The Smiley Smile Message Board

What if an acetate copy of the full SMiLE album had been released around the end of May 1967? This is what the concept of this mix is all about. I compiled all the vintage Brian Wilson mixes from 1966-1967 into a final, 2-side structure LP that follows the 12 tracks submitted to Capitol Records around December 1966.

https://www.mixcloud.com/gabriel-lamarche/may1967acetate/

Here's the (albeit classic) lineup:

Side A (19:50)

00 Our Prayer: Alternate Brian Wilson 1966 mono mix with cuts - Vigotone
01 Heroes & Villians: Mono cantina mix - Made In California Boxset
02 Do You Like Worms: 1966 Brian Wilson rough mono mix ver 2 - Secret Smile + Vocal section from The Smile Sessions + Bicycle Rider acetate from Alternate Sea of Tunes vol 2
03 Wonderful: 1966 Brian Wilson mono mix - Vigotone
04 Child Is Father of the Man: 3 min backing track 1966 mono mix edit by Brian Wilson - Secret Smile (+ 3 vocals variations from mono and stereo acetates from Vigotone, Archeology & The Smile Sessions)
05 (The Old Master Painter) Barnyard: 1966 mono mix acetate - Vigotone + The Old Master Painter: 1966 mono mix acetate - Vigotone + Barnshire section - ending from acetate from The Smile Sessions)
06 Cabin Essence: mix of two 1966 mono mix acetates - Vigotone

Side B (18:00)

07 Good Vibrations: Alternate acetate mix from The Smile Sessions
08 Im' In Great Shape: The Smile Sessions backing track
09 Vegetables : Edit from Brian Wilson 1967 Mono Mixes Rehearsals + 1967 April Assembly edit from Sea of Tunes vol. 17
10 Wind Chimes : 1966 mono mix (mono) (2:22)- Vigo
11 The Elements : Mrs. O'Leary's Cow: 1966 Brian Wilson Mono Mix from Sea of Tunes vol. 17, I Wanna Be Around/Friday Night: Mark Linette 1988 mixes, I Love to Say Da-Da: GV Boxset
12 Surf's Up: demo from GV Boxset


Bonus traxxs!
13 You're Welcome: 1966 acetate mono mix - Vigotone
14 Heroes & Villains pt 2: 1967 rough assembly - The Smile Sessions + Mark Linett 1988 mixes
15 Look:  Mark Linett 1988 mixes
16 Holidays:  Mark Linett 1988 mixes

I'd like to hear it, but mixcloud tells me it is "unavailable" to my country (USA) due to licensing restrictions. 
Bummer  :(

I haven't tried downloading it yet (I don't have decent internet service right now), but I'm really intrigued by this concept and can't wait to check it out tomorrow. Hopefully the USA restriction problem gets solved by then. Looking forward to hearing this!

I'll be brutally honest, not thrilled about the dime a dozen sequence...but I am interested by the idea of using all-vintage mixes of the tracks themselves. But I too, cant listen to it.

I like the idea of contemporary mixes being used, as well.  And I'd love to hear/download this work (particularly if the files are lossless).

Unfortunately, I'm getting "not allowed," too.  :'(

Alright, here's the .mp3 of it:

http://www36.zippyshare.com/v/84zVqrtB/file.html

If there is interest in it, I might do a complete re-tweak in .FLAC

Smile!  :)

Always thought the Heroes & Villians: Mono cantina mix is wacky as sh*t---love it, aha!  :hat

A few questions:

Wonderful - the Brian Wilson 66 mono mix on Vigotone is the same as the one on the Good Vibrations box set - do you think the sound quality is better on the boot?

Old Master Painter - why Barnyard?  That wasn't to be part of OMP.  I'd put it after Great Shape.

Cabinessence - mix of two acetates - that means there's no lead vocal right?

the Mark Linett 1988 mixes - these are the same mixes as on Vigotone, or is there a separate boot release called "the Mark Linett 1988 mixes?"

