Genuine, Vintage Brian Wilson Smile Edits/Mixes - Info thread

[Paul2010]

Hi everyone, as a reaction to this thread:

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,11640.0.html

This thread is a thread with all the info, per track, about all the songs, vintage mixes and edits and ideas Brian Wilson might have had.

I think we can make one post per track, and editing that post when new info comes available. All the discussion about the info in this thread can be posted in the original thread.

Let's make this thread a great database about the genuine and vintage Smile!

Paul

EDIT: In this post all the info on every song will be posted, this thread can be used for the discussion about that info, what should be included, about all the mixes, etc.

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Track 1 - Our Prayer

Original name: Prayer.

Vintage (1966/1967) mixes available: Brian Wilson December 1966 comp reel (source: Vigotone Smile). Edited mono mix.
Complete mix on The Smile Sessions (best quality).
Vintage track order: The only track we're quite sure of where it would have been on the album - as an unlisted  intro to the album, acoording to the session tapes. That might be the reason why the track was not mentioned on the back cover track list.

It seems that this track was complete around 1966. All vocal parts were recorded and the track was mixed.

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[Paul2010]

(This was the original post for Our Prayer, now an empty 'spare' post if the first post is getting too long)

[Paul2010]

To keep this great idea from adam78 going, I'll continue with Do You Like Worms (one of my favourite Smile tracks!).
_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Vintage song structure: This seems to be quite logical, except for one thing: the Bicycle Rider chorus. All the mixes we know have this structure:

Verse / Chorus (Rock, rock, roll...) / Bicycle Rider (2nd time with backing vocals) / Verse (could be with backing vocals) / Chorus / Bicycle Rider (2nd time instrumental OR full vocals) / "Verse" (Whahalaloola...) / Short instrumental chorus / Bicycle Rider (instrumental, ends at 3:30 OR starts again and fades out)

In decemeber 1966 all the vocals except the full Bicycle Rider vocals were recorded. These were recorded as Heroes And Villains Part 2, in January 1967. So, these may not have been part of DYLW originally. Or it could have been featured in both HAV and DYLW, HAV using the January recording. The new TSS uses the January Bicycle Rider in the mono mix for DYLW.

Then there's the song's ending. A Brian Wilson test mix from the Dec. '66 Comp Reel (which uses different Whahalaloola... vocals) ends after the first ending of the BR theme (around 3:30). This could be how the song was going to end in 1966/67 but the full fade miay have been used after all, so we can;t be sure about that.

Vintage mixes: Brian Wilson Comp Reel mix, Vigotone.

DYLW is one of the songs on the 12 songs on the original back cover.

Vintage lyrics were written, and used on BWPS, but on TSS a part of a vintage, and different melody line can be heard.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Please contribute to the DYLW discussion!

Paul

[Paul2010]

Here's some info copied from the earlier thread, which we don't have to use anymore since we can discuss here.

Yeah love this idea.

So is each track to only feature info on the authentic Brian edits where they exist, ie. the post for Heroes will basically list the February Cantina Edit, then the other partial edits (such as Gee and assorted part 2 sections with Swedish Frog spliced out), the trade-off Brian/Mike partial edit, the final Smiley edit BUT NO CONJECTURE. This could be a cool reference point for people wanting their Smile mixes to be as authentic as possible.

Or might the Heroes post have some kind of conjecture on the form of the song at different times such as this thread here:

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,11306.0.html

Either way it would certainly be useful to have some reference point where fanmixers have a springboard if they want to keep their edits as vintage as possible. I think the key will be to keep the info on each track concise and clear. I suspect people will post discussion in the other thread before too long and it will be confusing. Why not just have all the info for the tracks in the first post, and discussion below?

Hey Paul,

That info on H&V looks good, but dates for the mixes would be useful, and also a description of the contents, so for instance:

1/27/67 - Verse Edit Experiment - Verse 1 (Brian/Mike tradeoff), Verse 2 (Brian/Mike tradeoff), Bridge To Indians

2/10/67  - Cantina Mix - Verse 1, Verse 2, Barbershop section, In the Cantina, You're Under Arrest, My Children were Raised/Three Score & Five, Dum dum tape explosion, False Barnyard fade.

That way people can very quickly see what the contents of the vintage edits were on any given date. Just a thought.

