The Smiley Smile Message Board

Of the Smile sessions - how much would you say has leaked (bootlegs etc)? 10%? 25%? 50%? 75%?

And the same for unreleased material by the BB/BW - how much would you say has leaked?

/Just curious :)

I'd say 96%

Smile sessions = 25%

Everything else = 55%

Actually it's all leaked, and no, I'm not sharing.

I'd say most of it is out there. I think we would have heard by now if someone has heard any more fragments. Unless some surprises (i.e. Durrie Parks acetates) have surfaced recently and are being withheld for the new release. I just think we've heard about 95% of it already. Looking forward to hearing it in the best quality sound possible, without compromising the integrity of the original recordings. I trust Mark Linnett will give that to us.

I remember that for years the "Cantina" and "Three Score and Five" segments were rumored to exist. Also rumored for years that there was a 12 minute version of "Heroes & Villains". And an alternate "Wonderful". Same with "Hang On To Your Ego". Then they eventually came out. Well...........I think we've heard 12 minutes worth of "Heroes", don't you think? You can never say never that more isn't out there. If more did exist, it was thrown out at Columbia during their tape cleaning in '69 or was absconded by Bruce or others with access to the Capitol vaults.

I just want to hear the vocal sessions for Good Vibrations.  Unfortunately, I don't think I ever will during my lifetime.....

75% of SMiLE sessions remain in the dark? Using nightvision, how much of that is not just studio farting-around??

I have to think there is some unreleased material around somewere. No proof.

100 % of it.

I think 90-95% is relatively accurate.  There are probably a few gems left to be discovered, but there's already so much out there that it's hard to imagine much more existing.  I'd love to be proven wrong, but given that most of what we've got can be tied to the known list of session dates, there aren't too many left that are unaccounted for.

Most of the tapes that were leaked are backing tracks. Very few vocals, so I bet we get a ton of that.

Thanks all! Yes - the vocal sessions are really nice to listen to - legal or not. Let's hope for more sessions during our lifetime... Some of the stuff should be used for educational purposes! :)

 :lol

I have this bad feeling that, as most of the vocals were done at Columbia, they may have gone the way of the "GV" vocal multitracks in the spring 1967 turn-out.  :o

I really hope that Dennis' "I Don't Know" and the Jasper Dailey sessions are on the new box!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  :angry

And yet "Good Vibrations" was finished and released before spring 1967, but the other SMiLE tracks weren't. Why would tapes be trashed (by Columbia) when the tracks in question had not yet been completed or released?

If the tapes were trashed sometime in the early-to-mid 70s or later, then I would understand (although not appreciate) Columbia's house cleaning.

This doesn't mean I expect to hear many vocal tracks, but "spring '67" seems too early for SMiLE vocals to be thrown out with the garbage.

Unless Brian intentionally threw them out with the garbage.

I think I remember reading about Carl Wilson and Steve Desper transferring the SMiLE tapes to different tape stock, and listening to the sessions, around the time of the Surf's Up album.

Getheheckouttahere!  Where'd you hear a crazy thing like that?

I heard somewhere that Brian was recording a track called "Fire" and around the same time there was a fire in a building next door to the studio and soon after an unusual number of fires broke out in L.A. and Brian thought it was caused by the music, so he got paranoid and scared and burned the tapes.

Anybody remember that story?

That musta been some gooooood pot he was smokin'!

And I also heard that Brian had meetings in his pool, because he thought Murry was bugging his house...  :lol :lol :lol

seconded. i'd bet those dailey recordings are a hoot. honestly though, i suspect we've heard most of everything already.

my only hope is that this project will feature brian's direct involvment in assembling everything into a mindblowing '67 lp length bricolage.  

More like Hash  :smokin

Ummmmmmmmmmm...

Well...he could certainly make an LP-length version for the box set but it'll be missing a ton of stuff.

