The Smiley Smile Message Board

Just saw this, so apologies if there's already a thread. I checked Brian Wilson's website for tours and noticed a link to the 1995 version of Desert Drive on YouTube. Found here: https://youtu.be/Md__7YYNbxA (https://youtu.be/Md__7YYNbxA) The description mentions more demos available on his website. Many of these I've never heard in such good quality before.

These are divided into different decades and include the Paley sessions: https://brianwilson-2022.squarespace.com/1990s (https://brianwilson-2022.squarespace.com/1990s)

His 80s work: https://brianwilson-2022.squarespace.com/1980s (https://brianwilson-2022.squarespace.com/1980s)

And Love You demos: https://brianwilson-2022.squarespace.com/1970s (https://brianwilson-2022.squarespace.com/1970s)

Plus That Lucky Old Sun demos: https://brianwilson-2022.squarespace.com/2000s (https://brianwilson-2022.squarespace.com/2000s)

Includes a lot of famous bootlegs (Bob Dylanless Spirit of Rock 'n' Roll, what was called Turning Point is apparently named "Angel," Terry She Needs Me, some of the Paley sessions) and some real curiosities (like an alternate mix of Sunshine, a version of Let's Go To Heaven In My Car which sounds nearly identical to the single, and a clip from the tracking session for Child Is The Father Of The Man and Surf's Up).

Is a Brian-centric box set imminent? Or are these just a website exclusive?

The song on here as "Angel" that was bootlegged as "Turning Point" is actually titled "So Long." The "unknown harmonies" track on here was uploaded to Soundcloud a while back; that's a later version of the same song.

WHOAH. This is amazing. I have a deep affection for many of these tunes, incredible to hear them in perfect sound quality after poor quality boots for years.

Yes, what indeed was the purpose of BW's people posting these? Definitely begs the question.

Also these were clearly posted roughly without quality control; at the end of Turning Point, there's 17 seconds of silence with a few random blips of other songs for a split second.

Not that I'm complaining.
I just wonder if these are up as a temp/test thing, listen to them while you can folks.

Really digging the Let's Go to Heaven in My Car demo, especially the cut-from-the-final-version response vocals on the choruses.

Probably for people to listen to

Holy crap! Well, there we have it. That's pretty much a rarities dump that equates to a whole new record.

Christmas came early.  ;D

Soul Searchin' sounds maybe a little compressed (?) , but it's the original version (and far superior one imo)! Love that Carl ooh oh ooooohhh hoooh on the start of the verses  :love

I know the lyrics aren't the greatest, but I freakin' love the "Spirit of Rock and Roll"....   I can't listen to that one without hours later still be singing to myself, "The spirit, the spirit, the spirit of rock and roll"

Interesting how "Black Widow" was rewritten as "Let's Do It Again."   I forgot, was Black Widow itself recycled from something else?

Nothing from Brian's own career. It's got a very strange, unique riff in the verses that he hadn't used before and hasn't used since

I’ve always loved I’m Broke. Nice to hear in better quality finally.

I'd tend to think this would be done with more fanfare and publicity as part of some sort of overarching project that would be announced, but maybe they are just dropping little goodies for people at random. Time will tell. In any case I am grateful to hear these songs.

This song has some of my favorite melodies from Brian's entire solo career. Very strange indeed, some ascending vocal melodies that almost didn't quite seem to make sense yet they sound killer, and a very unique BW type of way.

Also how about all of those guitars on the demo of "sunshine" from 1997? Definitely very unexpected to me.

New documentary coming out soon.

It's the two 2004 Smile sessions which brought me the most pleasure. Apart from being revelatory, (those horns on Look, wow!), they also brought it home to me again just how authentic the 2004 version of Smile was, even down to the ensemble nature of the recordings. To hear such a session recording complete with Brian on talk-back.... is simply magical.

I would love to hear these complete sessions. Perhaps if I make it to 2054.

I am awestruck. What a treat we get to hear these (and in such good quality)!

