The Smiley Smile Message Board

Alright everyone, I've finally added my essay on the "Today!" outtakes to the beachboysarchives.com website.  Hope you all enjoy it.  Next will be my essay on
the "Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)" album.  And we're talking May or June
for that one...in the meantime, enjoy what's there.

www.beachboysarchives.com

Huzzah!

Really, really looking forward to SDSN.  Can't wait to read what conclusions you've made on some tough credit issues.

Great !! Thank you ! 
BTW when you describe how Brian tells Earl Leaf how they came to Detroit and Dennis sings "I wanna go home" from "Sloop John B.", don't you think it's more likely that he sings the same line from the Hit-song "Detroit City" ? Would make more sense I believe....

But again, great work and thank you for that stuff

Hmmm...could be...does the line in that song sound melodically similar to the line in "Sloop"?
I think Dennis sings that right after someone says something about being away from home, but I
can double check it.

C-Man

Yeah, I think it sounds very similar in both songs. I didn't hear the tapes, but I think if it's even before Al sang the song to Brian, "Detroit city" would be more possible....

Could be, but Al supposedly first brought up the possibility of doing "Sloop" during the "Wendy" era the year before. 

C-Man

I didn't know that, but I believe they didn't sing/record it until the PS-version, did they? I mean, it's no big deal, which song Denny sang or not. I was just wondering, since Brian mentioned Detroit just before that...

"Remember that time you raped that little thirteen-year-old-girl and knocked her up?".. hahahahaha

I'm sure it was statutory.

Much obliged.

Craig, a couple of things I disagree with, I'm not correcting you, just giving you my two cents, I hope that's OK.

On the Nashville Dance, Dance, Dance: (BTW, how cool is it to have a recording the Beach Boys made in Nashville!?)

You're dead on for the basic track.  The instrumental insert is where I'm not sure.  I don't hear another bass or dano being overdubbed.  Panned hard right, I don't hear a bass guitar.  This would make sense, because I'm pretty sure there are two electric guitars played in the insert; Carl doubling the riff on 12-string, and I would guess Al coming in on his strat for the choruses.  It's not a 12-string on the crunchy chorus guitar chords IMO, and it's very Fender sounding to my ears.  Additionally, I don't hear an Accordion.

Also, I love hearing Carl's guitar solo being picked up microphonically in the vocal mic.  It adds an immediacy that I really think is cool.

very cool man! i enjoy the reads...i print them out and read them during classes

Shame on you for not paying attention in class!
;)

Listen through headphones, and you can tell the Dano is double-tracked. 
Listen through most car stereo speakers, and you can hear the accordion (very high frequency).

hey it's college, they're lucky i attend.... :D

I've listened through headphones and speakers of varying size and quality.  I've OOPSed, panned, and eliminated the center channel.  I've sped the track up, which makes bass more audible.  I've done extensive parametric, graphic, and shelf EQing.  At this point I'd bet a lot of money there's no accordion, and the dano is not double tracked.

Logically, does it really make sense to think there's an accordion on the track when there's nobody there that plays one?  I don't know if you've ever tried to play an accordion, but it's not easy and takes a while to get the hang of.  I don't trust any of the Beach Boys ability beyond Brian to play accordion.

On the dano issue, in addition to not hearing it, I think there's a numbers issue, since Brian is on Piano and Carl and Al are presumably on guitars, that doesn't leave anybody left to play dano, unless Carl was somehow playing two guitars simultaneously during the chorus.

Here's just the right side with no center channel:

http://www.someoneliving.com/ddd1.mp3

Whoa dude. Seriously, listen in at 0:38, far far far left. Notice the register the guitar has been playing in up to that point, then listen for an inversion that is quite a bit higher. It really might be accordion. For comparison, listen to the same part at 1:44. The guitar is still there, playing exactly the way it was before, but something's missing.

But everything panned hard left was recorded together on the basic track, where everything is accounted for.  I think the Rickenbacker has a tendency to sound a little bit like an accordion can.

Actually, around 1:10 there is something that's really soft that sounds kind of reedy.  Weird.

Well, I'll leave the accordion as a question mark, but I'm firm on the no double tracked dano.

Me too on the dano.


You know, that reedy accordion sound could be a result of overtones. I've had that happen on one of my recordings now that I think about it (E. Guitar gave an accordion sound on one chord). Just throwing that out there. It definitely sounds like accordion but it could be a trick on the ears.

I'm kind of leaning toward it being a truck on the ears.  12-strings, particularly Rickenbackers, really generate a lot of overtones, and the reverb adds even more.

Like on Let Him Run Wild, the guitar line that doubles the "waited for you girl..." right after the chorus almost sounds like an accordion playing the line.

Thank you, c-man, for putting this together. I'm really looking forward to the sdsn stuff. This is one of the most comprehensive and accurate readings so far.

Actually, it now appears to me the second Dano is in the MIDDLE channel, with the piano and accordion (if there is an accordion).  Listen to the Intro with headphones (this is Track 21 on the "U.M." bootleg).  Can't you hear two basses playing that line, especially on the low notes (the sixth through eleventh notes of the riff)?  I can hear one on the left (slightly more trebly) and another toward the right, but in the center (more bassy).   We know from the basic track that Brian's Fender bass doesn't come in until the second round of the Intro riff.  What could I be hearing?

As for the guitar...I still think it's just Carl playing his Rickenbacker 12-string, double-tracked.  Lots of overtones can result from guitars, especially 12-strings like you said, and it's possible they did a direct feed and mic'd amp combination, or had a room mic picking up some of that sound.  It's easy to make one guitar sound like two if you're doing something more than close mic'ing. 

The accordion...I still don't know, I wish we could just get the middle channel, but without the 3-track tapes, I wouldn't know how to do that!    As for nobody being there to play it:  it could be Ron (I have no idea if he plays accordion or not, but I coud ask him I guess), it could be someone else who happened to be in the studio (meaning a real Nashville cat).  It could also be a concertina (are those easier to play?), or a harmonium, or something else.  Yes, it could also be a trick of the ears.  I will probably modify my essay to include that possibility...but I'll wait to hear what the final consensus is on the second Dano.  I've been wrong before...but I swear I hear it!

C-Man

I think that one, the bass strings of Carl's Rick plus a little bleed through/headphone leak/the panning make the riff sound very bassy on the right side.

The center channel is isolatable, but the quality of it depends on the source.  In this case, there's so much going on in the right and left channels and the center channel is so soft that it's pretty much a phasey mess.

OK, due to the general consensus on this board, I've modified the "Dance Dance Dance" part of the "Today Outtakes" essay.  Thanks guys!

C-Man

@c-man: Here you have both songs in a medley. Cash is doing "Detroit City" and Eddie Albert "Sloop john b." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOJ68D7qI_E&search=johnny%20cash

You see/hear the chorus is almost the same, so I believe Dennis really did sing Detroit City, also because talk was about Detroit when he did that...Hope I could help and you don't mind me telling you that

Hmmm...having a hard time trying to download this.  How weird you should find both songs in one medley!  Thanks for sharing this, and I'll keep trying to hear it.  I'll update the notes in my archive, so thanks for the tip!

C-Man

Oh, and can you tell me who had the hit with "Detroit City"? 
I assume it wasn't Albert or Cash...

C-Man

It was covered by so many (including Jan&Dean), but I believe the original is by Bobby Bare