The Smiley Smile Message Board

Simple question really, how did the SMiLE bootlegs get from thier earlier states to what they are now? Following on from that, what did the first SMiLE boot consist of, and, does anyone have a comprehensive list of all SMiLE boots available, mainly on Vinyl. Fan Mixes don't really count, but you can list them as well if you have a good list of them.

As far as I know, Vinyl wise, there is the good ol' Sea Of Tunes issue, which i have on Red Vinyl, and the 3LP version (on its way!), but bar that, very little else is known to me.
 

Other people would certainly know more than I, but to my understanding it started in the 1988 with the Vigotone bootlegs, which were copies of Mark Linett's rough mixes of his first attempts at making a SMiLE album.  Then in 1997 the Sea Of Tunes bootlegs were dubs of the multi-track masters from Brothers Records, made on-the-sly while filming for the documentary was done.  That is why there is such harsh hard-panning, because it was the straight division of the multi-tracks. 

I find it interesting how the construction of SMiLE evolved... 
1) Mark Linett throws some pieces together in the 80s
2) Priore writes his book about it, proposes sequencing
3) Vigotone reinterprets that sequence
4) Sea of Tunes reinterprets the Vigotone sequencing in the 90s
5) Darian reinterprets the Sea of Tunes sequencing for SMiLE 2004
6) Linett reinterprets Darian's sequencing for TSS

So in the end, what we think of as "the finished SMiLE" is really nothing more than perpetuated mythos, an idea that has been evolving in the minds of other people for 40 years, all having little to do with Brian himself.  Correct me if I'm wrong here...

The first Smile bootlegs precede the Linett material, and compile tracks from the Byron Preiss tape with officially released tracks. The first of these came out around 1983.

The first Smile bootlegs circulated amongst collectors on cassette tape around 1979 or '80.

The vinyl boots are:

1983 single LP Brother
1985 single LP (Second Edition) Brother
2 LP Brother
3 LP Vigotone
Single LP SOT

I've been trying to acquire smile vinyl boots for some time but with little success.  :(

1978/’79 – The "Priess tape".
1983 – First SMiLE bootleg, vinyl.
1985 - Second SMiLE bootleg, vinyl.
1987 – First SMiLE bootleg, CD.
1988 – Mark Linett SMiLE mixes.
1990 – Smile - Japanese T-2580-2 CD.
1990 - Smiley Smile 2-fer (bonus tracks - Cantina!) Priore played the tape of Heroes a few years before at a Beach Boys fan convention in Oakland, California.
1993 – Good Vibrations box set (bonus tracks).
1993 - SMiLE - Vigotone 110/111 2-CD boot.
1993 - SMiLE - Vigotone 3 album set, multiple colored vinyl.
1995 – Dave Prokopy SMiLE 3 tape set.
1998 - Heroes and Vibrations - Vigotone CDR boot.
1999 - Sea Of Tunes Vol. 15 - Good Vibrations Sessions 3-CD boot. First heard alternate Good Vibrations (Asher lyrics) in 1976.
1999 – Sea Of Tunes Vol. 16, 17. Best quality SMiLE tracks to date.
2000 - SMiLE - Millenium edition.
2001 – Archeology.
2001 - Project SMiLE.
2004 - Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE (including instrumental tracks not included on original release).
2004 - Secret SMiLE.
2005 - SMiLE – Purple Chick Reconstruction.

Many thanks for that Mikie - two I haven't got are the Prokopy Tapes and the Millennium edition; did the latter present anything new?

Coupla slight corrections: the first CD boot was out in 1989, and the 2nd one was, essentially, the Linett tape (although he had nothing to do with the leaking of it).

Addition:

1998 - Vigotone VT-163 - Heroes & Vibrations (taster for their box set that never happened)

What was Dennis Wilson's involvment? Andrew, I think you once mentioned that he accidently leaked a few tapes in a round about way.

ha ha that's funny, hope that's true (good old dennis). Re people guessing the tracklisting of the Smile tracks, didn't Brian ever produce any written notes etc back in the day to help subsequent compliers?

Not exactly - someone assumed that Dennis leaked the Preiss tape, but he didn't. Allegedly, Diane gave Preiss a copy, and it leaked thereafter.

Bootlegs are illegal.

I am not interested at all.

Which bootlegs are still indispensable, now that TSS is out there?

I hate bootlegs and am not interested at all.

Because Preiss was working on a book, right?

What about the tapes that comprise the boots Heroes & Villains sessions, parts 1 & 2? Or is that covered in your list? It's got a lot of unique stuff, but from what I gather is a digital era boot?

1978/’79 – The "Priess tape".
1983 – First SMiLE bootleg, vinyl.
1985 - Second SMiLE bootleg, vinyl.
1989 – First SMiLE bootleg, CD.
1989 – Mark Linett SMiLE mixes, CD
1990 – Smile - Japanese T-2580-2, CD.
1990 - Smiley Smile 2-fer (bonus tracks - Cantina!) Priore played the tape of Heroes a few years before at a Beach Boys fan convention in Oakland, California.
1993 – Good Vibrations box set (bonus tracks).
1993 - SMiLE - Vigotone 110/111 2-CD boot.
1993 - SMiLE - Vigotone 3 album set, multiple colored vinyl.
1995 – Dave Prokopy SMiLE 3 tape set.
1998 - SMiLE - Heroes and Vibrations.
1999 - Sea Of Tunes Vol. 15 - Good Vibrations Sessions 3-CD boot. First heard alternate Good Vibrations (Asher lyrics) in 1976.
1999 – Sea Of Tunes Vol. 16, 17. Best quality SMiLE tracks to date.
2000 - SMiLE - Millenium edition.
2001 – Archeology.
2001 - Project SMiLE.
2004 - Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE (including instrumental tracks not included on original release).
2004 - Secret SMiLE.
2004 - Heroes and Villains Sessions Part 1 & 2.
2005 - SMiLE – Purple Chick Reconstruction.

