Beach Boys SMILE Bootlegs S/D C/D etc

i'm kinda surprised i haven't been able to find more discussion of this era of the BB's career around here... (plz direct me to relevant threads if i've overlooked.)

i only got the VIGOTONE and the PURPLE CHICK boots, both of which are awesome for different reasons... the former as a more extended sampler of the sessions' delightfully indulgent & strange experimentation and the latter as a fan-made imagining of what a 1960s SMILE release might've looked like.

VIGOTONE info:
http://www.vigotone.com/vigotone/vigotone110-111.htm

PURPLE CHICK info:
http://www.earcandymag.com/purplechicksmile-2005.htm

any other suggestions?

gotta say i'm not a fan of the 2004 re-recorded version, and though i'm a fan of 70s BB.... seems like all those re-recordings of SMILE material pale in comparison to the originals...

i've got a couple of these, but the vigotone and purple chick are really the only ones I listen to. Oh, there's a double disc called Secret Smile which is pretty good, too. my first smile bootleg was two cassettes i bought in 1997 or so from a guy in manhattan who sold cheap bootlegs at a table somewhere near bleecker st. i thought i had hit the jackpot! i could never afford the CD bootlegs.

I have some problems w/ the 2004 smile, and yeah, there are some songs that lose a lot of oomph this time around (heroes, surf's up) - but it also has a lot of interesting little pieces here and there that make it worth listening to. it plays much more like a coherent album than a 60s version ever could have and in that sense it lives up to the idea of 'smile' better than a completed 60s version would.

i like Smile's multiplicity and puzzle-like quality. There is *no* definitive version, just endless possibilities. That's what makes it fun!

At some point ten years or so ago Don Was was talking about how the best format for the surviving SMILE recordings would be an interactive DVD with all the sessions that lets you combine and reshuffle the sections however you want. Too bad they didn't do that.

I used to think that too, but there's only so much you can do w/ a dozen songs. I dunno, I think brian wilson's songwriting skillz 2 years before smile and 2 years after smile were just as sharp, so the smile-obsession is sorta...I dunno.

^^^OTM

there's plenty of discussion of this stuff on other BBs threads fyi

It engenders the overlooking of some killer shit on other albums, that's for sure.

for me the most interesting aspect of smile is the conterfactual 'what if it was finished and came out' world - I mean the general opinion seems to be this would have been some world-conquering beatles-crushing event, but I think there's a decent chance it woulda been something of a big commercial failure and disappointment - which would affect the rest of the beach boy's career in its own way.

(commercial disappointment, not artistic one)

if it had included Good Vibrations that would've saved it from total failure but yeah, honestly don't see this hitting it big in the commercial world of '67

yeah, i mean, before i heard the smile bootleg stuff, i had imagined it as some intense, epic piece of music. i don't know, BIG sounding. and while there's some of that, there's also a lot subtler stuff, cute stuff, humorous stuff. I think i imagined a whole album of Surf's Up-style songs.

yeah esp when contrasted w/ pet sounds, the album is remarkably...I don't want to say 'slight', but there are hell of a lot more sloop john bs

what really surprised me was how musically spare it was in comparison to Pet Sounds. not that there isn't lushness, but it feels less full.

it doesn't "rock", it draws on a lot of styles that were not particularly popular in the 60s (early Tin Pan Alley, barbershop, faux exotica), the lyrics are night impenetrable (at least from a trad pop POV) - without Good Vibrations, there really isn't much for the late 60s commercial audience to latch onto here. It isn't anywhere close to the American "counterculture" stuff that was succeeding (like the San Francisco bands, which were almost entirely stoned white kids doing shitty blues interpolations)

i'd only ever heard the SMiLE bootlegs so when i heard 'wind chimes' from smiley smile playing @ a record store i was just like o_O this is awesome

xpost, yeah, for all of Sgt. Pepper's genre hopping, it still has more of a rock feel than Smile. I think Hendrix dismissed Heroes and Villains as "psychedelic barbershop" or something. Or maybe that wasn't a diss, I don't know. But that probably sums up how people would've reacted to Smile had it been released. Kinda like Zappa minus the hipness or something.

the beatles did a better job easing their fanbase into experimental territory too

don't know if it's accurate or what, but jardine says Smile is coming out!

