The Smiley Smile Message Board

so we soon get MIC..... after weve had the Good Vibes, Pet Sounds and Smile Sets.......

is there really much left is the Capitol archives or Brother vaults after MIC???

or anything of 'greatness' or 'value'?

I remember hearing or reading a while ago, not sure whether it was Boyd or Linett or the likes, saying there wasn't really

much more there that hasn't been released or booted....

is this a fair comment?

 or is there still heaps of 'goodies' sitting there waiting for that 'rainy day'.....?

if there isn't much, what about all the apparent live stuff recorded in the early 70's that the guys picked from

for the 'in concert' album?? I heard they recorded multiple of multiple of concerts professionally at the time...

any ideas on the matter????

Cheers, Rick Bartlett

Well, there's certainly live tapes that could be released, but if you're referring to studio stuff, there probably is...but what we consider releaseable and what the band considers releaseable are two very different beasts.

I think other than maybe the surviving recordings from Dennis' aborted 1972 Poops/Hubba Hubba album sessions, we might be near the bottom of the barrel. I'm not against some live releases. Wouldn't we all love a series of live discs? I know I would.

Plenty I would have thought...

Beginning of the End, Thank Him, Gonna Hustle You...
Loads of Party outtakes
The proper mix of With a Little Help From my Friends
Walkin` and the other mixes/versions of Sunflower era songs
Big Sur
Carry me Home and Out in the Country
We Got Love
15 Big Ones outtakes
Adult Child stuff
Christmas outtakes
KTSA outtakes
Stuff from the Brian/Mike sessions
Oh Lord and And I Always Will
Vocals from Stars and Stripes

Plus loads of Live stuff

Short of the band dumping the stuff with lesser commercial potential on the Beach Boys Central website (y'know, that Beach Boys website that is kinda like herpes since it keeps coming back to our discussions every so often?), I don't have high hopes. I'd love to be wrong.

I'd love a live box set...4-6 discs of nothing but officially unreleased live stuff. Even if it's stuff that's been heavily booted, like Carnegie Hall '72 or Paramount Theater '93, it'd be great to have quality sounding, official releases of this stuff with a nice booklet and everything.

If Bob Dylan can release 10 volumes of his bootleg series, the beach boys certainly can too. Anybody who doubts that has serious issues...  :-\

Releasing individual albums with bonus tracks might be more viable perhaps.

A release of all A Cappella songs (as many as they can give us) would be great.  

I think this may well be the end.

There's lots that could be released, but it's hard to see what would make money.  We have the Pet Sounds Box, Smile Box, POB/Bambu, stereo remixes for what can be remixed, and now a number of additional outtakes.

Sure, they could do a nice 1-disc Party sessions without overdubs, or a live box, or a deluxe Love You with demos and Adult Child outtakes.  But the likely audience for that is tiny.

I could see a "Brian Wilson Sessions 1964-72" or something like that being successful.  But it would never happen as long as the other Beach Boys are alive, and maybe not afterward either.

I would pay good money for Love You backing tracks

I`m not sure why something like that should be any less viable than the expanded BW88 was...

This. As well as remastered instrumental tracks.

I don't think it will be the end because Alan Boyd and Mark Linett have previously stated that they want to get more archival releases to the fans and have been diligent in doing so.  Beach Boys stuff is always going to move.  It's not going to fly off the shelves mind you but they are always going to have a niche audience that is going to gobble up archival releases.  This might be the last big box produced for a long while but there could be smaller releases devoted to specific time periods.  I guess a good place to start such a discussion would be the sales figure for Hawthorne, CA probably the most ambitious project we've gotten yet since it's an actual rarities package without any greatest hits attached to it.  It also didn't have the benefit of having a movie or mythical release attached to it like "Pet Sounds" or "SMiLE".

To be honest though Beach Boys fans between the official and ahem other releases basically have gotten some of the best archival releases of any fanbase at their disposal.  As I mentioned they have Linett & Boyd both pitching for them in terms of getting officially sanctioned archival releases, the other not so sanctioned releases allegedly sound better than most non sanctioned releases by other bands and to put the cherry on the top there is evidence that words, comments and suggestions on this forum don't exactly go unheeded by those in the position to facilitate making some of those wishes come true in the future.

