The Smiley Smile Message Board

Not to long ago, somebody mentioned that Dennis's plans for a concert tour to support his album got as far as some actual rehearsal's with Carl and a backing band of various members of the BB's touring group. Apperently the tapes still exist. I was wondering what, exactly, is known about the tapes. Who owns them? How many tapes are there? Is there any slight chance of them being released in the future?

 :ninja This sounds like a job for AGD. right up his alley. IF tapes do exist, the quality may not be that good. However, great sound editting software can easily fix that.  :listening

As well as AGD (not sure if he's even heard them?) Jon Stebbins is the. main man He's heard the tapes and says they are pretty good quality (maby I'm twisting things and they aren't that good cause I just want them to be good) but the tapes do definately exist.

Interesting enough, the only non-POB track on those tapes is "Baby Blue".

Cool. Do you have any other info about the tapes Jasper (ie: date or anything?).. Have you heard the tapes by any chance?

No, that's Boyd or Stebbins info.
The band would have included Carli Munoz, Ed Carter, Bobby Figueroa, Ed Tuleja, Billy Hinsche and Carl, plus a horn ensemble. Tickets were already sold and T-shirts with tour dates printed.

Man can you imagine if that HAD happened. Why does it seem that so many things went wrong in the Beach Boys story. Dennis dies and we are deprived of Bamboo and more cool music, POB goes unreleased for years, yet Mike Love gets to  release a REALLY CRAP solo album and forms his own band Celebration and brings out three albums for them, The Beach Boys just really suck (generally speaking) after 1973 and do heaps of covers (eg: Rock And Roll Music, Peggy Sue, Just Once In My Life etc..) or crappy new songs (eg: TM Song, and pretty much all of Summer In Paradise etc..) when they had lots of other cool material sitting in the vaults or atleast could have turned to Dennis!! But I suppose you can't everything the way you want it.

But if that Denny tour had happened, how could would it be if it was filmed and later released on video and DVD, a live album was brought out and then Denny becomes a huge solo act!!

By the way Jasper, I know you say the only songs on the tapes are Baby Blue and POB but is there any other songs that you know of that were being planned to be performed (eg: Little Bird, Only With You etc..??)

By the way, do you (or anyone) know what those tour dates were?

 :3d Here's a thought... Since now it is official that Denny's recording will be released in March, why not include THIS footage on a bonus DVD???

Yeah, Dennis died but it had nothing to do with bamboo. Dennis abandoned it three years before he died. He had a recording label, a fan behind the recording label and a budget, but just couldn't put himself together to finish the album.

That would be cool, but its not footage its audio.

Jon, are the reels recorded for the live show a 2 channel master tape? Or was it recorded with 8/16 tracks? Because if they do decide to green light and put something like that out...I would love to hear a badass 5.1 DVD-A come out of it.

Anyway, Im assuming the tapes were recorded so Dennis could listen to them and tweak the show right? Or was there ever a possibility of releasing it after the tour? (Since tour dates were released and shirts were printed)

Not only was a band created for the tour, and shows were booked, but there were actually tour t-shirts made? Why did/does every promising idea in Beach Boys land turn to dust? Seeing Carl and Dennis sing Baby Blue(one of the most beautiful songs in the history of music, IMO) with the musicians named in this thread as a backing band could have been a magical moment.

I realise it had nothing to do with Bamboo but I figured if Dennis never declined (and therefore perhaps never died) then maby we would have Bamboo?

Yeah, it really was a shame. Now, with this reissue, we may have a clear view of where Dennis was, musically, in '77-'79. I can't wait to listen to it.

What? POB was released in 1977. Dennis died in 1983. POB did not go unreleased for years.

Would love to hear a live version of "Little Bird" - such a great track, never get tired of it. Did the BB ever play it in concert?

I obviously realise that. I own a copy on vinyl. What I meant was that it was out of print for years, which in a way is "unreleased". But I agree I wasn't very clear.

Yes they did. It was Dennis' feature song for the better part of 1968. I have a cassette recording of a Mike Douglas show where he sings it.

Hmm, sounds interesting. Does it sound any good MBE? I'm assuming it's a pre-recorded track though. I wonder if footage of that still exists? I don't want to sound too greedy (I mean we are getting POB/Bambu after all!!!!) but it would be really cool to have all those old TV appearances remastered and released all in one neatly packaged DVD. Of course it would probably take up like 10 DVD's but it would still be cool to have even if they just featured the best TV performances all on one DVD.

When you think about it, Dennis did get his fair chance in the spotlight. I mean they played "Celebrate The News", "Lady", "Forever", "Never Learn Not To Love", "Little Bird" etc.. on TV appearances.

It's in decent shape sound wise. I doubt the video exists. The performance is good and has live vocals.

There is a very high quality live recording in the BB's vaults of "Little Bird" from the '68 tour complete with brass and it sounds great.

I think there's an audience recording of Dennis singing LB in '75 (I guess) too....

There is an also live audience recording of In The Back of My Mind from 75

A friend of mine here in Atlanta got backstage at a Beach Boys show circa 1979 or so and asked Dennis why he hadn't released his second album and he imitated Dennis' response for me: rocked his head backwards and croaked out "Don't have to!"