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

[chaki]

i wana hear those manson tapes stephen recorded!!!

[CenturyDeprived]

Not to mention... there seriously needs to be proper releases of entire albums in instrumental version form + vocals-only form. Just like Pet Sounds. Yes, even the later albums.

I appreciate the amazing work at tracks like these that MIC assembled together, there was some *mindblowing* stuff like Slip on Through vocals-only, for example.

But even albums like 15 Big Ones have some incredible backing tracks (beyond the unbelievably great Had to Phone Ya one). While I bet the band is not super proud of the vocals on that album, I'm sure a good number fans like myself don't mind them at all. I would be beyond thrilled and ready to pony up bucks to hear 15 Big Ones + Love You in instrumental version form + vocals-only form, not to mention all the other albums. I'd re-buy every one, even Summer in Paradise. Not kidding.

[18thofMay]

Thank you to Stephen and Alan for posting in this, what can be at times very frustrating place.

[LeeDempsey]

Accidental post...

[The_Beach]

I'm only talking about recorded material we *know* exists and, in many cases, has been heard, and nobody is claiming all of the stuff is mind-blowing or that it is going to "reinvent rock and roll."

Numerous fans have heard the "Proposed Brother Bonus Tracks" that someone discovered at a record shop a couple years ago. It's not false starts and noodling and throwaway material. It's stuff like Dennis's "Carry Me Home" in pristine quality. Brian's demo for "'Til I Die", and a version of "'Til I Die" with alternate lyrics. An unedited version of "This Whole World" that extends well past the ending point of the released mix. The quirky and interesting "We Gotta Groove" with verse lyrics, and so on.

Some of it is alternate takes/versions of stuff we know and love (and nobody is saying the alternate/rough/demos material is necessarily better than what was released), and some of it (e.g. "Carry Me Home") is a full-fledged song and recording that has never been released at all. I'm surely not alone in feeling "Carry Me Home" is better than at least *some* of what the band released in the 70s.

All of this "unreleased" material is of course of interest mainly to super-fans interested in the minutiae of alternate takes and mixes and whatnot. But in a world where multi-disc sets of "Pet Sounds" and "Smile" sessions exists, I'd say there is oodles of *known* quality material (not pie-in-the-sky mind-blowing stuff that we're just guessing at or making up) that could be released.

The Beach Boys don't exist any longer as a functioning recording artist. As a group, they've released two albums of new studio material in the last 26 years (and one of those didn't have Brian Wilson on it). Brian Wilson is prolific in releasing new music; most of the other guys not so much. So what we have left is the archives, and there is plenty of interesting stuff just among what is *known* and has been heard that is well beyond "coughs" and "throat clearing" and "false starts."

George Martin was known to be dismissive of putting any archival Beatles material, and then between 1994 and 1995 was involved in compiling *eight* discs worth of archival material (two discs of BBC material plus the six "Anthology" discs).

For the Beach Boys, it is true that the 60s material has been mined pretty heavily. Other than putting out raw sessions, there isn't a lot left from the 60s as far as unreleased songs and significantly alternate versions. But there's a ton of that sort of stuff from the 70s and 80s. Some good, some not. But the Beach Boys have proven with past archival releases that they've left some AWESOME material on the cutting room floor.

If they had put out "outtake" collections in the past that all stunk and just consisted of false starts or 37 takes of the "Sloop John B" backing track, then perhaps it would be easier to assume nothing of note is in the vaults. But there's a ton in there!

And that's not even getting into live concert material, of which a ton of high quality material exists.

I don't think there's a misunderstanding about *what* is in the vaults. I think there's simply a difference of opinion about whether archival, unreleased material is interesting and worth releasing.

Fans like myself are well aware of the mixed feelings the artists and others involved in these recordings have about the recordings (e.g. Bruce using the term "bottom feeders"). I try to remember that side of things too. But nobody is making stuff up, or trying to trick people into thinking "Pet Sounds II" is in the vaults. It's just some fans, many very knowledgeable and if nothing else enthusiastic, who like the archival material and would like to see more released. I don't see how fans wanting that material is a bad thing.

