Singled Out: Spirits Burning's Stand and Deliver (Live)

01-14-2025

Spirits Burning, the project led by Don Falcone and featuring Hawkwind alum Bridget Wishart, Richard Chadwick and Steve Bemand among the members, just released their first live album "Live At Kozfest' and to celebrate we asked Don to tell us about the song "Stand and Deliver". Here is the story:

The music for the studio version of "Stand and Deliver" emerged from a jam with one of my coworkers, Mike Moskowitz. He was a product manager at Pro Tools developer Avid (formerly Digidesign) and I managed the technical publications department. Mike had access to a practice space in San Francisco and we headed there one evening with his guitar and black drum machine, and my bass guitar. I suspect I decided to revert to my original instrument instead of keyboards to lighten the load, and to steer us to writing a rockier song. At the time, I was working on a noir-based Spirits Burning album with Roger Neville-Neil (to be titled "Behold The Action Man"). Roger had already given me the song title (from a book of the same name), and it inspired what Mike and I played. We might have even had Roger's verse lyrics at the time. These were based on the concept of historical "highwaymen" like "D. B. Cooper" (who "was a paratrooper") and "Bold Black Bart (who "was a pirate at heart").

Spirits Burning songs often develop by what parts are needed and who is available. For "Stand and Deliver," Daevid Allen's lead and chorus guitars came next as he was in the Bay Area for a gig, and we did a session at my home studio. (Daevid would end up on 13 of the 16 songs on the album.) I was simultaneously working on a Spirits Burning & Bridget Wishart album and invited Bridget to add EWI. She wrote the chorus vocals of "Stand and Deliver" and added a couple of other transition lines, even though the verse vocal parts weren't in place yet. Paul Williams, who I had met at a Strange Daze festival near the turn of the century, provided a real drum kit, while I did keep the original black box in the background. Lastly, I worked out the vocal lines for Roger's lyrics and sent the song with my temp vocals to Kev Ellis, who had wonderfully sung "Alien Injection" on a prior Spirits Burning album. With Kev's vocals soon in place, the song was completed and ready for the studio album.

The live version of the song had its seeds planted when Bridget and I pursued having Spirits Burning perform at a festival in England. Guitarist Steve Bemand, who like Bridget, had played with Hawkwind, became my go-to person to define the live ensemble (which would include Kev). Steve brought in long-time Hawkwind drummer Richard Chadwick to play drums, which solidified the rhythm section. Having a song that Bridget, Kev, and I were all credited with creating years earlier made "Stand and Deliver" an obvious choice to include. Plus, all the band felt it was a strong, energetic, fun number. One change to the studio version was that I was back on keyboards and had to write a part, given the original didn't have keys. I took a pseudo-Stranglers approach, which helped add spice and movement to the rhythms. As the set order developed, it became obvious that "Stand and Deliver" had earned its place in the set list - our final song at the Kozfest performance!

Check out my 2025 book "One Of The Spirits Burning (A Musical Memoir)" for the full story of our journey to Kozfest and the gig itself - all of which led to our first live album and its release on Deko.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more here