Brian has signed off on Smile Sessions......

[Andrew G. Doe]

Brian staed to me that he had very little of an idea of sequence for Smile in 1982 or so. He said that he had three movements in mind. Whether he was putting me on or not is open for question. But the only evidence we have for anything on tape with him talking is that Prayer was to lead off the album.  Apparently based on 2003 info, he told Darian that Surfs Up was intended to finish the second of the 3 movements. For all you "12 track" enthusiasts out there, I recognize that this info does not support your ideas. But Brian has been consistent that he did not haveba sequence for Smile finalized in 1966-7. Perhaps further tape sources have revealed other data...we`ll see when the set comes out. My bet is for the equinox..9-21-11...just a guess!

I know someone who could cast a very reasonable horoscope for a Smile release. 

[Andrew G. Doe]

I've decided(after a recent personal message from AGD) to exit from the "Smile" discussion. Good luck to all of you.

Once again, Phil's concept of the word "private" differs markedly from mine. 

[Dunderhead]

Poor Phil, another victim of the Smiley Smile mind gangsters.

[Jonas]

Vaya con dios, Phil.

[drbeachboy]

Equinox=My Birthday and I will humbly except Smile as Brian's birthday present to me.

[bgas]

I've decided(after a recent personal message from AGD) to exit from the "Smile" discussion. Good luck to all of you.

Once again, Phil's concept of the word "private" differs markedly from mine. 

Great. Now Phil has the inside scoop the rest of us are dying to hear. Why Oh Why can't I be better at debating unpopular points? Then I could  be the newest insider!

Equinox=My Birthday and I will humbly except Smile as Brian's birthday present to me.

the fall equinox is actually September 23, 5:05 A.M. EDT this year. 

[Dunderhead]

I've decided(after a recent personal message from AGD) to exit from the "Smile" discussion. Good luck to all of you.

Once again, Phil's concept of the word "private" differs markedly from mine. 

Great. Now Phil has the inside scoop the rest of us are dying to hear. Why Oh Why can't I be better at debating unpopular points? Then I could  be the newest insider!

Don't worry, AGD just explained "shut up".

[drbeachboy]

That's right, and I even posted that myself last week. Oh well, it will have to be a belated present. Now, I hear today that this Saturday will be the end of the world. At least so says a man holding a sign outside my office building in Center City Philadelphia, this afternoon. My luck that Smile is indefinitely delayed due to the end of the world.

[drbeachboy]

I've decided(after a recent personal message from AGD) to exit from the "Smile" discussion. Good luck to all of you.

Once again, Phil's concept of the word "private" differs markedly from mine. 

Great. Now Phil has the inside scoop the rest of us are dying to hear. Why Oh Why can't I be better at debating unpopular points? Then I could  be the newest insider!

Don't worry, AGD just explained "shut up".

That AGD; wise words from a wise man.

[bgas]

That's right, and I even posted that myself last week. Oh well, it will have to be a belated present. Now, I hear today that this Saturday will be the end of the world. At least so says a man holding a sign outside my office building in Center City Philadelphia, this afternoon. My luck that Smile is indefinitely delayed due to the end of the world.

Can you tell if it's AL?

[vintagemusic]

Can anyone say or speculate, what would be the upper limit for a circa 1967 vinyl release
is it really 20 minutes per side, or could you go say, 25, 26 minutes per side?

I am not entering into the debate at all, about what the content or running order of
SMiLE would have been. I am just wondering, what a good mastering limit would be
for that period. It's a little before my time and I never really paid that much attention
to how much you could fit on a vinyl side.

Would the length have anything to do with mono versus stereo, and would the type of
music your mastering have much to do with length. For that type of music (SMiLE)
whats a reasonable upper limit for cutting the grooves in the wax

Is the disc one of the SMiLE box, the one approximating a finished album. Will they be
paying any attention to what the real time limit would have been in 1967 ?

thanks in advance

[Jason]

It should be noted that at the time (1967) there had already been albums consisting of a single LP holding roughly 25 minutes to a side. Miles Davis' Filles de Kilimanjaro a year later would be 57 minutes long on one LP. I don't think Brian would have been looking beyond a 30-35 minute LP, but even the BWPS order would fit on a single LP, though you'd have to split the second movement in half to accommodate it.