Are there plans for a new Beach Boys archival project?
Capitol Records plans to issue a Beach Boys version of Smile sometime this summer to begin the celebration of The Beach Boys’ anniversary. Smile is the Holy Grail for Beach Boys’ fans, so it will be good.
I don’t have many details on it, although we didn't do any new recording. I'm happy to see it finally come out. Brian’s changed his mind about releasing the material, but it was inevitable, wasn’t it? (Al chuckles).
http://www.examiner.com/pop-culture-in-national/pretty-darn-close-beach-boy-al-jardine-on-his-new-solo-album-plus-smile-1#ixzz1DDCh7GDv

Wow. Not sure I saw that coming. A Smile box along the lines od what they did for Pet Sounds would be amazing.

ooh.

Wow. Not sure I saw that coming. A Smile box along the lines od what they did for Pet Sounds would be amazing.

― Naive Teen Idol, Sunday, February 6, 2011 1:49 PM (1 hour ago)

there is a boot box out there on Sea of Tunes that is pretty damn comprehensive (4-6 CDs)

Yeah you gotta wonder if Brian has heard Purple Chick's "Smile" reconstruction or something similar...

I always go for the Mokomok white album-esque version...

Who would have thought that this would get released before the Loveless remaster?

I did my own edit/mix of tracks (didn't we all?)

Amazed to find that my (I think definitive) edit of "Heroes and Villains" came in at seven minutes exactly.

What would be interesting is if they release the stuff we haven't heard.

exactly.

That Sea of Tunes box I mentioned a few posts back supposedly contains every take of ever performance for Smile recorded back in the day so if you're one of those obsessives (Fun House Box, Pet Sounds box), it's well worth searching for.

That Sea of Tunes box I mentioned a few posts back supposedly contains every take of ever performance for Smile recorded back in the day

I'm guessing the Smile-era tracks on the Good Vibrations box set were the most polished, most complete versions the compilers could find, so it'll be interesting to see how the new release improves upon them, sequencing issues aside.

if it's a box set, I hope it's more than just obscure outtakes thrown together without regard to quality. I'm not interested in stuff like like a 25-minute extended version of "George Fell Into His French Horn" or never-before-heard pig grunts from "Barnyard", but a completed version of "Surf's Up" with Brian singing lead would be a revelation (although by most accounts it doesn't exist).

Don't have it but based on the 2004 SMiLE alone (which had several previously written sections that had never been bootlegged before), it's pretty clear that we hadn't heard everything. There's more.

to be fair, Wilson and Parks wrote new sections in the 00s for songs that had only existed as backing tracks in the 60s. "Roll Plymouth Rock", "In Blue Hawaii", and "On a Holiday" all have new lyrics iirc, so it's not fair to assume that everything you hear on SMiLE 2004 was written or recorded in 1966-67.

("originally written or recorded," I mean)

shasta otm, I'll be very (pleasantly) surprised if this looked much different from the sea of tunes comp

naive teen: some of the 2004 song bridges (def some of the lyrics) were new

xp too slow

I feel like the Purple Chick version of this is all I'll ever need. Seems like it came as close as possible to making a listenable whole out of those tapes. I'd love to be proven wrong though.

I recently listened to Smiley Smile for the first time in a while and it sounded as good as ever-- the most underrated LP in the BB catalog IMO.

is the Purple Chick bootleg in stereo or mono? I forget.

I'm guessing the Smile-era tracks on the Good Vibrations box set were the most polished, most complete versions the compilers could find

I have a suspicion that there was some sleight of hand about getting some of those track on.

For example, a track listed as "Heroes and Villains - alt mix" is nothing of the sort, it's the infamous "Fire" section (or at least part of it)

i'd be surprised if this proposed box set was more comprehensive than the sea of tunes bootleg, but i think this would be worth it just for the improved sound quality. the smile stuff on the good vibrations box sounds better than any bootleg i've heard.

For example, a track listed as "Heroes and Villains - alt mix" is nothing of the sort, it's the infamous "Fire" section (or at least part of it)

yeah, it's strange the way that track just peters out pointlessly, and it doesn't even segue into "Heroes & Villains" (not that the two tracks really belong together in the first place). I don't have any major complaints about the rest of the Smile Material in the box.

I forgot my theory..

I think it got named that so Brian wouldn't notice it, get cold feet and nix its inclusion, like he did with "Let him run wild"

Well, even though it's the intro to "Fire/Mrs. O'Leary's Cow," it doesn't sound much like the rest of it. There are some mistakes on the set, too -- for instance, "Do You Like Worms" has a section that wows and flutters pretty badly. So it's not like everything was executed to perfection.

For me, the real treasure trove on that box is the "Heroes and Villains (Sections)" cut -- it's really where you hear what VDP calls BW's "modular songwriting" blossom.

but a completed version of "Surf's Up" with Brian singing lead would be a revelation (although by most accounts it doesn't exist).

