Almost FEINTED!

[Dinosaur David B]

Oooooh Georgie!



The Kashmir!

Kashmir (final).mp3

(10.7 MiB) Downloaded 114 times

 
So this cover is 75% FEINTS and 75% Last Chance.  

• Amy on vocals (and orchestra).
• Me on electric and acoustic guitars
• Rob from FEINTS and Last Chance on bass
• Jordan from Last Chance on drums

Rob and I used this track as a warmup to get back into mixing and producing for the 2nd Last Chance album. But the story of this track goes WAY back. 

In 2009 or 10 when Amy and I lived in Boston, she joined a project with two guys from Cincinnati. One of whom is a drummer and Bootsy Collins' producer, the other was a local Cincy funk bassist (not Bootsy). They created a few songs together and Amy and I went out to Cincy for her to track some vocals. One of the songs they wanted to do was a cover of Kashmir with "lead bass" playing the riff and some hip-hop elements and no guitar.  
 

So Amy steps up to the mic and absolutely KILLS Kashmir. In like 2 takes. 
Because of course she did.  Then the project with those guys fell apart. 

Several years later, I mentioned to the producer, that if he ever wanted to resurrect Kashmir, I'd love to play guitars on it. He said "yeah, yeah, that would be great!" And nothing happened. Everyone was busy with other stuff, and more years passed. 

Eventually, around the time we moved back to NYC, I reached out and said, hey, if you're never going to do anything with Kashmir, please send me the tracks, and I'll do something with it. So he did. 

I put down electric and acoustic guitars (LOTS of them), and had Rob come and track bass. And it still sat for 6 more years! Part of the problem was that the drums on the original were just scratch drums on 2 tracks (not individual kick, snare, etc.). There was no way to produce them decently. (Our drummer in Feints has no way to record drums on his own, or I'd have been using him on Last Chance). 

So when Last Chance started, I had Jordan lay down drums to the Kashmir tracks. And all of he sudden, we could finally finish it! So a few months ago, before we started gearing up for the 2nd Last Chance album, Rob and I decided to dig back into it -- as I said, to kind of get back into the swing of producing together. Getting used to new tools, etc.  I had Amy add the orchestral parts, and we were FINALLY able to drag this across the finish line.  

Rather than going for a straight up copy of the studio version, we leaned a little toward the sonics of the 2007 O2 live, Celebration Day performance which was a bit more electric guitar prominent than the original.  

Much like when we did Black Dog, I'm pleased to have had a chance to record another Zep cover -- and probably the ultimate one, at that! And once again, it pushed me both as a player and a producer. It's a very ambitious track and a dense mix (with the orchestra parts).

But I just wasn't going to let Amy's stellar vocal sit unheard forever when I knew we could rock this! Besides, most of us want to play Kashmir at least once in their lives. Now I can check it off the bucket list.