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- [00:00]
A
You know, much of this stuff has seen the light of day over, you know, the years under or in various forms. But I wanted to maybe take a moment here. We're in the middle of the 90s. We've done I Just Wasn't Made for these Times. We've done Orange Crate Arts, we're getting to Imagination shortly. But this, you know, this period of time in the Brian Wilson career was a fertile one for him as a songwriter, as a music maker. Certainly him and his partner Andy Paley, who we've spoken about, were cranking it out and just making magic happen in the studio on a daily basis. And a lot of this material, none of this material saw the light of day at the time, maybe in the fashion that it was supposed to, or it might have been presented at one point and you know, on into the years after that. Bits and pieces here and there are sort of rescued, re. Presented. Re recorded in some cases or released, you know, kind of in ticky tack fashion. Very similar to what happened to a lot of the Smile material, frankly. But you know, like I said, I feel like it warranted looking at this body of material here at this moment in time and imagining what might have been had Brian been able to get this material out as a proper release at the moment of time, as I think that it deserved to have been.
- [01:20]
B
I feel like we're just kind of. It's cursed. It's cursed now. What's cursed at this point it's just like, why does this keep happening?
- [01:30]
A
Yeah, why?
- [01:32]
B
Why? Like how many times are we gonna run through this thing of like Brian Wilson back on his feet, creatively excited and productive and for some reason they're like, no, we can't put this out.
- [01:47]
A
Yes, well, you know, it is a tale as old as time, you know, and it's a tale. Tale that we'll see again after this. So it's, you know, don't think we're at the end yet. It does, you know, it does seem to be something that sort of presents itself or cycles itself on into the future. And you know, I think some of that has to do with circumstances outside of Brian's control. I do also think that some of it, you know, has, has something to do with circumstances within his control or at least, you know, kind of who he was, who he had been made to. To be by this point because it's, you know, by the time he goes solo, is always going to be working with a partner sort of a. If Brian's the ideas man, we have, you know, he's going to have his Action man alongside him. Sometimes that Action man is Andy Paley, and the results speak for themselves. Other times, you've got a Eugene Landy, you've got a Joe Thomas, you've got, you know, Van Dyck Parks in some cases. Why? Different types of people. And it ultimately ends up leading to wildly different types of results, obviously. But for whatever reason, Brian always seemed to want. Always seemed to need someone there by his side to help him manifest his music dreams. And instead of taking charge himself the way that he did in the early days, it was more of a collaborative effort, regardless of who the collaborator was.
- [03:18]
B
Well, that's true even of Pet Sounds, though. I mean, that's him and Tony Ash.
- [03:23]
A
It is working together.
- [03:25]
B
That album Just Straight wouldn't exist without that. That dynamic.
- [03:31]
A
That's true. You know, you're right about that. And, you know, Smile similar. You know, I do think that Tony Asher and Van Dyke, you know, for Smile were more in a secondary role, and Brian was more kind of in command of things, you know, sort of seeing the whole matrix in the studio, directing the musicians. He had the vision and was able to execute it. And, you know, he brought other people in to help him build it out. But I think by this point, I think he's still capable of doing that. But for whatever reason, he. He isn't doing it as much. And so it turns into more of a. Turns into more of a team effort. And sometimes that's a good thing, other times maybe less so. I've got a little bit of. A little bit of color on this one if we want to sort of just understand where we're at, please, here in the mid-90s. So a lot of this actually comes from this unbelievable interview that I read for the first time today. This is an interview, I think, taking place in 1995. And maybe I'll put a link to it in the episode description. Very lengthy conversation. Brian and Melinda and David Leaf are all there, and then he's being interviewed by this guy. I don't know who the journalist was, but it's up at his little Laurel Canyon house here in the mid-90s. And a couple interesting quotes here, but I want to say I want to set the scene with this interview just so you understand and so listeners understand kind of what Brian's frame of mind is here in this overall conversation, which is quite lengthy, and I encourage everyone to read it. So let me quote from Brian here to introduce this. I've Got My Secret here. This is him talking to the interviewer here. He's sitting at a piano. I've got my secret here, and I don't tell anybody about my secret. I have a secret, but I'll tell you anyways. I don't have any sex, okay? The secret is abstaining from orgasm. An Einsteinian formula that if you abstain from having an orgasm for, say, 10 years, you create a void in your brain. In other words, if you don't express an orgasm for 10 years, it's a long time, right? Most people think two weeks without an orgasm is a long time. And I did that. You know, my dad told me in high school, son, now you're gonna be going through a lot of hell as you grow up. And the one thing you should never do is you should not have orgasms and masturbate. You should not fuck around with girls. And I tried it out. I've been jacking off all summer. You know, toward the end of the summer, this is me going into my junior year in high school. My dad lays that on me. I go there and I try it out, and I say, what the is this? Hey, wait a minute, man. I like not coming better than coming. And I kept going that way for a long, long time. And finally I came to the conclusion that I'm gonna tell people my secret. But I just don't want some chick to go, oh, that's your secret? Well, here, I'll make you come. Ain't that a weird trip back to you.
- [06:31]
B
I don't know what to say.