Inside Pop: Do You Like Worms?

[FatherOfTheMan Sr101]

I've been having a LONG night... but that's for a different time... and I was thinking about an old discussion I had about extra footage of Brian from Inside Pop, or the Smile-Era in general. 
We discussed how, judging by his hands, and the timing of the recording, the song may have been "Do You Like Worms?"

Has this been discussed here? I searched but couldn't find anything.

[Micha]

What do you mean? The piano bit that was on An American Band?

[buddhahat]

There's a thread from a few years ago, if you do mean that American band footage:

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,2833.0.html

And here's Alan Boyd elaborating on the piano piece:

After perusing this thread there are a few quick points I should make clear...

 (I'm kind of in the middle of something else at the moment so I'll make it short for now, but I'll address details later when I have some free time!)

I've been doing some research into all of this, going through old archive files (which we've just recently obtained from the facility that handled The Beach Boys' masters at the time) and talking to Ron Furmanek and others who were involved with the AMERICAN BAND project.  Some things are becoming clear:

The raw footage from the Oppenheim film has never been found, and was not available to Malcolm Leo or used as source footage for the AMERICAN BAND film.  

The footage of Brian in the dark playing the piano was on a short silent 16mm roll obtained from Dennis' first wife.  

Footage of Brian, Mike, Alan and Carl in the studio (with fire hats) was on another 16 mm home movie roll from the collection of Ed Roach.  

If the producers had HAD any of that raw CBS footage of Brian and The Beach Boys in the studio working on Smile, I'm told that they most certainly would have used it.  Chances are the original outtake footage from INSIDE POP was disposed of years ago... studios and networks are notoriously bad about storing anything that's not "current."  

Sad to say, The INSIDE POP outtakes are probably on a shelf in that great vault in the sky, next to the camera negatives of Orson Welles' original edit of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, the complete version of Erich Von Stroheim's epic GREED, and the original uncensored release of The Marx Brothers' HORSE FEATHERS.  Either that or in a landfill in Jersey.

I'm told that the music in question, including the piano vocal version of "Summer Means New Love," was created especially for the film. An associate of Malcolm's, whose name I don't know, was hired to create some original music for the film to cover gaps and create ambient backgrounds for segments where the cost of licensing original masters might have been prohibitive.  I have to say that whoever it was did a very good job.

And again, I'll reiterate another point - I can verify that there's virtually no way in which all of those tracks that were eventually booted as part of the SOT series were dubbed or created during the making of AN AMERICAN BAND.  At the time the boys' masters were stored in a very secure facility, and there's paperwork for every single tape that was requested and pulled on behalf of the film.   Again, I say that it's time to put that particular theory to rest.

I will say this, however:  the producers of AMERICAN BAND found a great deal of incredible material and made it available for the first time.  One of my challenges while making ENDLESS HARMONY was to find enough unseen footage so that, for BB fans (like myself), the two films might complement each other.  

Thanks,

Alan

Edit: Although from a quick re-read it doesn't answer your question of what Brian's hands are actually playing. I haven't watched American Band in a while. Is the segment long enough for anybody to be able to reasonably work out what he might be playing other than a couple of chords that may or may not have anything to do with Smile though?

[buddhahat]

.

[runnersdialzero]

THANKS FOR THE REMINDER OF SOMETHING AMAZING WE'LL NEVER, EVER SEE, GUYS.

[JohnMill]

Alright but I remember several years back (around the time of BWPS) there were some documents made available to the fanbase that if I'm remembering correctly were ascribed to being from CBS and documenting footage of "The Beach Boys session that went very badly" during SMiLE, I believe for "Surf's Up"?  The documents made reference to the individual reels of tape and what was contained on each reel.  So is the long and the short of it, that the documents describing what was filmed by CBS have survived but the tapes themselves have not?

[The Shift]

Imagine if Worms had been the song featured on Inside Pop instead of Surf's Up…:

"Here is a new song, too bizarre to get all of first, second or even third time around. It could come only out of the psycho-tropic ferment that characterises today's drug-addled pop music scene. Brian Wilson, leader of the famous Beach Boys, and one of today’s most distracted pop musicians, sings his own Do You Like Worms…

"Bonkers, incomprehensible and doomed to obscurity, Do You Like Worms is one aspect of the mind-altering things happening in pop music today. As such, it is a symbol of the changes many of these young musicians experience when under the influence of acid."

