The Smiley Smile Message Board

Putting this up now as I noticed just now that tracks you've purchased already are available to be sampled. May been we're getting close (fingers crossed.)

I'm looking at the box set in iTunes and I notice two strange issues-- one good and one potentially really bad (for somebody who plans to cherry pick):

Good (and strange):  Several of the tracks are showing as Purchased already.  I think these are the tracks I purchased from 50 Big Ones, but they're showing up here as purchased.  I've never seen this happen before.  For instance, if I were to purchase DYLW from the 2 disc Smile Sessions release, I wouldn't see it as purchased under the deluxe box set.  I'd have to purchase the tracks there too in order for them to show as purchased and be downloadable under that album.  Unless this is a snafu that will be addressed prior to next week, it looks like I'll be able to download all tracks on MIC that I purchased on 50BO.  Nice, I guess.

Potentially Bad:  All other tracks are Album Only.  I'm no iTunes expert, so maybe everything is album only prior to release.  If not, and things stay as they are now, it appears I will not be able to download individual tracks.  I had banked on that option.  If that's the case, I'll Spotify this box set and save my money (take that, Capitol).

I don't even see an option for mp3 version of the box set yet from Amazon.

How are we only a week away and still no samples?

Time has proven people will do a lot for just a sample
http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,3562.msg372549.html#msg372549

I think iTunes usually makes tracks "album only" so that you can't buy it before hand. When it's officially released, they should all be available for individual download.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I fully expect a lot of stuff to be "album only" on this set...not at all atypical for a release of this nature on iTunes.

I predicted a while back it would be this week.let's see...

Here's the solution:

BUY THE BOX!!!!

Problem solved.

(More to the point, as a Beach Boys fan [presumably fanatic] why would you possibly not want to own what is sure to be one of their most significant releases??? Seriously, you're happy just to have WIBNTLA on download...???? Hey ho, ok.)

Not that simple, Disney Boy.  I do consider myself a fanatic, although I'm a relative newcomer and haven't digested the full band history yet.  Yes, I have spent much time creating my own Smile mixes, if that tells you anything. 

I don't happen to value "stuff" so much.  It would be nice to buy the box, and if that were in the budget, I'd snap it up in a heartbeat.  But at this point in my life I'm not driven to collect or own physical versions of my media.  I'd rather have the tracks I care for in a format that I can take with me and listen to everywhere.  I'm also pretty content to use Spotify-- not own the material (or the right to play the material), but have unmitigated listening access to it.  I don't think this disqualifies me as a fanatic.  I'm waiting for this release with baited breath just like everybody else here, but owning the physical media wouldn't be as fulfilling to me as it would be to most of you, so it's not a priority.

And no, I wouldn't just be happy for the WIBNTLA download 8)  There are very few Dennis tracks I really like.  WIBNTLA probably sucks.

 There are very few Dennis tracks I really like.  WIBNTLA probably sucks.

Careful...them kind of words will get you lynched in these parts!!!

Which is exactly why I wrote them!  Love to stir that pot.

I'd be willing to bet quite a lot that it doesn't.....

You're not a Beach Boys fanatic if you hate Dennis.

When are you going to post your review Ego?

Apparently sarcasm doesn't translate.

I, for one, do not plan on dicking around with a bunch of samples and streams..Hell, I've waited this long!! When my set comes (along with the Dylan Bootleg #10) I'm going to vanish and listen the way  it should be done. 8)

Same here, Jimmy.  No use dicking or pussyfootin' around....

I'm a Beach Boys fanatic and I too dislike the majority of Dennis' songs. I especially hate the music he collaborated with Daryl Dragon on in 1971, such as "Make It Good" and "Barbara."

From what I've heard, WIBNTLA is nice in that it captures Dennis at a great moment in between his early, strongly melodic material (think "Forever") and his more indulgent and sprawling later work. That said, the bass line always reminds me a bit too much of "My Girl" for comfort.

Well I'm a BB fanatic and I really Really hate the surf stuff, followed by the car songs, followed by the summer songs. Don't get me started on that artsy fartsy Pet Sounds, Smile, Smiley Smile rubbish. I too detest with a passion anything recorded around the Sunflower/Surf's Up era. Can't stand the CATP/Holland rubbish. They sucked as a live band so In Concert is only good as a door stop. The late 70's stuff is woeful except for Battle Hymn of the Republic, and the same goes for anything released afterwards espcially POB.

Man I love, I mean truly love their work.

I think most BB fans may find one or two things in your rant they might agree to a certain extent. For me there's one and a half. ;D

The problem with actual fanatics is they don't know any fun or humour with the subject of their fanatism.

8/26

Interesting. I take this to mean that you think eight of the 26 unreleased tracks are good, or 'worth it' (a minefield of personal subjectivity, of course!)

It's so hard to figure this kind of stuff out. For a start, what are the 26 unreleased tracks? I mean, like REALLY unreleased.

It depends how you look at it, especially if you don't place a lot of importance on, say, the difference between a mono and a stereo mix of something, or whether a track is live or not. Of course, here in the fanatical camp of hardline admirers of this half-century old Wilson-led musical beat combo, we know that, say, a 1972 live version of Wild Honey can be so far removed from the original home-studio-like 1967 recording as to be an almost totally different song, and the same goes for, say, a bootleg stereo mix of California Girls from the tracking session over the original mono, or the 1998 stereo remix, or the 2002 stereo remix (and so on and so on...!). But for casual listeners, even ones who like the band (into which group my wife falls...), it's all just Wild Honey and California Girls. *Again*.

When I put my Amazon order in for MiC, my wife said 'ANOTHER Beach Boys box? What's on *this* one that you've not heard a million times before?'

I started saying, "oh, loads. For example, the very first track, Surfin, is a home recording..."

She replied bluntly with 'But Surfin' has been out! It was their first single!'

And we proceeded through the track list, with her demolishing almost every track that was supposedly unreleased. It was funny and I laughed a lot, because of course if you take an absolutely rigid, hard-line attitude to 'unreleased', there actually isn't all that much on this box that's not been out before IN SOME WAY OR ANOTHER.

I mean, even if we start with the starred (or, in the list below, diamonded) items on the MiC tracklist, which is the supposed *official* list of what's unreleased on this set, there's a maximum of what I make to be 68 unreleased tracks.

Home Recordings / "Surfin'" Rehearsal Highlights (2012 Edit - Mono) (Brian Wilson, Mike Love) ♦
"Surfin'" (with Session Intro - Mono) (B. Wilson, Love) ♦
"Surfers Rule" (with Session Intro) (B. Wilson, Love) ♦
"Back Home" (B. Wilson, Bob Norberg) ♦
"I Get Around" (with Session Intro - Mono) (B. Wilson, Love) ♦
"Amusement Parks USA" (Early Version) (B. Wilson, Love) ♦
"Graduation Day" (Session Excerpt and Master Take, 2012 Mix) (Joe Sherman, Noel Sherman) ♦
"There's No Other (Like My Baby)" (2012 "Unplugged" Mix with Party Session Intro) (Phil Spector, Leroy Bates) ♦
"Our Prayer" (2012 The Smile Sessions Stereo Mix) (B. Wilson
"Country Air" (2012 Stereo Mix) (B. Wilson, Love)
"Meant for You" (Alternate Version) (B. Wilson, Love) ♦
"Sail Plane Song" (2012 Stereo Mix) (B. Wilson) ♦
"We're Together Again" (2012 Stereo Mix) (Ron Wilson) ♦
"Do It Again" (2012 Stereo Mix) (B. Wilson, Love) ♦
"Susie Cincinnati" (2012 Mix) (Jardine) ♦
"(Wouldn't It Be Nice To) Live Again" (D. Wilson) ♦
"Rock and Roll Music" (2012 Mix w/Extra Verse)(Berry) ♦
"It's OK" (Alternate Mix) (B. Wilson, Love) ♦
"It's Over Now" (Alternate Mix) (B. Wilson) ♦
"California Feelin'" (B. Wilson, Kalinich) ♦
"Brian's Back" (Alternate Mix) (Love) ♦
"It's a Beautiful Day" (Single Edit) (2012 Mix) (Jardine, Love) ♦
"Goin' to the Beach" (Love) ♦
"Why Don't They Let Us Fall In Love" (Spector, Barry, Greenwich) ♦
"Da Doo Ron Ron" (Spector, Barry, Greenwich) ♦
"Soul Searchin'" (B. Wilson, Andy Paley) ♦
"You're Still a Mystery" (B. Wilson, Paley) ♦
"Runaway" (Chicago 1965, with Concert Promo Intro - Mono) (Del Shannon, Max Crook) ♦
"You're So Good to Me" (Paris 1966 - Mono) (B. Wilson, Love) ♦
"The Letter" (Hawaii Rehearsal 1967) (Wayne Carson Thompson) ♦
"Friends" (Chicago 1968 - Mono) (B. Wilson, C. Wilson, D. Wilson, Jardine) ♦
"Little Bird" (Chicago 1968 - Mono) (D. Wilson, Kalinich) ♦
"All I Want to Do" (London 1968) (D. Wilson, Kalinich) ♦
"Help Me, Rhonda" (New Jersey 1972) (B. Wilson, Love) ♦
"Wild Honey" (New Jersey 1972) (B. Wilson, Love) ♦
"Only with You" (New York 1972) (D. Wilson, Love) ♦
"It's About Time" (Chicago 1973) (D. Wilson, C. Wilson, Jardine, Burchman) ♦
"I Can Hear Music" (Maryland 1975) (Spector, Barry, Greenwich) ♦
"Vegetables" (New York 1993) (B. Wilson, Parks) ♦
"Wonderful" (New York 1993) (B. Wilson, Parks) ♦
"Sail On, Sailor" (Louisville 1995) (B. Wilson, Parks, Rieley, Almer, Kennedy) ♦
"Summer in Paradise" (London 1993) (Love, Melcher, Craig Fall) ♦
"Slip on Through" (A Cappella Mix) (D. Wilson) ♦
"Don't Worry Baby" (Stereo Session Outtake w/ Alternate Lead Vocal) (B. Wilson, Christian) ♦
"Pom Pom Play Girl" (Vocal Session Highlight) (B. Wilson, Usher) ♦
"Guess I'm Dumb" (Instrumental Track w/Background Vocals) (B. Wilson, Russ Titelman) ♦
"Sherry She Needs Me" (1965 Track w/1976 Vocal) (B. Wilson) ♦
"Mona Kana" (Instrumental Track) (D. Wilson) ♦
"This Whole World" (A Cappella) (B. Wilson) ♦
"Where Is She?" (B. Wilson) ♦
"Had to Phone Ya" (Instrumental Track) (B. Wilson) ♦
"Be with Me" (Demo) (D. Wilson) ♦
"I Believe in Miracles" (Vocal Section) ♦
"Why" (Instrumental Track) (B. Wilson) ♦
"Barnyard Blues" (D. Wilson) ♦
"Don't Go Near the Water" (Instrumental Track) (Love, Jardine) ♦
"You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" (Spector, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil) ♦
"Transcendental Meditation" (Instrumental Track) (B. Wilson, Jardine) ♦
"Our Sweet Love" (Vocals w/Strings) (B. Wilson, C. Wilson, Jardine) ♦
"Back Home" (1970 Version) (B. Wilson, Norberg) ♦
"California Feelin'" (Original Demo) (B. Wilson, Kalinich) ♦
"California Girls" ("Lei'd In Hawaii" Studio Version) (B. Wilson, Love) ♦
"Help You, Rhonda" ("Lei'd In Hawaii" Studio Version) (B. Wilson, Love) ♦
"Surf's Up" (1967 Version, 2012 Mix) (B. Wilson, Parks) ♦
"My Love Lives On" (D. Wilson) ♦
"Wendy" (BBC -- Live in the Studio 1964 - Mono) (B. Wilson, Love) ♦
"When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)" (BBC -- Live in the Studio 1964 - Mono) (B. Wilson, Love) ♦
"Hushabye" (BBC -- Live in the Studio 1964 - Mono) (B. Wilson, Love) ♦

