Durrie Parks Smile acetates up for sale for $10,000

[Mr. Cohen]

OK, sure, these acetates may have a 'G' rating. But as we've seen time and time again, if the songs ever became publicly available, someone on here with a copy Pro Tools would put together a patched up version that would play quite nice. I mean, shoot, we saw how hard of a time the box set compilers had with effectively using the pristine Humble Harv demos. The version of "IIGS" on the box is positively stone age.

[andy]

I, like  everyone else am very curious and would like to hear the recordings for myself. I have heard at least 3 different cuts of the "hawaii chant": vigotone 3 LP set, UM17, Official and also a couple of mixes of the slide guitar part for that. Have to admit its not my very favorite bit of SMiLE and I was also disillusioned to find out kinneywhakpoola was just "made up".     

In this mix of Worms, you can't even hear the "slide guitar" during the chant...not even as a faint bleed-through like you hear on the Good Vibrations 30 Years boxset version of Worms!

The IGGS discs sounds like the only one with something that could be unique.?

And not to belittle anyone, I'm sure we all would agree that with all the many recordings official and bootleg out and about, only someone with a great deal of knowledge and experience of the SMiLE sessions is truly qualified to make the determination by "ear and memory" alone.

As for myself, I know am I am not THAT good. I would have to have at hand a music player with files of all the other known mixes and make a comparative analysis of each track!

Unfortunately, I've listened to the SMiLE pieces in my possession too many times, so I know instantly if I'm listening to something I've heard, something I've heard but a slightly different mix, or something completely new.

I'm confident the IIGS-H&V edits aren't well-circulated, judging by the reactions of the people I told, and I'd be somewhat surprised if that IIGS wasn't new. The weird thing is that it's so different from the other versions out there, so why hasn't it popped up anywhere before? If anything, it's only solidified my hope that more unheard stuff is out there. I'm assuming that members Vosse Posse might be in possession of some unique pieces but who knows. Now hopefully other stuff starts popping up.

[Mikie]

So Andy, how did your listening session with these acetates transpire?  Did you go with Durrie to her storage facility in Arizona and pick them up or did you go over to her house and put them on a stereo system or did she let you borrow them temporarily to listen to them at your house? Where did you listen to them? And to your knowledge, has Alan Boyd and/or Mark Linette heard these acetates first hand?

And I think you said that something (one of the acetates or a tape) surfaced after September and it was too late to include it on the Smile release? Did I read that right?

[leggo of my ego]

Man oh man, I hope these make it out there somehow. Especially the IIGS mix you've described. I'd love to hear it, even if lower quality.

Was one of the DYLW mixes that you heard anything like this?

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ncpuef

Your file sounds very similar to UM-17- Bicycle Rider (1st vocal Overdub).

All the bkgd. vocal parts there but way down in the mix compared to the lead voc. /instruments
the UM file is not cut-off like yours and you can hear the fuzzguitar fade out.

[andy]

So Andy, how did your listening session with these acetates transpire?  Did you go with Durrie to her storage facility in Arizona and pick them up or did you go over to her house and put them on a stereo system or did she let you borrow them temporarily to listen to them at your house? Where did you listen to them? And to your knowledge, has Alan Boyd and/or Mark Linette heard these acetates first hand?

And I think you said that something (one of the acetates or a tape) surfaced after September and it was too late to include it on the Smile release? Did I read that right?

I heard them here in L.A. at a third party's house. And as of yesterday morning, the acetates had yet to be heard by the people who should hear them.

[leggo of my ego]

I, like  everyone else am very curious and would like to hear the recordings for myself. I have heard at least 3 different cuts of the "hawaii chant": vigotone 3 LP set, UM17, Official and also a couple of mixes of the slide guitar part for that. Have to admit its not my very favorite bit of SMiLE and I was also disillusioned to find out kinneywhakpoola was just "made up".     

In this mix of Worms, you can't even hear the "slide guitar" during the chant...not even as a faint bleed-through like you hear on the Good Vibrations 30 Years boxset version of Worms!

The IGGS discs sounds like the only one with something that could be unique.?

And not to belittle anyone, I'm sure we all would agree that with all the many recordings official and bootleg out and about, only someone with a great deal of knowledge and experience of the SMiLE sessions is truly qualified to make the determination by "ear and memory" alone.

As for myself, I know am I am not THAT good. I would have to have at hand a music player with files of all the other known mixes and make a comparative analysis of each track!

Unfortunately, I've listened to the SMiLE pieces in my possession too many times, so I know instantly if I'm listening to something I've heard, something I've heard but a slightly different mix, or something completely new.