A whole lotta fascinating stuff, all over the six-dimensional map that is Brian's life and career. But that last part of the "Surf's Up" session, when the track is put together with the piano prominent and punchy as all get-out, with the chords alternately floating and bouncing, is definitely what the music of heaven must be like--and if it isn't, I ain't going there!  :smokin

Rolling Stone has covered it: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/brian-wilson-tour-demos-rarities-new-website-1199434/

This is a nice dump of a sampling of outtakes. It seems like these are unedited versions in some cases of clips Brian's Instagram had posted in previous years.

And it does sound like they're more or less un-futzed with. The '86 Usher Demos and the '95 Paley tracks are the same mixes more or less that we've heard before, but now in MUCH better sound quality.

Finally, a near-pristine copy of the original '95 lead vocal for "You're Still a Mystery", and also "Gettin' In Over My Head."

One might be surprised they left "Terry She Needs Me" off the 2000 BW '88 reissue CD, but it does have a lot of missing lyrics, and no backing vocals. Still interesting.

Nice to have a pristine '86 "Spirit of Rock and Roll" as well.

Don't forget this different mix of Desert Drive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md__7YYNbxA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md__7YYNbxA)  :bw

Best personal music news in a long time in my opinion. Love all of these tracks.

Two things I noticed:

1. Each track has Album and Track # metadata. "Brian Wilson Personal Songs" in the Album field for almost all. Two say "Wilson/Paley Sessions". Track numbers are not sequential.
2. Under 1970s for "Brian Talks About the Songs", the "It's OK" track is actually a video file, if you find the direct link. But it's only an archival photo with the audio playing over. Text appears saying "Brian on "It's OK"".

Also, the two "Wilson/Paley Sessions" tracks have this cover artwork:

(https://i.ibb.co/b2GrKm6/brian.jpg)

And most tracks are dated 2012.

So thrilled to have an official release of the original You're Still a Mystery vocal! Would love to be able to purchase this, but wow, what an unexpected treat.

I second that!   :hat

I particularly enjoyed Sunshine. Clearly an album of Imagination demos would have been miles better than what was actually released.

This is all amazing stuff! I've always treasured those 80s and 90s songs and to finally hear them in good sound quality is fantastic. It's incredible how these recordings didn't come out the way they are. I swear the Paley recordings would have been a critical smash for Brian in the 90s - although probably not a huge commercial success, but then again Imagination didn't exactly sell like hot cakes either, so...

That isn't a demo, it's an early mix of the track that's actually on the album.

There are a number of these new tracks that the website has labeled as "Demo" that surely aren't; I think they're being pretty loose with their definitions. We know Andy Paley has said he didn't consider the stuff he was doing with Brian as "demos", yet some of the Paley tracks are labeled as such.

The '76 piano stuff is clearly "demos" in the more traditional sense; he's demonstrating the songs. 

The Usher stuff is kind of "demos", though some of it (e.g. "Spirit of Rock and Roll") got built into something that was aired as "finished" product on TV (in the case of that track and the BB 25th Anniversary show).

Thanks - I guess I mean an album of rough mixes then, without having been buffed and polished into smooth and easy nothingness.

In the truest sense of the word, I think the only things that should be called 'demos' here are the Love You songs. If Usher considered those obviously quite elaborate studio productions demos, but Brian didn't, and some were built into actual finished products, shouldn't we take Brian's definition here when it's his music?

A number of things labelled 'demo' are older mixes of tracks that were actually released, which feels kind of absurd.

Regarding the Paley/Was sessions at least, and I'll have to dig to find it to confirm, I think Don Was had referred to the sessions he was doing with Brian and Andy as demos even though they had the full band of session pros in the studio working up the tracks. From the descriptions he gave, they were building the tracks a lot of times in the studio, with Brian and Andy trying out different ideas on the spot. Of course that's not every song they did, but it felt like these tracks or the mixes we have heard from them were often demo mixes or rough mixes (reference mixes) which would be added to and fleshed out later.

The term "demo" is pretty loose when it comes to doing a bare-bones piano-vocal or piano-guitar tape like we hear on the Love You material, and that's what many think of for the term demo. But it's also used when they work up a track in the studio, maybe do a guide vocal and rough mix, and then later other musicians or a group like the Beach Boys would go back and recut it. How much of the "demo" they'd use would be up to them.

