The Beach Boys Wild Honey(Sunshine Tomorrow) 2CD Set?

[joshferrell]

any cool sounding psychedelic stereo "Panning" on the songs since it has been remixed into stereo? 

[Howie Edelson]

UPDATE: There isn't EVEN a tape box for "Good Time Mama."

[Matt Bielewicz]

Thanks again, Howie!

Still reeling from actually knowing, finally, what 'Good News' is...! Of course, in some cases of this kind, finding the answer to a long-held question can be a bit of a 'popped balloon' scenario; I wondered for years (with no basis at all, clearly...!) about whether the track might be some beautiful Smiley-era Brian curio, heavy on the Baldwin organ and gospelly chords, maybe like the slow Old Man River takes from the following year — and hence, I thought, perhaps, the slightly Biblical track name — and even wondered whether it might bear some relation to an abandoned SMiLE snippet. And instead... it's off-mic Al demoing a cover of a folk track that never got taken any further!

If nothing else, that's a good reminder that sometimes the best versions of unknown tracks are the ones you create in your head before you ever hear the actual song... and the reality can be something of a let down! A salutory lesson, there, in not letting your imagination run away with you!

Despite all that, I'm delighted to have 'closure' on 'Good News' at long last.

Or has it been known for years what that was? If so, I missed the memo, clearly...!

[Custom Machine]

I hate being cagey and letting stuff out without all of you hearing this. I really can't wait for everyone to have this.
This collection is TRULY what we've all dreamed about.

So is there an official release date? Or even a ballpark month?

[The_Beach]

I hate being cagey and letting stuff out without all of you hearing this. I really can't wait for everyone to have this.
This collection is TRULY what we've all dreamed about.

So is there an official release date? Or even a ballpark month?

No matter how Unreasonable an unreleased song by the beach boys is like Good News, I think most us fans would still love to get our hands on it and buy it! I definitely would

[jiggy22]

That is an awesome set! Cant wait to get it! Anyone know which ones haven't been booted before?

As far as I can recall, we have never heard the tracks "Game of Love", "Honey Get Home", "Hide Go Seek", and the untitled Redwood instrumental. Although the alternate mixes may be unheard of as well.

[Shady]

Am I dreaming?

[The Cincinnati Kid]

I hate being cagey and letting stuff out without all of you hearing this. I really can't wait for everyone to have this.
This collection is TRULY what we've all dreamed about.

So is there an official release date? Or even a ballpark month?

June 30th according to Amazon.  Can't wait!

[Jay]

Am I dreaming?

My thoughts exactly. I never want to wake up. 

[Shady]

Am I dreaming?

My thoughts exactly. I never want to wake up. 

It's pretty much the thread I've been waiting for and thought would never come.

Funny how life works.

[Matt Bielewicz]

As far as I can recall, we have never heard the tracks "Game of Love", "Honey Get Home", "Hide Go Seek", and the untitled Redwood instrumental. Although the alternate mixes may be unheard of as well.

Right, and actually, of those unbooted tracks above, Game Of Love is allegedly an unfinished cover (of the Wayne Fontana track, right?), and Hide Go Seek is presumably a 1967 retread of the song by the Honeys. They might be interesting, but I expect the best stuff on this set to be elsewhere...

No matter how Unreasonable an unreleased song by the beach boys is like Good News, I think most us fans would still love to get our hands on it and buy it! I definitely would

Mmm, maybe. I had never heard the Kingston Trio original until prompted to go and seek it out tonight by this thread. I really like their version - I can hear a definite influence on the Fleet Foxes, although this connection has been much noted before. But it's only a couple of chords and it's the vocals that really lift the track - so if the Beach Boys' version has but a single off-mic vocal by Al, I think I can begin to see why it wasn't thought worthy of release, back in the day or in 2017...

Am I dreaming?

My thoughts exactly. I never want to wake up.  

That's *my* fear! As I said above, I *HAVE* actually dreamt about a set like this before. So I'm pinching myself rather a lot as I read this thread...!

[Mr Fulton]

Can't Wait to see what the cover looks like

[CenturyDeprived]

Am I dreaming?

My thoughts exactly. I never want to wake up.  

It's pretty much the thread I've been waiting for and thought would never come.

Funny how life works.

Me too. I can imagine that if this sells well, it will certainly greatly increase the chances for more sets of this kind for this band.   Assuming this is a physical set with decent packaging, I am going to buy several brand-new copies as gifts for people, and I recommend that others do the same, because we don't want the sales on this to underperform.   It may sound silly, but if there were ever a time to want to do that,  I would tend to think that now would be it.