Corrections noted. Thanks. Yes, forgot about Heroes & Vibrations and the Heroes & Villains Sessions 2 CD set - as far as I know H & V Sessions came out on CD only. Comprised some of the SOT and Archeology material, but other stuff too that eventually came out in better quality.

Andrew, I always assumed that the Vigotone 110/111 2 CD set was the teaser to the proposed box set. But the '98 Vigotone release was the precurser to the unreleased Box, eh?

John - No biggee on the Millenium disc. I remember asking John Hunt about it when I first heard about it and he said not to bother. Inconsistent quality all over it. The Prokopy tapes were great at the time, compiling pretty much everything up to that point, but all subsequently released in better quality down the road.

Umm... care to reconsider that statement ?  On my copy, all the tracks are original Smile session material. No album versions.

This CD, btw, is about the crappiest sounding Smile boot I've ever heard, cassettes included.  ;D


From the back insert: ""Heroes And Villains" and "Good Vibrations", the two greatest works of Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys' career, are examined on Heroes And Vibrations, the taster for Vigotone's forthcoming multi-disc Smile box set".

Would I lie to you, Mikie ?  ::)

I'm at work and not even in front of my collection, Andrew. Been so long I can't remember. I thought that first CD was comprised of the vinyl issued material previously, but no, eh?  I edited the statement out.  Please, please forgive me, OK?

FTR, the Prokopy tapes were compilations of basically the best-of-the-boots and filling in some gaps from the GV box set. He had a 2-tape set of Smile going around in 1993, and I think that wasn't even the first version...(and he created his own stereo mix of "CIFOTM" by synching two different mixes)

Basically, it was a way for people to hear the best out there without having to fork over $25-$30 per CD to hear it...

And the liner notes were much better!

Can't we piece together where the tracks come from on those early releases by reading the Preiss book? Every Smile era track or recording that is described in detail would eventually be found on one of the early "Preiss Tape" based Smile albums, with filler and non-Smile joke tracks like Miles Davis.

"I found the Fire tapes!" :)

And I'm sure you guys know the story of the Miles Davis "Here Come De Honey Man" track on the first Smile bootlegs, don't ya?  :-D  It was on one of the first cassettes I had of Smile and made it onto the first vinyl release and maybe the second one; can't remember for sure. At least the first cassette and vinyl release under the title "Holidays".

A very funny tale :lol

Are you guys talking about the Sphinx version with the live tracks at the beginning?  If so, I had no idea it was the first cd boot.  It does sound terrible.

It would be nearly impossible to list all the cd versions.  There's just so many and they're still being made.  I've seen some in record stores that I've never found any reference to online and I've read about a few online that I've never seen anywhere.

No - we're talking about The Smile Era Outtakes on Quality (!) Compact Productions 67001 (from Korea, allegedly - I know where this disc originated and it wasn't there).

The ones on Sphinx are "Alive and Smiling" and "Good Vibrations: Smile".  "Alive and Smiling" is the one with live tracks. It's an old one. There's another old one too called "Smile - Bits and Pieces".

I have GEMA Smile, a 2-disc set which bundled one CD of the standard Linett-Vigotone stuff with that "Bits And Pieces" disc.

I chose that one over the others, the day I got it, because it came with a free poster. Yep. :-D

Thanks for the info guys.  I don't have The Smile Era Outtakes but I looked it up and the tracklist is identical to the Smile stuff on the Sphinx cd.  I guess they re-booted it fast.  Alive and Smiling was actually the second Sphinx boot (content wise, it's the same as the first).  The first one from 1989 is just called Smile, with a black and white version of the Frank Holmes art.

The first SMiLE CD boot I remember seeing/hearing was this one:

SMiLE - The Early Years - 02-CD-3317

Anybody else remember this?

http://www.bootlegzone.com/scan.php?scid=44043

http://www.bootlegzone.com/beatleg/discs/scans/02-cd3317-2foldinside.jpg

There was a spoken bit by Brian during one of the Good Vibrations tracks where he said something like "OK, so we have the two chorus's on the one take, now all we need is this little intermediate part" or SOMETHING like that. Does anybody know where that bit of dialog comes from?

O yes I do, that was the first SMiLE boot I ever bought !

That originated in the 1976 "Best Summers of Our Lives" radio special: comes from, oddly enough, a "GV" session.

The Smile CD you're referring to, Smile - The Early Years - 02-CD-3317, came out in the late 80's. Hear the clicks and pops on some of the tracks when you're playing it? Does the artwork look familiar? Notice that "Can't Wait Too Long" was included? Hear the songs on it that were legitimately released in better quality than the rest? That's because some of the tracks were sourced from one of the early vinyl releases. Sound quality ain't so good either. Good thing subsequent boots were much better!

The dialog from one of the Good Vibrations sessions, like AGD says, was first heard on a radio special in 1976. It can also be found on SOT 15 and other boots with the Good Vibrations sessions. Have to look and see, but seems to me it's on a legit release as well - I know some of that session dialog is somewhere.

"Really felt good, let's play it!    OK, we have two four tracks......."

What's the quality like on the 3LP version, and is it a worthy addition?

Sound is the same as the Vigotone double CD. In my opinion, the best Smile vinyl bootleg by a far margin.

The Vigotone releases are pretty good, but I'll take SOT 16 and 17 over all of them.