I can give dozens of examples of this through the years, where a backing track originally cut as a song demo ended up being pressed as the master track, or copied exactly for the master track. Some that even became top-ten hits. So it's not unusual to hear what sounds like a full band track referred to as a "demo" even though the term is more often known for being a stripped down vocal-piano tape, again like the Love You tracks. And as the years went on, the old-school stripped down demo got replaced by more fully-produced tracks anyway, especially since the 80's when sequencers and multitrack recorders became more affordable.



Whatever the case, this week's surprise releases/postings was terrific. Hot damn, that's how it's done!

Wow I just have to post. Gettin' In Over My Head in this pristine quality is a revelation. Wow.

It's great to see the Lucky Old Sun session video too, that's been one of my favorites so far. Something that further blows to bits those wacky notions on how "involved" Brian was in that and other projects of the past 20+ years. You see it right on the video, it could have been 1965 as much as the 2000's to see the man working in the studio producing and building up the tracks.

It's great to have them all collected in one place now, with the ones that had been digital posts previously alongside "new" releases. The quality is amazing. And that Smile session material...wow.

Regarding the "Demo" terminology, I'm sure this has been debated in the past.

I'd hold things to a bit of a higher standard on an actual release of the material as opposed to random (albeit very nice) tracks dropped on a website.

As far as I see it, I'm willing to use a somewhat loose definition. No, I wouldn't call an alternate mix of a finished studio track a "demo."

Technically, not even all early/rough/home recordings are "demos" as such. Are the "Cocaine Tapes" demos? Not really, that's just a random home recording. But if they put "Oh Lord" or "City Blues" from that tape on an archival release, I'd probably be fine calling those "Demos" even if they aren't literally for demonstration purposes. But maybe they are. Is Brian demonstrating them for Dennis or anybody else in the room?

For that matter, while the '76 piano tape seems to literally be Brian "demonstrating" the songs to Mike and possibly others in the room, what if we later found it *was* just a case of Brian playing songs and someone flipping on the recorder?

I'd generally lump "demos" into the category of "song demos", meaning just playing songs so people can hear them (e.g. the '76 piano tape), and then recordings that might be "song demos" but also a "recording demo", meaning a guide to how a finished studio recording might be. If we were to call Usher or Paley tracks "demos", they would be in this latter category.

Regarding specifically the Paley tracks, the only person I've seen who has stated emphatically that they are *not* demos and were in fact a document of work on what was going to be (or was already) a "finished" releasable master was Andy Paley, who in an interview with the short-lived petsounds.com website seem to be offended by the idea that his recordings with Brian were being called "demos". He seemed to firmly feel they could have been finished and released, going so far as to say he envisioned the Beach Boys could have cut vocals for *the entire album* in two days! Paley was that sure of his recordings and also that *impressed* with the skill and efficiency of the full Beach Boys vocal contingent laying down vocals.

Infamously, with Usher, it was the opposite. He describes in his book how he felt awkward knowing that Brian seemed to think they were like full-on recording an album, while Usher very much viewed this as a "demo" situation.

Ironically, in *both* cases, both Usher and Paley material ended up being used in various official/"finished" capacities. In particular, a number of Paley tracks have been released with only minimal additional overdubs or mixing/remixing.

Man, listening to some of this stuff, particularly the Brian-alone-with-piano stuff, it's yet another reminder what a once-in-a-generation musical talent the man possesses.    Not that anyone reading this board likely needs much in the way convincing of that, but, still, there it is.  What he has can't be taught.   You either have it or you don't, and the man has or had it in spades.

Heather Paley on Instagram: "Just saw this - sounds great! That’s my husband Andy on drums, bass, Fender 6-string bass, harpsichord and guitar; Michael Andreas on saxes and Brian on organ. This was produced by Andy and Brian, recorded in Glendale, engineered by Mark Linett. Brian and Andy wrote and recorded a bunch of great material during this period. They weren’t “demos” - they were masters in progress."

Well, there it is.

Well, I guess the recordings are whatever they are until something indicates otherwise.

Don Was re-cut the backing tracks to "Soul Searchin'" and "You're Still a Mystery"; does that make the Paley versions demos? I have no idea. I guess they just become "Alternate Versions." Then they ended up reverting to Paley's backing track for "Soul Searchin'", but Was's remains for "Mystery."