As I recall, there are sessions for the boys singing "Surf's Up" -- but the session didn't go well.

honestly can't fathom there being that much more material that isn't on the Sea of Tunes box

yeah and at the end of the day there are surely more interesting unheard demos from another point in their career

like some of this stuff: http://www.banana-and-louie.org/unreleased.html

honestly can't fathom there being that much more material that isn't on the Sea of Tunes box...

...yeah and at the end of the day there are surely more interesting unheard demos from another point in their career

I'm not sure I agree with this. The Endless Harmony soundtrack had an outstanding BW/VDP demo of "Barnyard" -- there have got to be tons of those lying around that are equally as good. I'd be all for hearing those.

Plus, I imagine that since Mark Linnett raided the vaults in the early 90s that other things have turned up in different places. Nature of the archival beast.

America, I Know You August 22, 1969 Poem written and recorded by Steve Kalinich, coproduced by Kalinich and Brian Wilson. From Kalinich's unreleased Brother Records album A World of Peace Must Come.

^^^oh man would love to hear this

yeah, think about it: For years, the "Royal Albert Hall" Dylan performance was 'fabled', eventually it's released as a perfect sound master tape. and now on the "no direction home" there's a virtually-the-same performance of "Like a rolling stone" (albeit from Newcastle) that sounds exactly like the "Play fuckin' loud" version.

It's just a matter of time until that Robert Johnson video gets found/released.

Otm

America, I Know You August 22, 1969 Poem written and recorded by Steve Kalinich, coproduced by Kalinich and Brian Wilson. From Kalinich's unreleased Brother Records album A World of Peace Must Come.
it was released a year or so ago, by light in the attic i i think!

actually excited by this possible new BB version of SMILE, though isn't it probably just going to be the "fast eddie" reconstruction that appeared shortly after Brian Wilson's SMILE came out? Just the original Beach Boys recordings of that version of the record?

wasn't that the purple chick version? I can't keep track.
but yeah, i almost imagine this is *not* going to be a big all encompassing box set, but maybe just a single disc "definitive" beach boys version of smile.

very hard to track down, but if you look at the track listings they're massively incomplete, just lost of versions of 'vegatables' and a few others, nothing that gives a key to how the final version was going to be pieced together.

there really wasn't a clear idea as to how it was gonna fit together, at least not in the 2004-smile sense. Nobody knows how it would have ended if brian didn't break down. But I seriously doubt it would have ended up a well-organized song cycle, most likely would have been great versions of these songs + a few more sorta kinda clumped together sgt.pepper style.

there is also a LOT of variation within those various versions of Heroes and Villains, Vege-tables, etc. iirc - including pieces that were later pulled out and set aside as different tracks, or were swapped among other songs, etc.

iatee otm

weird how so little similar material is available for sgt pepper.

While Brian was laboring over Smile, the Beatles recorded Pepper, a good bit of the Magical Mystery Tour EP, and most of the Yellow Submarine soundtrack songs. Also the Beatles were working with inferior studio technology (4-track as opposed to 8-track). Also Apple is the stupidest company to ever handle posthumous releases of a major band. They probably could have made a double disc Beatles Anthology for every year of their existence which would have been just as listenable as 12 takes of Heroes & Villains in a row.

very hard to track down, but if you look at the track listings they're massively incomplete, just lost of versions of 'vegatables' and a few others, nothing that gives a key to how the final version was going to be pieced together.

Unsurpassed Masters Volume 16 (by Sea of Tunes) is a coherent 18-track imagining of how the album might've turned out. Volume 15 is 3 discs of "Good Vibrations" sessions, and Volume 17 is 3 discs of sessions for a bunch of the other songs. the loads and loads of sessions were a huge boon to people who want to make their own fan mixes of Smile, so it made sense to just leave them in an incomplete, un-futzed-with state.

like some of this stuff: http://www.banana-and-louie.org/unreleased.html

fuck smile; there's a bunch of stuff on that list that i'm curious to hear!

i mean some of it i am familiar with, but there are some tantalizing mystery tracks on there

TM Siddhi Program - Fall 1977 - Written by Mike Love

anybody hear the "cocaine sessions"??

yeah they are only worth hearing as a historical artifact

tho an interesting one

you should check 'em out. i'm pretty sure they've been made available on one or more of those beach boys blogs...

anybody hear the "cocaine sessions"??

yeah they are only worth hearing as a historical artifact

Mostly, but the organ drone and tortured vocal of "Oh Lord" is a must-hear.