If we knock out commercially released tracks that are basically the same mixes as what we've heard before with extra tracking session recordings glued on the front, the list comes down to 63 tracks, as follows:

"Back Home" (B. Wilson, Bob Norberg)
"Amusement Parks USA" (Early Version) (B. Wilson, Love)
"There's No Other (Like My Baby)" (2012 "Unplugged" Mix with Party Session Intro) (Phil Spector, Leroy Bates)
"Our Prayer" (2012 The Smile Sessions Stereo Mix) (B. Wilson
"Country Air" (2012 Stereo Mix) (B. Wilson, Love)
"Meant for You" (Alternate Version) (B. Wilson, Love)
"Sail Plane Song" (2012 Stereo Mix) (B. Wilson)
"We're Together Again" (2012 Stereo Mix) (Ron Wilson)
"Do It Again" (2012 Stereo Mix) (B. Wilson, Love)
"Susie Cincinnati" (2012 Mix) (Jardine)
"(Wouldn't It Be Nice To) Live Again" (D. Wilson)
"Rock and Roll Music" (2012 Mix w/Extra Verse)(Berry)
"It's OK" (Alternate Mix) (B. Wilson, Love)
"It's Over Now" (Alternate Mix) (B. Wilson)
"California Feelin'" (B. Wilson, Kalinich)
"Brian's Back" (Alternate Mix) (Love)
"It's a Beautiful Day" (Single Edit) (2012 Mix) (Jardine, Love)
"Goin' to the Beach" (Love)
"Why Don't They Let Us Fall In Love" (Spector, Barry, Greenwich)
"Da Doo Ron Ron" (Spector, Barry, Greenwich)
"Soul Searchin'" (B. Wilson, Andy Paley)
"You're Still a Mystery" (B. Wilson, Paley)
"Runaway" (Chicago 1965, with Concert Promo Intro - Mono) (Del Shannon, Max Crook)
"You're So Good to Me" (Paris 1966 - Mono) (B. Wilson, Love)
"The Letter" (Hawaii Rehearsal 1967) (Wayne Carson Thompson)
"Friends" (Chicago 1968 - Mono) (B. Wilson, C. Wilson, D. Wilson, Jardine)
"Little Bird" (Chicago 1968 - Mono) (D. Wilson, Kalinich)
"All I Want to Do" (London 1968) (D. Wilson, Kalinich)
"Help Me, Rhonda" (New Jersey 1972) (B. Wilson, Love)
"Wild Honey" (New Jersey 1972) (B. Wilson, Love)
"Only with You" (New York 1972) (D. Wilson, Love)
"It's About Time" (Chicago 1973) (D. Wilson, C. Wilson, Jardine, Burchman)
"I Can Hear Music" (Maryland 1975) (Spector, Barry, Greenwich)
"Vegetables" (New York 1993) (B. Wilson, Parks)
"Wonderful" (New York 1993) (B. Wilson, Parks)
"Sail On, Sailor" (Louisville 1995) (B. Wilson, Parks, Rieley, Almer, Kennedy)
"Summer in Paradise" (London 1993) (Love, Melcher, Craig Fall)
"Slip on Through" (A Cappella Mix) (D. Wilson)
"Don't Worry Baby" (Stereo Session Outtake w/ Alternate Lead Vocal) (B. Wilson, Christian)
"Pom Pom Play Girl" (Vocal Session Highlight) (B. Wilson, Usher)
"Guess I'm Dumb" (Instrumental Track w/Background Vocals) (B. Wilson, Russ Titelman)
"Sherry She Needs Me" (1965 Track w/1976 Vocal) (B. Wilson)
"Mona Kana" (Instrumental Track) (D. Wilson)
"This Whole World" (A Cappella) (B. Wilson)
"Where Is She?" (B. Wilson)
"Had to Phone Ya" (Instrumental Track) (B. Wilson)
"Be with Me" (Demo) (D. Wilson)
"I Believe in Miracles" (Vocal Section)
"Why" (Instrumental Track) (B. Wilson)
"Barnyard Blues" (D. Wilson)
"Don't Go Near the Water" (Instrumental Track) (Love, Jardine)
"You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" (Spector, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil)
"Transcendental Meditation" (Instrumental Track) (B. Wilson, Jardine)
"Our Sweet Love" (Vocals w/Strings) (B. Wilson, C. Wilson, Jardine)
"Back Home" (1970 Version) (B. Wilson, Norberg)
"California Feelin'" (Original Demo) (B. Wilson, Kalinich)
"California Girls" ("Lei'd In Hawaii" Studio Version) (B. Wilson, Love)
"Help You, Rhonda" ("Lei'd In Hawaii" Studio Version) (B. Wilson, Love)
"Surf's Up" (1967 Version, 2012 Mix) (B. Wilson, Parks)
"My Love Lives On" (D. Wilson)
"Wendy" (BBC -- Live in the Studio 1964 - Mono) (B. Wilson, Love)
"When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)" (BBC -- Live in the Studio 1964 - Mono) (B. Wilson, Love)
"Hushabye" (BBC -- Live in the Studio 1964 - Mono) (B. Wilson, Love)

If you knock out remixes of released tracks, as my wife would, the list is much shortened. No matter that, for example, hearing the bluesy backing vocals to Slip On Through in isolation will be an experience utterly different to hearing the original track on Sunflower, or that We're Together Again has totally different extra overdubs to the version released on the 1990 twofer: she would say 'but it's from the same recording of the same song. And it's been out before. End of discussion…'. The list would then look like this, with 42 entries.

"Back Home" (B. Wilson, Bob Norberg)
"(Wouldn't It Be Nice To) Live Again" (D. Wilson)
"Rock and Roll Music" (2012 Mix w/Extra Verse)(Berry)
"California Feelin'" (B. Wilson, Kalinich)
"Goin' to the Beach" (Love)
"Why Don't They Let Us Fall In Love" (Spector, Barry, Greenwich)
"Da Doo Ron Ron" (Spector, Barry, Greenwich)
"Soul Searchin'" (B. Wilson, Andy Paley)
"You're Still a Mystery" (B. Wilson, Paley)
"Runaway" (Chicago 1965, with Concert Promo Intro - Mono) (Del Shannon, Max Crook)
"You're So Good to Me" (Paris 1966 - Mono) (B. Wilson, Love)
"The Letter" (Hawaii Rehearsal 1967) (Wayne Carson Thompson)
"Friends" (Chicago 1968 - Mono) (B. Wilson, C. Wilson, D. Wilson, Jardine)
"Little Bird" (Chicago 1968 - Mono) (D. Wilson, Kalinich)
"All I Want to Do" (London 1968) (D. Wilson, Kalinich)
"Help Me, Rhonda" (New Jersey 1972) (B. Wilson, Love)
"Wild Honey" (New Jersey 1972) (B. Wilson, Love)
"Only with You" (New York 1972) (D. Wilson, Love)
"It's About Time" (Chicago 1973) (D. Wilson, C. Wilson, Jardine, Burchman)
"I Can Hear Music" (Maryland 1975) (Spector, Barry, Greenwich)
"Vegetables" (New York 1993) (B. Wilson, Parks)
"Wonderful" (New York 1993) (B. Wilson, Parks)
"Sail On, Sailor" (Louisville 1995) (B. Wilson, Parks, Rieley, Almer, Kennedy)
"Summer in Paradise" (London 1993) (Love, Melcher, Craig Fall)
"Don't Worry Baby" (Stereo Session Outtake w/ Alternate Lead Vocal) (B. Wilson, Christian)
"Pom Pom Play Girl" (Vocal Session Highlight) (B. Wilson, Usher)
"Sherry She Needs Me" (1965 Track w/1976 Vocal) (B. Wilson)
"Mona Kana" (Instrumental Track) (D. Wilson)
"Where Is She?" (B. Wilson)
"Be with Me" (Demo) (D. Wilson)
"I Believe in Miracles" (Vocal Section)
"Why" (Instrumental Track) (B. Wilson)
"Barnyard Blues" (D. Wilson)
"You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" (Spector, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil)
"Back Home" (1970 Version) (B. Wilson, Norberg)
"California Feelin'" (Original Demo) (B. Wilson, Kalinich)
"California Girls" ("Lei'd In Hawaii" Studio Version) (B. Wilson, Love)
"Help You, Rhonda" ("Lei'd In Hawaii" Studio Version) (B. Wilson, Love)
"My Love Lives On" (D. Wilson)
"Wendy" (BBC -- Live in the Studio 1964 - Mono) (B. Wilson, Love)
"When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)" (BBC -- Live in the Studio 1964 - Mono) (B. Wilson, Love)
"Hushabye" (BBC -- Live in the Studio 1964 - Mono) (B. Wilson, Love)

If you then knock out live versions of songs previously released, there's another big drop, to just 24 tracks. I know, I know, the 1972 'Help Me, Rhonda' with Dennis sounds totally different to the 1965 single to my ears too, but let's go with it. The list now looks like this:

"Back Home" (B. Wilson, Bob Norberg)
"(Wouldn't It Be Nice To) Live Again" (D. Wilson)
"Rock and Roll Music" (2012 Mix w/Extra Verse)(Berry)
"California Feelin'" (B. Wilson, Kalinich)
"Goin' to the Beach" (Love)
"Why Don't They Let Us Fall In Love" (Spector, Barry, Greenwich)
"Da Doo Ron Ron" (Spector, Barry, Greenwich)
"Soul Searchin'" (B. Wilson, Andy Paley)
"You're Still a Mystery" (B. Wilson, Paley)
"Don't Worry Baby" (Stereo Session Outtake w/ Alternate Lead Vocal) (B. Wilson, Christian)
"Pom Pom Play Girl" (Vocal Session Highlight) (B. Wilson, Usher)
"Sherry She Needs Me" (1965 Track w/1976 Vocal) (B. Wilson)
"Mona Kana" (Instrumental Track) (D. Wilson)
"Where Is She?" (B. Wilson)
"Be with Me" (Demo) (D. Wilson)
"I Believe in Miracles" (Vocal Section)
"Why" (Instrumental Track) (B. Wilson)
"Barnyard Blues" (D. Wilson)
"You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" (Spector, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil)
"Back Home" (1970 Version) (B. Wilson, Norberg)
"California Feelin'" (Original Demo) (B. Wilson, Kalinich)
"California Girls" ("Lei'd In Hawaii" Studio Version) (B. Wilson, Love)
"Help You, Rhonda" ("Lei'd In Hawaii" Studio Version) (B. Wilson, Love)
"My Love Lives On" (D. Wilson)

And finally, if you really apply the non-serious-fan Occam's Razor (perhaps guillotine would be a better word) and brutally remove any version of any song that has ever been commercially released before in some Beach Boys-recorded form, you get this compact and bijoux little list-ette of 16 items:

"(Wouldn't It Be Nice To) Live Again" (D. Wilson)
"California Feelin'" (B. Wilson, Kalinich)
"Goin' to the Beach" (Love)
"Why Don't They Let Us Fall In Love" (Spector, Barry, Greenwich)
"Da Doo Ron Ron" (Spector, Barry, Greenwich)
"Soul Searchin'" (B. Wilson, Andy Paley)
"You're Still a Mystery" (B. Wilson, Paley)
"Sherry She Needs Me" (1965 Track w/1976 Vocal) (B. Wilson)
"Mona Kana" (Instrumental Track) (D. Wilson)
"Where Is She?" (B. Wilson)
"I Believe in Miracles" (Vocal Section)
"Why" (Instrumental Track) (B. Wilson)
"Barnyard Blues" (D. Wilson)
"You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" (Spector, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil)
"California Feelin'" (Original Demo) (B. Wilson, Kalinich)
"My Love Lives On" (D. Wilson)

And if we drop the 'commercially released' requirement, and ask, as of course my wife did, "so that's it - 16 tracks you've never, ever heard, *ever*, in any way at all…?" I had to admit that the list should shrink further, because of could I *have* heard some of them on bootlegs, albeit in different mixes, or *unmixed* versions:

"(Wouldn't It Be Nice To) Live Again" (D. Wilson)
"Where Is She?" (B. Wilson)
"I Believe in Miracles" (Vocal Section)
"Why" (Instrumental Track) (B. Wilson)
"Barnyard Blues" (D. Wilson)
"My Love Lives On" (D. Wilson)

Six tracks. Just six (as David Tennant might say). Which, finally, raises my question: how did EgoHanger66 arrive at 26 as the total? Which version of 'previously unreleased' do you adhere to…?