So at the risk of sounding like a fanboy...buy MIC, continue to support what the band releases and you'll probably get more of the same sometime down the line.  

Let's not confuse BW solo material with BB archival material. Brian paid for and owns the Paley sessions stuff, so he (or his folks) can release that whenever and however he likes.

Very different story with something like the Love You sessions / demos, which are owned and controlled by BRI.

But will Linett and Boyd continue to pitch archival releases after the box set?  I'm sure they have other things going on, and they may not want to spend time on things that are futile.

Wasn't Hawthorne considered a commercial failure?

I'm sure they will continue to pitch archival releases because of the fact that both men are huge Beach Boys fans and the fact that they seem to have a genuine interest in bringing this material to the fanbase.  Now whether or not Capitol records is interested in future archival releases from the band or not is another thing all together.  We literally have gotten a Beach Boys Blitz since 2011 so we might have to wait a couple of years for the next wave so to speak. 

I just don't think it's realistic to believe that there will be a next wave.  Everyone on this site could buy five copies of a given release, but that would be a tiny, tiny fraction of what the record company would need to run a profit.

So it would have to be something with a larger audience, and what would that be?

I think it's much less realistic to believe that Capitol will stop releasing Beach Boys product just because the band puts out a boxed set.

Not to mention stuff that may be in the vaults from Carl, Dennis, and Al. Yeah, myKe stuff too but no particular interest has been shown anywhere in this galaxy.

As there would be no recording costs, why should it be expensive to put stuff out?

Personally I don't see any previously unreleased studio material coming out after Made In California. Most of the best studio stuff left is from the later '70s and '80s and there isn't exactly a groundswell of support for that kinda material. I also agree with many on here that the '71 to '75 era should be represented by live discs. Honestly, I still think that Beach Boys Central would make the most sense, especially for the unreleased material they still have in the vaults. Do a few releases a year. Some studio, some live, maybe some instrumental tracks, some focused on demos, some focused on Brian, some on Denny, etc. I think it would do really well. It seemed like we were close in '06 or whatever, and maybe if the new set does well, they might bring it back as an idea. Note that the site is still there...

Anyways, here's what I think studio-wise still deserves release (or at the least, if I haven't heard it, going by the good judgement of Boyd, AGD, Stebbins, etc):

"My Little Red Book" (B. Bacharach/H. David) 1968
"Spark In The Dark" (B. Wilson) 1972
"Baby I Need Your Loving/Gimme Some Lovin'" (B. Holland/L. Dozier/E. Holland/S. Winwood/S. Davis/M. Winwood) 1972?
"Carry Me Home" (D. Wilson) 1972
"Brian's Jam" (B. Wilson) 1974
"Calendar Girl" (N. Sedaka/H. Greenfield) 1978
"Smokey Places" (A. Spector) 1979
"Stevie" (B. Wilson) 1981
"Sweetie" (B. Wilson) 1981

And on rougher stuff like "Spark In The Dark" from 1972 and "Brian's Jam" from 1974 there are insiders have had interesting things to say about. And these kinda things obviously would be weird on a mainstream release, but would be really interesting to hardcore fans. It would be cool on a release equivalent to what Experience Hendrix released as Hear My Music, which was a collection of instrumentals and demos and whatnot.

Besides the live stuff there's easily another two disc set of worthy rarities, maybe three if you include a Capella and instrumental versions.  I only hope we get another Hawthorne style set rather than dribs and drabs on more collections like Sounds of Summer.

Think there are three Smile pieces we don't have still (please correct me if I'm wrong… it's 3am here and the kids have me awake!):

Alt Heroes assembly from Durrie Parks acetates.
Child is Father… Brian mix from acetate.
Barnyard, with animal noises but no lead overdub.

I'd also love to hear the Cabinessence lead vocals in isolation, if only to prove of disprove my theory that Brian sings the last high line in each verse rather than Carl!

