Brian: The Complete Productions

Happy holidays! Here's an attempt at a collection of Brian Wilson productions. I was mostly going off this nice list here. I tried for the best quality I could get (stereo used where it sounded good) - Pet Projects, The Big Beat 1963, Still I Dream of You, and the lovely Visions 2CD set were the main sources. Come to think of it, this is pretty much just a rip-off of Visions. Oh well.
Also, the "Guess I'm Dumb" used here is a stereo remix by runnersdialzero. It's amaaaazing.

Download here (mp3, 314mb)

Disc 1:
01. The Honeys - Surfin' Down The Swanee River
02. The Honeys - Shoot The Curl
03. The Honeys - Pray For Surf
04. The Honeys - Hide Go Seek
05. The Honeys - Rabbit's Foot
06. The Honeys - The One You Can't Have
07. The Honeys - From Jimmy With Tears
08. The Honeys - Funny Boy
09. The Honeys - You Brought It All On Yourself
10. The Honeys - Make The Night A Little Longer
11. The Honeys - In The Still Of The Night
12. The Honeys - Raindrops
13. The Honeys - He's A Doll
14. The Honeys - The Love Of A Boy And Girl
15. The Honeys - I Can See Right Through You
16. The Honeys - Tonight You Belong To Me
17. The Honeys - Goodnight My Love
18. Brian and the Honeys - Marie
19. Kenny and the Cadets - Barbie
20. Kenny and the Cadets - What Is A Young Girl Made Of
21. Rachel and the Revolvers - The Revo-Lution
22. Rachel and the Revolvers - Number One
23. Bob and Sheri - The Surfer Moon
24. Bob and Sheri - Humpty Dumpty
25. Bob and Sheri - The Big Beat
26. Bob and Sheri - Ride Away
27. The Survivors - Pamela Jean
28. The Survivors - After The Game
29. Sharon Marie - Run-Around Lover
30. Sharon Marie - Summertime
31. Sharon Marie - Thinkin' 'Bout You Baby
32. Sharon Marie - Story Of My Life
33. Glen Campbell - Malibu Sunset
34. Tri-5 - Come And Get It
35. Tri-5 - Like Chop

urgh this is painful
Disc 2:
01. The Sunsets - My Surfin' Little Woodie
02. Ron Wilson - If It Can't Be You
03. The Castells - I Do
04. Gary Usher - My Only Alibi
05. Gary Usher - One Way Road To Love
06. Gary Usher - Sacramento
07. Gary Usher - That's The Way I Feel
08. Larry Denton - Endless Sleep
09. Paul Petersen - She Rides With Me
10. The Hondells - My Buddy Seat
11. Glen Campbell - Guess I'm Dumb
12. Dick Reynolds - How Deep Is The Ocean
13. Dick Reynolds - Stella By Starlight
14. Bob and Bobby - Twelve-O-Four
15. Bob and Bobby - Baby, What You Want Me To Do
16. Ron Wilson - I'll Keep On Loving You
17. Ron Wilson - As Tears Go By
18. The Laughing Gravy - Vegetables
19. Redwood - Time To Get Alone
20. Dino, Desi and Billy - Lady Love
21. The Honeys - Come To Me
22. The Honeys - Slip On Through
23. The Honeys - Snowflakes
24. The Honeys - Shyin' Away
25. The Honeys - Fallin' In Love
26. The Honeys - Don't Be Cruel
27. The Honeys - Sweet Sunday Kinda Love
28. The Honeys - She's Just Out To Get You
29. The Honeys - Do Ya
30. The Honeys - It's Like Heaven
31. The Honeys - Had To Phone Ya

Sweet Insanity (deluxe edition?)

I thought I'd make my own Sweet Insanity disc - there are a countless amount of them about already and it's horrifically confusing, so here's another one. I like this album, I'm sorry to say. The obligatory defensive paragraph follows:

Sweet Insanity is more of a mixed bag than Brian Wilson '88, and definitely 'poppier' than its predecessor. There's certainly nothing here that scales the heights of "Melt Away", but it's a different beast altogether - the lead-off track, "Someone to Love", is an utterly infectious pop tune (with a chord progression inspired by Dennis Wilson's excellent "San Miguel"), and most everything else here has a similar sense of hook-filled fun. What lets this album down are the lyrics; where 1988 saw the presence of Andy Paley and David Leaf to prevent Landy's timeless words of "love attacks" from sabotaging the songs, this time around there was no-one to stop him, and as a result we must endure Brian singing of the "crazy beatings" he received from his father, ruining what is otherwise a fine composition ("Brian"). Two versions of this album exist (both were rejected by the label); this is the superior revised cut.

Regarding the bonus tracks, obviously not everything could be squeezed into one disc, so I ensured the stuff I left out was really the material that absolutely no-one should ever be forced to listen to (i.e. "Living Doll", "Spirit of the Forest" - you can find all that elsewhere...) - and trust me, I would've loved to have "Smart Girls" wiped, but since it's part of the 'official' tracklist I couldn't do that. Ah well.