Of course, none of the above analysis diminishes the absolute certainty, bar the destruction of the planet between now and next week, of me purchasing MiC, and incidentally, I *did* win my wife over in the end as to the utterly essential nature of purchasing MiC by playing her the new mix of California Feeling. Not that this was really any kind of serious disagreement, but you know, I had to 'win' anyway, *obviously*...!   ;)

And to return to topic, it's really the final core list of six that I'll turn to first when I get my set, and about which I could realistically be 'spoiled'. But with the release this close, I think I'll hold out now, even if samples or leaks occur.

Beyond that six: I can't wait to hear Country Air and Do It Again in stereo, the alt version of Meant for You, the new mix of We're Together Again, the Lei'd In Hawaii studio tracks in properly mixed versions, the Beach Boys versions of the Paley session tracks from the 90s, and the 1993 'box set tour' live SMiLE tracks. Oh, and the stereo SMiLE Sessions Our Prayer. That's got to be worth a listen, right?

Matt, he means he's posting it on the 26th of September....

Oh, whoops...


D'oh!!!

Wait, August even. I can't count!

See, I have UK date preferences (Day/Month/Year) so engrained that I just don't ever 'read' 8/26 as a date. Causes me all kinds of problems when working with Americans, that. I resort to writing everything out in full (ie. 'August 26th') so that there can be absolutely *no* 'Heroes & Villains Intro'-type misunderstandings...!

Great post Matt and one which highlights perfectly my disappointment with the track listing as far as newly released songs (rather than versions of existing songs) goes.

Like you say I'll still be buying it and enjoying it no doubt.  Just like others here (in the other MIC threads!) this was the chance to get out some adult child stuff etc.

Yikes, like hypehat said, I meant I'd be posting a review online on Aug. 26th! Sorry to make you go through all of that. I'm toying with the idea of doing a top ten tracks from the box review. Anyway, I think you'll find much to enjoy on the box.

Of course, the list of six genuinely new tracks is now down to five, as I've just spoiled myself with a listen to 'Where Is She'!!

In case it looks as though I'm damning the box in my post above, I'm not. I think it's a 'GV Box for the 2010s', and I know there will be a lot of people who get into the Beach Boys this way, just like I did with the that release in 1995. I started getting interested in finding out more about the Beach Boys that year, and thought 'It would be great if there was some kind of easy-to-buy career-spanning set I could buy to serve as an introduction...' Of course, by 1995 the set wasn't even new any more, so I was able to pick it up for about 40 dollars.

The same will happen with MiC and Wilson newbies... in some ways, it'll be even easier for people to get it now than it was for me then, as they'll find it on-line.

I can't wait for my box to arrive! There will be much to discover and enjoy... ;)

And "I Believe in Miracles" is 20 seconds long.  So scratch that off as well.

As Neil Tennant once put it so brilliantly: "It's not how long it is, it's how long it *feels*".

That... doesn't read right, but you know what he meant, and what I mean. Unreleased Backgrounds, that 'Don't Talk' Pet Sounds out-take, is all of a few seconds, but WHAT a few seconds. Or Our Prayer... only just a minute long, but there's more harmonic invention and musical ability packed into that minute than some bands had in their entire careers.

Mind you, 20 seconds *is* short. It had better be a good 20 seconds, guys...!

I love you.

oh for god's sake, will you just drop this lovey-dovey crap? >:(

Only... if you'll go on a camping holiday with me.

I'm curious whether the box will be delivered to my house this Friday as announced... but am not as exited as two years ago with TSS.

But I love you, too.

This board is going to explode soon. This boxset will, I hope, result in nothing but love between overjoyed fans.

California Feeling demo seems to feature BW's voice in transition. WIBNTLA is good, not great, but the production and vocal make it pretty powerful. The extra bits of Meant for You are sublime, practically a tearjerker. RnR Music hot mix- I've never heard the original, mind you-- is an improvement. It's Ok is cool too. It's Over Now is the correct speed. The WH Surf's Up is the same as on TSS.

Great stuff. I feel blessed.

Edit: So much going on vocally on Slip on Through and Our Sweet Love that I never heard before the a Capella. Also, stereo Country Air opened the track up sooooooo much. I thought I'd heard every part of that song before, but it's practically brand new.

 :lol

Well, at least for a few days. It's possible!  ;D

You guys do remember that the day the set comes out is the day Phil Cohen's ban is lifted?

god no, he is going to complain about the box's price or a random song left off the box.

Drinking game: Take a shot every time Phil says "wall of secrecy" on his first day back on the board.

Or both!

YOU'LL KILL US ALL, MAN

 :lol

Plenty of board members have kept those balls in the air in his absence!  He's an inspiration…

Seems he and AGD might both be back around the same time (though I thought Andrew's exile ought to be over by now?) which should make for an appropriate fireworks display to mark the box set's launch.

Guilty as charged...

Is Andrew Hickey still banned? Or has he just decided not to return?

Not anything of that nature, since he visited this board today. He is among logged-in posters.

Why not, we do that already without Phil's assistance. ;)

A review:

http://somethingelsereviews.com/2013/08/21/the-beach-boys-made-in-california-2013/

Interesting article except that the author keep referring to the set as "Made in America".

So, the reviews are starting to come in. Below is the first one I've read.

http://www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk/2013/08/19/the-beach-boys-made-in-california-capitol-recordsuniversal/

Sheez, I'm gonna come across like AGD on a grumpy day here, but I gotta say this. It's got me madder than Brian Wilson on his first day in Hawaii with Dr Landy!

This is the first full review I've read of MiC — and it's *awful*. Not what the reviewer thinks of the set — I think he likes it — it's just that it's *appallingly*, appallingly written. Thomas Wilson (as far as I know, no relation), writing in 1553, would have called this guy — and it has to be a guy, no woman could write as badly as this — a user of 'inkhorn terms'. These days, we'd say he's swallowed a dictionary.

I really hate it when low-grade writers try for high-falutin' language but just haven't got the brains to use the right words (or the patience to look them up in the dictionary and check 'em before pressing 'Send'). If you can't write flowery, don't! Just stick to your natural level...! But no, this guy shoots for the stars and falls flat on his harris.

He doesn't know how to do possessives (screws that one up in the second paragraph with "noughtie's" and continues throughout, rounding off with the delightful "it sounds like a pastiche of there own work"), and from the contexts in which he uses them, he clearly doesn't know the meaning of the words "potted" "heralded", "accustomed", "pendulous", "edict", "enact", "stellar", "diaphanous", "lamentable", "envious", "seeping", "adrift", "requiem" "inaugural", "moiety", and "purview" (using the latter wrongly *twice*).

He also doesn't know that when he writes "bares witness", it should be "bears witness". He doesn't know that when he writes "in awed", it should be "in awe". He doesn't know that when he writes "cannon", it should be "canon". Or perhaps he did know, but was too lazy to check or change what he wrote. I mean: one's a priest or body of work, the other's a piece of heavy artillery. It pays to know the difference.

He writes horribly structured sentences that place a gulf between the (grammatical) articles and the nouns to which they refer, and then fills it with clumsy strings of nested adjectives and adverbs, randomly scattering commas as he goes in the hope that they will somehow define enough sub-clauses make it all work. But they don't. Here are a couple of lovely examples, starting with him talking about SMiLE:

"...this project would dare to even ‘out do’, an at their zenith artistically, Beatles"

"...an alternative version of the Friends’ original, ‘Meant For You’: a refreshed from the Maharishi retreat Mike Love, returns in 1968 to add saccharine to a less overproduced recording."

and worst of all:
"Do It Again’ – the opening tape delayed drum pounding, return to the source of the surfing vibe, stomper from 20/20"

Dude! You can't just string together all the adjectives you want, section 'em off with commas, and place them between the article and the noun - not in English, anyway (on the other hand, the Germans love it - perhaps you should try writing in that language). It's a hackneyed trick that shows you up to be the not very capable at using a spell and grammar checker, inept in the art of sentence plotting, why use original writing when a cliché will do, and indeed why use regular sentence construction when a dangling horror like this will suffice, [gasps for breath]... author that you are.

It's sloppily assembled, and clearly hasn't had a proof-read. One of the paragraphs just peters out. "With a sunny disposition, romantic swoon and swaying to a groove of rose-tinted reflection, it works, the--"

Er. The WHAT? WHAT works? We may never know. I'm not sure I care, mind.

All of the over-ornamented language is just awful to read, too. Consider these hyper-confected towers of tottering pretension: "Catching a zeitgeist wave of feckless youth culture, the group’s Surfin’ Safari, USA and Girl days are served up alongside the coy hot rod and gay abandon ‘bobby sox’ snuggling, Little Deuce Coupe, ‘Be True To Your School’ and Dance, Dance, Dance anthems, on this first installment of the sextet CD collection."

Ecch. Or:

"Twisting and cavorting onto the second CD in this reappraisal of sorts, a trio of congruous, out of the ballpark smashers, usher in the next chapter."

They do, huh...? Ohhh. Kaaaayyyy.

"In a state of flux, the featured Al Jardine written – co-produced with Brian – doo wop, harmonica romping ‘Susie Cincinnati’, is a 2012 mix that does little to improve on the boogaloo ‘honky tonk’ style original from both the single (B-Side to ‘Add Some Music To Your Day’) and LP versions (appeared on 15 Big Ones). As a record of completion it will however suffice."

Pardon? I lost interest in following the twists and turns of that sentence long before its end. And WHAT an end! "As a record of completion it will however suffice"?? What does that even MEAN?

Similarly: "Seeping onto the fourth of this sextet cannon, a triumvirate of Surf’s Up picks, draw 1971 to a close." Ah, man. How exactly does this "triumvirate of picks" "seep"? What was that supposed to be trying to say...? Or should I get the dangling modifier police on this? (Yes, I think I probably should). And jeez, "triumvirate of picks": why couldn't you just say "three Surf's Up tracks on the fourth disc draw 1971 to a close" or something like that?

Or: "Moving on at a pace now, the group’s lack of success and acclaim prompted another spark of ingenuity: or perhaps not." Uuuhh? This is worse than Jack Rieley lyrics!

and finally, and most spectacularly:

"the ‘California Saga’ suite – a traversing narrative of reverent eagle nested heights and atavistic beguile".

Or alternatively, a rip-off of Beethoven's 'Moonlight', a half-finished song about a buzzard with a big gob and ideas above its station (with some po-faced poetry stuck in the middle) and a fun California Girls retread with the Moog bass turned up to eleven. And lots and lots of big 70s beard!

