"Fantasy is Reality" mid 90s outtake just posted on Brian's facebook.

[BJL]

From Brian Wilson's facebook page:

Listen to "Fantasy is Reality" from 1994, co-written by Brian, and performed by Brian, Carnie Wilson and bassist Rob Wasserman. Brian plays piano and organ on this one:

http://www.brianwilson.com/i-just-wasn-made-for-these-times

This is pretty cool, very Brian really - especially the ending!  Thoughts?  Anyone know anything about this? 

[Jason]

From Rob Wasserman's 1994 album Trios. It's pretty decent...and yet another variation on that Shortenin' Bread riff.

[Wirestone]

Most of the song is written by Sam Phillips (not the Sun studios guy), and was a pre-existing tune. Brian and Rob wrote the chorus together, and Brian wrote the tag. (Of course.)

[BJL]

Thanks for the info - that's why I love this board 

[Dave Modny]

I always liked this one. Bought "Trios" when it first came out, though I honestly don't think I ever played another track on the CD.

IMHO,  this wasn't the best era for Brian in terms of lead vocals, but his layered backings never let him down. Someone mentioned Shortenin' Bread, but the tag at the end also always reminded me of the whole "Pied Piper better get back in bed" bit. Maybe...just a little in style (though obviously without any CW input).

Somewhere...I have a VHS recording of a piece that Brian and Carnie did for Entertainment Tonight while they were laying it down.

[TV Forces]

was it taken down?

i'm not seeing it.

[Sheriff John Stone]

This song is another evidence for me that Carnie has the strongest voice from Wilson Phillips trio. Liked & like her voice.

Love Carnie's voice. Do you have Carnie & Wendy's Christmas album, Hey Santa, and Carnie's solo album, Christmas With Carnie? She does some great vocals on them including "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas", "We Three Kings",  and "Merry Christmas Darling".

[seltaeb1012002]

was it taken down?

i'm not seeing it.

It's right under the "IJWMFTT" album cover.

Somewhere...I have a VHS recording of a piece that Brian and Carnie did for Entertainment Tonight while they were laying it down.

That's awesome. Don't think I ever saw that one. Any chance you could upload it?

[Dave Modny]

was it taken down?

i'm not seeing it.

It's right under the "IJWMFTT" album cover.

Somewhere...I have a VHS recording of a piece that Brian and Carnie did for Entertainment Tonight while they were laying it down.

That's awesome. Don't think I ever saw that one. Any chance you could upload it?

I'd love to...if I could find it! I'm ashamed to say that I have boxes and boxes of unlabeled VHS, Beta and 3/4 inch U-Matic tapes. Not good.

[Freddie French-Pounce]

I'd love to...if I could find it! I'm ashamed to say that I have boxes and boxes of unlabeled VHS, Beta and 3/4 inch U-Matic tapes. Not good.

Record COmpany Syndrome Eh...

[Jukka]

Such a beautiful tune. Carnie really is an awesome singer. Beautiful singing, but no hint of oversinging. Just sings the melody how it's supposed to go, with no additional riffing. A lost art among most of nowadays female vocalists.

Brian's chorus vocals are positively creepy. That childlike "fantasyyyy"... Well, it's a nice contrast.

[Andrew G. Doe]

The "Clang-ding-dangin'" round at the end owes much to the still unreleased "Clang" from late 1975 (but not "Clangin'", which is another song entirely based on the "I'm The Pied Piper" riff" - still with me ?). Sounds a bit like something from TLOS, no ?

[Amy B.]

I'm not sure Carnie is capable of oversinging like some of today's pop singers, and I think that's a blessing. She serves the song, rather than the other way around. Her voice is very pretty and soothing (nice contrast to Brian's voice in this song), and belting is overdone and overrated. Carnie's voice is similar to Marilyn's in that she could be your neighbor who you hear singing. You don't say, "That's an extraordinary voice." You say, 'That's a nice voice." But it works. And Carnie has a better voice than Marilyn.

I agree that Carnie has the best voice in Wilson-Phillips. I don't know much of their stuff but it seems like Chynna sings lead whenever I see them on TV.