I'm confident the IIGS-H&V edits aren't well-circulated, judging by the reactions of the people I told, and I'd be somewhat surprised if that IIGS wasn't new. The weird thing is that it's so different from the other versions out there, so why hasn't it popped up anywhere before? If anything, it's only solidified my hope that more unheard stuff is out there. I'm assuming that members Vosse Posse might be in possession of some unique pieces but who knows. Now hopefully other stuff starts popping up.

Andy, thanks for your reply.

All I will disagree with you on is the bit about, "Unfortunately, I've listened ... too many times."
I consider THAT fortunate! 

[buddhahat]

Thanks for the info, Andy. Wonderful to hear there is a fragment of Heroes in existence that incorporates IIGS!

Let's hope the digital files get circulated one way or another soon.

[monicker]

Andy, thanks for describing the contents of the mythical Durrie Parks acetates (!) What a dream come true, i imagine. What you’ve described is pretty mind-blowing.

I think that, at the very least, at some point someone should put together a really detailed list of the edits and exact versions of the sections that are heard on these because these are vintage Brian sequences that he at least had at one point. Even if the sound is not “usable” or “unlistenable” or whatever (this is missing pieces of Smile we’re talking about here...any sound quality is usable/listenable, in my opinion) or there’s not that much “new” stuff on these, these represent a snapshot of where Brian was in terms of sequencing. That’s pretty huge on many levels. Consider that sequencing the songs/album was one of, if not the, biggest factor that did Smile in...and here are a few examples of what he had in mind at one point for sequencing some of these songs. What a revelation. 

^ She mentioned the acetates in the early 2000s, which made the rounds on the internet (i can't find a link right now) and Donny just said in this thread that he talked to her about them in the '90s when he knew her personally. She did not just recently remember that she had them when she was approached for TSS.  

Waiting for Andy to say whatever he's gonna say about these. Is this the Andy from the Smile Shop/the early days of this board?

Yep! Good to see you still around, EM. It's been a while..I feel...older. Here's your link from Durrie: http://troun.tripod.com/durrie.html *EDIT* Donny L beat me to it!

Hey, you know what i still listen to from time to time? Right As Rain! All 15 seconds of it, haa 

[Ebb and Flow]

For those worried about the condition of the acetates, the Library of Congress has recently been using a system to transfer old recordings that doesn't even use a stylus.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11851842

[leggo of my ego]

For those worried about the condition of the acetates, the Library of Congress has recently been using a system to transfer old recordings that doesn't even use a stylus.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11851842

This has also been done with a laser turntable but I am not certain if those play anything other than LPs
and 45s. And they are expensive.

[Shady]

Truly incredible to hear your stories Andy.

I'm hoping we get to hear these tracks one day. What a shame they didn't make the box set.

I can't help but feel Durrie Parks comes across as a little shady in this whole thing

[DonnyL]

I can't help but feel Durrie Parks comes across as a little shady in this whole thing

NOPE. Not at all.

And why would you say that? This is the kind of stuff that makes people not want to participate in this board, me included.

[leggo of my ego]

For those worried about the condition of the acetates, the Library of Congress has recently been using a system to transfer old recordings that doesn't even use a stylus.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11851842

This has also been done with a laser turntable but I am not certain if those play anything other than LPs
and 45s. And they are expensive.

If they are dirty, forget the Laser turntable...."the ELP’s tiny laser-beam styli have next to no mass and cannot move dust particles out of their way. Any speck of dirt, however minute, is read by the lasers along with the music. In his review of the ELP in Stereophile, Michael Fremer compared the playback of an uncleaned record to the sound of someone munching potato chips."

[DonnyL]

Yep! Good to see you still around, EM. It's been a while..I feel...older. Here's your link from Durrie: http://troun.tripod.com/durrie.html *EDIT* Donny L beat me to it! That's your interview?! So cool! I remember reading that in 2000, I think, and later referencing that interview for years, repeatedly begging my sources to pass along the message to Durrie that people would pay to dig through her storage and get these.

Cool that you got to hear them!

Yes, I was the source of the 'interview' and the whole thing that came after.

Durrie and I worked in the same office in Phoenix in 1998-99. I actually came to know her BEFORE I knew who she was. This is the sort of strange things that connect the Beach  Boys to my life.

We were sitting in the break room, and I happened to walk in, and I decided maybe I should get to know this new lady. We got to talking about music, and she mentioned something funny about that band 'Limp Bizket' that was big at the time. I said, 'I don't really listen to that stuff, I basically just listen to the Beach Boys'. To which she casually replied, 'I had the pleasure of watching Brian Wilson work in the '60s. Best left hand in the business' or something. 'REALLY?!?' ... 'Yes, my ex-husband used to work with him'. 'Who's your ex-husband?' 'Van Dyke Parks' ...

