Beatles listening to part of Smile at Armen Steiner's studio: what happened?

[Dove Nested Towers]

Van Dyke Parks says in Priore's Smile book that some Beatles went to Armen Steiner's studio at
Yucca and Argyle in L.A., where the Smile tapes were stored, and listened to "Smile, in part, the
first eight-track. We walked into the place and heard that The Beatles had been there. We knew that the nest had been found, and Brian was very sad. He felt violated, raped."

Of course, there was lots of mutual, consensual sharing of each other's works in progress at
the time, and Brian was in a somewhat irrational frame of mind, but this "incident" supposedly added to Brian's sense of paranoia at the time and would, if true, have been a significant breach of professional ethics, both on the part of the studio personnel and members of the Beatles themselves. Imagine how they would have felt if, on a trip by Brian to London, amidst an atmosphere of naive trust, albeit with an element of friendly competitiveness, he had gone to EMI or Abbey Road or wherever and finagled a clandestine, non-consensual listening session of side 1 of Sgt. Pepper?

It has been said "authoritatively" by many on a previous, related thread that this incident never
took place, and without revealing sensitive sources, how do you know that for sure? Van Dyke
finally opened up about his memories to Priore, and he was there and doesn't strike me as someone who would fabricate something out of gratuitous pettiness, even if he was expressing
long-suppressed pain at the dissolution of the album. There was plenty of generous, mutually
shared cross-pollination at the time, and perhaps this is making a mountain out of a molehill,
but if this really happened, it was a very symbolic betrayal of the sanctity of a sensitive, close-to
the-edge artist, which, combined with other sources of paranoia, contributed to his withdrawal
from the project and subsequent decline.

The whole truth may never be known, but why are you so sure that it never actually happened?
 

[MBE]

Namely because the Beatles whereabouts are known day by day.. After 8-29-66 John Lennon, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison were not here until after the Smile sessions were well and truly over. Paul openly attended the one session that the only one connection they had to Smile. They just weren't here. I strongly suggest you buy Mark Lewisohn's books or Keith Badman's or any of the multiple tomes that obsessively date where they were every single day. I don't even think Armen Steiner had the tapes to begin with.

[The Song Of The Grange]

I think there was a great sense of competitive emotions going on at the time.  Part of the whole Smile concept, after all, was to refocus the cultural discourse back to America after 2-3 years of British Invasion saturation.  Lots of guys wanted to show up the Beatles.  I think this is the head space from which Van Dyke would make a comment like that.  But the facts just don't line up.  I think the only way the Beatles could have heard the Smile sessions would have been if Taylor would have brought an acetate back to London for them to have a sneak peak at.  But there is no evidence this happened.  I chalk up the similarities between Pepper and Smile to the fact that both groups of artists were operating in the same cultural atmosphere and shared a bunch of influences (including each other).  And the thing is, the Beatles were monitoring everyone.  That was there game--to see what their competition was up to and then absorb that into their own work.  They absorbed the Beach Boys just like they absorbed Motown and Dylan and Frank Zappa and the Byrds etc.  You can see it in their music.  Dylan gets big and all of a sudden the Beatles have a Dylan thing going.  The Byrds break out and all of a sudden "And Your Bird Can Sing" shows up.  Pet Sounds hits, and "Here, There, and Everywhere" and Pepper shows up.  The Beatles actually started to wander when some of their main peers (Dylan and Wilson and the Byrds for example) checked out of the musical race in 1967.

