Brian Wilson's Secret Bedroom Tapes - LA Weekly 1-30-14

[The Shift]

also interesting to me...... a recording of the song 'honeycomb'....

Recorded at the same session as the "It's OK" basic track, late October 1974 (with Roy Wood & Wizzard), described by Tim White in his 1976 Crawdaddy 2-parter. Marilyn takes the lead vocal.

Can you remind me Andrew, is that reproduced in Kingsley's excellent "Reader" volume?

[KittyKat]

Those tracks have all been bootlegged. They're not of the same quality as "Smile." I have no idea of what motivated that author to write about this like it's some kind of revelation. I don't think he describes Brian in very flattering terms, either, it's actually rather cruel.

Bootlegged where? Thought the bulk of these didn't circulate?

At least some of them are on "Get the Boot," which is supposedly a hard to find four CD set, but not that hard to find.

[alf wiedersehen]

I think this is all hype.  If there were anything good in this collection, it would have been recycled into a new release.

How do you know it hasn't been ?

Is it possible that "Where Is She?" hails from these recordings?

[The Shift]

Those tracks have all been bootlegged. They're not of the same quality as "Smile." I have no idea of what motivated that author to write about this like it's some kind of revelation. I don't think he describes Brian in very flattering terms, either, it's actually rather cruel.

Bootlegged where? Thought the bulk of these didn't circulate?

At least some of them are on "Get the Boot," which is supposedly a hard to find four CD set, but not that hard to find.

I see California Feelin' and Hard Times…

[Menace Wilson]

AGD!!!

For the love of all that's holy...good God man...spill your guts!  What do you know and when did you know it?

[KittyKat]

"My Solution" has been on some boot or other.  I could swear I've heard some of other stuff, but maybe I'm confusing the tapes this writer listened to with tracks that actually were officially released later, such as "California Feeling" and "Ding Dang." There's a difference between tracks never heard before at all and tracks that are demos of released product. Also, isn't "Honeycomb" the oldies hit? From everything I've read, it is. I never understood Brian's enthusiasm for that song, which is hokey and annoying. Not every single idea Brian had was good, and there's a reason that artists don't release every idea or song they ever wrote. I'm not sure why people think Brian would have enthusiasm for releasing every single he ever did. It's almost like some people think Brian should have no editorial filter even of his own making. 

[bringahorseinhere?]

Thanks AGD re: honeycomb info.


I wonder where Brian's mind is at on this particular tune..... I love the 60's Jimmie Rodgers, which was according to Jim,

recorded on the 1st take.......

What does Bri hear on this tune to BB it?

Rb

[The Shift]

Aye, My Solution has circulated for decades for sure, and yes I think Ding Dang (alt version) is also out there… I'm away from my collection right now so can't double check.

[The Dumb Angel]

The titles "Symphony of Frogs" and "Song to God" really stuck out to me. Does anybody have any information on these songs?

[The Shift]

The titles "Symphony of Frogs" and "Song to God" really stuck out to me. Does anybody have any information on these songs?

S. of Frogs sound like a cover of Macca's Frog Chorus!

[The Dumb Angel]

The titles "Symphony of Frogs" and "Song to God" really stuck out to me. Does anybody have any information on these songs?

S. of Frogs sound like a cover of Macca's Frog Chorus!

I'm not sure about that. These tapes apparently come from 1968-1974, while Paul's 'Frog Chorus' was released in 1983.

[Myk Luhv]

Although 1968-74 is not a period of time that people (in general, I mean!) are likely going to care about regarding The Beach Boys, I think it works to the material's advantage that it is solo Brian Wilson recordings. Everyone loves a troubled, reclusive genius making their art away from public consumption -- and during a creative peak no less! It's mystifying and legacy-building narrative just waiting to happen, and this article does that exactly right. Based on that perception of Brian Wilson, I think a release of this material would do really well; the stuff might even nearly sell itself. Plus, this is exactly the time period that many contemporary bands influenced by The Beach Boys or Brian Wilson point to when asked about that influence directly.

[rn57]

I came pretty close to putting "My Solution" in my list at the Top 50 Songs thread, boot or not, but it got squeezed out at the last minute.....

The description of the Brian/Almer/Shapiro A&M project differs from what I've read before, where it was stated that it involved rewriting the lyrics of old BBs songs to remove "dated" surf/car references.  I had seen the lyrics to "Passing By" quoted.  If it was primarily building on the Friends material, those four tracks would be worth hearing.  I'm curious about whether "Wake The World" would have been filled out a bit more. 

[Shady]

There is no reason this stuff should stay unreleased. Worse case, we get it as a download only release

[Niko]

I've always wondered if Shapiro did any work with Brian. I would love to hear what the Friends reworking sounds like.

This stuff has to come out!

[Quzi]

Let's crank up the excitement a little bit more with a revisiting of one of my favourite information leaks of recent times.

Which of these songs still exists in the vaults?

9:

• Just An Imitation (I always thought it was never recorded, but AGD's site shows that it was, on summer '74)

9 - yes

[/list]

[alf wiedersehen]

What is "Just an Imitation?" I don't think I've heard of this track before.

[monicker]

This needs to be proper vintage or vintage-correct mixes. No Pro Tools edits ... proper analog mixing, etc. It needs to be compiled with care by someone with the proper artistic care and HIP FACTOR understanding.

