The Smiley Smile Message Board

Sorry to rebump this old thread, but this is still a fascinating subject!

What are the real deal/vintage mono edits that BW made during the Smile era and where to find them?

What I have:

Prayer : '66 comp reel acetate - Vigotone 2CD
Heroes & Villains Pt 1 : 'Cantina' edit - Made In California Box
Do You Like Worms? : '66 comp reel acetate - Vigotone 2CD
Bicycle Rider: '66 comp reel acetate - Vigotone 2CD
Barnyard: '66 comp reel acetate - Vigotone 2CD
The Old Master Painter: Dennis Wilson acetate - Vigotone 2CD
The Old Master Painter (instrumental): '66 comp reel acetate - Vigotone 2CD
Cabin Essence: '66 comp reel acetate - Vigotone 2CD
Cabin Essence: '66 comp reel acetate (longer backing track) - Secret Smile
Wonderful: '66 comp reel acetate (backing track mono) - Vigotone 2CD
Child is Father of the Man: '66 comp reel acetate - Vigotone 2CD (ver 1 & 2)
Child is Father of the Man: '66 backing track - Secret Smile
Surf's Up: BW piano demo - The Smile Sessions
Vegetables: Cornucopia version - Secret Smile
Vegetables: April '67 rough edit - Sea of Tunes vol.17
Wind Chimes: '66 comp reel acetate - Vigotone 2CD
Mrs. O' Leary's Cow: Mono mix w/ sound effect - Sea Of Tunes, vol.17

Good Vibrations: We know that one.

Feel free to add! ;D

Haven't got much to add, but... wasn't the solo performance of Surf's Up from late 1967 (the one that didn't see release until the SMiLE Sessions came out) a 2011 edit of several takes? And then the version on MiC was a different edit of some subtly different takes?

I got the impression that it definitely wasn't an unedited recording of that, mixed in 1967, that we heard on TSS...?

The amount of hiss on the TSS Iron Horse segments is IMHO a hint those are vintage mixes, too.

Dont forget You're Welcome.

Wasn't there also the mix of the Heroes and Villains vocal chants from Gee to Slow Dit-Dit with Swedish Frog spliced out? I thought this was supposed to be the final mix of H&V Part 2.

It can be found on TSS-Heroes mix, somewhere at the end of box set (forgot where..), and in a SOT, vol 17., cd 1, track 10! That one I found!

They're described as different 'mixes' as opposed to different 'edits' aren't they?  not sure how much we can infer from that in reality...

I can't say I've done any particularly attentive A-B-ing, but to me the TSS version certainly sounds like it has a deeper/lusher reverb compared to the drier later version,

Isn't it a bit weird that, of all the songs created by Brian Wilson during the Smile era, 10 songs out of the 12 in the proposed December track list had partially made mixes (Heroes, Worms, Barnyard and The Old Master Painter, Cabin Essence, Wonderful, Child Is Father Of The Man, Surf's Up demo, Vegetables, Wind Chimes, The Elements: Fire), plus two unknown listed tracks that could have been opening at closing of the album (Prayer and You're Welcome). Good Vibrations was already in the can and Im' In Great Shape is still the big mystery! Call me crazy, but im' beginning to think that the 12 tracks memo make sense.

I agree. I never thought so until making a fan mix using just those tracks (but not in the order given on the sleeve) but it really does click, that tracklist. Much as I like them, Holidays and Look only slow things down and Dada didn't become a track until later. Still, you have to consider that Look was pretty much done too. It had vocals recorded. That and I don't think Youre Welcome was ever meant for the album.

Double post. Please delete

Of course it makes sense! I think there is no doubt that these were the songs that were going to be on that album, but the question is in what form for some of the songs..Do you like worms, Prayer, Wind chimes, Cabinessence..I think that these four were complete (maybe some vocals needed..), others were in some kind of flux in November/December when the list was created..
Having said that, I remeber the famous Vosse qoute that "while the boys were in England, it was totaly concieved entity".. or something like that, so I have to say that the album had shape in October/November when Brian was doing tracks, but when the time came to lay vocals it was begging to fall apart + VDP leaving...sections moved, concentrating on singles..yea I think Smile had it come out in January/February 1967 would have been a lot different from let´s say October/November 1966 Smile! I think it was already in the dumpster (the original idea) in January/February 1967!

If we had an idea of what the vocals for Holidays and Look were it'd probably change our whole idea of those 2 tracks. As it is, there's just that teeny snippet we can hear in the background of Holidays on the official box. Did the original lyric sheets Frank Holmes handed over include either of these? I think AGD implied that these sheets were lost between BWPS and The Smile Sessions box. I cannot for the life of me imagine why else they weren't included in the boxset book, especially Worms. I guess that the dispute with Van Dyke was a significant reason for there being no discussion of the songs as compositions with no reference to missing lead vocals/lyrics.
I'm willing to bet Worms would have been even more killer with the original lead vocal melody/lyrics too. If only these and the original Child melody/lyrics had been recorded and kept in some form even just a composing demo we'd have a far better understanding of the album. I wonder how much survives in locations unknown from this period. If missing prints of Metropolis and the like can still turn up, there must be some hope for a few more Smile snippets assuming there was anything else recorded in the first place. Surely Brian and Van Dyke taped occasional demos at home if only for , for example, Van Dyke to continue work on the lyrics.

Wasn't there a BW Child mix on the 5-CD boot Archaeology?

There were two if I remember correctly.

I think a properly finished Worms might have been one of the best songs of all time. CIFOTM too. That they're still so awesome in their current half-finished states is just a testament to how great that music really is.

I agree, the lyrics for holidays and Look would be game-changers. So would the vocal session for Great Shape had it survived. Was it really just that one verse? Was Barnyard really part of it? Was the Do A Lot/Mama Says chorus part of it and later repurposed for Vega-Tables as I've come to suspect? Or had it been fleshed out into something completely new that we can only dream of? Who knows. Only Brian, maybe, and he's not talking.