I'm really looking forward to the Yellow Submarine "worktape" with John Lennon singing the lead.

Circa 1995, Brian was arguably a bigger name than the band. That may have complicated things. It was cool to like BW, less so the other guys. He was cooler than the other guys.

Honestly, that doesn't make much sense to me, Brian was always the number 1 guy in charge straight from the beginning.

It's pretty easy to stitch together the most basic situations from that time: Brian was free of Landy and actively working on new music, the Beach Boys had no label, no label interest, no new songs, a true dead-in-the-water flop of an album-of-record at the time, and were touring with dancers, giant surf boards, and fake palm trees on stage. There was a major producer working with Brian and bringing the group back together with him (baby steps, as there were still the issues between all sides), and both Brian and the legacy music had been getting a lot of attention and praise from new generations through the reissues and the box set, and also the Was documentary.

Brian expressed how he wanted to be a Beach Boy again, and work with the band again. Once it came out that the band was without a label, needed new material, and basically needed something to bring them back with renewed interest, Brian had all of these songs to choose from and a producer with enough industry clout to make it happen. They chose songs to work on, Mike and Brian started collaborating again, the media began picking up on it, and it looked like something would happen.

I don't see a stretch in saying when the band needed songs, and Brian and the band started interacting again, that those songs became Beach Boys songs intended for the band to work on and hopefully release (or at least generate label interest which was non-existant at the time). And they obviously started working on those songs, not as solo Brian songs but as Beach Boys potential releases.

I don't know where the divide is in saying these were Beach Boys songs when there were songs picked out and worked on as Beach Boys songs. Brian, Andy, and Don had dozens of songs worked up, naturally not all were going to the Beach Boys, but as soon as the band needed material there were songs specifically targeted to that purpose. And Mike and Brian worked on some beyond that. I don't know where the inaccuracy is in saying some of the Wilson-Paley-Was sessions and songs alongside whatever the Wilson-Love collaborations would be were targeted for the Beach Boys.

It was a marriage of supply and demand, the band needed material and Brian had material for them. Whatever soured the whole thing is the tragedy.

Another unfortunate aspect of the whole failed Paley sessions is that not only could they have had potential commercial success, but they were also beginning to get "street cred"(for lack of a better term) with indie artists and fans, and that could have proved to be a very valuable asset. More so than being noticed by "mainstream" media. The same thing is happening right now today too, but I think it may be far to late to matter much.

That heroin and cocaine line was really kind of out of left field. He usually harps on the drug issue but always seems to focus on pot and acid. It's like he's deliberately trying to find a way out of any possible reunion.

At one point, the loss of the Paley sessions seemed like a tragedy.

But then we got BWPS, TLOS, BWRG and TWGMTR. Brian working with his band, writing and arranging new and familiar tunes, and eventually singing far better than he ever had in his solo career. He gave us a late career miracle, of a kind I will never forget or underestimate.

The myth of the Paley sessions persists, and don’t get me wrong — I think everyone here would love a collection at some point. But so much else happened in the subsequent 27 years that I no longer see it as much of a tragedy. Would it have been nice? Sure. But did we still get a bunch of top quality new material from BW? Yes. Did we get great tours and shows? Yep. Did the vast majority of highlights from the sessions find their way out anyway? They sure did.

I think the reason the Paley sessions are thought of as such a tragedy is because It is in a way, for The Beach Boys. These songs were intended for a Beach Boys album specifically. Brian bounced back and had moments of brilliance, but not The Beach Boys as a group. Instead of what could have been their best work since Holland, everything was scrapped for a half assed "tribute album". Then Carl got sick and died, and the group more or less fizzled out. The time between the buzz generated from the 1993 Good Vibrations box set and the IJWMFTT documentary gave them a valuable window of time/opportunity, but it all went to waste over petty politics that should have been dealt with years ago. Instead a once great band slipped away doing mediocre greatest hits shows. The worst part about all this is that this was their last chance with Carl(of course they didn't know it at the time). Therein lies the real tragedy.

Brian was Landy’s victim, and unfortunately some people like to blame the victim rather than the perpetrator

Which is crazy, if you consider the fact that they basically created their own monster by getting land involved to begin with.

You know what? The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that they did Brian just like they did with Dennis and manson. Once that episode happened he was never treated  quite the same, and it's the same with Brian and landy*.


*Excluding the fluke 2012 reunion that almost seemed to defy any and all logic, of course.

I feel for those who are going through something internally/mentally. It’s cliche, but I hope that one day we can all just enjoy this amazing music and not get caught up in the drama of it all (I’m 100% guilty of this). I think one day, when all the band has sadly passed, we’ll look back and realize how petty all this was/is.

Why wait until the band has passed?

Honestly? Because nobody on either end of the factions wants to make that first move.

