. The cover could be played live as recorded with a 4 piece band.

The bass line was a one take affair. Used a Boss me20b pedal for the distortion on the bass.

Now here is something that is different. I put down my drum tracks and then the next thing down was the vocals!

No bass or guitar just a Capella with drums.

It is improper but that seems to be my middle name.

Because of doing it this way you find as the band comes out of the guitar solo there is a odd transition back to the melody.

My vocals were a beat and a half off, most sane people would simply lay another track down but not me. Oh no I had to be a challenge to my self. In hind sight I would re-record but in the end I pretty much pulled it off.

There are 4 vocal tracks one of which is not used till the Do Do's at the end.

One track is clean and the other three are filled with effects. These are not bounced tracks but for one so that means I put down three original vocal tracks.

The song was mixed no fewer than 22 times and probably much more.

Total estimated hours would be somewhere around 20 hours.

                                                          Sympathy for the Devil

The next project is another original tune and the video is going to be more ambitious in that I am thinking of scripting some actors into it.

The next song is called Jokers Smile. It is about our misconceptions around the power of money and the rich. In the end we find out that it is greed that is the great un doer of society not wealth.

I am going to try and get a few posts out related to something other than music and then dive straight into Jokers Smile.

No rest for the wicked!
It has been some time since this post was made and one might wonder where this "Jokers Smile" is.
Well life interupted the progress of the song and then carnage sort of put my music on hold for sometime.
By carnage look for my left thumb in this blog.
Anyway
The song should be made and I see a few people every week who view this post, why I'm not sure but I thought I would add to it this explanation. The whole exercise has brought this mini project back to the front of my Brain Queue.
So I wonder if I shouldn't direct my energy and focus on the song and video. Of course I do have other things to focus on so after it is all prioritized the video comes out with the short straw.It will be done though just not yet!