The Evolution of a Song part 3

I had mentioned Keegan Melville awhile back and his playing on D3. Click his name and you'll get to the post that details D3's bass evolution. Or, if you'd rather, just read on and I'll repost the links below. Before we get there though I'll explain how D3 evolved.

To begin with it was a guitar vamp I just played one day and liked. When Aaron first came down to audition, he and I jammed on it for awhile. It was obvious right from the beginning he would do nicely! The song then was a perfect one to include on the album, but I wanted it to be a little less crude than how we had originally jammed it so I added keyboards etc. This particular version is the first midi sketch of the song leaning towards that "glossier" direction. This time I used my newly acquired Brian Moore midi guitar to play the drum samples (Toontrack). Then I played all the other parts on keyboards (Logic bundled ones I think).


D3Demo1Stream
D3Demo1Download


I kept adding stuff to it, like solos and more keyboards, but otherwise it is the same in this outing.


D3Demo2Stream
D3Demo2Download



The next version is Keegan playing over the demo I originally recorded of the tune. This is the version I gave to the band to learn.


D3Keeg1Stream
D3Keeg1Download


When we were tracking it in March 2009, Aaron decided to swing it. Keegan was at at the session and we recorded this next version. As I had already explained earlier, one of the adats broke down and we lost all of Ange's solos as well as half of the drum tracking (I jerry-rigged a quick work-around but was unable to capture the band in its glorious confusion). I later went in and re-did keyboards and some guitar. We kept this but ended up re-recording it when Claude joined:


D3Keeg2Stream
D3Keeg2Download


We tried a lot of different versions of the swing and we came pretty close with one that we did a day later, this time with just Aaron and I. I later went in and did a walking bass-line as an overdub. At the point this link starts we have already been playing for around 4 minutes and I had to change the bass up simply because my hand was beginning to cramp. I like the solo a lot and was arguing with Aaron about using this version but we ended up throwing it away because the track didn't really sit well (we got sloppy at points) and the high-hat pedal squeaked through-out. No matter, here's the solo anyway:


D3v1solostream
D3v1solodownload



Finally, here is the version that made it. It has a soprano solo from Ange, Claude on the bass and a deft snakey little electric piano solo from guest artist, the amazing Rick Barkhouse. You'll need to scroll down to #10 "The Discovery Of Witchcraft - Invitation To The Dance" to hear it:

The Rebel Wheel at 10T


Tomorrow I'll post the evolution of D4.