Horrible show anyway, those two couldn't interview themselves.

Anyone see when they had Art Garfunkel on there a few months back?, they got people with the name "Mrs. Robinson" to write in.. like Art gave a cr*p. I thought he, in particular, was very gracious in the face of a very tedious and insipid interview.

Shame he's not still producing music.

Dogbone

The last I heard of him was in the late 80's where he filled in for Roy Orbison on The Traveling Wilburys' "Vol. 2" album. Apparently the stuff recorded was so bad that the others kicked him out, destroyed the tapes and moved straight on to "Vol. 3". I hear that the split all stemmed from a fight after Zeppo broke one of Jeff Lynne's reverb units. Does anyone know anything else about this?

Also check this out from late 1977.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmDUAvCl87g

I actually like that approach!, sort of soul/doo-wop feel to it.

It would probably be considered heresy to some people, but I wouldn't be adverse to Brian singing it like this more often.





There, I said it. 

I think Bruce was saving all of his songs for when it became acceptable for white men to do Disco by this point 

Seriously though, I seem to recall that Mr Reilly had a hand in Bruce's diminishing participation on this album.

Do you think that Brian gave his all on this because of the esteem which he holds the song in?, by this I mean maybe he put the extra effort into it because he didn't want to do it an injustice.

Regarding Brian getting technical, I've seen a couple of interviews where he is at a mixing desk (the Endless Harmony one and one with George Martin come to mind) where he goes into more detail than he usually does, I sometimes think his surroundings are key, he usually goes into more detail about the musical side of things when there is a piano handy, so if he is able to mess about with a mixer during interviews, I'm wondering if that helps him to explain technical aspects without having to go through strenuous examples or something.

In some respects I don't see it as much different to a a live DVD or album being sourced from many different performances, but I also see it as frivolus editing, if they wanted to show McCartney there, show him there, there's no need to pretend it was from a night he wasn't actually there other than for looks.

I've noticed a great variance in quality of the new vinyl. I think they just press these things up knowing there are a bunch of suckers like me with an addiction to feed! Now if you are lucky enough to find some NM 60's/70's vinyl, it almost always sounds great. Especially 60's. Those records were made to last! Problem was, most people didn't have equipment back then to match the quality of the vinyl.

I know it's quite late into the 70's but I have two NM L.Ps that instantly come to mind when I read this; Peter Gabriel's first solo album (the one with the Car) and "Rising" by Rainbow - both of these albums have so much depth and clarity that it's unbelievable. I own both of these on C.D and they just don't have the same warmth and depth (and I'm rarely one of these Vinyl>CD people)

Wow, that's a difficult read. I'm (and I'm sure we all are) glad that that Brian persevered, and I think the finished product is made somewhat more special when this uphill struggle for Brian against his demons is taken into consideration.

I think that Darian is one of the best collaborators that Brian has had, not only do they work well on an artistic level, but Darian also knows when Brian is uncomfortable or unwilling to do something (which as previously mentioned, is not something that Brian always makes explicitly obvious). I think Brian knows and probably respects this which is how stuff like BWPS came to fruition, I think with a lesser collaborator Brian would have said "f*ck it" and we'd either have more SMiLE related bootlegs floating around of it would just be another of those "Hey, remember when Brian was talking about revisiting SMiLE?, I wondered what happened to that".
Also notice the vocal improvements between pre and post BWPS Brian?, I know he has had extensive coaching with his voice, but I'm wondering how much it's to do with the fact that Brian revisited that era, beat the demons tied up with it all and found a certain degree of peace with the whole thing and became more willing to take slight creative risks again.

He thought his fire music was the cause of a building burning down. So, yeah, it would be understandable.

I'm not so sure, yeah in 1967 he was affected by it, but I think he was in a much more rational state of mind by 2003

I was watching the "Beautiful Dreamer" doc again the other day and I ended up the same way that I always do, questioning if Brian would really have freaked out when the power went out when the band started rehearsing "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" (Fire), someone (I think Jeff) said something along the lines of "It's a good thing Brian wasn't here".

Now I know that Brian had some concerns about SMiLE even in 2003, but personally I think by then he was a rational enough man to not be reduced to a gibbering wreck in that situation, sure he may have been a little spooked, but who wouldn't?

Now, I don't object to what was said, I don't believe that it was meant in any offensive context, but I always wondered about "what if.."