I think it's mostly a misnomer to use "Demo" to describe the Paley tracks. Paley certainly intended/assumed they were working up to commercial release (or potential release), and they're generally arranged and recorded with enough instrumentation that it seems weird to call them "Demos." And some of the tracks have been released mostly untouched.

On the other hand, if the aversion to calling them demos comes more from a level of defensiveness regarding the mere idea that they could have or should have been *re-recorded*, then of course that was proven not to be the case as a number of the tracks were later re-worked or partially or fully re-recorded. And most of the Paley stuff eventually released more or less "as is" have been featured not on things presented as "new" albums, but instead various archival compilations where the line between "new" track and "archival/rough/unreleased" track becomes blurred.

Let's look at the Paley tracks (from the common group of "Paley sessions", not including a few other collabs) we know of that we've heard.

The following have been released more or less "as-is" without any notable latter-day overdubs:

In My Moondreams - Released 1995
This Song Wants to Sleep With You Tonight - Released 1995
Some Sweet Day - Released 2017
Soul Searchin' - Rejiggered BB version using Was vocals and Paley backing - Released 2013
Soul Searchin' - Rejiggered BB version using Was vocals and Paley backing, but with less vocal overdubs - Released 2021 on Brian's website
Soul Searchin' - Rejiggered Brian solo version using Paley backing, Was vocals for Carl's lead, new Brian vocals, and some new instrumental overdubs - Released 2004
*You're Still a Mystery - BB-billed version featuring 1995 Was/Paley track and BB backing vocals, with 1999 Brian lead vocal overdub - Released 2013
*You're Still a Mystery - Brian-billed version featuring 1995 Was/Paley track and BB backing vocals, with original 1995 Brian lead - Released 2021 on Brian's website

* - I guess it's debatable whether "You're Still a Mystery" is fully part of the main "Paley Sessions", as both the track and vocals come from the later Was sessions (also attended by and/or co-produced by Paley).

We also have the rest of the recently-unveiled website tracks that seem to include the original Paley Sessions recordings, billed, even if erroneously, as "Demos" (likely simply to flag that they're unreleased archival tracks):

Gettin' In Over My Head - Released 2021
Desert Drive - Released 2021
I'm Broke - Released 2021
Saturday Morning in the City - Released 2021

Then there are the other GIOMH album track(s) utilizing some elements of the Paley tracks (to what degree is I guess still debated maybe?) but with some amount of latter-day overdubs:

Saturday Morning in the City

At least one track that was completely re-made from scratch post-Paley Sessions:

Gettin' In Over My Head - Backing track from Circa '97 Joe Thomas sessions, Overdubs circa early 2000s - Released 2004

And another re-made prior to the GIOMH sessions and then finishe during GIOMH:

Desert Drive - Recorded circa 2002 & 2004 - Released 2004

Then everything else still remains officially unreleased:

Proud Mary
Chain Reaction of Love
It's Not Easy Being Me
Market Place
Must Be a Miracle
My Mary Anne
Slightly American Music
Frankie Avalon
Elbow '63
God Did It
Going Home
What Rock and Roll Can Do
Dancing the Night Away

(and a few various mixes/versions of the above, such as Paley's guide on "Soul Searchin'", and the lengthy studio control room playback video for "Dancing the Night Away").

I forget all of the additional titles supposedly cut during that time. I know the early 80s song "The Boogie's Back in Town" was one of them. We still haven't heard exactly what constituted "Baywatch Nights."

The main takeaways from looking at this (surely incomplete, off-the-top-of-my-head) list are: One, it's a rather nebulous enterprise to determine what exactly to call this material; it's kind of a mess release-wise. Secondly, an easy solution that screams out here, especially given Brian's website teasing more or less pristine versions of a few more of the songs (and no apparent aversion at this point to releasing earlier versions of songs Brian later released on albums), is to release all of these sessions in a nice package.

It's interesting as well that while Paley thought of his material as "masters", while Usher thought of his material as "demos", Brian over the years ended up treating their work together respectively somewhat similarly.

That is, in both cases, a few rando tracks were officially released from the collaborations somewhat contemporaneously with the initial recording time frame. Then, over the years, a few of the songs got partly or fully re-made. Then a few things were used as bonus tracks on archival releases. And then, some tracks still remain completely unreleased.