[Rocker]

I think there was a great sense of competitive emotions going on at the time.  Part of the whole Smile concept, after all, was to refocus the cultural discourse back to America after 2-3 years of British Invasion saturation.  Lots of guys wanted to show up the Beatles.  I think this is the head space from which Van Dyke would make a comment like that.  But the facts just don't line up.  I think the only way the Beatles could have heard the Smile sessions would have been if Taylor would have brought an acetate back to London for them to have a sneak peak at.  But there is no evidence this happened.  I chalk up the similarities between Pepper and Smile to the fact that both groups of artists were operating in the same cultural atmosphere and shared a bunch of influences (including each other).  And the thing is, the Beatles were monitoring everyone.  That was there game--to see what their competition was up to and then absorb that into their own work.  They absorbed the Beach Boys just like they absorbed Motown and Dylan and Frank Zappa and the Byrds etc.  You can see it in their music.  Dylan gets big and all of a sudden the Beatles have a Dylan thing going.  The Byrds break out and all of a sudden "And Your Bird Can Sing" shows up.  Pet Sounds hits, and "Here, There, and Everywhere" and Pepper shows up.  The Beatles actually started to wander when some of their main peers (Dylan and Wilson and the Byrds for example) checked out of the musical race in 1967.

Interesting thought !

[Bicyclerider]

The Beatles were in LA just before their SF 66 concert on Aug. 29, and I believe right after (I don't have my Beatles books with me right now to check the exact dates).  so they could have heard Good Vibrations and the tracks to Wind
Chimes, Wonderful, and Look/I Ran, IF Van Dyke's scenario had happened. 

[Dancing Bear]

One day Van Dyke will reveal that this whole Beatles thing was just a prank cause Priore kept bugging him about Smile misteries he hadn't thougt about for 40 years, and we'll all share a big laugh. 

[sofonanm]

It's a great story and I believe it for that reason.
I don't care too much for the facts - the myth is much more exciting.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Van Dyke Parks says in Priore's Smile book that some Beatles went to Armen Steiner's studio at
Yucca and Argyle in L.A., where the Smile tapes were stored, and listened to "Smile, in part, the
first eight-track. We walked into the place and heard that The Beatles had been there. We knew that the nest had been found, and Brian was very sad. He felt violated, raped."

Of course, there was lots of mutual, consensual sharing of each other's works in progress at
the time, and Brian was in a somewhat irrational frame of mind, but this "incident" supposedly added to Brian's sense of paranoia at the time and would, if true, have been a significant breach of professional ethics, both on the part of the studio personnel and members of the Beatles themselves. Imagine how they would have felt if, on a trip by Brian to London, amidst an atmosphere of naive trust, albeit with an element of friendly competitiveness, he had gone to EMI or Abbey Road or wherever and finagled a clandestine, non-consensual listening session of side 1 of Sgt. Pepper?

It has been said "authoritatively" by many on a previous, related thread that this incident never
took place, and without revealing sensitive sources, how do you know that for sure? Van Dyke
finally opened up about his memories to Priore, and he was there and doesn't strike me as someone who would fabricate something out of gratuitous pettiness, even if he was expressing
long-suppressed pain at the dissolution of the album. There was plenty of generous, mutually
shared cross-pollination at the time, and perhaps this is making a mountain out of a molehill,
but if this really happened, it was a very symbolic betrayal of the sanctity of a sensitive, close-to
the-edge artist, which, combined with other sources of paranoia, contributed to his withdrawal
from the project and subsequent decline.

The whole truth may never be known, but why are you so sure that it never actually happened?
 

I am sure for the following reasons:

1 - no-one was in the right place at the right time until Pepper was being mixed.

2 - In the ensuing decades, and especially in the wake of the 2004 London premier of BWPS, Paul never said "oh yeah, heard that in 1966/67". Not once, and of all people, he would.

3 - shortly after the book was published, Van Dyke told a friend of mine that the basis for his claim that The Beatles covertly listened to the Smile tapes was that both albums contained sound effects (in itself a debateable point as the only FX I'm aware of is the fire sounds track on "Fire"... which VDP didn't hear until the late 70s). That was his sole piece of 'evidence'.

