The Smiley Smile Message Board

Is it true that the version of SB on what would've been Adult Child dates from 1973? I have a hard time believing that one, but someone I know is insisting on it.


I'm obviously talking about the version with Carl singing on it. I know there was one done by Spring, but I've never heard that one.

Hmm...their voices don't sound like '73 vintage to me--more mid- to late-70s gruffness. But I guess the track could've been. Still, I am sure someone will pop up and provide actual sessions dates. Some people know those things. Remarkable bunch.

Thats hard to know.

I think the music is from 73 and the voices from 77.

"Shortnin' Bread" ROCKS!! Especially the alt version, where Carl really wails. :listening :tiptoe

 :thewilsons

No joke. See, if the track actually is from 1973, then it means Brian was already moving into his "angry" synth period long before 15BO/LY.

This doesn't address the original question, but it's interesting that Brian also cut another version of "Shortenin' Bread" in 1980, after they had released it on "LA (Light Album)." As far as I know, this version only circulates as a backing track. I don't know if any more work was done on that version, or what Brian possibly could have been planning to do with another version of the song.

That's just the few we know about.  He's probably really recorded it about 20 times, like Proud Mary.  Last year, he told some interview that Proud Mary was going to be on his 'new' rock and roll album.  So if he's still hangin' on to that one, he's probably still messing around with Shortenin' Bread, too, even if only in the dark corners of his strange, strange mind. 

Stephen Desper told me Mike was obsessed with the song too.

i believe there are 3 different versions of this song. the 73 78 and 1980. correct me if i am wrong. Didnt Curt Boecher also remixed this song.

What a disturbing group of men the Beach Boys were...

The track & bvs (mostly Spring but with Brian handling the bass) was cut in 1973 by Brian & David Sandler (post-Iowa). The lead and additional bvs were added in 1976/7.

It's a standing joke amongst certain of us (hi, Alan !) to see if Brian manages to shoehorn the "SB" riff, or a variation thereof, into a new project. I think to date the total's up to eight or nine and includes "South American", "Bells Of Madness" and pretty much the whole of "Proud Mary" (I think the whole of "Runnin' Bear" too, but I've been voted down on that).

Same time as he recut "My Solution" in like (i.e. synthesised) vein. Not one of his better ideas...

Let's hope he gets it in 'Lucky old sun' too...!

Curt said so in a 1980 interview for the BBFUN newsletter, along with about half of the rest of the album.  However when I asked Bruce about it last year on the BBB, he replied that Curt mixed NONE of "L.A.".   So who knows.

Chuck Crane recalls playing guitar on a version recorded at Brother in late '77 with Brian, Dennis, Guercio, and Hinsche.  In a radio interview promoting the album, Carl said the version on the album was was cut at Caribou.   Curt said the vocals were done at Criteria in Miami.