The Smiley Smile Message Board

http://cgi.ebay.com/Beach-Boys-Smile-LP-NEW-limited-Unreleased-w-artwork_W0QQitemZ380146409171QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMusic_on_Vinyl?hash=item58827dded3&_trksid=p3286.m20.l1116#ht_920wt_941


anyone know about this?

says it's on Surfin' records....has a sea of tunes #. found it on vinyl for 20 bucks brand new and it sounds great. illegal pressing?

The answer is yes, i have the same one.

There is no legal version of a Beach Boys version of Smile, unless you count the iTunes Music Store playlist thing.

It's been removed now....  :-[

thanks for responding guys...I figured it was illegal but does anyone know who would be responsible for pressing? just bootleggers?

I see... I see... a tautology!

Illegal record = bootleg.
Person who makes a bootleg = bootlegger.

....without whom Darian and the rest would not have heard, got to know note for note, and persuaded Brian to reproduce, Smile.

"I ain't talkin'
I ain't talkin'
The more you're askin'
The more I'm balkin'. "

-E.T. Bass- 1963

I have the three disc colored vinyl version.  I can't remember what others I have.

I am honored to be in the presence of the illiterati    I too am a follower of the wisdom ot the great E.T. Bass.

I probably wouldnt even be a Beach Boys fan today if not for the boots that turned me on to some of the bands more hip material.

Greetings, Comrade!  If I had a scanner and could find anything, I'd post an old pic of me with Howard Morris, in full Bass regalia. One of my proudest moments.  The actor and the character were both aptly described by Barney: a nut.

Thank God for bootlegs.  One of my greatest Beach Boys moments was my first hearing of the original of "Wonderful"- I had truly hated the Smiley version- still do- and yet I could hear one of my all time favorite Wilson compositions trapped within it.  Then, on a  lousy cassette someone loaned me, there it was in all its majesty- sounding the way it should, and even better than I could have imagined.  I actually choked up.

My God, Joe, that is EXACTLY the same as my favorite BB moment (one of them), right down to the "lousy cassette copy" someone had loaned me. I assumed it was the same as the 1st Smile boot, which had the Smiley Smile version on it, and to my wonderment (pun intended) the original version issued forth. I was in a van traveling back from a frisbee tournament in Santa Barbara in 1988 with some young people who couldn't have cared less, but I kept trying to get them as excited as I was about it.

Glad we share that similar memory. All its majesty indeed, will NEVER forget that moment of glorious epiphany! :)

Around what year did SMiLE Bootlegs start appearing?

First stuff circulated in the late 70s, became "public" in '83.

mutedtrumpeter, that was a joy to read.  At the time I knew there were other people out there experiencing the same thing in the same way, but before the 'net there was almost no way to ever connect. There was nobody to talk to, or ask questions.  So you tried to convert the heathens, to share it with somebody, and they didn't ever quite get it. Well, you know and I know how it was. 

The rest of the story on my end, for anyone interested, has a nice ending:

It was 1987, and I'd been searching for SMiLE music for a year.  In a small Georgia college town back then, there was no hope, but when I got back to Atlanta, a friend hooked me up through a music maven buddy of his who worked for Turner here. He brought me the tape, and it was from either the first or second (circa 1983?) vinyl escape, or a comp of both, mixed in with the released stuff, I think, but it had the Miles Davis hoax track.  It was probably the same thing Darian Sahanaja drove to San Diego to acquire.

So my friend delivered it, and stuck around to hear the first track that came up: "Worms".  He kind of made a face like "this is what you've been searching for?"  "Worms" really did sound strange, even to me, and it was hissy and of course incomplete.  But he music -box "Heroes" bit had me hooked. Anyway, he had to go someplace, and so did I, so I was in the car when "Wonderful"- the real one- popped up, and just left me weak-kneed.  Wore that sucker out.

Flash forward to 2004- my friend, the tape courier, read a series of ecstatic reviews of BWPS, and he called me up.  I was going to a party at his place that Friday- could I come an hour early and bring the disc?  We listened to it  loud, without speaking,  on his big system.  Towards the end of the first part he whispered "How old was he when he was writing this stuff? " 24, I told him.  During the second part, around about "Child Is Father Of The Man", he leaned back and put his hands over his face as he listened, obviously moved.  Before the third part started, he looked at me and said "NOW I get it. You've been talking about this for twenty years, and I didn't get it.  NOW I get it."

That is an awesome story! I share your joy of converting others to brian/the boys with SMiLE.

I didn't know Smile bootlegs had circulated that early

I remember, in about 1986, talking to a ragged street performer on Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley (or Berzerkeley), where I am from, about the legendary unreleased Smile album, as I often did with anyone when the conversation turned to music in those days. I had of course heard H &V, Our Prayer, Cabinessence and Surf's Up, and had heard "Worms" in the "American Band" documentary.

To my shock and surprise, he said that he had a bootleg version of Smile, and if I gave him my address he would copy it and send it to me. I was actually homeless at that time and living in a shelter, but gave him my mother's address (why I wasn't living with her you'll have to ask her), and one day she told me that a package had arrived. The guy had come through, bless his heart, and sent a cassette of it (the 1st boot with the Miles Davis track).

As I recall, it had "Worms", the first piece that was referred to as "Barnyard" (instrumental), "You Are My Sunshine", "Can't Wait Too Long" (WITH the gorgeous organ tag), "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" and that was it for actual Smile Material. It had the Smiley Smile versions of Wonderful and Wind Chimes.

I was having a very tough time in those days and listened to "Can't Wait Too Long" ad infinitum on a primitive Aiwa (top-of-the-line back then) Walkman-type cassette player that was a lifeline for me. That organ part at the end of some of the versions of CWTL/BWTL will always be one of my favorite and most comforting memories and fragments of Smile or post Smile music. Helped me get through some difficult days, and thanks again out there, wherever you are, for coming through and sending me that early cassette. :)

The street performer wasn't Rick Starr, was it?

No, but I remember Rick well. Extremely boring and undeserving of whatever minor fame
(which he and his mother felt wasn't enough) came his way, IMO.

Amazing story, mts.  Thanks for sharing that.

Yeah, I went to school in Berkeley 1988-1992, and I remember Rick as the most famous (and most annoying) street performer of that era.  "Steve the John Lennon Conspiracy Theorist" was probably a close second.

Surfer Joe, I had similar experiences growing up around Chicago, searching for SMiLE (2nd Hand Tunes is where I found a copy of the first SMile boot with Can't wait Too Long weird vocal intro thing and the Miles Davis track) and desperately trying to convert people so I could talk about it with someone. I would say this is '85 or '86 and no one but no one gave a rat's ass! Thanks for the memories... :3d