If we have already heard mostly everything (and for what it's worth I believe we have) it's a shame the spinsters feel compelled to tell us bold faced lies that "everything on this box set will be new".  Hopefully once it's released someone will set the record straight in the mainstream media.

Sorry, I must have missed something somewhere. Who said everything on this box will be new? Are we talking about the new Smile box? Would you please direct me to the article or interview?

If you're going to quote someone, kindly do it accurately. From the 3/11 Billboard article:

BB - "Smile" is one of the most bootlegged albums of all time. What will be new for the listener?

ML - For most of them, the whole thing will be new. The Beach Boys have an enormous amount of material from their whole career and [since] we have been actively doing an archive project for about 10 years, there are things that we have discovered that the bootleggers missed.

"Most of them" is obviously Joe Q. Public, not the likes of us.

And seeing as new things turn up quite regularly, in a (by most accounts) horrifically organised vault, the archival project will most definitely have turned up some new stuff.

So, Columbia, at some point, doing a bit of Spring cleaning, just CHUCKED OUT these tapes of BB's vocal sessions?  How can that happen?  I mean, isn't that...just....WRONG?   Did they even have the courtesy perhaps to contact the band to say, "Hey, just a heads up, but we have a bunch of stuff you recorded here and it's really been cluttering up the place, soooo we're gonna throw 'em all in the dumpster out back - unless of course you would like to have them."   ???

At the very least, however, he DID say that there are new things that "the bootleggers missed" in it. It's good enough for me. Anyone who expects everything in the boxset to be brand spanking new is going to be sorely disappointed. Personally, I'm just hoping for a decent quality version of Holidays. The instrumental version on the BWPS vinyl was god-like.

The way I interpret that quote is that he's speaking directly to collectors or those listeners whom are already familiar with the bootlegs.  Which goes to my point that he's claiming that most of the box set will be new to those listeners.  Therefore my opinion has not changed about that quote.   

Hmmm....I can see where it could be taken either way.

Unfortunately your opinion will change drastically after the set is released IMO.  If more than half of one CD (30 minutes) is new to those familiar with the boots, I'll eat my hat and do two two and a halfs! :)

30 minutes of new stuff we haven't heard before?  I doubt it very much.  If there's 15 or even 10 minutes of 'new' material that has not been bootleged before, I'll be very surprised.

Sadly, it was common practice in music and television well into the 70s.  Of course, the Boys can't have thought these tapes would end up being important either, being as they literally left them on a shelf at the studio...  Personally, given what I know about the regard shown original tapes of popular music/media in the 60s, that the insane quantities of tapes that have survived are still around!

If the question was "What will be new for the collector ?", you have a point. But the term used was "listener". Mark is well aware, and has been for some time, exactly what's out there on boots. Similarly, he stated "there are things that we have discovered that the bootleggers missed", not "there's a lot we've discovered".

If the box has the equivalent of a whole disc of 'new' stuff, I'll be thrilled, and also very surprised.

They didn't target the BB. Bruce told me that the Columbia studio was originally a cinema (or theatre, I forget which), and  tapes were mostly stored in the old balcony. Spring 1967, they needed more space, so they just emptied it. Maybe they assumed that the artists had copies.

I have to assume BJL, that you are in the US, otherwise some of these TV program names might not be as familiar.

I'm quite the fan of chasing the clues on lost material and how it got lost: Music is somewhat related but the issue of TV programs surviving on video tape is a somewhat easier one to address.

The programs were recorded on 2" videotape in the 60's and into the 70's. This format was not only very expensive, but also took up a lot of storage room. If you had a daily talk show like Johnny Carson or Dick Cavett or Joey Bishop, one month of programs on 2" tape was a lot of storage.