The thing that's so wild to me is the inconsistency *within* a single performance. Sometimes it almost feels like his younger voice is locked up in his chest, struggling to get out. To take just one example, there's a moment in the Queen Mary performance of Sloop John B (song is at 6:00 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i8BA4OMr2w), where Brian starts the song, and he's doing a pretty good job, I guess, but he's got that wooden face and slightly off delivery we're now so used to, but then on the words "we did roam" he just hits that word roam so sweetly and then immediately smiles. There's something about it that I just find very effecting, even though I'm probably reading way to much into it!

I noticed that he often to said that particular word the sane way often during this time. He did it at Knebworth  too.

The more I think about it, the more confused I am over why 15 Big Ones and Love You are the only two albums where Brian's voice is so overly hoarse. On the Adult Child tracks Brian's voice is a lot smoother for the most part, other than Lazy Lizzie. He sounds really good on MIU, and even on KTSA.

I've heard outtakes from the KTSA era and listening to them it's evident they didn't use Brian's lead vocals because his voice was *really* bad around then. It's not so much that it was hoarse as that he was no longer really doing passable lead vocals regardless of the approach. The vibe I got was they wanted him up front more but wound up using him just for cameos and increased presence in the background vocal stack. Ironically the stuff a little later sounded a bit better, maybe because he was forced to sing a lot while Carl was gone.

I don't supposed you're at liberty to elaborate? The only outtakes from that period I've heard(that I'm aware of) are the alternate version of Oh Darlin'(which I personally believe to be better than the version they went with), and River Deep, Mountain High. I'm not sure if Stevie or Sweetie would count as being from that period.

Even with the stuff we have heard, he was doing this abrupt barking delivery and cutting off the ends of phrases. Like his vocal cameo on Going On, doing the title phrase. Kinda like he does now

Actually, on live recordings of Goin On' from 1980, Brian was usually really enthused and into it. He would do stuff like vocalizing over the solo at times. But occasionally(Philly 1980) he would be overly agressive and shouty(Goin' Ah-HAWN!).

The more I think about it, the more confused I am over why 15 Big Ones and Love You are the only two albums where Brian's voice is so overly hoarse. On the Adult Child tracks Brian's voice is a lot smoother for the most part, other than Lazy Lizzie. He sounds really good on MIU, and even on KTSA.

I've heard outtakes from the KTSA era and listening to them it's evident they didn't use Brian's lead vocals because his voice was *really* bad around then. It's not so much that it was hoarse as that he was no longer really doing passable lead vocals regardless of the approach. The vibe I got was they wanted him up front more but wound up using him just for cameos and increased presence in the background vocal stack. Ironically the stuff a little later sounded a bit better, maybe because he was forced to sing a lot while Carl was gone.

It's a good point; Brian did sound a bit better a bit later. For all the justifiable criticism that 1981/82 Carl-less band gets (less because Carl wasn't there, but because they all seemed to sound worse, including a few of the backing band members), Brian's leads on that tour were *sometimes* pretty solid. Even on the most infamous case, the nationally-televised Queen Mary show, Brian sounds pretty solid on "God Only Knows" and "Sloop John B", and even on the non-high/falsetto parts of "Good Vibrations." They unfortunately inexplicably had Brian singing "Don't Worry Baby" on that tour as well. By that point, even Carl and Al would have had trouble singing that song in its original key (and sure enough, later on in the 80s Carl shared the lead with Foskett, and by the 90s they just had Matt Jardine sing the whole thing). Why they gave that song to Brian, I'd love to know.

Brian had good days and bad days during that 1981/82 run. But it was one of the last eras when he sometimes had some good power behind his voice, and if he found the right register, he sounded strangely and differently pretty good. Listen to him belt out "Oh Lord" on the "Hamburger/Cocaine Tape", which is probably from 1980 or maybe 81 or so. That's another tape where the title given to it by fans indicates the condition people assume he was in. Yet, he kind of sounds good on some of that stuff. He even sounds pretty good belting a few lines from "Heroes and Villains."

That's the thing I was trying to mention with his early live versions of what became "It's Just A Matter of Time". Brian had a "soulful", or even a "belting out" quality that he somehow lost some time after around 1984-ish. The same goes for his high register. Listen to his higher voice on that one section of "Oh Lord", and then listen to his high part in the intro to "Getcha Back". He had a certain "warmth" or "smooth" quality that somehow changed into more of a whine by 1985.

The more I think about it, the more confused I am over why 15 Big Ones and Love You are the only two albums where Brian's voice is so overly hoarse. On the Adult Child tracks Brian's voice is a lot smoother for the most part, other than Lazy Lizzie. He sounds really good on MIU, and even on KTSA.

