The Smiley Smile Message Board

Ok I am sure we have all come across people we trade items with who have made up things in their collection that don't exist. I don't know why some folks think they fool anybody, but I wondered if we could share some stories. I remember one guy telling me he had a video of the 1975 Back Home session (where Brian looked "Fat but happy", and a 1970 Add Some Music promo clip that included Brian.  I knew he was lying but wouldn;t those be great!

Not sure if he was joking. Ed Roach did a 15 Big Ones documentary, maybe he filmed a "Back Home" session? And no, it has nothing to do with the "It's OK" TV-Special.
A promo from 1970 or 71 with Brian exists, but I'm not sure if they played "Add Some Music" or "This Whole World".
Man, I would love to see all that stuff!

Sometimes you've got to have an open mind about these things. I mean, if someone had told me 5 years ago about the "Get The Boot" bootleg and somes of the tracks on it I wouldn't have believed them and until I saw it on YouTube, I never knew a promo for "Don't Go Near The Water" existed. Someone, somewhere will have loads of footage and tracks ready to be booted.

The one hoax that did disgruntle me recently though is the "California Nights" bootleg rumour... :(

Can anyone post those two videos on youtube?

yeh!! please anyone!  :afro :3d :afro
just post em and ill give yer a jar of rum!

There is a short promo clip for an airline from 1970 that features the BB's(including Brian) singing a Sunflower track around a piano, Bruce is in front doing the commercial narrative...it lasts for about five seconds...your friend wasn't lying. Another great one is the BB's in '68 at the Maharishi Tour press conference singing an acapella version of the opening few lines of Friends...they nail it.

There was also one guy awhile back who claimed to have audio of Dennis playing songs in his trailer on the set of "Two Lane Blacktop", along with several discs worth of "POB" and "Bamboo" outtakes.

Craig

Someone told me once they had a piano demo of Summer Means New Love. Yes there is one, but its a cover on piano, not a demo!  ::)

The problem is, like Agent Mulder, we all "want to believe".  It's a strange line between gullibility and scepticism that is also very blurry.

Plus, even if you're not malicious, it's kind of fun to make up "hoax" bootlegs or something, as an exercise in fantasy, you know?  All you do is do some wordplay on a Beach Boys related thing and then list things you want to hear.  For instance:

"All That is This" (2006, Tea of Sunes)
1.  Wouldn't it be Nice (L discrete track only)
2.  Wouldn't it be Nice (C discrete track only)
3.  Wouldn't it be Nice (R discrete track only)
4.  Do You Like Worms (A Capella w/verse lead vocal)
5.  Wonderful (Smiley Stereo remix)
6.  Little Girl I Once Knew (stereo remix)
7.  Good Vibrations (Stereo A Capella mix)
8.  Slip on Through (A Capella)
9.  Slip On Through (track)
10.  Add Some Music (track)
11.  All I Wanna Do (A Capella)
12.  Don't go Near the Water (A capella)
13.  Til I Die (A Capella)
14.  California Saga (track only)
15.  River Song (Beach Boys studio version)
16.  It's OK (vocals)
17.  Johnny Carson (A capella)
18.  Johnny Carson (track)
19.  Getcha Back (a capella)
20.  Where I Belong (A capella)


See, that was fun.

yeah, no kidding...i feel like i have one of those items..the BB version of River Song? maybe i dont...pretty sure i do though

No such thing as a Beach Boys studio River Song.

Thats because you dont have it...its under my mattress at the moment.

Someone was selling some termite infested bed on ebay that they claimed was purchased from Mrs. Wilson in the 70's.

No the guy was a fraud we are talking 12-15 years ago. He wasn't talking about the commercial, he said it was a music video (not a TV show) for Add Some Music and the Back Home Session in 1975 nothing from 15 Big Ones proper.  He ripped me and a lot of people off with Elvis and The Beach Boys alike. Let's see he told me he had Elvis singing Candy Kisses on Loving You. Just someone who lies to make themselves look good.

no, honestly, i i'm pretty sure i have it...it's on the Brian is Back (he loves you) boot...it's from 73 maybe? i dont know, maybe i'm a load of crap...doesnt it have denny say "I was born to see the city lights" before it starts...