The Desert Drive version on the GIOMH album doesn't use any Paley-era recordings, as far as I know. It was recorded in 2002, a year before the rest of the GIOMH sessions (excluding the even older material):

http://bellagio10452.com/gigs02.html

Ah, makes sense. Maybe my brain remembered it pre-dated the "proper" GIOMH sessions. And/or I was remembering it "resurfaced" a few years prior during the 2001 Paul Simon tour.

I remember Bob Hanes telling some epic stories about those early 2000s Brian/Andy sessions.....

That was the missing piece! When Andy filled in on the road in 2001, the BW band started performing Desert Drive. And then that same group, more or less, went into the studio the next year to record it.

That version of "Spirit of Rock n Roll" is a revelation. Brilliant to finally have a good clean full length release of the 1986 'finished' song. It's hands down the best version out there now.

I think the aversion to calling the Wilson/Paley tracks demos is that they're not demos, basically. 'Version' - that's a word you can use.

Andy's been clear that this wasn't an album project. He and Brian were making music because they wanted to make music, no definitive destination. At times, it was The Beach Boys, and at others, there was hope that a Brian solo record deal could be struck. But any discussion was for these recordings that they'd been working on to be finished to their ideal standard and put out in some way, not the songs - Don Was doing them over was a compromise to allow the Beach Boys thing to happen.

You wouldn't steal a car, you wouldn't call Sherry She Needs Me a demo for She Says That She Needs Me, etc.

I think the confusion and splitting hairs over the term "demo" related to the Paley material is because people know these tracks from several time periods, so there cannot be a one size fits all label or definition put on them. For me, some of the confusion comes from which ones were later revisited and reworked, and sometimes even that was done multiple times. So it's good to see research like the Paul Simon tour point raised a few posts ago, that does clear it up.

Consider that a lot of info came from the publicity that was surrounding the Don Was documentary, and interviews given at that specific time. And at that specific time, we'll narrow it to late '95 into early '96, there are specific mentions made of these sessions and sometimes individual songs too.

What sticks out for me is Brian saying he and Andy had "38 songs written", and when asked if they had done demos for them, Brian said "we have about 20 demo tracks". That interview was given a week after Brian, Andy, Don, and the session players were cutting the basic tracks to "Soul Searchin" which was in mind for a Beach Boys track, and according to Brian, Carl liked it. At that time at least. And Don Was a few months earlier said the pair had around "40 songs" which matches exactly what Brian said months later. And in that interview, again months prior to Brian's interview above and before the session guys had done the basics for "Soul Searchin", a cassette was played at Brian's house during the interview which had "Gettin In Over My Head", "Chain Reaction Of Love", "Slightly American Music", and others. And Brian also played a cassette of "Proud Mary" which he had recorded with Don.

So add up everything that has leaked, streamed, been written about, etc and there were obviously what they called "demos" among those recordings. Were they bare-bones piano and vocal demos like the Love You material streamed this week? I doubt it, because that's not how Brian and Andy seemed to be working. But were there actual demos of songs among that mix of 20 which Brian mentioned that have leaked out and which were done before they were given full band sessions like "Soul Searchin" was described? Absolutely.

I guess more pieces of the puzzle need to fall into place to clarify, because when a song is demo'ed, tracked, overdubbed onto, revisited, remade, re-recorded, etc over the span of 7 years or more, you'll have a handful of cassettes or DAT tapes with rough and reference mixes to wade through, and it gets confusing unless absolute information on dates and what it actually is would be included with a given recording.

I'd also suggest if "Soul Searchin", for one example, existed in a more complete version or even with backing tracks ready for a vocal on top and a final mix, they could have used that instead of having Don Was and the session pros cut it that week before Brian's interview.

But I readily admit, this stuff can confuse the hell out of me.  ;D

I don't want to belabor the point, as I agree "demo" is a misnomer for the Paley stuff.

I guess what I was getting at is that my sense is that Paley's scoffing at the stuff being called "demos" has less to do with the semantics of the definition of the word, and more to do with the simple and understandable fact that calling them "demos" could be considered insulting. The guy who co-wrote the stuff, co-produced it, and played many if not most of the instruments doesn't like his stuff being called "demos" because it implies the stuff sounds unfinished or rough or somehow not up to "releasable" standards. I can understand his viewing that as an affront.