... and on and on

She used to share a lot of memories about her time w/ Brian and Marilyn, as well as the rest of the folks in that scene around '66-'67. You get a real living sense of what these people might have been like. I thought it would be cool to share some of these stories in a formal interview, but I'm afraid that's where things went kind of wrong. It seems like maybe she didn't want to share much publicly for whatever reason, so the resulting 'interview' became just a few general thoughts. I lost contact with her for awhile, though we still keep in touch from time to time.

[OGoldin]

Let's hope that the good new stuff can be on future pressings of the box set.

Those of us who have it can make do with Spotify etc!

[guitarfool2002]

On the surface it would seem the single most historically important part of these from what we know so far is the H&V edit featuring "Great Shape", as it would be the ONLY Brian edit of this song using the studio tracks that so far exists anywhere. Of course, the Humble Harv demo is one thing but having a Brian-approved studio edit of this on acetate would truly be a moment in time and a snapshot of whatever Brian was thinking or testing out on that exact day as he was in the studio.

That is the main purpose of acetates, it's a journal/sketchbook kind of thing for the client to have taken home and listened with fresh ears outside the studio. Cassettes made them all but obsolete soon after for this purpose.

But if the IIGS/Heroes thing stands as anything, it is perhaps the only surviving proof of what Brian's intentions were with that sequencing using the actual studio tapes he had been assembling and not a tape of him previewing a song for a guest.

Historical? Yes, to the Nth degree, or in other words hell yeah.

[monicker]

Donny, what an amazing story about meeting/working with Durrie. How surreal. I love hearing wild stuff like that, thanks for sharing.

[Mikie]

I can't help but feel Durrie Parks comes across as a little shady in this whole thing.

Another dumb remark. Second one in two days. I think you're shady, Shady!

[Mikie]

What a shame they didn't make the box set.

Didn't you say that earlier in the thread?  At least once already?   

[runnersdialzero]

Nothing "shady" about this. The woman has something extremely unique that she wishes to part with. I'm sure if VDP gave a sh*t about them or the money, he'd have attempted to get them. Who's to say he's not seeing profit out of this as part of a settlement we're not aware of, anyway?

What's the alternative? Hoarding them? Their contents have seemingly already been archived by the people who run the Beach Boys show nowadays, that's good enough for me, I just hope they end up in good hands.

[guitarfool2002]

Their contents have seemingly already been archived by the people who run the Beach Boys show nowadays, that's good enough for me, I just hope they end up in good hands.

From the most recent updates I got the impression these had *not* yet been archived much less heard by such people in any official capacity, wasn't the comment along the lines that the people who should hear them (in an official way) have not yet actually heard them? This from someone who has heard them, remember.

Anyone in an unofficial or official capacity who has had any dealings with the Smile material would probably agree that the H&V edit is the real find, again if there was such a reel of tape anywhere to be found containing anything similar to that acetate, or even if there were another copy of this specific edit anywhere else in the archives on acetate, chances are a piece of it would have gone on the box, unless they did have it but sound quality overruled historical value.

Well, at least until Bruce's legendary mega-mix copy of Heroes can be located...

[bgas]

Well, at least until Bruce's legendary mega-mix copy of Heroes can be located...

Better we save our pennies and dimes to hire someone to break into Bruce's garage, for his acetates, then to pony up to buy Durrie'sDiscs.
we can get a lot more bang for the bucks. Heck, he's probably got 20-30 SMiLE acetates just begging to be heard....

[guitarfool2002]

Well, at least until Bruce's legendary mega-mix copy of Heroes can be located...

Better we save our pennies and dimes to hire someone to break into Bruce's garage, for his acetates, then to pony up to buy Durrie'sDiscs.
we can get a lot more bang for the bucks. Heck, he's probably got 20-30 SMiLE acetates just begging to be heard....

 

Better take along a strong crew for that job, there may be literally dozens of cases full of new Izod "alligator" golf shirts and Docksiders from his years of touring stacked on top of the crate marked "Smile Acetates - 1967".

And make sure it's the right Heroes mega-mix, I'd hate to pay good money only to drop the needle and find out it was a test pressing of the 12" disco remix of Heroes, slated to be the next release if "Here Comes The Night" had become a hit on the dancefloor...

[leggo of my ego]

Well, at least until Bruce's legendary mega-mix copy of Heroes can be located...

Better we save our pennies and dimes to hire someone to break into Bruce's garage, for his acetates, then to pony up to buy Durrie'sDiscs.
we can get a lot more bang for the bucks. Heck, he's probably got 20-30 SMiLE acetates just begging to be heard....

+1 

Who are Bruce's heirs, if he has any? 

[SMiLE Brian]

How about "Doe's Eleven" for the job?