[Mr. Cohen]

Oh, the Beatles were there. The Beatles and Beach boys were in an arms race. The Beatles were working covertly for the Masons and the Illuminati, while Brian Wilson was working with the radical west coast hippie/activist groups. Releasing Sgt. Pepper before Smile was key to the Beatles winning the arms race and silencing Brian Wilson. To get there first, and to make sure it would demoralize Brian (their covert goal) they stole ideas from the Smile tapes. The Beatles had to have stolen the ideas. Listen to Revolver. It is no where near as sophisticated as Sgt. Pepper and a far cry from Pet Sounds. Where did the inspiration come from? Well, Van Dyke knows. And don't think the Beatles would ever own up to it. They still said "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" wasn't about LSD until a couple of years ago, when Paul spilled the beans. 

[Alex]

Oh, the Beatles were there. The Beatles and Beach boys were in an arms race. The Beatles were working covertly for the Masons and the Illuminati, while Brian Wilson was working with the radical west coast hippie/activist groups. Releasing Sgt. Pepper before Smile was key to the Beatles winning the arms race and silencing Brian Wilson. To get there first, and to make sure it would demoralize Brian (their covert goal) they stole ideas from the Smile tapes. The Beatles had to have stolen the ideas. Listen to Revolver. It is no where near as sophisticated as Sgt. Pepper and a far cry from Pet Sounds. Where did the inspiration come from? Well, Van Dyke knows. And don't think the Beatles would ever own up to it. They still said "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" wasn't about LSD until a couple of years ago, when Paul spilled the beans. 

Finally, someone who knows what  REALLY happened! And it was actually Billy Shears that spilled the beans, since the Illuminati murdered the real Paul when he was about to tell the truth back in the '60s!

[Andrew G. Doe]

You know the really scary thing ?  Some people actually believe this crap. 

[Alex]

You know the really scary thing ?  Some people actually believe this crap. 

I wish I was naive enough to actually believe it. It makes for a much better story than what happened in real life!

[Bicyclerider]

3 - shortly after the book was published, Van Dyke told a friend of mine that the basis for his claim that The Beatles covertly listened to the Smile tapes was that both albums contained sound effects (in itself a debateable point as the only FX I'm aware of is the fire sounds track on "Fire"... which VDP didn't hear until the late 70s). That was his sole piece of 'evidence'.

There are some other sound effects -

hammers/drills/etc. on Workshop

vegetable munching sounds on Vegetables

the tape explosion on Heroes cantina

some of the whistles etc. on Intro to Heroes (and Bag of Tricks) MIGHT be considered "sound effects" even though properly speaking they are just unusual instruments

the animal sounds/backing vocals of Barnyard

What are the sound effects in Pepper?  We have the orchestral crescendo in Day in the Life (this would fit in with the Intro/Bag of Tricks category), audience noise and applause in the title cut and reprise, animal sounds in Good Morning GM, the Lowery organ tape cut-up in Mr. Kite, and that's all I can come up with.  The rest of the album has voices and instruments treated in different ways to change their sound, but no other sound effects.

[OGoldin]

I would like to know what Van Dyke's actual words are.  He might have brought up the sound effects as "evidence" to support something to others that he believed on other grounds, such as "this is the story that was going around."  There's a lot of gossip that we believe because we heard such and such from other people, some of it true, some of it not.

This is no doubt common knowledge -- but without hitting the reference books -- when were the Smile tapes locked up? 
And would Derek Taylor have access to them nonetheless?  There was a period during which Brian went back and forth between saying that Smile would at some point be finished -- the understanding being that Smiley Smile was a quick move to get the record company off his back -- and considering it scrapped.  Could McCartney have had a listen to the Smile Vegetables etc. during the period of the recording of Smiley Smile, May 1967?  That would have been after the recording of Sgt. Peppers but before its release, hence it could still have fed Brian's paranoia.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Could McCartney have had a listen to the Smile Vegetables etc. during the period of the recording of Smiley Smile, May 1967?  That would have been after the recording of Sgt. Peppers but before its release, hence it could still have fed Brian's paranoia.

Irrelevant - the point under discussion is that of the putative (but entirely disproven) influence on Pepper of The Beatles covertly hearing Smile tapes.

[lance]

It's a great story and I believe it for that reason.
I don't care too much for the facts - the myth is much more exciting.

