THE BEACH BOYS ANNOUNCE 50TH ANNIVERSARY REUNION, NEW ALBUM AND TOUR

[PhilCohen]

Both AGD and PhilCohen make valid points.

The 93 box-set was a model of superiority!

Generally yes, except for the two nasty speed fluctuations in "Do You Like Worms", and lopping off several (pedal steel) guitar notes at the start of the single version of "Cottonfields".

[PhilCohen]

Both AGD and PhilCohen make valid points.

The 93 box-set was a model of superiority! The ones Phil mentioned were compiled with the mentality that most music fans had recently trashed/melted/sold/buried away in the basement all their scratched up and warped old vinyl albums because CDs were the new thing and sounded like gold and that was it. Those box sets made people happy that so much of a band's best stuff was available on CD and all in one nice and shiny place.

The latest trend in box sets is mining the vaults.  I expects a career spanning set with lots of unreleased stuff.

There may be lots of unreleased 1970's & 1980's Beach Boys studio material, but is it any good? Interestingly , Mike Love(who had far more writing input during that era) is the one who has, historically opposed the release of that material. Even Mike Love must realise that The Beach Boys in the studio without Brian Wilson songs is a lesser entity.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

Both AGD and PhilCohen make valid points.

The 93 box-set was a model of superiority! The ones Phil mentioned were compiled with the mentality that most music fans had recently trashed/melted/sold/buried away in the basement all their scratched up and warped old vinyl albums because CDs were the new thing and sounded like gold and that was it. Those box sets made people happy that so much of a band's best stuff was available on CD and all in one nice and shiny place.

The latest trend in box sets is mining the vaults.  I expects a career spanning set with lots of unreleased stuff.

There may be lots of unreleased 1970's & 1980's Beach Boys studio material, but is it any good? Interestingly , Mike Love(who had far more writing input during that era) is the one who has, historically opposed the release of that material. Even Mike Love must realise that The Beach Boys in the studio without Brian Wilson songs is a lesser entity.

It's different, that's about as far as I can take it. Different doesn't necessarily mean lesser. I love Brian, but I also love just about everything with the Beach Boys name on it. It's always been hard for me to wrap my head around the "unless Brian's heavily involved, it's lesser" mentality. Too much of my fave stuff had little or no Brian involvement.

Is there really THAT much unreleased 70's stuff that no one knows about?

[SurfRiderHawaii]

Both AGD and PhilCohen make valid points.

The 93 box-set was a model of superiority! The ones Phil mentioned were compiled with the mentality that most music fans had recently trashed/melted/sold/buried away in the basement all their scratched up and warped old vinyl albums because CDs were the new thing and sounded like gold and that was it. Those box sets made people happy that so much of a band's best stuff was available on CD and all in one nice and shiny place.

The latest trend in box sets is mining the vaults.  I expects a career spanning set with lots of unreleased stuff.

There may be lots of unreleased 1970's & 1980's Beach Boys studio material, but is it any good? Interestingly , Mike Love(who had far more writing input during that era) is the one who has, historically opposed the release of that material. Even Mike Love must realise that The Beach Boys in the studio without Brian Wilson songs is a lesser entity.

Dennis Wilson

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

a lesser entity, of course

[PhilCohen]

Both AGD and PhilCohen make valid points.

The 93 box-set was a model of superiority! The ones Phil mentioned were compiled with the mentality that most music fans had recently trashed/melted/sold/buried away in the basement all their scratched up and warped old vinyl albums because CDs were the new thing and sounded like gold and that was it. Those box sets made people happy that so much of a band's best stuff was available on CD and all in one nice and shiny place.

The latest trend in box sets is mining the vaults.  I expects a career spanning set with lots of unreleased stuff.

There may be lots of unreleased 1970's & 1980's Beach Boys studio material, but is it any good? Interestingly , Mike Love(who had far more writing input during that era) is the one who has, historically opposed the release of that material. Even Mike Love must realise that The Beach Boys in the studio without Brian Wilson songs is a lesser entity.