I think the only hope for these would be another Hawthorne, CA type set and I'm somewhat surprised that at the very least Brian's mix of "Child" did not make it onto the boxset.  The only thing I can think of is it is not of releasable quality and that would likely go for the Durrie acetates too.  Just using The Beatles as my point of reference, a lot of stuff that was considered interesting was vetoed off the Anthology due to sound quality issues so perhaps that is the mitigating factor here?  Of course it would be equally fair to note that in some cases on Anthology lesser quality sources were used when the recordings were of historical significance.  I guess the question then is are these recordings of any significance to the history of The Beach Boys or just of significance to SMiLE aficionados who have to have every last hiss and pop from the sessions?

I would like to hear in pristine quality:

- Big Sur 1st version
- My Solution
- California Slide
- Rooftop Harry
- Carry Me Home
- Ten Years of Harmony
- It's a New Day
- Hard Times
- Dennis's songs from his aborted solo album
- Dr Tom
- Where We Are
- Shake Rattle and Roll
- Runnin' Bear
- Adult Child album
- I Will Always Love You
- Surfer Suzie
- Jamaica Farewell
- Smokey Places
- Oh Lord

Big Sur 4/4 is going to remain in the vaults. What a travesty. What an oversight. What a glaring omission.

And Carry Me Home and I've Got A Friend. I can maybe understand those being left out for the reason of inferior sound quality and/or because the former is a little depressing, but Big Sur? I'd like to hear the justifcation for leaving that one out.

Perhaps it will be a hidden track?

If it's a hidden track, it doesn't need to be. Bring it out in the open where it belongs - so everybody can hear it.

But unfortunately it's going to remain a secret or unknown to the average Beach Boys fan or music consumer on the street.

My dream is that one day Capitol would consider releasing the entire BB catalog in such a way that you would have all the tracks for each song, thus allowing you to isolate / study all individual parts  / create your own mix, etc.

Mikie: I don't think it makes sense to declare that we'll never hear any of those things ... never is an awfully long time, and record companies and rock stars love money.

Especially a few members of our favorite band...

Thing is though, many of the hardcore fans are, like the band, of an age. First gen fans are in their 60s/70s, those of us who were swept up in the Endless Summer/20 Golden Greats thing are in their 40s/50s…

From the record companies' point of view we ain't gonna be around to buy the stuff; and from our side some of us won't be here to listen to it if it eventually does come about. Didn't know them personally but I'm thinking here of Les Chan and Rev Bob and others no longer with us, who would have been knocked out/delighted by - even maybe contributed to, in some way - this box.

I hate to be morbid, but a lot of stuff will come out after all of the group members are dead and aren't able to veto certain tracks from being released.  Possibly when they are too old to tour and create revenue that way as well.

It's really a shame that we see vault releases from other artists like the Bootleg Series from Dylan and The Elvis FTD collections but only a handful for The BB.  Maybe they could just package a bonus disc of vault tracks with the same GH collection every year.

also there's that BW Country Album... ;D

I'm pretty surprised that we didn't get a live version of I've Got A Friend, at the very least. As you can hear from this clip, there is at least one high quality version that exists. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBCZhEr3_no

I think your premise is generally correct but I disagree in that I don't feel that Beach Boys fans have anything to complain about in terms of the archival releases they have received.  There are hoards of other fanbases that have received far less or nothing at all in terms of archival releases when compared to what Beach Boys fans could conceivably stock their collections with.  

I think Richie Unterberger in his book "The Unreleased Beatles" makes a valid point and I'm paraphrasing here since it's a late hour and I don't have time to look up the exact quote.  But what he basically said is music from the archives is unlikely to get to the fans until either all members of the group are deceased or the record company has exhausted all means of generating any type of income from the archives.  Once this happens it's likely the archives will pass on to the hands of the fans themselves in the form of internet downloads and things of that manner which are already being spoken about by fans if only decades too soon.

Again though when it comes to the Beach Boys I'm not sure what all the fuss is about?  They not only have several handsome officially sanctioned archival releases on the market but allegedly what occurred to their archives sometime during the decade of the eighties is without peer.  So that being said while I can understand somewhat the desire to hear every last hiss and pop, I think anyone complaining about such matters when pertaining to The Beach Boys needs to take a few steps back and assess the situation a bit differently.  

Hell yeah, and call it Stack-O-Multitracks  ;D

What do you mean by this? As in, lost tracks being spread on bootlegs?

I suspect that within the next decade or two we'll be seeing early prototypes of such technology.