I only learned recently from a Dick Cavett interview why his shows survived, and it might say a lot about what is considered "lost" today:

Cavett's network had his run of programs stored on tape, but was going to erase or reuse them which was standard procedure: HOWEVER, they gave him the option of buying the tapes and preserving them at his own cost. Recognizing the importance of having pristine, color copies of interviews with folks like Lennon, Hendrix, Groucho, etc preserved for the future, Cavett bought back his tapes. This is why nearly his entire run is preserved. Joey Bishop's ABC show is all but forgotten: little or no tapes survived. Merv Griffin's show is almost all there. Ed Sullivan's archives are nearly complete. Hollywood Palace, the same. Local shows like the KHJ "Boss City" dance show which Brian appeared on to premiere Good Vibrations are still thought lost - again mostly due to the cost of the 2" tape at the time. Yet some other KHJ TV shows survive in the collections of the actual hosts.

Compare that to Johnny Carson: For years it was thought NBC had in some mix-up or mistake erased almost all of his 60's episodes when he was broadcasting from New York for 90 minutes each night. All that survived for years were audio clips, random small clips which he played on anniversary shows, and maybe a few kinescopes of lesser quality than the videotape masters. Was it really NBC's error, or did Carson or his production team simply not want to buy the 2" reels and store them? Some have been leaking out, various clips here and there, but Carson's 60's output  is still a mystery.

Was it because these artists didn't want to buy and store their own tapes in the music world as well? Or did places like Columbia simply run out of room and not care what happened to them?

If you see an original videotape copy of Carson's Tonight Show in color in the 60's (some clips have leaked...), and compare it to the kinescopes we're more familiar with, the difference is stunning enough to bring a tear to your eye. Much like hearing the poor quality Smile boots versus anything taken from the reels in the vaults.

I had to post an example of this for comparison. Imagine this as the difference between an acetate-sourced Smile outtake and a version taken from a vault tape and it's easy to see where this can go.

I don't have professional video capturing equipment here but this is a decent example:

This is what we've seen for years from Johnny Carson's show in the early 60's: a black and white kinescope sourced from film in this kind of quality:

(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/carson2.jpg)

Compare that to this clip, which was taken from one of the only surviving pieces of original 2" Quad videotape from Carson in the early 60's:

(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/carson1.jpg)

It is truly amazing to think of people watching that show in full, vibrant color after assuming the quality we're most familiar with: black and white, poorly defined images, was the way everyone saw the show at home. The only reason why that original 2" videotape clip survived was it had been given to one of the guests on the show and his family had the tape restored and transferred in the last few years.

Still some of the weirdest phrasing I've ever come across but I can now see that Linett was not being intentional deceptive or anything malicious.  As far as "new stuff" on the box set, like you I'll be pleasantly surprised if there is a significant amount of new material.  Again for me some of the SQ upgrades are going to be more than worth the price of admission.  

I suppose it boils down to what we consider "new" material. I'm sure there will be "session" material that isn't already out there. There probably won't be much in the way of totally alternate versions of songs, and certainly not much if anything in terms of totally new actual songs.

I'd love to hear more of that "Our Prayer" vocal session, and in better sound quality.

What I really hope for is that this released is not drenched in reverb/echo the way most everything with the BB's has been lately that has required any fresh mixing. I don't want this stuff to sound like the stereo remix of "Please Let Me Wonder", where it sounds like I accidentaly hit the "opera hall" setting on a digital receiver.

New songs ?  That is, something we've not heard before in any form whatsoever  ?  Hugely unlikely.

New sessions ?  Almost certainly.