If fans think "Endless Harmony Soundtrack" and "Made in California" and "The Smile Sessions" and releases like those were uninteresting dregs, then they can adjust their expectations of any future archival releases accordingly.

Nicely worded! My thoughts exactly!

[doc smiley]

I think that the only "Holy Grail" recordings that haven't seen the light of day remaining are:



The late 60's recordings done for A&M  by Brian with Tandyn Almer. Rerecordings of Beach Boy songs with alternate lyrics,
to make them less surf and car oriented and therefore easier for a publisher to offer for other artists to record.

Were they any good? does anyone know?

that might be the last bastion of musical surprise that could see the light of day someday.


 

[LeeDempsey]

I think that the only "Holy Grail" recordings that haven't seen the light of day remaining are:

The late 60's recordings done for A&M  by Brian with Tandyn Almer. Rerecordings of Beach Boy songs with alternate lyrics,
to make them less surf and car oriented and therefore easier for a publisher to offer for other artists to record.

Were they any good? does anyone know?

that might be the last bastion of musical surprise that could see the light of day someday.

 

Those would be very interesting to hear.  I suspect that Brian's "involvement" was relatively minor given the timeframe (1972-ish) and what we know about his condition at that time.  But you never know.  I've never talked to anyone who's heard them -- or that has at least admitted to hearing them...

[Edit - I see another thread where Debbie Keil talks about hearing "Passing By," and it had a Brian scratch vocal.  Interesting...]

[c-man]

I think that the only "Holy Grail" recordings that haven't seen the light of day remaining are:

The late 60's recordings done for A&M  by Brian with Tandyn Almer. Rerecordings of Beach Boy songs with alternate lyrics,
to make them less surf and car oriented and therefore easier for a publisher to offer for other artists to record.

Were they any good? does anyone know?

that might be the last bastion of musical surprise that could see the light of day someday.

 

Those would be very interesting to hear.  I suspect that Brian's "involvement" was relatively minor given the timeframe (1972) and what we know about his condition at that time.  But you never know.  I've never talked to anyone who's heard them -- or that has at least admitted to hearing them...

Actually, it seems these sessions are from late '69/early '70 - in other words, the Sunflower era...I have scans of several AFM contracts with the client name "Brian Wilson Productions". I'm reliably told that these were backing track sessions for the rewritten song demos. The producer seems to have been Brian himself.

[LeeDempsey]

Very interesting Craig...  See my edit above about Debbie Keil having heard "Passing By."

Lee

[c-man]

If you ask me, the best still-unreleased Brian song or recording is the DW-produced "Stevie". THAT deserves release!  

There were also several intriguing BW sessions from 1980-'82 (seemingly unrelated to his concurrent "cocaine sessions" with Dennis), held at Western and Gold Star. Although AFM documentation for these exists, I'm told little from those sessions could be found in the vaults, except for the "Shortenin' Bread"/"My Solution" medley backing track...

[SurfRiderHawaii]

Stephen,

Have you ever commented publicly on this track mentioned in the article?:

"Song to God" - [Stanley] Shapiro also told [the author of the article, Brian Chidester] the story of the time Dennis Wilson had engineer Stephen Desper queue up a Brian Wilson reel-to-reel labeled "Song to God." According to Shapiro, as the tape ran and Dennis and Desper sat mesmerized, Brian came barreling down from his bedroom, ripped the tape off the playback and yelled, "Don't you ever touch that again! That's between me and God!" As [Chidester's] previous article stated, no tape for this has ever been found.

COMMENT:  It's stuff like your quote above that I'm talking about. It's false stories like this one and statements from the previous fan, HeyJude that exercise the imagination of a "hopeful" fan into thinking some fantastic creation will turn up to reinvent rock 'n' roll. I suppose you could call every false-start, cough, throat-clearing, instrument tuning, or in-progress-dub that was captured on tape as "a lot of great and interesting stuff." It may be to a collector looking for every cigarette butt of Carl's, discarded coffee cup of Brian's, or used condom of Dennis' as a trophy to add to their collection, but in practical terms there are no endless shelves of unreleased hit singles, just waiting for the right time to come. Whatever you think is out there has been cataloged and categorized as uneventful. Certainly you could take the many tapes that exist and put them together in another box-set, but the amount of cost involved would not yield any noteworthy sales or be of any interest except to a handful of customers.