[Muttering to himself in Monty Python Pepperpot voice]: "Atavistic beguile" indeed. I'll atavistic beguile you in a minute, young man..."

Thanks for the review of the review Matt.  :lol

Atavistic should have been retired as a word after Hunter Thompson ran it into the ground.

Surprised we haven't heard more about "My Love Lives On." Maybe it's just a really forgettable song?

So — you spotted that I'm trying to kill time until my big orange box arrives then...? How did you manage that?  ;)

I found his review to be a diaphanous moiety!   >:D

There should be a user on here called Diaphanous Moiety.

Or Atavistic Beguile.

Wonder if the reviewer has attended one of VDP's creative writing workshops?

Well, there goes my joke I was just going to type  :-D

VDP actually knows how to use, abuse, and re-assemble the English language in clever, hilarious ways. This guy is just a clown!

There are points in the guy's writing where he goes off on such a tangent - within sentences - that I forgot what the sentence was originally about and had to re-read it. This really needed an editor to go through it with a red pen.

An editor shouldn't really be presented with stuff like that.

We haven't heard much about anything.  I've yet to read a review where the author appears to have
actually listened to the box set.  They just seem to get their info from the press release.  Nothing new.
Ever.

Sad but true.

FYI --

The Wikipedia page about Made in California is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_California

Seems nicely done.

Right, absolutely. And I didn't even *start* on the factual inaccuracies — some of this stuff I think he just made up off the top of his head. I mean:

"A historical peregrination of America awaits; from the pilgrim landings at Plymouth Rock to the fateful Vietnam student demonstrations at Kent State University; played out to a soundtrack that begins and ends with the innocent, if naïve, joyous youthful exuberance of their hometown state."

""A historical peregrination of America awaits?" Well, no, not in *this* box it doesn't. Do You Like Worms, which mentions Plymouth Rock, isn't *on* MiC; and nor is Student Demonstration Time, which would supply the Kent State vibe if it were here. But it isn't!

"‘Do You Wanna Dance (2012 Stereo Mix)’, Help Me, Rhonda (Mono Single Version)’ and ‘California Girls (2002 Stereo Mix)’ were borne of beach fronted campfires, innocent love-ins and a fraternity lifestyle."

Can anyone attest to a beach-fronted campfire, love-in or frat lifestyle (hell, none of the original Beach Boys even *went* to university/college, right?) in ANY of the stories behind those three songs? No — the guy just made it up. Do You Wanna Dance is a Bobby Freeman cover; Help Me Rhonda is Brian knocking off a quick album track for 'Today' in his time-honoured mid-60s workaholic way and then nudging it and reworking it and re-recording it and scrapping it and remixing it until he had another number 1 single; and California Girls came out of an acid trip, and not a particularly nice one, according to Brian; hardly a love-in! Did they even *have* love-ins in 1965 yet...?

"But as ennui set in and the patriarchal Brian now mastered the limits of the studio, The Beach Boys voiced a growing anxiety – or the growing pains – of youth. The tide’s internal beckoning now seemed to reflect something less carefree. Turning to the burgeoning talent of lyricist and ad jingle writer, Tony Asher, for an inspired ‘take’ on the plaintive concerns of this troubled youth, Brian set out to produce his and the group’s first masterpiece, Pet Sounds.

Often described as, and, spawning the famous ‘teenage symphonies to God’ by-line, this ethereal suite was perhaps rock and pop music’s first triumph; balancing contemporary earthly concerns with a divine musical accompaniment from beyond the heavens. Even the Wilson brother’s inimitable cousin, Mike Love – a stickler for routine, and keeping with the winning formula of yore – weighed in with the rapturous edict, ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’, as the album’s opening statement."

This is total bollocks, from start to end. Brian didn't master the limits of the studio — he kept single-handedly *re-defining* those limits for some time after Pet Sounds. That's one of the things that makes him so fricking great! And I ask again, of the sentence "The tide’s internal beckoning now seemed to reflect something less carefree" — what does that even MEAN?? And of course, it wasn't Pet Sounds that Brian described as a 'teenage symphony to God' — that was SMiLE — and Mike Love didn't 'weigh in' with Wouldn't It Be Nice. Brian gave him a bridge to sing, then took Mike out and sang it himself, then put Mike back in for the final mono mix. Oh, and he supposedly made up the 'Good night, sleep tight' stuff at the end. That's hardly 'weighing in with Wouldn't It Be Nice'. And there's more bollocks about Pet Sounds to follow.

"Only when brought to London, where the hipsters, music giants – including a ‘in awed’ Paul McCartney – and kids converted and lapped it up, did it finally take off and begin to sell in droves. "

Pet Sounds didn't do as well as previous Beach Boys albums. Didn't it only go gold in the 90s or something? Sure, it's hip *now*, but can you really say it "sold in droves" after it was brought to London? This is a careless mash-up of all sorts of things that happened, decades apart. Bruce did take Pet Sounds to London, yes, the Beatles heard it there, yes, and later, it became hip and later still it sold better than it had at first. But that took maybe 35 years!

"Eventually signing a pact with the steamboat chuffing logo adorned Reprise – at the time part of Warner Bros -, the boys would release all their records under the consanguinity Brother Records imprint. "

Well, yes. But Brother started at Capitol.

"Sunflower, with its leitmotif of forsaken and unrequited love"...

Pardon? Well, OK, in Tears In The Morning, maybe. But a leitmotif runs through a work. I don't see forsaken and unrequited love in "Our Sweet Love", "Forever", "Deirdre", "This Whole World", "Slip On Through", "It's About Time" or "Cool Cool Water". Could it be that the reviewer just... made that up again?

"One of those late 70s misfires, Adult Child, was denied even an official release; picked over with its bounty of highlights rehashed for later records."

Er... of the tracks on Adult Child, only one came out on a non-compilation album before the GV box set in 1993: Hey Little Tomboy. I'd hardly call that a bounty of highlights.

and finally:

"Bereft of their grinning maverick Dennis –drowned in an ill-fated impromptu bout of midnight diving in 1983..."

Midnight diving? Where'd he get that from? Mid-afternoon diving after being on the razz, more like. Sounds better though, doesn't it, midnight diving...?

But you know, this isn't the usual über-fan ranting at a bad review (Blue Board style "how dare they besmirch the reputation of the great, great Brian Wilson" etc etc). It isn't even a bad review in the sense of damning the set - I think he likes it. It's just that it's such a freakingly inept piece of writing...!

I can't finish without lazering in on the final sentence, because I HATE IT SO MUCH.

"...a misty-eyed return back to where it all began."

YOU DON'T NEED TO SAY 'return back'!!!! IF YOU RETURN, YOU ARE ALREADY GOING BACK!!!! Back can be totally omitted from this sentence. 'return back' is a tautological phrase that says the same thing twice (see what I did there?). It's like 'meet with'. If you meet someone, you are already with them!!!!!! Aaaargghhjbdkhwfcbwekfbwkcbwekc

OK, OK... deep breaths, Matt. Think of the soothing orange of the side of the MiC box. Breathe deep...

Between this and your post about the true amount of unreleased MIC tracks - which was prompted by a hilariously psychotic misunderstanding - you are my new favorite poster on this board.

I agree with everything you wrote... when a true intellectual (Van Dyke Parks for instance) uses flowery language that he UNDERSTANDS, that's one thing, but when a writer or poster uses language they clearly don't understand, in a vain effort to seem intelligent (cough TheProfessor cough) it is annoying and it stands in the way of clear communication.

Great post Matt and good to see you back b00ts.

You need to post your Talmudic takedown commentary on his comments section.

My favorite construction has to be:

"As it turned out, the melancholic surf noir blues direction produced, arguably, their most interesting and lamentable material."

To be fair to this guy he obviously gave it a listen. Evidenced by his distaste for stuff like Da Doo Ron Ron and Goin' to the Beach.

b00ts! :rock

They say that

b00ts

is back

Well I never knew that he was gone

Stan Shapiro co-wrote "Live Again."  If they leave him out of the credits I for one will be pissed.

Didn't Daryl Dragon co-write Sound of Free as well? On the MiC wiki page it mentions Mike Love as the co-writer.

No. Dennis and Mike.

If I'm lucky, I'll have a copy of the box tomorrow afternoon. I will then entertain questions.   :p

No, you'll upload it all to Soundcloud, OR ELSE!!!

I have felt the wrath of Mr Doe and wear my wounds with pride..When he's not around things kind of drone on around here. I hope Capitol gave him a free box. He does a lot for them (BB's). And I'm not kissing butt here.

Wow, that's impressive. Most interesting and lamentable?

Was this run through a translator that was on the fritz? This review couldn't have originally been written in English.

Found a new review: http://www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk/2013/08/19/the-beach-boys-made-in-california-capitol-recordsuniversal/
5 days!

Got word from amazon.de that my order has shipped and will be here tomorrow!! Woo hoo!! Then I'll post a more serious list of the tracks rather than the stuff I just simply hate.

Sounds like we will have our first impressions tomorrow  :afro Sweet.

This is the same review that Matt just got medieval on.

I keep saying I'm not going to listen to any more of the leaked tracks, but I keep caving. this thing better show up soon!

It's OK, Donny, no one will ever blame you for caving. There's a lot of great stuff headed everyone's way, and no matter how jaded any of us may be (or pretend to be), the excitement is building up. Moments like this make many of us geezers feel like we're back in the day waiting for the next album release. May that feeling always remain with us!

Anyone know when this will be on Spotify? More then likely not going to buy it right on the same day.

Yet another review: http://somethingelsereviews.com/2013/08/21/the-beach-boys-made-in-california-2013/

Anyone else see the hilarious error here?  ;D

heh

Sorry about the Stan Sharpiro omission on the Wikipedia page, I've fixed it now and will take fault for that.

About a month ago I had a bit of spare time on my hands so I filled in the credits on Wikipedia as 99% of Made in California's writing credits are available elsewhere. By the time I got to "(Wouldn't it Be Nice) To Live Again" I only listed Dennis as I was only sure of his involvement.

I apologise if I annoyed anyone, if it's of any consolation, I had (and still have) plans to immediately check credit validity when MiC is released to make any necessary alterations.

Ask and ye shall receive.  ;D

idk i just like fly beats in my songs

Do you have it yet? I just found mine was loaded into a delivery van 2 hours ago, and luckily I can work at home today... Now I'm getting excited after all!!! OMG, I have to leave for half an hour at noon, what if it arrives during that time and I'm not here???

Ha ha, "matriarch"...

MIC is on Spotify now!


And so this is the famous (WIBNT)LA uh?



Pitch correction on "You're Still A Mistery" ???   :o  And is that a new lead by Brian??  It feels so slow now
"Soul Searchin'" is glorious!  But do I hear new Brian's vocals too?

Do you have a link please? It's not showing up for me.

Oh blimey… inspiration… a new game… butchered song titles:

You're Still a Misery

Do I need to start a new thread!?

What country are you in? Spotify usually allows access to new albums on their release date and it doesn't seem to be showing up in the US one (and I wouldn't expect it to until Tuesday).

I'm Finland at the moment.

Does this work for you?
https://play.spotify.com/artist/3oDbviiivRWhXwIE8hxkVV (https://play.spotify.com/artist/3oDbviiivRWhXwIE8hxkVV)

Pretty sure it's not on the UK site either.

Hi STE,

I can't use the webplayer unfortunately.

If you control click (or maybe right click if not on a mac) the album title in spotify browser you should get a context menu with an option to 'copy HTTP link', then paste it here. That should allow us to access the album providing it's available outside of Finland.

Many thanks!

"Country Air" stereo is unreal!!