Reading this thread this morning, (and specifically seeing this post above), has really touched on a raw nerve for me.  Strangely, it ties in with why I never had an interest in 'bootlegs', or taped concerts, as I always had an extreme desire in & for purity.  You know, first generation, and what an artist wants us to hear.  (Made it all the more profound for me that I got so deeply involved in the studio with The Boys...)
As an archivist, and particularly as the creator and artist personally behind a great of my archives, I long ago accepted the fate of my work once it was 'out there', and published in some way.  With the advent of the internet, I faced a fear I'm sure is shared by archivist everywhere, that nothing is safe from duplication anymore.  And, while the digital age has minimized the effects of generation loss, there is no substitute for getting as close to the source as possible - as is evident from the Carson examples. 
A little closer to home, my personal & artistic disaster was Malcolm Leo somehow illegally obtaining a copy of my film for The River Song!  While I did license memorable material to him for An American Band, I absolute said NO to using that footage.  Compare the quality of my footage in his film to recent uses of River Song by both Sony for the recent release, and in the BBC documentary on Dennis - it's like night and day.  Interestingly, the example I found on YouTube is someones reedit of my footage; the internet at it's best:
                                                                                      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arQUVdjI2y0
This thread also brings up another dilemma for archivists, and that is the ever- changing need to upgrade from original sources, and the massive expense in doing so.  Transferring every piece of film and video to the latest, cleanest medium isn't only wise, it's become essential with hi-def & wider formats.  Fortunately for me, each time I revisit to update, there are always new revelations, or things newly significant...

The same hold true for silent movies - the difference between the poor prints routinely shown on TV, and often projected, and a print struck from the original negative (or even a safety copy), is shocking. Irrespective of the qualities of the acting and scenario, technically a movie from 1910, or earlier, was originally as sharp and crisp as one made in the 80s.

A brilliant point Andrew, as a lover of silent films I'm very enthusiastic about this. AND we must remember that silent films were almost never silent. They were accompanied often by symphony orchetras and at the very least piano.

I need to add one more element to this discussion, after reading some of the great posts about source material and quality:

Just recently the Smithsonian found a series of photographs from a man named Ives, who was experimenting with color photography in the 1890's into the 1900's. He just happened to use some of his new techniques to capture the way San Francisco looked in the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake.

When these first showed up on a news site, I was mesmerized by them. I couldn't stop looking at them and I got a strange feeling of being closer than ever before to the events shown in the photo. It was the same feeling I got seeing the Carson clip taken from the master videotape rather than a later-generation copy or kinescope: It feels as if you are *there*, and the history comes alive.

Look at the colors of the advertising billboards in this Ives photo from 1906. We have been programmed to see and feel 1906 in black and white, or in rickety and shaky newsreel footage where details don't matter as much as the overall shot. Here we can see the detail, and it's very shocking, again like the examples we've mentioned earlier. It feels more immediate and more real, and this has not been colorized after-the-fact, it is the original photo as Ives made the image.

I'm thinking more and more, especially after thinking about it through this thread, that the highlight of a Smile box set may just be the ability to hear this music as close to the source as we could imagine, short of being in the studio as the master tapes are being played. Seeing it from that point of view, I'm more excited than I've been to hear this than I was since they announced it.

(http://sfist.com/attachments/SFist_Brock/sfquakeincolor.jpg)

Have to say the work done on restoring old classic black and white Doctor Who shows comes to mind while reading this, Simply breathtaking. :)

Just that one photo you posted is quite stunning guitarfool - if I didn't know any better, I'd say it was from the 50's or 60's. 

What hasn't leaked are pristine, lovingly mixed/edited CD quality material.  Everything available.

Like the Barnyard demo - the best possible quality version will be released.  Not some crappy, scratchy piece of merda.

I'm just happy to not EVER AGAIN spend money on a Smile bootleg.

It's even more impressive when viewed as intended, as one of a stereo pair. However, as is hinted at by the coloured edges, it wasn't a commercially viable process. Basically, each image comprised three separate plates - red/blue/yellow - taped together in precise register, and the camera required doesn't bear thinking about ! The Autochrome process developed by the Lumiere brothers (yes, same ones) killed it.

I think that if this set puts paid to the SMiLE bootleg industry that would be a marvellous accolade for Mark and Alan.

Something tells me, though, that, despite their very best efforts, we might never hear the end of SMiLE.

Indeed, some bootleggers might be holding on to tapes in order to cash in on the huge wave of interest the release of the official set will generate.