It's different, that's about as far as I can take it. Different doesn't necessarily mean lesser. I love Brian, but I also love just about everything with the Beach Boys name on it. It's always been hard for me to wrap my head around the "unless Brian's heavily involved, it's lesser" mentality. Too much of my fave stuff had little or no Brian involvement.

Is there really THAT much unreleased 70's stuff that no one knows about?

We don't know, but there's plenty of 1970's & 1980's vault material that has only appeared on bootlegs & with only fair-to-middling cassette quality.

[Dave Modny]

There may be lots of unreleased 1970's & 1980's Beach Boys studio material, but is it any good?

Stuff like It's A New Day, Big Sur (4/4 version) Carry Me Home, Hard Times sure sound pretty darned good to my ears! Also, judging by the Marsland Band/Sands version of Wouldn't It Be Nice To Live Again and the wonderful descriptions by those who have actually heard the BB's version, I'd reckon that one's flat-out stunning.

Start factoring in stuff like the '74 California Feeling and other yet-unheard-by-the-masses tracks (though listed at Bellagio), and I'm sure they'd have no problem at all giving us plenty of good, even excellent material from the 70s if they wanted to (and 60s, too). I have a 1978 phone interview with Brian, somewhere in my collection mess, where he mentions a song called Bowling (also listed at Bellagio), so I'm sure they could pad the set with quirky Love You-esqe ditties, as well, that would appeal to a certain sector of fans.

Hell, I could come up with 20-25 choice, unreleased-as-of-yet or released, but harder to find rarities for a box set that I would classify (or imagine) as good without even breaking a sweat! Then, add alternate or new stereo mixes, rare mono, some live stuff, some vintage Smile mixes that were left of TSS, new recordings, or any other surprises, and I think it could be something that could equal or even surpass the '93 set:



Bless the fact that this band was a recording machine in their heyday:


Sandy She Needs Me (track)
You've Got To Hide Your Love Away (live)
CIFOTM (original Smile mix)
Barnyard (original Smile mix)
The Letter
Mona Kani (track)
Where Is She
My Solution
Wouldn't It Be Nice To Live Again
Walkin'
Back Home (either of the earlier versions)
Big Sur (4/4)
Seasons In The Sun
It's A New Day
Carry Me Home
Hard Times
California Feeling ('74) or any other surviving Guercio sessions
In The Back Of My Mind (remake)
Shake, Rattle & Roll
Mony, Mony
Sea Cruise
It's A Beautiful Day
Runaway

etc., etc... and I'm sure I'm forgetting plenty!


Carnegie Hall '72, the Paramount box set show, live rarities from the 60s, BW Love You demos, solo rarities, backing tracks, more Smile, the aforementioned rare mixes, etc. The possibilities are endless.

[Rocker]

I'd love to have the complete Chicago '65 concert

[PhilCohen]

I'd love to have the complete Chicago '65 concert

Yes, I agree, even though the group's concert set list hadn't changed much subsequent to the August 1964 Sacramento shows. I'd also like to hear the early, rejected Sacramento show(late 1963?) which was the apparent source for "Johnny B.Goode" & "Long Tall Texan". It has long been established (by bootlegs) that those two songs were not included in the August 1964 Sacramento shows.

[SMiLE Brian]

I'd love to have the complete Chicago '65 concert

Thats the one concert I really want to hear, as it the end of the Brian touring era.

[Ron]

I haven't heard hardly any of the 70's unreleased stuff, and the 70's stuff is about my favorite era of the band (I'm just not that big into boots).  I heard "My Diane" just the other day and almost died. 

I would imagine, just me, that there's a sh*t LOAD of stuff they can still put out.  Even alternate takes are incredibly fascinating. 

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

I'd LOVE an official live album from the Box-Set tour!

[Jim V.]

There may be lots of unreleased 1970's & 1980's Beach Boys studio material, but is it any good?

Stuff like It's A New Day, Big Sur (4/4 version) Carry Me Home, Hard Times sure sound pretty darned good to my ears! Also, judging by the Marsland Band/Sands version of Wouldn't It Be Nice To Live Again and the wonderful descriptions by those who have actually heard the BB's version, I'd reckon that one's flat-out stunning.