Ok, how about this
https://play.spotify.com/album/2bNE80uDjuw9kqCjC6cZMR (https://play.spotify.com/album/2bNE80uDjuw9kqCjC6cZMR)
But I'm not using the Spotify desktop app, just the webplayer.  I can check in the app later.

Try giving us a direct link to the album rather than the artist. The artist just leads to the Beach Boys Spotify main page in our given country...only way we're going to hear this thing early outside of certain territories is if we can have a direct link to the box's URL and then cross our fingers.

That is supposed to be the link to the album..  but to the web-player version

Alright, so what it's doing for us in the US is letting us access only the previously released tracks. So the recent remasters of certain tracks are what's accessible. Nothing else. Basically, the duplicates that are available on other recent reissues/compilations are what's showing up. That's it. :(

Thanks STE. That has worked on my phone but the tracks unique to the set are all unavailable. My guess is that this is Finland (or some other European countries, sans UK) only. Curses, but enjoy anyway, and please share some of your discoveries!

I didn't A/B it yet, but listening to it again it does sound like the lead on "You're Still A Mistery" it's a newly recorded one (and pitch corrected).  But it's hard to say cause the song it's so much slower than we are used to.

I will try to only listen to "known" songs on Spotify, I will wait for the real thing for the unreleased ones.

Here's the album link, for any non US/UK residents that might be eable to access the tracks:

http://open.spotify.com/album/2bNE80uDjuw9kqCjC6cZMR (http://open.spotify.com/album/2bNE80uDjuw9kqCjC6cZMR)

Dear God...the Smile Backing Vocals Montage is 8:32. Seriously. I don't own the Smile box (have the 2 CD download and the 2 LP vinyl), so I had no clue that they were wasting close to 9 minutes on something like that, especially given that it's previously released.

The "Good Vibrations" stuff that follows is also another waste of nearly four minutes. The biggest mistake of the boxed set is unquestionably losing 13 minutes of the rarities disc to Smile Sessions stuff. The only people this satisfies are those that are interested enough to purchase this six CD set and delve into the rarities and not interested enough to purchase the deluxe Smile Sessions boxed set. That's probably about 1% of this boxed set's purchasers.

Also, if you're going to include two sessions tracks that were previously released, why not just include stuff from the Pet Sounds box as well?

Going further, why the hell would you include two Smile Sessions pieces that weren't even good enough to make the standard Two-CD set? Again, probably because they're assuming there's enough people out there that purchased the 2 CD set and this box, but not the full Smile Sessions package. Either way, it's still a waste of time/money. We would've been better off with thirteen minutes of cuts that were on the previous career spanning boxed set that aren't on this one. "Still I Dream Of It" for example...

Thinking about it more. They also f***ed up when it comes to "Heroes and Villains"...Disc Two features a whopping 11 minutes of that track. We get the extended two part version (which is far too long and feels more like studio sessions than something that's complete) and the single version. They probably should have just went with either the single version or the Smile-album version and spared us the extra 7 minutes or so.

I figured this would be an annoyance and looking at the time-listings and listening to these, I can't help but feel that the historical flow of this set is interrupted greatly by what's pretty much the same song three times in a half hour span.

Y'know, if they'd left the six discs blank, they could have spared us eight hours having to listen to the thing at all…    :-\

This is a day of disaster.


Spotify here in Europe hasn't got it up and for the first time ever I exceeded my 10 hour limit  :angry :smash

MiC is probably good tho.

Thanks for this.
But around half of the tracks are greyed-out and unavailable for listening
??????????

Yeah I thought the same thing when I first saw the tracklist. There's something vaguely insulting about the whole release and I'm really not regretting not buying it now. In a couple of days stuff like WIBNTLA will just be up on youtube.

See the spotify thread. Only some countries have access to all the tracks. Not sure which beyond Finland at the moment (poster STE can access all the tracks and is busy demythologizing WIBNTLA as we type).

yeah i saw that. At least he's bigging up Country Air!

I hope folks will maintain a sense of proportion.  We're very, very fortunate…



(http://markhumphrys.com/Bitmaps/sudan.vulture.jpg)

Well don't get me wrong, it's a good song, great production, great performance. But it suffers from its own mythological status.
Some people go nuts for "Midnight's Another Day" and "Summer's Gone" too.

See, I still can't agree with this (while respecting your right to hold that opinion, of course). We're all seasoned followers of the Wilson-Love circus, so OF COURSE we've got TSS and we're also buying MiC. But imagine you were a Wilson noob, or, rather, just a little bit MORE than a noob... someone who'd bought mebbe Pet Sounds and a hits comp, maybe a couple of albums, and wanted to know more.

MiC will be the 'gateway' for people like this. And in that case, you sure as hell want a few versions of H&V on there, and you sure as hell want the SMiLE vocals montage on there. Because that stuff is some of the best stuff the Beach Boys did, it's innovative and cool and totally NOT the 'fun in the sun' stuff that people laziliy pigeonhole them with, and if they're anything like me, it will hook people in like I don't know what, and they'll probably buy TSS at some stage soon after.

This is sort of what happened to me, back in 1995. I bought (in this order) a hits comp, then Pet Sounds, then I wanted to know more about SMiLE, so I bought the 1990 Smiley Smile/Wild Honey twofer. And I was so hooked by that that I wanted as much of SMiLE as I could legally own. So I bought... the GV box.

(and shortly after that, I wanted as much of SMiLE as I could ILLegally own... but that's another story...!)

Imagine someone like me, then, at that similar stage, only transplanted to 2013. The modern equivalent releases for someone like that might be 50 Big Ones, the latest Pet Sounds remaster, the Japanese Smiley Smile remaster, and then MiC.

If I had had the 2013 catalogue available in 1995, I would have gone that route. And after hearing those H&V mixes and the montage, I would have gone straight out and bought the SMiLE Sessions box. I know it*. And then prolly the Pet Sounds Session set.

Eee, t'kids today, with their deluxe multi-disc yearbook boxsets and flip-top shops with a built-in light and surfboard... they don't kner ther BORN, ah tell thee!!!!



*Well... actually, I *wouldn't* have done that, because in 1995 I was waaaay too poor to just go out and do that. But I would have saved and saved for months until I could afford it, and THEN gone out and bought it.

"Why Don't They Let Us Fall in Love" is surprisingly interesting and sounds nothing like the bootlegs.
"Da Doo Ron Ron" doesn't improve with the sound quality.
"You've Lost That Loving Feeling" oh yes!  But what's with the all the wet reverb?


 

I still haven't heard WIBNTLA, but I wondered about that. I like Dennis's stuff from this period probably more overall than his later stuff, so I reckon I'll like lt, but there's just no way the poor song can live up to some of the hype there's been here about it, IMO.

I'm expecting good, maybe even very good, but not life-changing.

And I agree with John M's sobering post above; it's a box set, not the Holy Grail or even (sorry, 1966 Brian...) world peace. Time for a walk round the block and a tall glass of perspective, as Douglas Adams wrote once.

I'm sorry but this is just so over the top I can't help but laugh. Take the guilt trip somewhere else.

Maybe, but I get a bit down when the non-appearance of a song or two on Spotify gets referred to as a "day of disaster"…  I mean…

"Sail On Sailor - live 1995", so good to hear Carl in pristine quality. But I wonder if he would have approved its release.
"It's A Beautiful Day", new mix, sounds a bit tin and wet.
"This Whole World - A Cappella" is an orgasm for the ears. Just listen to Brian's bridge.

How to suck the fun out of something in one fell swoop.

Anyway keep those initial impressions coming STE.

"Meant For You", holy puppy dog! The only time you will really love Mike Love whispering in your ears!  But a pony, Brian? Really??  - <hits replay>

This is one of the few things on the set I'm really interested to hear. Sounds like a lot of fun.

"If Guess I'm Dumb": still one of my favorite tracks by anyone anywhere. Even in better quality now.  Damn it Brian, you really had it!

Ok the BIG question. Brian and Dennis vocals 1973-75?

Nice to know Brian's take on the bridge of "This Whole World" made it! Is it on the studio version on the third disc or just on the a capella mix?

If somebody PM'd me telling me how to download the album anywhere I'd think it was DISGUSTING and probably CALL THE POLICE

WIBNTLA is purely magical..

Original home demo of California Feelin' is surely interesting.. quite surprising at some point ("CAN'T YOU FEEL IT?!") and with some whistle..

Someone just put up a link to an mp3 of WIBNTLA on the Hoffman forums... I'm sure it'll be gone soon. :o

(Did they auto tune Dennis' vocals? It's probably just the transcoding that's the culprit.)

OK, I'm in.

And WIBNTLA is quite good! Not the earth-shattering experience some thought it might be, but it's good. Dennis sounds great. Wish he had still sounded like this when he sang on POB.

Not so wild on the noodly flute bit at the end - very of its time. I like it, though.

I'm running the stream off now. Real-time only, so capturing it will take a while...

Back to Disc 2 now (like STE, I can't get Back Home '63 to stream).

The alt Meant For You is great, although Brian's pony and puppies lyrics are a bit too 'Athena Poster' for my liking - too sentimental and mawkish. I can see why they cut them. But the extended backing vocals are terrific.

Ah, man, Do It Again in stereo... That's effing *great*. Love the horns in the right channel!

Loving the strings on We're Together Again, too. Only heard this on boot before. The strings and extra kick drum lift the last third of the track. But wasn't there a slide guitar overdub for this somewhere as well? No sign of that. Or am I getting confused with Tune X?

On to Disc 6... the really important stuff IMHO...

Wow, so many bluesy vocal overdubs were buried in Slip On Through... the a capella reveals SO much.

Brian sounds great on the alt Don't Worry, Baby (although he goes a bit too high at the end - you can see why he retook the vocal for the final master). Beautiful modern stereo mix, too.

HOLY sh*t!!!! I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES IS PART OF CAN'T WAIT TOO LONG!!!!!!!!!!! That bluesy load of overdubs we heard on one of the CWTL boots!

THAT'S New News. Or it is to me...!!!!

WIBNTLA is still great, despite the hype. Multiple listens give you a greater appreciation for it. I do agree that people will be looking for much more than they're gonna get, but it's still really, really good. I dig the backing vocals as much as Dennis' lead.

One thing that will throw you off, though - if you know the Adam Marsland version only, your ears will need to adjust!

Here's the link:
https://mega.co.nz/#!0w9W0TKK!BeSnNVE0FtAvSdJSbt3lyksbYAQba28uTIVBIWMf5eo (https://mega.co.nz/#!0w9W0TKK!BeSnNVE0FtAvSdJSbt3lyksbYAQba28uTIVBIWMf5eo)

Matt-cheers for the real-time review

Can you PM me how you got in? I'm currently working around Finnish VPNs and proxy servers!!
Cheers

Happy to hear this. I had heard maybe the first minute over the phone ten years ago. I think it's excellent.

Ah, clean mixes of Guess I'm Dumb and Mona Kani - these sound better than ever. From what I've heard so far, all these new mixes, even for stuff we've had on boot before, are upgrades even on the clean tracks we got on SOT, and of course they're properly mixed. Totally worth the price of admission, even without all the completely new stuff.

Brian sounds much more in tune than I remember him on Sherry She Needs Me, but it must be over 10 years since I last subjected myself to the 1976 vocal version on boot, I hated it that much...

Barnyard Blues is a riot! Really funny with more animal noises like the original SMiLE Barnyard (to which it doesn't sound related). Dennis in less good voice than on WIBNTLA. I think this sounds a bit like an evolution of I Don't Know, Dennis track from the SMiLE box set.

Why? is a great, great BW shuffle with some cool chord changes.

Shame about Don't Go Near The Water - I was hoping they'd go completely a capella for the vocals at the end. But I guess the released track is close to that already, and it's quite interesting hearing the instruments that are under that on the released version.