There might never be an actual new song, there might never even be a significant new mix discovered, but I reckon there'll be a sloooooooow trickle of studio talk, session extracts and such.

SMiLE's been a mystery for decades and, like the Loch Ness Monster, Area 51 and the ingredients of Coca Cola, there'll always be an element of mystery.









At least, until AGD writes the definitive, nuts-and-bolts chronological account with notes on inspiration and scene-setting by Bill Toberman and Fishmonk!  ;D

Remember what happened with The Pet Sounds Sessions ? Three CDs crammed full with a first-time stereo mix, tracking sessions, vocal sessions, tracks only, vocals only and a whole mess of other stuff... and before I could get the shrink-wrap off my copy people were bitching about what wasn't included from Capitol Punishment and/or the 8-disc SOT set.

Always remember this - going right back to the 1990 2fers (which rightly set the industry standard), Capitol don't have to do this. None of it. They've made more bucks out of the three GH volumes, Sounds of Summer and The Warmth Of The Sun than all the other rarities comps and boxes put together.  We're always bitching about Capitol putting out yet another compilation, yet when they do give us something like, say, Hawthorne CA, some dickwad will pipe up and say they didn't like it because their beloved five seconds of silence only broken by Brian farting in the key of F sharp had been excised from the fade of "Barnyard"... and it'll be exactly the same with The Smile Sessions, only worse - much, much worse.  Of course, if there's something truly bad or ineptly executed, or just plain wrong then that criticism will be deserved, but even then, fact is Capitol are doing this for the kudos, not the profits.

AGD - that's the most appropriate use of 'dickwad' I've heard in a long time

Personally I am very much looking forward to the Box Set - I think it will be great

What I am not looking forward to is some of the dickwad responses  :hat

I can see both sides of the story.  First off those who tend to complain about what isn't included on sets like this likely already have the material already in their collections which brings forth the question: "What are they complaining about"?  However, I've always felt that any time someone asks the consumer to plunk down money for a product, if the consumer is unsatisfied with the product he has a right to complain.  Furthermore venting on a message board to fellow fans in the long run really doesn't do any harm and is really the only recourse for fans looking to "register a complaint".  I don't see anything wrong with that and in fact can produce some lively discussion as to what was included vs. what wasn't included.

I'm also not of the opinion that Capitol is mainly doing this for the plaudits of the fans and not for a profit.  Sure they will make more money selling to the mainstream consumer but they've already cornered that market for years with all of their compilations that you mentioned.  People will always buy Beach Boys greatest hits albums and hopefully some of them will listen to those hits records and think to themselves "Hey this is a pretty good band...I wonder why I don't have any more albums by them in my collection" and then they go and buy the two-fers and so on and so forth.

In the case of the "SMiLE" boxset they are marketing to a different demographic of Beach Boys fans, smaller in size but also quite bankable.  Think of it this way: They've likely already sold copies of the deluxe edition of the boxset to most of the people posting on this website right now.  They are obviously more out there just like us that don't post here and they've already sold "SMiLE" boxes to those folks too.  So essentially they have the cash of many in their pockets months before the actual release date.  Then you have to add on to that any fans they will bring in by their promotional campaign, word of mouth or their clever marketing ploy of releasing the album in several different formats.  I'm sure there will be more than a couple people out there who will buy the standard version of the set only to find that they enjoy the "SMiLE" music and then buy the deluxe edition.  So essentially there they would've have sold the same music twice to those consumers.

The bottom line for me is that first and foremost it's always about the money when it comes to big business.  They have different ways and approaches to getting cash into their pockets but in the end it's really the same bit of business.  For example as Doug Sulpy rightfully pointed out recently on his forums, the "Lost Lennon Tapes" radio series wasn't so much a generous act on the part of Yoko Ono to share unreleased Lennon music with his fans but a selling point for the radio series itself which generated a lot of bank for all of those involved in it's production.  It also whetted the appetite of Lennon fans for more of this stuff which Ono has been able to sell to them in various formats over the past decade from box sets, to remasters to more reissues and so on and so forth.

