The Stephen Desper Thread
JK:
Quote from: Stephen W. Desper on January 22, 2020, 10:50:29 AM
Quote from: JK on January 21, 2020, 01:33:31 PM
Mr. Desper, or indeed anyone else who can answer:
This is about The Flame's unreleased second album (I'm asking on behalf of a friend). I'm told you played the tapes at a Beach Boys convention years ago and it sounded better than their first. If it's that good, it's odd that it's still unreleased. Do you have any ideas why?
COMMENT to JK: I would agree . . . that as the group and each member of the group continued to compose, play and record they most definitely developed their respective talents. This is most evident with any listen to the second album. The sophistication of arrangement, hooks, performance and recorded sounds, as captured in the second album, leave little doubt that the group matured in many ways.
The development and improvements and not limited to The Flame, but also to Carl Wilson as a producer and myself as engineer. The second album was written and recorded during the same time that Surf's Up was being recorded. This was a time when all the flowers of this musical bouquet reached there full bloom, exhibiting much color and creativity, over flowing all expectations the label had anticipated.
Why it was not released is one of the great tragedies of Beach Boy history. Carl as producer and Blondie, Rickie, Steve, Brother and myself were peaking in our respective abilities. But none of this was distend to reach the public due to legal confusion and, from what I understand, contractual ambiguity concerning the ownership of the product between BRI and StarDayKing, the original distributor of the first album. As far as I know, and from my own experience it has yet to be resolved. I became so frustrated that this wonderful second album was not being released took two deals to BRI lawyers for consideration -- one deal especially was promising and had a large sum of money earmarked for promotion -- something that was lacking for the first album and one major reason that it did not do well in sales. But the lawyers could not seem to get their respective acts together and each deal finally died over continuous haggling. Don't quote me, but as I have been told, members of the group (FLAME) themselves wanted a larger portion of the pot and killed future attempts to release the album on BRI.
And so there it all sits on a shelf somewhere. The album is complete. Carl, the group and I mixed down all the songs, and they are all recorded in virtual surround and sound fantastic. Whenever I play my copies for friends they can't believe this stuff was recorded so long ago and sound's like it was recorded today. Most people for whom I play the unreleased songs have never heard of The Flame and think it is some unknown recording by The Beatles.
I think the real disaster is that Carl never lived to see his work get any public credit or praise. Now with both Brother and Steve gone, this catastrophe of non-events grows. Even the write-in efforts by concerned fans and continuous appeals from many in the BB organization doesn't seem to go anywhere.
Alan Boyd and myself got permission to play the tapes at a BB convention in Massachusetts some years ago, so that some fans did, in fact, get to hear (over headphones) this marvelous album, but that's about it -- and that's about all I can tell you in answer to your question.
Hang in there, maybe someday, perhaps when everyone connected with the project is dead, it will finally become available. Too much, too late. :( ~swd
Thank you, sir, very much, for explaining the sorry state of affairs and filling in so much of the background history.
It makes a wonderful read in itself, as always.
Tom:
Based on a cursory read of this thread it seems like this question hasn't been asked of Mr. Desper yet, so I'll pose it -
Regarding the tag in "All I Wanna Do" - do you recall the lyric that Carl is singing in the left channel? There's been a lot of speculation as to what the full line is. The most audible portion is "If you get lonely in the night I'd wanna..." (set to the melody of the first bridge - "Sure as the sun'll come around again...") The official lyric sheet doesn't shed any light on this unfortunately (and even those can be incorrect sometimes).
DRM:
Mr. Desper's very informative comments are on the following page if you scroll down:
https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/beach-boys-hybrid-sacd-acoustic-sounds.417263/page-92
DRM:
"Engineer Steve Desper, who the group considers a genius of sound, created a wonderful soundstage."
https://www.thesuburban.com/arts_and_entertainment/joel-goldenberg-free-feel-flows/article_ee41e743-0091-53a3-8b28-2221dff42b8c.html
donbrhoden:
Mr Desper where can I buy your book and a spatializer? Thank you
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