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 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

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

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

Plus That Lucky Old Sun demos: 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.

...I seem to be in the minority in thinking it blows the Smiley version out of the water and that it fits well with the Cycle of Life songs.

That bunch of disconnected weirdness on Smiley isn't even a song to me.  THIS is Windchimes.  THAT is an abomination

Also, speculation on whether GV was meant for the album?  I think it being printed on the cover 3 times would be a clue.  This is the 60s equivalent of a "Contains the hit single Good Vibrations!" sticker on the shrink wrap

No need for speculation - "This LP will include Good Vibrations" -Brian Wilson in 1966 on Smile

I'm not crazy about the fly-in's.

I know this may be blasphemous, but wouldn't it be less jarring for the listener to just have Al or Mike discretely cut new leads for those two bits and maybe push them deep into the mix so they don't stick out so much? Even just as an alternative?

I really, really wouldn't have minded some bonus tracks that did this. Totally blasphemous, but it would've been cool.

This is what I expected of the whole album.  They should have gotten Al, Mike, Bruce and Fosget to finish the album properly.  I was very very disappointed that they basically recreated a bunch of fanmixes and still gave us just hints of what could be

The whole point of the Smile sessions coming out in 2011 is that the original recordings were being released, not finished... it's an unfinished album. If you're looking for a newly recorded finished album with new lyrics from the 21st century, Brian had that covered in 2004.

it's most prominent section is just a retread of the H&V theme,

Actually it is the other way around: The H&V chorus is just a retread of the Bicycle Rider section of DYLW.

But how do you know these were even meant to be separate songs?  Most of the album is logged under H&V, even stuff that has no relation to H&V.  I think Worms was just parts of H&V that eventually got separated and made into another song, just like many other pieces

Because Heroes And Villains and Do You Like Worms were both being worked on at the same time, and initially had no musical material in common, just like any 2 songs on an album. Brian also included both in the track listing he had done for the mockup covers. You have to look at things in the context of when they were worked on chronologically - once the chorus from Do You Like Worms was repurposed for Heroes And Villains, DYLW was never touched again. No part of Heroes And Villains became its own song - it happened the other way around, with Brian borrowing sections from his own songs to use in Heroes.

FWIW, this was posted on the Beach Boys' Facebook profile:


Got a groovy little motor car… 🚗
Can you guess which track off of #FeelFlows is coming out this Friday?
Pre-order #FeelFlows here: https://TheBeachBoys.lnk.to/FeelFlows

Yep, the July '76 Anaheim performance of Susie Cincinnati has been out in countries where it's Friday.

That first track you mention is simply a new mix of Surf's Up as it was presented on The Smile Sessions, with Brian's lead vocal synced to the "First Movement" track.

The second one has been described by Alan Boyd here long ago - because Brian was unwilling to record a vocal on the First Movement track in 1971, Carl overdubbed the first part of his piano version with a bunch of session musicians in an attempt to copy Brian's First Movement arrangement. This didn't work out, and Brian still didn't want to sing it, so Carl just ended up doing the vocal.

As excited as I am for the FF set, THIS is the period I'm more interested in, in a way. Can you imagine if "Fading Love Song" existed with a Brian lead? Or the full band version of "In The Country" with Al singing? Or the original "Beatrice From Baltimore". Then there's the "Sail On Sailor" demo.

Unfortunately, you'll have to keep imagining to manifest any of those into the world. Apart from the Sail On Sailor demo, maybe... if the alleged collector holding it ever surfaces.

Do you think there's a chance that one of the group members recorded a lead on the "In The Country" backing track?

No, it's just the Goldberg lead. But of course there's the later bootlegged organ version with Al on lead.

The Surf's Up 1971 remake track with 1966 Brian vocals is a weird thing. It's intriguing, but not a great listening experience. I wonder just how much of it was flown-in. Perhaps the muted trumpets were also flown-in. I think I would have preferred hearing the 1971 backing track as it was left, but it's still nice to be able to hear it in some form.

What do you mean by "flown-in"? It's presented exactly as recorded; no extra instruments were added.

Patty Cake was never recorded, and I'm not convinced Brian ever even wrote it. I think the song may just be a very often-repeated myth. The earliest source I could find was David Leaf's book, and he made it sound like Brian talked about writing a song about Patty Cake in a 1973 interview. Listening to the interview, he says no such thing. As much as I want it to be true, I think it's just another Beach Boys Myth.

Considering 'Til I Die is one of my all time favorites, it's hard to find too many songs from afterward that I'd consider better, but I've always preferred A Day In The Life Of A Tree (which was written and recorded after TID). I think I can also throw Let's Put Our Hearts Together, The Night Was So Young, and Still I Dream Of It on that list.

But those are just songs I'd consider better - obviously there are dozens and dozens of great songs he has written since!

I'd like to say thanks too - staggering! Something in there to delight all listeners.