This could definitely be a testing the waters type of release to gauge the market for items like the famed "bedroom tapes".  I think the title of the set is a smart marketing idea as well, because  in addition to being an actual lyric that is relevant to the set, it has a very summer of love (not the song!) 1967 sound to it, which could pull in more casual fans  as they celebrate the 50th anniversary of that incredibly famous year for music and culture aesthetics.

I almost feel like this set might not have happened quite as elaborately as it seems to have been done, if not for the fact that the Fab four have an incredibly famous album coming out shortly in super deluxe form.  I'm sure that fact was not lost on Capitol.

[c-man]

Despite all that, I'm delighted to have 'closure' on 'Good News' at long last.

Or has it been known for years what that was? If so, I missed the memo, clearly...!

Nope...the keen ears of Mr. Boyd recently deduced that one!

[RangeRoverA1]

It's pretty much the thread I've been waiting for and thought would never come.

Funny how life works.

Ha! Your past username even was "Wild_Honey_In_Stereo".

[Shady]

It's pretty much the thread I've been waiting for and thought would never come.

Funny how life works.

Ha! Your past username even was "Wild_Honey_In_Stereo".

I know 

Long time waiting 

[Alan Boyd]

Despite all that, I'm delighted to have 'closure' on 'Good News' at long last.

Or has it been known for years what that was? If so, I missed the memo, clearly...!

As we were working on this project we went back and re-reviewed all of the surviving "Smiley" session tapes, and I was hoping to find "Good News" in particular even though there's nothing on any of the tape boxes or tracksheets mentioning that title.  On one reel there was this very brief fragment with a couple of acoustic guitars strumming and on that bit you can barely make out Al mumbling/singing off mic, difficult to discern the words he's singing... but there was something kinda familiar about the tune he was humming.  So I checked a couple of my dad's old Kingston Trio LPs, and there it was: "Good News," an old traditional gospel tune adapted by Lou Gottlieb (of the Limeliters), the first cut on side two of the 1959 LP "The Kingston Trio At Large."

The Kingston Trio version is on YouTube. Check it out.  A Beach Boys version might have been a wonderful thing. Al was definitely onto something there!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-SGONxEJFM

[Jay]

Something like that would make for a nice little untitled "hidden track". 

[Jim V.]

Pardon my stupidity everybody, but as far as there being a 1967 version of The Beach Boys doing "Time To Get Alone", is that new information, or was that already known? I feel like I may have seen something about it before, but I really can't remember. Obviously, I knew that there was originally the Redwood version and that ultimately The Beach Boys took the song instead (though Desper claims there that the BB re-recorded the instrumental track, others disagree).

Despite all that, I'm delighted to have 'closure' on 'Good News' at long last.

Or has it been known for years what that was? If so, I missed the memo, clearly...!

As we were working on this project we went back and re-reviewed all of the surviving "Smiley" session tapes, and I was hoping to find "Good News" in particular even though there's nothing on any of the tape boxes or tracksheets mentioning that title.  On one reel there was this very brief fragment with a couple of acoustic guitars strumming and on that bit you can barely make out Al mumbling/singing off mic, difficult to discern the words he's singing... but there was something kinda familiar about the tune he was humming.  So I checked a couple of my dad's old Kingston Trio LPs, and there it was: "Good News," an old traditional gospel tune adapted by Lou Gottlieb (of the Limeliters), the first cut on side two of the 1959 LP "The Kingston Trio At Large."

The Kingston Trio version is on YouTube. Check it out.  A Beach Boys version might have been a wonderful thing. Al was definitely onto something there!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-SGONxEJFM

I'm not sure if you'll answer Alan, but may I ask how the name "Good News" ever even appeared on Beach Boys land in the first place? Like how was it even known that this tune was messed around with during that era, to the point where it's listed on Andrew Doe's site?

[Matt Bielewicz]

As we were working on this project we went back and re-reviewed all of the surviving "Smiley" session tapes, and I was hoping to find "Good News" in particular even though there's nothing on any of the tape boxes or tracksheets mentioning that title.  On one reel there was this very brief fragment with a couple of acoustic guitars strumming and on that bit you can barely make out Al mumbling/singing off mic, difficult to discern the words he's singing... but there was something kinda familiar about the tune he was humming.  So I checked a couple of my dad's old Kingston Trio LPs, and there it was: "Good News," an old traditional gospel tune adapted by Lou Gottlieb (of the Limeliters), the first cut on side two of the 1959 LP "The Kingston Trio At Large."

The Kingston Trio version is on YouTube. Check it out.  A Beach Boys version might have been a wonderful thing. Al was definitely onto something there!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-SGONxEJFM

Fascinating stuff, as ever, Mr Boyd. Thank you so much!

