The Smiley Smile Message Board

Hi all,

So, I'm aware of Brian's Surfin' USA piano demo recording, the Heroes and Villains/Great Shape/Barnyard piano demo, of course the famous Surf's Up demo recordings.. but are there any other piano demo recordings from this era(especially from Smile!) in existence?

There's a piano demo of Brian singing Vegetables back when it was part of the Elements suites. It includes this lyric not available in other versions:
Tripped on a cornucopia
Stripped the stalk green and I hope ya
Like me the most of all...my favorite Vega-tables!

There were piano demo snippets recorded during the SMiLE Era like the melody of what became "Saturday Morning in the City".

In My Room is on the Good Vibrations box.

Love that one!

And there's Bob Norberg & Brian's Chuck Berry-like demo of "Little Deuce Coupe".

Another one I remembered. On the Pet Sounds Sessions box set, there's a piano demo of Don't Talk.

i'd kill to hear that.

I would kill to hear any of Brian's piano demos from that era...I'm sure there were tons of them that none of us have heard.  I've always found them to be incredibly fascinating.

I love the Vegatables demo, I really wish they had kept that verse in the song.

There is also an  A M A Z I N G  :o  piano demo tape of Brian auditioning his Love You tracks to Mike and the Boys circa 77.  In my mind, it's even better than Love You!!  Mike is heard saying "holy sh-t! that's a mother f#$#ker!" after nearly every track.

The whole demo gives me chills, it's THAT good.

 :hat

There's a piano demo of what became "Love to Say Da-Da" from late 1966. I think the tape box labeled it "All Day" or something.

Correct. It's basically Da-Da but with woodwind instruments to mimic brids.

I don't remember the woodwind instruments on a demo. It's just piano. The basic chords.

Is that on the SoT box, Jasper?  I don't recall noticing it... or elsewhere?

It sounds just like the piano on Aren't You Glad.

There's that and the woodwinds version.

The woodwinds version wasn't a demo, it was cut on the second day of Dada sessions May 17 with flutes making bird-like sounds.  The All Day demo (which was Brian on tack piano, playing what became the second part of Dada) was from Jan 3, and it also may have not been a demo - there were multiple numbered takes to get it right.  Brian may have meant to use it in Heroes (all the other stuff he was doing that day was for Heroes) or for some other song, a transition or break or tag of some sort.

I love this place. I learn so much.

Never knew All Day and the Dada sessions were separate.

is this booted??

Pretty sure it is. I know I've heard at least 2 (I'll bet he's nice and Airplane)

No, it's unbooted.
I haven't heard it, it's AGD info.

I bet this has been mentioned a million times, but when I read "All Day", I started singing to myself "Remember the day, day, remember the night, night, all DAY long!". Was that - which is obviously "Whistle In" (sorta) - supposed to be part of that track?

It's a very instructive tape. Brother Studio, late summer/early fall 1976. Brian's playing his new stuff for the band for the first time, just him and a piano, and initially it doesn't go over too well - he's fluffing the tracks badly, the comments are polite... then he does "I'll Bet He's Nice", and when he hits the middle eight, Mike nearly has an orgasm. After that, they're putty in his hands...

"Whistle-In" is the 'wahala-lu-lei' riff from "DYLW ?" - well, to these ears, anyway.  :)

That's an interesting observation Andrew. I can hear a bit of it's influence in the track.

Whistle In is a SMiLE track too right? I think I remember hearing that it was started in early 1967.

Bit of an influence ? I hear the self same melody. :)

The earliest date I have for a "Whistle-In" session is 7/13/67, right at the end of the Smiley Smile recordings.

umm, except Whistle-In is in a major key (B7, C#7, F#7)  and 'wahala-lu-lei' from DYLW is in G minor (Gm7, Cm7).  the melodies are completely different.  the only thing that is similar is the rhythm.   :-\

Didn't Leaf cause some confusion by writing (in the Smiley Smile/Wild Honey 2fer notes) that a recording of Whistle In was done in Jan/Feb 67, when in fact that was the session for the whistle ending of Heroes and Villains Part 1 (named Bridge to Pt 2 on Jan 31st Heroes tapebox)?  Had nothing to do with Whistle In, other than both had whistling of course.

Maybe AGD can shed a little light?
I had no idea that SMITC might have Smile-era origins.

During an "H&V" session, Brian's noodling on the piano, and a recurring phrase is about 80% of the first line of "SMITC"

No offense, but if you think Whistle-In has the same melody as DYLW, I'm not sure I trust this info :)

None taken, but better ears than mine came to that conclusion.  :)

Whistle In, to me, sounds more like the "mmmm" bit behind the chant. You can sing it over that chant section well enough to my wonky ear.

No offense, but if you think Whistle-In has the same melody as DYLW, I'm not sure I trust this info

The melody is definitely "Saturday Morning in the City." A child would recognize it in a second.

WHISTLE IN features the same basic progression as the "Gotta keep those...." section of GOOD VIBRATIONS.

I thought it was common knowledge that Whistle In and the keen a wok a pu la bit from Worms share a similar melody - I'm amazed that it's even up for debate!! What's more the first section of Love To Say Da Da also sounds very much like a deliberate variation on this Worms theme to me. I'm surprised nobody's mentioned that yet - it can't just be me that thinks they're similar melodies?

I don't hear the melodic similarities as much as the rhythm.

It has a bit of rhythmic similarity, but the chords are completely different.  Chord-wise, the closest thing on Smiley to that section of GV is the "Wind Chimes" fade.  The chords are exactly the same, you could sing "Gotta keep those" right over it.

Whistle In definitely sounds more like the Hawaiian section of "Worms"...again, not the chords or melody, but in its rhythm, just like brianc said. 

This reminds me of the ocasion when a fan had the bravado to tell Brian that Darling and Thinkin' 'Bout You Baby shared more than a passing similarity. Brian looked back at the guy as if he had been told Earth is flat.  :)

Damn it, where can I hear all these great recordings?!?  ;D

Is this tape different from the one that's commonly bootleged?

Nope it's the common one from the Brian Loves You LP.