The Smiley Smile Message Board

A few questions I'm wondering if anybody might have insight about…

-  does anyone think the band ever had any choice in the matter with regards to playing live on television shows, as opposed to lip-synching?

 While most of the lip-synching took place during the 1960s, some occasionally happened in the 1970s and 1980s as well.  I imagine some of the later examples were due to lack of confidence in replicating the sound of studio recordings, like Rock and Roll to the Rescue, for example. Of course, it went out of fashion at a certain point as well. I don't know if the reduction of lip-synching was because it became more taboo at a certain point, and how exactly that came about, especially because of the band's inconsistency with it.

I wonder if they got asked to perform songs in a particular way, or made the request to lip-synch. Complicating things, there are some examples of the band lip-synching on television appearances, combined with some additional live vocals being blended into the mix. I'm guessing that was a creative choice done to help fool the audience into thinking it was more "live" then a simple full on lip-synch job? And if so, was that a network decision? A band request? I wonder what everyone thinks.  I guess an answer might be found if anyone is particularly knowledgeable about what other bands did on those specific shows right around the same time. I assume this band did things pretty much in line with what was considered acceptable at the time, but I'm sure there are exceptions, and that's where things get cloudy.

- when the band would lip-synch on tv shows, I'm guessing they were just hearing the studio recordings being played through monitor speakers? If so, I wonder if the band was actually audibly singing along at all, or actually playing the right notes, in instances when they knew the sound would be fully replaced by the recording.

For example, this performance of Do You Wanna Dance has Denny playing such a simple drum pattern - this seems like a far more simplistic pattern that he would even perform live (if that song was ever actually performed live around that time):

https://youtu.be/pSF2SoNaZSc

- does anyone think there are actually any existing recordings of the band performing lip-synched songs (which would have been replaced by the studio recordings on broadcast)? If something like that existed, I imagine it wouldn't sound too great, because they likely wouldn't be hearing themselves particularly well.  While this below clip is hilarious, and intended as parody...would it actually be a fairly accurate representation of what it would've sounded like?

https://youtu.be/xYc4DT18EJg

 

I know it was standard practice on American Bandstand, Shindig and some of the other shows, for bands to lip sync in the early days. Partly for quality control, since live performance was still a bit iffy technology wise and mic-ing a live band is always a bit difficult, and partly because these shows were bringing that scandalous rock and roll into American living rooms and they didn't want any slip ups or naughtiness to sink the ship.

I think it was also cheaper for the shows to lip sync vs live, because you have a whole different set of engineers and union rules. Ed Sullivan performances were live, however.

At any rate, it wasn't that the bands necessarily wanted to lip sync. It was just the way TV was at the time.

On occasion, bands would pre-record new, fresh, in-studio "live" versions of songs to then later lip-sync to.

I recall that the Beach Boys did this for their very early "Surfin' Safari" performance on "One Man's Challenge."

The Beatles also did this a few times, including their "Around the Beatles" TV special from 1964; in that case they eventually found the multi-track tapes (3-track!) of the pre-recorded tracks and included some of them on "Anthology." They obviously sound more sterile when they're live but with no audience, but interesting nonetheless.

So in some cases they could get (hopefully) the best of both worlds, a unique "live" performance, but one where they would then mime to it so the sound mix would be better and there would be less chance of anything unexpected happening.

Not true at all about many of the Sullivan shows always being "live" - Back in the 60's, they were usually a mix - original pre-recorded backing tracks (with ridiculous "live" fade-outs!) and often a live mic for the lead vocalist. Check out most any Mamas and Papas appearance, Association, Turtles, or to my great surprise, even the more exotic Stones, etc. Often the electric guitars weren't even plugged in and the Stones hardly even fake it...

Beatles gigs, were, of course, completely live until they phoned it in with Hey Jude/Revolution, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJCoybioJ7M

The Mamas and the Papas Tv performances were terrible, at least by today's standards. There were only 4 of them, and they couldn't reasonably mime all the voices coming out of the speakers! There would be voices that no one was moving their mouths to. But I guess audiences back then knew why the band had to lip-sync.

I think today when artists lip-sync (usually those who dance in performances), they sometimes specially record a new version that can be believably lip-synched-- ie, with fewer layered vocals, and slightly different in other ways so it doesn't sound like they just put on the recording we've heard on the radio a million times. I might be wrong about that.

We of course can't forget the group's legendary 1982 lip-synch to "The Beach Boys Medley"!

Right. Who was responsible for that decision? (Not the making of the Medley, but the decision to lip-sync it in 1982?) I'm guessing it was because of the unpredictable state of the Wilson brothers at the time.

I'll never forget seeing that performance for the first time, Christmas of 1983. Oh! The sight of the morbidly obese lip-synching Carl's vocal on GV! WTF? It was reassuring to know the clip was a couple years old, and that Brian looked much better now.
Of course, then Dennis died just a few days later........

Wow. That timing must have been truly bizarre.

Looks like they just invented a new one this year for the Hollywood Christmas Parade. Dig up unused footage from the previous year's appearance, rig up a green screen to project the footage behind the parade's host, get said host to hold up a copy of Mike's book and plug it, personalizing the plug with a bit about getting it autographed by Mike, then try to snooker people watching the telecast that the band is performing live at the 2016 parade when the footage is clearly from 2015. No, not just performing but giving everyone a gift of song for Christmas 2016.

They invented a new one.

Kind of like getting a re-gift of a box of chocolates in 2016 with "Merry Christmas 2015 6 inscribed on the card.

Surfers recycle (gifts + performances) now, don't you know...