"Sweet Insanity" mastertapes

[Alex]

I have never actually heard the first version (can anyone upload it to rapidshare or megaupload?). 

 
 

[TdHabib]

I think the best songs are great:  "Don't Let Her Know," "Regrets"...um...let me think.  "Water Builds Up" is pretty cool.  I always thought "Smart Girls" was really funny but with each passing year I think so less and less.  "Brian" is just horrible.  Ah, never mind.  It's not that good.  But the best 2-3 songs are about the best he's done overall as a solo guy, up 'til TLOS.

Especially "Don't Let Her Know," which in my mind has a really good vocal if not a great production in it's original incarnation.

[urbanite]

I'd like to hear some of these tracks.  Wonder if they'll ever come out.

[MBE]

I doubt the original tapes will come out until Brian's gone and even then it may be seen as bad taste. I think there is just too much bad feeling about the era, and there are so many better things in the vaults from before and even since that time.

[Wirestone]

I could go for a two-disc set of the Paley sessions. Or a three-desk set of Usher, a couple of SI tracks, Paley sessions and other odds and ends from Brian's solo career.

The Paley stuff is seriously meritorious -- I originally loved it, then cooled on it, then felt "eh" -- but I'm coming around to seeing it as a great accomplishment. It's Andy's as much as Brian's -- that's one of the adjustments I think folks have had to make about it -- but they did something pretty special. Brian has done outstanding stuff since, but that batch of songs would knock folks out if properly presented.

[MBE]

I could go for a two-disc set of the Paley sessions. Or a three-desk set of Usher, a couple of SI tracks, Paley sessions and other odds and ends from Brian's solo career.

The Paley stuff is seriously meritorious -- I originally loved it, then cooled on it, then felt "eh" -- but I'm coming around to seeing it as a great accomplishment. It's Andy's as much as Brian's -- that's one of the adjustments I think folks have had to make about it -- but they did something pretty special. Brian has done outstanding stuff since, but that batch of songs would knock folks out if properly presented.

Now the Paley stuff is very good overall. I would like to see a CD/LP package come out on that because I think it would really bring to light some of Brian's better post 70s work. I'm not big on OCA myself and IJWFTT is pleasent but not a major piece of work. Even I did like those albums there is still an awfully big gap from Brian as a songwriter or producer in the nineties. Paley did a lot but every album since Pet Sounds had someone co-producing to one extent or another. Even the 1976-77 cuts had a lot of work from Carl on it. I say this not to diminish Brian, but to point out that collaboration doesn't take away from the work he does do.

[Smilin Ed H]

The Usher stuff suffers from awful production; in its way, as bad as that for SI.

[onkster]

Ummm, I'm not really expecting an answer on this, but don't you wonder what the whole personal fallout with Andy was?  I'm presuming that's why all those tracks don't/won't come out...

Maybe it was Brian saying "We're all a bunch of little girls..."

[Jason]

The Wilson/Paley tracks are certainly not unworthy of release but the bigwigs seem to think that no one would pay for a properly mastered CD of these tracks as opposed to cassette dubs, so...

Maybe in fifty years when no one will be able to object?

[Andrew G. Doe]

Ummm, I'm not really expecting an answer on this, but don't you wonder what the whole personal fallout with Andy was?  I'm presuming that's why all those tracks don't/won't come out...

Maybe it was Brian saying "We're all a bunch of little girls..."

Paley blazed the trail that many since have followed - yes, the fallout was 'personal'... but not between Brian & Andy.

[Wirestone]

Just look at the publicly available time line. When did Andy work with Brian? What did they produce? When was Andy in and out? In what format did the songs finally appear? What has Andy said about the work?

I suspect -- strongly -- the answer is in front of our faces. Or at least, it can be extrapolated from events in front of our faces. Just saying.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Just look at the publicly available time line. When did Andy work with Brian? What did they produce? When was Andy in and out? In what format did the songs finally appear? What has Andy said about the work?

I suspect -- strongly -- the answer is in front of our faces. Or at least, it can be extrapolated from events in front of our faces. Just saying.

Brian called Paley pretty much the next morning after he was freed from Landy's regime. The 'Wilson/Paley' sessions, as far as I know, commenced spring 1992 and lasted until fall 1994. They took place mostly at Your Place Or Mine, although the "Proud Mary" sessions took place at Oceanway (= Western)

[Wirestone]

I was being obtuse for the fun of it.

I'm just offering suggestions for folks who want to puzzle over Andy's departure from Brian's inner world. Given that he not only started working with Brian again in 2000 or so (after the Thomas era ended) and actually was a member of Brian's touring band from 2001-2002, it seems as though they were on good terms well past the mid-90s.

But Paley was eventually tossed out. And if folks look into events from those years, and do some cross-referencing from the Carlin book (about Brian's latter-day relationships with veteran collaborators), there are inferences that can be drawn. Just sayin!

[TdHabib]

Brian and Paley still, as far as I know, are on OK terms...I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of the situation but I know that Brian has appeared on at least one Paley production since the whole "fallout" (I do believe the song waas released in 2006 on a Spongebob thing) and on a few concert recordings of the last year of so Bri introduces "Desert Drive" and/or "Soul Searchin'" with "this is a song that my friend and I wrote." I know Andy has a big ego but was a very sympathetic collaborator to Brian,  and I always loved the stuff he and Brian did. Just love it.

BTW, was Andy paid for his work with Brian, ever (I'm talking about the 92-95 work)? Just curious.

[adamghost]

I definitely like me some Wilson/Paley.  That stuff is REALLY good.  Brian's voice bums me out on them, though...just because the rest of the tracks are soooo nice and he just can't really make it happen with the lead vocal.  That said, really have enjoyed this stuff on bootlegs tremendously.

[the captain]

The Wilson/Paley, to me, is a whole different thing than the Sweet Insanity stuff that started this thread. Those admittedly dopey things like My Marianne and Some Sweet Day are great. It amazes me that a band so hooked on nostalgia as the BBs had become by then wasn't interested enough to get it done with that material. Speaking of the alleged Paley fallout, I recall that around the time this board grew from the last board, there were people "in the know" talking a lot about knowing more than they'd say about the whole situation. Me, I don't have a clue. But Paley collaborated on material as consistently good as Wilson has done in 30+ years, with the only close competition being Bennett, in my opinion.

[MBE]

I definitely like me some Wilson/Paley.  That stuff is REALLY good.  Brian's voice bums me out on them, though...just because the rest of the tracks are soooo nice and he just can't really make it happen with the lead vocal.  That said, really have enjoyed this stuff on bootlegs tremendously.

Gettin In Over My Head has a great vocal.

[carl r]

Look forward to seeing much of the Paley sessions on a retrospective, who knows, maybe sooner than we think.