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Song-writing - the many roads from here to there



Song-writing isn't something that's easy to try to explain.

The total inability to even visualize an original song was part of the reason I gave up music in 1969. When I picked up the guitar again in the late 80's and formed Donovan's Brain we started out playing covers. It took two years for the first original songs to appear.

The purchase of a Tascam Porta One 4-track was the important tool in developing both my writing skills and recording techniques. The 4-track cassette recorder gave me the sketch book I needed to work out ideas, and learn some sort of structure. For the first two years, it didn't really matter what I came up with. It was just a vehicle to work out my chops, and learn how to sing. These early efforts appeared on two cassettes that I put together. For good reason these recording are now safely hidden away from prying ears.

By the time we began recording the Butterfly Wheel cassette, the songs started to improve and the studio was upgraded to an 8 track reel to reel deck. The most apparent change was the improved fidelity. I no longer had to make sub mix decisions early in the process. The Fostex came with a midi controller, so the drum machine and some keyboards could be sequenced and added to the mix without printing them to tape tracks.

When recording live drums, I would spread them over three tracks, which left me plenty of mix options. The five remaining tracks were sufficient for all the guitar and vocal tracks. The process had become more of a sculpting process. Once the arrangement was worked out, many hours were spent trying different sonic approaches. They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. What has come out of GLEA since 1990 is probably proof of that.

Across all the Brains releases to date there are songs from various sessions that illustrate the many ways I approach the task.

Sometimes things come together pretty smoothly. 50,000,000 Years Before My Time (which had its CD release on Carelessly Restored Art) was written straight to tape. There never was a demo. I had the idea pretty well worked out before I even played a note or wrote down a word. It was going to be a driving psych number with a story about time travel. I just started at the beginning, working out each section, telling the story as I went along. The music and lyrics dictated where where the next section would have go. The whole process was completed in one short session. Ironically, I spent the next 8 years tinkering with the performance until I was satisfied.

Each of the three releases of this song (Butterfly Wheel, Single, CRA) are slightly different. Two years after it initially appeared on the cassette release, the song was given a major overhaul for possible inclusion on the Hit The Hay compilation. When I pulled the tapes out, I found some tuning problems, and was sure I could sing it better. It was this mix that eventually appeared on the B side of our Get Hip single. Gregg Kostelich later said he had to have the master cut twice to get enough bass on to vinyl. For the 1999 CD, Carelessly Restored Art, I remixed several of the tracks including 50,000,000 Years. With the improvements made in the studio over the years, and the years picking apart the performances, the new mixes couldn't help but sound better.

Other times the route from musical sketch book to finished article is a whole lot more complicated. I'll be expanding on this a little more over the next few editions of this series, but meantime here's an example from Eclipse And Debris of how a song evolved over the four years it took to complete it. Just after we began recording Eclipse And Debris I upgraded the studio's main recording deck to a Fostex G16. After working on Call Down The Moon, it was very clear that this was the only way to get the job done. For the first time we had enough tracks to keep multiple guitar and vocal takes.

Paul and I had originally laid down the basics for Joey's In The Pouch on the 8 track in 1992. I played bass to the drum machine, working out the changes. To this, Paul added his vocals and acoustic guitar which were recorded on one track. Sometime later I recorded my electric guitar part and promptly filed the tape away. In early 1995, Jason's first session with Donovan's Brain was to over dub the drum kit across three tracks. When the 16 track was installed, I transferred these 6 tracks onto the new master reel. This left 10 open tracks to complete the song.

In February 1996 the sessions moved to Alaska St studio in London. Joey was one of the five songs that Ken Whaley and Richard Treece were to add their own magic to. Richard's preferred method is to lay down as many takes as space allows, and leave it up to me to pick the best pieces. For Joey, we had the luxury of keeping all four of the passes, the last one being played with a slide.

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Upon returning to Bozeman, I did several test mixes. Here's one of them, in MP3 format for you to download. It's an unfinished track at this point, the synth tracks and tambourine had yet to be added. I was just trying to analyse what was on the four takes and what would fit with my guitar. There are at least five other rough mixes, with complete takes, and compilations of parts from various takes. The slide version is radically different to the released version, and it shows off Richard's depth as a guitar player. I'm happy to share this with you.

This track is a good example of how the recording process is as important as the writing. The song was written and arranged well before we began recording. By the time we got to the mix, the decision had been made about which guitar tracks to use.

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Treece's guitar on the released version of Joey's In The Pouch was assembled from take two (a bluesy version with slide guitar) and take one (with room mic). It would be take one you hear first. After the solo it switches over to the "bluesy" take 2 for the rest of the song. Once this was worked out, I completed the overdubs. Several more decisions were made in the mixing stage: the drums fading up at the start; muting Paul's guitar-vocal track out of the solo section, and adding the effects to the the remaining vocals.

When mixing, we didn't have the time to work on more than one version. Do I have any second thoughts about my choice four years later? Well listening to all the possible variations once again, I'm confident you hear the best performance of Joey's In The Pouch on Eclipse And Debris.
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