The other "hotel tape" you're thinking of, John, is a video whereas the 1981 recording is just an audio recording.  The video you reference is from Toronto and was recorded on July 2nd, 1990.  This was two days before Jeff's final gig as a backing musician with the band (July 4th, 1990 in Maine).

John Stamos is the fourth person included on that tape along with Brian, Bruce and Foskett.  I don't know of anyone that has a good, clean copy of this although I imagine one exists somewhere.  All the copies I'm aware of are several generations old and it shows!

Mine is also a terrible quality copy, but it sure is fun to listen to, with everyone badgering Brian to play song after song (and him complying, mostly). But my favorite aspect is how Bruce keeps trying to show them what the Beach Boys were doing with Caroline No, and Brian keeps doing other things instead.

I don't know much about the sales figures themselves, but I'd imagine it will have its best weeks right away, the first week or two (as Smile did if I recall), just because of people like us and any (fingers crossed) promotional hype. But without some good marketing, I can't imagine it will continue to sell well over time, so it would likely hit a steep decline after that. As for whether it is in the BWPS territory or the GIOMH territory, I think marketing has the most to do with that: can they reach out to new audiences, or the same old fanatics?

If you'd like to hear three of my newly finished and newly posted songs, "Call it Love," "Something Better" and "Same Coffeepot," check out myspace.com/thebeaumondes. Yesterday a friend and I took care of a little bass (Same Coffeepot) and harmonies (the other two), and I put them up today. There's also yesterday's "A Matter of Fact" at the site, so there is plenty of newly completed material. All is freely downloadable if you want to take advantage. Hope you like some or all.

Carl's "Soulful Old Man Shunshine"

I wouldn't exactly call this an oddity in that it wasn't some strange thing that slipped by and got into a final mix, it was an error in a take of a never-finished song that was put together and released long after the fact as an archival thing.

Your point is taken into consideration. I will not, however, refrain from posting whatever I want, in whatever thread I want. Nor will I comment when others do the same. Thanks.

I posted my song "A Matter of Fact," finished (harmonies--done live, then doubled, so this isn't a wall-o-luther--and mixed) today. It is at: myspace.com/thebeaumondes. Hope you like it.

Right, those two tracks. In a previous draft of my post, I said "most of BB'85". Besides the two you mentioned, and perhaps I'm So Lonely, BB'85 was very "modern".

A better word to use: Adult contemporary!

Better still: sh*t.

I have to disagree with you, tpesky. 15 Big Ones, MIU, and KTSA are way more "oldies" than BB'85.

I think the 85 songs are almost as oldies-based, but their synth-heavy production might make them seem less so. Certainly Getcha Back, California Calling and tunes like those are as "oldies" as can be.

At :24 of "Wake the World" is a sound of something sliding over metal, but it doesn't sound like a cymbal or intentional percussion. To me, it always sounded like something across a metal music stand--maybe a capo or something sliding off it. But Mr. Desper responded to a post on this board that it was fred noise. Very odd that it's so loud if that's what it is, as you'd almost have to be intentionally mic'ing the neck. (Although Frank Zappa wrote that he did that sometimes, because he liked the percussive effect of his left hand fingers hitting the fretboard.)

I've been told repeatedly that both are "too Adult Contemporary sounding, they don't sound like Brian Wilson". At the same time, I'm being told that the production on the 1988 solo album is "too synthy". Honestly, I don't know what people want.

Well, different people want different things. But your note that people call Imagination and s/t too synthy, well, those are both valid. (OK, maybe not the "too" of each, as that's a matter of taste.) Imagination DOES sound very adult contemporary. And s/t is very synthy. So obviously, some people want a different sound than either of those. What would be hard to believe about that? Robert Fripp's early King Crimson work is too proggy for me; some of his instrumental soundscapes are too formless for me. It doesn't make me overly demanding--or demanding at all. It only means I don't like some of what he's done. It's the same with brian. We don't have to fawn over everything.

With each click I was expecting to see the Daniel Johnston version.

The Beach Boys are probably the ideal band for this kind of category, because there are so many unbelievably bad lyrics, whether they're just corny subject matter, bizarre, perverse or cliched. To add to it, some of the stylistic changes to the instrumental tracks made it even more prone to earning groans: disco, 80s cheese, or what-have-you. And yet they very often had really catchy material despite it. So of course one person's "bad" is another's gold. It's almost just a test of how far you let yourself be carried into the depths of uncoolness.