I don't think I've ever seriously listened to Brian's 70s version of You've Lost That Loving Feeling. Wow, that's every bit as cool as AGD always said it was. This surely should have been on 15BO, or maybe even on Love You...

I'm still not wild about Transcendental Meditation, even without the vocals. That's some powerful saxes blasting, mind...

I'm loving 'Our Sweet Love'. But I always liked this one. Carl Wilson rocks, and the strings are mixed quite low, so they don't overpower, but are an interesting sonic colour. They left Brian's final 'honey' ad lib at the end.

"Tell me you feel the California Feelin!!!!" yells Brian in the middle of his demo. "Can you feel it??" Well, no actually. I can see why no-one took this song too seriously at first. He does sound like fat Elvis. Underwhelming. The 'finished' version beats the crap out of this.

Ah, man, at last - proper, Baldwin-heavy mixes of the Lei'd In Hawaii 'Heider' 'California Girls' and 'Help You Rhonda'... I'm an absolute sucker for 'Smiley-ised' versions of Beach Boys songs — some days I actually prefer the Endless Harmony version of God Only Knows to the original — so these are slaying me; they're terrific. I always knew these could be great if the occasional dodgy harmony and misplaced drum beat was mixed out from the multitrack. And that's what they've done.

WOW — a late super-standout — My Love Lives On. What a surprise, right near the end of the set. Now THERE'S a Dennis song. Shades WIBNTLA, in my opinion — that was good but not great. MLLO is a *really* knockout song. Dennis's voice is on its way to its Bambu lows, but he's still got it here. I'm hard to impress when it comes to DW's stuff, so I'm all the more surprised by this.

OK, back to Disc 5 to check out some of the live stuff... and the two Was tracks, of course...

When was Barnyard Blues and My Love Lives On recorded?

Cliff - when this stream is done... well, how can I put this?

Good things come to those that wait...   ;)

I'm happy that CWTL fragment is on there, I've been hoping they'd release that for awhile now.

Disc 5

Huh — Why Don't They Let Us Fall In Love might be the first KTSA-era track I can stand to listen to! I never bothered to listen to any boot versions before, and I really like that, a well-executed 50's shuffle in the vein of the Beatles' Oh Darlin' from Abbey Road — Mike's bass vocals are terrific. And best of all, I don't have to listen to KTSA to hear it!!!

Soul Searching is really, really great. Finally, a definitive version. This totally shades the boot mixes, and also leaves Brian's solo version standing, I gotta say.

That's SURELY a new 2010s Brian vocal on You're Still A Mystery. But the track is, I think, the better for it. I always thought this one could be terrific too, if only the mid-90s shouty 'Orange Crate Art' Brian could have been erased and improved on — and now he has! This would have been a brilliant album track. SO good to hear these two mid-90s tracks out properly at last!

I don't have time to go through all the live tracks now... but I just clicked on It's About Time to see what they did with it. Hoo, boy, if you like your Boys rocking, this kicks butt. They were pretty damn good live in the early 70s, weren't they?? And there are some interesting step-down key changes at the end of the track.

OK, that will do for a first listen to the highlights. Now to edit me up some stream...

So I've gone back to the start to hoover up some odds and ends I missed. Brian is cracking me up on track 1, when he threatens Dennis "I swear to you, I'm gonna get Alan Jardine..." "You will NAAHT get Alan...!" "I will, he's more professional, you know..."!!!!

Even on a half a century old recording, Bdub still *folds* me...


And Murry is just as funny on the Surfer's Rule session. "Sweeten it up, David..." The guy was such a no-nothing piñata...

Great stuff, Matt Bielewicz.  I'm trying not to spoil the box for myself so I'll live through your words until my box arrives.


I agree.  This is why I'm making my own 6-disc "Made in California" box when I'm done mining this one.  I really look forward to the project.  :)

Matt - many thanks for your views. I've only skim-read as I want to save the meat and tatties for my own ears but it's good to see such positivity coming through.

Andrew Hickey said in an earlier post how the song licensing fee is done on a per composition basis which is why most of the live tracks have their studio counterparts on the box. If Heroes and Villains Part 1 & 2 and the vocal montage had already paid that fee through other tracks, the compilers are just getting bang for their buck and it wouldn't have been an either/or situation, kudos to them.

However, if they did have to pay extra, I have to agree with Kokono that better tracks could have been selected. If the 5 other TSS tracks on MiC, the Smiley Smile Heroes and Villains and Surf's Up 1971 don't pique curiosity in Smile, I doubt you could throw much more at a person to change that. Personally, I'd see those tracks as missed opportunities in having songs like "She Knows Me too Well" and "That's Not Me" disprove the often held belief that Brian tied his bandmates up and forced them to watch Murry masturbate while he commandeered The Wrecking Crew to glory.

3:32pm, I've got the package in my hand... will return shortly :o

More random observations from the asteroid of Mr Wizard as I hoover through other bits of the set I didn't alight on before...

The Alt mix of Rock and Roll Music isn't 'alt' enough to rescue it for me. But I never liked that song... It's a busier mix, but that doesn't help it. And the extra verse just makes it stick around even longer...

The alt mix of It's OK is really cool, though (but then I did always like that one). I love the extra little phrase on the start of the track before it starts - that really lifts the beginning for me.

Giving WIBNTLA my second listen. I actually like the 'repeating phrase' guitar vocal. Some say that's a placeholder part, but I can see it working as a finished solo. Dennis could still really sing well when he did this. Why couldn't he have finished Poops or Hubba Hubba or whatever it was gonna be called...?

OK, I *really* don't like the Sesame Street flute noodling at the end. That's getting faded out on my version of the set... and thank god it doesn't go on for the full seven minutes or whatever, as AGD said.

The 'alt' It's Over Now is great — running at a much better speed. And beautifully mixed, much better than on the GV box. The strings and horns really COOK. That melancholy string-and-brass-backed ballad approach now actually sounds like an interesting and vibrant stylistic direction the Boys could have worthfully pursued in the mid to late 70s, whereas when I heard the old mix on the GV set, I just thought "Er... WHAT? As in WHAT were they thinking...?" because it sounded so sluggish, Quaaluded-out and lifeless.

I didn't know It's A Beautiful Day before. It's an OK slice of upbeat sunny 70s rock, kinda reminds me of late 70s Supertramp, only with the wailing guitars up. It probably sounds good driving down an LA Freeway (ironically, considering the theme of the film it graced). But man, if I never again hear Mike sodding Love self-referentially quoting 'fun fun fun' in a song OTHER than Fun, Fun, Fun, it will be too soon. That especially grates here, as we've just heard him do it in Brian's Back... and a few songs later, he's at it again! Talk about diminishing returns, Mike...

How's the early version of Amusement Parks USA?

Mono, or almost mono backing track, stereo vocals, not the same ones as the final mix. Missing a couple of overdubs - there's no 'Brian as crazy laughing woman' in between the verses. It's just... different, not a revelation or anything. Cool though. I like this one.

How does You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling sound compared to boots? How's Barnyard Blues?

Cheers, Matt.

I'm waiting. Do I get something good?

For some reason this post immediately made me think of the Israeli youth a few years back posting Nazi hate videos of themselves. Bizzaro even in its obscurity. What a world we live in to have someone bitch and moan about the shitty idea to iclude those crap Smile vocals eh?

To be clear though, it was a shitty idea.

Could someone who's managed to get it working let me know what Finnish proxies they've been using, and any other information I may be missing? I've spent three hours trying to get Spotify and the open proxies I've found out about to play nice...
(I'm using Debian GNU/Linux if that makes a difference -- and my copy of the box set has been ordered and shipped, so I won't be depriving Universal of a penny).

Apparently the set is nothing but garbage so you might as well cancel your order. I mean, pick your topic and theres been a bitch and moan about it.

Guess my sarcastic review a few days ago was more art imitating life than I ever imagined.

Take your pick its sh*t because:

A. There are hits
B. There are B-sides
C: There are songs we've heard before
D: There are songs we haven't heard before
E: There are songs we havent heard before, we dont hear, but should have
F: There are songs we have heard before, we do hear, but shouldn't have
G: Invent your own POS idea and bitch about it.

Good effing vibrations indeed.

C? No, no, E!...Can I only pick one?

What a world we live in where someone on the Internet can't just skip over an opinion he disagrees with, but instead brings up Nazi references.
Grow up.  Not everyone has to think the same about everything.

Good to see your new boxset is bringing you so much apparent joy. I only hope when my set turns up it too elevates my mood to such blissfull heights as yours.

5:54pm, spent nearly 2 1/2 hours listening... Started with disc one, skipping very few tracks, and after the stereo Little Saint Nick I stayed with the unreleased/newly mixed stuff only.

WIBNTLA was better than I expected, (I feared it would be dull, actually), and it may be Dennis' best vocal ever indeed. It's really a transition between, say, Be With Me and his stuff on CATP. It would have been one of the best tracks, maybe even THE best track on the Surf's Up album...

BUT...

After 4 minutes it suddenly changes into a funk lounge rock thing that absolutely contradicts the mood of the song, and I don't like that part at all. Rhythmically and stylistically that part foreshadows POB, but does not fit here AT ALL. Disqualifies the song from closing the Surf's Up album IMHO.

I was more impressed with Mona Kana, actually, great backing track, too bad there are no vocals.

"Where Is She" is an unusual Brian song, but pretty good.

The mix of "Sail Plane Song" is very good, too. The mix of "Susie Cincinnati" is interesting. If that's your first listen to the song, you might prefer it to the other versions. Dennis tries to ruin the song adlibbing some stuff on the fade. :)

Interesting are the 1974 recordings as they show Brian's and Dennis' voices in transition. On the California Feelin' Demo Brian sometimes sounds like before, sometimes like after, his falsetto still sounds like it did in his heyday. On "Barnyard Blues" Dennis sounds more like his old voice, on "My Love Lives On" more like the gruff one, but nos as gruff yet.

The stereo mix of Do It Again adds very little, I'll stick with the mono.

The newly mixed WH tracks are definitely an improvement, the Smiley tracks not.

I don't like this mix of Fallin' In Love, only that it doesn't fade so early as the 1971 mix unfortunately does.

The book is nice, with interesting photos. Dennis emptying a trashcan on Carl with Mike cheering... probably the earliest photo of Bruce wearing shorts... probably the last photo of Dennis with the other boys, with the fabled greyish beard. Too bad he wasn't saved... :(
and a photo of Mike with no pants on.

Probably Mike's most positive comments on Pet Sounds and SMiLE ever.

That's it for now, didn't listen to the Paley tracks nor Goin' To The Beach and It's A Beautiful Day nor the live stuff yet.

I'll try to bitch a bit more next time. :-D

haha! no kidding.  who would have thought a beach boys fan preferring something new to something old would draw hitler comparisons by someone who apparently views himself as stable and rational?

Seconded! Any help would be appreciated!

Well let's see, in the last 2 days I've had a dressing down because, given the choice I'd rather not watch 2 homosexuals going for it full on in public and earlier today a guy who complained about the links not working was shown a picture of a starving African kid who is probably buzzard meat by now - so yeah a guy complaining about too much recycled Smile material being compared to a Nazi doesn't really surprise me that much at this point.

Mike's beard, you just summed up the whole SS website! :lol :lol :lol

 ;D

Well if I stumble across a way to listen to some of MIC before my own copy arrives I won't feel guilty
a bit as I am plunking my money down for the official product. And if I cant listen in early, no biggie...
when the box arrives I am loading up the 6 discs and hitting the random play button for a hours-long
listening session.  ;)

Has Phil been freed yet?