[Les P]

Imagine if Worms had been the song featured on Inside Pop instead of Surf's Up…:

"Here is a new song, too bizarre to get all of first, second or even third time around. It could come only out of the psycho-tropic ferment that characterises today's drug-addled pop music scene. Brian Wilson, leader of the famous Beach Boys, and one of today’s most distracted pop musicians, sings his own Do You Like Worms…

"Bonkers, incomprehensible and doomed to obscurity, Do You Like Worms is one aspect of the mind-altering things happening in pop music today. As such, it is a symbol of the changes many of these young musicians experience when under the influence of acid."

         Excellent!

[punkinhead]

Imagine if Worms had been the song featured on Inside Pop instead of Surf's Up…:

"Here is a new song, too bizarre to get all of first, second or even third time around. It could come only out of the psycho-tropic ferment that characterises today's drug-addled pop music scene. Brian Wilson, leader of the famous Beach Boys, and one of today’s most distracted pop musicians, sings his own Do You Like Worms…

"Bonkers, incomprehensible and doomed to obscurity, Do You Like Worms is one aspect of the mind-altering things happening in pop music today. As such, it is a symbol of the changes many of these young musicians experience when under the influence of acid."

I love it! And if this was Facebook, I'd like it

[Tricycle Rider]

If anybody reading this has the information about what was on those reels (Oppenheims notes), would you please post it?

I seem to recall one of those reels mentioned the group working on the "Open Country" song.

Can you imagine?...The Beach Boys on film, in the studio, working on "I'm In Great Shape"

I think I'm going to cry now

[guitarfool2002]

From November 2006, this is a copy of my reply in a thread about these reels when the Oppenheim notes were originally found and and posted. You'll recognize the actual notes from the library in shorthand form, some of them cryptic, and below that an attempt at analyzing what was being described in the notes.

Amazing stuff that was captured on film and had fate not intervened, would have been available for us to view (and hear) for years to come, one of the ultimate Smile documents that was but is no longer.

There are numerous threads and discussions on this board's archives about this topic, I'd highly recommend searching and doing some very enjoyable reading. 

PS: "mike" in the notes stands for microphone, not Mike Love...


this is the original film notation I'm re-posting, reels 84-90:


84
9. Let's work on microphone
boys around mike
Do wa


85 Brian at piano working out
Yodelledo
then group sings at mike


86 Group around mike Yodelledo
Playback Yodelledoo's control in b.g.
Inside control room Group & Engineer Da daum(?)
Go out into studio Brian eating cereal record da da da


Beach Boys


86

1. around mike Yodeladeeo pan to Piano
Brian walks out frame(?) to outside booth playback
walks to control board

2. Brian talking ?? (bad pa toheps) to engineer
3. dark 4/s listening to playback
Brian goes to ?? (sirke?!) eats, put on headphones
sing dine dine

Scratch

87
1. control board thru window track on(?)
dine dine
Let's go have some Zen accompaniment
2. Brian at piano from behind
plays chords


87
engineer thru glass to group in(?) b.g. record da da
group comes back into room & listens to da da da
let's go lets have some zen compliment

Brian at piano from behind accomp. to Surf's up
to hands to face CL around to x & back to CL


88 Brian eating
headphones listening to piano track
sings lead on(?) thru piano
1 more time
--> tone(?) & start again side view CL
-> start at 2nd verse hung velvet
misses the glass
pickup hung velvet stop at dove nested
have echo on me
pickup again at hung velvet


89 Overdubs
hung velvet lead on(?) ?? (jumoles?!?!) -- let's overdub
it
move to CR side (?).s. 11(?) more around behind
move around to face CL he gestures
he talks while voice go(?)

mono mix - Id like it softer
let's go to top is that cool

LS CL overdub
LS hung velvet out sync
LS thru control room
2nd shot n.g.(?)
needle
recorder pan to engineer back to recorder


90
--> playback engineers bg Wilson fig.
fade in(?)
kneels -- can have muted trumpet go bleep(?)
move to us(?) half of Jules
Brian coat on walks out


In the span of these reels, Brian is working on and showing them the "yodel" harmony parts to "Wonderful" which they sing as a group, then the focus seems to shift to "Cabinessence" with the "dine dine dine" backing vocal parts, and then perhaps back to "Wonderful" with the "da da da da" countermelody vocal part as heard on the box set version.

