The Smiley Smile Message Board

Couldn't see a thread for it yet, but this was posted on Facebook earlier today.


Are they preparing for a new release?

Hmm.. let me think... the album was released fifty years ago this May... Nope, can't think of a reason why they'd get the tapes out.

wish I could get close enough to smell those tapes.  :P

Hmm, do I detect just a hint of sarcasm? ;)

I'm kinda wondering what else is there they can present that they havn't already done
before?  We've had mono remastered, stereo remix, vinyl editions, DVD A etc etc
and a wonderful box set to the album.
what more could there be to offer that we don't already got?

Sarcasm ? Moi ??

Could he be in there just playing the tapes for a camera crew (50th doc)?

I doubt it, I think it is much more likely that he is in the studio with Rocky, just hanging out, and having Rocky re-record the vocals from the album.

They're preparing the hitherto unreleased versions of Pet Sounds songs, originally recorded simultaneously to those that appeared on the album, as a follow-up, but rejected by Capitol after the album's poor sales.


Pet Noise
1 Wasn't It Nice
2 Can't Believe You still Believe In Me
3 That Wasn't Me
4 Can't You Just Shut Up For Christ's Sake (Put Your Head Back on my Shoulder)
5 I Waited for the Day
6 We Went Away For A While
7 Sloop John C
8 God Only Knew
9 I Knew There'd Be An Answer
10 There Yesterday
11 I Just Wasn't Made For Those Times
12 Pet Noise
13 Caroline, Perhaps

That made me laugh 13 times.

Thanks for the laugh!

Oh, yes please! A documentary! Let David Leaf do it and put another photo album to instrumental tracks, but let it go on for an hour instead of 8 minutes.

Wasn't David Leaf exiled to the Island of Brian's Former Best Friends?

What? What's the story?

One thing about BW that I think benefited his music though maybe not his life is that he seems to have retained well into adulthood a childlike enthusiasm for fun new things (friends, philosophies, sounds, 'scenes') that he then sort of gets over and moves on to the next enthusiasm.
Eta: though for some, like 'Be My Baby', he has retained an extreme life-long enthusiasm.

Assuming those are multi-track reels for various songs, then they presumably don't have the tapes out to remaster the album.

I would think it somewhat unlikely they're doing new remixes (I would guess any remixes done for the Blu-Ray Audio disc were done some time back), though that can't be ruled out I suppose. I think we're all ready for "God Only Knows (Richie Cannata Mix").

So I would indeed be guessing they have them out for "demonstration" purposes. A feature-length documentary on the album, with ALL living BBs participating (the four involved anyway), and with Brian going through songs the way they do on those "Classic Albums" documentaries would be awesome. Not a 30-minute featurette, but a full-length documentary.

While the band needs an exhausting multi-hour documentary on the history of the group, a good start would be Brian, Al, Mike, and Bruce all giving interviews for "Pet Sounds" and "Smile" documentaries for this year and next year's anniversaries.

It's amusing that the "God Only Knows" tape box is the only one arranged so you can read the title without contorting yourself.

As for bringahorseinhere?'s question ("What more could there be to offer that we don't already got?"), how about reverse stereo?

I know we got a live Pet Sounds in 2002, but is it unreasonable to expect another live document for this tour?  Maybe one with a full concert, and not just the PS portion?

I mean, Roger Waters has released two different live versions of The Wall (1990, 2012).  So, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility for Brian to release another, especially since Al is on board this time. 

In an interview with Mike recently he did say "we are doing a documentary " (or words to that effect). I'm hoping this is related.

I think an audio document was (e.g. the 2002 live CD) and is not particularly needed, especially if it's *just* the PS album. But a video release of the 2016 tour (a nice HD show on Blu-Ray) seems quite plausible, and would certainly be welcome and the most interesting thing they could do with the album's anniversary (another remaster/repackaging doesn't excite me much), along with the aforementioned idea of a documentary on the album.

A Blu-Ray of the 2016 tour seems especially exciting with Al and Blondie being there, where I would hope they'd give us a full show including the non-PS set.