Looking forward to the whole, but in terms of individual tracks too, I'm most excited about Back Home Live '76; the new Dennis material; Big Sur; Back Home demo; When Girls Get Together and Awake. Not to mention the new album mixes.

Thanks for ensuring it was released guys.

There are no new album mixes

I'd really wanted the raspberries/strawberries recording origins of at my window

and the Coca-Cola recording origins of cool cool water

with 5 discs there certainly was enough space and perfect setting needless to say

another wasted opportunity

There wasn't an early recording of At My Window called Raspberries, Strawberries as some articles claim. Just an early title they were using for the same recording that came out on Sunflower

I don't think you'll hear a single one of those (aside from the occasional "Disney Girls").

I saw the "Wild Honey" tour in 2017. The setlist included ONE song from the album...and it WASN'T "Wild Honey"!

"Feel Flows", when out of context, sounds like generic hippie/surfer lingo. I suspect there will be absolutely no mention of the tour name or its relevance whatsoever, and 95% of the audience at these shows won't care.

They're adding Feel Flows to the setlist. And they've been doing Forever at almost every show

I am unironically looking forward to the live Disney Girls from 1982

There seems to be two techniques in question here. Chuck implied Murry would just want to pin the levels so they're in the red to create - in Murry's mind I guess - excitement or power in the track, or whatever. That's pretty common for people who are not as skilled in mixing tracks. More volume in the monitors during the mix equals "better". People sometimes think louder is better, call it psychology or whatever. But if it makes clients happy in the moment, they will come back and play you more money lol. I was at a mixdown session at the former Sony studios in NYC where they literally had the volume so loud during the playback it hurt, not just my ears either. Rock track, party atmosphere, with some people who are or would become pretty well-known in the biz...but it was ridiculously loud for no reason I could see (or hear). But that's what the people there were grooving on.

The thing Murry described in the interview is more nuanced, and it's a technique which an outboard compressor (or limiting amplifier for those who want technical accuracy) does electronically, and automatically. When a vocalist starts trailing off on a note, or runs out of breath sustaining a note, both the volume decreases and the pitch will drop too. A compressor will automatically boost the volume at that trail-off point when necessary, and it levels everything out. The old-school engineers would sometimes prefer to manually "ride" the fader pots on lead vocals instead of using the compressor, and I've read that Sinatra's crew at Putnam's studios - specifically Jimmy Bowen who I *think* was mixing those Reprise sessions - would mix all of that manually, riding the vocals the whole time while going with the ebb and flow of the music. Engineers who were even then used to patching in a compressor/limiter device to do that would watch these live mixes go down and be kind of amazed at how musical the fader-riding process was, because it was even then considered old-school in some circles.

And in terms of pitch trailing off as the singer runs out of breath, that was one of the killer apps of Antares' Autotune, where if it was set just right the Autotune would kick in at that trail-off point and correct the wavering pitch as the singer started to lose breath at the end of a note or phrase. That's how that tool is used transparently, unless the singer was really drifting off, no one would notice the pitch-up at the end of those phrases but it would make a pretty significant difference in the mix to have a solid sustained vocal note remaining in-tune the entire time. And that is completely separate from the deliberate overuse of the tool, aka Kanye and T-Pain and 99% of all pop and R&B music in the past two decades.

So according to Chuck, Murry was talking s**t and they just tricked him to appease him in the booth after which they'd do the real mixing of the track. Yet Murry himself - seeming to yet again take more credit than he was due in the process - describes a valid fader-boosting technique that would enhance vocal tracks, but which most engineers would be doing in general anyway with or without outboard compressors, and without Murry's orders.

I guess the answer lies somewhere in between. And I'd *still* like to know both if and when they rigged up a fake console for Murry to twiddle knobs and do all his "surges" while the actual mixing was being done without his input or barking of orders. 

Yep, it seems Murry at least believed he was telling the truth here, and was unaware that Chuck wasn't actually letting him "surge" the vocals.

Now would be a good time to bring up one of my favorite Chuck Britz quotes...

"I know Murry said things like 'surge, surge, surge' to me all the time. And I just turned up the monitor to make him think I was surging. His idea was to pin those needles right up on the board and I kept saying, 'Murry, you can't do that, you're not going to get anything worthwhile.' I finally just started lowering everything way down on the machines so he could look up and see those needles pegging and then I just turned the monitor up to full bore and he'd think I was surging like crazy."

