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

[A Million Units In Jan!]

The engineer didn't say they heard the eight track at Sound Recorders . . . "there's another way of telling the story" - i.e. place and dates could be different.  I doubt the engineer would bother to say there's another way of telling the story if the story was simply "it didn't happen." 

Unless he's writing a book that he wants a lot of people to buy....

[A Million Units In Jan!]

I love it when people grasp at straws to prop up an idee fixee of theirs that's crumbling at the edges. 

Go back to my post of exactly what the engineer said - no, I'll save you the trouble:

"there is possibly another way of telling the story you are referring to, and I was there".  This guy worked at Sound Recorders, in fact he was, in essence, serving an apprenticeship there. Ergo, he wouldn't go anywhere else (and that anywhere would have to be Columbia).

Here's another problem - people are taking part of what Van Dyke said as gospel, but when it conflicts with what they're thinking, hey, suddenly he's got it wrong. Can't have your cake and eat it too - he's either reliable... or not. In light of what I and several others have deduced, in this instance - not.  My money is still on his misremembering the 4/10/67 "Vega Tables" vocal session. If you take what VDP says in Dom's book and stack it up against an established timeline and proven facts, it totally falls apart. He says before they started Pepper, The Beatles covertly heard a Smile 8-track at Sound Recorders and it influenced them. Wrong, wrong and wrong: Sound Recorders didn't have 8-track capability in spring 1967, Pepper started in January anyway and by April the vast majority of the recording for it was done.

So... someone please tell me - why are we still having this arguement ? 

Gotta go with AGD on this one. Remember, we're not talking about if The Beatles ever heard SMiLE tapes. In fact, I'm sure that at some point later on they did. We're talking about if they heard them before work started on Sgt. Pepper. That's the whole basis of this conversation, isn't it? It's what Van Dyke is talking about-that SMiLE directly influenced Sgt. Pepper. And it's pretty clear that it didn't happen.  So, short of calling VDP a liar, I'd go with the idea that he's got events confused in his head.

[Andrew G. Doe]

OK, major "hold-up-hands-and-'fess-up" moment - Sound Recorders did have 8-track capability in early 1967, my engineer source informs me, so, it is possible that someone heard 'the first eight-track' there, as VDP claims... but there's still no way it could be before Pepper was begun.

My source has this to say: "Interesting information, your investigation seems right. Beatles listening in secret to Beach Boys seems unlikely. How can dear Van Dyke know? I can’t remember much of him during the Beach Boys sessions. Like I said, I have the other story."

So, technically, could have happened. Temporally - not. 

[XY]

To add a bit more confusion to the topic, let us not forget a Beatle with Beach Boys-contact during the SMiLE-Sessions: Brian Epstein.
In October, he once again travelled to the US to search for groups who would appear at the Saville Theatre he rented. And a deal was made for 'Sounds Incorporated' he managed as one of the support acts for a couple of BB gigs in England in November. He attended one of those BB concerts at the Finsbury Park on Nov. 6 and met the boys.
Epstein was hot in the business with all kind of contacts, he wasn't the guy who was happy to only hear about things, he had to see it, perhaps he was the spy ??!

[John Manning]

Just looked something relevant up...

The last recording session for Sgt Pepper was apparently held on April 3 (strings for Within Without You) - the day before Macca is said to have attended a Vega-Tables session.

I doubt very much he flew back to London and hurriedly got the rest of the gang back together to re-record any of the material in the light of what he might -  or might not -  have heard at Sound Recorders.

Does Dom hang out here? Can he shed any light (or darkness) on this? Maybe he's lurking....

[the captain]

Does Dom hang out here? Can he shed any light (or darkness) on this? Maybe he's lurking....

Not that I know of, but he does have a show on luxuriamusic.com and often stops in to chat at the Heroes & Villains show there on Saturdays, too. Or did, when last I checked it out (a couple of months ago). They have chats; I'm sure you could check it out with him there.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Just looked something relevant up...

The last recording session for Sgt Pepper was apparently held on April 3 (strings for Within Without You) - the day before Macca is said to have attended a Vega-Tables session.

I doubt very much he flew back to London and hurriedly got the rest of the gang back together to re-record any of the material in the light of what he might -  or might not -  have heard at Sound Recorders.

Does Dom hang out here? Can he shed any light (or darkness) on this? Maybe he's lurking....

Dates are wrong - the session Macca attended was April 10th (going over into early 11th).

[Andrew G. Doe]

Does Dom hang out here? Can he shed any light (or darkness) on this? Maybe he's lurking....

Not that I know of, but he does have a show on luxuriamusic.com and often stops in to chat at the Heroes & Villains show there on Saturdays, too. Or did, when last I checked it out (a couple of months ago). They have chats; I'm sure you could check it out with him there.

Dom's not been on Luxuria for a while now. I'm in contact with him, but don't really want to restart anything, as we get along just fine these days. And anyway, fact is, VDP is mistaken in what he says, so no need to ask anyway. 

[The Song Of The Grange]

Again, I'd like to thank you guys for the sleuthing done on this thread.  I have found it very informative and I appreciate the pragmatic, clear-eyed point of view.

[Julia]

Just wanted to bump this to the top for reference later and also to say, for what it's worth, I think this is one of the best SmileySmile threads. Love the other sleuthing one where the Heroes premiere with the reluctant DJ and "put it on you idiot!" is more or less disproven as well. (At least its revealed to have been exaggerated, like a lot of SMiLE stories I'd say.)