Don't know if I saw a different interview, but there was an interview recently where I recall he mentioned a "documentary" in relation to his autobiography, which of course would be a very different sort of doc.

Here it is. Same sentence as his book but not related IMO.


Love said a documentary also is planned and Love’s autobiography, “Good Vibrations,” will be released in the fall.

http://www.heraldmailmedia.com/life/beach-boys-still-true-to-their-sound/article_52b6302d-4e57-5d29-a9fc-c9c20915b406.html?mode=jqm

Realistically, can you imagine a documentary on Mike being made unless self funded?

Correct credits and booklet with Mike getting co-writes for all tracks, Carol Kaye on bass every cut, Rocky being in the room when Brian and Tony started tinkering with GOKs, fold out petting zoo with actual preserved doo doo from Feb 66 photo shoot.  ;D

My god, The Beach Boys are practically BEGGING for a definitive documentary. Endless Harmony was far too long ago, plus so much has happened since. I think it would hard to sum up in less than three hours though, honestly. ;) :lol (The Landy years alone could last a few hours!)

They would need a very good reason to play those tapes.  They've been transferred to the digital domain so I doubt they would use them for audio purposes on a new documentary.

Maybe they are for visuals only?

They said they were making one back in 2012, but the result was the 55 min Doin It Again, which focused on the reunion and glossed over parts of the band's history. 

I'd love to see a longer, more definitive one.   

However needed it actually is, they often cue up the actual analog multi-track tapes when doing those "Classic Albums" documentaries, even though most of that sort of stuff is surely backed up digitally.

They do, but we're talking now about a 50 year old precious, likely fragile tape.  They could still do the show using digital multi's.

As technology continues to advance, I'm guessing that someday we'll get a stereo version of God Only Knows which matches the original mono, with just Brian and Bruce on the tag.

Me, too!  ;)

That makes sense to me too. Yet, I've seen numerous instances of running multi-track tapes from the 60s and 70s on relatively recent documentaries. They still appear to run Beatles tapes on a few modern-era documentaries.

I've actually heard Beatles multis from the 60s are in excellent shape due to not being played a ton of times, and the non-synthetic makeup of the tape of that era. I wonder if perhaps a similar fact is true of Beach Boys tapes from the 60s.

Dumb question, but wouldn't you need to run 'em through a machine every now and then (perhaps not over the tape head) to stop them gumming up/sticking together over time?

There are others far more familiar with that stuff than myself. But my understanding is that because they used "whale oil" instead of synthetic oil on tape from the 60s, they don't suffer from as much (or maybe any?) of the gummy, sticky issues that occur with tape from the 70s and 80s. It's tapes from the 70s and 80s that I've heard they have to "bake" for each play to counteract the (literally and figuratively) sticky issues.

Perhaps they are considering releasing the individual multi-tracks, thus allowing the listener to create his own mix and really delve into the intricacies of how the album was created.

That would be fascinating and certainly fulfill an item on my "bucket list"!

Does anyone recall how many tracks were used?

As I recall, the instrumental tracks were recorded (mostly at Western) on a four-track, which was then mixed down to mono on one track of the Columbia 8-track, leaving 7 tracks for vocals.

To illustrate, here's the Columbia track sheet for "IJWMFTT" (original spellings preserved):

1 Bryan - chorus
2 Bryan - lead  no. 1
3 vocal group no. 1 - might have to key out
4 orchestra (that is, the mono instrumental mixdown)
5 Bryan - lead no. 2
6 Bryan - chorus         Bryan w/tape reverb at end
7 vocal group no. 2 - might have to key out
8 Bryan - no. 1 echo         Bryan w/tape reverb at end

When Mark came to do the stereo mixes for the 1997 box set, he synched the mono mixdown on the 8-track to the original 4-track, so essentially he had eleven discrete tracks to work with.