 

Anyone wishing to see the 1906 earthquake photos both individually and as a stereo pair can find them here:

http://www.howtobearetronaut.com/2011/03/san-francisco-earthquake-1906-in-colour/ (http://www.howtobearetronaut.com/2011/03/san-francisco-earthquake-1906-in-colour/)

There are a few other color shots of the quake included there as well. Also of interest on that same site are a group of Charlie Chaplin photos, showing him in color from another early experiment with color photography and processing. It's not quite the gut-level impact as the 1906 photos, but seeing a younger Chaplin in color is still a bit of a shock.

The specific San Francisco photo I posted features those color billboards: It speaks to the way we have been conditioned over time to see 1906 in black and white, and to see Charlie Chaplin in black and white. As soon as that level of familiarity is removed and they start to appear closer to a modern image, in sharper color with bright and active colors and graphics on an everyday advertisement, it almost changes your perception of the subject of that image and you feel more connected to it.

I cannot stop thinking of the comparisons to various Smile recordings, and how we've known certain songs for 25+ years as poor-sounding and noisy recordings as many here have already been saying...and like the people who discovered those 1906 color shots after decades in storage, I cannot wait to hear what shows up on the box set in a more vibrant quality than we've known.

The Chaplin shots are fascinating - they're autochromes, btw - because the colors of the pants and the waistcoat are NOTHING like I'd imagined. Can you imagine what Intolerance would have looked like, even in something like Kinemacolor ? (In fact, Karl Brown shot some tests of the big Babylonian set using an adapted camera - lord, would I love to see that footage).

It's incredible to see that man appearing in color because every image in my mind of Chaplin as a younger man is in black and white! The most mundane elements like seeing Chaplin in front of a brick wall and seeing the bricks as red, not to mention the colors of his clothing, can also be the most jarring because it's unlike any image of him which most people have in their minds.

Did those test shots from Intolerance survive, or are they lost as of now? Any color footage or imagery of any kind from those years would be magnificent.

I'd jump through a ring of fire to see that. That set is amazing enough in black and white.

According to Brown, he modified a camera and shot Kinemacolor-style footage of the Big Set, then rigged up a projector and showed it to Griffith, who was impressed, but declined to toss something like nine month's footage in the bin and start again. Brown, as you doubtless know, worked for the Kinemacolor company when he first arrived in LA, and Griffith bought the studio when they went under.

On a related note, there's apparently a reel of Napoleon vu par Abel Gance that was shot in both color and 3D.

Never could figure out how to see the Chaplin images; I did enjoy watching that guy in AGD's avatar walking and talking on his mobile phone( sans the stovepipe hat, of course)

Vigotone's "Capitol Punishment" was not "Pet Sounds" material. It contained sessions for "The Beach Boys Today", and it was rendered obsolete by the 8 discs of material on Sea of Tunes' "Unsurpassed Masters" Vols. 7 & 8. For me, the only glaring omission from the official "Pet Sounds Sessions" box was the single version of "Wouldn't It Be Nice".

As for whether much more 1960's Beach Boys session material exists beyond what "Sea of Tunes" released, it should be noted that for certain songs(notably on "Summer Days & Summer Nights") that "Sea of Tunes" didn't have access to the 2nd(of 2) multitracks, I.E. the "Stage 2" multitracks after 3-track to 3-track, 4-track to 4-track or 3-track to 8-track reductions(or "Bounces" as some refer to them). For example, "Sea of Tunes" didn't have access to the "Stage 2" multitrack for "Do You Wanna Dance" that has the overdub which doubles Dennis' lead vocal, and they didn't have access to the "Stage 2" multitrack which has the released(correct lyric) vocals for "Amusement Parks U.S.A.". And before you ask, the "Stage 2" multitrack for "Sandy"(if there ever was one) doesn't exist. Mark Linett has explained that the little bit of vocals present on the bootleg release of the song are all that exists in The Beach Boys tape vault.

