The Smiley Smile Message Board

Reading the latest and excellent ESQ, I paused to smile, somewhat wryly, at Alan's observation that Ocean Way was Brian's "home". For his solo career, maybe, but Alan has joined many, equally well-qualified, folks in believing that Ocean Way and Western are one and the same. They're not: prior to his flying solo, there are only three documented instances of Brian using United, the studio that became - eventually - Ocean Way. Allow me to illustrate.

In 1957, moving to Hollywood from Chicago, legendary engineer Bill Putnam bought the United Recording Corp. facility at 6050 Sunset and four years later purchased Western Studio at 6000, just across the parking lot. Although often referred to as United Western, they were in fact two entirely separate facilities. United's larger rooms appealed to the likes of Sinatra, Crosby and the "older" crowd as they could accommodate a full orchestra, while the emerging rock scene favoured the more intimate rooms at Western (the legendary Western Three measured 34 feet by 14, as opposed to the 66 x 45 of United A - which was also 22 feet high). That's how it stayed until 1984, when Putnam sold the whole United Western complex, which was duly renamed Ocean Way. Now it gets a bit tricky.

In 1999, Ocean Way's owner, Allen Sides, sold off the old Western half: this was renamed Cello, while the former United remained, and remains, Ocean Way to this day. Cello closed in 2002 and remained so until 2006, when it was bought and reopened as EastWest in 2009. Thus, while the former Western was indeed Ocean Way for the fifteen years from 1984 to 1999, since then it's been sucessively Cello and EastWest. To my knowledge, Brian's never used either studio.

The only documented instances of Brian using what is now Ocean Way but back in the sixties was United are in May 1963, for the Bob & Vicki session for the "Summer Moon" track (the vocals were cut at Western), in October 1965 for the "Stella By Starlight"/"How Deep Is The Ocean"/"Three Blind Mice" orchestral experiments, the December 1968 session for The Honeys "Goodnight My Love"/"Tonight You Belong To Me".

Thank you for that Andrew.  ;D

Did they use EastWest to film the studio scenes in Love and Mercy?

Also, you'd think someone would notice it was a different studio Brian uses nowadays versus the hit-making years.  Unless the interior has changed dramatically.  Wouldn't happen with Abbey Road, Studio 2!

<<while the former United remained, and remains, Ocean Way to this day.>>

News flash: Ocean Way Hollywood was recently purchased by new owners, and is being renamed: United Recording.
http://www.unitedrecordingstudios.com/

Prior to the EasWest rechristening, the former Cello Studios was going to be renamed: Western Recording. Pity that didn't happen!

<<The only documented instances of Brian using what is now Ocean Way but back in the sixties was United are in May 1963, for the Bob & Vicki session for the "Summer Moon" track (the vocals were cut at Western), in October 1965 for the "Stella By Starlight"/"How Deep Is The Ocean"/"Three Blind Mice" orchestral experiments, the December 1968 session for The Honeys "Goodnight My Love"/"Tonight You Belong To Me".>>

We can add a couple of others to this list:

* - The orchestral tracks on the Christmas album (engineered by Bill Putnam himself, June 1964) - even though the AFM sheets say Capitol, other evidence proves it to be United (and some of the group's vocals, as well - on "We Three Kings", part of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town", and maybe the others - for which they sang live with the orchestra).

* - A June 1967 attempt at "With Me Tonight"

Interestingly, all of the '60s sessions at United were held in Studio A, but Studio B became Brian's "home" starting in the 2000's. Studio A was locked out for use several years in a row by then red-hot engineer/producer Jack Joseph Puig; when it became available again to other clients, Brian (and The Beach Boys in 2012) began using it extensively, while also continuing to occasionally utilize Studios B and D.

Oh, and Brian apparently did use the "Western" side of Ocean Way a bit during the Imagination sessions, for a percussion overdub session, after which they would ship tracks from St. Charles out to Ocean Way just to have them run through the legendary echo chambers, with the echo returns printed to open tracks, which could then be incorporated in the mixdown. Joe Thomas is quoted in that year's EQ cover story: "Brian walked into the room where they recorded "California Girls" and he said, 'I remember we put Carl's Rickenbacker directly into the console. And he stood right here and played.' And then Brian got kinda misty. Tears kind of came to his eyes and he said, 'You know, this is a little bit heavy for me.'"

