"Devil May Care" was written for the specific purpose of competing in the audio book theme competition for the new James Bond book penned by Sebastian Faulk for Penguin books in honor of Ian Fleming's 100'th birthday anniversary. The deadline to submit a song was Feb 25, midnight, UK time. We started the collaboration Feb 7'th and completed it Feb 25... at 11:38pm!!! That's a whole 22 minutes in front of midnight! With a five day gap for a family emergency! Too easy! :-)
It seems the competition is being run by the accounting department over at MI6, instead of by the Special Operations group! :-) The terms and conditions read like "competition is open to UK residents aged 14 and over "no more than 5 minutes duration", "less than 7 MGB file size", and a bunch of other lawyer speak. Bond, the quintessential "damn the rules" guy would be appalled. Full details here:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=284130817&blogID=352307036As far as we are concerned, this version of the song was written like we ALWAYS do here at MC:
by a TEAM of songwriting specialists with equal say in the direction of the song, open to anyone onthe forum who wanted to participate. [/b] We had people from the UK and the USA as equal partners. CosmicDolphin was involved in the collaboration from day one and is a UK resident. He submitted the song, and was instrumental in it's direction and production. If necessary, he will be at least one of our representatives if this song is selected.
The top 5 song submissions selected by a panel will be posted on the website for a public vote on March 3. The prize is a 1,000 pound voucher to Sound Control. I don't think any of us participating really were thinking about the prize... we were thinking about being associated with a piece of the Bond mystique.
As a matter of fact, I would recommend we donate the voucher to a needy music school or program somewhere in the UK. But I'll leave that for discussion by the participants should we be selected... just like we always do.
There are actually two versions of this song: the one we developed online, and the one my cousin Dan Kane developed as a 'failsafe' plan in case this mission failed. Hey, all good operatives have failsafe plans right? The less you knew about the plan, the less chance you would spill the beans under duress and torture! :-) CosmicDolphin submitted both, with the Michael Andrew version being the first choice. I have included Dan's version with me singing below.
Some of the things that blew my mind about this whole process:
1. We all got along GREAT! As tense as it was, not one word of dissension amongst us at any time. All egos were checked at the door. Whatever was best for the SONG was penultimate, and we all worked to accomplish that goal.
2. How hard everyone worked to accomplish the goal, and how fast we accomplished it! I'll especially remember:
--- Lindy completed the strings composition in all of 45 minutes from the time we initially discussed it and he received my pitiful 16 bar string MIDI file. Lindy also had some other fantastic parts we didn't end up using, like the re-introduction of the accordion in the main theme.
--- Mike for jumping on the drums and nailing it!
--- Mark (MLC) for our 1AM "Mark, try this... Ok, I'll be right back." chat session on guitar.
--- CosmicDolphin for our hours long chat sessions on the mix and life in general. Great mix, CD!!! "Mark" the anonymous one! :-)
--- Aidan for jumping in on short notice. He fine tuned and rendered an incredibly real sounding string and horn section based on Lindy's great composition.
--- You couldn't ask for two nicer guys to work with than Rusty Springfield and Michael Andrew, who gave me innumerable tips and sparked the call-answer "hook" idea I came up with between the strings and the vocalist. And Rusty gave me a free bass lesson... hey, if a Berkeley music grad gives me a free lesson, I'll TAKE it!
--- A host of other people were involved as well for support, advice, and "atta boys!" including:
----GBM/Gamiryl: Gary was very involved in the thread and via email working to help out on the string section and brass section! We may not have used his parts, but I certainly appreciate his effort! And he talked me into slowing down the song from 218 bpm to 213 bpm! :-)
----GuitarGeorge, Black_Stratman, StudioPlayer, Doglo for their takes on guitar!
----PaulD: thanks for giving the nylon rendering a shot!
----Appleuza, Jaaman, Bassplayer, Sternen, NickT, RockinRick, r4m, jwoo10, and anyone else I missed: Thanks for stopping by the board or via PM's with your comments, support, and help!
----Special thanks to Nick and his group for the gift of this forum! I'll especially remember...
Here is the link to Dan Kane's version the song!Thanks all! And sorry these two posts were so short! You know me! :-)
Paul