Start factoring in stuff like the '74 California Feeling and other yet-unheard-by-the-masses tracks (though listed at Bellagio), and I'm sure they'd have no problem at all giving us plenty of good, even excellent material from the 70s if they wanted to (and 60s, too). I have a 1978 phone interview with Brian, somewhere in my collection mess, where he mentions a song called Bowling (also listed at Bellagio), so I'm sure they could pad the set with quirky Love You-esqe ditties, as well, that would appeal to a certain sector of fans.

Hell, I could come up with 20-25 choice, unreleased-as-of-yet or released, but harder to find rarities for a box set that I would classify (or imagine) as good without even breaking a sweat! Then, add alternate or new stereo mixes, rare mono, some live stuff, some vintage Smile mixes that were left of TSS, new recordings, or any other surprises, and I think it could be something that could equal or even surpass the '93 set:



Bless the fact that this band was a recording machine in their heyday:


Sandy She Needs Me (track)
You've Got To Hide Your Love Away (live)
CIFOTM (original Smile mix)
Barnyard (original Smile mix)
The Letter
Mona Kani (track)
Where Is She
My Solution
Wouldn't It Be Nice To Live Again
Walkin'
Back Home (either of the earlier versions)
Big Sur (4/4)
Seasons In The Sun
It's A New Day
Carry Me Home
Hard Times
California Feeling ('74) or any other surviving Guercio sessions
In The Back Of My Mind (remake)
Shake, Rattle & Roll
Mony, Mony
Sea Cruise
It's A Beautiful Day
Runaway

etc., etc... and I'm sure I'm forgetting plenty!


Carnegie Hall '72, the Paramount box set show, live rarities from the 60s, BW Love You demos, solo rarities, backing tracks, more Smile, the aforementioned rare mixes, etc. The possibilities are endless.

Wow. Yeah. I'd take that exact set. There is a lot of great material on that set, and still, a lot of Brian Wilson material, and overall just a lot of good stuff, so I think in this case Phil is just wrong.

[stack-o-tracks]

Phil didn't make a statement, he asked a question.

How can you be wrong by asking a question?

[18thofMay]

Phil didn't make a statement, he asked a question.

How can you be wrong by asking a question?

It was a rhetorical question.
Therefore it becomes a passive-aggresive statement.

[Jim V.]

He asks if the unreleased '70s material is any good? I'm going go out on limb and say he probably knows a bit about The Beach Boys unreleased '70s material somewhat due to his obsession with the SMiLE material. I'd just kinda figure somebody that found that thru bootlegs and such would be interested in the '70s material. And he's trying to make it sound as though there is probably nothing good from the '70s or '80s so they should just scrap the whole thing, because that way he can be right.

[b00ts]

He asks if the unreleased '70s material is any good? I'm going go out on limb and say he probably knows a bit about The Beach Boys unreleased '70s material somewhat due to his obsession with the SMiLE material. I'd just kinda figure somebody that found that thru bootlegs and such would be interested in the '70s material. And he's trying to make it sound as though there is probably nothing good from the '70s or '80s so they should just scrap the whole thing, because that way he can be right.

Actually, sweetdudejim, you and everyone else should learn when you've been beaten.

Phil is right.

Here I am, enjoying Sunflower, Surfs Up, Holland, Carl & The Passions: So Tough, Love You, and to a lesser extent, the other three... For years and years... and Phil Cohen comes along and makes me realize that not only is there little to no good material in the vaults from those years, but that by inference, the albums from the 70s aren't very good at all.

Apparently, the 1970s were not a very productive decade for The Beach Boys. Go figure.

Thank you, Phil, for pointing out the futility of human endeavor time and time again. By the way, those nasty, ear-raping edits from the 1993 box set are now poison to my ears. I burned it in a ceremony earlier today. Next stop: class action suit against Mark Linnet and BRI!

[Micha]

Both AGD and PhilCohen make valid points.

The 93 box-set was a model of superiority!

Generally yes, except for the two nasty speed fluctuations in "Do You Like Worms", and lopping off several (pedal steel) guitar notes at the start of the single version of "Cottonfields".

I had thought the speed fluctuations were deliberate and loved them - even after I learned those were tape glitches.