Thanks for bringing this up, Andrew. This has been a pet peeve of mine for a few years, ever since I figured it out with some Google maps and online research. The big question is whether Brian himself knows -- I have to assume he does, right?

No. Not we... you.  ;D

Amended info gratefully appreciated, as ever. Would the 6/67 "WMT" session be the one on the 30th ?

Thank you, Andrew, for this info.

And thanks to Craig for the addendum specifics, especially on We Three Kings, which I consider to be one of the BBs finest vocal group performances.

Great thread.

Studio 1 at 'Western' is also a rather large room is it not?  Not sure how it compares in size to the large 'United' rooms mind.

I think it was Studio 1 at 'Western' that they used for the aborted session scene in Love & Mercy (where is my DVD Amazon?)

Yeah, big thanks, Andrew, for bringing up the topic - when I was reading Al's recollection in ESQ I was unsure about that bit & thought better double check that on Smiley!

Thanks, c-man for sharing your knowledge as well.

Mike, I recall these notes from the Mark L thread, which may help re your questions about L&M:
http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,201.msg526591.html#msg526591

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,201.msg524015.html#msg524015

No, actually, it was the 5th of June - two sessions that day, one at Western and one at United - both for attempts at "WMT". The June 30th "WMT" session was at Bellagio.

And, I almost forgot - Brian also used Cello for a GIOMH album session - I believe it was for Paul McCartney's acoustic guitar on "A Friend Like You" - or maybe his lead vocal. Some part on that album (possibly that song) was done at Sunset Sound, and one part at Cello. Meanwhile, the entire track "Desert Drive" was done at Ocean Way "United" Studio B - possibly the first time Brian ever cut in that room. My research data on that album is saved to an old floppy disk, which can't be accessed by my current computer config, so I'm going entirely on memory here. Need to go to FedEx and get that transferred to a flash drive one of these days!

Interesting that Brian has mostly shied away from his old Western haunt in his solo career - perhaps he associates that place too much with the BBs. But even in the mid-'90s, when he was recording with Don Was, as well as Joe Thomas for "Everything I Need", he used the old United side - despite the fact that Don Was apparently used both (and Was definitely utilized all rooms of the Western side for the Rolling Stones Bridges To Babylon sessions in '97).

Awesomely interesting stuff guys. I don't really get caught up on the semantics of what the BB's call these studios in modern times. They've fallen victim to all of the issues that accompany passage of time, age, conflation of stories, etc.

But all of the underlying info being unearthed here is what is interesting!

It was interesting when I posted it here a year ago.

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,18510.0.html (http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,18510.0.html)

Great stuff! 

Thanks Andrew, Craig, and gf for sleuthing and shedding light on one of the more confusing aspects of Beach Boys history . . .

A year ago when I posted much of the same info Andrew posted in this thread, I got a "beating the dead horse" icon as a reply which closed that thread (click on the link, it's all there). Just recently I got a PM saying my posts were too long. The search function works well on this board, it's been said in the past.

Interesting how the same info goes from kicking a dead horse to interesting after a year's timeout. Either that or Bill Putnam's echo chambers at United/Western had a longer delay time than anyone realized, in this case a year.

Yeah something is fishy here for sure.

IIRC, GF, I made that distinction earlier than anyone else on the board. But so what? Facts are facts, and it's nice to bring them to light, especially when someone who should know better (Alan) spreads misinformation.

As I mentioned earlier, I think this is awesome information, and I love when myths are debunked. I probably enjoy that *too* much sometimes.

If Al being wrong was the impetus for clarifying this issue (again), then that’s ultimately a good thing.

But I also don’t see Al (or Brian, or anyone) messing this up as particularly shocking, and relative to every other thing the BBs have gotten wrong over the years, this mistake is not near the top of the list, and is actually in some ways an understandable mix-up. I went back and read that old thread that GF linked (which, as far as I can tell, I didn’t read a year ago), and even though GF and I disagree sometimes (autotune, etc.), I actually think his post on that old thread made some really interesting points as far as why it would make sense for these guys to mix up the two studios. As others suggested, I “Google Mapped” the street view, and they’re arguably *literally* a stone’s throw away from each other. Also, as GF mentioned, it was all under the same management back then. Considering someone like Al especially didn’t do a ton of studio work in LA in the 80s and 90s for instance and wasn’t constantly at this complex after the 60s, I could easily see Al or Brian messing this up.