The quality of the Smile vinyl boots is a non-factor by now. There is little or nothing that can't be found in better quality somewhere else. I'm glad, in a way, that the novelty of the vinyl boots has become just that - a novelty. Because for the most part, the sound quality wasn't worth the cost of admission. At least compared to what came later.

Don't forget, that cost of admission could be quite high...examples to follow.

Here is a blast from the past, from the days before CD burning and file sharing, when crappy cassettes and low-level high-speed dubs were sold or traded as the substitute for paying "retail" for this stuff if you wanted it. The "good old days"! I think the statute of limitations has run out, but I didn't include the names...and note the prices. First one from 1991, second from 1994.

(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/smilead2.jpg)

(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/smilead1.jpg)

They're right - the Japanese T2580-2 CD boot was The One. Second ever: I played mine a few weeks ago, and the quality blew me away.

Who's right?  I think they're talking above about the 2-CD Vigotone release as being the best. That's different than the Japanese SMiLE that came out around 1990. Think I paid 30 or 40 bucks for that at the time.

The Japanese T2580-2 CD (20 tracks) that I have has no indication of who released it. Yeah, that's an excellent quality disc that was supposedly compiled by Linett when a legit release of SMiLE was considered in 1988. This contained the original versions of Wind Chimes and Vega-Tables, Brian’s solo demo of Surf’s Up, and 7 minutes of unreleasased Heroes and Villains segments.

The Japanese 2580, Sea Of Tunes Unsurpassed Masters 16 & 17 (box set), and the Vigotone sets were the best quality sound wise, I believe.

I think he was referring to the CD advertisement from 1991 which I scanned, where it says "This is the one!!" next to the Japanese Smile listing.

Guitarfool, those ads remind me of Goldmine, Discoveries, and Record Collector magazines that I use to pick up and read from front to back. Those prices look very familiar!! This was before the Internet and free downloads. You relied on either a fanzine or fellow collector to give you a heads up on the tracks and quality, attend a record swap meet, or call the shop/seller/trader who was selling the boot to give you information on it, or for CD's, last resort was to settle on a CDR! For my Beatles stuff, I subscribed to Belmo's Beatleg News and Sulpy's 910. By the way, Sulpy has a new issue out on the new SMiLE Sessions - interview with Carol Kaye is in there for AGD to scrutinize....  ;D

Wherewherewherewhere ?

http://www.dougsulpy.com/dougsulpy.com/Home.html

Me too! I used to get the issues and first check the ads for anything that said "Beach Boys", "Monkees", or "Chicago", and I'd usually find little to nothing of interest! The first Goldmine I ever got was a free giveaway sample copy at a record show in Valley Forge, PA. After that I was hooked. And I began sending Self Addressed Stamped Envelopes all over the US to get the "good stuff" on the lists.

Those magazines may still be the only places where Merrell Fankhauser albums are more popular than The Beatles or Beach Boys... ;D

Good times, pre-internet. :)

I remember Belmo's Beatleg News and the 910. I still have an old "pamphlet" of Belmo's Beatleg News. It was badically about 5 or so pieces of paper stapled together, and the graphics were terrible, like they were printed from an ancient 1980's computer.  ;D

This one's for AGD:

I don't have a bleg called SMiLE on the Chapter One label. IIRC (am not at home now) the cover features Brian sitting in a pool, holding up a Gold Disc Award. Is this one a copy of that Japanese ST2580 disc?

Disclaimer: I don't have bootlegs and am against them, because I read in the Bible that possession of, and listening to, counterfeit material will be severely punished in the afterlife.

So in all probability I will meet none of you all here, nor Sahanaja and his merry troupe, after all of us will have passed away. But I will try to convince God to treat you all to a good pint of beer every now and then.

This is a really good (but deceptively massive!) question, anyone care to have a stab at it? It's probably a question of which tracks off which boots, though.  Is there a digest of the latest Smile discography that highlights these items? Other tortured complete-ists out there would I'm sure cherish such a resource....

Belmo's Beatleg News (67 issues) was available between 1987 and 2001. Most of those issues were between 8 and 12 pages long, sometimes up to 20, and came out usually 4-5 times a year. He complied them all in a book called "The Beatles - Not For Sale". Beatleg News was a VERY informative newsletter at the time and I use to look forward to every issue with the latest news.

Man I would LOVE this to be attempted, it'd help my (ahem) 'friend' reduce all boots, or at least have some pruning - this would make it soo much better for anyone doing their own SMiLE mix's, sound quality has gotta be important here to some degree too

Once again on the topic of the 3LP version, at the end of side 3, there is a DYLW segment with vocals I've never heard, sound very bad quality. Are they Beach boys, as they do sound questionable, and do they exist in better quality?

nope, that's a cover by Ant-Bee

I see. I had heard of this but forgot about it! Why is the quality so bad them?

No clue, to be honest.

Since AGD is more than likely going over Carol Kaye's recent interview about the 'Smile Sessions' with a fine toothed comb, I will take the liberty to answer this question.

The CD "SMiLE"  (Chapter One - CO 25145) doesn't have anything out of the ordinary on it. The cover artwork replaces the familiar "The Beach Boys" with "Brian Wilson". It has the released "Cool, Cool Water" and "Can't Wait Too Long" on there (which really don't belong) in addition to versions of songs already legitimately released. The sound quality is mediocre at best.

I think the main reason "Can't Wait Too Long" was included on sets like this was because it was put on the "Preiss Tape" back in the 70's, surrounded by tracks which *did* belong on Smile, and CWTL just got lumped into that era. So whoever was making those early albums which were mostly based on the Preiss tape just included it, obviously it wasn't a part of Smile as we know.

