The Smiley Smile Message Board

Check this out, posted by Barnyard2

I was able to meet Bruce, Christian and Scott at the hotel, and Mike at the venue before the show.
Mike said that Brian has written new songs and he is putting some lyrics on them. Also that they are talking about the reunion.
Bruce mentioned that next year it will be four dates in Spain. Maybe as part of a world wide reunion tour?

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,10665.0.html (http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,10665.0.html)

Looks like we will be getting material

Maybe we're gonna get that rock and roll album from Brian, after all. The Beach Boys are a good vehicle from which to do it.

Awesome! I hope this pans out. Glad to see Brian's gotten over his writer's block as well.

It's great that they are working together again. But...

Spain?!?!?  ::)

More likely Bruce has written some new songs, and Mike's adding lyrics to those. 
It could be cool to have some new BW/ML songs, if only to see what Mike comes up with, but I doubt it will happen.

It shouldn't ever happen and hopefully never will happen.

I'm definitely rooting for them to write good new material! :)

mamas little baby loves shortnin bread 2011

And I'm rooting for Willie Mays to come out of retirement and be an all-star again.  I'd say those things are about equally likely to happen.

I'd venture the odds are in Willie's favor

Yeah, you're absolutely right, aren't you?

Look at all the crap Brian and Mike wrote together!

Sheesh

Merda like:

Good Vibrations
I'm Waiting For The Day
California Girls
Do It Again
Wild Honey
Darlin
The Warmth Of The Sun
Goin On
Let The Wind Blow
Cool Cool Water
All I Wanna Do
Please Let Me Wonder
Fun Fun Fun
Kiss Me Baby
It's OK


... to name just a few

Thank GOD the likes of which will never happen again if oldmykeluvrdood has his way!

Doesn't Mike always claim he and Brian wrote new songs together?

Four dates in Spain ? That well-know hotbed of Beach Boys fandom ? I think Mr. Johnston was practising his poker face.

As for Mike putting lyrics to Brian's music, sounds entirely plausible, but given Brian's been telling everyone about his writers block for years - if you discount the Gershwin pieces, the last batch of 'new' songs was in 2006, so he's on the money there - I'm wondering if maybe he's not unearthed some of those for use on any potential 50th anniversary project.

Hi,
Mike said publicly in the hotel press conference that Brian has written new songs without lyrics. It can be heard on this video, but it's barely audible due to the spanish translation. At second 35.
http://youtu.be/yFtb6k1mXoE

Besides that, a friend of mine was able to interview Mike at the venue and here is the transcript on our webpage http://thebeachboysspain.com/.
He said: I've talking with my cousin Brian about..., writing some new lyrics and contribute on some songs he has worked on.
I'll try to put you the english transcript as soon as I can.

Regarding Bruce comment about four dates in Spain next year, he said that while he was entering the venue. I don't konw if he was joking, but he surely said that. I guess it could be as part of a world tour if finally a reunion tour comes to reality, but it's just my guess.

Thanks.

"... some songs he has worked on". Note, he didn't say "some new songs he's been working on".

Mike & Bruce have played Spain in 2001, 2010 and just now. The Beach Boys played three shows there in 1990. So if Spain is going to get four shows, over here were going to get, roughly, 75.  ;D

Gee, we should have a new Good Vibrations any day now- hey-maybe a new Pet Sounds as wee-Today anybody?? :p

Brian has written some great melodies in recent years...but has Mike written any decent lyrics in the last couple of decades? I hope that if this is true, the new tunes are good enough to inspire great lyrics in Mike. And I hope it's a pleasant experience all the way around.

This is the exact transcript from the interview with Mike shortly before the show in Madrid:

So 50 years right?

Yeah.

So how are you planning to celebrate that?

We're hoping to do some new recordings. I'm talking with my cousin Brian about... He's having me write some lyrics and contribute to some songs he has worked on.

Any new material?

Yeah, and I've worked on some new things. I wanna show him what those are like and see if we can work together on putting a new recording project.

So, what about Al? Is he involved?

He can very well be involved. He has his own cd that it just came out recently. We sang on Don't Fight The Sea, a song on the album, so I think it's very possible that we all record together. There's no definite time period involved though. It will probably be this fall or this winter.

You guys take it easy, we've been waiting for so long.

I know. Too long.

Thanks for that: most interesting.

It will be nice if he's not just blowing smoke again.