Do I find it plausible, as Wirestone asked in the old thread, that Brian literally thinks his current Ocean Way/United haunt is his hold Western haunt? Totally. I'm not saying he does think that, but it's plausible to me. The way these guys (or anyone’s) memory can slowly change over time, and things can be seemingly vividly recalled yet be totally re-molded over time (didn’t someone post that Al tells some old story that is actually an old David Marks story, where he presumably was told the story back then and re-remembers that he was there when he wasn’t?), I totally buy that the mistake about the studios was made decades ago, and the whole time some or all of these guys think they’ve been working in the same studio. Or, maybe they feel like Western and United were kind of the same studio "complex" back then, so Ocean Way/United is “Western” enough for them. Or maybe because they did do a bit of work here and there at United years ago, and maybe also wandered into other people’s sessions over the years, and certainly passed right by the building a million times back then, they still feel Ocean Way/United is one of the “old haunts.”

If Western and United had been across town from each other, or in different cities or states or countries, the mistake would be less understandable (though still not implausible).

Thing is, though, I'm pretty sure that Brian went back to the *actual* Pet Sounds studio for documentaries / photographs / etc. And they used it for Love & Mercy too, right? At some point he has to realize that the sites are different.

Very true. I would have to guess that, if there had previously been some confusion, once they went back to the original Western location, especially for something like "Love & Mercy", that confusion would be cleared up.

I think the cases of saying "this is the same studio" can be explained (theoretically) by the idea that Brian saw the whole complex as one studio. However, if there are cases where they have been at Ocean Way/United and asserted they are in the very room that a bunch of classic BB sessions took place, then that would be much more difficult to explain/understand, especially once they've been back to that little room back at the old Western building.

And if we're fishing for firsties here, let me link to these posts --

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,12323.msg249598.html#msg249598

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,12323.msg249677.html#msg249677

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,12323.msg249679.html#msg249679

-- in which I established this back in February of 2012. So no need to get crabby about who went first, because IT WAS ME.

 ;D

Cheers Alan!   ;D

The details through the decades get a little more complex, but from the time Bill Putnam bought the neighboring Western (which was separated from United by an empty lot), it not only became one complex but it also became one company as well. If you were an employee on the staff, your paychecks were signed by the same person. There was no separation in a corporate sense, it was Western United or United Western along with Putnam's electronics company called UREI that became Universal Audio. Putnam outfitted his studios with his own UREI equipment, and in the mid 60's the only studio rooms that were not fully outfitted with Putnam's current designs were two United rooms that still had console designs Putnam had in his studio before he moved to LA and bought the United facility (backed in part by Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby who remained some of Bill's highest-profile clients into the late 60's, also explaining why Sinatra's Rat Pack friends who were on hie Reprise label recorded there so often).

If you see any old track sheets or other literature, the United rooms are labeled with letters and the Western rooms are numbered, hence Brian's personal favorite of the time Western 3. But all of the staff worked together under the same corporate umbrella and name, there was no separation between United engineers and Western engineers, they'd work whichever room they were booked to work. All the United Western studios shared the same echo chambers, the engineers working a session at United room A would tap into the same echo chambers as Western 3. In the 60's they also got a closed-circuit TV monitor system to link certain studios together which helped bring in more film and film scoring clients.

So if someone was a Putnam employee, they'd be working at United Western and getting the paychecks from the same place no matter where physically they actually worked day-to-day.

When Allen Sides bought the facilities, he bought United Western's studios. He renamed it Ocean Way. So for a time, what Allen Sides owned and ran as Ocean Way was all of the rooms, both United and Western together. When he sold off the Western part of it, that's what got renamed Cello and that's what went bankrupt in the mid 2000's. Ocean Way remained the "United" rooms.

Further on that, there are interviews with Sides himself who perhaps cleared it up better than all. In the decades leading up to him owning Ocean Way, several of the individual rooms were renovated to change with the times. This included, according to Sides, an attempt to "deaden" the room itself...and again according to Sides, it was that kind of renovation which stripped the room of all the characteristics that made it a great live room in the first place. But there was a time where that "dead" studio sound was what clients wanted, and that's what studios had to offer to bring in business. The "dead" room is almost a polar opposite of how producers like Brian and Spector cut their records and made these studios legendary in the first place.

