How to get lost SMiLE material BaCK?

[Bicyclerider]

The 1995 article, by the way, has quite a few interesting comments.  At that time, Linett mentions having "somewhere about 350, 400 minutes" (i.e., 6 or 7 hours) of Smile material not including Good Vibrations material.

Now, of course, he's talking about having 30 hours of Smile sessions, not including GV, so it's possible that they've found quite a bit of material over the last 16 years.

See Billboard, 2/4/95, courtesy of Google Books...
Page 10
http://books.google.com/books?id=sAsEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA10&ots=uDQ5Dd2oks&dq=%22beach%20boys%20flash%20smile%22&pg=PA10#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 127
http://books.google.com/books?id=sAsEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA10&ots=uDQ5Dd2oks&dq=%22beach%20boys%20flash%20smile%22&pg=PA127#v=onepage&q&f=false

First of all, no way are there 30 hours of Smile sessions in the BB archive to choose from for this release.  I suspect he's talking about is that out of the total 30 hours plus of Smile sessions that were held in 66-67, they are going to select (from what they have) 4 CD's worth.  If I'm wrong, it means a huge cache of previously unknown tapes have been discovered, and there's no suggestion of that or evidence of that.

It will be interesting to see what Brian signs off on - now that Fire was released in BWPS, and the Surf's Up demo was on the GV box set, and the cantina Heroes was released on the 2 fer, it's hard for me to imagine what he might object to. 

[The Shift]

It will be interesting to see what Brian signs off on - now that Fire was released in BWPS, and the Surf's Up demo was on the GV box set, and the cantina Heroes was released on the 2 fer,[b[ it's hard for me to imagine what he might object to[/b]. 

"Denny, do you have any hash joints…"

[Roger Ryan]

It will be interesting to see what Brian signs off on - now that Fire was released in BWPS, and the Surf's Up demo was on the GV box set, and the cantina Heroes was released on the 2 fer,[b[ it's hard for me to imagine what he might object to[/b]. 

"Denny, do you have any hash joints…"

I also doubt we'll hear something like "These keys have f**cked up action" during the "Wonderful" tracking session.

[guitarfool2002]

It will be interesting to see what Brian signs off on - now that Fire was released in BWPS, and the Surf's Up demo was on the GV box set, and the cantina Heroes was released on the 2 fer,[b[ it's hard for me to imagine what he might object to[/b]. 

"Denny, do you have any hash joints…"

I wondered after many listens to that if he didn't say "Danny..." as in Danny Hutton.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

That was my understanding.

First of all, no way are there 30 hours of Smile sessions in the BB archive to choose from for this release.  I suspect he's talking about is that out of the total 30 hours plus of Smile sessions that were held in 66-67, they are going to select (from what they have) 4 CD's worth.  If I'm wrong, it means a huge cache of previously unknown tapes have been discovered, and there's no suggestion of that or evidence of that.

If I recall correctly, didn't it get posted here that there were *more* than 30 hours in the vaults?

[juggler]

It will be interesting to see what Brian signs off on - now that Fire was released in BWPS, and the Surf's Up demo was on the GV box set, and the cantina Heroes was released on the 2 fer,[b[ it's hard for me to imagine what he might object to[/b]. 

"Denny, do you have any hash joints…"

I also doubt we'll hear something like "These keys have f**cked up action" during the "Wonderful" tracking session.

I would hope that if Brian, Mike and/or Al do object to anything, it's limited to the studio chatter, skits, rants, etc.   And if anything along those lines under consideration is cut because Brian, Mike or Al don't like it, that's totally understandable.  No problem at all.

For >99% of fans, including the diehards here, the MUSIC is where it's at.  We don't need the extracurricular activities (and if anyone does want to hear that sort of thing, there are other sources).  Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray, Brian, Mike and Al will have no objections to any of the music.  It'll be a shame if some cool discovery is held back and saved for Smile Sessions 2.0 decades from now.

[rab2591]

It will be interesting to see what Brian signs off on - now that Fire was released in BWPS, and the Surf's Up demo was on the GV box set, and the cantina Heroes was released on the 2 fer,[b[ it's hard for me to imagine what he might object to[/b]. 

"Denny, do you have any hash joints…"

I also doubt we'll hear something like "These keys have f**cked up action" during the "Wonderful" tracking session.

I would hope that if Brian, Mike and/or Al do object to anything, it's limited to the studio chatter, skits, rants, etc.   And if anything along those lines under consideration is cut because Brian, Mike or Al don't like it, that's totally understandable.  No problem at all.

