Do It! is one of those songs that just came together out of the blue. I remember looking through the control room door at the Sundae Sound Studio one night perusing the possibilities that equipment could make available. It could cut good enough to make Gold, I had access to the gear and knew how to use it. Essentially everything any artist would dream of. All we need is a song. Well, procrastination too often follows such fantasy. So I figured why wait, just Do It!
One night while working on another project, a drummer friend Michael Fiell was there with his Emax he was so kind to let me use. During a break, I mentioned an idea for a new song that had a beat particular beat and would he mind going onto the drum set in the studio and playing it for about 4 minutes. He obliged and gave me a first take that worked but had snare breaks. I thought it would be a good start and went with it. The night was done and we said farewell, not realizing we wouldn't see each other again for eight years.
Sometime after that session, I listened to Mike's drum tracks and started laying some keyboard bass. Coming up with a melody of sorts, I grabbed my Les Paul and found some stand-up chording. The snare breaks were in the wrong place for my use, so I added a keyboard sample to occupy the breaks.
After a few sessions of refining the bed, I asked friends Terrence Cashion and Jed Deluca to add lead and slide guitars. I recorded TC twice thinking I could make one good track out of the two. Listening back at the end of the night, I happened to turn both takes up at the same time. They were wild together... nuts really. Jed laid his lead breaks and labelled the moment "manic guitars".
Putting some lyrics to it; Rap was trying to enter from Britian. Refusing to sing, I decided to make it an engineers rap. The concept, "there's the gear, why think about it, just Do It!". I wrote the first verse, then recorded it with a mic hooked up in the control room. While the tape rolled, I didn't have a second verse, so I ad-libbed just to get an idea. That take remains as the final.
Except for some of mine, most everyone's tracks were done in one take. This project received a FACTOR New Talent Demo Award in 1990. And has fans to this day. The message is the name, just "Do It!"
*For the record: This song was registered long before the saying was made popular on running shoes.
CREDITS:
Terrence Cashion - slide guitar
V.Jed Deluca - lead guitar
Doug Faires - rhythm guitar, keyboards
Michael Fiell - drums
|
