The Smiley Smile Message Board

why dont any of them have any bonus tracks like the capitol 2fers do in the 60s? Their are lots a great songs they could of put on like 4th of july, lady, just got my pay, runnin bear etc

That option was discussed, but ultimately nixed by Capitol. At one point, there was going to be a Brothers Rarities collection as well. To do it right, the Warners albums would probably have to have been reissued individually in order to include a good selection of bonus tracks. It was deemed a better marketing plan to issue the albums as two-fers with no bonus tracks.

I'm not familiar with Runnin Bear, who wrote it?

That would be RUNNING Bear, not Runnin Bear.

It's a cover of a song written by the Big Bopper. His friend Johnny Preston had the hit. The BB version is an outtake from 15 Big Ones. I don't think vocals were cut for it.

 the song was completed actually i heard it on a boot.

Is it just me, or are those two-fers getting harder & harder to find?

You obviously haven't been to HMV in Leeds, where they got hundreds of 'em (and they've started turning the covers around for some reason, so 20/20, Surf's Up, Holland, etc. are all facing forwards...) Yeh, I really wish there were extras on these CDs. In fact, I wish they'd re-release the BB albums, or at least the established classics (Today, Friends, Surf's Up, Holland, etc), individually, with extras, out-takes, etc. They've recently re-released the Monkees back catalogue in great cardboard sleeves, and entire bonus CDs featuring out-takes and so forth - would be great if they could do the same with the BB's! Having 2-fer's almost seems to imply the albums aren't worth owning on their own...

Agreed, thomasogg. On all counts. (Except HMV, which I don't know a damn about, being in Minneapolis. But we have the twofers here in our local indie stores.)

It stands for Her Majesty's Voice and is a popular music/film shop in the UK, or at least it was last time I was living there... Not to be confused with HIV.

I know what it is. Just noting we haven't got 'em.

yea a collection of rarities and such would be great the closest thing is the good vibrations box set the has some of the unreleased songs from the 70s

How much of an influence do the remaining Beach Boys have on releases stemming from this period, i.e. how much of a say does Mike Love have on whether Dennis'unreleased Surf's Up songs are added onto any future CD re-release? I'm sure you see what I'm getting at...

Nope they're practically impossible to find in record stores, I had to order Today/Summer days, Sunflower/Surfs up and Passions/Holland.

It stands for His Masters Voice, the unofficial name for The Gramophone Company, founded in the UK in 1899. The name came about because of the famous painting of a dog looking into the horn of a gramophone (originally a cylinder player).

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Actually it stands for Helen Mirren's Vagina. And that's true that is...

I totally agree. What a shame since it certainly is a matter of marketing if a record is perceived as being worth owning on its own. Personally, I came to fully appreciate some of the Beach Boys' albums when I bought the vinyl versions. Carl and the Passions for instance really came to life for me, while I didn't like it in particular before, being exclusively focused on Holland, its superior "b-side". Also, these twofer editions seem to imply the Beach Boys never made one great album from start to finish except for Pet Sounds, the great, utterly untouchable exception. A while ago that very fact even made me sort of dislike the Pet Sounds album quite a bit... 'til I gave it yet another spin, that is. :)

I know there were two issues of twofers.  The most recent one is still available.  All of the twofers are in print and can be ordered.  There is a brochure accompanying the WOTS compilation.

As for turning the covers over, I've done that on all of my "extra" copies so when flipping through I'm visually tempted by more choice and variety. 

If I'm not mistaken, I think they also have HMV in Canada.

Of course it could be a way to trick people into buying CDs twice without realizing it.

I had to order much more, but I got almost all 60ies album at a very large store, which I really like. But now there isn't any Beach Boys CD there.  >:(

well the easiest place to get them is online like amazon and ebay

I asked the same question ages ago on the Blueboard and Andrew Doe told me that Capitol / Brother released the Hawthorne CA collection to compensate for no additional tracks on the Brother 2-fers. Again, that compilation didn't cover some of the tracks we would've liked....

But heaps of those tracks on Hawthorne, CA are still from the Capitol years anyway

And Australia too

Two other albums stand out as being released singly, that is to say, not as two-fers: the Christmas Album and Summer in Paradise (three if you include Still Cruisin', and I never have!) SiP of course has only been re-issued once to my knowledge -  also refered to as the European, or UK, version.

How come they haven't come into the US yet?

Beach boys albums are simple to find in Ireand, all major stres always have them..lucky us  :)

Not sure but in Australia they aren't even my preferred record store (out of the three major ones), that would be a store called JB Hi-Fi. I rarely shop at HMV because its so much smaller and there isn't much variety plus everything is so expensive comapred to JB Hi-Fi.

