Do They Know It's Halloween? A song Stevie almost did....

[Livia]

Or maybe he's kidding?

http://www.chartattack.com/damn/2005/10/2112.cfm


Islands' Nick Diamonds Inquires, "Do They Know It's Hallowe'en?"
Friday October 21, 2005 @ 04:30 PM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff

Nick Diamonds and Adam Gollner

When Montreal/Los Angeles journalist Adam Gollner hooked up with ex-Unicorn Nick Diamonds early this year, neither of them had any idea that they would come up with one of the most unique music experiences of 2005.

"I was in L.A. and I had gotten to know Nick at one of the last concerts of The Unicorns," Gollner says over the phone from Montreal. "Then he called me around Christmas after The Unicorns broke up and said, 'What am I gonna do?" He said he wanted to play music with me, so he flew down to L.A. and of all the many ideas that we discussed, the only one that materialized was the craziest. The benefit song."

The idea was to rework the classic Live Aid benefit song, "Do They Know It's Christmas?" — the all-star holiday track that raised bundles of cash for charity in the '80s.

"It was kind of a cool idea, but Bob Geldof made it really Western-centric, kind of patronizing," Diamonds says. "When The Unicorns were still a band I had this idea for a song I thought could be on our next record and then when we broke up I said, '**** it, I still want to do this song. I think it should just be a Band Aid type thing.'"

That was the beginning of the journey that would end with the Unicef benefit track, "Do They Know It's Hallowe'en?" Produced by Gollner, Diamonds and Redd Kross' Steven McDonald, the track features a who's who of indie artists, including members of The Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade, Sonic Youth, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Wolf Parade, in addition to Feist, Peaches, Devendra Banhart, Mr. Show's David Cross and the one and only, Beck.

Gollner brought Diamonds to McDonald to put the song together. They did the main track in two takes, primarily because they could only have their drummer for less than half an hour.

"McDonald called his brother-in-law, Joey Waronker [of R.E.M.], to play drums," Gollner says. "They were the rhythm section and we just did it. Joey had 20 minutes. After we kind of assembled all the fragments of the song, Joey just came into the studio and recorded it. He was supposed to be on holiday, he's a session musician so his wife wouldn't let him come down, but he told her he was going to go grocery shopping. Instead, he did a little detour and did the drums. I don't know if she ever found out. Anyway, then there was a song."

From there, they began emailing everyone they knew, who in turn emailed all the people they knew. It was a snowball effect with a huge payoff.

"We had some pretty high hopes for this," Diamonds recalls. "We tracked down Kanye, we tried to get Paris Hilton, Neil Young, Carrot Top, Charles Grodin, BNL, Moxy Fruvous, Corky And The Juice Pigs, so many great, great artists.

"Ronnie Spektor, she wanted to be but she was too busy, Stevie Nicks was too busy, Kanye West, Spike Jonze were both too busy, Glenn Danzig was too scared to be outside of his coffin. We contacted him when we were in L.A. and he was worried that there was going to be paparazzi there or something."

But many weren't busy. Gollner and Diamonds emailed all of the contributors the tracks and a few lines to sing. Most recorded in home studios and sent their vocal tracks back to L.A. to be edited into the song.

"We told them which lines to sing, but we left it very open as to what the melody could be, let people come up with their own, which is why the melody changes from line to line," Gollner explains. "A lot of people added their own flourishes. You can hear at the end these people soloing over the end. Those people just did it.

"It's definitely a product of the digital age and it's surprising people haven't done this before. We basically did this from our computers and most people did it from their home studios. A couple of people did it at Steven's place. Like, I got ahold of Malcolm McLaren's email address. He wrote back that he was actually going to be in L.A., so I suggested he go over to Steven's place. He said the only time he could do it was [in a British accent] at 7:30 in the morning, not a very rock 'n' roll time of the day.' But there Malcolm McLaren was at 7:30 a.m. for five minutes going, 'Pure terror!'"

The four track "Do They Know It's Hallowe'en?" EP is credited to the North American Halloween Prevention Initiative. It features the original song, which you can listen to here, and three other mixes.

Diamonds, meanwhile, is now busy with his new band, Islands. They make their Toronto debut on November 5 in the Distillery District as a part of the Bright Lights Festival, which features Elbow and The Duke Spirit.

—Noah Love

Here's the link to listen to it:

http://www.vice-recordings.com/halloween/

[Jyqm]

Originally Posted by Livia

Or maybe he's kidding?

I doubt it, Stevie seems like a natural choice of someone to call for a Halloween song. But I'm sure, "I'm too busy," was just Stevie's nice way of saying, "I have no idea who you are."

For what it's worth, though, the Unicorns were a really great band for about a year, and they put on a wonderful concert. I haven't heard either of the guys' new projects or this Halloween song, but no doubt it should be very interesting fun stuff.

[Livia]

There's a link ^ to listen to it.

[Jyqm]

Originally Posted by Rhiannon5354

I've never heard of the Unicorns.

No, I suspect most people haven't! They were only together for a year or two and released just one album, but it was some great stuff. Not for everyone, very DIY, but they managed to cram so many fun, wonderful musical ideas into each of their songs, it's like getting hit by a freight train of garbled pop radio. You can listen to two songs and watch two videos from them here if you want to check them out: http://www.alien8recordings.com/aliencd41.php3

I haven't watched the videos, but the two songs that they're for - "I Was Born A Unicorn" and "Jellybones" are really fantastic.

Maybe she really is busy.

Well, we can only hope she's busy working on some new material, right? Or at least gussying up some old material, as seems to be her wont these days.

I mean, she DID agree to do that thing with Jesse Camp.

For some reason.

Good god, I'd forgotten about that. Now, let us never speak of it again.