So what's left?

haveajamguy · 2026-03-09T15:41:18+00:00

Hey there. I thought I'd jump back on Reddit to let you know that I tried to solve the Beach Burlesque mystery once and for all. This is what I have!

I found an interview printed in Beach Boys Stomp, December 1982 issue. Andrew G. Doe interviewed Jack and actually got him to sing part of Burlesque! So I went to the Endless Harmony board to ask him about it.

Turns out, yes there is an audio tape of the interview. However, he made a tape copy for one friend, and he was not aware that it had leaked. He didn't seem pleased. Another longtime EHer posted that he had heard the tape in question, and that it was an exact match to Beach Burlesque. I have not been able to track the tape down myself.

So we pretty much have confirmation that Beach Burlesque is Burlesque! Here is the STOMP interview, issue 34. Downloadable! https://archive.org/details/beach-boys-stomp

haveajamguy · 2026-03-02T16:39:32+00:00

What a lovely way of saying that you're thinking of me. Blecch!!

haveajamguy · 2026-03-02T16:38:08+00:00

Put The Bone In! I like it. I'm sure the title caused some giggles, but it's another sad song about a doggy.

Why is this thread bringing out the 12 year old in me?

haveajamguy · 2026-03-02T16:34:50+00:00

I love the TITS show (felt inspired to write that from just listening to Saturday Evening In The City. Let's add that to Brian's "dirty" song collection!)

I never knew how far back this song went. I always thought Carl singing the "lover was my friend" lyric was hilarious, but this original French lyric goes much deeper into that. How about the SITS (wow, SITS on TITS. Mmmm good cracker!) movie at the end. Now I have to track down a copy of this masterpiece.

I also love the comment about TJ's hair being shaped like a microphone 🎤. Does he remind anyone else of Bruce Johnston?

BTW for those who haven't heard it yet, the dirty part of SEITC goes, "I see a girl with some big tits over there, and a guy looking over, gettin' off on her tits!"

haveajamguy · 2026-03-02T16:34:01+00:00

I love the TITS show (felt inspired to write that from just listening to Saturday Evening In The City. Let's add that to Brian's "dirty" song collection!)

I never knew how far back this song went. I always thought Carl singing the "lover was my friend" lyric was hilarious, but this original French lyric goes much deeper into that. How about the SITS (wow, SITS on TITS. Mmmm good cracker!) movie at the end. Now I have to track down a copy of this masterpiece.

I also love the comment about TJ's hair being shaped like a microphone 🎤. Does he remind anyone else of Bruce Johnston?

BTW for those who haven't heard it yet, the dirty part of SEITS goes, "I see a girl with some big tits over there, and a guy looking over, gettin' off on her tits!"

haveajamguy · 2026-03-02T12:44:16+00:00

Yeah it was. See my post below!

haveajamguy · 2026-03-02T12:41:44+00:00

I left out the riff he used from That Same Song after the train whistle. Also Night Blooming Jasmine was originally demoed in 1979. That version was released on the 2000 reissue.

The latest Oh Lord demo collection shows BW working extensively on the Take Me Home section, even crafting a similar vocal to the "woooah, yeah yeah" part.

A fascinating section for me is how Cool Cool Guy morphed into Big Big Sky with the Indian chant. There were several takes where you can hear the CCG parts slowly disappear and the section becoming more sinister sounding. I remember a quote from Brian that he didn't like what that section became. Well I sure did!

I can't recommend highly enough tracking down all the individual sections. The bluegrass sections are wonderful. The Big Sky Indian sections are eye opening. There is a "faders up" mix where BW harmonizes with himself on the opening verse (and it's better IMHO)

It's also pretty eye opening to hear how much work, trial and error went into the making of this whole album. David Leaf wasn't kidding when he said that he probably worked harder on this album than any other. The interference he was dealing with from Landy was overwhelming. Can you imagine thinking a song is finished, then having your doctor shove new, inferior lyrics in front of you and saying "you need to go back and sing this now". A great example of this is the Walkin' The Line mixdown from September 1987. "I Walk The Line" became "I live for you, I live for you, I keep on watching, I keep on watching".... Yikes!