So that is hard to dispute. This is the group session in question, the one AGD is describing.

Then, mention is made of Brian doing Surf's Up, and one reel places Jules Seigel at the scene for further validation (and it was his article which for years was the main research source for this incident).

Before that, though, at reel 87 it seems like a break may have been called "Let's go have some Zen...", and just prior to that notation the group was definitely there in the studio to listen to a playback of Wonderful.

Now, what happened after reel 87? Because the next reel picks up with Brian working on Surf's Up, and no mention of the group is made in the next few reels. Then Brian puts his coat on and leaves at reel 90.

From that evidence, I don't think you can totally rule out a point in time that day/night when a discussion on Surf's Up may have happened, because the group *was* there, and Brian worked on that track after it seems they left after Wonderful and Cabinessence were tracked. So the SU track was on the agenda for that period of time - a discussion could have happened.

And you also can't rule out the possibility that one of the earlier sessions, Wonderful or Cabinessence, may not have gone well.

[guitarfool2002]

And my apologies, I realized the previous post was only a portion of Oppenheim's notes which were being discussed/analyzed, so I dug through some old folders and found the full listing from June 2005:

This contains the "open country" stuff, the Surf's Up filming at the house, and all of the rest.

 

75 (signifying Reel #75)

1. hands to face CR angle
can't see hands pan to hands in dark
child Is the Father of man

2. Heroes & Villains plays
Vandyke Parks has been working on lyrics
sings open country song

Sunshine


76 Surf's up cu (or cw? or au?) CR
-> takes guts to catch wave
can visualize intervals on piano


77 x piano Surf's Up
PB

Surf's up candelabra shot CL


78 Scratch (?)

Wilson & friends ? (in house?)


----------------------------------


(Page 2)


83

1. engineer
2. pan up to Brian
3. board
4. Boys singing who Ran The Iron Horse
(Above "who Ran" is the scratched out word "Hooray"
as if he wasn't sure what the words were.)
5. Wilson ? (judging, foda?!?!)
6. Boys singing who Ran The Iron Horse
7. Do Wa Wa in circle
8. Wilson (shelving?!)
84 9. Let's work on microphone
boys around mike
Do wa


85 Brian at piano working out(?)
Yodelledo
then group sings at mike


86 Group around mike Yodelledo
Playback Yodelledoo's control in b.g. ("b.g." stands for background, I'd guess)
Inside control room Group & Engineer Da daum(?) (La daum?)
Go out into studio Brian eating cereal record da da da da


------------------------------


(Page 3)



Beach Boys


86

1. around mike Yodeladeeo pan to Piano
Brian walks out frame(?) to outside booth playback
walks to control board

2. Brian talking ?? (bad pa toheps) to engineer
3. dark 4/s listening to playback
Brian goes to ?? (sirke?!) eats, put on headphones
sing dine dine

Scratch

87
1. control board thru window track on(?)
dine dine
Let's go have some Zen accompaniment
2. Brian at piano from behind
plays chords



------------------------------------


(Page 4)


87
engineer thru glass to group in(?) b.g. record da da
group comes back into room & listens to da da da
let's go lets have some zen compliment

Brian at piano from behind accomp. to Surf's up
to hands to face CL around to x & back to CL


88 Brian eating
headphones listening to piano track
sings lead on(?) thru piano
1 more time
--> tone(?) & start again side view CL
-> start at 2nd verse hung velvet
misses the glass
pickup hung velvet stop at dove nested
have echo on me
pickup again at hung velvet


89 Overdubs
hung velvet lead on(?) ?? (jumoles?!?!) -- let's overdub
it
move to CR side (?).s. 11(?) more around behind
move around to face CL he gestures
he talks while voice go(?)