[hypehat]

This song is so dumb. And Brian's contribution is so tacked on. Why would they be hyping this?

[Aegir]

hahahaha this song is so funny. serious piano ballad -> SHORTENIN BREAD! -> serious piano ballad -> SHORTENIN BREAD! SHORTENIN BREAD! SHORTENIN BREAD!

[seltaeb1012002]

hahahaha this song is so funny. serious piano ballad -> SHORTENIN BREAD! -> serious piano ballad -> SHORTENIN BREAD! SHORTENIN BREAD! SHORTENIN BREAD!

 

[?]

"Clangin'", which is another song entirely based on the "I'm The Pied Piper" riff"

Is this track in circulation?  If so, if someone could tell me which boot it's on I would appreciate it.

[rab2591]

hahahaha this song is so funny. serious piano ballad -> SHORTENIN BREAD! -> serious piano ballad -> SHORTENIN BREAD! SHORTENIN BREAD! SHORTENIN BREAD!

I KNEW it sounded familiar!

[Amy B.]

Carnie's voice is similar to Marilyn's in that she could be your neighbor who you hear singing. You don't say, "That's an extraordinary voice." You say, 'That's a nice voice." But it works. And Carnie has a better voice than Marilyn.

Respectfully disagree on these points. Imo for a neighbor Carnie has very strong voice & not that simple & typical as it seems at 1st. Also she has more than just a nice voice which is no wonder if not to forget her musical background. And the last, I'm not sure that Carnie has better voice than Marilyn. Her mother has very unusual voice, every time when I listen to her singing, I easily imagine some African American girl singer covering the song. Marilyn's got jazzy tone in her voice, to my ears.

I like their voices-- don't get me wrong. But they remind me of tons of girls who were in my HS choir and got the solo parts. Nice voices, good pitch, good timbers, pleasant to listen to, but not off the charts unusual. As I say, though, I like that. There are too many singers these days who do "vocal gymnastics." Carnie being better than Marilyn is a matter of opinion. I've heard Marilyn sound great and not as great (IMO) on various recordings. I actually haven't heard THAT much of Carnie, so maybe I should reserve judgment.

BTW, I like voices that serve the song. Fred Astaire is one of my favorite singers. I think he was a lot better than he seemed, that makes sense. You think he's just some guy singing the words, but his phrasing is impeccable. You could argue that Bing Crosby or Sinatra were better, but I often choose to listen to Astaire instead. A lot of things go into making a good singer.

[Jason]

"Clangin'", which is another song entirely based on the "I'm The Pied Piper" riff"

Is this track in circulation?  If so, if someone could tell me which boot it's on I would appreciate it.

It doesn't circulate.

[guitarfool2002]

I'm confused by the terminology used in this thread - for one, it's not an outtake at all, and it was specific to a project as mentioned called "Trios". I remember hearing *about* this album from Wasserman, then going to Tower Records, corner of Mass Ave and Newbury to grab a free listen on their new CD listening stations, where they had a (usually greasy) pair of headphones and a system where you could punch in a number and play tracks from a selection of new releases. Pre-internet days of course.

So it's not anything which wasn't officially released and wasn't known and/or promoted and discussed back in the day when it was a new album. The drawing card of the album wasn't just Wasserman playing with a lot of noted musicians, but I think most of the "hype" around it was that Brian and Carnie were on the album - remember in 1994, Brian doing anything of this sort was big, exciting news because he just wasn't doing what fans in 2012 *take for granted* as his regular recording and performance schedule. Not to leave out the fact that he was recording with his daughter, and that was a big "what if?" for years since they had not really done anything substantial in the way of a collaboration.

So anytime you'd see Brian Wilson recording, releasing, or appearing for something-anything at this time, it was big news and the fans tracked it down with excitement. Like this one-off track from "Trios", which most likely would have fallen by the wayside in terms of 2012 standards had Brian and Carnie not contributed a track with Rob.

I think the BW Facebook posting of the tune just wanted to hip some newer fans or fans who have just joined up in the past 10 years to a somewhat obscure track which, at that time and in certain circles, may have been a bigger deal for just being what it represented for Brian and Carnie and their fans at that time, more notable than the actual album release where it could be found.