I've heard outtakes from the KTSA era and listening to them it's evident they didn't use Brian's lead vocals because his voice was *really* bad around then. It's not so much that it was hoarse as that he was no longer really doing passable lead vocals regardless of the approach. The vibe I got was they wanted him up front more but wound up using him just for cameos and increased presence in the background vocal stack. Ironically the stuff a little later sounded a bit better, maybe because he was forced to sing a lot while Carl was gone.

I don't supposed you're at liberty to elaborate? The only outtakes from that period I've heard(that I'm aware of) are the alternate version of Oh Darlin'(which I personally believe to be better than the version they went with), and River Deep, Mountain High. I'm not sure if Stevie or Sweetie would count as being from that period.

When was the title Mrs O’Leary’s cow given?

And while we're at it, when and where did the "Fire" track become known? When it was used on An American Band?

Cause that was his “real” voice without putting on for whatever reason, nor laryngitis,

I do wonder, and I hope this doesn’t come off wrong… I wonder if whatever Landy had him on during the first go-round was affecting him vocally , much like he was singing differently in the second period too

There is/was a distinct change again somewhere between 1983-85. Listen to Brian sing "I'm Lost Without You" pre "BB 85", and then compare the album version.

Do you mean “It’s Just a Matter of Time”?

Yeah, the early version he would play during 1983.

Cause that was his “real” voice without putting on for whatever reason, nor laryngitis,

I do wonder, and I hope this doesn’t come off wrong… I wonder if whatever Landy had him on during the first go-round was affecting him vocally , much like he was singing differently in the second period too

Speaking of which, Is it just me, or was Brian not talking out of the side of his mouth nearly as much or as bad prior to 1976-ish?

Cause that was his “real” voice without putting on for whatever reason, nor laryngitis,

I do wonder, and I hope this doesn’t come off wrong… I wonder if whatever Landy had him on during the first go-round was affecting him vocally , much like he was singing differently in the second period too

There is/was a distinct change again somewhere between 1983-85. Listen to Brian sing "I'm Lost Without You" pre "BB 85", and then compare the album version.

The more I think about it, the more confused I am over why 15 Big Ones and Love You are the only two albums where Brian's voice is so overly hoarse. On the Adult Child tracks Brian's voice is a lot smoother for the most part, other than Lazy Lizzie. He sounds really good on MIU, and even on KTSA.

I Am Brian Wilson p. 76: "I had laryngitis. I wasn't using my normal voice. It was an assumed voice. I had to make it up to get through all the singing. For me, it's basically a laryngitis album."

Honestly, that doesn't make much sense. If he had a mild case of it, then possibly, but if it were full blown he wouldn't have nearly as much of the "full"  voice heard on 15 Big Ones and Love You.

I guess the question now is, were the group aware of the Derek Taylor piece at the time Bruce made the comments?

Maybe the Derek Taylor piece was a deliberate move to try to deflect public focus off them for a while? But then that still doesn't explain the comment from bruce.

And if the real answer is "well, actually not as much as you've all been told", why the hell didn't Brian use that voice in the previous two albums, or any of the ones after?!?!?

Notice the quality of his voice, too. He’s pitchy af but it’s relatively  smooth and quite similar to how he sounded in 1975 minus a lisp

That track really makes me question how much "sweetening" was really done on Brian's vocals on MIU. Consider the fact that this "I Really Love You" recording is probably still in it's "raw" form.

GF, as I read this thread I was wondering if you were going to tie it all into the August Hawaii shows/media quotes, which strike me as the best evidence supporting your rendition of the overall events that led to the “produced by the Beach Boys” phase (even though that credit isn’t really accurate until 20/20). I’m glad you got there again, because despite some of the mini-discrepancies that can be pointed to, it’s really the only scenario that makes sense given what we now know about the production process at Brian’s house from summer 67 to early 69.

I think we can lay it out as a series of dot points:

--SMiLE as "grand project" was variably alienating to the rest of the band, divided between loving the material and worrying that their career as a band would go down a rabbit hole.
--December '66 strife ultimately caused a shift toward looking for a follow-up single (H&V) that could tide things over until they fully could sort out what to do.
--Brian, suffering from cognitive dissonance, floundered in his attempts to turn H&V into a version that managed to marry art and commerce.
--He sets aside those versions of H&V in March; Vegetables becomes the next (unsuccessful) attempt.
--Speculation here--Brian has a despairing conversation with Derek Taylor, where he suggests that SMILE is going to put away. Taylor overreacts, sends out his press release about SMiLE being "scrapped."
--With the band back on the road, Brian gets back into the studio with the Wrecking Crew ("Love to Say DaDa").
--Band returns from the road, ears on fire from criticism about their inability to match the more advanced material, which triggers a massive pow-wow about the future of the band, how to tailor tracks in order to make them more playable live, the need for the band to become more involved in the songwriting/production process, etc. Home studio idea comes into play here as (partially) a way for on-the-job production training for the band, primarily Carl and Dennis.
--Recasting existing SMiLE tracks for Smiley Smile begins, LP is recorded, assembled, mixed as fast as Brian can get through it; he's still got a plan to bring out the original concept of SMiLE, as captured in the Engemann memo, but this never comes to pass.
--LEAVING TWO MYSTERIES: 1) if Smiley was mixed by mid-July, why wait two months to release it? Was there further wrangling about the SMiLE tracks? Was the status of the royalty lawsuit and did it affect the timing? Were they thinking that H&V would be the catalyst for the record and when it didn't do that well, was there then wrangling about putting GV onto Smiley Smile? When exactly did that decision get made?
2) Why did the 10-track SMiLE LP disappear along with the Brother Records logo? Engemann memo suggests that it would appear as Brother 9002 and Wild Honey as 9003.
2a) Ten track SMiLE LP would have some added Smiley Smile overlap on it that Engemann etal may have missed, including very different versions of “Wind Chimes” and “Wonderful.” Could they have recognized some conceptual glitches about a 10-track SMiLE LP that had been initially overlooked?
--Hawaii trip reveals Brian contemplating a change/end to "Beach Boying" (at least for him), intimating some kind of transition to come.
--Brian works on songs for Wild Honey, but decides to give Darlin' to Redwood, which prompts another showdown. The band prevails; Brian sets aside more elaborate production plans ("Can't Wait Too Long" variants shelved when it can't successfully be turned into a "Wild Honey"-style song).
--Wild Honey single released in October, LP rushed out in December, "Darlin'" gives them a Top 20 hit.
--Mike goes off to India in early '68 and Brian comes out of hibernation with a lot of varied material, only a portion of which makes it onto the subsequent "Friends" LP. Dennis moves into songwriting/production.
--"Friends" single released, is a big chart disappointment; FRIENDS LP comes out late June, "Do It Again" rushed out as 45 from post-FRIENDS sessions.
--Brian makes one more attempt to build "Can't Wait Too Long" into a GV-type track, but can't pull it off; disillusionment and depression take over, and his reclusive phase begins. Even that is fraught, as the band is increasingly in his house recording tracks. He's apart from the band, but simultaneously surrounded by them.
--The band builds its first LP without him to the extent possible at the time, producing material that winds up as about half of 20/20. They didn’t quite have enough material ready to go, so they had to add “Our Prayer” and “Cabinessence” to the track list, which was another “twist of the knife” for Brian, meaning that he’d lost de facto control over how SMiLE would be handled.

What an incredible post! Seriously, its one of the better posts I've seen here in a while, and about an endlessly fascinating, albeit confounding as hell, subject.

So many things about this time period are confusing.

I don't think that Smiley Smile is that dark.  They say it is the ideal chill out album for those coming down from LSD and has been used to help people in this regard.  It's supposed to be the good humour album.  I think Smile is darker or at least more serious.  Of course the other band members hated Smile presumably they hated Smiley Smile less.  VDP's lyrics were dropped from Vegetables and Fire converted to the Woody Woodpecker Symphony which is a little more cheerful than Brian dying in flames and presumably the band preferred removing VDPs lyrics which were known to be a point of contention.
I'd say that the dramatic change was down to Brian wanting to progress (rather than die which is how he sees the alternative) and his collaboration with VDP who brought other aspects to Brian's work and a whole net work of other meanings.

I completely respect your viewpoint (and your explanation makes sense to me), but I have such a drastically different opinion about the Smiley tracks.

While the original Fire song is rather out there, the creepy deep "whomp whomp" (really for lack of a better way to describe it ) that start the Woody Woodpecker track (and is repeated throughout) is so darn haunting. And 'She's Goin Bald' gives me the most disturbing mental image of some poor woman suffering from a severe case of alopecia. That and the organ playing in many of the songs just puts me in a weird mood. Never done LSD, will never do LSD, but for the life of me I don't see how this isn't a one way ticket to a bad trip! But then again, I have no experience with it, and am completely ignorant about such matters.
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I can see why Brian would want to progress in his style/sound - he really brought about this stripped down style that bands started adopting post-67. But it is such a crazy shift - I just can't believe the guys were okay with it, especially after the wild success of Good Vibrations.

Truth be told, the first time I heard "Fall Breaks..." is scared the hell out of me. It still creeps me out a bit. But you know what really creeps me out? Believe it or not, it's "With Me Tonight". I have no idea why. It just gives me an unsettled feeling. Same with "Wonderful", "Wind Chimes", and "She's Goin' Bald". The thing about the whole Smile saga that confuses me the most is, if everybody was so worried about Brian getting so freaked out with making weird music that would alienate their fans, why on earth would the group instead release an album that is approximately 1000% percent weirder(not to mention commercially polarizing)?