I can also understand fans, especially decades ago with little info other than the not-so-great-sounding circulating tapes, thinking or feeling the stuff was "demos", if elaborate ones. Some tracks have Paley guide vocals, some have only what sound like scratch/guide lead vocals and/or sparse (for Brian) backing vocals. While the brass and other overdubs sounds way too elaborate for demos, other backing tracks sounds more sparse. And again, the audio quality on the stuff, and the fact that it was unreleased, probably led to people calling them "demos" as shorthand.

And the good man himself sitting next to Brian in the video.

Back during the recording of the Wilson/Paley productions, Andy was on record saying, "These aren't demos - we're recording masters". When Don Was got involved, he (Was) referred to them as demos. Brian and Andy pretty clearly thought of their work as masters, whereas Was considered those to be demos, and that he'd be producing the final masters (hence, his re-recording the track for SOUL SEARCHIN'). Something Joe Thomas also felt he'd be doing (hence, his re-recording the track for GETTIN' IN OVER MY HEAD). I think most of us here would agree that when something is so perfect, and full of the right feeling - you should just let it be. Nothing wrong with these "demos"...nothing to be improved upon.

But it's understandable why Don Was re-recorded some of that material when you factor in how Don was specifically going for a production like Brian would have done in the 60's with a new version of the "Wrecking Crew" cutting the tracks live on the studio floor. In contrast, Andy was playing the bulk of the instrumental tracks himself as overdubs, and as good as those were it was not the production mindset Don had brought to the table for these projects. And after Summer In Paradise flopped with it's digital cut-and-paste production, I think Beach Boys fans were hoping for a return to the classic production sounds of the mid 60's (well, not think exactly, I know because I was one of many fans I knew at this time saying the same things...) and Don went into the projects with that exact mindset like Brian would cut tracks with the session guys live. And naturally not all 38-40 songs would make the cut.


I also can't get past the fact that Brian said "we have about 20 demo tracks" when asked about it a week after the Soul Searchin tracking sessions with Don and Andy and the session players.

Well, at that particular moment in time, the tracks by Brian and Andy were being handled as demos for Was to reproduce. Before and shortly after those sessions with the Beach Boys, they were masters. I think it's been said by insiders that one of the reasons Was walked away from further involvement that he realised he couldn't improve their work, hence Mark trying a sync of the Soul Searchin' vocals to Paley's track back in '95.

Not saying that wasn't an issue but there was a lot more at play in 1996 than Don Was walking because he couldn't improve on those original tracks.

For one, Joe Thomas had entered the scene through his contact with Mike, with the idea of the Stars & Stripes project, which was already being worked on in 1995. Eventually all talk of and plans for a new original Beach Boys album in 1996 was dropped in favor of Stars & Stripes and promoting that on TV and in live appearances.

Another bigger one was Carl putting the kibosh on Wilson/Paley tracks like Soul Searchin' and ending it with a dull thud. This was after Brian had told an interviewer just after the Soul Searchin tracking date with Don how much Carl liked the track and Andy too.

Bruce thought it would be a good idea to invite Sean O'Hagan in to co-produce with Brian after hearing "Hawaii" and had at least Carl on board with the idea, obviously that didn't end well.

Richard Branson came calling with an offer for the BB's to sign a deal with his Virgin label, again each "camp" of the band wanted something in that deal including Brian who wanted co-production credit (as did any labels who were interested since 1970) and a solo album deal, and that didn't work either.


So after all that - and this period was a real mess for the band where each "camp" got even more segmented behind the scenes than most fans know - Don Was had a situation where Carl vetoed the idea of releasing songs like Soul Searchin and instead just months after the interview where Brian was enthusiastic about working with Don and Andy, and all plans for a new release of original Beach Boys music were scrapped in favor of a country covers album.

At that point, with all that happening, it wasn't a case of Don not being able to improve previous recordings, but rather he got swept up in yet another period of inner turmoil within the band and the project he had been working on got scrapped outright in favor of Stars & Stripes, and other factions within the band were scouting other producers and still chasing a label deal. All of this was late 95 into 96.