Nope - not paying six bucks to have my blood pressure elevated to dangerous levels. When it's public domain, then I'll have a look.

 ;D

Yeah, that and Cool. Cool Water and other already-released versions of songs. It all started with that early cassette tape.

Perhaps I was wrong about it being "Belmo's Beatleg News". I'll have to dig it out. Actually, I didn't subscribe to it, but I was sent a "teaser", I guess you'd call it. It might have been only a smal sample of what one might find in an issue. I remember there was a decent review of the unreleased "Can't Fight Lightning" Ringo Starr album.

I suppose Little Red Book got its reputation as a SMiLE track in a similar manner?

When it comes to CCW though, I thought it was legitimately SMiLE? It evolved from the Water Chant and "Undersea Skits" on the Psychedelic Sounds sessions that were recorded at the same time. And if it turns out that Dada was really Air and not Water (or part of the Innocence Suite, and therefore not an element at all) then what could the water element be if not CCW?

A whole lotta 'ifs' there. The whole 'suites' concept pre-supposes pre-existing and consistent categories. Certainly, Smile has themes, but distinctions between 'suite' and 'track' are by no means as clear cut as some Smile lore purveyors would have us believe. As the sessions progressed, the borders between suite/track and even themes, became increasingly unclear and porous. So bits of the barnyard theme might be reconstituted elsewhere, and the Americana bits yoinked from one track to another, or shared amongst several (see DYLW/Wonderful/H&V/CIFOTM).

For the elements, we know that, for a certain period of time, Part 1: Fire was Part 1: Fire. The chant demos certainly suggest 'sketchpads' and themes, but no more than that. Nothing definitively links Dada to the elements. But it works very nicely, as does Fall Breaks from SS. Again, there is nothing to suggest that anything other than Fire was recorded for The Elements. Therefore, everything else is speculation. Nothing wrong with that, and it's great to see how that puzzle has evolved in the hands of Smile fan mixers, but as an idea, it's very probable that this was just abandoned and unfinished.

Yes, the elements are one of SMiLE's biggest mysteries.

I have never heard what Brian intended for Earth. I've heard fans argue that Vega-Tables is earth, that DYLW was supposed to bridge Americana and the Elements together and that Look was supposed to bridge Innocence with Elements, as a sort of earth instrumental. None of these ideas sounds definitive (because they almost certainly aren't). In every SMiLE related work I've ever read, there's always some speculation on what Air and Water were supposed to be, but Earth is always completely glossed over.

I've read that Brian's original intentions for Air were to be a "flighty" piano solo. The piano exit of Wind Chimes (which was omitted in TSS version) seems to fit that description, and with fans speculating that Wind Chimes itself was the air track, it kinda makes sense. You could also say Holidays is the air track (at least the second part anyway) but nothing really backs that up. Then Dada has recently been proposed as the Air track. It has woodwinds, which are an "airy" instrument, and its alternate title (Second Day) is an obscure reference to air just as "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" is an obscure reference to fire.

I remember reading in the Catch a Wave biography that Brian's original idea for Water was to record different bodies of water like rivers flowing and waves breaking and edit it together into a type of track, or at the very least use it for inspiration. I've always thought Dada was water, and it seems to be the defacto water track in most fan mixes. But, assuming the "In Blue Hawaii" lyrics were written at the time, was it actually supposed to be part of Americana? Maybe it was the bride between those two suites? Then there's Cool, cool water, a song that while not recorded during the SMiLE sessions, it has its roots there. It's an entire song about water, so that makes sense as the water track. The only problem is it isn't an instrumental, but then neither are Vega-Tables and Wind Chimes and they're usually used as placeholders for Earth and Air so who knows.

Fire is Mrs. O'Leary's Cow. No argument there. But what I'm curious about is, if it turns out NONE of my suggestions were really elements, did Brian abandon the entire concept of an Element Suite after he got scared of Fire? Or was he just going to leave fire out of it? I know he rewrote fire as Fall Breaks for Smiley Smile, but if he was willing to do that why was no work done on any other element?

I really wish somebody, Brian or Van Dyke preferably, would just come forward and say "Yes, Dada was a working title that would've been changed to Second Day and stood as Air, the first element, which would lead into a Diamond Head type instrumental for Water, which would lead into Fire, then go into Look which would transition into the Innocence Suite" or something. Even just say "Fire was the only element worked on. We could never decide what to do for the others." I just want some kind of answer to this ???

I'm calling the police.

You're under arrest!

Just had a listen to Purple Chicks SMiLE,
really good job this - i do like the use of the link in pieces of music between the songs, really harmonious
this and the Fast Eddie are the 2 boots i always turn to outside of TSS

I'm going to try and do a mix of TSS & Purple Chick, but using the TSS track listing (not a literal mix but try a comulative approach but just using the best sounding tracks we now have since TSS Boxset)
Think i might have a go at singing the missing L.voc's too ha ha, yes i know it may go tits up but as it's for me i'll gamble

wish me look

Good look.

 :lol

The thing is, to most of those questions actually, there are no clear answers, there is simply no data available to suggest otherwise, and it's unlikely that any new data will turn up to alter that situation. The elements idea didn't really die, but lingered in a sort of amorphous afterlife, as many tracks with 'elemental' associations floated around until SU.  From the available evidence, it seems that the elements as a unified track, or even loosely existing suite, simply fizzled. Like most of Smile, there's no da vinci code conspiracy to unpack why that's the case (sadly, the only thing approaching those sorts of hijinx are the few reels stolen by bootleggers from the vaults). It's just plain ol' unfashionably boring entropy.

Back to topic, sort of:
How many live SMiLE boots are there?