Edit:

Also do we have dates for the Early Version Outtake Section edits? As I understand it these are vintage, and as follows:

1. Verse 1 (Brian/Mike tradeoff), Verse 2 (Brian/Mike tradeoff), Dum dum whistle, My Children Were Raised/Three Score & Five, barbershop section

2. In The Cantina, Woo woos

3. Gee, Dit dit dit handclaps, Swedish Frog spliced out, Dit dit dit hoof percussion

[soniclovenoize]

I know lots have people have said "I've seen this construction on a 66 comp reel.."

Can someone just simply post the contents of the comp reels?  Or possibly which bootleg they ended up on? 

[Paul2010]

To quote The Real Beach Boy:

Keep in mind, the 1988 "release" was intended only to be a single CD, so I'm sure Mark was quite limited as to what he could include. As far as mixes already being completed by Brian, that's a matter of conjecture. There is a compilation reel from December of '66 with Our Prayer, Wonderful, Cabin Essence (two versions), Child Is Father of the Man (two segments), and Do You Like Worms. Those are Brian's original mixes. There is another compilation reel from January of '67 with "Do A Lot", "All Day" (takes 1-2 and 13-17), "Bridge to Indians" (vocal session), "Bag of Tricks" (a single take in two mixes), and "Tag to Part 1" (an undubbed take and two overdubs). These seem just to have been a means to save a few segments on tape.

As far as Mark's working materials, his mix of Wind Chimes is based off of Brian's rough 1966 edit. His "mix" of The Old Master Painter is sourced from Dennis' acetate, so that's a Brian mix. His mix of Vega-Tables is based off of a rough assembly made by Brian in April of '67. Otherwise, I'd say the mixes are basically his own.

A lot of the Smile bootlegs (first appearing in 1983) stem from what appears to have a massive amount of copying which allegedly dates back to 1977-78 with the "Preiss tape" and several hours of other session material (also non-Smile stuff). A lot of this stuff was never "officially" (lulz) booted until the early 2000s.

[Barnshine]

To keep this great idea from adam78 going, I'll continue with Do You Like Worms (one of my favourite Smile tracks!).
_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Vintage song structure: This seems to be quite logical, except for one thing: the Bicycle Rider chorus. All the mixes we know have this structure:

Verse / Chorus (Rock, rock, roll...) / Bicycle Rider (2nd time with backing vocals) / Verse (could be with backing vocals) / Chorus / Bicycle Rider (2nd time instrumental OR full vocals) / "Verse" (Whahalaloola...) / Short instrumental chorus / Bicycle Rider (instrumental, ends at 3:30 OR starts again and fades out)

In decemeber 1966 all the vocals except the full Bicycle Rider vocals were recorded. These were recorded as Heroes And Villains Part 2, in January 1967. So, these may not have been part of DYLW originally. Or it could have been featured in both HAV and DYLW, HAV using the January recording. The new TSS uses the January Bicycle Rider in the mono mix for DYLW.

Then there's the song's ending. A Brian Wilson test mix from the Dec. '66 Comp Reel (which uses different Whahalaloola... vocals) ends after the first ending of the BR theme (around 3:30). This could be how the song was going to end in 1966/67 but the full fade miay have been used after all, so we can;t be sure about that.

Vintage mixes: Brian Wilson Comp Reel mix, Vigotone.

DYLW is one of the songs on the 12 songs on the original back cover.

Vintage lyrics were written, and used on BWPS, but on TSS a part of a vintage, and different melody line can be heard.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Please contribute to the DYLW discussion!

Paul

Hey Paul, do we know that the Vigotone mix is indeed the Comp Reel mix? There are 2 suspicious things about it:
1. The Whahalaloola vocals. They don't sound like the Beach Boys at all to me, and more importantly, they don't have the backing vocals (which were recorded *before* the lead and appear on every other DYLW mix). Also, they don't have the extra "wahalo..." that goes into the chorus reprise and is apperant on every other mix.
2. The more important thing - if you listen closely to the transition into that part, you'll hear that it crossfades, in a way that no other vintage BW mix does.

Do we know what is the source of the mix? How do we know it?

Another question: there are 2 mono mix attempts of DYLW on Secret Smile. Are they vintage, or just bootleg mono mixdowns?

Those things are important to me, as I am about to finish my "Alternate Smile Sessions" compilation and want to include every BW vintage mix available.

Thanks!

[Barnshine]

Another short question:
Is the GV box set Our Prayer a 1966 mix, or a 1993 Linett mix?

[Paul2010]

Hey Paul, do we know that the Vigotone mix is indeed the Comp Reel mix? There are 2 suspicious things about it:
1. The Whahalaloola vocals. They don't sound like the Beach Boys at all to me, and more importantly, they don't have the backing vocals (which were recorded *before* the lead and appear on every other DYLW mix). Also, they don't have the extra "wahalo..." that goes into the chorus reprise and is apperant on every other mix.
2. The more important thing - if you listen closely to the transition into that part, you'll hear that it crossfades, in a way that no other vintage BW mix does.