Say, you wanna do it?

[The Dumb Angel]

What is "Just an Imitation?" I don't think I've heard of this track before.

According to AGD, 'Just an Imitation' is a song from 1974; it reportedly was written about Murry. Apparently it's suppose to be fantastic.

[Myk Luhv]

Anyone who wanna mix The Beach Boys, present ya thumbs and fingers. You got razor cuts? You're qualified, son. Good looks.

[punkinhead]

From the article:

"Shapiro was a lyricist who worked with Brian Wilson and Tandyn Almer in the early '70s to rewrite the Beach Boys' Friends album for an unrealized A&M Records project. (Four tracks were completed.)


WHAT? I've never heard anything about that before, anyone else heard this? What tracks?

[guitarfool2002]

This needs to be proper vintage or vintage-correct mixes. No Pro Tools edits ... proper analog mixing, etc. It needs to be compiled with care by someone with the proper artistic care and HIP FACTOR understanding.

I read the article, scanned the posts, don't remember seeing it mentioned so I'll ask:

Are these still on the multitrack reels, have they been mixed down to a reel, or have they all been transferred to digital as part of an ongoing vault archiving project?

If they're still on reels of tape...early 70's...could be sticky...Donny, better fire up the oven! 

[Ed Roach]

From the article:

"Shapiro was a lyricist who worked with Brian Wilson and Tandyn Almer in the early '70s to rewrite the Beach Boys' Friends album for an unrealized A&M Records project. (Four tracks were completed.)


WHAT? I've never heard anything about that before, anyone else heard this? What tracks?

Yeah, Stan worked at A&M with Paul Williams, too.  There were hopes of redoing quite a bit of Brian's material once they had acquired the publishing rites.  Sadly, Stan & I suffered similar fates having been cronies of Dennis'

[guitarfool2002]

Micky Dolenz has a stash of tapes too, from this same era, and from when his house was an unofficial after-hours hangout (and also a studio) for the Hollywood Vampyres and their cohorts. Micky not long ago said he has tapes of his partying buddies, names like Nilsson, Alice Cooper, Ringo, and I think he mentioned Brian Wilson too, who would visit his in-house recording studio and jam and work on songs. Dolenz's hangout crew was some of the same names mentioned with these BW tapes, and from exactly the same era.

Question for those who would know: Has Dolenz ever been approached about these reels of tape by someone official with an eye toward at least archiving them? He gave the impression they have not been heard by anyone outside, and unfortunately he also kind of hinted that no one would hear them.

[Jim V.]

I'm not gonna lie, the article has very, very much piqued my interest. After the release of Made In California, it seemed like there were only really very few awesome unreleased Brian Wilson tunes left in the vault. I figured that the 1975 version of "In the Back of My Mind" would have to be at least as interesting as the demo of "California Feelin'" and maybe that there might be a possibility that songs like "Rooftop Harry" were good and possibly releasable. And of course great stuff like "Stevie", which has already been bootlegged and deserves release. But besides those and maybe a few covers, like "My Little Red Book", "Smokey Places" and (in my opinion) "Calendar Girl", that would be about it.

Now comes this story, which to me seems to be a declaration from Brian's camp that they'd like to see this stuff released. The reason I say "Brian's camp" is that I noticed this Chidester character has written for publicity stuff for Brian before, and therefore it would make sense that maybe they gently asked him to get the word out about this stuff. However, I also noticed BRI declined to comment on the story, which is interesting, since, ya know Brian Wilson is one-quarter of BRI. And I have to imagine Al is in his corner. And that if Carl appears on any of the stuff, it seems that his family would be just fine with making a few bucks off of this stuff. Especially if they included any tunes cowritten by Carl, such as "Good Timin'", which realistically could make it on a proposed set in it's 1974 incarnation. And honestly, I don't see why Mike would really be against any of this. Maybe  he'd want it released as "The Beach Boys", and in the case of stuff like "My Solution", "Good Timin'" from '74, and I'm sure a few other things, I guess they are Beach Boys songs. Perhaps though, BRI really doesn't have any problem, and that the publicity machine is just getting ramped up. Let's hope so.

And hey, I don't wanna throw cold water on this whole thing, but you really gotta wonder, how much good Brian material is left in the vaults from '68 to '74? I mean, it's very, very possible that there's a lot we don't know of, but thanks to people like AGD with his great site, Alan Boyd, Adam Marsland, etc it seems we've been made aware of quite a lot and it just seems kinda unlikely that there's a treasure trove we were unaware of. And plus, let's be honest, The Beach Boys seemed to be content to get any scrap of Brian Wilson material they could in this era. Doesn't it seem a bit odd that if this material was around, we'd have heard more of it? I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong.


But anyways lastly, a decent chunk of the titles mentioned in the article seem like stuff straight off of Andrew Doe's site, such as "Brian's Jam", "Spark in the Dark", etc. Not really many titles we were unaware of? So did the author really hear SIXTY recordings?! All unreleased? I'm suspicious.

But regardless, I hope there is a lot more than we know of. And hopefully AGD, who was apparently interviewed for this article, could at least be kind enough to say whether he agrees with Alan Boyd and Brian Chidester that there is enough material for a good collection of this stuff.