SMiLE's Complete Material - How Much Is There?

[Bicyclerider]

The only "demo" of The Elements I've heard of are the chants - earth/vegetables, air, and water - from the Psychedelic Sounds boot/Nov 4, 1966 Vosse posse "party reel."  The group does some chanting, a “rhythmic vegetable thing” with bongos, and the “where’s my beets and carrots” and “I’ve got a big bag of vegetables” used on the Vegetables promo on Hawthorne. Then there's an underwater “bottom of the ocean” chant and a groaning section (perhaps an “air” chant) not unlike the “Swedish frog” section recorded later for Heroes and Villains. The underwater chant is likely the genesis of the “Water chant” later performed by the Beach Boys.

There have been fan mixes circulated with names like "Earth suite" but they don't have any connection to the elements other than in the mind of the creator.

[The Shift]

I wonder if Brian would have had SMiLE in the can if he'd used some of the Vosse posse instead of constantly waiting for the BBs to come back from tour to add vocals? Y'know, no waiting around when the vibe might be slipping, no arguments over the suitability of lyrics...

[Andrew G. Doe]

.

[Bicyclerider]

The Durrie Parks acetates were investigated by the current Smile Sessions team and nothing new was found.  So nothing there.

[UK_Surf]

That's a shame, I remember that expectations were primed for some significant finds in Durrie Parks' collection. And yet, out of nowhere we get this WH-era SU performance. Archival work is odd that way - revelations often surface where (and when) you least expect them.

I wonder how The Elements will be handled in the booklet? The Psycodelic Sounds stuff has always sounded like sketches for a fully worked-up version - I wonder how ML and AB resisted the lure of attempting an Elements suite mix?  One for the fan mixes, presumably.

[P.J.]

Wonderful--the missing insert if it existed

I thought the insert to Wonderful was on a bootleg already...the "ba ba ba aghhh aghhh aghhh" thing, right?

I always use "He Gives Speeches" as the insert to "Wonderful". It works wonderful!! No pun intended.

[hypehat]

I wonder how The Elements will be handled in the booklet? The Psycodelic Sounds stuff has always sounded like sketches for a fully worked-up version - I wonder how ML and AB resisted the lure of attempting an Elements suite mix?  One for the fan mixes, presumably.

No offence, but it just sounds like Brian dicking about with his mates.

Why record it, then? I don't know, but Brian would surely demo any potential BB's material with them, and did - the off-mic piano and vox exercise, for instance, never made it further than that, as well as other fragments - but if the psychedelic sounds tape was anything but Brian goofing about we would have BB's equivalent. Maybe all that came out of it was the Water Chant, but I don't know the dates.

[Cam Mott]

A bunch.

[pobbard]

That's a shame, I remember that expectations were primed for some significant finds in Durrie Parks' collection. And yet, out of nowhere we get this WH-era SU performance. Archival work is odd that way - revelations often surface where (and when) you least expect them.

You mean, in the tape vaults themselves? 

[runnersdialzero]

Wonderful--the missing insert if it existed

I thought the insert to Wonderful was on a bootleg already...the "ba ba ba aghhh aghhh aghhh" thing, right?

I always use "He Gives Speeches" as the insert to "Wonderful". It works wonderful!! No pun intended.

"A MAW MAW MAW MAW MAW MAW MAW MAW MAW MAW MAW MAW MAW MAW MAW WEE-OOP MAW MAW MAW MAW MAW MAW MAW MAW MAW MAW MAW MAW MAW MAW MAW WEE-OOP."

[UK_Surf]

That's a shame, I remember that expectations were primed for some significant finds in Durrie Parks' collection. And yet, out of nowhere we get this WH-era SU performance. Archival work is odd that way - revelations often surface where (and when) you least expect them.

You mean, in the tape vaults themselves? 

Actually, yeah! There was a presumption that most of the material was already 'known' and documented. There were also the 'known unknowns'...like the SU session for the second movement etc. But the '67 SU is definitely an 'unknown unknown', which flew in outta left field.

I wonder how The Elements will be handled in the booklet? The Psycodelic Sounds stuff has always sounded like sketches for a fully worked-up version - I wonder how ML and AB resisted the lure of attempting an Elements suite mix?  One for the fan mixes, presumably.

No offence, but it just sounds like Brian dicking about with his mates.

Why record it, then? I don't know, but Brian would surely demo any potential BB's material with them, and did - the off-mic piano and vox exercise, for instance, never made it further than that, as well as other fragments - but if the psychedelic sounds tape was anything but Brian goofing about we would have BB's equivalent. Maybe all that came out of it was the Water Chant, but I don't know the dates.

 

None taken, that's an operating assumption on all of the Vosse Posse material really. But there was a serious side to that 'humour', gawdawful tho much of it was. Those tapes were a bit of a laboratory I think, testing things out, but also improvising material, then weeding (har) out the (majority) stuff that wasn't useable before bringing those ideas to the BBs. Vega-tables seems to have evolved that way, Water Chant certainly...so my speculation is about the other 'elemental' tracks. 

IIGS and Barnyard are also intriguing to think about in this context, because the musique concrete and humour motifs are pretty strong on these ones, and much of the humour material that was excised from H&V may have wound up here at some point. It might be that some goofy or experimental bit was rehearsed here - the echoplexed basketball game seems to have surfaced, however briefly (insofar as there is, erm, echoplex feedback present) on IIGS.