For >99% of fans, including the diehards here, the MUSIC is where it's at.  We don't need the extracurricular activities (and if anyone does want to hear that sort of thing, there are other sources).  Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray, Brian, Mike and Al will have no objections to any of the music.  It'll be a shame if some cool discovery is held back and saved for Smile Sessions 2.0 decades from now.

I don't think they will limit the studio chatter too much - you're right that there are other sources that give us this material, however I highly doubt Capitol will agree with that approach. It'll be just like the PS Sessions - equal time for all the stuff - and with four discs there is plenty of room for music, chatter, skits, alternate versions, etc. Just my opinion though.

[Bicyclerider]

Since acetates are being sourced for this release, I hope Brian doesn't object to using them because the sound quality is subpar.  I'm sure they will try to use what they have on tape to recreate the acetate mixes - but of course our hope is there is material on the acetates that doesn't exist on tape.  And that stuff MUST be released, PLEASE!

[rab2591]

Since acetates are being sourced for this release, I hope Brian doesn't object to using them because the sound quality is subpar.  I'm sure they will try to use what they have on tape to recreate the acetate mixes - but of course our hope is there is material on the acetates that doesn't exist on tape.  And that stuff MUST be released, PLEASE!

Arg! I'd be incredibly disappointed if they didn't put acetate material in this set - I really think they will though. And just to give us a heads-up as to why the quality sucks I bet they'll put "(acetate mix)" after the song name instead of "(stereo [or mono] mix)" as they usually do.

[desmondo]

Since acetates are being sourced for this release, I hope Brian doesn't object to using them because the sound quality is subpar.  I'm sure they will try to use what they have on tape to recreate the acetate mixes - but of course our hope is there is material on the acetates that doesn't exist on tape.  And that stuff MUST be released, PLEASE!

Arg! I'd be incredibly disappointed if they didn't put acetate material in this set - I really think they will though. And just to give us a heads-up as to why the quality sucks I bet they'll put "(acetate mix)" after the song name instead of "(stereo [or mono] mix)" as they usually do.

I would like to hear the acetates only if they contain some thing that isn't available on tape - what is on them seems to be an important part of Smile history and I am sure Alan and Mark will want to present the development of the album and each song as accurately as possible - if the acetates play an important role in this because they tape doesn't exist then great.

Of course it may be that the acetates don't have anything on them that isn't already available and that this 'Holy Acetate' thing is not so holy after all.

[desmondo]

The 1995 article, by the way, has quite a few interesting comments.  At that time, Linett mentions having "somewhere about 350, 400 minutes" (i.e., 6 or 7 hours) of Smile material not including Good Vibrations material.

Now, of course, he's talking about having 30 hours of Smile sessions, not including GV, so it's possible that they've found quite a bit of material over the last 16 years.

See Billboard, 2/4/95, courtesy of Google Books...
Page 10
http://books.google.com/books?id=sAsEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA10&ots=uDQ5Dd2oks&dq=%22beach%20boys%20flash%20smile%22&pg=PA10#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 127
http://books.google.com/books?id=sAsEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA10&ots=uDQ5Dd2oks&dq=%22beach%20boys%20flash%20smile%22&pg=PA127#v=onepage&q&f=false

First of all, no way are there 30 hours of Smile sessions in the BB archive to choose from for this release.  I suspect he's talking about is that out of the total 30 hours plus of Smile sessions that were held in 66-67, they are going to select (from what they have) 4 CD's worth.  If I'm wrong, it means a huge cache of previously unknown tapes have been discovered, and there's no suggestion of that or evidence of that.

It will be interesting to see what Brian signs off on - now that Fire was released in BWPS, and the Surf's Up demo was on the GV box set, and the cantina Heroes was released on the 2 fer, it's hard for me to imagine what he might object to.  

I have about 10 hours of Smile stuff including stuff like wot came out on the GV Box Set - I reckon there would EASILY be 30 hours in the archives - one only has to look at the number of takes that were done on each track plus all the vocals etc etc etc etc - and that allows for tape overs

[desmondo]

Sooooooo....is that all we got on the spread-the-news-thing? Well, it probably was that great an idea anyway.

Well I Tweeted Durrie - no reply last time I looked

[Bicyclerider]

The 1995 article, by the way, has quite a few interesting comments.  At that time, Linett mentions having "somewhere about 350, 400 minutes" (i.e., 6 or 7 hours) of Smile material not including Good Vibrations material.