Almost Summer!

sooo.... this is coming out says Billboard

No details yet? Date/no. of discs?

http://pitchfork.com/news/41856-the-beach-boys-to-finally-release-ismilei-sessions/

4 CDs/2 LPs, no tracklisting or official date (my guess is lol Xmas)

IIRC, Mark Linett himself posted to Usenet's rec.music.beach-boys in the late '90s that the Sea Of Tunes boots were a result of theft of the master tapes, or maybe the safety copies, from the vaults around that time (thus accounting for their outstanding sound quality). I hope they retrieved them.

Maybe the 4CD will be like Don Was' notion of issuing every little fragment so that you the listener at home can assemble your own damn album. Since any assembly of the album will be a total judgment call anyway.

xpost yipes!

Jon, I hope you're right. Can't wait to hear the fan mixes with all this new material. That is if there is a bunch of new good material.

good to see domenic priore getting a slice.

He's def earned it.

i remember him from a pet sounds board i think in the mid 90s. posted some great stuff for free, in amongst all the linett fanboys.

eeyowch, wonder how much they're planning on charging for the 4 CDs/2 LP edition. my guess is an arm and/or a leg.

linnett Q&A w/ some details: http://www.billboard.com/news/beach-boys-lost-smile-album-to-see-release-1005070202.story#/features/beach-boys-engineer-talks-about-the-smile-1005071622.story
"Smile" is one of the most bootlegged albums of all time. What will be new for the listener?

For most of them, the whole thing will be new. The Beach Boys have an enormous amount of material from their whole career and [since] we have been actively doing an archive project for about 10 years, there are things that we have discovered that the bootleggers missed.

O RLY

yeah sort of hard to believe, considering he goes on to note how the bootleggers released every take from these sessions, but who knows?

what is this archival project he's been working on for 10 years?

Mike Love: The Complete Solo Recordings iirc

RIP Wrinkles

my bro just hipped me to this series: http://www.laweekly.com/westcoastsound/2014/04/09/how-did-this-unknown-poet-end-up-making-an-album-with-brian-wilson

anyone been following it? always wondered about this particular side project, so odd

"Song to God" - Shapiro also told me 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 my previous article stated, no tape for this has ever been found.

yeah it's a weird one. interesting story but the album itself is not really that great iirc! funny that light in the attic is trying it again.

yeah I really only wanna hear the one track

fans of this thread will recognize a bunch of these but it's kind of mind-boggling how much of this I STILL have never heard

funny, in the new alex chilton bio, there's a bit about brian wilson calling chilton up in the mid 70s and trying to get him to come sing on ... "Shortnin' Bread." Why did Brian love that song so much?

cuz it's fuckin catchy!

haha, yeah. it seems to have been Wilson's White Whale.
lol just found this -- THE SHORTNIN' BREAD SUITE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCvOiwUMNW8

A suite of the various times when Brian has incorporated the so-called "Shortenin' Bread" riff in his compositions and others. Descriptions in text with more detailed descriptions here:
00:00-00:35 Original "Shortenin' Bread." Unreleased, intended for the Adult/Child release: track, bvs and bass vocal are from 1973, Carl's lead overdubbed in 1977.
00:35-01:14 "Shortenin' Bread" that was released on the L.A. Light album in 1979. It is unknown if Brian was involved with this version, it is known that Carl sings the lead and Dennis is on the bass vocal.
01:56-02:10 Section from Brian's b-side "Too Much Sugar" from 1987, b-side to the "Let's Go To Heaven in My Car" single from the film Police Academy 4. One of my personal least-favorite BW songs.
02:10-02:25 Section from "Walkin' the Line" from Brian's very good 1988 self-titled solo album.
02:25-04:16 The majority of "Metal Beach" an epic (mostly) instrumental tune that Brian wrote in collaboration with Paul Schaffer and Dick Dale for Schaffer's Coast to Coast in 1989. Note Steve Douglas on saxophone (one of Brian's main call instrumentalists in the 60s) and Eugene E. Landy on the titular "metal beach."
04:17-04:59 The coda to a collaboration with Rob Wasserman and Carnie Wilson called "Bells of Madness" for Wasserman's trio album. Released in February of 1994.
05:00-06:20 The "Bread" relevant portions of Brian's cover of "Proud Mary" from 1992. Recorded with Don Was, this version is unreleased and Brian recorded a new version in 2006 which, in addition to being unbooted, has yet to see release. Those that have heard it say it is much better than this version, though I think the 1992 "Mary" is nothing to snoot at.
06:20-06:37 A section of "South American," a collaboration with Jimmy Buffett and ex-wrestler Joe Thomas from Brian's Imagination album. Note, in addition to the ever-present saxophone, Jimmy's backing vocal.
06:37-07:28 The tag to "No Wrong Notes in Heaven" a very groovy song written by Scott Bennet of Brian's band, with some input from Brian (no prizes on what his contribution is) released under the band name "The Dotted Line." Nick Walusko and Jeff Foskett from Brian's band also appear on this recording.
07:28 to end. The "Bread" portions of "Goin' Home," from Brian's newest (and best) solo album That Lucky Old Sun.