I have yet to hear 70s post-Sunflower outtakes that I like - except Dennis' Carry Me Home, so the one song I haven't heard yet I set hope in is WIBN(TLA). It's just that I don't like most of the 70s music done by anyone.

[Jonathan Blum]

Just watched the full clip, and I'm just plain flabbergasted!

For a bit of perspective, folks... put this next to the re-recording of "Surfin'".  Which, incidentally, was twenty years ago now.

The road from there to here is nothing short of miraculous!

Cheers,
Jon Blum

[Reverend Rock]

Hearing the DIA snippet, I was amazed at how unmistakably BB it really sounded.  Mike's sounding a lot better than he did in the 80s, and the group blend just sounds vintage. 

You know what I've been thiking for a while?  I think the key is Al Jardine.  I think his voice is pretty sweet, always has been, and you can hear it in most of their original songs; he still sounds pretty good, so if you do that type of song with Al's voice in the blend, I think that's the key to getting that Beach Boys 'sound'.  Carl of course was also a HUGE part of the blend, but Al is still wtih us thankfully.

Everybody knows the 'bass' sound on any recording is kind of unidrectional for lack of a better word, it's imitable and you can't easily discern with your ear who's singing a bass note.  Also the falsetto part, although tough to do, can be imitated too, Al & Carl (and Bruce) in my opinion always had the hard lines to sing, the middle part of the harmony is tough to handle and keep straight.  As well known as the boys are for the falsetto, I think the real meat and bones was always the middle harmonies. 

Go ahead.  Ridicule me if you must, lol. 

No ridicule here.  I think you make a strong case.

[PhilCohen]

Wait a second. I'm not denying the brilliance of the "Sunflower" & "Surf's Up" albums, or that "Holland" has some fine vocals. The uneven(and sometimes bad) stuff comes after the group's 3 year hiatus from releasing studio material(reportedly because Reprise Records wouldn't accept recordings with no Brian Wilson involvement). Brian's voice starts to show damage from substance abuse, the touring members increasingly become an oldies band(particularly after the unexpected success of Capitol's compilations of 1962-65 material), and the group starts recording some particularly bad cover versions(especially the cover versions that didn't get released). With Brian only occasionally participating, the production craftsmanship suffers when he's not there.
                             I'm not saying that there aren't occasional good tracks on the post-1974 albums, but it is obvious that the group's heyday was on the recordings made between 1962 & 1972.

[Iron Horse-Apples]

I've seen the Beach Boys (with Carl) twice, in '89 and '91.

I've seen Brian five times.

But to see them together will be magical.

I wonder how it will be staged. Where will Brian be? Behind his keyboard and autocue, but not centre stage I would think. I hope he does a bit of bass playing, now that would be magic. If I take my contact lenses out, it could be 1964.

[vintagemusic]

If I may ask, what are the best books for learning about the unreleased material.

I fall into that camp who believe, the Brian Wilson Beach Boys were superior. I think
its a testament to the rest of them, that when Brian Wilson faltered, the rest of them
had enough talent to start writing some good songs, and of course all of them are/were
great singers,

Having said that, I'd still be interested in collecting all the unreleased material, so I can
get a grasp of what exists, and I have no idea what books to read to even learn about
that material.

Did anyone ever write a Beach Boy book similar to the Beatle Anthology book by Lewishon
that documents all the sessions, and what songs were recorded, and who wrote them etc etc.

any references would be appreciated thank you

[Rocker]

I fall into that camp who believe, the Brian Wilson Beach Boys were superior. I think
its a testament to the rest of them, that when Brian Wilson faltered, the rest of them
had enough talent to start writing some good songs, and of course all of them are/were
great singers,

The problem is that none of the other guys really had enough time to evolve in the band like Brian had (and he did it in such a hurry that is unbelievable). You automatically had the pressure to bring the Beach Boys back to where they were at their very peak, commercially and artistically, when you became the "leader" of the band.

[Steve Mayo]

If I may ask, what are the best books for learning about the unreleased material.

not a book but a web site. multiple pages. nice quick info of a lot of the stuff out there. after reading these pages try google.....you may get lucky  

 http://www.beachboys.com/raritiesI.html#landlocked2