Catbirdman's List: Questions, Answers, Speculation

[doinnothin]

Here's a way to reassemble the Vosse Wind Chimes mix referred to by this: "He did a great deal on it with blending vocal harmonies using the 8 track, getting things happening with voices that he had not done before ... and since they recorded it in bits and pieces, there were several natural breaks in the song ... by recording everybody and doing the song straight through, and going back to the tape and eliminating voices, he had this little section where voices sounded like little percussion instruments - because he took everything out and would only let one little thing come in at a time, so suddenly there was this break and it was funny, but it worked so well that it built up the rhythm and made the change in such a way that all I can say is he found a new way to make musical changes in a song."

Wind Chimes (verse) up to where the big chorus would normally come in, then ... (and I'm super excited by this cause I know you're all gonna love it) ...
Meant for You (vocal tag), that's right, the percussive little vocal thing that comes in right after the harmonized "meant for you", all the way through to the fade out then ...
Wind Chimes (chorus) the big chorus that has the same rhythm.

(Excuse the cockiness, I'm just having fun)

[Jason]

Nah, Vosse's idea of Wind Chimes is actually Ding Dang repeated ad nauseam for 45 minutes from a recording played back simultaneously on two home recorders and then allowed to go out of phase.

[Mr. Cohen]

"bells & whistles", very upbeat vocals and lotsa clapping. It was like being slapped in the face with a halibut. In a good way."  He goes on to say that he has not heard that session since then.

Call me crazy or a liar, but I swear to God I got that version once on Limewire way back in the day! I had like 3 different cool versions of "With Me Tonight", but not realizing the treasure I had, I never bothered to copy them to my newer computers. If I only knew where to find some of those mixes now...

[Curtis Leon]

To follow up from my last post, I did some searching and here's the post I'm referring to courtesy of Jeff:

So, everyone's is 99,9% sure that what's circulating out there is all we are ever going to listen to or know about Smile. That's all. I'd rather debate Bambu or the MIU sessions.

That's quite a definitive statement.  And yet, a very credible poster to this very board has heard Smile material that has not been booted or released.  I certainly don't know all the details, but I recall reading about a version of H&V he heard that included a section of With Me Tonight with bells & whistles overdubs.  But you're 99.9% sure that the rest of us will never hear this?  How can you be so confident?

not sure if you're still a regular here jeff, but if so do you have any other info on the above? Perhaps the poster's name, or whether he can be contacted and pointed in Alan Boyd's direction if he hasn't already?!

I think I was referring to a post or posts from AGD.

Here's a link to an archived thread in which you (Buddha) and AGD are discussing it.  http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php?action=printpage;topic=9199.0.  AGD says "over 20 years ago, I was listening to a whole bunch of Smile sessions while visiting a US friend high in the thin, cold air, and smack in the middle of an "H&V" session, up popped a longer version of "WMT" that I can only describe as "bells & whistles", very upbeat vocals and lotsa clapping. It was like being slapped in the face with a halibut. In a good way."  He goes on to say that he has not heard that session since then.

The thread I'm linking to is actually later than the date of my post above, but I think AGD also posted similar things earlier.

AGD, does this ring any bells?  Maybe you can chime in...

I'm still not entirely convinced that AGD wasn't talking about the early take for the Smile Sessions' version of WMT, the one with Mike on lead. That has upbeat vocals, clapping, and could be described as "bells and whistles" (though it doesn't feature any percussive instruments persay)...

http://www.mediafire.com/?o1yjjpw1dh49nkd < For those who don't have it. It's bookended by the H&V tag and a snippet of the Endless Harmony version of WMT for some odd reason.