I'm aware of all that - did say 'one of'.

For that matter, those lucky old son recordings aren’t precisely demos either — fairly sure that elements from those made it to the final album as well.

I'm especially digging those BWPS sessions. Just wow.

While, as I've been saying, I have no problem using a descriptor for the Paley stuff other than "demos" (especially if presented in some sort of actual release), I don't think any incredulity is in order when it comes to other people calling them "demos." Brian sort of called them demos at some point, his website calls them demos now, Don Was apparently considered them demos in some fashion, Joe Thomas considered them as some form of demo.

I mean, if we're willing to say that the labeling of a fixed recording as a "demo" can change over time depending on what subsequently happens, then I think that just as easily opens the door to making it easier to call the Paley stuff demos.

When Don Was tracked vocals for "Soul.." and "Mystery" in 1995 with Brian and the Beach Boys, he was using *new* backing tracks that he (Was) had cut/produced, for *both* tracks. At that point, Paley's previous versions were very much functioning as "demos". Perhaps we can call them "studio demos" to differentiate from impromptu/solo/home demos.

If this format/pattern had continued for an entire Was-produced Beach Boys album, with Was re-cutting backing tracks to songs Brian and Andy had written, it would be pretty easy to call those previous Paley-helmed recordings "demos."

Andy Paley may have been confident that what he was cutting with Brian was 100% commercially viable and unimpeachable, and fans can certainly weigh in and feel the stuff certainly meets most general criteria for "releasable", but that doesn't mean everybody would have felt that way. Indeed, Was re-cut those two backing tracks (assuming Paley had at some point cut a backing track to "Mystery", which, if true, is a track we haven't ever heard), and subsequently others felt that one possible angle in using the *material* was to re-record it.

In terms of the semantics of the terms, Paley's tracks in some cases served as "demos", but were also recorded in such a way that they could be presented as new, finished material on a new album. It easily could have shaken out in such a way that a 1996 Beach Boys album featured some re-made Paley tracks, some Paley tracks with further overdubs, and some Paley tracks more or less as-is.

I think where we're not getting as much into the weeds is to discuss the *quality* of what Paley and Brian cut. Not the quality of the *songs*, but the quality of the recordings/performances and in some cases mixes. And while I love the material, feel it is competently recorded, and I would love for the Beach Boys to have just overdubbed their vocals onto those tracks as-is and put the album out that way, I can also see how given the commercial instincts one might have to put out material in 1995/96, even new "retro" sounding material for a 60s band, one might feel the Paley recordings were a bit too sparse or unpolished or whatever term one might use to indicate that, "hey, these are good songs but maybe somebody like Don Was or Jeff Lynne or someone can come in and keep the retro sound while making it sound a bit more modern and commercial."

Other fans reading may not be as aware of the backstory or the context in which all this was happening, and there is even more to it than what's posted above.

I guess I read it and thought with Don Was' emotional involvement in working with Brian, and trying to facilitate getting the Beach Boys back together and recording with Brian in the studio, combined with his track record as a top producer with his own modern "wrecking crew" of studio pros available, he's not going to walk away from this because he couldn't re-capture the feel of the original Paley tracks. Again I'll repeat it could have been a factor, but in the context of everything that was going on, I don't see it as nearly that big of a factor as Carl vetoing the track(s) they were cutting and all attention being shifted to the Stars & Stripes project in the first half of '96. Don was basically shut down by those decisions, he had nothing left to do because the band members went in other directions.

I'll have to get the timeline but it could have been possible that by the time that interview with Brian appeared in a March '96 magazine article, with glowing praise and enthusiasm all around for what they were doing with Don and Andy in the studio, the decisions that scuppered the project had already been made. I just don't know the exact timeline, if anyone does, because it was all reported after the fact from private meetings among the band. But I know that when we were reading all of this enthusiastic reporting at the time, it felt like some amazing things were actually going to happen. I guess you had to be there to really get the sense of the impossible actually becoming possible while reading all that stuff and seeing reports about the band working together again and Brian back in the studio. And even enthusiasm for a new song called "Baywatch Nights" was high because it was reported as a genuine new Wilson/Love collaboration that was set to air on TV at some point.