[bgas]

It should be noted that at the time (1967) there had already been albums consisting of a single LP holding roughly 25 minutes to a side. Miles Davis' Filles de Kilimanjaro a year later would be 57 minutes long on one LP. I don't think Brian would have been looking beyond a 30-35 minute LP, but even the BWPS order would fit on a single LP, though you'd have to split the second movement in half to accommodate it.

Which wouldn't have been bad on Reel to reel or 4 track cart, but watch out for that 8 track. 

[Jeff]

It should be noted that at the time (1967) there had already been albums consisting of a single LP holding roughly 25 minutes to a side. Miles Davis' Filles de Kilimanjaro a year later would be 57 minutes long on one LP. I don't think Brian would have been looking beyond a 30-35 minute LP, but even the BWPS order would fit on a single LP, though you'd have to split the second movement in half to accommodate it.

Huh?  What would make you think that?  Pet Sounds was longer than 35 minutes, there was clearly enough material there for a longer album, and as you say, the technology allowed for significantly more than 35 minutes.

[Jason]

Well, we can build ourselves a TARDIS and try and go back and ask Brian but we don't know...

[Jeff]

Well, we can build ourselves a TARDIS and try and go back and ask Brian but we don't know...

True, we don't KNOW, but the question is why you THINK it would be so short.

[Jason]

Just a hunch based on what we all know about Brian's modus operandi during that period. 30-35 minutes was the norm. Would he have gone for a 45 minute LP? Possibly. I don't think he was going to go progressive rock on everyone and release a double LP running 75 minutes...

[vintagemusic]

Wilson was experimenting with long mixes of Hero's and Villians though correct?
One mix supposedly in the neighborhood of 7 minutes. According to who ? Bruce Johnston.


So possibly if 50 minutes were feasable on 1967 vinyl, he wasn't necessarily locked into
the 35-40 minute norm. or not ?

What I'm wondering is if the compilers of the box set, Mark Linett and that other fellow
if they will restrict themselves to 35-40 minutes on disc one, or if they may go longer.

[Jeff]

Just a hunch based on what we all know about Brian's modus operandi during that period. 30-35 minutes was the norm. Would he have gone for a 45 minute LP? Possibly. I don't think he was going to go progressive rock on everyone and release a double LP running 75 minutes...

Smile was almost night-and-day different from every Beach Boys album that preceded it except, arguably, Pet Sounds, which was more than 35 minutes.

I agree that 75 minutes would not have been at all likely.  I think 45 minutes would have been the limit, based, in part on discussions I remember from the Smile Shop of 10 years ago.  As I remember it, a few people who were very well-versed in the capabilities of vinyl in '67 concluded that an LP could have held 44-45 minutes of music with little or no loss of sound quality, but that past that, the sound quality would suffer.

[Jason]

I don't think 45 minutes is wholly unlikely as a running length. But in my opinion too many variables exist as far as determining that length. I'd say a mean of 37-40 minutes could have been more feasible; perhaps my initial 30-35 minute suggestion was a bit conservative. But it's really something hard to narrow down. If we take a lot of the stuff in context, would Holidays have been considered for the final album? Brian never returned to it after that initial session. Same with stuff like Look or even I'm In Great Shape. Way too many variables are missing.