I could read about this stuff all day long...

I was actually mightily taken with that Kingston Trio track the other day, having never heard it before. And yeah, I reckon the Boys could have really made something of it! Ah well, file under 'Roads Not Taken'...!

I'm not sure if you'll answer Alan, but may I ask how the name "Good News" ever even appeared on Beach Boys land in the first place? Like how was it even known that this tune was messed around with during that era, to the point where it's listed on Andrew Doe's site?

I'm not Alan, but I know where *I* saw the title for the first time - in the second edition of Domenic Priore's Look Listen Vibrate SMiLE, which I read in either late 1995 or very early 1996. In my well-thumbed copy, the info is on page 156, in Brad Elliott's essay about recording dates throughout the SMiLE/Smiley period ('The Facts About SMiLE' - although someone said years later on here, I think, that Domenic rewrote some of what was printed under Brad's name in that essay, which Brad didn't agree to or with, so maybe it's more like '*Some* facts about SMiLE, with a whole bunch of wishful Dom speculation mixed in...!'. No idea if that's true, though, or what was changed if the rumour *was* true). Anyway, that text mentions Good Time Mama, Hawaiian Song and Good News as being (then-) unknown outtakes recorded during the Smiley sessions. Where Brad got his info, I don't know. And ever since then, I've wondered what that track might be... until the other day, on this very thread!

Wow. Mind. Blown.

PS Can't help re: TTGA, I'm afraid, I know nothing about the genesis of that one, really. I thought the Redwood recording was the earliest... and that would put it in 1967, though, wouldn't it? Perhaps this is that version... after all, much of Wild Honey is Brian and one or two supplementary musicians, isn't it? Perhaps the basic TTGA track for Redwood (not the strings, obviously) is the same...? But really, I might be talking smoke here about that one.

[Custom Machine]

I hate being cagey and letting stuff out without all of you hearing this. I really can't wait for everyone to have this.
This collection is TRULY what we've all dreamed about.

So is there an official release date? Or even a ballpark month?

June 30th according to Amazon.  Can't wait!

Thanks for the info! Didn't even know it was up on Amazon. Just pre-ordered.

[c-man]

... after all, much of Wild Honey is Brian and one or two supplementary musicians, isn't it?

No, actually, almost all of Wild Honey is the Boys on all instruments. Exceptions are the electro-Theremin on the title tune (Paul Tanner), strings & horns on "Aren't You Glad" (yes, there ARE strings on that one...very subtle, but they're there), Ron Brown's bass on a couple of tunes, Hal Blaine's drums and more horns on "Darlin'". That's it, I think. The rest is all our Boys. As for "TTGA"...there's a 1967 BBs version on the Hawthorne compilation. But this is a bit different. That's all I'm saying for now.

[Matt Bielewicz]

Thanks for the correction, c-man - I have known, and then forgotten again, so much of this stuff over the years. It was Ron Brown I was thinking of as the 'external' bass player. And I had got it mind, years ago (and, it now seems, quite wrongly), that Darlin' and Wild Honey were started as Brian on a piano track with him overdubbing himself on minimal drums, Love You style... but obviously not. Hal Blaine, eh? Didn't know HE was on there...!

Time To Get Alone. Another stone-cold classic track from this era. Another version cannot possibly go amiss. June 30th just cannot come fast enough...

Interesting that for so many years, Beach Boys fans confronted with the old classic party game: "With a wheezing, groaning sound, the Hot Tub Time Machine materialises in front of you. It's almost burnt out, but has enough juice left to take you anywhere in time and space... and then back home again when you're done. Where do you go and why, and what do you do when you get there?" would pretty much all opt to head back to somewhere around Terry Melcher's garden party in late 1965 or whenever it was, far enough back to 'oh so casually' get to know David Anderle, VDP and Bdub in time to get invites to the Siegal dinner parties and lifeboat games and firehat sessions and jovial self-asphixiation attempts in the living room tent, and all that stuff in 1966 and beyond — reliving Lewis Shiner's Glimpses, basically. For the first time, I have to consider that I might prefer to use it to just skip ahead six weeks instead! Having said that, I guess I can just about go the slow way round on that one. And then, when the Hot Tub Time Machine *does* turn up, as it self-evidently will one day (...!), I can *still* use it to go and assess Terry Melcher's mid-60s canapé-making skills.

Or something. Jeez, cut me some slack here... these days 'til June 30th won't fill themselves, you know...

[Matt Bielewicz]

[drums fingers on desk]

[Matt Bielewicz]

...[finishes scale matchstick model of Tower Bridge. With full opening mechanism.]