Now, of course, he's talking about having 30 hours of Smile sessions, not including GV, so it's possible that they've found quite a bit of material over the last 16 years.

See Billboard, 2/4/95, courtesy of Google Books...
Page 10
http://books.google.com/books?id=sAsEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA10&ots=uDQ5Dd2oks&dq=%22beach%20boys%20flash%20smile%22&pg=PA10#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 127
http://books.google.com/books?id=sAsEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA10&ots=uDQ5Dd2oks&dq=%22beach%20boys%20flash%20smile%22&pg=PA127#v=onepage&q&f=false

First of all, no way are there 30 hours of Smile sessions in the BB archive to choose from for this release.  I suspect he's talking about is that out of the total 30 hours plus of Smile sessions that were held in 66-67, they are going to select (from what they have) 4 CD's worth.  If I'm wrong, it means a huge cache of previously unknown tapes have been discovered, and there's no suggestion of that or evidence of that.

It will be interesting to see what Brian signs off on - now that Fire was released in BWPS, and the Surf's Up demo was on the GV box set, and the cantina Heroes was released on the 2 fer, it's hard for me to imagine what he might object to.  

I have about 10 hours of Smile stuff including stuff like wot came out on the GV Box Set - I reckon there would EASILY be 30 hours in the archives - one only has to look at the number of takes that were done on each track plus all the vocals etc etc etc etc - and that allows for tape overs

Look at it this way - if they had 30 hours of tapes, they could release a 4 CD box set of all previously unbooted material.  Actually, 20 CD's.  You think there's 20 hours of unbooted material that's been in the vaults all this time that SOT and Secret Smile couldn't get to?  Or a cache of tapes worth 20 hours of time has been uncovered?  We surely would have heard about that before now. Color me sceptical.

[The Shift]

Suspect SoT edited out plenty of studio chatter to fit stuff onto the three in the CDs – can't see them wanting to add a fourth CD with only ten minutes of music, for instance, simply because Brian had them rewind the tape mid-take*, or because Hal Blaine had a choking fit half-way through He Gives Speeches*.



* These are fictitious examples for the purposes of illustration, and are not in any way meant to imply that Wee Helper has any knowledge of tapes that might, or might not, have come to light in the Smile archive. No cats were harmed in the making of this post. Other listings magazines are available.

[Catbirdman]

Look at it this way - if they had 30 hours of tapes, they could release a 4 CD box set of all previously unbooted material.  Actually, 20 CD's.  You think there's 20 hours of unbooted material that's been in the vaults all this time that SOT and Secret Smile couldn't get to?  Or a cache of tapes worth 20 hours of time has been uncovered?  We surely would have heard about that before now. Color me sceptical.

OK, let me think about this. A few years back I put together a "SMiLE Archives" for myself - it came out to 14 discs. Each disc was around an hour long - so that's 14 hours right there. Now consider a few things:

1. I do have some redundancy; if a particular bit appears in various sources and I couldn't decide which sounded best, I put all the sources on there. That's about 2 hours of redundancy, at most. So now we're down to 12 hours.

2. I also have a good bit - probably 2-3 hours - of spoken tom foolery, and I'm not sure if Mark was counting that stuff in his 30 hours or not. Let's say he wasn't. So now we're down to 9 hours.

3. The session material I have usually contains mainly just the talkback from the control room in between takes, and the actual takes themselves are often edited out. The tapes Mark and Alan have, however, are unexcised, naturally, so I would expect them to have exponentially more hours of raw session tape than I have. So with that point, I think it's reasonable to at LEAST double the 9 hours - maybe even round it to an even 20.

So there's evidence of approximately 20 hours worth of SMiLE that exists right there, leaving around 10 hours that the bootleggers never found. I guess I'm a little skeptical too, but I do think it's possible.

[Ebb and Flow]

Sort of a rhetorical question here, but has anyone considered that much of the missing Smile material might have simply been wiped and recorded over for other projects?  Brian was clearly not afraid to do this with things that he considered over and done with, as he certainly was with Smile.  You can hear what are likely the missing vocal tracks for "The Little Girl I Once Knew" faintly in the background on the "Psychedelic Talk" found on the Pet Sounds SOT (And it's possible that the missing vocals for "Good Vibrations" suffered a similar fate).

I would say that the evidence of sessions for stuff like "Surf's Up Part 2"...something that seems to have never been part of the BB tape library leads some credence to this theory.

