Recording began with a demo session at a small church in Woodstock, which was not intended to produce any official releases. During its course Morrison worked on leftover material from his previous two albums ("Astral Weeks" and "Moondance"), recorded songs that he had not performed in the studio before ("Crazy Face" and "Give Me a Kiss"), as well as two instrumentals. Limited recording equipment was used, operated by drummer Dahaud Shaar, who was intending to open a recording studio in Woodstock at the time. Shaar remembered: "I found an old church and we would just load in. I'd set up a pair of mikes and we would just run down some tracks with the tapes running. They became like a working thing for the album."