Awesome.

[OGoldin]

"Irrelevant - the point under discussion is that of the putative (but entirely disproven) influence on Pepper of The Beatles covertly hearing Smile tapes."

That's one of the points under discussion.  mutedts was also referencing what was behind Brian's paranoia.  If McCartney heard some of Smile and then a couple of months later Sgt. Peppers came out, Brian could well have thought that one thing led to another.  It wouldn't have been the strangest thought to pop into his mind, around then.

[Roger Ryan]

I seriously doubt "Pepper" was traumatizing to Brian at all. Reportedly, he was somewhat demoralized in Nov. '66 when "Strawberry Fields Forever" was released because he perceived it as the next big step in the "epic psychedelic pop" thing he had his mind set on (of course, this would have been at the same time "Good Vibrations" was topping the charts, so who knows...). Subsequently, Brian has had no problem in speaking fondly of "Pepper" which suggests he did not connect it to the "SMiLE" fiasco at all.

As for sound effects: those had appeared on plently of pop songs prior to the "SMiLE" recordings including the Beach Boys' own "409" and "Be True To Your School". The Kinks' "Face To Face" album (released mid-'66) had more blatant sound effects than either "SMiLE" or "Pepper".

The real freakout occured when Brian heard Gary Usher's production of "My World Fell Down" (which does sound suspiciously like the "SMiLE" sessions), especially since Bruce participated in the recording (a logical connection for even those not suffering from paranoia). I sometimes wonder if Bruce was kept at a distance from the recording of "Smiley Smile" because Brian was piqued over the Sagittarius recordings.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Still irrelevant - Smiley Smile was recorded June-July 1967. Pepper was released June 1st

Oh, silly me - of course... The Beatles had a time machine. That explains everything.

It's getting a bit Bloo-ish around here: someone makes a spurious point, which is refuted with checkable facts, so they go off at another groundless tangent. And so on, and so on...

[Roger Ryan]

Andrew, are you referring to my comment regarding "My World Fell Down" as the "groundless tangent"? If so, what's your take on that particular piece of lore? Actually, even if you weren't referring to it, I'd be interested in hearing your opinion!

[OGoldin]

Still irrelevant - Smiley Smile was recorded June-July 1967. Pepper was released June 1st

Oh, silly me - of course... The Beatles had a time machine. That explains everything.

It's getting a bit Bloo-ish around here: someone makes a spurious point, which is refuted with checkable facts, so they go off at another groundless tangent. And so on, and so on...

Mea culpa.  No more speculations on dates and timelines for me, with Mr. Doe present.

[Dove Nested Towers]

It's a great story and I believe it for that reason.
I don't care too much for the facts - the myth is much more exciting.

Thanks for the relative restraint in the sarcasm level in the response. I am actually a member in
good standing of the Illuminati and am extremely sensitive to irreverent comments concerning my sacred order.

Unfortunately I have a journalistic side that wants to be sure of the truth about things, but I
like your insouciant attitude about the whole affair (or non-affair). It really smacks of conspiracy theory, isn't the most important matter in the world, and was apparently logistically impossible,
so there it should rest, I guess. To me, AGD, the issue isn't whether it influenced Sgt, Pepper or
not, but the issues of privacy and integrity that would be involved. If Parks told you that the only suspicions he really had were re: the sound effect similarities, that directly contradicts what
he supposedly said when interviewed for the book, and whatever faults or biases Priore may have, I trust him to faithfully transcribe his subjects' quotes (perhaps that trust is misplaced, I
don't know). I believe he has also said that Parks was unburdening himself at length for the first time, with passion, and did not intend it as a "prank" as one poster jokingly said. Therefore, he was either telling you the truth, AGD, or told it to Priore (I would think that, if there were any truth to the tale, only Paul and George would have been present, although perhaps even that would have been physically impossible by a day-to-day chronology).