I think this reunion will end up being only slightly less interesting than when Brian reunited with Tony Asher about 15 years ago.

Uhh, I don't remember that. Do you mean it will be good? or am i being obtuse?

That reunion resulted in some good songs, didn't it?
I'd kind of like to see another Wilson/Asher reunion.

Two released songs. "Everything I Need", which ended up on the album The Wilsons and is OK... and "This Isn't Love", from both the Roxy album and the 2nd Flintstones movie, which recycles a chunk of "You're Still A Mystery": other tracks were written but unless I'm really missing the obvious, nothing else came out.

I'm definitely curious to see what Brian and Mike could come up with these days, although like others have said I have my reservations about Mike's lyrical sensibilities these days. Hopefully working with Brian again can light a fire under him and they'll create some good stuff.

Just please God, no references to cars, the beach or namechecking old song titles!

That request sounds like someone asking Burger King to not sell hamburgers... ;D

Andrew summed it up nicely -- the Wilson/Asher reunion in the late 1990s produced a couple of inoffensive songs, nothing more. The message being: Just because two famous songwriting partners "reunite" doesn't mean the earth will shake, or lives will be changed. Indeed, it could be completely unmemorable. Mike and Brian, even if they bring the best they have left to the table, aren't capable of creating "Beach Boys" magic by themselves -- without Carl and Dennis and innumerable other factors, this reunion will be a futile effort at best. A one-off of "Do It Again" could be fun, for the big anniversary, but any new collaboration is almost certainly doomed to disappoint.

If Mike does that, it will only leave him with TM to sing about!

I want the Mike who wrote lyrics to "Today!"or "warmth of the sun" to come back and write lyrics that are awesome. Brian and Mike could write some great reflective songs about age or the history of the band.

What's the most recent memorable song that Brian and Mike collaborated on?

("memorably awful" doesn't count)

Oh, those songs. I should have remembered that for sure!  Oh well, life spirals down a bit
Points taken; maybe they'll write something that can be recorded, to acclaim, by someone other than the quote/unquote Beach Boys

Wait...I thought This isn't Love was written during the Dennis/Brian 'cocaine sessions'? Asking as I have 'heard' something that sounds very much like it.

Reminds me of a story Don Was told in Pulse! magazine when he was working with Brian and Mike in the 90's. He told them if they write about surfing it won't ring true, and thought they should write about their family struggles and redemption, something uplifting and personal.

And they came back to him with something called "Baywatch Nights". ;D

Nope.

How on earth did the show "Baywatch Nights" ever get the greenlight? What was the one reason people watched Baywatch for? Take that out and what are you left with? That's right, "Baywatch Nights". Talk about phucking with the formula!!

There's a bit on the 20 minute tape from late 1982 that has Brian working out a very rudimentary chord progression that sounds very similar to This Isn't Love. I doubt it was known as This Isn't Love then. You can barely hear Brian singing on it but the vocal melody is similar to the Roxy version.

That's what I'm naively hoping for too. All those years of life between them, there has to be more to write about than a cheesy rehashing of the past. Somewhere inside Mike there's still a damn fine lyricist, and maybe reconnecting with Brian will allow him to get in touch with said lyricist.

Like, When I Grow Old (and Become Incontinent & Feeble), and stuff like that? ;)

If I could reprint the article right now I would, but what is written above sounds remarkably similar to what Don Was said he told Mike and Brian in the mid 90's.

That would be more entertaining than Mike writing about being the old surfer godfather that he is not or racing classic cars he has never owned or driven. ;D

I've suggested this before.  A full treatment by all members, complete with soaring harmony (as on the song EH), of California Feeling.  The song just feels right for a 50th anniv career theme for the BeachBoys.  I could go on, I'd certainly have other suggestions,  but that one thing would make it for me.

It was titled "Untitled Piano Demo" on the version I've, um, 'seen'.

I hope so because this the last chance the band has to go out on top as a great group instead of the goofy group from the 1980s and 1990s that people in America remember. Mike and Brian definitely would understand the stakes at hand.

Okay, so the Wilson/Asher reunion didn't result in another Pet Sounds. But those songs were miles ahead of many of Mike's lyrical efforts. The "Wrinkles" thread comes to mind. What Brian and Mike need is someone to set them straight when they start veering off into references to
(a) Still being in high school
(b) Driving classic cars, or "cruisin'"
(c) Surfing
(d) Dating girls (i.e. 15-22-year-olds)
(e) Their old songs

Maybe they just need a third party to make suggestions like Don Was did. Introspection (while trying to avoid cliches) would be the most poignant. These guys have a lot of history together and a lot of feelings about their relationship and their lives, separately and together.

