All message boards use a database (or a few) that holds every post, thread, and user on the site. All good web hosts let the site owners download these files, something that can be initially tedious, but absolutely doable -- and far, far easier than downloading pages manually. Given the database, not only could you thoroughly back up the site, but if the board really did go belly up, you could restore virtually everything.

At worst you would lose some recent posts and maybe the site would look a little different. At best, it would be like nothing ever happened.

Jon: I don't know if you have any direct sway in this, but do you know if a Kindle version will be available?

Thanks, and the book sounds great.

A couple years ago some friends and I made a tradition of having a Twin Peaks fest over the course of a couple weekends, in a converted garage that was, by coincidence, deeply Lynchian (red drapes, evocative lighting, coffee, etc). Brilliant show -- and they paused it once that episode so they could figure out why I was so excited to see Van Dyke Parks appear on the screen.

As the total amateur who "mixed" the one that's up on YouTube, it's pretty cool to see someone taking another crack at it. FatherOfTheMan, if you could PM me a copy, I'd appreciate it, especially since it sounds like it was put together using different resources than what I used.

I agree, very nice indeed. Question though, why on all these stereo attempts do the background vocals sound so low in the mix?

Can't speak for FatherOfTheMan's version, but at least in mine it was all about trying to keep the leftover artifacts down to a minimum.

I wonder if a digitally-extracted stereo mix of GV would appeal to anyone outside of the more dedicated fan base? I personally would love to hear an attempt by Mark Linett, who certainly has better resources than any of us. I kinda doubt that they'd relegate something so interesting to a bonus track, but I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up on some future compilation.

[Yellow Submarine Songtrack]

The Beatles could never release a box set like The Beach Boys are going to do on 11/1.  They've boxed themselves in from a commercial standpoint where every release bearing the name "Beatles" has to be some type of musical revelation.

I don't understand where this is coming from. The Smile box set is built entirely on the notion that what the Beach Boys were doing was going to be a musical revelation. And the Beatles have plenty of releases that aren't grand in scope -- the Yellow Submarine Songtrack, Let It Be...Naked, and Live at the BBC come to mind. I mean, sure, every release gets tons of praise, but I don't recall anybody writing about Love being some major artistic achievement.

If this is not the result and prime example of the cultural conditioning of Beatles aggrandizement and idolatry, then i don't know what is.

You can recognize that something is great and not care for it, which is exactly how I feel about a lot of Beatles music. My guess is that most Beatles dissenters here are like that and people are confusing that with arguments that the Beatles just weren't a good band. Arguing that the Beatles weren't artistically or culturally significant would be pretty close-minded, regardless of whether you actually enjoy listening to them.

That looks awesome! It's too bad I'm not in the L.A. area -- I switch off between northern Colorado and DC -- otherwise I would go there all the time.

I don't need to see a new studio album, or any album at all, really (cool as it might be). But I think there's merit in something simple, like getting together in a room with a couple acoustics and singing old hits. I'd much rather see them do something low-key that they're comfortable with and do a great job, as opposed to something ambitious and do it half-assedly.

What a fun interview. It always kind of amazing how comfortable he seems when he's around people he's familiar with. Compare that to, say, what I read in whateverrandomnewspaper a couple of days ago, and you'd never think it was the same guy. I love the bit about UFO's, too.

Thanks for sharing, Mr. Carlin.

Heh, well, won't get a better confirmation than that. Mea culpa.

Who says it was a vote?

Peter Reum.

I didn't see the word "vote" in his message.

(Unless I'm, y'know, totally missing something, which is definitely possible, but for the movements to be "ixnayed" is not the same thing as a legal vote.)

There were a couple of separate situations where Brian and the Beach Boys came into conflict. The first was his idea about movements. My sources tell me that got ixnayed in December 1966. No, I cannot divulge who they are.

Re movements: If it just took a vote to remove Brian's authority as producer and change the course of an album why would Brian then later be able to scrap the whole project over the objections of the Beach Boys--to the point of nearly breaking up the group for good (as Brian said in 1967/68?  Why didn't the band just vote Brian down then like they allegedly did in December '66? I think the answer is because this December 1966 meeting/vote thing never happened. There is simply no evidence this happen. I say this with respect but "no, I cannot divulge who they are" sounds awful convenient. The fact that in 45 years there hasn't been a single mention of this voting members of the band voting Brian down speaks volumes.

