While flying over the Pacific Ocean four years ago, I got an idea for a song for the next album with my then-band the Unicorns: an all-star jamboree entitled “Do They Know It’s Hallowe’en?”, a riff on Bob Geldof’s empty-gesture coke-guilty quick fix “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” as performed by his curatorial creation, the aptly named Band-Aid.

While flying over the Pacific Ocean four years ago, I got an idea for a song for the next album with my then-band the Unicorns: an all-star jamboree entitled “Do They Know It’s Hallowe’en?”, a riff on Bob Geldof’s empty-gesture coke-guilty quick fix “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” as performed by his curatorial creation, the aptly named Band-Aid. Two months later, my band broke up somewhat acrimoniously, and I wound up adrift in LA on the floor of a good friend’s living room. After a week of pfaffing about, I casually mentioned the still-lingering idea to my friend, Adam, which at that point had no structure beyond the title’s syntax, and he quickly took to it with a curiousity and fervour that gave me some hope, so we set out to bring the thing to fruition. A daunting, herculean task, but a great way to take my mind off of the unfortunate split and subsequent tailspin I’d found myself in.

Being in LA provided us with a few helpful resources that would transcend this from “bong talk” to feasible project: A&Rs, celebrities, connections, and friends. Our friend Steve, from LA punk progenitors Redd Kross seemed game, and lent his producing talent and recording studio. Now we had a place to record and someone great to record it. We just needed a song. This part came surprisingly smoothly. We sat down in Adam’s living room (my bedroom) with a casio sk-1 keyboard and a pad of paper. After plodding and plunking for only a few moments, we had the germ of the song and the lyrics were being batted back and forth, unfolding at a speedy clip and inciting laughs as we furiously jotted them down. The one-joke concept had evolved into a very scathing satire of celebritized philanthropy. With D.T.K.I.C., the voice in the song is lamenting the fate of the “poor African”, with a “burning sun” and soil that’s unsustainable, “where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears”. “Here’s to them underneath that burning sun”, Bono or someone like him sings, “do they know it’s Christmastime at all?”. With D.T.K.I. Hallowe’en, the point of view is still the western enfranchised voice, but this time it’s not so sympathetic, mournful and eager for prayer. Masterful couplets like “children on streets, begging for treats ” and “drowning in a bucket of apples bobbing- parents are hiding, our babies are sobbing” served as examples, asking countries such as Latvia, and Laos to help US out for a change. Seeing as no one else in the world besides North America celebrated Hallowe’en, they weren’t subject to the fear and horror we faced every year, and therefore, under the Geneva code or whatever, had to step in and help us put an end to the holiday altogether. We called ourselves the North American Hallowe’en Prevention Initiative or NAHPI. Silly, yes, but somewhat pointed. The ultimate in irony was the fact that we were actually planning on donating to a charitable organization.

The next day, we raced over to Steve’s studio and tried to piece the whole thing together. Steve called his brother-in-law, Joey Waronker, a top shelf session drummer who arrived within the hour and on the sly, as his wife had forbade him to record anything (let alone for free) while he was on vacation. He told her he was picking up milk.

We got into position; Adam on guitar, Steve on bass, myself on keys, and Joey on the drums and we taught them both the song. Once. Then we pressed record, and that was the take we used. Joey sped out the door faster than he came in, and we were left with the base of the song, the bed track.

Now came the challenge, and also the adventure: convincing recognizable musicians and celebrities to partake. We drew up a dream list that would make anyone shake their head in disbelief, and some of the names were unattainable: Kanye, Andre 3000, Ronnie Spector, Danzig, David Byrne, Joni Mitchell, and Neil Young, to name a few. We wanted this thing to be the most hilarious, high-profile hit joke song that made fun of changing the world while simultaneously doing just that, and we felt it had the potential to be. We got through to most of those people’s people, but the layers of management and publicists were too thick to penetrate. The people we ended up with were just as incredible though, ranging from the relevant and knowable, like Beck, David Cross, Karen O, Thurston Moore and Arcade Fire, to the up and comers who weren’t yet well known (remember this was in January 2005) such as Feist, Wolf Parade and Rilo Kiley. But we didn’t just tap into that one segment of the cultural landscape. We convinced 60s Detroit soul man Gino Washington, 80s horror icon Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, 60s psych-legend Roky Erikson, and Sex Pistols creator Malcolm McLaren to each sing a line of the batty tune. We ended up with more than 30 people on the tune, and probably another 30 people who helped us put it together.

So what the fuck happened? How did this not take? We had a label, a publicist, directors making a video, and all of these amazing vocalists plus many more under-appreciated behind-the-scenes people going to bat for us for free and it just didn’t click with the general public the way we had hoped. We did a fairly limited physical print run (it was a single after all), and we got a bit of love from the New York Times and other legitimate publications, but for the most part, the thing seemed to have been swept under the rug in a serious way. We ended up with UNICEF as our charitable organization, (an appropriate charity for trick-or-treaters, at least in Canada) who were willing to accept the money, but didn’t want to get behind it whole-heartedly- maybe it was just too weird? Obviously I’m not the right person to ask this question, and frankly, I’m way to fragile to get an answer from anyone (so please refrain if you don’t care for it).

I haven’t listened to it in a few years, but Hallowe’en is right around the corner and every year I feel a little more disheartened that it hasn’t been rediscovered by a celebrity DJ. Maybe Bob Geldof’s daughter is reading? Maybe it needs to end up in a car commercial or a teen soap opera or something? Or Maybe you should start helping me out by tracking it down. It should be available on iTunes should you want to hear it.

Fun Memories of The Process:

-Getting the vocal recording back from Roky Erikson and finding out he sang “Don’t They Know It’s Hallowe’en” over a chorus of “Do They Know”s

-Meeting Elvira. She was out of character, in her regular persona Cassandra Peterson, and she was an extremely attractive, lovely woman! She loved the little drawings I’d been doing for the project, and ended up asking if I wanted to do the design for an upcoming Elvira/Jim Henson collab. Damn, that never materialized.

-While Steve, Thurston and I were downstairs in Steve’s home studio, Kim Gordon, was up in his living room watching the Oscars. I really wanted her to come down and do a duet with Thurston but she was super engrossed in the red carpet opening ceremony.

-Meeting the Sparks brothers at a bouge cafe in west hollywood for breakfast. They didn’t order anything to eat, but they were fascinating to observe, like exotic animals recently brought to captivity.

-Having a big row with the art editor of a magazine that was publishing a story on the song. I was assigned to illustrate the piece, but was blasted for not drawing the same way I had for the cover art: cartoony. I attempted to do serious portraits of the contributors and got in a huge e-shouting match with the guy. Then they shelved my submission and had some blind monkey do the exact same thing, but badly.

-I wasn’t there, and I deeply regret it, but Adam and our friend Jamie driving to Detroit, past 8 mile, to Gino Washington’s house in 9 mile to record his vocal in his kitchen. They got to listen to stuff he’d been working on since (the 60s) and some backing music he’d been making for his son, who was making a rap record.

-Doing mushrooms right after we finished the mixing process at the Dust Brother’s old studio, the Boat, in LA, with the mixer Danny, Steve, Adam and I. The mushroom were pretty strong, and Steve ate a lot so he turned into a green zephyr or something. He generally had a bad time (it was his first time incidentally) and Danny was a saint taking care of him, the whole night (his first time too). Adam and I were completely distracted by a rose bush the whole time.

-Nick Diamonds
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