All of this suggests, that if there were "Stage 2" multitracks for certain "Smile" songs, and "Sea of Tunes" didn't have access to some of them, that there COULD be some unheard additional vocal or instrumental overdubs on (otherwise) familiar "Smile" tracks. But if this proposed "Smile" box doesn't happen, the undeniable reality, is that we have most of the music already.

Direct link to Chaplin: http://www.howtobearetronaut.com/2011/04/charlie-chaplin-1917-1918-in-colour/ (http://www.howtobearetronaut.com/2011/04/charlie-chaplin-1917-1918-in-colour/)

Sample from that link:
(http://www.howtobearetronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Charlie-Chaplin-in-colour-1-520x455.jpg)

The Coke ingredients are out there and obtainable.  The mystery I'll go to my grave still wondering about will probably never be solved - what exactly happened in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

Duh ! Thanks for pointing that out. I was misremembering Leggo my Ego.


The reason that the Summer Days SOT box was only 4 discs became clear when the call went out for tapes for the 1993 Capitol box... and a lot of those sessions turned up at Columbia (I know, and yet they lost the "GV" vocal multitracks !). The SOT, uh, compilers only had "access" to the BRI storage facility.


Phil, when the box is released - not on July 12th, but almost certainly before October 1st (this year  ;D) - will you then admit that you've been in the wrong about this all along ? Just as I will if it doesn't see the light of day before 1/1/12 ?

"Capitol Punishment" also included Summer Days material. And "Little Girl I Once Knew" and "3 Blind Mice" and Glen Campbell swearing, and the excellent acapella part in "Please Let Me Wonder"......

Exactly: JFK was shot, and died.

And what do you know?  Another smart-ass comment from Bgas!

Thank you, Thank you very much!

Amazing!  This building exists very much today as it did then, although not the ones next to it.  It's right on the beach in Venice; (in fact, it just reminded me that I have more lives than a cat!  I used to have an Indian artifact shop in that building, called Taos Trading Co.)  I searched to find an image of it today, and instead was shocked to see that Charlie never actually lived there - at least according to this website:  http://www.venicepaparazzi.com/2011/01/05/murals-of-venice/
Continue north on Ocean Front Walk. Past Paloma Avenue, you will see Charlie Chaplin’s Gingerbread Court (1913). No one knows why it is called after the famous silent film star because he never lived in Venice. What is known is that his first movie “Kid Auto Races at Venice,” was filmed in Venice in 1914.

I should add to this thread that when I was doing research for the TV/Film articles on the BBs that I contributed to ESQ-I got in touch with the David Frost archives and the Carson archives people. They were quite nice and took the time to answer all my questions.  As I feared-the "Lost" Frost app from May 1971 where Dennis performed "Forever" and "Lady" and the BBs sang "Vegetables" was indeed destroyed.  Clearly-however-there is an audio tape of this app-since it has been booted.  It also had a cool interview where Dennis discussed filming Two Lane Blacktop.  The Carson people also told me the same thing-the BBs made two 1968 apps on the show-with Johnny as host and both are gone.  The May 2 68 app would have been fascinating-because it was basically the BBs promoting their about to begin tour with Maharishi and talking about why TM is so great-plus singing "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring" and some "Friends" songs.  There is an audio tape of this too I should add-but tragically only the songs not the interview.  That being said-it is always possible that a fan made a kinescope of one of these shows that may turn up

I remember Domenic Priore telling me about research into a Beach Boys appearance on "The Mike Douglas Show" where the group performed a few songs from "Friends", but the performance was lost, not by the tape being disposed of, but rather by tape deterioration which had rendered the tape unplayable.

Wow and thanks for sharing those links! Beautiful.