---------------------------


(Page 5)

mono mix - Id like it softer
let's go to top is that cool

LS CL overdub
LS hung velvet out sync
LS thru control room
2nd shot n.g.(?)
needle
recorder pan to engineer back to recorder


90
--> playback engineers bg Wilson fig.
fade in(?)
kneels -- can have muted trumpet go bleep(?)
move to us(?) half of Jules
Brian coat on walks out


Pool

Bodies toward camera



----------------------------------------


(Page 6)


Beach Boys

R88

1. Brian eating sits at piano
2. lead on Brian e(?) earphone singing into mike
3. Brian at piano sings not(?) (nor?) sleeping(?!) (leeping?) pan across piano
Surf's up
?? words to back top
& false starts
tone(?)

move to side start again - go to colonnaded ruins
"cut again to end verse"
false start, then humg velvet c moves to side ("c" is probably "camera")
"missed it pickup 2nd verse"
'no I can't do it(?) - You have echo on me "?? (julimp?!?!)
2nd verse again


89
1. head on "hung velvet PB
that's it let's overdub it
2. "Are you hearing yourself now?" words(?)
mix it so you can hear both voices " (boy?) (tog? for together?)
?? (pans?) back move around
"go to top" Take 1
3. LS piano are you sleeping
4. " " (ditto marks under "LS piano")



------------------------------------------------

(Page 7)


89

5. thru booth to Brian
6. needle
7. recorder spinning to engineer to recorder

90

1. Brian listening
Stretching
2. Brian ? (putting on vocal leads?)

[Les P]

75 (signifying Reel #75)

1. hands to face CR angle
can't see hands pan to hands in dark
child Is the Father of man

2. Heroes & Villains plays
Vandyke Parks has been working on lyrics
sings open country song

Sunshine

If there were one single reel of BB film that could reappear, this would be my choice.

I can't remember...do we actually know the reels were destroyed, or have they just never been found (despite great effort)?

[Iron Horse-Apples]

Others will know better than me, but as far as I recall, they were being tracked down and the trail went dead. I remember when there was great excitement that they were going to be found

[Les P]

Others will know better than me, but as far as I recall, they were being tracked down and the trail went dead. I remember when there was great excitement that they were going to be found

Thanks, Stephen, that was my recollection also.  Hopefully they may still be waiting to be discovered in someone's closet!

[buddhahat]

"Brian at piano from behind accomp. to Surf's up
to hands to face CL around to x & back to CL "

So maybe the hands at the piano shot is whilst Brian is playing SU? I guess the most obvious suggestion given that is the song he's filmed playing for the special?

[Ian]

History is replete with lost television appearances .personally if a tape magically appeared id want it to be the bbs first television appearance in 1961

[leggo of my ego]

History is replete with lost television appearances .personally if a tape magically appeared id want it to be the bbs first television appearance in 1961

If things like this surface its usually because a 16mm kinescope was made - Quad videotapes were often erased and re-used.

[guitarfool2002]

History is replete with lost television appearances .personally if a tape magically appeared id want it to be the bbs first television appearance in 1961

This is where personal influence, preferences, and history-versus-emotional connection comes into play. A first (or even early) television appearance wouldn't mean as much to me on an emotional level as it would for history's sake. Both would be amazing finds, I suppose the 1961 appearance would be more significant to a broader audience, but to see studio footage filmed as Smile was being created, with the creator perhaps at the peak of his power and creative energy, would be overwhelming, no matter how little footage would potentially be found.

I'll compare it to literature, narrowed down to 20th century authors who have influenced and continue to influence generations of budding writers: Pick any number of authors...Salinger, Fitzgerald, Kerouac, endless list.

Let's say a very early draft of a novel Fitzgerald had started working on in his late teens was found in a random box of papers and journals. Historically significant? Absolutely. Would the scholars and professors and legions of Fitzgerald's readers and devotees be excited to see and study such a thing from the young writer just honing his craft? No doubt.