But - some of the rooms were left more intact and true to what they had been in the 60's, down to the acoustic tiling on the walls and other details that helped create the sound of those rooms that everyone began to want again in the business. Plug in those variables, and it might help explain why artists looking for those legendary room sounds and characteristics associated with Putnam's studios of the 60's might book the rooms that were closer to how they were back in the day versus ones which had been renovated through the years and whose sound had changed with the designs.

Bottom line, though, for decades after Putnam first grabbed Western and created the complex United Western, and up until Sides sold the Western rooms to the Cello people, the facility was thought of as one location more often than I think might be considered by those looking back on the history of it. The everyday business of this studio since the Beach Boys first booked time while rooms were still being built up in their earlier days was far less separate than i think has been reported, in terms of the people who worked there and who recorded there. It was United Western, then it was Ocean Way. All the rooms under one complex, sharing facilities and staff, separated by the distance of a lot in between the actual buildings, but part of the same complex.

Did you get the beating the dead horse icon? Nope.

The issue comes down to people who worked and recorded there for decades, up into the Ocean Way era prior to the sale to Cello, knew it as the complex of studios on that street owned by Bill Putnam and later Allen Sides where all kinds of great records were made and where Putnam's designs and equipment were installed. The parsing and detailing of what was where and what it was called was not as much a consideration when they were fully operational versus when outsiders looked back on it through history. It was the same company, same complex, same people working there when you went to those facilities for a session.

The point is GF, they may be in the same complex but the room Brian uses now is not where he cut the hits.  It's romantic storytelling to have this said whenever Brian is back in a studio.  It's misleading and not true, like a lot of stories in Beach Boys world.  Imagine McCartney was recording in studio 1 at Abbey Road and writers/group members said "He's back where he recorded with the Beatles" would that be ok?  It's in the same building after all.  

The point being made is that the rooms Brian used in the 60s and has used througout his solo career are not the same.  No agendas, no-one being critical of Brian.  Just people trying to get the historically accurate facts.

I can see this thread going downhill like so many of the others lately. Shame.

Its not about the "facts" that led to already known information to be reposted in this thread.


All these rooms are still a part of the same recording complex in LA.

The thread isn't going bad. I think the issue is that "these aren't the same studios!" continues to be argued, when nobody is disagreeing. Everybody stipulates to the presented facts.

I think some folks are simply trying to figure out *why* Brian or Al or whomever might be mistaken. Al Jardine isn't trying to be a d**k and spread false rumors about Western and United studios. He's mistaken for a number of possible reasons, of which some folks are trying to understand. Whereas some cases of being mistaken make no sense whatsoever (a band member indicating to a fan that they think "Smiley Smile" never came out and was a bootleg), I think Al or Brian or whomever mixing up Western and United *totally* makes sense once we learn about the nature of how the studios were situated and owned and operated. Given what we know about their memories, and about how myth can become memory, I'm not all surprised that these guys could mix the two studios up.

The McCartney/Abbey Road analogy is a bit dicey. The Beatles (and McCartney post-Beatles) were in all three studios at one point or another over the years. If McCartney walked into the Abbey Road building and headed into Studio One and someone said "McCartney is back at the studio where he recorded with the Beatles", I wouldn't really find that statement to be incorrect. It eventually devolves into symantics. Do we mean "studio" as in the whole facility, or an individual studio within the studio complex? Of course, I always prefer as much specificity as possible. If McCartney is in Studio One or Studio Three and says "this is the exact room where we recorded most of the Beatles stuff", that would be incorrect. But it's not always that clear cut.

HeyJude, the discussion is a good one, but unfortunately there is an undercurrent suggesting agendas because Andrew posted stuff that had already been posted.  Looking at some of the other linked threads people get defensive when it's suggested that Brian's memory may not be what it is, as if people have it in for him.  That's not the case. And as we know, all the guys have selective memories and, as you say, the myth becomes the memory! Nothing cynical going on I'm sure.

I'm pretty sure Brian knows exactly what room Western 3 is, and that United A and B are not that room.

My issue going back to the thread last year concerns this idea that something needs to be fact-checked regarding the studio naming and the whole ball of wax, and I think it's being called an issue much more specifically than it really is, if it's an issue at all. In the thread posted above (http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,18510.0.html (http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,18510.0.html)), with the interview from Mix magazine, at no point did Brian's engineer or anyone in that article suggest anything about the Western 3 connection, and at no point did the official press release from the new owners of the Ocean Way complex mention Brian or the Beach Boys when announcing the acquisition and name change.