(http://i.imgur.com/3EW2Wcm.png)

Another Facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/officialbrianwilson/photos/a.452661542240.241240.34250497240/10153948484667241

Please God.

these pictures are making my mouth water  :o

Pet Sounds 5oth Anniversary edition- Brian Wilson Edition

Coming Soon: Kanye West presents- "The Kanye West, better remixes of Pet Sounds, because I am a bigger genius, and since I am a god of this generation, People will bow down to me and worship me because they think I am the greatest of all time, and did I mention I am a Genius?" Edition....


or


Coming Soon: George Lucas Presents the "Mike Love shot first edition of Pet Sounds featuring a new brand new cover with CGI creature standing in the back ground of the petting zoo, featuring a new duet with Jar Jar Bink."

Or

Coming Soon: "Elmo sings Pet Sounds"....(using the original masters)

I wasn't going to let the cat out of the bag.  But I do have some intel from
what's happening.  I said I wouldn't say anything, but its a remix and
remaster of the original hard to find 'popeye and the beach boys'.
here are part of the original mixes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ2knRhcF-o
now I think it settles it, we can get back to business.

I would like a pet sounds coffee table book.

Just noticed The Beach Boys Facebook page now also put a the picture that Brian put up of the God Only Knows picture and those tapes!!Something is going on!!!
 :)

https://www.facebook.com/thebeachboys/?fref=nf

The documentary that Mike Love mentions in his interviews?

https://www.facebook.com/thebeachboys/?fref=nf Second post down on the link https://www.facebook.com/thebeachboys/?fref=nf

IDK it could be but if it is for Mike that would be strange that Brian shared a nd posted the pictures first! Whoknows hope its something worth wild!

No!

Looks like an assortment of 1” (8-track), 1/2” (4/3-track), and 1/4” (mono) originals … no logical reason why these three formats would be stacked together, so my money is on photo/video op. Surely all the masters have been transferred to digital at this point, so any remixing would be from digital anyway. And Brian would not likely be attending a “transfer original tapes to digital” session. They would most certainly not be attempting any remixes directly from these masters.

That's kind of correct ...

"Sticky-shed" only applies to backcoated tape, which was not manufactured until 1969. So it's not applicable in any case to the Pet Sounds tapes above.

The binder used on backcoated tapes from 1969 to about 1974 used whale oil, which is stable ... then they switched to a synthetic binder (due to environmental/poiltical pressures), which deteriorated over time. Though I'm not entirely sure that was the real problem, as Scotch 206 tape (for instance) was still stable even using a synthetic binder.

There are different sets of potential problems on the Beach Boys tapes above.

The tape types appear to be Scotch 201, 202, 203, and 111.

111 and 201 are acetate-based, which can easily break as it does not stretch. 201 can exhibit a sticky-shed like problem which is not true sticky shed, and the tapes cannot be baked (this will dry out the already brittle acetate base ... very bad). 111 doesn't have this problem, but can fall victim to a form of degradation known as "vinegar syndrome", of which little info is known except that it stinks and can pose health risks to those who inhale the fumes. They usually play okay (for now, who knows what will happen down the line). Vinegar syndrome is actually contagious (not making this up!) and can spread among tapes stored in close proximity of one another ... though only acetate tapes are susceptible.

202 and 203 have a plastic base, so they are less brittle and will not suffer from vinegar problems. But as they dry out over time the oxide (where the music is) itself can flake off very easily, leaving a strip of thin plastic that looks like “Scotch (adhesive) Tape”. This is very common (every reel I’ve ever seen exhibits “blank” spots at stress points like the beginning and end of the tape), and these tapes need to be treated with great care, especially where splices exist (if an old splice comes off - highly likely during play -, the oxide/music probably comes off along with it, so it should possibly be spliced back in with original splicing tape/oxide put back in place).

The "vinegar" problem is also common with old reels of film.  Thanks for letting me know about the health risks.  I don't know how many times have I been at a thrift store/yard sale, found an old 16mm film reel, and shoved my nose in it to see if the film is deteriorating!

Thanks, HeyJude and DonnyL!

Great info, outstanding even - I was asking for similar reasons to shane's note: 16mm films that now smell like a bag of hot chips.

cheers - A

Save the Whales!

yeah 'Save the Whales'.  it's quite tragic what we have done to them over the years,
slowly they are repopulating, which is great news.
In saying that, some people love the smell of a new car.
I love the smell of old reel to reel tape. 
Yes I'm weird, that's why I'm here  :lol