3 month song that took 2 hours to make initially...
Ok, so here's the song first if you don't give a shit about the story...
bit.ly/gUD071
Here's the story if you don't give a shit about the song right now (cause you should still help the kid out). I've loved the song "Sweet City Woman" since I first heard it as a wee kypper in underoo's and a batman cape. I had the fortune of meeting the Stampeders at the WCMA's in Calgary several years ago and watched them get honored there. Rich Dodson wrote the original tune and has been of tremendous help in the last couple of months. That song never left my subconscious, so 3 years ago I decided to flip the beat and had Rob The Viking help me. I bought the CD, brought it to Rob (he already owned the record), he sped up the song and we layered drums underneath the track which he filtered to create different segments of our song. We listened to "Itsoweezee" from De La Soul's album Stakes Is High and thought that a bridge like theirs would be cool. We chopped that record up quick and I wrote to the beat as soon as I got home. I recorded it with Doug Naugler shortly thereafter. The initial idea was to never release it commercially and just have something new and fun to perform live.
Here's a performance from 09 in Moscow, Idaho...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaiseWZ9grA
All is good, song is fun live, people seem to like it but there was no way that I could afford clearing the sample and didn't really know how. No problem. I enter into the Peak Performance Project where a Canadian cover is a mandatory part of the competition and I think why not? Here's one example of many that illustrate how fate and serendipity conspired to help me in that competition...
I showed the band my version and they dug it. I came up with a light hearted homage to Canadian songs at my showcase, where I pretended to dig through records until I found the perfect match and would eventually settle in to my version of "Sweet City Woman" for my cover (now known as "City Woman" for copyright reasons). Good response to my version and the beautiful people at the Peak were quite complimentary. Great. No problem.
Serendipity and fate weren't nearly finished with me but I'll share one other instance of their collective efforts. We were supposed to do a "grassroots campaign" for the Peak and I decided to bring it back to the days of demonstration, but kypper styles.
www.kyprios.com/videos/ We would "demonstrate" until the Peak relinquished and played my new song "Sweet City Woman" (that Tamara Stanners, Carmen Cruz and Laurie Logan said they loved at the showcase). Cool, the song gets played via demonstration, challenge complete. No problem. James Sutton the music director hears the song, likes it and now... We've got a problem
Problem was clearing a huge sample from a well known Canadian group that achieved international success with this song. I would need to get a Master Recording Sample License (for lifting the sample from the recording) and a Composition Sample License (from the publishers of the song). My lawyer, Patrick Aldous, reached the publisher and quickly worked something out there...cool, Goulet. Then he tried for months to contact the owners of the original Master and then we hit the wall (the ownership of the original Master had changed hands a number of times since it was originally released). Patrick did yeoman's work but we needed a big burly saviour with a beard to take us home.
The fabulous Saints fan Shawn Cole stepped in to put this bitch to bed for me. Patrick had suggested re-recording the song as an alternative solution to sampling the original recording and that was sound advice. We decided to re-track everything, removing the sample and alleviating the need to obtain a license for the use of the original Master. We kept Rob The Viking's drums, brought in Ian Lamont to play banjitar, used lead vocals sung by Ryan Dahle and Shaun Verreault, had my brother Kevin play lead guitar, bass, and sing BG's and Shawn Cole implemented the rest of the percussion. Shawn then mixed the new version amazingly and Joao Carval killed the mastering of it. The song needed to be identified as something other than "Sweet City Woman" and "City Woman" was born. I hope you like it, because I did it for you.
Here she is...
bit.ly/gUD071
3 month song that took 2 hours to make initially...
Ok, so here's the song first if you don't give a shit about the story...
bit.ly/gUD071
Here's the story if you don't give a shit about the song right now (cause you should still help the kid out). I've loved the song "Sweet City Woman" since I first heard it as a wee kypper in underoo's and a batman cape. I had the fortune of meeting the Stampeders at the WCMA's in Calgary several years ago and watched them get honored there. Rich Dodson wrote the original tune and has been of tremendous help in the last couple of months. That song never left my subconscious, so 3 years ago I decided to flip the beat and had Rob The Viking help me. I bought the CD, brought it to Rob (he already owned the record), he sped up the song and we layered drums underneath the track which he filtered to create different segments of our song. We listened to "Itsoweezee" from De La Soul's album Stakes Is High and thought that a bridge like theirs would be cool. We chopped that record up quick and I wrote to the beat as soon as I got home. I recorded it with Doug Naugler shortly thereafter. The initial idea was to never release it commercially and just have something new and fun to perform live.
Here's a performance from 09 in Moscow, Idaho...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaiseWZ9grA
All is good, song is fun live, people seem to like it but there was no way that I could afford clearing the sample and didn't really know how. No problem. I enter into the Peak Performance Project where a Canadian cover is a mandatory part of the competition and I think why not? Here's one example of many that illustrate how fate and serendipity conspired to help me in that competition...
I showed the band my version and they dug it. I came up with a light hearted homage to Canadian songs at my showcase, where I pretended to dig through records until I found the perfect match and would eventually settle in to my version of "Sweet City Woman" for my cover (now known as "City Woman" for copyright reasons). Good response to my version and the beautiful people at the Peak were quite complimentary. Great. No problem.
Serendipity and fate weren't nearly finished with me but I'll share one other instance of their collective efforts. We were supposed to do a "grassroots campaign" for the Peak and I decided to bring it back to the days of demonstration, but kypper styles.
www.kyprios.com/videos/ We would "demonstrate" until the Peak relinquished and played my new song "Sweet City Woman" (that Tamara Stanners, Carmen Cruz and Laurie Logan said they loved at the showcase). Cool, the song gets played via demonstration, challenge complete. No problem. James Sutton the music director hears the song, likes it and now... We've got a problem.
Problem was clearing a huge sample from a well known Canadian group that achieved international success with this song. I would need to clear the Master License (for lifting the sample from the original) and the Mechanical License (from the owners of the publishing). My lawyer, Patrick Aldous, reached the owner of the Mechanical License and worked something out there...cool, Goulet. He tried for months to contact the owners of the Master and then we hit the wall. Patrick did yeoman's work but we needed a big burly saviour with a beard to take us home.
The fabulous Saints fan Shawn Cole stepped in to put this bitch to bed for me. Patrick had suggested remaking the song as an alternative solution and that was sound advice. We decided to re-track everything, removing the sample and alleviating obtaining permission for the Master License. We kept Rob The Viking's drums, brought in Ian Lamont to play banjitar, used lead vocals sung by Ryan Dahle and Shaun Verreault, had my brother Kevin play lead guitar, bass, and sing BG's and Sahwn Cole implemented the rest of the percussion. Shawn then mixed the new version amazingly and Joao Carval killed the mastering of it. The song needed to be identified as something other than "Sweet City Woman" and "City Woman" was born. I hope you like it, because I did it for you.
Here she is...
bit.ly/gUD071
released April 2, 2011
D. Coles, R. Hopper, R. Dodson