[Jeff]

Since acetates are being sourced for this release, I hope Brian doesn't object to using them because the sound quality is subpar.  I'm sure they will try to use what they have on tape to recreate the acetate mixes - but of course our hope is there is material on the acetates that doesn't exist on tape.  And that stuff MUST be released, PLEASE!

Arg! I'd be incredibly disappointed if they didn't put acetate material in this set - I really think they will though. And just to give us a heads-up as to why the quality sucks I bet they'll put "(acetate mix)" after the song name instead of "(stereo [or mono] mix)" as they usually do.

I would like to hear the acetates only if they contain some thing that isn't available on tape - what is on them seems to be an important part of Smile history and I am sure Alan and Mark will want to present the development of the album and each song as accurately as possible - if the acetates play an important role in this because they tape doesn't exist then great.

Of course it may be that the acetates don't have anything on them that isn't already available and that this 'Holy Acetate' thing is not so holy after all.

Another possibility is that they find acetates consisting entirely of material available on better-sounding session tapes, but not edited as on the acetates.  So would we then get versions edited together from the session tapes in order to match the acetates?  I would assume so, given the editing on the GV box set.

That begs the larger question of just how much speculation will go into any edits.  If they're doing the "suite" concept on disc 1, I assume they'll be disregarding history altogether, so who knows what we'll get.  But what about the other discs?  Will they be entirely unedited sessions, or will attempts be made to edit that material into the original concepts for various songs?

[buddhahat]

But what about the other discs?  Will they be entirely unedited sessions, or will attempts be made to edit that material into the original concepts for various songs?

There's no reason to think the session discs won't be edited to make them flow better. On the PS Box, the sessions are edited in places. One that springs to mind is the That's Not Me session. It starts with the piano intermezzo (Dennis playing?) but it's butt-edited straight into a take of That's Not Me, whereas the piano intermezzo plays for quite a while on the original tapes.

I feel for Mark because I think with this release there will be a lot of uptightness about editing the session material, especially if there is a lot of editing on the playable disc part, which presumably there has to be. I just hope people can balance their own wants with the awareness that this boxset has to appeal to non die-hards too!

[Bicyclerider]

We know CD1 will be the "finished" songs to the extent that is possible- even if missing elements like vocals (or in the case of The Elements, missing earth and air - unless you believe vegetables and wind chimes are the missing elements - or in the case of I'm in Great Shape, likely missing a section or two).  Plus the outtakes - complete songs not represented on BWPS, plus likely different mixes of songs, either from acetate or newly reedited mixes from tape duplicating the acetate mixes.  All mono.

So CD2-4 will be session excerpts, complete instrumental tracks, some vocal isolation tracks, vocal session excerpts, and alternate versions/mixes not on CD1.  Hopefully any of the all mono CD1 that can be presented in stereo will be in stereo on these CD's, that seems to be what Mark was saying.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that we'll hear unedited session tapes - with only 3 CD's that would be a waste of space.

[Chris Moise]

Sort of a rhetorical question here, but has anyone considered that much of the missing Smile material might have simply been wiped and recorded over for other projects?  Brian was clearly not afraid to do this with things that he considered over and done with, as he certainly was with Smile.

I don't know....Alan Boyd has talked about how many Smile era tape boxes exist but when opened they were empty. That seems a bit unusual if not suspicious. It was standard operating procedure at Abbey Road to wipe session tapes but the tape boxes certainly don't exist for the missing sessions. You won't find a bunch of empty tape boxes with session details written on them that once contained the session tapes for Piper at the Gates of Dawn or With the Beatles. The tape boxes as well as the tapes are long gone.

FWIW some of the missing tapes represent the *final* work on the track in question rather than just the tracking sessions or the session tape survives but the "best" take that was earmarked for overdubs was snipped out the reel and no longer exist. No way they just decided to tape over the, let's say, Old Master Painter multitrack containing Denny's vocal overdub.

Then there is the lack of BW mixes from the sessions. Clearly Brian and Chuck created mixes of way more material that is represented on the tapes. Where did that stuff go?

[Chris Moise]

Since acetates are being sourced for this release, I hope Brian doesn't object to using them because the sound quality is subpar.  I'm sure they will try to use what they have on tape to recreate the acetate mixes - but of course our hope is there is material on the acetates that doesn't exist on tape.

I'm sure someone can explain this better than I can but....the good thing about acetates is since they are usually mono it's easy to drastically reduce surface noise by summing the L and R channels which reduces the volume of pops and tics by half (or something like that). The surface noise is stereo but the musical info is mono.