I recall about 4 circulating in 2004, but have heard there have been a lot more. Which shows?

Back to Vigotone Boot again. and now I'm onto the Good Vibrations track (on side 4 of the LP). The First one appears to have various single tracked vocals. Is there a complete version of this anywhere, with all the lines, or is that it, and most lines seem to be missng. The Second One is also a 'Fuzz Bass' version with a few bits of vocals from the 'original lyrics' version. Does this also exist with more vocals?

There are about 10 from the RFH gigs in 2004 alone. Bruce is renowned for expressing a public preference for the Bristol boot.

There's a boot of just about every gig Brian played in 2004. It was also the last year that boots of his gigs were rampant. The well started slowing in 2005.

You mean, like this one?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5sEhNRsSLE

I've stumbled upon the "Early Years" boot by chance - I've noticed that the 2nd edition of the "Brother" LP from 1985 has a variation of "Good Vibrations" not reported anywhere, and looked around for older bootlegs. The "Early Years" CD has the same variation, plus the material from the 1976 broadcast. The variation in question is something intermediate between the "Rarities" version and the 08-24-1966 Alternate Edit (TSS CD 5 Track 24) - it has more vocals than the former but less than the latter. This got me thinking.

Brad Elliott has reported in his book that the "Rarities" version was bootlegged first on the "Hawthorne Hot Shots" EP around 1977, and that the 1976 broadcast had additional vocals not on the official version, the only one widely available back then. And it looks like these additional vocals, which are on the 1976 broadcast as issued on the "Early Years" boot, can be edited onto the "Rarities" version - the result will be the said variation. So what it is, an outfake - or a genuine article? what do y'all think? is there another reason why this variation does not appear on more common CDs?

I'd like to learn also more about this 1976 broadcast, "Best Summer Of Our Lives". Brad Elliott says in his book that it had, among other things, one lengthy track, theremin-organ-drums interplay, of 3:05 duration. I've listened to my only source, "The Early Years" CD, and it is a sequence of tracks faded in and out, but of much shorter time. Evidently the bootleggers have edited out the voiceovers. Was there a fuller source on a bootleg or a tape?

BTW, this dialog ""OK, so we have the two chorus's on the one take, now all we need is this little intermediate part" or SOMETHING like that" - is not on SOT15 IMO, and some music tracks sound like they are mixed differently. Anyone knows, are there more surprises like this on old SMiLE bootlegs? I've investigated the common ones (Archaeology, SOT, Vigotone, Heroes & Vibrations) - it looks like all of them have something valuable, like unique mixes - also Pocket Symphony (this one looks more like a copy from other releases) and Deep Sea Treasures Vol. 1 (this one also has a variation, the Hawthorne version slightly cut).

The Elements thing has been getting to me lately too. Love to Say Dada/In Blue Hawaii is interesting - it works as Water but as well as a sort of coda for the album (going through 3 movements and ending with an "Our Prayer"-like vocal bit), and I just think the title "In Blue Hawaii" is a simple Elvis reference, just like the Plymouth Rock roll over lyric is a riff on a line from Cole Porter's "Anything Goes".
Air is strange, recently I heard this thing on YouTube (I cannot find any longer) where Mrs. O'Leary's Cow was Fire, Dada was Water, and this more ambient track was Air, and the video did not include Earth and I have not been able to track down this cool Air track used, but it sounded pretty authentic.
Oh yeah and "Look" always irked me as its place among all SMiLE songs seems weak, and how it would be as a bridging track or a piece of something else feels so up in the air (hah!). It doesn't feel totally right between Wonderful and CIFotM on TSS, because the whole "Cycle of Life" suite has a metaphorical growth going on in it, which is musically represented by the trumpet in Wonderful, Child Is..., and Surf's Up. In comparison to the other tracks which are so much more full (at least Wonderful and SU) it just seems like a bridge of something, almost like another "Three Blind Mice" situation (though I don't know much about the history of that track).

If Smile really had been compiled back then, I think we can assume Look would be the first to be axed due to time constraints. That and perhaps Holidays, I cannot see how any other track would go before them. Not counting the 'snippet songs'. Also I'm assuming Dada would be recorded (although as we all know this was far from certain!)

Look and Holidays would make much more sense if we had any idea what the lead vocals / lyrics would have been. Brian can be heard very briefly singing a small bit of Holidays on the Smile Sessions box but in common with almost every track, no lead was either recorded or appears to have a surviving tape. If the band had not returned to the Smile tapes post Smiley the same would be true for pretty much the entire album bar Heroes and Vegetables (which were largely in unfathomable pieces until the release of Smiley Smile) and Wonderful and Wind Chimes.
The annoying thing to me is that it would probably only have taken a couple of days at most to record the lead vocals for Look,Holidays,Worms,Child Is Father etc. but here we are nearly 50 years later, the melodies are forgotten and the lyrics appear to have been lost.
The only thing we can be pretty certain about is that they would have been awesome !

The artwork by Frank Holmes, dated 1996 in TSS box set, reveals that perhaps the BWPS lyrics to Holidays is vintage. Vintage 1996 at least!

I got my first SMiLE boot sometime around 1986. It was a cassette dub of some SMiLE tracks put out by somebody somewhere, and I remember it had a lone harpsichord playing "Heroes and Villains" interspersed between EVERY SINGLE TRACK....which made it sound like Norman Bates could've compiled it. It was third or fourth generation and hissed like a MF'er. It was a 60 minute cassette and most of the second side was taken up with "Good Vibrations" sessions. I drew my own cover, made dubs for my friends and spread the word.

Must also bear in mind that at some stage Brian commented that Fire could also be a candle (but please don't ask me for the source!) which I've taken to mean he'd reject the cacophonous Mrs Oleary's Cow in favour of something calm and piano-like.