Wonderful -
the sound quality is not better on the boot but, to my knowledge, an actual 1966 Brian Wilson mix. The purpose of this mix was to assemble every vintage Brian Wilson mixes to its last incarnation before the project collapsed and how a May 1967 assembly may have sounded. This is why I added every vocal recorded for each track (but without fly-ins for the Barnyard and Im' In Great Shape demo). In a way, you could call this "the Lo-Fi Smile mix".

Old Master Painter -
Why Barnyard? I always thought that the two pieces worked together. And Michael Vosse talked in his Fusion article that the Barnyard idea grew out of playing The Old Master Painter, and with the 4 little connected pieces (Barnyad/OMP/Sunshine/H&V reprise or ''Barnshire''), we have what Brian referred at the time as ''The Barnyard Suite''. Also, on the 2004 live version, the 2 pieces are connected the same way and make sense musically. As for Im' In Great Shape, I think it works better as a short intro to Vegetables, as it was on the 2004 live version (without Friday Night/Workshop). The lyrics to Great Shape seems to fit more with the ''healthy'' aspect of VT. Barnyard Suite seems more like a mini-opera pastiche of Americana (Old Macdonald Farm, The Old Master Painter, You Are My Sunshine).

Cabinessence - mix of two acetates - that means there's no lead vocal right?
No lead vocals except for both Who Ran The Iron Horse? chorus and the Grand Coulee section by Mike. Dennis didn't get around to record his lead vocal.

the Mark Linett 1988 mixes -
These aren't all the same mixes as on Vigotone, some are vintage edits transfers and other are 1988 mixes. There is out there a bootleg called the Mark Linett 1988 mixes.

As for the order of the tracks, after all these years of Smile fanmixing I still think the lineup works as a presentation of what could have been a 1967 album with 12-13 tracks. Brian Wilson never went to do full-on progressive music during his whole career and always cared about singles, hence they were always the first or last tracks on each LP sides. As lovely as ideas like Do You Like Worms? as opener sounds, imo it never would have happened judging from the format BW worked during his whole career. SMiLE, for me, was supposed to be 2 suites for 2 vinyl sides and composed of 12 songs made in the same mold as Good Vibrations.

It's your mix so of course you can put the pieces together any way you like - I like Barnyard with Great Shape as that's the way it went when Great Shape was still part of H & V.

My point about the Vigotone Wonderful is that it is the identical BW mix that is on the GV box set - BRI did not have a copy of the mono mix down or of the original multitrack, so a "collector" who was the provenance of the tape for Vig provided it to BRI for inclusion on the box.

Neat, I'll listen when I'm done with this audio project I'm working on now.

How does this differ from the BW acetate comp you made last year? 
http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,17252.0.html
I really liked that and referenced it a few times, it's very handy. 

There's a problem with using the 1966 version of "Wonderful" by your standards.

The problem with it is, it seems like that version was scrapped and instead two other versions were recorded, those being the "Rock with Me Henry" version which was recorded in January, and a very pretty third version which was recorded in April. Personally, I wish they would've finished the April version, because it truly is a beautiful piece of work, even in it's unfinished state.

If only we had the April version's piano and backing vocals with the original's lead vocal and horns and the second version's insert with the rock with me henries. The ultimate Wonderful.

But are you sure if SMiLE was even still a viable album in April '67? And does the fact that Brian didnt use that for the Smiley version disprove your theory, or not? How abrupt or smooth was the transition between albums?

Certain tracks have different mixes or tweaks from different sources (Worms, Child, Cabin Essence, Vegetables) and I changed the lineup as well. But it's really version 2 (or 3 or 4, etc.) of the same mix.

Actually, im' now working on a brand new stereo mix of what would have been a December 1966 12 tracks lineup. It seems more clear that there was still an album by that point (as noted by Michael Vosse in the Fusion article).

Does anybody have any guesses at what a December mix of Heroes & Villains would sound like?

Also, I tried splitting ''Our Prayer'' in two parts: one small bit for the intro before H&V and the last 30 seconds after Surf's Up. You know what? It doesn't sound bad at all and it fits the 30 second seconds type of choral amen that was described by Vosse and Jules Siegel at the time.
 

The November/early December Heroes went: 

1st 2 verses/Great Shape/my children were raised . . . Often wise/3 score and five/a Capella/ Barnyard.