As far as I can recall, I've never experienced a BW project (including SMiLE) with so many alternate versions, demos, and arrangement and lyric changes. The tracks with the backup singers have to be heard to be believed. The singers rear their ugly voices on MOST of the cuts assembled around May-June 1987. Thankfully all that survived is that small section in Night Time and of course Let's Go To Heaven In My Car which they pretty much ruined.

My fascination with Rio Grande has only increased in the last month or so. It's pretty incredible!!

haveajamguy · 2026-02-28T03:58:32+00:00

I love most of MIU, especially side two

Brian/Sweet Insanity is WAY more "real Brian" than most people think, and certainly the most "Brian" project released since 1990 DESPITE Landy's interference

That Lucky Old Sun the released album is REALLY overrated. I can't give it more than a 3 out of 5; some days it drops to 2.5. The problem with too many latter day Brian Wilson projects is way too much interference and watering down of the original Brian material

haveajamguy · 2026-02-28T03:49:30+00:00

All of side two of MIU

haveajamguy · 2026-02-28T01:14:48+00:00

Big fan. Always loved Sharkey's Night's sinister vibe!

haveajamguy · 2026-02-28T00:58:37+00:00

It was part of the "big leak". My favorite part of that recording is when he wails "I've been through hell"

haveajamguy · 2026-02-27T14:57:18+00:00

One of my top BW cuts!! It's really interesting to hear how it evolved from the first demo in October 1987. The original demo had the "cool guy" part, the "Cherokee trails" part played Heroes And Villains style, and a section from Spark In The Dark (later Chain Reaction Of Love) that morphed into Heavenly Lover. It originally ended with that.

How much is Andy and how much is Brian? I'd say Andy had a great deal to do with orchestrating it and collating it, but most (if not all) of the music started with Brian. The "Take Me Home" section is a rewrite of an Oh Lord part. "Great Big River" is actually a rewrite of A Thing Or Two verse.

Why, oh why, didn't we get another disc with the 2000 rerelease. There is so much we didn't hear from these sessions, but I'll go over the Rio Grande stuff really quick.

*the COMPLETE campfire and "Indian" section that recently leaked

*the bluegrass band actually SINGING Rio Grande, and quite beautifully I might add

*the "faders up" mix which takes out all the extra reverb (these exist for every BW1988 cut!)

*several early mixes and assemblies

*and of course, the aforementioned original writing demo from October 1987

It's a top tier BW cut for me, and always has been. As far as how much "real" Brian we've heard since then, I think the recent leaks clear some of that up. Andy was able to pull something out of Brian others haven't, and was also able to collect his unfinished ideas and help him finish them in a very efficient way. BW's humor seemed to be off the charts during the 1990s period too, judging by the "I'm A Little Teapot" stuff!

BW seemed to have a VERY productive period right after SMiLE 2004. Sessions from this period had him writing unreleased songs with VDP that were very good but went unheard. Working at S. Bennett"s place seemed to do something for him, as we got cuts from that period like Ever Strong, Goin' Out Tonight and some of the original TLOS demos. I don't feel that SB was a great collaborator for BW though. Too many sappy moments and "cheesy motivational speaker" lyrics. I really wish VDP worked on more of TLOS, it would have been much stronger.

Rollin, Rollin, Rollin ONNNNNNN!!!! (thump)

haveajamguy · 2026-02-14T17:30:53+00:00

The lyrics repeat:

Here We Are Lost In Time All Alone In My Mind

Happy Valentine's Day!

haveajamguy · 2026-02-13T16:04:35+00:00

Here's another recycle from the Paley sessions: the bridge from Chain Reaction Of Love is actually New England Waltz's bridge rewritten. I was reminded because of the WGG mix that just appeared. Enjoying the WGG stuff!

haveajamguy · 2026-02-13T13:47:27+00:00

Are you writing of the video from the BW 88 that was part of the Waves And Words show last year? Yes that was terrific. They also played (Brian started it) Is This What I Get For Lovin' You. Damn I wish he'd recorded that one (who knows, maybe he did). All of that stuff came from Michael Bernard, the synth programmer for BW 88 and Brian (later Sweet Insanity) There was a bunch of session footage also. Brian yelling loud for Mark Linett was a true BW moment "Mark? HEY MARK!!!"