I thought the same thing (I have the same boot)...

This one guy (let's call him "Troy") once told me had a boot featuring...get this...


1. Til I Die- featuring strings
2. Cuddle Up - Brian lead
3. You Need a Mess of Help...- Piano Demo
4. We Got Love- Binaural Mix
5. Santa Ana Winds (Live)

I don't remember the rest, but they were equally dubious. "Troy" wanted $100 for this. Ha. I didn't even *know* this guy.

River Song has been going around since it appeared on the LP California Feeling circa 1987. So I know that is real

Did you get the pm reply?

RE River Song, there is no tape record of the Beach Boys attempting River Song in the vaults.  There's an early Dennis and Daryl Dragon '71 recording which is apparently quite sparse, but not a Beach Boys recording.  Then there are several live versions the BB did.  So if this boot is indeed a Beach Boys version (are any beach boys other than dennis audible on it?) it's puzzling to me why there is a gap in the documentation...

Ricky Fataar, and I think Carl too.

Well, Rickey and Carl are on the POB version too.

I think its from 73.  Dennis is teaching it to the melody to someone as the track starts. It sound like a full group version. The piano thing with Dragon is going around but it doesn't have words yet.  There is a posibility that the music track from this version was incorperated into the final 1977 cut. My theory is that this was a rehearsal for the live version but Dennis may have meant it for an album. A T.V. station apparently taped  them doing the song around this time but it cannot be proven that this is the same thing.

KABC-TV, 1973 - apparently the clip shows the band rehearsing "River Song", I'm betting for a live show and not a studio track. I've got the audio in the vaults somewhere.

One of the good points about being the complete info geeks we are is that, unless you really know your stuff re: the BB, any hoax will be rapidly unmasked.

It was from Mrs. Wilson.

Mrs. Audree Wilson.  8)

Josh, I can field this one....

Because it was not dubbed from a multitrack that still exists. 

You see, Denny kept working and re-working RS for years.   It certainly got some time in on it during the Caribou sessions, though it was finally finished for POB.  But at an earlier phase, the same tapes were being dubbed for the unreleased 1975 album.  Denny allowed a friend to take a mono cassette recorder and tape off a copy of work-in-progress that was a pure BB track at that time.  THIS is the version everyone is talking about and I have heard it too.  However, it is gone -- Denny wiped off most of the BB parts and re-recorded lots of stuff using the same tapes for POB, so it's not in the vaults.  But it is a genuine BB recording.

Source:  Brad Elliott on the web.  I think he actually had talked to the person from whom the tape had come.

Yep.  That's the version on the bootleg "California Feeling", first released on LP in '85 with a picture (drawing) of a bikini girl on the front (holding her bikini top, arms crossed across her chest, face not showing...classy).  Anyways, I'm 99% sure that version has no background vocals, just Dennis on a partial lead (no vocal in the bridge).  The backing track is just piano (Dennis), guitar (Carl), bass (probably Ed Carter), and drums (Ricky).  I don't think there's any other instrumentation, unless I just can't remember it.  In the POB version, Carl's guitar is mixed WAY down, but it's still there.  Supposedly this early rough mix is from 1974, which would explain the absence of Blondie on the track (he had sung the live version in '73, but he was gone by '74, which is probably why it's Dennis doing the lead vocal here).  Anyways, the '74 mix is one of those things that is kinda "grey territory"...a Dennis-dominated track with Carl & Ricky that could have become a Beach Boys song (if Dennis, Carl, Mike and Al had done background vocals for it...and maybe they did, and they were wiped, but they're not on the bootleg mix).  I think you CAN hear Carl vocally on the POB version...