I'm not really complaining, but it seems like The Beach Boys were blessed with the foresight or just blind luck to archive a lot of material that other artists threw away.  It's a shame that the battling egos of surviving members and a record label determined to repackage the same 20 songs every summer for eternity gets in the way of releasing what little is left that hasn't been bootlegged.

And it's worth pointing out that while a great deal of The Beach Boys more commercial early-mid 60s material has been generously available to fans through bootlegs, most of the later 60s/70s material has not and remains vaulted and will remain to be so as long as it is deemed "uncommercial" by the powers that be, both within the group and at Capitol.

It could actually be a possibility for music companies in the future to have massive archival releases such as this in the future for all the bands of the 50's-80's which was without doubt the most dynamic period for modern music. Just because the last of the Beatles, Rolling Stones or Beach Boys are gone doesn't mean that their companies don't want to continue making money from their music. Digital download could one day mean that you enter their webpage and then you are free to purchase any vocal take or demo they make available.

It's already happening, albeit illegally. All the Beatles multitracks that were hacked out of that computer game they did have been available for ages as MOGG files. Each song is a single downloadable file which can then be loaded into any studio software (there's lots of free ones). then you can play around to your hearts content.

Didn't one of the other acetates have an alternate Worms assembly too ? I would suggest that these items (assuming they were purchased by Brian or the band) represent a fine opening salvo for Beach Boys Central.
That Heroes assembly acetate strikes me as a key part of prime time Smile. I forget the exact details so correct me if i'm wrong but didn't it feature the verses - an alternate Great Shape - alt my children all edited together ? That is as serious as this stuff gets ! Short of the various missing vocal/backing track session multi tracks being recovered, Mike suddenly finding his tape of the long Heroes or the Inside Pop audio reels magically appearing , those acetates might represent the last  major find although i hope that's not the case.
Did Brian and Van ever demo the songs at home ? Did Brian chuck all his composing notes or put them in storage? We are very short of composing demos for the early to mid 60's. We can but dream....
Have the Beach Boys archives now been fully catalogued ? Is there any chance of a Smile find in the wrong tape box or have Alan and the team finished the work there ?
A Smile Sessions Addendum as a FLAC download from Beach Boys Central gets my vote. Who else needs every hiss and pop ? i know i do.

The band deserves a live box set. Especially the 1971-1974 years, both audio and video.

For example:
- Central Park 1971
- Carnegie Hall 1972, both shows (http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php?topic=7795.20, already four years ago...)
- Any professionally recorded show from 1973 used for the In Concert album
- Nassau 1974
+ TV performances, specials, interviews etc.

We need live versions of: Forever, Lady, Vegetables, It's About Time, Okie from Muskogee, Mess of Help, Here She Comes, Hold On Dear Brother, Cuddle Up, All This Is That, Big Sur, I've Got A Friend, Barbara, River Song, Jumpin' Jack Flash, Wild Honey etc.

Keep on dreaming? :)

There was a sad discussion on here recently about how record companies have tens of thousands of unlabeled tapes sitting around slowly decaying. At least they've stopped chucking them out in the rubbish.

Wild Honey live is coming out, but you missed the obvious Surf's Up and Cool Cool Water live  ;)

Yeah but if you look at AGD's site where he has listings of Unreleased Songs there really isn't much left unheard comparatively speaking that is going to be a major revelation.  I believe AGD also commented a few weeks back that a lot of the unreleased songs that are still vaulted are still in various stages of completion.  I remember the cover of Wayne Fontana's "Game Of Love" being mentioned as being incomplete and therefore likely not a contender for release.  There are probably other songs much in the same boat as far as that goes.  Now as far as alternate takes and session tapes go that would be another story entirely but in terms of unreleased tracks, I think the ones most of us were hoping to hear are going to be on MIC and the ones that aren't (I've Got A Friend) are locked away in the vaults because there is little value to them outside of the desire of the diehard collector to hear them.

Is that Mike Love who says at the beginning "that's really one of my favorite songs that I've ever heard"?

What I miss to be released is the live "What'd I Say" and the untouched Sacramento 1963/64 tapes. And Big Sur 4/4.