Incidentally, I take it that Brian eventually found out about this, does anyone know how he reacted?

What always puzzled me (and hopefully someone can explain to me) is that when masters are lost why do people doing remasters track down a previously released source (L.P for example) instead of recreating the mix from the multis and going from there? is it a time/licensing thing or is it just laziness?, I'd have thought it would have lead to much better sound quality in the long run.

I love stuff like this. Like somebody mentioned in the Wrecking Crew thread going on, it's been 50 years now, and many of the participants are passing. So, I'd like to see somebody corral the surviving Beach Boys - especially Brian - and get as much information (even if it's inaccurate ) down. It's history. Important history.

I'd like each Beach Boys album and solo to be played to each member and let them say what the remember about it, what they'd change now etc. That would be cool.

Whitney Houston: 'I Will Always Love You'

What I dislike about this is the fact that the general public seem to be unaware that this is actually a Dolly Parton song, not only that but the original message of the song was killed in the context of that god-awful film.

Lynne worked with Brian already, and -as McParland put it- had Brian doing ELO.

This is very true, but I think he has come quite a way as a producer since then, did you hear his work on Regina Spektor's "Far" or Tom Petty's "Highway Companion" album?, if he done a job like that I think it could make for a very nice record.

The problem I have with this being a hoax, however elaborate, is that it's early 70's era Beach Boys -to be brutally honest- outside of us hardcores, not many people are going to give a monkey's about some newly discovered outtake from that era. If you go to youtube, you can end up wading in Beatles fakes - I think there are about 6 different "Carnival of Light"s. It's not going to gather the attention for it to be a good hoax or trick or whatever, especially two that don't even claim or pretend to have Beach Boys singing lead on them.

That being said, for me, the part that stinks is the recent overdubs, there have been far sloppier outtakes (and official products) released by the band and for the sake of a few drum fills seems needless. The only thing I can think is that in the case of "Sweet and Bitter" especially, maybe a "Soulful Old Man Sunshine" job was done (Compiling a master out of loads of different sources) and what we have is something that bares little resemblance to what the intended outcome was to be when it was recorded.

Or a trick of editing where there is more on the track than actually exists (recent overdubs, copying of recorded parts, etc). No one 40-odd years down the line is going to remember an afternoon spent recording a rough vocal to a rough track which was never completed. For example, the Bridge/Chorus section sounds quite alike on both passes (the double track slipping ever so slightly out of sync on  "It" on "It's meant to be" both times.

[horrible]

Rick Rubin would be a horrible choice. He's not really much of a producer, he's pretty hands off, but at the same time I don't think his style of saying "that sucks, go work on something new" would work well with somebody like Brian, who I feel needs encouragement to keep doing great work.

I think Jeff Lynne would be a good choice as producer, he can mix vocals like no one's business, is a technical genius and would probably have a few very good ideas to run with Brian, which in turn could possibly lead to Brian getting all competitive again and coming back with something even better, that's the thing I think, most (and I say most) of Brian's contemporaries are not putting out their best material these days and I'm sure he couldn't give a hoot about competing with modern artists musically.

Some interesting opinions, and I'm very excited about what's mentioned above.

I do think though that instead of looking at the recording and who does what in a sort of "who SHOULD do what" approach, they need to have a "who CAN do what" approach (if that makes sense), I mean Mike should have quite a few leads, but is his voice up it?, I mean Al, Brian and David can still belt them out. Al, Bruce and Brian can still hit high notes. With some coaching, could Mike get out a killer bass vocal like he used to be able to?.

As far as instrumentation goes looking at the surviving "Originals" (for the sake of argument this is including Bruce) We have Three keyboardists (Al, Brian, Bruce), Two bassists (Al, Brian) Three guitarists (Al, Bruce?, David) A (kind of) Drummer (Brian, but is he still tight enough and willing enough to drum on a record?) and a Saxophonist (Mike).

Now realistically, Brian is probably not up to drumming on a whole record unless it's 12 tracks of "Be My Baby" or "Love You 2013" (I want this album!! ) so they'd need a Drummer. Again, Brian doesn't always seem keen on playing bass, when was the last time he played bass on a record? (I'm thinking BW88) so that leaves Al. Bruce has stated in the past that he doesn't really like playing Guitar so that leaves Al and David. The three Keyboardists are competent enough so that's fine. Do we need a Saxophone?, if so can Mike still play?