Can we have a week of Bliss before he comes back? ;D

His return will look somewhat like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1i-Yw7s-Pw

I don't get it. Guess I'm dumb.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=douche%20chill


 :)

Great comments Micha, thanks! As someone who has received the ACTUAL physical set, as opposed to pretending to be Finnish all afternoon ( ;) )... can you tell us if there are any hidden tracks at the end of the discs? These are sometimes left off the on-line versions...

Well, that was your first mistake!

As if there wasn't reason enough to buy this set!

Damn...wish I could hear some of this. Won't be getting the boxed set due to limited funds. Can't believe the day is almost here!

Unfortunately there don't seem to be any hidden tracks (checked only on 2 discs), but all six discs are up full with over 78 minutes each.

Checked a few more. So sad not more Paley tracks were finished, even though TWGMTR is IMHO a better song than Soul Searchin'. But there's so much strong stuff left unfinished there.

Brian's new lead on You're Still A Mystery is ok, but lacks the weird aura of the contemporary one.

1978 California Feelin' doesn't grow on me. The 1974 demo has way more charm, so good they included this.

1970 Back home already has the chorus absent on the 1963 version, but Al changed lyrics and melody of the main part. Brian's falsettoing on the chorus.

Listened to WIBNTLA again. That should definitely fade before that final part comes up... Reminds me in parts of The Fool On The Hill. Brian can be heard on it too.

Funny outtake from the Party sessions, Carl claiming "This is Alan Jardine, and this is what takes place at a typical Beach Boys party..." They should have kept THAT on the original LP! :-D

I found once more that the stereo tag of GOK doesn't move me near as much as the original one.

Nice session intro to IGA - obviously the harpsichord was to be more prominent originally.

And it isn't actually a box - it's an LP sized hardcover book with the CDs in cardboard slits at the end, slits like in the TSS box.

I was bitchin' a bit more here, but I'm really happy to own this. A must for every Beach Boys fanatic, really.

Remove CDs C  A   R   E  F  U  L  L  Y - place in jewel cases.  :-\

I'm a little late to the party...Is the whole set being streamed somewhere?

New lead? What?! Damn, I'm out of the loop...

I Just listened to WIBNTLA!  :o

It definitely deserved the hype.

I wish I could hear this. 3:30am, four hours down, and I still haven't found Spotify's "Open Sesame"... :'(

There's no evidence of this. Brian's vocal sounds digitally manipulated in some way, but doesn't quite sound like current Brian. Could this have been attempted for GIOMH?

I hadn't heard about this either. Not liking the idea at all. Maybe Brian insisted on re-doing the lead if they wanted to get it on the box. But it kills part of the novelty of it being a document of their mid 90's reunion attempt. His voice sounded different on the original recording, that mid 90's sound he had. But that lead was perfectly fine.

I haven't heard it, but is there any chance that multiple leads were cut back around that time? Interesting.

All I know is on TUESDAY when I get my "boxed set" (heh) of Beach Boys "CD product" (sorry) it’s gonna be a sonic BLAST, man!

I’m gonna start with WIBNTLA on CD 4, because I’ve never heard it before!

This is all way too exciting. I am on front door/UPS patrol like you wouldn't believe.

(runs around in circles screaming)

For those who've already heard the box, are there any differences in the Sail Plane Song mix from the mix on Endless Harmony?

Maybe you should keep your enthusiasm to yourself, and be sympathetic to the fact that many of us on this board can't stand the music of The Beach Boys.

Now, who wants to talk sports??? The Nymets are my favorite squadron!

The person who reviewed it a month or so back said there was trippy vocal panning and "bomb sounds" at the end.

It's true about the new mix of Sail Plane song. It has a psychedelic ending that I think has probably been fashioned using modern tech, either hardware processors or plug-ins, whereas the Endless Harmony mix just peters out. The new one ends in a sort of modern take on the Cantina H&V's 'tape explosion'. Think lots of concatenated delays and a bunch of filters going haywire!

I like it, but then I likes me some studio trickery. I'm sure there will be plenty of purists around in no time to say that the producers of the set shouldn't have futzed with the purity of Brian's vision... [stifles a yawn]

Oh man, I really need to hear this yesterday.

Come on Spotify! Open up to all us non-fins!

I don't get it; is that some sort of water joke?

It's Finns isn't it?

What I get for being one of the few non-Europeans here :lol

If you're not of Euro descent, what does that leave?

I'd heard Brian rerecorded vocals for You're still a mystery in the late 90s like 99 from a very reliable source.


Does the booklet have good info on recording dates, who did whats?

I think what you're actually thinking of is the recording of the song he did with Joe Thomas in the late '90s under the title "It's Happening Again".

It's likely that either the version of the set is either from 1995 or maybe the TWGMTR sessions. If it is indeed a "new" vocal, I'm assuming maybe he redid it because it was under consideration for last year's album.

Really, dude? That's rather Ethanesque, isn't it?

Is this set HDCD-encoded?

I think Mark Linnett said it would be. Certainly all his recent productions have been.

BW and band recorded a new version for GIOMH. IIRC, it was intended to be the 14th track and to close the album.

Yes.



Only year, sometimes place, and who's on lead.

You're Still A Mystery sounds like more recent Brian than late 90s, but I'm not certain about it.

Biggest surprise so far is the remix of R'n'R Music. Linett somehow manages to make that clumsy, clunky, embarrassing cover version finally ROCK!

EQing on this set is a bit too trebly for my taste. Much too trebly, actually. But I can turn the treble down on my stereo. All down, actually. ;D


And the best live track is All I Want To Do. It rocks so hard, it makes the following Help Me Rhonda seem very tame.

Apologies for exposing my own ignorance but...


What is HDCD and how does one take advantage of it!  :-[

Is it me, or is "Barnyard Blues" an evolution of Dennis' "I Don't Know" from 1967? Same chord progression in the verse.

Who's singing the high part near the end of Barnyard Blues?  Is it Brian or some guest?

Brian somehow manages to sound both incredibly coked and incredibly stoned at the same time in the California Feelin' Demo.

Is there a difference?  :brow I'm curios to know if the backing tracks to You're Still A Mystery and Soul Searchin' are the same ones we've heard on bootleg, or if they're the ones that Carl heard and rejected. Are the backing vocals in Soul Searchin' there, or are they edited out?

Yes! 'Can't you feel it'? made me :lol  The piano playing towards the end was a bit bad too.

What's odd is his voice HAD actually changed by that point, but he still was mentally 'on' enough to have better vocal control (for the most part...), but was so wired that it sounded like he was playing around with his voice a bit.  What's really crazy is that at the beginning of the son he sounded like 1972-era Brian trying to sound like 1976 Brian, but the second part (after the whistling) it sounds like 1976 Brian trying to sound like 1972 Brian :lol

The end, with his speaking voice, he sounds like the opening to That Special Feeling.

Nice - I can't remember which thread, but I asked if Brian had rerecorded You're Still A Mystery during the GIOMH sessions, because his vocal doesn't sound like his recent self, and it doesn't sound like it did on the Paley boots, either. He does a pretty good job at enunciating on the box version, far better than his vocals on most of TWGMTR.

(ps - is it Jeff doing the "it's happening again/I thought you were my friend" lines? Some parts of it kind of sound like Bruce is in there.)

I was wondering who did the chorus falsetto, too. Brian seemingly did on the Paley boot, but it really doesn't sound like him, here. Doesn't sound like Jeff, either.

I feel on the 1974 demo Brian still has some of his old tone (the high notes are good) but you hear the rust settling in for good. If Rolling Up To Heaven is anything to go on (which I think sounds less labored), the change really happened rapidly. I would love to hear a full 1972 or 1973 lead from Brian to make sure, but his extant singing on Holland is much better than on California Feeling.  I think we have to go on the speaking tapes around this time too. 1971 with Diane he sounds a little older but the same as sixties Brian. 1973 with PF and Diane he still has the old tone but is coughing a bit. 1974 with Pewter had much more of the 1976 manner, if a little less raspy. Fall 1975 Back Home and 1976 though are still a big drop from California Feeling.

Likewise. Do we know of any that exist?

That spoken part at the end threw me for a loop...that's 1976 Brian! In parts, especially the part right before the piano f*** up, he is channeling Carl.

http://www.examiner.com/article/the-beach-boys-are-made-for-california

I must confess I haven't bothered reading through all the posts in this thread, so please forgive if someone has already adressed this, but could anyone with MIC in their hands desribe the overall feel and detail of packaging, the photos, the amount of text and info. Whatever info you'd like to share would be most helpful. I'm torn between buying the physical release or purchasing it as a digital download and a description of the box / packaging itself would be great.

No box, the CDs are in TSS-like slits at the end of the LP sized hardcover book. Nice sand texture there that makes it look like the CDs are on a beach. Not everybody will like that, I find it tremendous. Many good photos, text is mostly quotes, track info is just about when and where recorded and who sings lead. IMHO really nice to have, but not essential. I don't regret buying this.

Matt Jardine, I would bet. He sang on both.

Thanks.

Regarding the text, aren't there any essays or articles? And if yes, by whom? I think I've read somewhere that the booklet has 70 pages.

Boyd, Linett and Wolfe get 1 column each, rest is quotes, mainly from band members. There's Brian's school essay printed and a letter from I think Mike's mom to Brian. Most of the space is taken by photos. MANY photos. Other than that only a reprinted article from 1966 about the Pet Sounds cover photo shoot.

Thanks. Photos are of course cool but I'm surprised there isn't more 'meat' in the booklet in the form of essays and such. That's a bit disapointing, I think. Are you and others satisfied with the packeging / content besides the content of the discs themselves?

I still really wonder if the 1970 Brian vocal on Don't You Just Know It is really from 1970. The 45 came out in 1973, is there a small chance Brian overdubbed his voice on to a three year old track? Other than that, Daddy Dear from Holland (if it isn't Al) and him playing the Fairy Tale at home in 1973 (in admittedly pretty bad sound) are all that are out. He probably sang lead on a bunch of Sandler stuff like Gimme Some Lovin'. Awake and Silly Walls in high quality from 1971 would be cool too. There still is a lot not issued.

Even though all we have of this 1974 voice is a jokey demo, I think that had it actually been used properly around this time it would be my favourite era of his vocals. It's tastefully worn in the lower register and he still has ability to phrase in ways he didn't have later on. Best of all, his falsetto is still serviceable enough and I imagine it'd still sound killer in a harmony stack.

No he's more in pitch here for sure. Yet I just listened to Rolling Up To Heaven. There even there a month, or mere weeks, before he sounds much more in control and strong.

AS much as I dig most of the new stuff one does have to wonder why they gave us the underwhelming 'Don't Go Near The Water', which actually shows how well the vocals covered a surprisingly tame backing track. The 'Transcendental Meditation' instrumental is a real shot in the leg to listen to. An instant skipper and a horrible way to illustrate the band's arrangement and production capabilities.

Other pointless inclusions are the Smile vocal montage, I would argue 'Da Doo Run Run' was never a good song to begin with and a cover of it on this set was not neccessary. The same could be argued with "Goin' To The Beach", but that one at least passes as an original!

This box is good, very good. But IMO some simple steps could've made it a true all-time classic worth collecting 50 years from now (despite the shite artwork)



(http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/sfmoma_2272_32877233)


remember this? Hah, if only this group could push out artwork similar to this. To me this image speaks far more of California than that yellow wave they put on the MIC cover.