But it isn't an outtake, or a "lost track", or anything of the sort because it was released, promoted, and given attention by BW's fan base at the time, at least I and others I knew considered it a big deal to get a song by Carnie and Brian released on any album.

[guitarfool2002]

I don't recall seeing this posted, but if it has been already let me know. Since this track generated some buzz after Brian's Facebook posting of it, I dug out this sidebar article from Pulse! magazine, the April 1994 issue, to tell the story and clear up any speculation about what it is or how it got released. The Pulse! article was on Rob Wasserman's follow-up to his "Duets" and earlier "Solo" albums, and has several pages of stories and photos including shots of Jerry Garcia, Les Claypool, Willie Dixon, a few lines about the Neil Young/Bob Weir track, etc., and other famous names playing with Rob for the project. If anyone is interested, let me know and I'll scan and make the other pages available.

But the Brian-Carnie collaboration was such an event for that time, they dedicated an entire sidebar in the article to explain how it all came about. Read through it and note how it credits this song and project with being somewhat of a landmark event in opening up the father-daughter relationship which had been distant for years leading up to this project. In that way, and in context of what things were like in 1994, the track takes on a bit more weight as something personally significant to the family dynamic and the history of the whole thing.

The photo was taken by Henry Diltz. Copy and paste the direct link if you cannot read or enlarge it from this post.




EDIT: Damn, it didn't appear large enough onscreen to read, sorry: Here is the direct link, just click on it or copy and paste it, you'll see it full-sized:

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/fantasyisrealitysession.jpg

[Lowbacca]

Never seen/read this! Thanks a million!  

It was one of the first BW solo songs I knew and dug back in the early 00's.

[Sheriff John Stone]

I'm confused by the terminology used in this thread - for one, it's not an outtake at all, and it was specific to a project as mentioned called "Trios". I remember hearing *about* this album from Wasserman, then going to Tower Records, corner of Mass Ave and Newbury to grab a free listen on their new CD listening stations, where they had a (usually greasy) pair of headphones and a system where you could punch in a number and play tracks from a selection of new releases. Pre-internet days of course.

So it's not anything which wasn't officially released and wasn't known and/or promoted and discussed back in the day when it was a new album. The drawing card of the album wasn't just Wasserman playing with a lot of noted musicians, but I think most of the "hype" around it was that Brian and Carnie were on the album - remember in 1994, Brian doing anything of this sort was big, exciting news because he just wasn't doing what fans in 2012 *take for granted* as his regular recording and performance schedule. Not to leave out the fact that he was recording with his daughter, and that was a big "what if?" for years since they had not really done anything substantial in the way of a collaboration.

So anytime you'd see Brian Wilson recording, releasing, or appearing for something-anything at this time, it was big news and the fans tracked it down with excitement. Like this one-off track from "Trios", which most likely would have fallen by the wayside in terms of 2012 standards had Brian and Carnie not contributed a track with Rob.

I think the BW Facebook posting of the tune just wanted to hip some newer fans or fans who have just joined up in the past 10 years to a somewhat obscure track which, at that time and in certain circles, may have been a bigger deal for just being what it represented for Brian and Carnie and their fans at that time, more notable than the actual album release where it could be found.

But it isn't an outtake, or a "lost track", or anything of the sort because it was released, promoted, and given attention by BW's fan base at the time, at least I and others I knew considered it a big deal to get a song by Carnie and Brian released on any album.

Yeah, I bought the CD when it came out just for that one song with Brian and Carnie. I love the song, and as I posted above, love Carnie's voice. Frankly, Brian almost ruins what could've been a truly great song by his musical parts which don't fit the song, and his shouting vocals.

I remember trying to get into the whole CD, but failed. The instrumental "Satisfaction" is the only other track I remember.

EDIT: Yeah, I remember the Entertainment Tonight feature mentioned above, and I believe there was also an article with pictures in People Magazine. I remember seeing how huge Brian had become since 1991-92; he wasn't shaven and his hair was greasy. I remember thinking, "Oh, no...." And then, shortly after that he married Melinda who cleaned him up.

[guitarfool2002]

EDIT: Link no longer valid - image is on page 1. Thanx.