And the finished BB versions of Holidays, Look, CIFOTM and DYLW. Overdub the missing vocals onto that while you're still alive, will ya, please, boys? It's not so hard to do.

Even if there isnt much left in the "vault" I can be content with the wealth of music the BB have released.

If a band like the Castaways could write just one hit like "Lies" and it still be affectionately  remembered 45 yrs later then the Beach Boys will still be loved & adored a 1000 yrs from now.  ;)

Castaways had a hit with 'Liar Liar'...

Lies was The Knickerbockers ;)

Carry on.

I don't really know how much in the way of studio stuff from the 60s exists that could be considered releaseable, to be honest.

The Beginning of the End and Visions are doubtful, despite them being among the earliest Beach Boys recordings.
Thank Him is great, but I don't know if the band is going to release a recording sourced from an acetate, especially one in a shape like that.
Let's Live Before We Die is incomplete and rambling, so I have my doubts.
Sandy is missing a lead vocal, despite having a good track and backing vocals. I think the lack of a lead might hurt its chances.
I could possibly see some Party outtakes, like Satisfaction or Blowin' in the Wind, showing up. I don't know who would rush to hear Bruce ham it up singing The Diary, though.
There's an instrumental from around time of the sessions for The Little Girl I Once Knew, but I doubt that's happening.
There are the other remakes from the Heider sessions, so maybe we'd get another of those. Don't count on the Michael rant on Heroes and Villains coming out.
My Little Red Book is a possibility.
New Song is doubtful.

There are a few instrumental tracks that never received vocals, like Tune #L and Our Happy Home, so I don't know if those would be considered candidates.

Wasn't a much better copy of Thank Him unearthed a few years back? I think I remember reading something along those lines...

With all due respect to AGD's venerable site, it's based on the best known information at present. A few of the tracks appearing on MiC weren't listed at Bellagio; who knew, for instance, that Brian had a stab or five at Surf's Up during the Wild Honey era?

For all we know there could be a stack of stuff awaiting discovery as Mark and Boyd work their through the archive shelves.

For example, John Hillarby's discovered some new John Martyn material in recent times simply by playing the other side o the reel-to-reel tapes in that archive.  some of that's coming out on the 18-disc box coming out late summer.  Just shows, any thing's possible…

We also don`t know what perfectly good stuff may have been found which wasn`t included on MiC for whatever reason.

Obviously people have expressed surprised at the amount of unbooted songs on the box set but I think it`s just as surprising how many booted unreleased songs have no been included (eg. Big Sur). There doesn`t seem to be too much rhyme or reason to some inclusions/omissions on the band`s released at times.

Every scrap and gamey morsel will be put out once the kids are in charge. Again and again and again and again.

Ah yes, you're right! :)

I'm pretty sure that Alan Boyd and Aeijtzche and whoever else have already went through the vault and catalogued everything that they could find. That's basically how The SMiLE Sessions were so exhaustive and how we probably got a bunch of these previously unknown titles coming on MIC. So I wouldn't suspect that they'd find much more in their vault that they already don't know about, although there still may be other stuff in other places that they still haven't tracked down.

And we also gotta keep in mind, that these bands and their labels always wanna keep something for a rainy day, so I wouldn't doubt that there are probably still a few things in The Beach Boys archive that would make our jaws drop.

 :o OOpsy -  thanks for the correction. I must have been thinking about "Lies" as I wanted to reference a
"one hit wonder". he he.

Yes. I agree.

I want something like what Elvis has - the FTD label - for all us hardcore Beach Boy fans.

I think that selling isolated multitracks is actually a potentially interesting revenue source for record companies.  I mean, I think the Beach Boys should do it because I'm selfish and just want it, but when a vault is truly tapped out in terms of mixed things, why not find other ways to resell the same music to people?

The main con to this is that there would be a lot of unofficial mixes floating around, which artists might not like.

But, I think enough audio enthusiasts/budding engineers would be interested in that sort of thing.  I think that they should cost a lot.  File sharing could be a problem.

But let's say I wanted to buy the 16-track master for "This Whole World."  I think it should cost maybe 100 bucks or something.  We'd be getting very valuable stuff, so it should be worth something, and that makes it worth it to the record company.  It would probably be a pretty low-labor intensive job on their end.  An engineer simply transfers the tape to digital, puts the tracks in a file, passes it on to the record company, who then upload it.