As far as the box set offering an "approximation" of an album...I guess that's fine, however I'd be more interested in an "as-is" presentation. But with something like Smile it's not so easy. It's really difficult, actually. I'm trying to describe this as best I can however the words aren't coming to me...I think using a kitchen sink approach as far as mixes go. Basically, if it's on tape or some form of acetate from the period, put it on there, almost like how the Pet Sounds box had the bit with all alternate mixes. Just a disc of mixes for whatever is on tape as being mixed or test-mixed from that period. That is where the interest lies for me; test mixes of Brian's from that period. There are more than a few of them. Some have even showed up on bootleg. Those are the really interesting things. No crossfades a la BWPS, no reconstructed mixes from rough edits, just "as-is". We've taken Smile as a collection of pieces for years...the box set shouldn't be seen as a way to "finish" it. BWPS wasn't it, same should hold true for the box set. Still, it's early in the game. We have plenty to think about with the Smile box. I don't know how it could be presented. I'm all for surprises. I say, bring it on.

EDIT - I apologize for my rather disjointed posting here...I'm very tired yet I felt like I had to get this down somehow before I fall asleep and, inevitably, forget it! Perhaps tomorrow I can edit this a bit more...legibly and cohesively. 

[vintagemusic]

I thought disc one was supposed to be an approximation of the intended
finished album. Perhaps with some poetic license.

I would like to hear that, the smoothest, brightest, highest fidelity mixes
of a smooth running album possible, as if it was a finished album or nearly
so. I thought that is what the press release said they were doing.

I thought the remaining three discs. would have outtakes, alternate mixes
snippets, and the like. Three whole discs for all that seems adequate.

I would hate to see the first disc, jarring between high fidelity mixes, and
disjointed snippets or scratchy lo fi acetates, I would think the first disc
will sound something like a finished album, and the other three will have
a huge variety of demos. acetates, scratchy mixes. 30 second snippets,
unused song fragments and what have you.


I fully expect it will be great,put together with thousands of hours of
painstaking research, care, and excellence, to try and do justice to that
labor of love.

I think in lyrical concept and the story of travelling across America from east to west
and all the musical reprises and coda's it far surpasses Sgt Pepper in terms of concept
If Mark Linett can make all the pieces fit coherently perhaps it will finally get its due.

And I love the Beatles no knock on them, but SMiLE might be the best album almost made.

[Nicole]

Well, it's been ages since I've posted here. I've been keeping up as much as I can, though, and I'm very much looking forward to this

[JMZ]

I don't know if this has been discussed elsewhere, but I feel that there will be astonishing things made on the "album" CD.

According to the Brians' quote "i had to approve it before they could finish it" and the Mark Linnet interview on Billboard: "there are things that we can do that was just technologically impossible when those bootlegs were made in the 1980's. For example, we can put Brian's vocal back into "Surf's Up,"

I understand Brian's quote like they worked on some digital manipulations to make mixes and edits that didn't existed before. So they needed Brian's approval as these are clearly artisic choices.

So this is pretty obvious they will do things bootleggers and us fans attempted several times, but of course they have more skills and better source material.

[Andrew G. Doe]

I've decided(after a recent personal message from AGD) to exit from the "Smile" discussion. Good luck to all of you.

Once again, Phil's concept of the word "private" differs markedly from mine.  

Great. Now Phil has the inside scoop the rest of us are dying to hear. Why Oh Why can't I be better at debating unpopular points? Then I could  be the newest insider!

Nope, he doesn't. But I knew that something like this would happen, hence I asked him to keep it private, as in "don't tell anyone".  One day I'll learn.

Poor Phil, another victim of the Smiley Smile mind gangsters.

Nah, more like fell on his own sword, with a side of hoist by his own petard. 

[Andrew G. Doe]

I've decided(after a recent personal message from AGD) to exit from the "Smile" discussion. Good luck to all of you.

Once again, Phil's concept of the word "private" differs markedly from mine. 

Great. Now Phil has the inside scoop the rest of us are dying to hear. Why Oh Why can't I be better at debating unpopular points? Then I could  be the newest insider!

Don't worry, AGD just explained "shut up".

That AGD; wise words from a wise man.

Wise words from Arthur C. Clarke, actually... and the full quote is '"Shut Up", he explained.'. Gotta have context.