I myself have lots of "stuff." It's all over my house. It's on cassettes, acetates, reels, and even some early DAT's. Little by little I intend to provide them on my website as I did the Spectrum Concert tapes. The problem is that you can can't find equipment to play some formats. I still have the master that Dennis and Daryl made for me, which is the only real quadraphonic recording made by any Beach Boy. That together with odd things like all the water sounds programmed into Brian's Mellotron, or the wild-track of the bi-plane used for Loop d Loop (which has already been provided), or the original finished version of Sail-On-Sailor I recorded back at the house studio with Carl doing the lead, or multiple studio test mixes of Goin' On some of which may be of interest to a few fans, but I don't think there are any finished songs or even half-finished songs in the can and certainly not shelves full of possible money-making hits.

Maybe I'm too pragmatic for some of the stories floating around in fandom as exemplified by my exposé of the phantom, "Landlover" album that never was (see my book), but I would rather deal with reality then conjecture. I guess that's the engineer in me.

Thanks for reading my rant, ~swd       

Stephen, did  I  read this correctly or were you just kidding that you have or"the original finished version of Sail-On-Sailor I recorded back at the house studio with Carl doing the lead"?

[Malc]

Stephen,

Have you ever commented publicly on this track mentioned in the article?:

"Song to God" - [Stanley] Shapiro also told [the author of the article, Brian Chidester] the story of the time Dennis Wilson had engineer Stephen Desper queue up a Brian Wilson reel-to-reel labeled "Song to God." According to Shapiro, as the tape ran and Dennis and Desper sat mesmerized, Brian came barreling down from his bedroom, ripped the tape off the playback and yelled, "Don't you ever touch that again! That's between me and God!" As [Chidester's] previous article stated, no tape for this has ever been found.

COMMENT:  It's stuff like your quote above that I'm talking about. It's false stories like this one and statements from the previous fan, HeyJude that exercise the imagination of a "hopeful" fan into thinking some fantastic creation will turn up to reinvent rock 'n' roll. I suppose you could call every false-start, cough, throat-clearing, instrument tuning, or in-progress-dub that was captured on tape as "a lot of great and interesting stuff." It may be to a collector looking for every cigarette butt of Carl's, discarded coffee cup of Brian's, or used condom of Dennis' as a trophy to add to their collection, but in practical terms there are no endless shelves of unreleased hit singles, just waiting for the right time to come. Whatever you think is out there has been cataloged and categorized as uneventful. Certainly you could take the many tapes that exist and put them together in another box-set, but the amount of cost involved would not yield any noteworthy sales or be of any interest except to a handful of customers.

I myself have lots of "stuff." It's all over my house. It's on cassettes, acetates, reels, and even some early DAT's. Little by little I intend to provide them on my website as I did the Spectrum Concert tapes. The problem is that you can can't find equipment to play some formats. I still have the master that Dennis and Daryl made for me, which is the only real quadraphonic recording made by any Beach Boy. That together with odd things like all the water sounds programmed into Brian's Mellotron, or the wild-track of the bi-plane used for Loop d Loop (which has already been provided), or the original finished version of Sail-On-Sailor I recorded back at the house studio with Carl doing the lead, or multiple studio test mixes of Goin' On some of which may be of interest to a few fans, but I don't think there are any finished songs or even half-finished songs in the can and certainly not shelves full of possible money-making hits.

Maybe I'm too pragmatic for some of the stories floating around in fandom as exemplified by my exposé of the phantom, "Landlover" album that never was (see my book), but I would rather deal with reality then conjecture. I guess that's the engineer in me.

Thanks for reading my rant, ~swd       

Stephen, did  I  read this correctly or were you just kidding that you have or"the original finished version of Sail-On-Sailor I recorded back at the house studio with Carl doing the lead"?

That was my initial thought as well ! Can't believe no-one else picked up on that in the intervening 24 hours !!!!!