Forgive the bump of the old thread but this HAS to be the most interesting topic I have read in ages!

Fascinating that the SMiLE that we are all familiar with today is a creation of all those years of bootlegs trying to improve on one another.    The idea that Darien used the S.O.T boot as his guide when putting BWPS together had never occured to me. 

I know it destroyed the trade of boots but how did the 2011 release affect Fan Mixes?  Have there been more mixes made available since the release than in the immediate years prior to the release or did it put a damper on fan mixes as well?   

I think Darian got the idea for Barnyard from a fan mix posted on "The SMiLE Shop" forums in the late 90's.

It didn't work then, and it doesn't work now. That it found it's way onto BWPS and then The SMiLE Sessions, is a shame.

Wow!  I didn't know that either.     There are a couple of little bits on The Smile Sessions first disc that are a little jarring to me with the transition after Barnyard being the worse...I actually hear a "thump" or a "crack".       I actually prefer the mix by Soniclovenoize (the 67 mix) because it seems to "flow" better than the official release....if that makes any sense.

Smile fan mixes pretty much dropped off the table after TSS was released. There were quite a bit before and I think I've only seen a couple after. And one of those utilized some of the TSS stuff!

Good Bye Surfing, Hello God ! - Jules Siegel, 1967. THE basic Smile text. He was there.

Ya know that is sad in a way :(   I guess that was an expected drawback of TSS being released.  Everything SMiLE related is anti-climactic now.     Would love to see more new versions of the album.

Which is odd, because Linett (or Boyd, can't remember) said before the Smile Sessions release that "now fans will be able to roll their own Smile mixes" or something like that. I think he was expecting a lot of fan-made Smile mixes to hit the internet after the release.

That was the logical assumption!    If I was more technically savvy I would make my own.....of course it would just be a combination of Mok's version and Soniclovenoize's version :)   maybe we will see more in the future.

Love this topic.  I remember hearing SMiLE for the first time and being blown away.  The first version I heard was the Vigotone release and then I enjoyed the conversation snippets from Heroes and Vibrations.  Over the years, I continued to collect different mixes.  I've always been a fan of Mok's SMiLE, the AlternateBrianWilsonPresentsSMiLE, JMZ SMiLE and the Odeon SMiLE.  I too thought the Beach Boys missed an opportunity when they released TSS.  As fan mixes kept the album alive through the years, I thought that they should have set up a website where fans could upload mixes or something like that. 

This would be amazing if done correctly...to be able to stream everyone else's mix of Smile? Jeez

Ok,  How about this question? 

Of ALL the boots of SMiLE and the first disc of The SMiLE Sessions which is your favorite?    Do you think the SMiLE Sessions reconstruction is the End All or is there another mix which you believe is done better?

Uffff
I believe that TSS isn´t best way to go..nor is BWPS from which it derived.. I love JMZ mix..so well done, not too long in terms of minutes..would love to see him to try outdo his own mix with new sources now available (TSS box set)!
Myself I would like to do my own mix ..and I´m trying for the last year and a half..:) So much material to work with, but trying to keep it it under 33 minutes!
Ufff

My preferred Smile boots are the 2nd ever CD one in 1989 and volumes 16 & 17 of the SOT series. Heroes & Vibrations is up there too.

There are so many out there, but I'd pick the 3971 mix as my favorite. It is edited perfectly and combines all the missing parts featured in BWPS with the newer stuff. 1971 Surf's Up + Violin/Trumpet reprise? Yes please  ;D

But, if I were one of the old guard and had picked up a Smile boot 20 years ago, I'm sure my answer would be different, since 3971 is more just a specific mix than an actual bootleg.

Just listened to the 3971 mix and it is my favorite now as well, thanks!

However good it might be, it's not the real deal, just one person's idea of how they feel it should go. The conceit that any given fan knows better than Brian Wilson, even these days, is breathtaking in its sheer arrogance.

The JMZ mix is good and I love Seltaeb's mini mix of SMiLE.   Unlike most I cannot stand the Alternate Brian Wilson Presents mix.      I believe SMiLE Sessions disc one would be near perfect if Good Vibrations and Surf's Up were switched in the tracklist and You're Welcome was added as the next to last song.

Why that? 45 minutes would fit easily on an LP, and Pet Sounds is about 36 minutes.



Only if the given fan says this is the version everybody should hear. I like my own versions better than the TSS order, but that doesn't mean to me that mine is the best.



I Wanna Be Around / Friday Night would be my first candidate. Actually, on my last own version I did leave it off!

I've heard fans say exactly that, hence my comment.

Which is Reason #2 why I despise BWPS (Reason #1 being trying to make a quick buck from the original 1966 SMiLE).

IMO, repeat IMO, I don't care if Brian Wilson - the Brian Wilson of 2004, which is crucial in the story - was sitting/lying on a couch and nodding approvingly (or dissenting) to Darian, BWPS was the byproduct of Darian Sahanaja, with the sequencing, edits, and production. To me, and this is not a knock at Darian, BWPS is the ultimate fan mix. Darian was just doing a job he was paid to do, and he did it quite well.

 ;D

Yeah -

that was my gripe about a couple of a couple of SMiLE boots also. The compilers obviously thought they really contributed to the conceptual idea of the album by including a gazillion snippets of the Bicycle Rider theme, dispersed throughout the album. But these people were no artists by any means, and their 'work' in reality subtracted from the listening pleasure a great deal.