"Also, how did Carl get the sole production credit for TTGA if Brian was involved all the way?"

because the song literally was stolen from Brian

I have given you help on where to find the recording sessions on recent releases. I quoted Brian talking about how excited he was about this song for the beach boys in 1968, and told you where you can listen to him talk about it. If you reject real live evidence in order to support a narrative, there's no point in continuing this conversation.

if TTGA was truly finished it could've, and should've been left (the tapes that is) for Redwood, instead of Mike absconding with same.  Listening to it (on the 3 dog night CD) I get the distinct impression it wasn't quite done (there're parts that don't transition perfectly).  Hence the possible reason for the TTGA session that fateful day, and Mike not wanting Brian to work on it there anymore.  It is certainly true the song waited past the wild honey, past the friends (and technically past the stock-o-tracks) albums to find release eventually on 20/20.  It is also true the entire basic track was re-recorded when finally released on 20/20

Almost all of this is untrue. If you seek out some recent releases, you can hear Time to Get Alone in its various stages - the Carl/Brian duet version from the Wild Honey sessions on Sunshine Tomorrow, Brian's Friends era demo on Wake the World, and an a cappella mix on I Can Hear Music. Brian's even on tape on the last of those saying "you know, come to think of it, this might be a hit record." The unused remake track that you seem to be confused about is on I Can Hear Music as well.

And, whether or not the Redwood vocals sound good to you, their version is a completed mono master. If they stuck with the song at the time, that exact mix would've been released.

as I understand it the redwood incident, where Mike (and Carl) confronted Brian in a hostile and demeaning way (being that the redwood members were just outside the door) was a Time To Get Alone recording session, and the song was nearly finished for them (as opposed to Darlin' which had the instrumental track done but needed more vocals).  And yet Mike & Carl took and walked away with the tapes for both songs then.  Why both?  They could've just taken the Darlin' tape(s) and leave TTGA tape behind for possible redwood release on Brother, at least for the time being.  Greedy?  Yes!  After all the Beach Boys didn't get around to doing anything with TTGA for at least another year (and in the end they re-recorded everything, duplicating the redwood instrumentation already done).  Quite insulting.

In 1967 Brian blundered when he couldn't complete SMiLE and backing out of Monterey Pop appearance at the last moment.  However it should be emphasized embarking on Redwood was not a blunder, far from it when one considers the enormous record success 3 Dog Night would enjoy starting just 2 yrs more time.  And the Brother Records label could've had a big piece of that pie thanks to Brians desire, vision, and music producing talent also in 1967.  Boy did his bandmates get things profoundly backwards

The song wasn't "nearly finished" by Redwood, it was finished. And Brian and Carl worked on it right after it was returned to the Beach Boys, during the Wild Honey sessions.

So why would Brian change the sound for the purpose of live shows when they weren't going to play those songs live? I'm just not hearing that idea in the arrangements or the songwriting in any of Wild Honey.

No, that is not the version of So Long that Brian and Gary recorded. Sounds like Brian revisited the song later, perhaps during the Sweet Insanity period.

It should be worth noting that the only songs the boys played live for more than one day on their next tour were Wild Honey and Darlin' - both tracks having pretty layered productions with lots of percussion overdubs, electro-theremin on the former, and horns on the latter.

The "Til I Die piano demo and some of the This Whole World material from the Feel Flows box set samples sound like they may have been sourced from these CDs, maybe a quiet deal was struck to obtain them from Klay and get some of it released.

This is not what happened. These are completely new mixes done in 2019-2020.

What nobody seems to be mentioning here is that that part is a 2-part harmony, and given the Beach Boys' typical working methods, both were probably recorded together - as Adrian remembers singing on it, I bet it's Bruce and Adrian (Bruce singing the higher of the two). At least that's how it sounds to me.

Perhaps interesting to note that in barbershop harmony, the roles are called Bass, Baritone, Lead, and Tenor -- and that's true regardless of the genders of the participants.

The "high voice wail" part that is sung by Brian and is featured on a lot of BV on Beach Boys records in the 60's is falsetto, but on lead vocals in the early years of the Beach Boys Brian was (in most cases) mainly attempting to replicate Bob Flanagan's part in the Four Freshmen, which was a jazzy barbershop tenor or even high tenor, not falsetto.

See, that's where I disagree.  I think Brian was a sort of leggiero tenor type voice that mixed a lot of head voice into the timbre pretty low in his range and never needed to open his vocal folds to produce falsetto.

In his 'classic' 60s period, Brian would switch between normal (chest) voice and falsetto (head) voice all the time, whether doing backing or lead vocals.  But at this time his 'normal' vocal range was so high that it could overlap with his falsetto range.  By which I mean, some notes he could choose to since either chest voice or falsetto, depending on the dynamic of the song,  A good example is  Don't Worry Baby.  By way of demonstration here's the opening sections, where I've highlighted in yellow where (I believe) he switches to falsetto.  But for sure there's very little difference in the timbre of his head and chest voice, which is unusual.

Well it's been building up inside of me
For oh I don't know how long
I don't know why
But I keep thinking
Something's bound to go wrong
But she looks in my eyes
And makes me realize
when she says
Don't worry, baby
Everything will turn out alright

I agree that Brian sings those lines in head voice, which is different to his chest voice, but I think it's misleading to suggest head voice and falsetto are in any way equivalent. They are two very different methods of singing, but both allow a singer to reach higher notes than possible in a full chest voice. Without a doubt, he is using his head voice there.