[SurfRiderHawaii]

Stephen,

Have you ever commented publicly on this track mentioned in the article?:

"Song to God" - [Stanley] Shapiro also told [the author of the article, Brian Chidester] the story of the time Dennis Wilson had engineer Stephen Desper queue up a Brian Wilson reel-to-reel labeled "Song to God." According to Shapiro, as the tape ran and Dennis and Desper sat mesmerized, Brian came barreling down from his bedroom, ripped the tape off the playback and yelled, "Don't you ever touch that again! That's between me and God!" As [Chidester's] previous article stated, no tape for this has ever been found.

COMMENT:  It's stuff like your quote above that I'm talking about. It's false stories like this one and statements from the previous fan, HeyJude that exercise the imagination of a "hopeful" fan into thinking some fantastic creation will turn up to reinvent rock 'n' roll. I suppose you could call every false-start, cough, throat-clearing, instrument tuning, or in-progress-dub that was captured on tape as "a lot of great and interesting stuff." It may be to a collector looking for every cigarette butt of Carl's, discarded coffee cup of Brian's, or used condom of Dennis' as a trophy to add to their collection, but in practical terms there are no endless shelves of unreleased hit singles, just waiting for the right time to come. Whatever you think is out there has been cataloged and categorized as uneventful. Certainly you could take the many tapes that exist and put them together in another box-set, but the amount of cost involved would not yield any noteworthy sales or be of any interest except to a handful of customers.

I myself have lots of "stuff." It's all over my house. It's on cassettes, acetates, reels, and even some early DAT's. Little by little I intend to provide them on my website as I did the Spectrum Concert tapes. The problem is that you can can't find equipment to play some formats. I still have the master that Dennis and Daryl made for me, which is the only real quadraphonic recording made by any Beach Boy. That together with odd things like all the water sounds programmed into Brian's Mellotron, or the wild-track of the bi-plane used for Loop d Loop (which has already been provided), or the original finished version of Sail-On-Sailor I recorded back at the house studio with Carl doing the lead, or multiple studio test mixes of Goin' On some of which may be of interest to a few fans, but I don't think there are any finished songs or even half-finished songs in the can and certainly not shelves full of possible money-making hits.

Maybe I'm too pragmatic for some of the stories floating around in fandom as exemplified by my exposé of the phantom, "Landlover" album that never was (see my book), but I would rather deal with reality then conjecture. I guess that's the engineer in me.

Thanks for reading my rant, ~swd       

Stephen, did  I  read this correctly or were you just kidding that you have or"the original finished version of Sail-On-Sailor I recorded back at the house studio with Carl doing the lead"?

That was my initial thought as well ! Can't believe no-one else picked up on that in the intervening 24 hours !!!!!

Yeah, I couldn't believe my eyes. I mean, this has been denied having existed, if
I recall? I hope Bother has a digital copy!

[Stephen W. Desper]

I think that the only "Holy Grail" recordings that haven't seen the light of day remaining are:

The late 60's recordings done for A&M  by Brian with Tandyn Almer. Rerecordings of Beach Boy songs with alternate lyrics,
to make them less surf and car oriented and therefore easier for a publisher to offer for other artists to record.

Were they any good? does anyone know?

that might be the last bastion of musical surprise that could see the light of day someday.

 

Those would be very interesting to hear.  I suspect that Brian's "involvement" was relatively minor given the timeframe (1972) and what we know about his condition at that time.  But you never know.  I've never talked to anyone who's heard them -- or that has at least admitted to hearing them...

Actually, it seems these sessions are from late '69/early '70 - in other words, the Sunflower era...I have scans of several AFM contracts with the client name "Brian Wilson Productions". I'm reliably told that these were backing track sessions for the rewritten song demos. The producer seems to have been Brian himself.

COMMENT:  As I have stated many times c-man, and will again make the statement again.  AFM contracts cannot be trusted to be what they claim to represent. ~swd

[Stephen W. Desper]

Stephen, did  I  read this correctly or were you just kidding that you have or"the original finished version of Sail-On-Sailor I recorded back at the house studio with Carl doing the lead"?