Sometime after "the list" Brian's plan changed, Great Shape was out but cantina wasn't in yet and he seemed to be trying out different things.  We have the chime Intro (although there is no Intro title associated with the tape,so I suspect it was some kind of transitional piece to replace great shape?) and a new Great Shape musical theme which Brian made a rough edit into my children/3 score and five.  In January new pieces were recorded All Day, vocals and overdubs on Bicycle Rider (from Worms), that whistle/percussion piece similar to Intro whose name escapes me at the moment, etc. in February we have cantina and Barnshine from OMP go into the final Cantina mix.

Since that last acetate mix, iv'e been completely retooling my SMiLE stereo mix. I stuck to the 12 songs track list that would have been released in January. So, the set includes most of 1966 sessions and just a bit from 1967.

And it's really more an edit than a mix, so many thanks to the wonderful work of seltaeb1012002, krabklaw, soniclovenoize, bruiteur and of course, Mark Linett.

Here it goes for my T2580 edit. Maybe not the actual album that would have been released in January 1967, but what personally I would have wanted to hear back then as an album :

https://vimeo.com/136984665




(Side A - Americana Cantata)

Heroes & Villains (Prayer/H&V Cantina/Barnyard-seltaeb1012002) - I decided to stuck to mainly pre 1967 sessions but I cheated for Heroes because I wanted both the cantina section (which replace Im' In Great Shape) and Barnyard to be in it.

Do You Like Worms - (seltaeb1012002) added little snippet from the Smile Sessions

Im' In Great Shape (Egg & Grits/He Gives Speeches/Do a Lot) - Cheated a bit on that one too. Never liked the link with I Wanna Be Around/Friday Night, it doesn't fit the ''happy'' mood of Im' In Great Shape. So I re-edited a brand new version

Vega-Tables (Vega-tables cornucopia+Vegetables arguments/Smiley Smile stereo) - Last cheat, promise! Added the Smiley Smile coda recorded in 1967 to fit the structure of the Smile Smile version.

The Elements (Mrs. O' Leary's Fire, I Wanna Be Around, Friday Night - soniclovenoize SMiLE instrumentals) - I Wanna Be Around/Friday Night is moved after Fire, but really it's the most problematic track on the set. Anything goes with The Elements, so im' just gonna go with these 2 parts for this song)

The Old Master Painter (krabklaw)

Cabin Essence (seltaeb1012002)

(Side B - Life Cantata)

Good Vibrations (Smiley Smile stereo mix)

Wonderful (Wonderful/Look) (seltaeb1012002-soniclovenoize SMiLE instrumentals)

Wind Chimes (seltaeb1012002)

Child Is Father Of The Man (seltaeb1012002/Project Smile songs/BWPS 2004/The Smile Sessions)

Surf's Up (Surf' Up/Prayer reprise -The Smile Sessions/bruiteur/The Smile Sessions, seltaeb1012002), ends with the 30 second amen choral mentionned by Michael Vosse in Fusion.

That's more or less how I structure my SMiLE too! Glad I'm not alone

I like your stereo mix of Smile (don't care for mono mixes). Nice job! I'm hearing some things I haven't heard elsewhere, so that's pretty cool. Your Wind Chimes (laughter at the end) and CIFOTM vocal fly-ins stood out for me. Not too keen on He Gives Speeches being where it is or the fade at the end of Fire (you should just let the drums end it). Thanks a lot for sharing this with us and for for including OMP.

I am utterly convinced that the Elements was more complete than people think.

Brian said Air was a piano piece. That's Dada - no question in my mind - especially when you hear the Dada with whistling sound that circulated as "Air Dada". Water is "water chant". Fire is obvious. Earth would have to be Barnyard, given that the Elements Suite was later referred to as the "Barnyard Suite".

I'm not saying it's not guesswork to some extent, but I believe that the water lyrics came to Dada after the abandonment  of SMiLE.

As to the correct order "Fire" is listed as part one. If you take the order which old philosophy tells us the elements arise, I think it would be fire then air, then water, then earth.

Greta stuff man. really like your mix, very orthodox, witout bull..it link tracks! Could you please give us mix with separeted songs??
Tnx