[Ebb and Flow]

Sort of a rhetorical question here, but has anyone considered that much of the missing Smile material might have simply been wiped and recorded over for other projects?  Brian was clearly not afraid to do this with things that he considered over and done with, as he certainly was with Smile.

I don't know....Alan Boyd has talked about how many Smile era tape boxes exist but when opened they were empty. That seems a bit unusual if not suspicious.

No doubt some of it was "borrowed" and never returned.  But how much of that was before Carl and Desper made safety copies a mere four years later?  I think it will be interesting to see what shows up and what doesn't show up on the box.

FWIW some of the missing tapes represent the *final* work on the track in question rather than just the tracking sessions or the session tape survives but the "best" take that was earmarked for overdubs was snipped out the reel and no longer exist. No way they just decided to tape over the, let's say, Old Master Painter multitrack containing Denny's vocal overdub.

Not suggesting that everything that's missing was taped over, but it might account for some of it.  It's clear that by 66/67, Brian was a bit more destructive with the vocal tapes of finished material.  The Columbia vocal tapes in particular were essentially useless to him once he had made his final mono mix, and he treated them as such.

Then there is the lack of BW mixes from the sessions. Clearly Brian and Chuck created mixes of way more material that is represented on the tapes. Where did that stuff go?

I've become convinced that when Brian said later in the 70's that he destroyed some of the Smile tapes he probably meant stuff like this.

[Jay]

The 1995 article, by the way, has quite a few interesting comments.  At that time, Linett mentions having "somewhere about 350, 400 minutes" (i.e., 6 or 7 hours) of Smile material not including Good Vibrations material.

Now, of course, he's talking about having 30 hours of Smile sessions, not including GV, so it's possible that they've found quite a bit of material over the last 16 years.

See Billboard, 2/4/95, courtesy of Google Books...
Page 10
http://books.google.com/books?id=sAsEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA10&ots=uDQ5Dd2oks&dq=%22beach%20boys%20flash%20smile%22&pg=PA10#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 127
http://books.google.com/books?id=sAsEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA10&ots=uDQ5Dd2oks&dq=%22beach%20boys%20flash%20smile%22&pg=PA127#v=onepage&q&f=false

First of all, no way are there 30 hours of Smile sessions in the BB archive to choose from for this release.  I suspect he's talking about is that out of the total 30 hours plus of Smile sessions that were held in 66-67, they are going to select (from what they have) 4 CD's worth.  If I'm wrong, it means a huge cache of previously unknown tapes have been discovered, and there's no suggestion of that or evidence of that.

It will be interesting to see what Brian signs off on - now that Fire was released in BWPS, and the Surf's Up demo was on the GV box set, and the cantina Heroes was released on the 2 fer, it's hard for me to imagine what he might object to.  

I have about 10 hours of Smile stuff including stuff like wot came out on the GV Box Set - I reckon there would EASILY be 30 hours in the archives - one only has to look at the number of takes that were done on each track plus all the vocals etc etc etc etc - and that allows for tape overs

Look at it this way - if they had 30 hours of tapes, they could release a 4 CD box set of all previously unbooted material.  Actually, 20 CD's.  You think there's 20 hours of unbooted material that's been in the vaults all this time that SOT and Secret Smile couldn't get to?  Or a cache of tapes worth 20 hours of time has been uncovered?  We surely would have heard about that before now. Color me sceptical.

There was a bootleg box set of SMiLE that was supposed to be released last year. As I understand it, it was supposed to be approximately 22 cd's.

[bgas]

Some years back, there was a lawsuit filed by the BBs ( which they lost, I understand) against someone that was trying to sell ( thru an auction house, maybe in the UK?) a lot of things they bought from a "Garage sale" at the BB's warehouse. I'm just wondering if it's possible this person also ended up with any tapes.
 Can't remember the seller's name, but I'm thinking he lives/lived in Florida.  Anyone remember this, and the person's name?

[Dead Parrot]

Since acetates are being sourced for this release, I hope Brian doesn't object to using them because the sound quality is subpar.  I'm sure they will try to use what they have on tape to recreate the acetate mixes - but of course our hope is there is material on the acetates that doesn't exist on tape.

I'm sure someone can explain this better than I can but....the good thing about acetates is since they are usually mono it's easy to drastically reduce surface noise by summing the L and R channels which reduces the volume of pops and tics by half (or something like that). The surface noise is stereo but the musical info is mono.

Hey Chris!
Fancy seeing you here  .