As I mentioned on the previous page, a major part of what Don Was wanted to do in the studio was to record very much like how Brian was recording in 65-66, with a live band in the studio, made up of studio pros ready to execute ideas on the spot, to capture that energy and also to put Brian into that type of live energy situation as well. That's a totally different production mindset than what Brian and Andy had been doing, again absolutely not to take anything away from those tracks, but when you have one or two musicians building up a song one track at a time with overdubbing, it's not going to sound the same as having the players live on the studio floor adding to the process.

This is just my opinion, but I also think Don Was may have been playing that card in a very sly way in order to get the other Beach Boys on board with the project. Specifically, Mike has been saying for a long time how he wanted to write again with Brian in a room alone with a piano, and get back to making records like they did in the golden era of 1965, and here was Don Was offering something that would fit the bill. He had Mike and Brian working together on songs, he had a studio setup resembling how Brian did it in 65-66, and for a brief time it felt like fences were being mended and the Beach Boys were going to be working on original music together again.

Regarding Don Was's feeling about Paley's recordings versus his (Was), and Was's reasons for not continuing work on the project, I don't even know that we have a super clear picture.

I've certainly never had the impression Was walked away because he thought he "couldn't improve upon" Paley's recording work. (If there are interviews, I'd certainly be interested in reading them). I'm not even sure Was walked away so much as the various potential brewing group projects simply fizzled and then "Stars and Stripes" got the green light.

I do recall the one story about Was re-recording a backing track, and then slowly re-integrating Paley elements to the point where it was going to be the original Paley track. I think Was recognized in that case that he wasn't getting an improvement on Paley's track. But I'm not sure Was felt this was across the board.

I think just nothing effusively energetic was coming from the Beach Boys concerning working with Paley and/or Was in any particular configuration. We have the account of singer Cindy Lee Berryhill who described a lot of passive aggressive weirdness during the group vocal sessions for one or both tracks. Was and Paley are both there apparently. Mike asks who even wrote the material, Mike is being snarky, Brian surprisingly is being snarky right back to Mike.

Bruce Johnston would later describe that it was a "favor" for the band to work on those Brian/Andy tracks, seeming to feel the material wasn't that strong.

Carl's position on the material has been debated. We've established he didn't like the Was backing track for "Soul Searchin'", and this was rectified without Carl's knowledge (while Carl was still alive) by the first attempt to graft the Was vocals back onto the Paley backing track. Presumably he would have had a chance to hear this at some point had things gone better.

I recall Mike saying in the Carlin book that he was something like willing, but not enthusiastic to work on the material. In other interviews, I believe he has expressed a stronger liking for the material.

Al has said he liked the material.

Add to that all of the weird political/business/financial stuff that always goes along with these projects, and it's not that surprising that it all kind of fizzled.

It's interesting that Usher in the 80s and Paley (and to some degree Was) in the 90s couldn't make this format work, to bring in material worked on by Brian and one outsider for the band to work on.

Who eventually made this similar format work? Joe Thomas in 2011/12. What was the difference? Well, there were a lot of factors of course, but one factor was that Thomas also brought cash and organization to the table; he brought the full machine to make it all happen front-to-back. Thomas was able to secure funds and make the reunion project, including an album, happen. Whatever misgivings any member might have had about it being predominantly a Brian-and-one-outside-writer Beach Boys album were quelled by enough advance cash and ready-to-go deals to make it all happen. It's no fault of Usher and Paley that they did not have these types of resources (nor probably a willingness to be *the guy* in charge of the project).

IIRC Mike offered or agreed to write new lyrics for "Chain Reaction of Love".

Pretty wild to finally hear "Terry She Needs Me", since I knew they'd taken a stab at this song in 1987/88 for Brian's debut album, but I don't think it had ever circulated before this. Clearly, they didn't get very far in 1987/8! Still neat to hear.

IMO, "Sandy/Sherry She Needs Me" is the most inexplicable abandoned track in the Beach Boys' 1960s catalog. A gorgeous composition never quite brought to the finish line (even if "She Says That She Needs Me" gets close).

Regarding "You're Still a Mystery", who sings the "it's happening again, I thought you were my friend" sections?