Well, dang, perhaps we'll even get another "Matchpoint Of Our Love"!!!!

So, is Brian in the studio in september to lay down the new tracks...... ?  :-D

Be careful what you wish for -- if Brian and Mike get into the studio together and start getting "introspective" about their long history together, the session will probably result in another lawsuit.

You are talking about close to 20 years difference between Wrinkles and new Wilson/Asher tunes. Though some of the lyrics are not too good on SIP, which is closer in time. Mike hasn't done a whole lotta writing since then, so it is hard to tell if he can still write something creative for a new album.

I personally think Everything I Need could have been more than merely 'inoffensive' - even great - with the right production, but unfortunately Joe Thomas saw to that I believe.

I also think Mike showed with Cool Head, Warm Heart that his talents are not completely shot.

What is the over/under on Fun Fun Fun and Wouldn't It Be Nice? coming up in the lyrics as written in Summer In Paradise?

The original track has leaked... it's nice enough, but if the names Wilson/Asher weren't attached, no-one would take much notice.

How about a re-recording of Devoted to You? :)

You know it doesn't seem so hard to make a new BB album. Working off of Al's solo album and That Lucky Old Sun, I think they could definitely put together something professional. Maybe not a memorable album, but something that isn't offensively bad. But maybe we'll get lucky, maybe the band has one cool album left.

The one from the Cocaine Sessions and This Isn't Love are clearly the same song though, bar the lyrics - surely just a case of Brian reaching back into his unreleased back catalogue when he and Asher needed a song, as per City Blues' reemergence on GIOMH.

I don't hear that? Is it the end of the verse?

Not memorable, but not offensively bad, either. Isn't that what every artist with integrity strives for?  :-D

Well, given that the guys couldn't seem to be able to do something as seemingly simple as re-record "Do It Again", I don't see how they'd be able to something that requires more personal effort, like collaborating on new songs.

[See "rerecording Do It Again" thread...]

How about "50 Big Ones" - Brian's rock and roll album of R&R covers, with vocals by the BBs.  "Do it Again" being a cover of themselves.

Anything newly written/regurgitated old bits and pieces will most likely be crap.

Brian should write "Mike's Back" and present that to the Lovester -- along with a national campaign aimed at rekindling interest in the Beach Boys 50 years on!

How about no?

I don't find Mike's lyrics to be any great shakes lately and I don't find Brian's songs to be any great shakes lately either so they still fit perfectly together and who knows magic may happen. Even if the music and songs are the cringiest cheesiest and corniest of cringe corn cheese it will be a hoot.

The bit just before the chorus of "Mystery".

My abiding hope. PFCa and TLOS show the guys still have some creative chops (or at least a supply of good quality unreleased catalogue material they can dip into) while BWRG shows that the necessary production abilities are around to knock out a satisfying piece of product.

Should they excavate some unreleased Carl or Dennis vocals to build a new full line-up BBs' track? Only if they can do full justice.  And there's only one way to tell.

With modern recording technology/Linett (who seems to know his way around this stuff), they can make it a damn sight better than Free As A Bird/Real Love, the only real precedent for this sort of thing I can think of. And Carl/Dennis vocals and tracks will be better quality than the Lennon demos anyway.

OT, but I listened to those the other day and was astounded by how badly produced they are. Why they got Jeff Lynne on board is a mystery. Dude was a dinosaur in 1995.

AGD, I still don't hear it!

An EP of two Brian/Mike originals, an Al, a exhumed Carl/Dennis lead and a re-record (maybe) could be the way forward. Keep it short and sweet. But if Stebbins is right......

Regardless of when the music was actually written, I consider "This Isn't Love" one of Brian's finest solo compositions and it has that unique Asher angle of taking a seemingly negative line and turning it around to something positive (as in "I may not always love you..."). I really wish a proper studio version of this song would be recorded/released; I have no idea how far the Joe Thomas-produced version went (IMAGINATION outtake?) or if the loveliness was crushed by Adult Contemporary overkill.

I would like them to finish or remix the best unfinished song ever, "Can't wait too long" as a bonus track on the  EP.