For all that could be checked into, calling this one a myth that needs busting doesn't seem to measure up, since no one is really putting this kind of info out there in such a specific way.

The points I tried to make were how people who worked and recorded there decades ago might still consider both of those buildings part of the same complex, which they were, part of the same company, which they were, and perhaps even call them Bill Putnam's studios, which they were. If you go back to when Allen Sides owned all the rooms and called them Ocean Way, an interview from that time you might see would not be wrong if it said "this is where Pet Sounds was recorded" because when Sides owned the whole complex, that included studio #3. It's when he sold the Western rooms off that "Ocean Way" became a separate entity in a way that perhaps only people in the industry would know about.

Again, this isn't much of an issue - Perhaps to someone who recorded there in the 60's or 70's, or even recorded at Ocean Way up to the time Sides parted it out to other owners, these were still "Bill Putnam's studios" and part of the complex that was UA-United-Western back in the glory days of the 60's and 70's. The separation seen today by fans looking back was perhaps not an issue with people who actually worked there. You would book time with the office that ran the whole complex, and from there the specific room was chosen.

Simple as that. It's like some of the old-school guys still calling an electric bass a "Fender Bass", it's the difference between how they worked every day back then and what people today say instead. Just like artists from the 60's who recorded at Putnam's studios might still consider that part of the same complex. The McCartney example holds true for me - If Paul were seen going into Abbey Road to record, I don't think it would be wrong if someone said "Paul is going back to the studio where he made all those Beatles hits!", no matter which room he actually ended up going into. It's McCartney cutting tracks at Abbey Road. No need to define further or put an asterisk next to the statement to qualify which door he opened.

Some other interesting things to note. The United rooms are often listed as the ones Sinatra and the Rat Pack preferred. Sinatra actually liked Western 1 the best for a lot of his Reprise era, and would try to get his sessions booked there.

I also saw a stat that the time in the 60's when Putnam's studios were as hot as any rooms in the US as far as cutting hit records and being in demand, his bookings per month would have been the 2015 equivalent of around a million dollars a month in revenue from these sessions. That is staggering.

There is an interesting footnote regarding the Cello studios. When John Frusciante and Josh Klinghoffer were recording John's 2004 solo album "Shadows Collide With People" at Cello, John said Brian Wilson showed up at the studio and was working in the room next door to him. John said he and Josh had their ears up to the walls trying to listen to what Brian was working on. So that story places Brian at Cello, according to John, but outside of the year I don't know of any specific dates for exactly when this session would have been.

That COULD be the "A Friend Like You" session I mentioned - which would mean Paul McCartney was also there! - but more likely, that was late 2003. Were any of the interview scenes from the BWPS DVD shot in the old Western (then Cello) 3 room? That could be why Brian was there at that time.

In the ESQ interview, Alan specifically states they recorded "California Girls" in studio B of what is now Ocean Way. They didn't. Track was cut at Western, vocals at Columbia. That was  what made me smile, the rest flowed from there.  :)

COMMENT:

All of this history is quite interesting. When working on 20/20 some tapes that we used had come from Western or United, but the guys did not seem to make any distinction between the two studios – for what it’s worth.

I attended Junior High School in Sarasota, Florida. After school I worked at a studio there called Hack Swing Studios. The main studio had been a design by Bill Putnam using polycylindrical diffusers and such; one of the live studio types, before the advent of multi-track recording or stereophonic sound usurered in more deadened acoustics. One day Mr. Putnam came to make some “adjustments” to the room and I had occasion to see him at work and discuss with him what he was doing. At the time I did not realize the man’s stature or reputation in the industry, so this wiry young kid, who ran the console for a daily radio show, probably asked a lot of stupid and naive questions of the man, but I did learn much from my inquiries. Little would I have suspected how much his influence would be interwoven in my later life. When I designed a large studio for the Premore Studio Complex, just a few miles away from Bill’s studio, I again utilized polycylindrical diffusers, thinking back at my more youthful experience and what I had learned from the man.