In terms of CD sound quality for most of the tracks, the best are IMO Archaeology (it's been edited/cut up to pieces though) and Heroes and Vibrations.  The Sea of Tunes Vol 16 and 17 are right behind, although some swear the best sounding boot is the 3 LP Vigotone set with the right turntable/cartridge set up.

One of these days I'm gonna track down the Vigotone Guy (pun intended) and ask him if he still has the tapes for the planned box set hidden away somewhere.

"Vigotone Guy",   "Odeon", "SOT" etc.    Its amazing how SMiLE became bigger than it's creators and took a life of it's own (draggin in dozens of people in the process).    It was damned determined to evolve and see the light of day!

Damn - you were there ?  ;D

I Love BWPS. Does that make me a lesser person in your eyes?

BWPS was more than an album, more than a concert… for long-term fans it was the culmination of a whole chunk of their lives to that moment.  Maybe you had to be there at the epi-centre (Royal Festival Hall!) for the shockwaves to hit hardest.

For me it's a determining point in my life, trivial as that might sound. Listening to the CD is more than just listening to the CD.






Oh sh*t now I've started something…  :lol

Agree in full, John -

who'd ever have thought that BW and his band would have the sheer pizazz to finish the thing (actually in a brief time), with expertise and taste, and the involvement of its original lyricist too? And first do the live gigs, and then the studio recording? I recall that when I first heard about the enterprise, I was wary: it's complex music, Brian's emotional relationship with it is difficult, they started off in a very prestigious concert hall; the number of possible pitfalls and roadblocks was potentially very high.

And then it proved to be an unequivocal triumph. I recall that I ran to the common PC room in the hotel where I stayed, having returned from the Travel Inn (where I had nice chats with Darian, and the Swedish Strings and Horns. I saw all the messages flying across the Atlantic, both on what was then the Blueboard and the Smileshop.

The stuff of legend. And the CD is wonderful.

Don, you mean we were in the same room at the same time and I didn't buy you a drink?  Ah, I'll make up for it some day!

To my mind it succeeded the way it did because they took away its dark edge and turned it into music for children, without changing a note. It was just a sheer expression of joy. And I'll drink to that…

*

I'm not a big fan of BWPS. It is a great accomplishment in many ways but it just doesn't connect with me emotionally.

If it was good for Brian to do it then I'm glad for that but I'm also sort of bothered by a feeling that it was a dickish move by Brian to do it without the Beach Boys.

I'm right with you John. I was there at the second RFH concert and it started a whole obsession with Smile that was more intense than anything I'd been into ever. I practically had to force myself to listen to other music for the next three or four years. I just listened to BWPS or smile boots day in, day out. I started to worry about it!

The fact my introduction to Smile was largely through the RFH concert obviously makes me biased, but I view BWPS as a key part of Smile. I see it as the final ingredient, rather than the cynical Frankenstein re-hash that others perceive. However involved Brian was (and I think he contributed more than many give him credit for) he was involved and gave the whole thing his seal of approval and that's the best completed Smile we're ever going to get. Actually, for me, the disc 1 Smile from TSS is the best completed Smile as it takes the developments from 2004 and re-works them back into the original sessions. It has the whole 40 year spanning story there on one album. Stuff yer 'They should have used the back cover tracklist' arguments!

Of course this is just me. I understand those that prefer Smile pre BWPS and would rather not mix the two things. What I struggle with is people that somehow want Smile finished but not that way. If you want a finished Smile, BWPS or TSS disc 1 is the best you're going to get love it or hate it. I can't see any of them revisiting the material to tweak it any time soon. perhaps at a stretch they might try and create a stereo mix of TSS disc 1 one day and that could feasibly incorporate newly discovered Smile fragments (if there's anything left to find) but I won't be holding my breath.

There's a lovely Carl quote (help me out somebody) where he suggests that maybe one day some young guy is going to help Brian finish Smile - something like that. It's pretty prescient. And for me Darian's involvment with Brian and VDP is important and doesn't diminish BWPS. It needs a young superfan to give Brian the kick up the bum to get it finished - we all know he produced his best work with a focused collaborator and this was no exception. Let's not forget VDP's 04 lyrics too. Just a shame they couldn't feature somehow on the disc 1 reconstruction, but I'm not certain new BB vocals would have necessarily been a great idea.

When I saw Brian and his band in 2002 and they performed some SMiLE tracks I had a feeling after performing Pet Sounds the next thing would be to perform all the 'completed' SMiLE tracks live.  The band were on such a roll and Brian had come a long way in such a short time.  An example:

Glasgow, 2002 a fan, Dino, (some of you will know him) was wearing a fire helmet before the show.  Melinda asked him to remove it as Brian would basically 'freak' out if he saw him wearing it when he came out.  2004, Smile show (Manchester) Brian playfully, during Mrs O' Leary's Cow, pretends he has burnt his hand on the fake flames in front of his keyboard whilst the Stockholm Horns and Strings are donning fire helmets to play the song!  A defining moment right there and one that to me seemed to suggest that Brian had finally overcome his demons regarding that music.  The standing ovations every night helped too!  And that is why BWPS live or in the studio was, and is monumental.  Also, as a standalone album it was,IMHO, head and shoulders above anything else when it was released and holds up against any artist's best work ever!

Great anecdote! Thanks for sharing.

BWPS also has several things in it that fit together perfectly that nobody got close to in the boots.

I would say the fan bootlegs and mixes probably influenced some things but there was definitely a lot of creative input from whoever was putting it together.

Well we know the Worms chorus melody came from Brian. Whether it was vintage or not, it's a cool melody. My guess is it's vintage.

Better still, for me, was the new Look clarinet melody. I think there's a Darian quote in the Priore book claiming there was some headphone bleed on one of the Look sessions that gave them this melody. I was really hoping we'd hear that session on TSS. I'd love for Alan Boyd or Mark Linett to clarify the existence of this Look session.