COMMENT:  Yes. It will be part of a study-video on Sail-On-Sailor.  We lived with Carl's lead for many months as a finished product, but when the song was not included in Surf's Up,  Blondie essentially copied Carl's inflections and phrasing with his replacement lead with the song being used in Holland -- As I understand, the new lead was recorded in the USA, after the group's return from Nederland.   ~swd

[Stephen W. Desper]

If you ask me, the best still-unreleased Brian song or recording is the DW-produced "Stevie". THAT deserves release!  

There were also several intriguing BW sessions from 1980-'82 (seemingly unrelated to his concurrent "cocaine sessions" with Dennis), held at Western and Gold Star. Although AFM documentation for these exists, I'm told little from those sessions could be found in the vaults, except for the "Shortenin' Bread"/"My Solution" medley backing track...

COMMENT:  I have heard the sessions Brian started when the group, and myself, were out of the country on tour. We reviewed the tapes upon return. There was nothing worth building on and so they were put in storage or re-used (in other words, erased). ~swd

[Stephen W. Desper]

Stephen,

Have you ever commented publicly on this track mentioned in the article?:

"Song to God" - [Stanley] Shapiro also told [the author of the article, Brian Chidester] the story of the time Dennis Wilson had engineer Stephen Desper queue up a Brian Wilson reel-to-reel labeled "Song to God." According to Shapiro, as the tape ran and Dennis and Desper sat mesmerized, Brian came barreling down from his bedroom, ripped the tape off the playback and yelled, "Don't you ever touch that again! That's between me and God!" As [Chidester's] previous article stated, no tape for this has ever been found.

COMMENT:  Is that Shapiro, the lawyer (who now heads BRI)?  At any rate, never heard of a song entitled "Song to God."  Never did Dennis and I hear such a song, nor did Brian come barreling into the studio. And, by the way, you don't just "rip" a professional tape reel(s) from a professional tape recorder.  There are hold-down clamps and a complex threading pathway, and to get to the control room required some gyrations -- you don't just "barrel down," so the story is replete with imagined gestures and simply put NOT TRUE.  ~swd

[PhilSpectre]

I would guess there are a few interesting unreleased songs, demos etc by Brian from the early 80s to now that are unheard/ not bootlegged. Though most fan interest always seems to centre on anything unheard from the 60s/ 70s, imo Brian's later career as a creative songwriter is  just as interesting. For starters, Brian seems to have been very musically active during the so-called Sweet Insanity and Paley Sessions eras, so who knows what unheard things may exist from those years? Then there is the unreleased stuff from the Gary Usher sessions in the mid-80s.

Hopefully, as time passes and people accept we've got virtually all there ever was from the 60s and 70s, interest may shift to the later years, where Brian seems far from the 'burn-out' he has at times been painted, judging by the beauty and sophistication of some of this later music we've heard already.

[LeeDempsey]

COMMENT:  Is that Shapiro, the lawyer (who now heads BRI)?  At any rate, never heard of a song entitled "Song to God."  Never did Dennis and I hear such a song, nor did Brian come barreling into the studio. And, by the way, you don't just "rip" a professional tape reel(s) from a professional tape recorder.  There are hold-down clamps and a complex threading pathway, and to get to the control room required some gyrations -- you don't just "barrel down," so the story is replete with imagined gestures and simply put NOT TRUE.  ~swd

[Corrected sentence below.]

Stephen, you may be thinking of Elliott Lott.  Stan Shapiro was a friend of Dennis'; I believe at one time he worked at the William Morris Agency.

Thank you for confirming what I thought (and what Alan Boyd also confirmed) -- that the events in the article have been hyperbolized.

And count me among those who are eagerly anticipating the "Sail On Sailor" Study Video for a chance to hear the early version.

[SamMcK]

It's threads like this that make me so glad i'm not the only one that goes crazy over hearing unreleased Beach Boys material.

[Cam Mott]

Stephen, you may be thinking of Elliott Lott.  Stan Shapiro was a friend of Dennis'; I believe at one time he worked at the William Morris Agency.

Maybe Abe Somer?

[Peter Reum]

I think that there is enough material for a single cd/download. The Party double  cd was a stroke of excellent thinking. Personally, I don't want to hear several takes of Hey Little Tomboy, but the alternate versions of several songs I would buy. The best "new frontier," if you will, is the long list of live performances through the years.

