The Smiley Smile Message Board

So say all the mixes were made and it came down to making the tracklisting and everything, would you keep it as the same as it is now or would there have been a different line up?
Say there were some extra tracks laying around (only ones you knew of or heard), are there any you'd add?
Any alternate mixes (that you know of or heard) you'd add?

I'm not sure about an alternate track-line up, but I just wanna separate Love Remember Me and Love Surrounds Me, I just dislike seeing the two titles next to each other....I'd honestly throw Love Remember Me towards the end of the album; put it between Constant Companion and Time For Bed....and with that move, I'd like to put Are You Real towards the beginning, get that genius shock out there on the album early. Perhaps after Under the Moonlight. I'd also like to have changed Love Surrounds Me 's title to the earlier title/idea: Love's Around Me.

As for alternative tracks/mixes, I'd like to had heard the version with no sax and keyboards present on most Bamboo rarities packages. I'd also like to have heard Common and Morning Christmas mixed together as maybe a medley or something. And maybe just for kicks, throw the early/Hawaiian version of the He's a Bum track as a hidden track or something. I'd also like to have seen the Mexico Trilogy put together, though I don't know if there's a template to go by for the order of melodies (Time for Bed/Mexico/San Miguel *reworked*).  Maybe throw it together as one track on disc 1 and then as 3 separate songs on the Bambu disc.

Was there an album cover/picture/idea ever thrown around by Denny or was the process of making an album to early to tell?



Would it have been too much to ask or too much $$$ to spend to make a DVD-Making of doc?   ;)
That woulda been amazing

I don't wanna sound ungrateful or not pleased with the set, I am more than grateful that we have this gem. Didn't wanna sound like "the fans will never be pleased" as we've gone over in other threads, I just wanted to hear others ideas about their ideal set because you know we Smiler's love our "What If" scenarios.

Perhaps the instrumental version of "Barbara", though I know it doesn't exactly match that time period...hell, I'm not even convinced it's actually "Barbara", though it sounds very simple.

I'm doubtful whether that set could be improved, really.

First off, are you describing the piano track to Barbara, the one on most Denny/Rarity packages.

2nd, You're right

It's a halfway house between "Barbara" and "Cuddle Up" (aka "Old Movie").  :)

Personally, I would have included the alternate version of Constant Companion with the percussion intro and outro, and the cool sound effect on the vocal. I may have included both the early version and the one that was released on Bambu just to be able to compare the two. Same with the early booted version of He's A Bum. In an ideal world, the early "Baby Blue Eyes" would have been included, even though it's technically not a "Dennis Wilson" solo recording. I would have included the 1979 take of All Alone, although I'm not exactly sure if that was a "Bambu" session or not.

I would have included a third disc of the POB tour rehearsal tapes with Carl. But that's another issue intirely.  ;D I also would have included a DVD documenting the story of all the various legal hassles of getting POB/Bambu released. There would also be a part of the DVD that talked about the discovery and preservation of the session tapes. Finally, I would have put the three CD/1 DVD package in a box, with a POB t-shirt!  ;D

I like your ideas...when it came to Baby Blue Eyes, I didn't know what to do, honestly!

Not sure I'd relish the entertainment value of a DVD of the legal hassles, but I'd've been very happy with a DVD of the BBC doc (maybe a slightly expanded version, for us geeks?) on Dennis, POB and Bambu.

I'd leave Discs 1 & 2 as-are – my God that collection is one of the best in the BBs' entire repetoire – and would include an audio career retrospective on a third CD, which would have had to include WIBNTLA, any version they can find of I've Got A Friend, BBs tracks such as Cuddle Up (45rpm version), Make It Good, Forever (I'm betting there's prob a version or a mix of that we've not yet been treated to), the live Only With You from the '72 Carnegie show (the best version of all to my ears), the quad sound experiments that Dennis conducted with Steve Desper…

Jay, I'll see your POB T and raise it by a Cold Sweat T-shirt!

Reportedly, producer/engineer John Hanlon prepared a more polished mix of the BAMBU selections which would have given the tracks a more "finished" feel. These mixes were rejected in favor of the rougher sound. I'd be all for a three disc version that contained both "polished" and "rough" versions of BAMBU.

They did a great job on the Bambu set.  Except for 'Wild Situation', where they faded out the ending too soon.  ;D

And while we're at it, it sure would be real nice to have the POB album re-mixed!

I just recently read about why that lyric wasn't included because of the final mix they used...It's great to have a "finished" mix of that track though, there's a lot on there we couldn't hear first time around.

BTW, I'd like to hear what you thought of when you first heard "My Love's Commin Down on You" and then listened to "Love Remember Me"

The POB/Bambu reissue, honestly, was about as great as we could have hoped. I was personally more than happy with it. I mean, sure, we can nitpick. There are all of the work-in-progress mixes on boots, a bunch of unreleased alternate mixes, a few more unreleased tunes...patience.

right right, like I said, I just wanted to hear opinions on what perhaps some were expecting....and as I said in my response, I'm very grateful we have the set...With however many Smile mixes there are, I figured there'd be a couple of different track line-ups that others would throw out there....This was prolly one of the best "BB-archival" releases ever, period.

Not trying to cause an uproar to those who put together the set; just wanted to have a good discussion about the release. The whole "fans are never pleased" argument doesn't apply here (or at least my post(s) doesn't apply) because I'm not making a complaint of what it should have been, just "what I would have done given the opportunity," which we all enjoy thinking about.

Anyone know the story behind how Queen's Brian May and Roger Taylor got on to do a version of Holy Man?
Will it ever release?
Just two vocals or stacked vocals?

Well, yeah, it obviously wasn't appropriate for release - the bootlegged version has the ending intact, but I'm not sure some of Dennis' family or others would appreciate the humor. There were a few different versions in different phases of recording circulating for years on boots. It's one of my favorites, if not the favorite track on Bamboo.......uh, Bambu!


How did you know I liked that?  I remember asking Stebbins about this just before Bambu was released - it was a beautiful piece by itself that was circulating before it was integrated into "Love Remember Me" like you said. That part reminds me a little bit of Dennis' "All My Love" from the early 70's.

The so-called "raunchy ending" of Wild Situation was on the work-in-progress mix that became part of the original "Bamboo" bootlegs, but was something Dennis removed from the 16-track master. So the reason it's not there is because, technically, it doesn't exist on the master.