Well said, John.  The premiere was one of the highlights of my life, enhanced by meeting so many good and grateful fans from around the world...including you and AGD and possibly some of you other posters here as well.  The love and excitement and emotion were thick in the hall...and it was exactly 10 years ago today!  Now it is easy to take for granted, for instance, "Roll Plymouth Rock," "In Blue Hawaii," "Song for Children,", but to hear melodies for the first time to what were instrumentals for decades, to hear "Cabinessence," just for one,  performed powerfully while Van Dyke Parks looked on from the audience, to have Brian perform "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" and not run off the stage as I feared at the time...there will never be another moment like that for a SMiLE fan.  Maybe you just had to be there.

Cam, if two of the three survivors of your group either criticized the lyrics for years (Love), or claimed that Smiley Smile was 1000 times better than the bunch of music bites that are Smile (Johnston)*, are those REALLY the people you would ask to help you finish it?  And no, I am not claiming that they killed it in the first place.  But I don't think it is at all dickish not to involve people who didn't and still don't think that highly of Brian and VDP's work to this day.

* the quote is from memory, but the sentiment has been the same for years.

You didn't have to be there, Les.  I was in San Francisco in '04 and later on Berkeley in '05 for the Smile concerts. It was as you described.  Frank Holmes and Michael Vosse and Joel Selvin were there including many hardcore fans from Northern/Southern Cali and there were quite a few tears shed both of those evenings.  But I would have loved to have been in a position to watch Van Dyke's expressions throughout the concert!

People will have you believe that the 2nd night was better, that Brian finally got the monkey off his back, and I have no reason to doubt that... but I was at the FIRST NIGHT.

So.

There.  ;D

The real highlight of that night was Van Dyke Parks playing tambourine on Do It Again (I'm not kidding).

I felt kind of sorry for him...I thought maybe they could have done "Orange Crate Art" or something to acknowledge him a bit more...

I separate BWPS into two distinct entities, the live performance and the recording.

The live performance is creative, cohesive, and an excellent piece of work to present in a concert setting. Nothing wrong with resurrecting the 1966 SMiLE material for that purpose.

However, when you take the live configuration of BWPS - which was assembled and intended FOR A LIVE PRESENTATION per various band members, including Brian - and record it note for note, then proclaim SMiLE finished, and market it as such, well, you lose me, sorry. But, that's just me I guess. But, hey, I'm mellowing. I used to refer to it as a fraud. Now it appears to me as Darian Sahanaja's fan mix. Is that more positive?

I'm getting a deju vu feeling like I've been here before. :police: ;D

Should TSS also be considered a fan mix b Darian, Linett etc?   

Disc 1, yes. Discs 2-5, as presented, obviously not.

TSS was meddled with by Linett and Boyd, who had access to the masters and/or safety copies.  Just like the recently released box set MIC.  And supposedly approved by Brian, much to the chagrin of some hardcore fans. I would say that the 1988 Linett mix was more of a fan mix than TSS.

Yes, I would have because it was a group album and they worked their asses off and put up with a lot of crap.

On the rest we will disagree.

I have mixed feelings about BWPS. From a point of view in terms of composition, to me BWPS is the finished SMiLE. And finished in a great way, except for a few minor things that I wished would be different. The sound of the studio CD however has nearly nothing of the magic the 66/67 recordings have. I'm sad they didn't finish the recordings for TSS. Mike's, Al's, and Bruce's voices are still good enough to record the few missing vocals.

I prefer listening to an audio rip of the DVD live version than the studio BWPS CD.

I think that's my preferred version as well for the completed version.

It was always a BW and VDP album.  Yes, the Beach Boys worked on the original sessions but the only two of them that were into it unfortunately didn't make it to 2004.

Do you think it was wrong that the Beach Boys did Darlin and Time to Get Alone without Redwood?  Just curious.  I think that's a fair comparison.

The way I see it SMiLE was always a Beach Boys album. Brian, VDP, and Mike were coauthors of the non-covers in it. Brian was Capitol's producer for the Beach Boys' album. The Boys worked very hard on it and paid all of the bills for it and many feel the group's rep suffered from its non-release. It didn't get released because of Brian. I'm sure no one intended anybody any harm by BWPS but it still seems to me it was a dickish move on Brian's part.

Your comparison doesn't work for me but maybe some Redwood fans can make a case for it being a similar move by Brian.

I disagree. While I don't think Mike is the sole reason the album was shelved, I think his and the other Boys' disinterest (at best) or outright hostility (depending on who you believe) contributed greatly to Brian's emotional breakdown and inability to finish the album. The other Beach Boys had their chance with the SMiLE music, they had almost 30 years to revisit it if they wanted...and they didn't. I think it's safe to say they weren't interested. Brian composed those songs himself, he conducted the wrecking crew in the studio, he specifically chose a different lyricist for this project. SMiLE is his brainchild and he has the right to do as he pleases with it. When it comes to these particular songs, he doesn't owe the other Beach Boys a thing, and in my opinion, the only BB worthy of being onstage with him for BWPS would be Dennis, the only one who trusted Brian's judgement.

All that being said, while Im glad BWPS happened, and I appreciate it for what it is, I must agree with the sentiment that it's also Darian's fan resequencing, in a way. I wish the three suite BWPS/TSS track order hadn't become so unquestionable and made to be the standard this past decade. I agree, it works as a live performance set, but its doesn't work for the '67 studio album that might've been. It's a great insult to the SMiLE material and its possibilities that the vast majority of mixes now are cut and past BWPS with perhaps a few minor alterations.