During the time we recorded 20/20 we did some sweetening sessions at Western or United or wherever Studio 3 was located (United I think). It wasn’t so much the room that was the reason for going there, rather the piano. I think the Studio 3 piano gleaned as much respect and praise as the room itself. I know many musicians, including Brian, tried to buy the instrument, offering huge sums of money for it, only to be told NOT FOR SALE. It was a standard size or “studio” size Steinway built before the famous and awful fire that wiped out much of the seasoned wood at the Steinway factory. The black beauty was not a beautiful piano to look at. It was all scuffed up and scratched from years of session abuse. A major amount of dust covered the sounding board and was quite visible beneath the strings. Cigarette burns left telltale signatures near the keyboard. Evidence of forgetfulness as take after take took the player’s attention from the burning weed. As the felt at the tip of each striker hardened over the years, it gave the instrument the uncanny ability to “cut” through complex mixes as the hardness stressed the upper harmonics – in a natural way, unlike EQ. A much desired quality. You could place a microphone anywhere near the harp and get a rich and vibrant sound. And of course, so many legends had used the keys, it expelled its own myth just to sit at the keys and stroke them. Even the cracks between the keys told stories.

By the time I was involved, the studio remained unchanged, but the control room had been modernized to accommodate multi-track and stereo recording. A transistorized board had replaced Putnam’s old tube console and the monitors were some combination of JBL and other elements. The only thing I remember remaining was a celebrated small hole in the wall near the door that someone had placed a makeshift frame around. It was said to have been made by Murry Wilson in a fit of rage one day as he banged his fist in anger against the wall and fractured the thin coating of the wall covering, leaving broken wooden fragments surrounding the remaining hole.

I don’t know what the sessions were called when next I visited Studio 3, but one of you who posts here may know what I’m speaking of.  During Brian’s troubled times, management and the guys got the idea that he might be stimulated out of his depression if Studio 3, his favorite,  could be rejuvenated to the former glory as it was when he used it back in his more productive days. So the call went out for equipment. One of the original Putnam boards was removed from a movie studio museum, re-tubed at considerable expense, all the contacts cleaned and serviced. A plywood framework was constructed over the modern console and the old tube console plopped right on top of the modules, knobs and all. It was a twelve-channel model using left-center-right hard panning with three big VU meters on the meter-bridge. One of the senior maintenance engineers had an Ampex four-track stored in his basement, also of tube design. It was moved from it’s resting place to again be put into service in Studio 3. Three Altec speaker boxes were placed on a superstructure support and in front of the newer monitors. These were the same Altec speakers that Brian had used at Columbia a decade earlier for his hit making back then. The thinking being that he would be inclined to relate to that monitor sound rather than the newer sound of the present units. I think by then that Chuck Britz had retired, but he was happy to come over for a few days and run the session, again working with his old friend. So there it was, a re-creation of the early Studio 3, same room, same monitors, same console, the same tape recorder, and the same engineer. As many of the musicians Brian had worked with in his past were contacted, and came to play whatever he wished that day.

My role on this momentous occasion was to run a recorder and two mics that would capture everything that happened in the control room, otherwise I had little involvement other than to be blown away by the wonderful, fantastic, full-bodied sound that this old equipment was producing. As one tape filled up, I quickly mounted another and continued making or rather documenting all the comments being made in the control room.

As I recall, after one or one and one-half days of these retro-sessions, it all stopped rather abruptly. It wasn’t working. Brian felt pressured. He was not comfortable. The music was uninspired. It just wasn’t going to happen.

I have no idea where the tapes I recorded are. Maybe in the vault somewhere, or lost. Maybe one of you can shed some light on this, but that is all I recall.

Well there is one more thing about Studio 3. I can’t remember who it was but someone from the office, the Beach Boy office, called me one day to join them in one last look-see walk through Studio 3 before it was torn down or changed or something like that. We arrived, and it was in a state of abandonment. The floor was full of holes, the acoustic tiles on the walls were in taters. It had been gutted. One light worked, casting a silhouette of skeletal memories on all that was remaining of a once famous room … and it was sad. You could almost hear the musical shadows from a glorious past, as if captured by the walls and crying for release to make one last take.   :'(

~Stephen W. Desper   

Stephen, I'm quite sure the sessions in question were what led into the Keepin' The Summer Alive album, in July of '79. On the 23rd of that month, Brian cut the Spector tune "Little Girl" and another oldie, "Jamaica Farewell". The next day, he did tracks for Chuck Berry's "School Days" and the oldie "Stranded in the Jungle". "School Days"" ended up transferred to 24-track and finished for the album. I think "Little Girl" was redone, and the track ended up the basis for a new song, Brian and Mike's "Sunshine", from the same album.