The '73 KABC-TV version sounds like a completely different recording, with different piano (electric piano, if I remember right).  It does sound more like the '73 live version (performed at Nassau Coliseum and in Hartford, CT).  The TV spot is mostly an interview about the Boys "today", TM, etc., but at one point they mention the track in-progress as being for a "new album".  Too bad no one seems to have the video!

Craig

I remember some years ago either on the newsgroups or on PSML or something...somebody talked about a new bootleg coming out called Brian Is Dumb which "had," as one of its tracks, Brian's demo of "Guess I'm Dumb," among a handful of other attractive sounding titles. After about a week of excited screaming and stuff, the original poster fessed up that he made the whole thing up, and he had some kind of reason for doing that; I don't remember what though...

Oh....and a really, really cruel April Fool's joke: I think it was in 1995 when someone reported that Brian was working on a new album with Van Dyke Parks, Tony Asher, and Andy Paley.

And now that I think about that....eight years later it was actually true. :)

Too bad that multitrack is gone...

For the record, the version in my hoax tracklist would have had a Blondie lead vocal, strong bass vocals from Mike, and full backing vocals from Carl, Al, and Brian.  And Moog bass.

This "River Song" recording is on one of the "Surfin' Rarities" discs.....

Okay we got this straight?? There are the early '70's DW River Song sections in a demo state...including a HUGE preamble or intro section that didn't make it into release. Then there is the live "rehearsal" version from '73 that is the BB's and features a Blondie lead. Then there is the booted studio "mix" which features the crunchy guitar mixed to the fore...this contains at least some of the basic track for the released POB version, but is a curious early mix done by Ed Roach for fun. "hey Dennis let me take a crack at mixing that." Ed told me Dennis hated it.  And then finally the released version on POB. These are all the River Song bits I have heard. Any more?? Oh yeah, there might be a rehearsal version for DW's aborted tour...haven't heard that one.

There definately are backing vocals on that '74 mix of "River Song"... the opening "Walkin' down by the river..." part.  It's missing the vocal tag, though: "you've got to do it, do it, do it..."  Definately one of the coolest alternate mixes in the BB boot world.

Jon, you forgot the live version from Hartford '73, which is not the same as the rehearsal from that year.

Am I reading this correctly.. that booted '74 studio version was mixed by Ed Roach?

Santa Ana Winds was performed live for the first time at the Knebworth gig in June 1980 but, as a first performance   -  someone had to dash off-stage to get lyric sheets if I recall correctly - it was probably deemed not of high enough quality for the official CD release. It's probably on the Stone Age boot of the gig which I have but not in front of me so I can't check right now.  But it's out there! And folk might well be willing to trade for it you never can tell!   ;)

Dunno about "mixed", but when I had said "friend" before, I THOUGHT it was Roach -- just didn't want to say that since I wasn't 100% sure I was remembering correctly.  So Roach is definitely the one who taped it.

I always seem to blur the rehearsal and the Hartford versions...I guess its Blondie's vocal. And yes that primitive studio mix is courtesy of Eddie. Hope he doesn't mind me letting that one out of the bag...he was pretty free with that info when he told me about it back in '98...I'm sure he's told others the same thing. I specifically remember him saying Dennis thought it sounded bad.

Jon, Brad Elliott posted about it on Usenet years ago, which is as public as you can get.  I just didn't remember the name off the top of my head for sure.  I doubt you need fear breaking confidences...

I like Ed's mix because Dennis sounds so good on it. He still has his young voice.

I just thought of another version of River Song...the version, or mix, that accompanies Ed's promo film for River Song. It has the guitar out front like the booted version, it's missing some of the lead vocal, but has the choir on it. As most of you know the film shows DW and friends recording the choir. I think we're up to six and perhaps seven versions of RS now. Wow...can't think of another Dennis song with close to that many.

Forever has a lot of versions floating around