Question about "Surf's Up" (the song)

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♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇:
Typical Priore.

c-man:
Here's something I copied from one of these message boards some time back:

Here's a post from Alan Boyd in response to a question about if
they ever found a tape of Surf's Up Pt. 2 in the vaults...


*******

I wish I could offer something a bit more concrete here...

I've heard about the existence of a tape of a full arrangement on that
second section of SURF'S UP. It's been described to me, third-hand.
Supposedly it's pretty weird, lots of strange horn and string parts.
But I haven't heard it.

We don't have it in the Beach Boys' tape library. And it's not among
Brian's tapes either.

There is an enormous amount of SMILE material that's missing. I
recently saw a photograph on Ed Roach's site of a tape shelf at Brother
Studio, late 1970s. Right there, along with safety 1/4" masters of all
the group's albums, is a tape labeled "BRIAN - DUMB ANGEL." Probably a
1/4" or 1/2". I nearly had a stroke when I saw that, and I immediately
called anyone and everyone who ever had access to tapes at Brother, and
asked what they knew about it. No one knew. What was on that reel?
Where is it now? It certainly wasn't listed in the 1985 inventory of
the group's tapes.

What WAS listed in that inventory are the many empty tape boxes from
the SMILE era, on titles like "Heroes and
Villains," "Cabinessence," "Surf's Up," "Vegetables," etc... they were
empty in 1985, they're empty today. I'm certain, however, that excerpts
from at least one of them (overdubs onto the last verse
of "Vegetables") showed up on one of the SOT discs. They're almost all
1/4" mixdowns. Other SMILE tracks were assembled onto some of the 1/2"
STACK-O-TRACKS assembly reels, and those SMILE songs are
also....missing.

Did Brian actually destroy some tapes back in the day? I think he just
might have...

Are there one-of-a-kind tapes that have been stolen and are now in the
hands of collectors? Yes...

Were there tapes that Brian somehow left behind at a studio after
working on them that have since found their way into the hands of
collectors? Probably...

Are there acetates of missing material in the hands of collectors
and/or people who were around at the time? Absolutely...

Are there people reading THIS now who may know where some of this
material now resides? Wouldn't surprise me in the least...

Would anyone "in the know" feel at all inclined to help us find some of
these missing tapes? I sure hope so....

(BRI is willing to pay for material, no questions asked, just in case
you're reading this and you happen to be holding onto a dub of the
second movement of SURF'S UP, hint hint, or anything else you know we
DON'T have, so please get in touch with me through Jon Hunt, OK?)

*sigh*

Your Friendly Neighborhood Vault Rat

Alan

Rocker:
Quote from: Andrew G. Doe on June 27, 2007, 01:42:47 PM

Quote from: Luther on June 25, 2007, 02:55:51 PM

One other potential reason for not wanting to use the first part--and keep in mind, I have no idea whether it is true, but it's just a possibility--is that unless I'm mistaken (which I could well be) the piano and one of the vocals weren't done separately, so there would only be so much you could do with the mix because of the bleed.


From my reading of the Seigal article, Brian cut the piano track first, then overdubbed one, maybe two vocal tracks (as it was at Columbia, very probably on to their 8-track).



Sound correct as there's a acapella-version of "Surf's up" on "Get the boot" with Brian's double tracked lead.

Joshilyn Hoisington:
Quote from: Andrew G. Doe on June 29, 2007, 01:16:07 AM

The 2nd half of the song - "Dove-nested towers..." and thereafter.

As far as I can see , the assumption that a 2nd movement was recorded is based on the tagging of a November '66 session as "1st movement". Some here may recall that a few years back, on the old Cabin Essence MB, Domenic Priore popped up and claimed to have heard this tape (the 2nd movement) back in the late 70s, and was promptly reminded that in a recent edition of LLVS he'd firmly denied that it had ever been recorded or existed at all. He left, precipitately. Thus, as this is the only instance of anyone claiming the track exists, and there's no available documentary proof, I'm dubious it ever happened. Anyone care to comment (that is, prove me wrong with examples - this is what usually happens in these scenarios :-))



I think the reason that the 2nd movement theory has persisted is because there are more track sessions logged as "Surf's Up" than we have heard material from.

There's the first movement, the horn overdub, and then the mysterious session from Jan 23 that's logged as Surf's Up but doesn't match any of the instrumentation (based on the musicians present) for any part of Surf's Up we've ever heard.  Now, of course it could have ended up as a session for another song, but the specific instrumentation, in my mind, doesn't seem to match any Smile material.

c-man:
Quote from: aeijtzsche on June 29, 2007, 10:01:52 AM

Quote from: Andrew G. Doe on June 29, 2007, 01:16:07 AM

The 2nd half of the song - "Dove-nested towers..." and thereafter.

As far as I can see , the assumption that a 2nd movement was recorded is based on the tagging of a November '66 session as "1st movement". Some here may recall that a few years back, on the old Cabin Essence MB, Domenic Priore popped up and claimed to have heard this tape (the 2nd movement) back in the late 70s, and was promptly reminded that in a recent edition of LLVS he'd firmly denied that it had ever been recorded or existed at all. He left, precipitately. Thus, as this is the only instance of anyone claiming the track exists, and there's no available documentary proof, I'm dubious it ever happened. Anyone care to comment (that is, prove me wrong with examples - this is what usually happens in these scenarios :-))



I think the reason that the 2nd movement theory has persisted is because there are more track sessions logged as "Surf's Up" than we have heard material from.

There's the first movement, the horn overdub, and then the mysterious session from Jan 23 that's logged as Surf's Up but doesn't match any of the instrumentation (based on the musicians present) for any part of Surf's Up we've ever heard.  Now, of course it could have ended up as a session for another song, but the specific instrumentation, in my mind, doesn't seem to match any Smile material.


To make matters more confusing, there was a SECOND session held on Jan 23, a half-hour after the first, logged as "Part One".  Was it Part One of "Surf's Up"?  Wasn't that the one from Nov 4 ?  Who knows.  The instrumentation used at this second Jan 23 session (17 musicians) seems to be mostly strings & horns, so if it was in fact an overdub onto the track cut earlier that day, it would seem to match that of the missing second movement that was described to Alan B. third-hand.  Personally, I believe the truth IS out there, but we may never know it in our lifetimes.

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