One poster said he doubted that the tapes were even at the studio, which would really paint
Parks as out-of-touch. Of course the members of the band were intently tracking the work of
their contemporaries, and there was a mutual bond and trust, which apparently is what Parks
said was violated. I am surprised that he would make unfounded assertions, but no matter how
undeniably talented, he is fallible like anyone else.

I am not a conspiracy theorist, believe me, I'm just a hard-working guy (without a very good job), and find the contradictions in this "mythical" incident to be interesting, especially if it really
was one of the perceived or real "betrayals" that played a role in the demise of the album (in its
time).

[Andrew G. Doe]

Andrew, are you referring to my comment regarding "My World Fell Down" as the "groundless tangent"? If so, what's your take on that particular piece of lore? Actually, even if you weren't referring to it, I'd be interested in hearing your opinion!

Nope - Brian was spooked by that, and it put his friendship with Usher under a lot of strain.

[Andrew G. Doe]

It's a great story and I believe it for that reason.
I don't care too much for the facts - the myth is much more exciting.

Thanks for the relative restraint in the sarcasm level in the response. I am actually a member in
good standing of the Illuminati and am extremely sensitive to irreverent comments concerning my sacred order.

Unfortunately I have a journalistic side that wants to be sure of the truth about things, but I
like your insouciant attitude about the whole affair (or non-affair). It really smacks of conspiracy theory, isn't the most important matter in the world, and was apparently logistically impossible,
so there it should rest, I guess. To me, AGD, the issue isn't whether it influenced Sgt, Pepper or
not, but the issues of privacy and integrity that would be involved. If Parks told you that the only suspicions he really had were re: the sound effect similarities, that directly contradicts what
he supposedly said when interviewed for the book, and whatever faults or biases Priore may have, I trust him to faithfully transcribe his subjects' quotes (perhaps that trust is misplaced, I
don't know). I believe he has also said that Parks was unburdening himself at length for the first time, with passion, and did not intend it as a "prank" as one poster jokingly said. Therefore, he was either telling you the truth, AGD, or told it to Priore (I would think that, if there were any truth to the tale, only Paul and George would have been present, although perhaps even that would have been physically impossible by a day-to-day chronology).

One poster said he doubted that the tapes were even at the studio, which would really paint
Parks as out-of-touch. Of course the members of the band were intently tracking the work of
their contemporaries, and there was a mutual bond and trust, which apparently is what Parks
said was violated. I am surprised that he would make unfounded assertions, but no matter how
undeniably talented, he is fallible like anyone else.

I am not a conspiracy theorist, believe me, I'm just a hard-working guy (without a very good job), and find the contradictions in this "mythical" incident to be interesting, especially if it really
was one of the perceived or real "betrayals" that played a role in the demise of the album (in its
time).

I too have a journalistic side, which is why, for me, it's proven beyond doubt that the event couldn't possibly have happened. The Beatles are one of the most heavily, and obsessively, researched bands in history, and the possibility that such an event had escaped the investigations of every single Fab researcher for some 40-odd years is, to me, inconceivable. Simply, no Beatle was in the USA between late summer 1966 and spring 1967, ergo, couldn't have happened.

BTW, in the interests of accuracy, VDP didn't tell me that, he told a mutual friend, in whom I have complete trust.

[XY]

Simply, no Beatle was in the USA between late summer 1966 and spring 1967, ergo, couldn't have happened.

According to all the well researched Beatles day-by-day accounts that may be true, but on the other side, Paul and Neil Aspinall both stated Macca had the idea for the whole Sgt. Pepper-concept on a flight back from LA to London. And, correct me if I'm wrong, that had to be somewhere between the summer 1966 "Good Vibrations" and the April 1967 "Vega-Tables"-meetings, somewhere between late December 1966 + late February 1967.
I don't believe in the 'Beatles heard SMiLE-tapes' theory, but it wouldn't surprise me if Derek Taylor told the guys what the BB were up to. That doesn't mean that the Fab Four copied anything the BB did. The animals for example were inspired by a 1966 Corn Flakes commercial, which BTW was available on YouTube a while ago.