But for those who poured over something like Gatsby and took that as a major influence in their life and perhaps as a factor in deciding to devote themselves to the craft of writing or any serious devotion to the study of literature - sparked by something in that book - would a few pages of an early draft of one Gatsby chapter containing insights into Fitzgerald's creative process and containing perhaps sections which were eventually cut out of the final draft, never to be seen again...wouldn't that hold more value for those people even if it's a tiny part of the bigger whole?

That's how I feel about the "what if" questions around this Inside Pop outtake footage, it's perhaps not as historically significant as an early appearance, but to catch a live-action glimpse of Brian Wilson arguably at his creative peak at exactly the moment before some would argue the grand architecture of the art he had created would start crumbling around him, showing him actually in the process of creating the great unfinished masterpiece of his career...that to me outweighs the historical significance of an early clip when they were still young and developing their skills.

I just wanted to explain that and I hope some of the emotion that I have invested in Smile came through in the wording, because I realize a bunch of cutting-room-floor footage of Brian recording Smile at Columbia in 1966 may seem less significant historically than a 1961 kinescope of them playing on local TV, but for some the investment outweighs the significance.

It is one of the true Smile tragedies to not only learn how much *more* of this period was filmed and had existed, more than anyone guessed for years, but also to accept the chances of anything being found and released are all but zero.

[guitarfool2002]

About the unused footage itself: The informed assumption was put on the table when all this got hot that even if the film(s) were to be found, they would be silent. Standard practice for shows like Inside Pop (through CBS News resources) was to record a separate audio reel which would be synched to the film. You'd need both in order to have something presentable, and if I recall some contacts were made which would suggest the audio and video reels of this project were not kept together.

The notes reprinted above could have been written either during the actual filming or as the raw footage was being screened and edited for the broadcast after all the footage had been shot. Remember Inside Pop was filmed in a handful of different locations, and cut down to fit into a standard 1 hour broadcast, with about half of it taken by Bernstein analyzing songs at the piano...the amount of unused concert and backstage footage from just Herman's Hermits and The Hollies segments alone could have been massive.

Someone with more direct knowledge can step in and correct or amend anything that's not accurate with any of that.

[Tricycle Rider]

Hey guitarfool, THANK YOU VERY MUCH for posting those notes! This is the first time I have ever seen them.
If you don't mind, can you tell me if there is a mistake in the Bold text below, or is it supposed to be like this.

83

1. engineer
2. pan up to Brian
3. board
4. Boys singing who Ran The Iron Horse
   (Above "who Ran" is the scratched out word "Hooray" as if he wasn't sure what the words were.)
5. Wilson ? (judging, foda?!?!)
6. Boys singing who Ran The Iron Horse
7. Do Wa Wa in circle
8. Wilson  (shelving?!)
84 9. Let's work on microphone
boys around mike
Do wa

Is it supposed to be like this?:

83

1. engineer
2. pan up to Brian
3. board
4. Boys singing who Ran The Iron Horse
   (Above "who Ran" is the scratched out word "Hooray" as if he wasn't sure what the words were.)
5. Wilson ? (judging, foda?!?!)
6. Boys singing who Ran The Iron Horse
7. Do Wa Wa in circle
8. Wilson  (shelving?!)
9. Let's work on microphone

84

boys around mike
Do wa
 
Thanks, Royce

[guitarfool2002]

Hey guitarfool, THANK YOU VERY MUCH for posting those notes! This is the first time I have ever seen them.
If you don't mind, can you tell me if there is a mistake in the Bold text below, or is it supposed to be like this.

Hello Royce, that was a great catch: I think the way you rearranged it is correct. It seems to be a typo or a bad paste, and the way you have it going from reel 83 to 84 makes perfect sense.

Maybe my eyes are fooling me, and I just overlooked it, but I know there was *also* a reel description that seemed to be the swimming pool footage shot at the house, which would line up with what Michael Vosse remembered about the CBS crew filming Murry Wilson diving into the pool, or something similar around swimming in the pool. If I remember, that reel (or reels) were not part of this group listed above but listed somewhere else. Apparently Murry showed up after learning that the CBS crew would be filming Brian at the house and wanted to get on camera. Maybe this is what seems to start at reel 78? I wish I could remember.