Basically, they are going to need outside musicians at some point, but, theoretically, they could pretty much construct a record independently if they wanted too.

I think Brian may have remembered "Sweet and Bitter"
The Bridge to "Meet Me In My Dreams Tonight" shares quite a bit with the bridge in this.
The Chorus has something that reminds me of the "tag" to the "I'm Beggin' You Please" demo.

There's something else in this, especially in the bridge when Mike sings up (for lack of a better term) that is screaming out at me but I can't place what it's from. --EDIT-- It's the chorus to "Sherry She Needs Me", which, of course predates this, if Brian had a hand in writing this he may have recalled the melody, if not, it's probably just coincidence.

This, guys, is one of the reasons I love the Beach Boys, just when you think you've heard it all, something new comes along

I've only ever done "God Only Knows" with the help of some whiskey.
What amazed me about this was that (and bearing in mind I sung this at a karaoke night at a club aimed at people my age, 18-25 or whatever) when it reached the middle section and the tag at the end quite a few of the other people at the club joined in, which despite being rather... tuneless, was an amazing feeling

By this I mean songs by an artist that don't really fit into their typical style or genre.
I thought I'd start this thread with the Art Garfunkel song "Take Me Away" (Linked at the bottom)

I always thought that this song wouldn't sound out of place on "Pacific Ocean Blue" especially the backing track which has melodic guitars and booming synthesizers and multiple sections, in my opinion it is the best song that Garfunkel done in his solo career.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf7iEORiffs

Favourites:
1] SMiLE Sessions Box - What can I say, it's just brilliant.
2] Summer in Paradise - Grand, Majestic, if only the music inside was reflected by the cover, eh?
3] Love You - Fragmentary and strangely pretty, just like the music within.
4] BWPS - I like the fact that they didn't use the original cover, it differentiates between the two entities and I like the presentation of it, the reflective "SMiLE", the embossed bits.
5] Wild Honey - Hell, it just looks nice 

Least Favourites:
1] Made in U.S.A - It looks like a collection of Clip Arts before there was such a thing
2] BW88 - Looks like they had half a good picture of Brian and had to come up with something to fill the rest of the space.
3] Carl & The Passions - Although it came out exactly one year and a day beforehand it always reminds me of the equally poor "Now & Then" album cover by The Carpenters (great album, just a sucky cover)
4] 15 Big Ones - Looks as half-assed as the music inside it, Al looks like his Bus arrived just as the photo was being taken.
5] BB85 - I see this cover as a form of submission, the surrender of the last stand of creativity, fighting the early image, they succumbed to the nostalgia of the touring act.

I think whoever it could have been would have had to have been a musician, someone who could find a healthy balance between creativity and nostalgia, who would encourage both Brian's pursuits (however strange they may have seemed at this point in time) yet at the same time made sure that they could deliver as a live act that people wanted to see.
The reason I think it would have had to be a musician is that when you're trying to make money, I'd imagine it would be very easy to sell someone out, or get them to sell out, I think a musician with similar sensibilities to Brian would have helped a lot, maybe not in a collaborative sense, but as a creative support for Brian so to speak.

There is still the issue of mental health though, I don't think many people would have been able to have been much help to Brian in 1967 I'm sorry to say, but proper awareness of mental health was really quite a recent thing back then, I mean they were only a few years out of electroshock therapy and other such horror tactics. That being said, I think correlations had been made between drug use and mental illness and while they probably couldn't have "fixed" Brian, maybe the rate of decay could have been stemmed. (don't quote me on any of this last paragraph, I know nothing about psychiatry, outside of what I have read out of my own personal interest)

I think the combination of all of this would probably have never been reached by anyone in the 60's, it also makes me wonder about how different the long run would have been, Brian was already showing signs of a schizophrenic disorder and depression by this point in time which tells me that some of the damage had already been done, maybe he wouldn't have spiraled so bad in later years leading to no Landy. I would say in 2012 The Beach Boys story would probably not be too different, maybe two or three stronger albums in that time-frame and possibly a Brian with a normal level of cognitive function, but with the demons still there the same as they are today.

Someone like Allen Klein?
He would probably have caused a few problems (he seems like he could have been another Murry) and isn't remembered by history as being one of the most trustworthy people, but I think that he could have kept business affairs ticking over and probably carried enough talk and intimidation to get the stations to play their records at that time.