But then again, there's something about doing a straight-ahead song in the style of [whatever--doesn't matter] that I find cool, too. For Paul to unashamedly do "When I'm 64" or whatever is great. In a way, it's the same as how I like the Beach Boys' work on the Fat Boys' "Wipeout." They're adding a part to a rap song. It's fun. f*** what's cool.

... seemed like something out of the twenties.

No doubt Brian's got a lot of pre-rock influences. That's what I love most about his music, in fact. It's less the "Chuck Berry" or surf, and more the incorporation of standards, tin pan alley, Gershwin, etc. Must have seemed shockingly uncool in the late '60s, I'd think. Although Paul McCartney was doing some of the same stuff, I guess. What do I know about cool 10 years before I was born?

Not exactly, in that they're doing different rhythmic things--on a few, it's less on the quarter notes and using more pick-up notes in strumming (a little more typical on the guitar). But in terms of voicings, yes, there seems to be a lot of using those types of voicings. Plus, on Friends it seems that on several songs the guitar is doubling tack piano or organ parts, which plays with the sound somewhat. And then there's a sort of overarching exotic quality to the whole album (Hawaiian, bossa nova, etc.) that maybe implies sounds, too.

I understand what you mean, by the way. There is a certain kind of guitar-playing that is on that tune, along the lines of what jazz players do when playing rhythm in the "Freddie Greene" style. It tends to be up on the neck to use higher notes, getting out of the way of bass and some piano and cutting through the clutter, and hitting on straight quarter notes, really chiming out. That's similar to the sound you might expect of a uke player, for example. So it's not like you're way off base.

As we speak, I'm listening to Miles in the Sky, with Filies de Kilimanjaro up next. I love Miles, and bought the vast majority of his available collection when I was in college (about 10 years ago) and immediately thereafter. It's funny you say "in the genre," considering he dominated and/or pioneered several genres under the single "umbrella genre" of jazz. And his second great quintet of himself, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams is, to me, the greatest ensemble ever. Period. Miles Smiles strikes me as one of the most brilliant albums ever, as do several of his others: Kind of Blue, Sketches of Spain, Miles Ahead, Birth of the Cool, the aforementioned Filies..., On the Corner. I love him. He may have been an angry, racist, violent, misogynist bastard, but the man was a musical genius.

The only string instruments I hear in either the verses or refrains are guitars and bass. Well, and I guess piano is a string instrument. But no, no banjo or uke that I hear.

Yeah, that's what I said.

Well, it's not just Sunshine Fix and Circulatory System, you also have two Black Swan Network releases and one Frosted Ambassador. Then the two OTC albums-proper, plus the b-sides collection. All of these are available on vinyl, except Frosted Ambassador. So nine albums.

I wasn't saying that was all there were, btw. I was just saying that following those related bands could get trickier after those, which are pretty easy to find even in indie record stores. Oh, and you're missing an OTC album: the John Peel sessions album.

I hate Smiling Pets, although I do like the two OTC tunes most. Still, not much at all. I think the best albums coming out of the E6 crew these days are Of Montreal, Instruments and Hawk and a Hacksaw, all of which don't even really resemble the old E6 stereotypes much anymore.

Well, yeah I'm pretty sure we figured that out. What we need to figure out if its a cover or some sort of 'remake' of a song, and which one, or maybe a song by a band influenced by VU.

I think its gonna just end up being part of the original score, which if thats the case, who knows if we'll ever get to hear the whole thing (if more exists beside whats in the scene).

Hey, don't get sassy, chief. Anyway, if it's a cover, it's not a close one. It's vaguely VUish, probably by nobody in particular. (Like when Lou Reed was writing surfin' music for Pickwick, for example...)

See, that's just it: Sunshine Fix and Circulatory System, that's easy. But start chasing down the other dozen or so people's other bands, and then realizing they branch out into however many others ad infinitum... The Instruments, by the way, just released a new album, Dark Smaland. (Heather McIntosh leading a group with a few OTCers) Jeff Mangum sings prominent harmonies on a few tracks, as he has done for them on other albums.

Definitely not a VU recording.

And quite a few with the word "columnated," too. Well, one.