Maybe I have a full transcript of these elsewhere, or someone else may still have them, but my memory says the swimming pool film was also listed by Oppenheim in his notes.

And someone, somewhere...again no exact memory of the details...either posted or told a story about Brian needing to be coaxed into playing Surf's Up on camera at the house, and note how he looks just a bit haggard and unshaven if you look close at the performance film. I may be crossing up my details and my memory, but I have not seen that story since, and it is fascinating because it suggested Brian was not physically or mentally psyched to perform at the house, and had to be coaxed into it, yet that performance was so compelling it became the only piece of CBS footage to make the final cut. It's even more unusual knowing that the cameras filmed him doing basically the same thing, Surf's Up solo at the piano with a high-quality recording of it that formed the basis of every released version since, at the studio that night when the BB's reels were shot. Yet Brian more informally and in lesser audio quality at the house is the take that they used instead.

I'm not trying to mislead or overhype any stories or details but that one stuck with me...Am I crazy or has anyone else heard a similar story about Surf's Up?

[Tricycle Rider]

Thanks for the input on that text guitarfool!

Not to make it worse, but I recall something TOO about Brian needing to be coaxed into doing "Surf's Up" at the house. Where the heck did we hear that from? These days I try to copy and save any interesting topic that I come across, but I wasn't doing that back when, and I cannot remember where I heard that story from now. DARN IT!

I remember thinking about Brian looking "not prepared/ready" in that footage of "Surf's Up" at the house, and thought it a little odd that he wouldn't have been more ready to go knowing that CBS was coming to the house. Then again, because it's Brian Wilson, "a little odd" becomes normal, so I don't know what to think.

To veer off-topic for a moment, thinking about Brian being a little odd reminded me of something: I remember seeing Monty Python's "Life Of Brian" years ago, and being reminded of Brian Wilson in the scene where the Romans are questioning two guys (Eric Idle and I THINK Terry Gilliam) and they obviously don't seem to have a brain cell between the two of them (Oh, don't mind him sir, he's D-D-D-D Deaf, D-D-D Deaf and dumb sir) and as soon as the Romans leave, they start talking to each other very fluently, exchanging the days trivialities.

Brian Wilson: Master of the Put-On   

OK. Back on topic:

It is odd that they used the house footage of "Surf's Up" rather than the professionally recorded studio version, but my gut feeling tells me that the "walking on a tightrope" suspense that is so palpable in the house version, was just not there, or to a much lesser degree on the studio version. From listening to the "SMiLE era party", it seems Brian's "planned spontaneity" didn't really work as a concept, and that anything that just naturally happend seemed to be better. CBS must have thought so too.

Royce

[JohnMill]

OK. Back on topic:

It is odd that they used the house footage of "Surf's Up" rather than the professionally recorded studio version, but my gut feeling tells me that the "walking on a tightrope" suspense that is so palpable in the house version, was just not there, or to a much lesser degree on the studio version. From listening to the "SMiLE era party", it seems Brian's "planned spontaneity" didn't really work as a concept, and that anything that just naturally happend seemed to be better. CBS must have thought so too.

Royce

For what it's worth I've read that Brian hates the studio demo of "Surf's Up" as well.  At least the vocal.

[Iron Horse-Apples]

About the unused footage itself: The informed assumption was put on the table when all this got hot that even if the film(s) were to be found, they would be silent. Standard practice for shows like Inside Pop (through CBS News resources) was to record a separate audio reel which would be synched to the film. You'd need both in order to have something presentable, and if I recall some contacts were made which would suggest the audio and video reels of this project were not kept together.

The notes reprinted above could have been written either during the actual filming or as the raw footage was being screened and edited for the broadcast after all the footage had been shot. Remember Inside Pop was filmed in a handful of different locations, and cut down to fit into a standard 1 hour broadcast, with about half of it taken by Bernstein analyzing songs at the piano...the amount of unused concert and backstage footage from just Herman's Hermits and The Hollies segments alone could have been massive.

Someone with more direct knowledge can step in and correct or amend anything that's not accurate with any of that.

Given the choice, I'd rather the audio reel be found.