01. Concert Tonight
02. Someone to Love
03. Water Builds Up
04. Don't Let Her Know (She's an Angel)
05. Do You Have Any Regrets (I Do)
06. Brian (Thank You)
07. The Spirit of Rock 'n' Roll (with Bob Dylan)
08. Rainbow Eyes
09. Love Ya
10. Make a Wish
11. Smart Girls

Bonus tracks:
12. Hotter
13. Country Feelin'
14. Daddy's Little Girl
15. Metal Beach
16. Goodnight Irene
17. Turning Point
18. Heavenly Bodies
19. Fantasy is Reality/ Belles of Madness
20. Concert Tonight (First Version)
21. Someone to Love (First Version)
22. Don't Let Her Know (She's an Angel) (Demo)
23. Sweetie (Demo)
24. Black Widow (Demo)
25. Harmonies

Download here (320kb/s mp3s)

Slightly American Music (Wilson/Paley)

I recently found the 1996 Wilson/Paley sessions in lossless flac, so I thought it might be a nice time to dig deeper into these recordings. The selection of songs that came out of these sessions is a mixed bag, and I'd hesitate to call any of these songs "great", but there was certainly more than enough decent material to warrant a Brian Wilson solo album. So I attempted to compile the best of the lot into a 12-song LP that I tried to give some flow - there's the happier, goofier stuff on the first half, then more serious material on the second (including the original version of "Gettin' In Over My Head", which in my opinion is much better than what was released in 2004).
A good chunk of the tracks previously came sped up about 20%, which made Brian sound a bit off; here I attempted to slow down those tracks to their correct length. Eleven other songs from these sessions are included as bonus tracks.

01. Proud Mary
02. Slightly American Music
03. I'm Broke
04. Chain Reaction of Love
05. Soul Searchin'
06. Desert Drive
07. This Could Be the Night
08. You're Still A Mystery
09. Gettin' In Over My Head
10. It's Not Easy Bein' Me
11. Must Be a Miracle
12. Some Sweet Day

Bonus Tracks:
13. Saturday Morning in the City
14. Sweets for my Sweet
15. Marketplace
16. This Song Wants to Sleep with You Tonight
17. Mary Anne
18. Frankie Avalon
19. Elbow '63
20. God Did It
21. Goin' Home
22. What Rock 'N' Roll Can Do
23. In My Moondreams

Download in mp3 (173mb)
Download in flac (417mb)

Random Rarities

Here's a collection I made of a few tracks that can be quite hard to come by (including a high quality 'We Got Love'), along with some other tidbits such as my own mix of 'Can't Wait Too Long'.

01. In The Back Of My Mind (instrumental)
02. Wonderful K.O.M.A.
03. Heroes and Villains (Lei'd In Hawaii)
04. Can't Wait Too Long
05. I Was Made To Love Her (Rehearsal)
06. Oh Yeah!
07. Fig Plucker
08. America, I Know You
09. Loop de Loop
10. 'Til I Die (Alternate Mix)
11. Out in the Country
12. We Got Love
13. Rollin' Up To Heaven
14. Mony, Mony
15. Rock and Roll Music (hot mix)
16. Everybody Wants To Live
17. Drip Drop (Teardrops On My Bed)
18. I'm Begging You Please
19. Oh Darlin' (Alternate Version)
20. Oh Lord

Download here

SMiLE (my edit)

Here's another Smile by myself, although it's not really a new mix as much as it is a slight alteration of someone else's (and yes, it's that one I go on about all the ruddy, ruddy time). This fuses the original 60s material with Brian Wilson Presents Smile; obviously it is nothing like what the record would have sounded like had it come out in 1967, but it offers arguably the most full and complete cut of the album possible.
So now everything is in stereo, and there are just a couple tweaks here and there of mine (eg stereo "Gee" from the boxset seamlessly mixed with Barnshine's own edit, plus minor annoyances like the "I believe" vocals removed from BWPS CIFOT and all that). Nothing very new or interesting, but it's another one. In pompous fashion I have named it Smile: Ultimate Edition.

It was also kindly uploaded to YouTube by psychedelicpiper along with the original 3971 edit:

01. Our Prayer / Gee
02. Heroes & Villains
03. Do You Like Worms?
04. Barnyard / The Old Master Painter / My Only Sunshine
05. Cabin Essence
06. Wonderful
07. Look (Song For Children)
08. Child Is Father Of The Man
09. Surf's Up
10. I'm In Great Shape / I Wanna Be Around / Friday Night
11. Vega-Tables
12. On A Holiday
13. Wind Chimes
14. Fire (Mrs O'Leary's Cow)
15. Love To Say Dada
16. In Blue Hawaii
17. Good Vibrations

Download in flac
Download in mp3