The vests and (blue?!) pants ruin the illusion of my favorite actor, Chaplin. Thank God color wasn't feasible back then.

Will there be things that collectors have on bootlegs that will not be included on the official SMILE box. Hell yeah. Will there be tracks on the official set we never have heard before. Of course! Because lets look at the facts of the issue. 4 CDs on the Capitol box set. There have been 2 CD's from Vigotone in 1993, another disk from them in 1998, 4 CD's from SOT and the "SECRET SMILE" downloads(2 CD's) from the 2000's. Even if you get rid of all the dupilcate tracks, there is still way more material than 4 CD's will handle. But what we WILL get from Capitol is primo, primo outtakes. Mark and Alan are really and truly busting ass to make sure this is a set that the fans will love. They want to do it right, not only for the fans, but for Brian as well. As someone who got a 10th generation tape of Fire in 1980 and heard the first 2 SMILE LP's from 1983 and 1985 and almost passed out from excitement, this is truly a dream come true!

Everyone (not just saying "you kids" but us old guys two) is so use to having everything right there at their fingertips, this is really a situation that needs to be treated as groundbreaking. Because if you actually lived through the heartbreak of 1966 (which I didnt), and the lost promises (which I did) of 1972, 1979, 1981, 1988, and 1996, this truly is a gift. Thanks to Mark and Alan!!!

Bob Flory

I totally agree with what Bob Flory has said. There will inevitably be moans on here about what's NOT on this box when it comes out... but when you consider what we'll be getting in return, it totally balances out for me. As someone else said here recently, if the set was JUST a CD of all the known SMiLE backing tracks in CD-quality mono with NO session stuff at ALL, it would STILL be a must-have for the tracks we don't already have in any way officially, and/or in decent quality (eg. Mrs O'Leary, Holidays, Look, Child Is Father Of The Man etc etc).

I'd buy that if it was out. 1 CD, 12 tracks, mixes in mono, no frills. Here's my cash. Where do I sign? And we're getting WAY more than that!

Well, we hope, anyway...!

MattB

Blimey, I hope no-one interpreted my speculation as a moan. I'm checking online every day for a pre-order on each version of this set ('cept iTunes). No way will I be complaining!   ;D

As far as the Smile box set is concerned I was definitely not expecting anything like the roughly 11 CDs of stuff that circulate now. The bootlegs will still serve a purpose as far as more in-depth listening is concerned; much like the case with the Pet Sounds box. Take them as a pair of stuff. You'll be more than able to have a succinct, fruitful listening experience with both the official box set and the bootlegs.

I'm guessing this was the May 1968 appearance, coinciding with the release of Friends. That would be a shame! A large number of the Mike Douglas episodes survived, and just a few years ago the show's vaults were made available for fee-based licensing, so networks and programs could buy the rights to air various Douglas clips right from the vaults. It was neat that they had a search feature where you could search specific people and find out when they appeared. That website is no longer active. I do remember there were missing shows, especially from the 60's era...that would be the "Friends" program's fate it would seem.

The precedent is there for similar items showing up in a fan's collection: The "lost" Monkees appearance on Carson's show has been circulating for decades now on a poor-quality audio, but at least it still exists in some format. The infamous Lennon-McCartney appearance on Carson's program the night Carson was on vacation for the week exists the same way, but as both fan-recorded audio and home movie, which was basically the fan or his/her parents setting up a home movie camera in front of the family TV set and shooting a primitive kinescope at home.

The only thing that diminishes the hope for such a Beach Boys find is that the Monkees and Beatles had a larger teen and pre-teen fan base at the time of those appearances, who would possibly convince their parents to set up the camera and capture their heroes on a late night TV show (especially those past their bedtimes!). I have doubts that a Beach Boys fan who would be interested in TM and meditation would have set up the ol' 8mm home movie camera to capture that as the kids had wanted to see the Monkees and Beatles. I hope I'm wrong!