[c-man]

I think that the only "Holy Grail" recordings that haven't seen the light of day remaining are:

The late 60's recordings done for A&M  by Brian with Tandyn Almer. Rerecordings of Beach Boy songs with alternate lyrics,
to make them less surf and car oriented and therefore easier for a publisher to offer for other artists to record.

Were they any good? does anyone know?

that might be the last bastion of musical surprise that could see the light of day someday.

 

Those would be very interesting to hear.  I suspect that Brian's "involvement" was relatively minor given the timeframe (1972) and what we know about his condition at that time.  But you never know.  I've never talked to anyone who's heard them -- or that has at least admitted to hearing them...

Actually, it seems these sessions are from late '69/early '70 - in other words, the Sunflower era...I have scans of several AFM contracts with the client name "Brian Wilson Productions". I'm reliably told that these were backing track sessions for the rewritten song demos. The producer seems to have been Brian himself.

COMMENT:  As I have stated many times c-man, and will again make the statement again.  AFM contracts cannot be trusted to be what they claim to represent. ~swd

Perhaps so...but in my research experience, the majority of Beach Boys-related AFM contracts that I've uncovered match up perfectly with session tapes that I've been allowed to hear. There are some quite obvious exceptions where a contract was created after-the-fact just to have something to submit, but those are the exceptions, and they're blatantly obvious. In the case of the early '80s stuff I speak of here, interesting assortments of musicians were apparently booked for studio sessions with Brian, under song titles such as "Fly", "Candlesticks", "Up Again", "Why Don't You Tell Me Why" and "Cry Like A Baby". Whether these sessions actually took place or actually resulted in anything being committed to tape, I cannot say, as the tapes apparently do not reside in the Brother vaults as one would expect them to.

[Stephen W. Desper]

COMMENT:  Is that Shapiro, the lawyer (who now heads BRI)?  At any rate, never heard of a song entitled "Song to God."  Never did Dennis and I hear such a song, nor did Brian come barreling into the studio. And, by the way, you don't just "rip" a professional tape reel(s) from a professional tape recorder.  There are hold-down clamps and a complex threading pathway, and to get to the control room required some gyrations -- you don't just "barrel down," so the story is replete with imagined gestures and simply put NOT TRUE.  ~swd

[Corrected sentence below.]

Stephen, you may be thinking of Elliott Lott.  Stan Shapiro was a friend of Dennis'; I believe at one time he worked at the William Morris Agency.

Thank you for confirming what I thought (and what Alan Boyd also confirmed) -- that the events in the article have been hyperbolized.

COMMENT:  I believe the current situation is that Elliott Lott has stepped aside from running BRI and in the interim is being managed by their lawyer, Mr. Shapiro, ESQ. It makes more sense that the story had it's beginning with Stan.  But I don't know which "Shapiro" started this tale, only wondering since my name was invoked. At any rate, it's a tall tale, and should not be taken any other way. ~swd

[Stephen W. Desper]

COMMENT:  As I have stated many times c-man, and will again make the statement again.  AFM contracts cannot be trusted to be what they claim to represent. ~swd

Perhaps so...but in my research experience, the majority of Beach Boys-related AFM contracts that I've uncovered match up perfectly with session tapes that I've been allowed to hear. There are some quite obvious exceptions where a contract was created after-the-fact just to have something to submit, but those are the exceptions, and they're blatantly obvious. In the case of the early '80s stuff I speak of here, interesting assortments of musicians were apparently booked for studio sessions with Brian, under song titles such as "Fly", "Candlesticks", "Up Again", "Why Don't You Tell Me Why" and "Cry Like A Baby". Whether these sessions actually took place or actually resulted in anything being committed to tape, I cannot say, as the tapes apparently do not reside in the Brother vaults as one would expect them to.

COMMENT:  Let me phrase this another way . . .  You can't construct accurate history of recording sessions by looking at AFM contract sheets. 

. . . Anymore than you could figure out what Brian had for his dinner last night by looking at last week's grocery bills of the Wilson household. ~swd