Who says it was a vote? Could've just been negative feedback and Brian caved in, not unlike how "Hang On To Your Ego" became "I Know There's An Answer."

Wind Chimes might be my favorite track on Smiley, and definitely the version I listen to more often. Maybe it's just me, but it just seems slightly creepier than the rest of the album; not to say that Smiley isn't creepy, but that it doesn't inch out in that direction moreso is what prevents me from falling in love with it.

That mix of Breakaway has superceded the original mix for radio play, at least over here. Which is odd.

I've never heard it on the radio here, but superceding the original is probably due to it being on a popular compilation, rather than a bonus track from the twofer.

(Also? One of my favorite stereo remixes. Didn't mind the original at all, but I love the extra outro lyrics and Brian's take on the first verse.)

I don't know if this is germane to anything being done with the SMiLE tracks or not.
But there is a new software called CEDAR.. and you can seperate things locked together
on one track. I have never used it, and I know the results can vary from excellent to poor.
Depending on whats locked together on the one track.

All the tons of info related to SMiLE but I have not heard anyone say anything about
whether they are using cedar or not..

In theory you could take a single desirable overdub and seperate it from everything else
shape it in protools and use it on any take you wanted..

Does anyone know if they have been using it, it would open up all kinds of possiblities if they did.

Hmmm... sorry, but isn't this 'too much dabbling'?

It certainly can be, though obviously depends on the usage. I'm receptive to such software being used to isolate the spare overdub or two from a master tape for an otherwise-intact multitrack, but aside from the work done on The Beatles: Rock Band, I've yet to hear a mono-to-true-stereo remix that sounds releasable.

I only ever read the book up to the second Landy era. Best/funniest things about it are Brian's voice/diction -- which sounds nothing like him at all -- the accidental third person, and the photos, which are genuinely fascinating, especially immediate pre- and post-treatment.

Actually, one of the reasons I'm excited for this set is to hear better versions of some of the already-bootlegged but shoddy-quality backing tracks. Normally I try not to let that kind of thing get in the way of the music, but between the bootlegged "Child" stuff and the BWPS version, I'll take the latter any day.

Rerecording "Do It Again" (of all songs) is such a cheesy thing to do... Also, no rerecording is ever going to equal the original's perfect drum beat and manic falsetto part, so why even bother?

If that "Do It Again" re-recording ever happens (which I'm sure It won't) I would probably tears of shame

Just so I'm clear: the surviving band members have reunited in the studio after so and so number of years, and instead of appreciating the potential historical significance of seeing these dudes put aside their differences and baggage enough to do it, let alone at an age where it might be one of their last opportunities to release anything new at all, we should just complain about how it's not going to be as good as the version they did in their prime and that they should just not do anything at all?

Got it.

Very, very nice job. Especially loved the little touches, like the selective double tracking of certain lines, or the way you sang the percussion and horn parts.

You don't think the age of the Beach Boys, Beatles, Dylan in his prime, Pink FLoyd, Simon & Garfunkel, Janis Joplin
Hendrix, The WHO, STones, Byrds, CSNY, Steely Dan, Led Zeppelin, Grateful Dead, Aerosmith, Elvis, was better
than what we have now? Hello ? what universe are you in ?

So in the 20-30 years of music represented by the list above, you picked 16 successful artists. Which would be impressive if you disregard the hundreds of artists from the same time span, whose music has long since been forgotten to history, often deservedly.

I'll give you this: I don't know if we'll ever have another Beatles or Brian Wilson for the kind of music they made. But who's to say we won't discover some new way to capture or shape music? A few centuries of music history suggests we will; I doubt that a Chicago or New Orleans recording engineer from the 1910's could even fathom the possibilities available from equipment 50 years in the future.

Music sales are down to a pittance,, hall of fame acts are scrapping to make a few bucks, record companies
are going belly up left and right, job layoffs in music have been horrendous, only a tiny handful of acts have
made money, and many of those aren't even musicians or songwriters, just rappers or packaged acts.

