The Smiley Smile Message Board

I caught up with Don Was last night at the "Stones In Exile" premiere at the MOMA and he told me that he was recording with Brian last Monday (May 3rd). He didn't go into specifics, but when I threw out that he should connect with him as I thought that Brian's in need of an "outside" producer these days, he gladly offered up the info.

Huh. Very inneresting.

Gershwin project is done, I think, so this would be something different ...

Yuck.  I'm not excited to hear this at all.

Would you care to tell us all why you feel that way? Your comment gives us no reason why you feel so yucky about it.

Well, this is the thing. Brian can produce these two Disney albums himself. (With the help of the band brain trust, of course).

But if he wants to make another original studio album, one that isn't overtly thematic, I think it make sense to have an outside producer working with him. Don and he clearly get along, and it was always a rather unfinished chapter of Brian's 90s work -- that they didn't manage to make an original album to sit alongside IJWMFTT.

So I'm game to hear what comes from it. Although, given the circumstances, Brian could have just been recording backing vocals for another person's track.

I hope this is more than a guest appearance from Brian, personally.
I think it was too bad that nothing more came out of their mid-90s collaboration other than the documentary and its soundtrack.

If I'm not mistaken, didn't the "Gettin' In Over My Head" album have one or two things lifted from a few of Brian's other Don Was sessions?

I don't know anything about this, but that's what I'd guess is happening.

Also, keep in mind that when the Tasty Brothers were let go, Brian called up Don and asked him to be the new bass player for the BW band and Don politely said he didn't have the time. I like Brett Simons quite a bit, but Don would've been really cool!

For one, I think IJWMFTT is unlistenable.

Don is a proven producer, and given the previous material to work with
was an unenviable task. You can hang that on BW, solamente .


Does the phrase "polishing a turd" help ?.

When it came out I played it for about 8 months non-stop. I still really like it.

Nope, as far as I know - had a few leftovers from Joe Thomas, mind.

And Wilson/Paley.  Maybe you're thinking of "Soul Searchin'", which Don co-produced for The Beach Boys...however, the backing track heard on the bootlegs, and used later by Brian on the "GIOHH" album, was flown-in from the previous Wilson/Paley sessions, and therefore not a Don Was outtake.

Although Carl's vocal track was.

Ah, the confusion of BW/BB world!

Actually, Carl's vocal was produced by Brian.

Now that you mention it -- right. Cindy Lee Berryhill was at the session, IIRC, and she said that Brian was directing the vocals while Don was taking a lot of phone calls.

Yes, "Soul Searchin" was what I was thinking of. Thanks for clearing that up.

Geez, lotsa leftovers on "Gettin' In Over My Head" eh?

All but one and a half.

Someone once proposed, quite seriously, that the whole point of GIOMH was Brian's management trying to shaft the bootleggers by putting out previously unreleased songs.

:) if that's true, then it makes me wonder why:

a) they didn't just put out the unreleased songs themselves

b) why they made worse versions of the unreleased songs.

Surely GIOMH was an attempt to pad out the Wilson back-catalogue using Smile as a bargaining chip?

I've been corresponding quite a bit lately with Andy Paley… He remembers those sessions at Oceanway very fondly. Also says that the Beach Boys were diggin' the songs and having an overall good time.

Don Was and I sat together in the El Rey back in 2001 for the CWF show, and when Brian performed "Heroes And Villains" he leaned over and asked me if there was a studio version that was exactly the same as what Brian had just performed. Brian's eventual 2004 SMiLE release was close…

GIOMH served a purpose...it whetted the appetite for SMiLE for the public and the record company. It got some fair quality material out - though Brian's enthusiasm clearly wavers depending on which track one is listening to. And its solid (if unspectacular) sales proved Brian could still sell records.

Solid sales ?  A single week in the Top 200 Album chart (at #100) and US sales of roughly 100,000 ? Not my idea of solid in 2004.

GIOMH sold 100K in the USA?  Any idea how many copies SMiLE has sold?

Less than 500,000, but it at least made the Top 20. TLOS sold pretty decently too. Actually, both sold outstandingly well for a cult artist, which Brian basically is.

Considering BWPS had something like 37 years advance rolling publicity, and that various folks, some from Brian's org, were guaranteeing it would go gold by Christmas 2004, the sales were disappointing. As for TLOS, during the first week of four in the Top 200, it sold 21,000 units.

From AGD's site:

"Reunited under the aegis of Don Was, Brian and The Beach Boys start cutting tracks for a
  proposed reunion album, but after two songs have been roughed out, the project collapses
  during a backing vocal session for "Dancin' The Night Away" when Carl walks out."

Is there any more info on these sessions ie. other tracks worked on?
Thanks!

Ah... wrote that some time ago, need to revise it.

Carl actually walked out of the November 1995 sessions with Don. "Dancin'..." and another track possibly called "Grace Of My Heart" were recorded March 3rd 1995 at Mark Linett's studio.

The November Oceanway sessions were as follows:

  7 - session: Must Be A Miracle/Soul Searchin'/Turn On Your Love Light*/It's Not Easy Being Me/You're Still A Mystery
  8 - session: Must Be A Miracle/Soul Searchin'/Turn On Your Love Light*/It's Not Easy Being Me/You're Still A Mystery
16 - session: Soul Searchin' [vocals]
17 - session: Soul Searchin' [vocals]

(* - no, I don't know either...)

Sales are tough, though. I recall at the time that one of the issues with BWPS sales was that Nonesuch didn't print as many copies as they could have sold the first couple of weeks -- and after that point, the initial demand was gone.

I would be interested to know -- for both GIOMH and BWPS -- how many copes were actually pressed.

Turn On Your Love Light was written with Tony Asher.