That bad, eh? I guess I'm glad HMV isn't in the states. Locally, I've got FYE (expensive-they seem to care more about sales numbers than actual music) and Borders (bookstore chain with a decent music selection), plus a second hand record store that just recently opened (They've got a good vinyl selection, not much BB though, cheap CDs, a small amount of new releases, smatterings upon smatterings of hair-metal DVDs and merchandise.....I did find a cassette copy of Van Dyke Parks' "Song Cycle" there for $1.00).

There was a really great independent record store that always had every single Beach Boys album in stock when I went there, bought about half of my BB CDs there, but it closed down last christmas. Now I'm stuck with mall stores or ordering online, though Borders is good in that if they don't have something in stock they'll special order it for you. Oh, I forgot, there's also Wal-mart, but they never have that great of a selection. All they ever have for BB albums are compilations. Wait...we've also got a K-Mart, but I never go in there.

 On a national level, I think that this company called Trans-World Entertainment pretty much dominates in terms of music chain stores, at least since the demise of Tower Records. Trans World owns FYE, Sam Goody, Musicland, Suncoast, and I believe a couple of other chains. Wal-Mart is the number 1 music retailer in the states, but I don't count them because they don't specialize in music.
Man, do I miss the local independent store.

I recently bought "Today" a a single CD in a cardboard sleeve,  a mini-reproduction of the LP, no booklet - but still very nice. It claims to be stereo.

I couldn't find other single BB-CDs / repros... does anyone have info on that?

I saw the Sunflower/Surf's Up 2fer on amazon for $9.99!  The others are likely also that price.  An amazing bargain.  Have you noticed that CD prices seem to be dropping as the CD market continues to bottom out?

The original plan for the rerelease of the Capitol 2fers was to do a mono/stereo version with bonus tracks - remixing the multitracks where available into stereo, but then the decision to keep the 2fers was made.  Some of the Brother Rarities set made it onto Endless Harmony and Hawthorne - was a track list ever finalized for the Rarities set?

After the first series of 2fers went out of print some genius at Capitol decided to issue the Capitol CD's as single album CD's without bonus tracks.  These were replaced with the new remasterings of the 2fers.

I got the single CD of Smiley Smile with the Brother, not Capitol, label on the CD just because it's cool.  Same mastering as the original 2fers.  No stereo Today has ever been released - though Sea of Tunes issued a stereo Today/Summer Days Summer Nights with most, but not all, of the tracks in some kind of stereo (many were instrumentals though).

I believe the Brothers Rarities set was still under consideration after "Endless Harmony" came out, but was nixed prior to the release of "Hawthorne, CA". I doubt that any finalized track listing was established.

Regarding music stores: the last of the great independents would be Amoeba with three locations in California (Hollywood, San Francisco, Berkeley). I had the good fortune to visit the Haight-Ashbury district store a couple of months ago and their selection was incredible. The Beach Boys even had separate binmarkers for each of their albums!

Thanks!



Hmmm... just checked - it says "Capitol Full Dimensional Stereo". Strange. Made me wonder, since I there's no way of mastering Today or Summer Days in real stereo. (I'm familiar with the SOT version, you're right - the vocals are missing, what a pitty :-\)

Actually, there is a way to master these in stereo - the vocal multitracks for all of Today and Summer Days were recovered in the early 90's.  That's how the stereo "remixes" of Kiss Me Baby, Calilfornia Girls, etc. were done for hawthorne and endless harmony.  Sea of tunes did not have access to those tapes (their "transfers" were done prior to the discovery of the tapes).

I would still love to have complete stereo remixes of Smiley Smile and Wild Honey even more than Today/Summer Days - just because the mono mixes of those albums don't really represent the musical depth revealed on the multitracks used by sea of tunes.

Small addition to Andrew Doe's note on HMV and "His Master's Voice". The original painting the logo is based on shows the dog listening to a cylinder of his master's voice WHILE SITTING ON THE DEAD MASTER'S COFFIN.  That part of the picture obviously did not get used in later years but in early reproductions of the painting you can see the coffin lid.

The Victor company grabbed the logo for US use, the HMV company in England stole it before Victor could trademark it in the UK.  Just like the original Columbia record company in the US could not call itself Columbia in the UK as someone else had grabbed that mark first over there.  The history of all of this (and all the industrial shenanigans, international espionage, licensing deals, and suspicious litigation) can be found in many places, including books like From Tin Foil To Stereo.