It would make sense to start with Pet Sounds. 

I must admit I would love this as well ...

but I do feel somewhat strange when I think that Carl and Desper (and probably others) would likely not want these kinds of things to come out. I'm secretly happy that we can never have a legit stereo remix of 'Good Vibes' because there is something so eternal about that final mono mix.

Hey, they hinted at it themselves in the Pet Sounds sessions! I suppose a workaround could be a "locked-in" device/player like a computer program or even a little mixer or something (or a video game), but there wouldn't be a way to stop sharing and fan mixing... then again that hasn't stopped them from happening even now. The Rock Band stems are basically the same deal and I haven't heard any complaints.

I believe that we will eventually see a Brian Wilson career retrospective box (perhaps for his 75th birthday?) that will address Brian's solo career, outside productions, and a number of the things mentioned here that weren't true Beach Boys group recordings -- "Gonna Hustle You," Thank Him," "Rabbit's Foot," the early Usher session, etc. along with additional songwriting demos.  Maybe then we'll get to hear the rest of Bob Norberg's demos...

Lee

As is It's About Time. From a 1972 show.

hopefully some Cocain/Hamburger sessions on that box too  :angel:

I like the idea of the multi tracks, but could you pick and choose which  or would you have to buy them all? Suppose I just want the drums guitar and bass so I can mix in me on the keyboards then add Al, Carl and Bruce's backing vox so I can sing lead and Mike's bass parts? Can I get them for half price?

Or you could buy the Limited Edition ASDA exclusive 'Vocal Session' set which involves the 5 surviving Beach Boys/BW's band coming round your house and playing each song as many times as is necessary.

That's one way of encouraging piracy, yeah.

There will be plenty left, but can't see another physical release like this one happening. Surprise me, BRIMEL.

Indeed.

BriMel has nothing to do with BRI, which would have to clear Beach Boys releases.

That actually makes a lot of sense. There have been so many unreleased projects that they could stick out loads of rarities.

I'd love to have a special Sunflower Sessions release with all the tracks recorded or demoed during that period including the earlier version of Add Some Music with Mike, Al and Bruce singing each verse, Big Sur 4/4, as many A Cappella mixes as they can squeeze on there and the icing on the cake would be Desper's mix of the album that he thought the label should have released in the first place using that spatialization technology he demoed on his Cool Cool Water study video.  Then we could have updated remasters (or even remixes) of things on the old GV box like San Miguel, I Just Got My Pay, Games Two Can Play, and anything else from that 1969-70 era that was overlooked or passed on for MIC.

Aye, it has been mooted here on many an occasion that if there's one BBs album ripe for a delux edition it's Sunflower. So many outtakes and alt mixes and alt versions etc…

Might still happen!

Entire albums in backing track and a cappella mix configuration. Just as they did with the Pet Sounds sessions.

They did an entire backing track disc of Pet Sounds? I'd love to hear that! I never did get the box set, as it was to expensive.

So I'm going to spend $145 on another multi disc set, anyway. Makes perfect logical sense, huh?  ;D

You can buy the PS Sessions box as MP3s for £25 now, or second-hand for under £20. It's no longer the essential purchase it was at first, because the stereo mixes are now widely available, but it's well worth getting at those prices.
And yes, it included stereo backing tracks of every song (except the two instrumentals, where it included "track minus lead instrument" versions) as well as a capella versions of all of the songs with vocals, and lots of very interesting alternate versions.

Cool, thanks for the info. I really need to get it one of these days. What exactly do you mean by "track minus lead instrument" versions?

For instance, Pet Sounds the song is presented without the lead guitar overdub, and Let's Go Away For A While is presented without the strings.

You got the quotations seriously scrambled up, but a hypnotist may very well be the only possibility to get them to do it. Do your calls, please... :)

Fine.  But those of us who think these are valuable will pay, and I'm certain that's a small number.  So it has to be priced high enough that a small handful of purchases will still make them a profit.

I would love it if an untapped vault was discovered...the computers containing the Pro-Tools program and various takes, tracks and outtakes for one of the band's best albums...Summer in Paradise!