In the words of Peter Venkman: cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria!

I really like this quote from Mick Jagger:

But I have a take on that — people only made money out of records for a very, very small time. When The Rolling Stones started out, we didn’t make any money out of records because record companies wouldn’t pay you! They didn’t pay anyone!

Then, there was a small period from 1970 to 1997, where people did get paid, and they got paid very handsomely and everyone made money. But now that period has gone.

So if you look at the history of recorded music from 1900 to now, there was a 25 year period where artists did very well, but the rest of the time they didn’t.

Granted, I doubt Jagger is analyzing the industry in extreme detail, but I think his point is apt: a gargantuan, lucrative record industry is the exception, not the norm.

(Also, I love putting his name in the author thingy, as if he reads this board.)

Edit: This thread is awesome. Maybe I should post something of my own here; seems like a pretty constructive group.

[Pet Sounds.]

I can't say I agree with everything on Jeff's list, but it's much more aligned with my feelings, especially the earlier albums. For me, the only album with perfect flow and no filler is Pet Sounds.

I'll second Luther's point that a lot about an album's flow involves getting used to it. But I think it's worth noting that just because something is filler doesn't mean it's bad, or unlistenable. I like listening to Surfer Girl in sequence even though I don't think everything on there is that great. Same reason I don't skip "Pom Pom Playgirl" when listening to Shut Down, Vol. II; complex, fitting? Sure. But I wouldn't call it a gem.

Hmm, can you elaborate?

By the way, I'll second the endorsement of the AT2020. I didn't know they made a USB version, but I have two XLR models and they're fantastic.

While I support new mono mixes on the basis that it's how Brian would have done it, keep in mind that statements about Smile chiefly being a mono album have to be considered in the context of 60's mixing technology. The Pet Sounds Sessions booklet has a technical section written by Mark Linett that explains how Pet Sounds would have been impossible to mix in stereo, even if Brian/whoever wanted to, because there was no way to sync up the instrumental and vocal tracks after the necessary bounces (I don't have the boxset readily available, so please correct me if I've got the specifics wrong). Mono almost certainly would have given Brian more instant creative leeway, without the extra hurdles.

So, yes, Smile was conceived in mono given the stereo technology of 1966, but it's a totally different picture today, and any stereo mixes shouldn't be dismissed because of such statements. Even the relatively-recent stereo Pet Sounds mixes could benefit from the advances made just in the last three or four years.

The cheapest solution is to buy a USB microphone. Companies like Blue make relatively inexpensive, good quality microphones that you could use for guitar amps or vocals. The advantage is that it's a standalone solution -- no external power or other hardware. The disadvantages are that you a) can't plug your guitar directly into the computer, and b) can only record one track at a time (i.e.: can't play and sing clearly at the same time)

If you're looking for something a step up from that, you'll need an audio interface of some kind. This converts an analog signal -- say, out of a regular microphone or guitar cable -- through USB and into your computer. Avid's Fast Track let you, for example, sing and play an electric instrument  simultaneously, each recording to its own track. And, by plugging the guitar directly in, you can use the effects that come with recording software (I'm not a guitar guy and thus don't know much in the way of guitar hardware, so I find the effects built-in to apps like Audacity to be very helpful). The boxes don't start cheap, though -- you'll be in the $80-150 price range, and you still need to buy a separate microphone, but in my opinion this is a worthwhile solution.

One last thing to note. It's common to refer to Audacity as a less-polished GarageBand; while that's true in some respects as far as raw power goes, there's a very critical difference. The effects in GarageBand, Logic, Pro Tools, etc. are non-destructive -- that is, you can tweak them, stack them, or remove them whenever and as much as you'd like without changing the original file, and it's all instantaneous. While Audacity is an amazingly good free program, the effects are destructive, so once you apply them, your sound is stuck that way unless you press Undo or copy the original to another track (which gets tedious after a while).

Also, that username is excellent.

It's my first 4/20 in a long time where I won't be in Boulder, CO. Don't partake, but needless to say, the celebrations there are mighty hilarious.