surely "too repetitive for Iggy Pop" is some kind of achievement

haha yeah that is one of my favorite beach boys stories.
Section from Brian's b-side "Too Much Sugar" from 1987, b-side to the "Let's Go To Heaven in My Car" single from the film Police Academy 4 has a sort of terrifying poetry to it.
Also "No Wrong Notes in Heaven" is the best song title ever.

For starters, many of the titles have never been published, a process the Beach Boys seem reluctant to take on. (It is far easier to keep reissuing alternate versions or new mixes of popular hits.)

I know nothing about music publishing. Can anyone explain this? Would this really be a valid reason to keep anything unreleased?

well, am thinking that if they've never been released and were just BW home tapes -- who actually owns the publishing on those? would it be whoever BW works with currently? Who represented him at the time? Does the whole Brother Records thing in late 60s-early 70s come into play?

Like, BW may have a deal that says "anything you write and release is published by X" -- but then, he may also have a deal that says "anything you write and release for the Beach Boys is published by Y", and if any of those songs, or even just parts of them were performed/released by the Beach Boys, it may be a matter of multiple people claiming ownership.

^^^

publishing is such a racket

"Where Is She?" - Another sweet Wilson ballad from the Sunflower/Surf's Up sessions, which saw release on last year's Made in California box.

This is a deeply uncomfortable rewrite of "She's Leaving Home."

A suite of the various times when Brian has incorporated the so-called "Shortenin' Bread" riff in his compositions and others. Descriptions in text with more detailed descriptions here:
00:00-00:35 Original "Shortenin' Bread." Unreleased, intended for the Adult/Child release: track, bvs and bass vocal are from 1973, Carl's lead overdubbed in 1977.
00:35-01:14 "Shortenin' Bread" that was released on the L.A. Light album in 1979. It is unknown if Brian was involved with this version, it is known that Carl sings the lead and Dennis is on the bass vocal.
01:56-02:10 Section from Brian's b-side "Too Much Sugar" from 1987, b-side to the "Let's Go To Heaven in My Car" single from the film Police Academy 4. One of my personal least-favorite BW songs.
02:10-02:25 Section from "Walkin' the Line" from Brian's very good 1988 self-titled solo album.
02:25-04:16 The majority of "Metal Beach" an epic (mostly) instrumental tune that Brian wrote in collaboration with Paul Schaffer and Dick Dale for Schaffer's Coast to Coast in 1989. Note Steve Douglas on saxophone (one of Brian's main call instrumentalists in the 60s) and Eugene E. Landy on the titular "metal beach."
04:17-04:59 The coda to a collaboration with Rob Wasserman and Carnie Wilson called "Bells of Madness" for Wasserman's trio album. Released in February of 1994.
05:00-06:20 The "Bread" relevant portions of Brian's cover of "Proud Mary" from 1992. Recorded with Don Was, this version is unreleased and Brian recorded a new version in 2006 which, in addition to being unbooted, has yet to see release. Those that have heard it say it is much better than this version, though I think the 1992 "Mary" is nothing to snoot at.
06:20-06:37 A section of "South American," a collaboration with Jimmy Buffett and ex-wrestler Joe Thomas from Brian's Imagination album. Note, in addition to the ever-present saxophone, Jimmy's backing vocal.
06:37-07:28 The tag to "No Wrong Notes in Heaven" a very groovy song written by Scott Bennet of Brian's band, with some input from Brian (no prizes on what his contribution is) released under the band name "The Dotted Line." Nick Walusko and Jeff Foskett from Brian's band also appear on this recording.
07:28 to end. The "Bread" portions of "Goin' Home," from Brian's newest (and best) solo album That Lucky Old Sun.

Where's the love for "Shortnin' Bread"?

― Tom D (Tom D.), Tuesday, 16 February 2010 14:06 (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^ bears reposting

― Tommy McTommy (Tom D.), Tuesday, 2 July 2013 15:54 (9 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^ bears rereposting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0YC3Z6lkBI

not bad but yeah def She's Leaving Home redux

could've become something interesting given more development and production. I like the part where the title phrase is drawn out