Do we know what is the source of the mix? How do we know it?

Another question: there are 2 mono mix attempts of DYLW on Secret Smile. Are they vintage, or just bootleg mono mixdowns?

Those things are important to me, as I am about to finish my "Alternate Smile Sessions" compilation and want to include every BW vintage mix available.

Thanks!

Hi Barnshine. I don't have any evidence that the comp reel is indeed on Vigotone, but I read it sometimes on this forum and actually just assumed it is the comp reel that's on Vigotone. Maybe someone who knows more about this subject could give us more info?

And your questions: 1. I thought those were early vocals for that section, and were later re-overdubbed.
2. I actually don't really here that crossfade, maybe someone that knows more about this mix could gives us some more inforation here?

About the two DYLW mixes on Secret Smile: I don't know if these are vintage mixes, but they could be for example 1966 assembly tapes, since the sections are roughly edited in the correct order but still need some final editing/mixing/fadein (and maybe overdubbing). A similar mix is on the Sea Of Tunes Source Tape, but in stereo.

[Barnshine]

Hey Paul, do we know that the Vigotone mix is indeed the Comp Reel mix? There are 2 suspicious things about it:
1. The Whahalaloola vocals. They don't sound like the Beach Boys at all to me, and more importantly, they don't have the backing vocals (which were recorded *before* the lead and appear on every other DYLW mix). Also, they don't have the extra "wahalo..." that goes into the chorus reprise and is apperant on every other mix.
2. The more important thing - if you listen closely to the transition into that part, you'll hear that it crossfades, in a way that no other vintage BW mix does.

Do we know what is the source of the mix? How do we know it?

Another question: there are 2 mono mix attempts of DYLW on Secret Smile. Are they vintage, or just bootleg mono mixdowns?

Those things are important to me, as I am about to finish my "Alternate Smile Sessions" compilation and want to include every BW vintage mix available.

Thanks!

Hi Barnshine. I don't have any evidence that the comp reel is indeed on Vigotone, but I read it sometimes on this forum and actually just assumed it is the comp reel that's on Vigotone. Maybe someone who knows more about this subject could give us more info?

And your questions: 1. I thought those were early vocals for that section, and were later re-overdubbed.
2. I actually don't really here that crossfade, maybe someone that knows more about this mix could gives us some more inforation here?

About the two DYLW mixes on Secret Smile: I don't know if these are vintage mixes, but they could be for example 1966 assembly tapes, since the sections are roughly edited in the correct order but still need some final editing/mixing/fadein (and maybe overdubbing). A similar mix is on the Sea Of Tunes Source Tape, but in stereo.

That's exactly what I thought. So we are in the same position  Maybe anybody in the knows can shed some light on it?

[Generation42]

Hi guys, I know it's been a long time since we've talked about this (and I apologize for giving the topic the ol' Lazarus treatment), but it's a topic I'm interested in, and I was directed here by a helpful member.  I'm afraid that even after reading through this, though, I'm finding myslef feeling a bit unsure.

Basically, my question is this: Which are the vintage 1966-67 Brian Smile mixes that are known to a. exist and b. circulate (either officially or in trading circles), and on which titles do they circulate.  After reading here, I'm not certain that we even know, for sure, but I do know that I surely don't, and I could use some help.  While I'd love for this to re-spark some lively discussion, I'm open to just a short list from anyone here who can help me out.

Thanks for your time.

Okay, edit...  After digging a little further, I've found some helpful info, and I did mean to acknowledge earlier the post by The Real Beach Boy quoted above, but sonic, buddha, Paul and Barnshine all raise some good questions (sonic, in fact, has basically asked the same question I'm raising now) and go as far as outright asking for help from others more knowledgable, but get no response.  Am I to take from this that we just don't have the answers to some of these questions?

While some of the excitement over TSS may naturally have waned a bit since November, there seems the seed of a good thread here with some good questions left unanswered.  Maybe this is just old hat for some folks here, but for someone like me (I've enjoyed Smile tracks from boots for years, but haven't delved so very deeply into the nuts and bolts), this thread is just tantalizing enough to be frustrating.

To get the ball rolling again, allow me to restate a simple enough question raised by Barnshine: Is the GV box set Our Prayer a 1966 mix, or a 1993 Linett mix?  Do we even know?