I feel this set leaves me asking more questions than answering the ones I had.
I want to know more about the music recorded in the mid 70'sin particular as 'My Love Lives On' and 'Barnyard Blues' came from left-field and were very nice surprise inclusions. Also this makes Hard Times, Make It Easy and We Got Love more attractive to me. There is plenty of material in the can for sure!
The live inclusions are fantastic. This proves there is much live material int he vault and that more live releases are realistic for the future. MiC ticks off many of the wanted live performances from the late 60's and early-mid 70's period. We only miss Surf's Up and Cool Cool Water live and a few more.



All round a very good collection. There was an attempt to fill in the holes of the 70's such as a real RnR Music mix, Barnyard Blues, good coverage of CalFeelin and the newest classic to the Beach Boys cannon: WIBNTLA!

Good point. Now that we have a clear idea of where BW's voice was at in '74, and of course we already know how he sounded in '69-'70 -  I wouldn't be surprised if that lead was recorded in '73.  He's got that huskiness that's apparent in the '74 recordings but wasn't there yet during the Sunflower period.

I still think that "Don't You Just Know It" might be 1970. It was probably just something tossed off pretty quickly. Although I know Jan didn't do his part 'til 1973 apparently, so maybe Brian's part is from then. Who knows? Actually is there documentation to prove that Brian did his part in 1970? Possibly c-man or AGD might know something about this?


Since you brought it up, what unissued stuff with a possible Brian lead from 1971 to 1975 is around?? Let's see....

"Won't You Tell Me": a boring song, but Brian vocally sounds pretty great
"Silly Walls": the majority of the vocals are David Sandler, but Brian's parts are pretty prominent and he sounds great in my opinion
"Awake": it's been out there, Brian sounds good, but he definitely has a much more shrill sound, definitely a precursor to something like the "She's Got Rhythm" falsetto
"Funky Fever": David Sandler told me this was his song, while AGD's site lists it as "B. Wilson/Sandler"....and who knows if there's a vocal or even a finished instrumental track
"Baby I Need Your Lovin'/Gimme Some Lovin'": apparently a really nice backing track according to David Sandler, but from what he told me it seems like there's no lead vocal
"Rooftop Harry": an instrumentnal track was attempted in 1972...not sure if they even got to the point where a vocal could be added
"Honeycomb": not sure if Brian sang the lead on this, pretty sure it was Marilyn
"Brian's Tune": "dirty" version of "Ding Dang", the falsetto sounds a bit weaker, but still sounds relatively like "classic" Brian
"Lucy Jones": supposedly mostly Steve Kalinich singing, with Brian backing....also, Brian's vocal is supposedly "shouty"
"You're Riding High On The Music": another song with Kalinich, not sure if anybody "in the know" has heard it....not much info about it
"In The Back Of My Mind" (1975 version): probably my most wanted unreleased track, as Brian supposedly sings with both his classic era "clear" voice and also his 15 Big Ones voice

If anybody has anything else they could add (or subtract) to this list, or any info about any of the tracks, feel free to post.

Whatever's on those Mickey Dolenz tapes!


The new Holy Grail.

I'm crossing my fingers that this shows up on the Love & Mercy OST.

It's technology designed to provide a High Definition (HD) presentation of tracks - As per the Great Man himself (Mark L) from the 2001 twofer liners - "The disc has been mastered using the Pacific Microsonics HDCD which encodes 24 bits onto a conventional 16 bit CD."

HDCD cooked up by Pacific Microsonics, who are no longer in biz.  The technology is now owned by Microsoft and codecs are included in Windows Media Player.

The deal is, additional signalling info is encoded onto the CD, giving you a High Def experience, as opposed to the Standard 16 bit (which is what you hear when you play it in a normal CD player).  

HDCD definition is not as high as SACD, because a CD is limited to sampling rates of 44,1khz and frequency range of 20hz - 20khz; SACDs are based on DVD tech and can handle samples up to 2.8ghz + a slightly broader frequency range.  Except for Pet Sounds, I don't know of any other BB SACD releases.

Debate rages but, IMHO, I think the HDCD tracks sound great versus standard CD.

To take advantage of it, here are 3 methods:

1) buy a HDCD compatible CD player - Oppo and a couple of other companies still crank 'em out.  That's the most convenient method if cash is not an issue.

2) If you are a windows user, and you have a 24-bit sound card in your machine you can playback via Windows Media Player.  As long as your speakers are good, you should hear the difference.

3) If you are a windows user, and you have a 24-bit sound card in your machine, and you download Foobar2000 and the HDCD plug-in, then you can rip the CD to 20-bit PCMs (ie a wav file).  That's what I do, and I think it's worth the frickin' around.  The resulting improved clarity of sound and image are worth it.  (If you happen to have digital copies of HDCD tracks, you can run 'em through Foobar - the encoding is in the file, you don't need the source CD)

I've recently done some A/B/Cing of Surfin' USA - standard CD version, Steve Hoffman remastered Gold CD, HDCD rip from the recent reissue (all Stereo mixes) - and the HDCD version blows the Hoffman mastering out of the water.

Some would have it that HDCD is a dead format, but, hear ye, I think it's great that Mark continues to use a format that doesn't require any major equipment investment to get a good result.

Or forget about all that sh*t, and buy a record player for a true HD experience.

BTW, that's all my own layman's opinion and research (by research I mean noddling around on wikipedia and goggle).  Back to MIC spoilers....

Thanks Alan. That was exactly the response I was looking for.

"Don't You Just Know It" always sounded right in line with other late 60s/early 70s Brian vocals to me. What is it about that one that people always say sounds more in line with his late 70s vocals? Maybe in how it's a lot less restrained than, say, "'Til I Die"? Just askin'.

I wouldn't say late 70's. I agree it does have that late 60's / early 70's thing going on. Now that we know he was still capable of pulling off that sound as late as '74 as indicated by the CF demo + Rolling Up To Heaven, I'm thinking there's a better chance that it was recorded a little later than the Sunflower / Surf's Up period. To address your question, imo the falsetto isn't quite as sweet as the Sunflower stuff and he's straining all over the place. His rhythm is a little funky and generally sounds jokey / maniacal / undisciplined which makes me think it could be a '73 vocal. Or maybe a really coked up day in 1970, lol. But it wouldn't be ridiculous to think they pulled him in to record his vocals to finalize the record for release in '73.

Listen to how he does the first "heeyyyoh!" at 0:27. Or "Got me rockin when I oughta be rollin" at 0:56. I can't see the "Where Is She" Brian straining like that. But who knows.

A few more essays and more info on the unreleased tracks would indeed have been welcome.

Still, Brian's falsetto on the bridge of This Whole World is so raspy it makes me feel he sang it with a beard on. As if it was from the Love You period. Check it out!

I always thought that bridge was very nice and clean. Even vocals only.

Ehh, a little too clean. If Brian had reprised that part in '77 it would sound... kinda like Brian reprising his "go to Hawaii" line in "Kona Coast". That high frequency whine in his voice was pretty much gone by then, and the few times he did attempt it, it just didn't sound the same. You can hear Brian himself talking about struggling with the "whine" during the "Goin' On" vocal session in the 1980 KTSA documentary. He's got a frustrated look on his face going "ahh.. i gotta get that whine...".

Funny way of putting it btw haha. "So raspy it makes me feel like he sang it with a beard on!"

I think I like the alternate take of Don't Worry Baby better than the released version, I like Brian's vocal nice and raw like that rather than with all the reverb and double tracking.  Wow, his voice was beautiful back then.

Question:  Surfin' Safari and 409 are listed as "long versions" but they don't sound any different to any version I've ever heard.  Were there ever shorter versions?  Those songs are pretty short to begin with.

Whoah! Who came up with this brilliant design? That would have been way better for the cover. Or almost anything else than the shoddy design on there now. I hope it looks better in real life because judging from the images online it's very dull looking and doesn't complement the sheer brillance of the music at all, I think.

If the backing tracks on Made in California don't convince a person of the band's arrangement and production capability, do you think anything that could take the place of "Transcendental Meditation" could? "Had to Phone Ya" just may be the best backing track Brian ever recorded and while some may disagree, apparently quite a few people think "Good Vibrations" and "Guess I'm Dumb" are pretty good productions too...

I'm going to hazard a guess and say that "Transcendental Meditation" has other reasons for inclusion, such a being a much needed force feeding to many out there who completely miss the intent of the track.

The decision to take this ballsy as fuck backing track and christen it "Transcendental Meditation" is like taking "Summer Means New Love" and titling it "My Father-In-Law Who Defecated Himself to Death". That and the choice to close what is arguably their most serene, laid back album with this monster of a discordant/jarring recording is a total embodiment of Brian's quirky sense of humour.

Tracks like "Transcendental Meditation" prove to me that Brian hungered for challenging the established realms of artistic normalcy. He was a total protopunk, a badass too cool to care about arbitrary rules set by the pseudo-intellectual music community. "I'm fucking Brian Wilson bitch. I'll write my slice-of-life lyrics. I'm gonna make you shake with my army of moog bass. I'll defy conformity to your pretentious expectations."

This instrumental is one of the keys to unlocking understanding of Brian Wilson and his giant middle finger to the man. It's a key which subsequently allows full appreciation of masterworks like Smiley Smile and Love You so it ain't got a chance in hell of being substituted off my Made in California!

Brian was having fun during the Friends period, and that comes across to me.

They're from the demo tape sent to Capitol in '62 along with "Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring" and "Lonely Sea".  They don't have fades and are a few seconds longer than the released versions.

Hehe, thank you, I try to be entertaining. :) Of course I'm not saying the track was altered after it came out, but compare Brian's This Whole World falsetto with, say, The Warmth Of The Sun. The raspiness of the former does remind me more of the beard era falsetto you mention. ;D Or Brian's "ooohs" on Getcha Back, as another example.

I agree 100%, and I havn't even heard it yet!

Mentioning songs like Good Vibrations isn't the best way to argue that Transcendental Meditation should have been included...

I'll just be happy to add another one to my list of Beach Boys backing tracks.

I don't know if I like it better, but it's more powerful and raw as you said - he makes a very difficult vocal sound so incredibly easy.

As for the TM backing track -- I think of it less a Brian being rebellious and more that he simply could write a cool, brassy, aggressive track that sounds nothing like most people's conception of the band.

Great, informative post, Alan!  Thanks for that!  Only a few years ago SACD's were suppose to be the next big thing and the successor to CD's with a larger data capacity, then it was determined that they weren't much better than CD's as far as audio quality. They were popular for a brief period, especially with audiophiles, but never really caught on with the general public.

Since Microsoft owns the rights to HDCD, the primary usefullness for it now is if you have a PC running Windows then it's built into Microsoft Windows Player (Ver. 9 and above.)

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Still, Brian's falsetto on the bridge of This Whole World is so raspy it makes me feel he sang it with a beard on. As if it was from the Love You period. Check it out!
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I always thought that bridge was very nice and clean. Even vocals only.
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Is it just me or is Brians part at that section mixed waaaay back in the a cappella version compared to the original?

I don't remember anyone saying that SACD's were anything but superior sonically to CD's (all else being equal; meaning purely in terms of resolution). It was and is an issue of who is willing to invest the money into the format, and the answer was not very many at all. SACD's are still made (Mobile Fidelity still does some of their releases as SACD hybrids; including the "Pet Sounds" stereo mix), but it's a very niche format. I don't use SACD much at all; but I acknowledge that it's a higher resolution format and with the proper time and money spent, can yield amazing results.

HDCD is another situation altogether. It's the format that has always been only debatably better than CD. While it too largely seemed to fade away due to the apathy of the market and consumers, I have actually read that some mastering engineers specifically say HDCD hinders their process. I had an HDCD enabled CD player going all the way back to 1999, and I never noticed any particular noticeable bump in sound quality. Whereas, SACD's or DVD-Audio discs (or Blu-ray discs for that matter) mastered at a clearly higher resolution can sound markedly better.