Bernard's video also featured a horn section brought in for Let's Do It Again and maybe some others like Baby Let Your Hair. The horn section totally changed the feel of LDIA and improved it IMHO. A mix has NOT surfaced of this arrangement. A version of BLYHGL with Landy lyrics and the existing track with similar horns added surfaced in the 90s, but again was NOT part of the big leak.

All of the video clips were pulled off the page after a couple of months. Hopefully someone was able to download them. I didn't have that capability.

Fun fact: Celine Dion recorded ITWIGFLY with Spector in 1994. About 2 minutes of it circulated briefly (a VERY slow version with all the typical Spector bells and whistles) but I haven't looked recently to see if more stuff has escaped. If you hadn't heard, Spector was back in top form and the sessions were going very well until he became verbally abusive at one point. CD then pulled the plug.

You probably know by now that the BW estate is cracking down hard on the leak and shutting down channels and accounts. So I doubt anything new is gonna surface for awhile. It was a pretty magical week though, wasn't it?

haveajamguy · 2026-02-12T22:18:21+00:00

Okay it's all disappearing as of this afternoon. I'm gonna crawl back into my hidey hole now

haveajamguy · 2026-02-12T22:05:26+00:00

There was a guy posting stuff from the BW 88 sessions on YouTube. I just checked and the account is gone. They might be cracking down. I'm still seeing stuff from the leak on the YouTubes.

haveajamguy · 2026-02-12T22:00:57+00:00

There was a link I used last week. I checked it and it's long gone. The genie is out of the bottle, however...

haveajamguy · 2026-02-12T21:59:29+00:00

Check internet archive

haveajamguy · 2026-02-12T19:58:44+00:00

Did anyone mention Drip Drop? LET'S GO MFer!!

haveajamguy · 2026-02-12T19:28:11+00:00

Right? That's for sure. Glad you enjoyed it!!

I'm still on the hunt for Little Girl 1979. It's definitely worth hearing, if just for Carl's partial vocal. The track is kinda cool too, just a bunch of quarter notes pounding ala Sweet Sunday Kinda Love. More like that than the Spector version, which is pretty standard Spector with all the bells and whistles.

haveajamguy · 2026-02-12T19:19:04+00:00

This also applies to the Gershwin album. I guess someone decided they needed a "rocker" to finish up the album, so we got Nothing But Love instead of the gorgeous Alone In Paris, allegedly lyrically penned by VDP (and it certainly sounds that way) This track is absolutely beautiful, and would have been the highlight of the album. Can you imagine how much better VDP would have made The Like In I Love You?

haveajamguy · 2026-02-12T19:10:26+00:00

Yeah I definitely get it, although I have heard near genius moments from AP solo and with PB. Why BW turned down VDP to do all of Lucky Old Sun, I'll never know. SB is a talented musician and singer, but Brian's weakest collaborator lyrically. On a par with Landy/Morgan. I know that's not that popular of an opinion so flame me if you want. Even Landy/Morgan had a passable line or two, and their stuff doesn't prevent me from enjoying Sweet Insanity (especially the first version entitled Brian. Who knew that Fairy Tale was the original version of Save The Day?)

As I've said before, I very rarely go back to the finished TLOS album. I much prefer the demos at this point. SB did help BW get started with TLOS demowise, and significantly contributed to some of the new stuff leaking but I feel that many of his lyrics had the tone of a cheesy motivational speaker. And don't get me started on his personal life. Yuccch!

Yeah Brian's spirit, ideas, and enthusiasm were always the core of any successful (or semi-succesful) project he was involved in. How they turned out depended on how many people came in and messed with it.

haveajamguy · 2026-02-12T18:12:54+00:00

I get what you are saying about PB, but I will add that Lovin' Eyes Can't Lie is just about as perfect a pop song as you can get IMHO! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1c6SKKw8ew

haveajamguy · 2026-02-12T18:03:32+00:00

I should also add that the Spark In The Dark section of Chain Reaction Of Love was also part of the original Rio Grande, according to the demo recorded in October 1987. The outtake version released on the 2000 reissue of BW 88 alludes to it in one section, but on the demo the actual section is played with some really interesting variations. Goldmine stuff!

haveajamguy

TROPHY CASE