I think it's possible. His voice was certainly quite strong on the Sweet Insanity recordings, from 91 or so. I believe that once Landy left, Brian started smoking again, and didn't quit until after his marriage to Melinda in 95.

That being said, I think Brian's voice is about at its weakest and strangest on IJWMFTT.

I would doubt this was part of any Capitol contract. They may be taking a calculated risk on TLOS, but they're not nuts.

What Love Can Do is credited to Brian, Burt Bacharach, and Bacharach lyricist Steve Krikorkian.

And no, I didn't think it was Scott on the demo either.

For what it's worth, you can definitely hear BW doing backing vocals in California Role's demo, while he doesn't seem to be on the Southern California recording.

After somehow mysteriously hearing TLOS today (I think it was blown in on the winds), I have to say how impressed I still am by it. The whole really transcends the sum of the parts -- and MAD is spine-chilling.

I remember the original site, and yes, it looks like some editing was involved. It involved something that rhymes with my name. Good times.

I stand by my outline in general.

"Mornin' Beat" does have some structural similarities to "Walkin'," but it's all more general than specific. It's not a rewrite -- more a reuse of a basic chord sequence.

Oxygen does indeed hark back to the fitness songs. But that has nothing to do with whether it's new or not. And Brian was writing fitness songs in the 60s and 70s too -- see HELP is on the Way and Life if for the Living.

I'm not familiar with a mid-80s demo of Goin' Home. I'm quite familiar with the mid-90s Paley tune, which is entirely different. I'd have to hear it to know.

Virtually all the BW songs in TLOS are new, as in written since the release of Smile in 04. As I understand it.

Breaks down like such:

That Lucky Old Sun (cover version, newly arranged by BW 06-07)
Morning Beat (new, although certainly based on the Shortnin' Bread riff. Includes the Hallalujah riff from the 70s).
Good Kind of Love (summer 06, I believe AGD mentioned this was worked on with Carole King)
Forever My Surfer Girl (new)
Live Let Live (new; has so far featured two distinct sets of lyrics -- I also recall hearing that this has been recorded as a duet with Carole King)
Mexican Girl (new)
California Role (written in the mid-80s as "Wondering What You're Up to Now." Obviously rewritten with new lyrics)
Been Way Too Long (mid 60s, of course)
Oxygen (This was written soon after Smile was released -- I read an interview with Brian from 04 or 05 in which he mentioned this song).
Midnight's Another Day (from the summer 06 sessions -- apparently Scott helped rework this from a rock song that Brian was working on)
Going Home (new, not to be confused with the Paley sessions tune of the same title. Shortnin' Bread again.)
Southern California (apparently a Scott tune, although clearly written with BW in mind).

Andrew paints a more daunting picture than really exists.

Sire, Giant, Rhino, Nonsuch and Warner Bros. are all owned by the same folks. They are all parts of Warner Bros. records. That covers the vast majority of Brian's regular solo catalogue.

Brimel was never quite a label, and Oglio and Sanctuary just distributed BW's live recordings with the Brimel stamp.

Arista, Columbia and Sony are again all under the same label. They did the Christmas album.

MCA had Don Was's vanity label, and as such released the IJWMFTT soundtrack.

Disney, Windham Hill and Virgin released one-off tracks, which might prove difficult to license, but who knows.

Really, Warners could do the compilation now if they wanted.

Oh, it's TLOS-related, I'd bet ya anything. And good for him, and for us.

Oh, I don't doubt that. My one point is that he may well have less spare cash floating around, and his inner circle might be less prepared to subsidize a money-hemorrhaging tour.

Well, assuming Brian is heavily invested in real estate (I know I've read he's picked up various homes in various spots over the last 10 years or so), he might be really feeling the pinch right now. Some big markets have seen 20-30 percent drops in property values.

Well, I doubt BW (or his business, that is) tours out of charity. It's done, I assume, to make some amount of money, however small. And the U.S. is reeling right now -- slipping further every day into recession or depression. The real estate crash has slammed the entire economy. I'm assuming it affected the BW outfit the way it's affected all of us here in the states.

He seems to have a website:

http://www.brettsimons.com/

From the Blue Board -- a mixture of good and bad.

From Brian's Management:

There has been a lot of speculation on what has happened to Jim and Bob. It was a decision solely made by them to leave the band to concentrate on their work in Chicago.

Brian and Melinda applaud them on their time with the band and wish them all the best in their future endeavors.