COMMENT:  What an interesting succession of recording subjects. When I was there, little did I know that some of these songs would later be worked on further by myself. Life is interesting!

Any idea where the "documentation tapes" have ended up?  ~swd

Thanks for adding that info, this was the impression I got from hearing/reading other people who worked at or recorded at the Putnam studios as well, from the 60's up to the point where Allen Sides split up Ocean Way and sold off those Western rooms which became Cello. The separation of the actual rooms (United and Western's rooms)  versus referring to the facility or complex as a single entity (Bill Putnam's studios, UA, later Ocean Way, etc)  wasn't as much of an issue at the time among those working there as it became later when researching it in retrospect. That could explain some of the terminology and statements.

On the issue of the sessions where the original studio was recreated for a Brian session...fascinating details! I just wanted to add that Hal Blaine has also talked about these sessions as well in interviews and his book, but perhaps we'd need to check on the timeline that Hal wrote in his book. He described *two* separate sessions where the old gang was brought back together for a session "like the old days". The first was one called by Terry Melcher at RCA where the Wrecking Crew was reassembled but nothing really productive came out of it.

The second one he described was the one where Chuck Britz was involved, it has to be the one Stephen described above, but Hal says it was 1982, and wrote "Western 1" as the studio, but that could be a mistake considering all the other info out there and how Western 3 would have been the obvious choice. Hal said Chuck Britz was the one who called him for this later Western session, and that it was indeed an attempt to recreate the glory days of the 60's sessions, but says Brian was more actively involved in this one and healthier than he was on the earlier Melcher-led RCA session.

Again it could be another case of taking it with a grain of salt as far as those dates from Hal but it's interesting that according to Hal there were two attempts over a decade after the fact to bring back the original session players from the Wrecking Crew to inspire the music, and as Stephen described the Chuck Britz session had an all-out effort to recreate those glorious studio sounds as well with the original studio equipment.

Fabulous post Stephen!  ;D. Thanks for sharing some more of the memories of someone who was there.  Gives us a real feel for that old piano!  On a side note, The piano in Abbey Road studio 2 was still there in 2007.  I wonder what happened to the one at Western?

It would be easier to pinpoint if there were more dates and details about the John Frusciante/Josh Klinghoffer sessions at Cello but the only dates I've seen were on a session from January 2003 at Cello with John and Josh. Apart from what's out there and until more dates might come out, it's really hard to pinpoint exactly what they were doing and when, and more important what Brian was doing there. If John was listening (or trying to listen with ear against the wall), it could suggest Brian was there in a musical sense rather than the interview filming.

Just an interesting side note about John Frusciante - The "Shadows Collide With People" album was the solo album he wrote when the Chili Peppers were doing By The Way, and it was going to be his first (expensive) fully produced solo album, using pro studios rather than piecing together home recordings as he had done in the past. But the By The Way album was by and large John's production, with him doing the arrangements, backing vocals, writing the backing tracks, chords, working on words with Kiedis, etc. Here's the kind of cool connection.

John originally had songs in mind that were more of a punk influence, but when he talked to Rick Rubin, he got moved in a more melodic direction, and different chord structures than he had in mind. More Beatles, Elton John influence with the writing than the lesser-known punk bands John had been listening to around this time. Then Rubin suggested John get into some vocal harmony for the songs. So John immersed himself in the music of the Beach Boys and Brian's arrangements and productions. Toward the latter part of the By The Way sessions, he went all-out with the Brian vocal sounds and influence in his arrangements and you can hear which tracks on the album had that influence. Walls of vocals, many of them stacked by John himself, in overdubs.

Then the crazy part was John is in Cello recording his solo album after By The Way, having gone head-first into Brian's music, including Smile bootlegs and the whole lot...and in comes Brian Wilson to the same studios where much of that music was made. That's kind of cool in an odd timing sense.

There were three 1982 sessions held at Western that Hal could have been remembering, late May & early June.

On a side note, Chuck was back on the Western payroll in early 1985, when Steve very kindly arranged for me to interview him in the Western Three control room.

This is very sad.  I guess now we can take solace that Brian is in a healthier mindset now.  My guess is that for him, presently, it would take too much time and trouble to assemble the remains of the Wrecking Crew.  It would be much easier to record every musician separately and track everything separately.  Sad indeed that the music was uninspired...  :(