That said, we are pleased to announce the return of Michael D’Amico who will be taking Jim’s place on drums and we are happy to announce the addition of Brett Simons on bass. Welcome!!

Well, I think some of this goes too far.

Saying that Brian and the band could have done more on an original, creative level in the last 10 years is one thing. Saying Brian is being manipulated or controlled is quite another.

For what it's worth, I think Brian is probably quite content to be creative sometimes, and not creative a lot of other times. The issue is how those around him deal with that. I think his inner circle can sometimes force him at times he doesn't want to be forced. I think his band (his outer circle, so to speak) is so reluctant to ever force him that they sometimes miss out on the potential for great things.

Susan--I probably should not have hit Scott like that. For what it's worth, I think the TLOS songs are excellent, and he obviously played a big role with them.

I was just making the larger point that so many opportunities with the band seem to have been passed by. Why didn't Darian and Brian ever write together, for instance? Why didn't all of this talent help Brian create new things? They are clearly capable of cutting an album in a month or two. Where are our half-dozen new BW studio LPs full of band collaborations and their fresh, vibrant playing and singing?

That all seemed possible, back in 99-01. Now -- not so much.

Frankly, if it were just BW and the band making the decisions and the music, I would heartily support them. But they never have quite gotten to that point -- so much has been dictated by outside business forces and by the expectations of BW's management team.

I mean, what the hell was GIOMH about? That album was clearly something the band and BW were less than enthusiastic about. But it got made, because hey, it helped stoke the "Brian is still creative" storyline the same year that Smile came out. I mean, I love GIOMH, but there's no use denying that it's fitfully inspired, at best.

Let's not get into the scads of DVD releases, featuring "tributes" from such august talents as Ricky Martin.

Where were the collaborations with the Wondermints? Where were the Darian co-writes? Hell, where were the Foskett co-writes? Scott Bennett is nice and all, but why was he the one plucked out for songwriting on TLOS anyway? The BW band's potential has hardly ever been fully realized.

Meanwhile, Brian seems to putter along in his own little world -- and god knows it was nice to see that he still can bang out a tune and sing it (on record) nicely. But his moments of inspiration come and go, and they've seldom been captured (with the exception of something like "Walking Down the Path of Life," written and recorded in a month or two).

TLOS seemed to be a chance to capture that inspiration on record, for once, in a way that hadn't been worried to death. But it looks like it is. I will enjoy the record in whatever form it takes, I'm sure -- assuming the basic songs haven't changed. But the BW band is so talented. So capable. They have brought BW so much joy.

They, and he, deserve better.

Well, hell, maybe I should write what my (self) deleted post said! I only edited it because I thought it a tad too inflammatory.

What if Scott Bennett was booted from the band? The demos show him as a major co-creative force in TLOS -- and I certainly didn't know that he wrote "Southern California." That would be a fairly basic reason to want them squelched.

But I can't imagine this is the case. My suspicion is that the body of the work has changed in some substantial way. That is, maybe the VDP linking vignettes have been deleted.

Who knows?

edit.

Luther -- I don't think that's the case -- I was just trying to play AGD's little puzzle -- why would the material be leaked? What's the purpose? He seems to suggest that there's a fairly obvious reason (aside from BW's inner circle letting it out for their own purposes). I was trying to figure it out. Perplexing.

Well, whatever the reason for these things being leaked, they at least have the benefit of making the project seem exciting. Brian sounds with it and was obviously involved in playing instruments and singing leads and backgrounds. Add some strong material, and there's a strong case for the suite.

To my mind, this kind of leak just pressures the BW camp to release something already. That, or some band member is trying to sabotage the commercial release -- but why would anyone do that?

Well, Jimmy Hines wasn't in the band originally -- that was Todd Sucherman (now Mr. Taylor Mills).  Todd played most of the drums on the GIOMH album, and he seems to be close to Scotty Bennett (they co-produced Taylor's solo CD), so he might be on the album. Who knows? As for Bob Lizik, he seems like one of the less critical members of the band -- but that's just my opinion.

Actually, the article doesn't say Brian was recording at the tower. It says he was using the echo chambers, which is a different thing. I recall reading that Joe Thomas sent some of the "Imagination" tapes to to the tower for added echo, as well.

Ech. I expect the album will come out at some point. The delay has been so far, what? A month? Let's give it a good 6-7 months, hear what BW says in interviews for the European tour, and then start griping.