The Smiley Smile Message Board

I came across this video on YouTube and am trying to figure out what it’s from.  It looks very similar to their appearance on the Fridays show, but Mike and Al are wearing different outfits.  It looks like it’s a studio audience as everyone is seated.  


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DP-9o7lBhGY#fauxfullscreen

I think it's from the broadcast of the Beach Boys performing keeping the summer Alive album that was a special one-hour show back in 1980. I think

Yes, you are correct. Al's stylish red robe thing is the dead giveaway!  :)

Thanks.  Do you know the name of the show or anything else I could use to look it up?  I’d love to see more of the footage from this. 

"Goin' Platinum". It was on either HBO or Showtime in 1980. Last I looked a few years back, the whole thing wasn't on YouTube, but maybe it is now.

The whole thing used to be on YouTube but the channel that uploaded it was suspended.

Taped January 30 1980 at KTTV in Los Angeles

A couple of minutes ("School days", interviews, studio footage and "Oh darlin'") are linked on the Beach Boys Pro Shot Concerts list (http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,6290.msg101608.html#msg101608) under the date Ian just mentioned.

Argh, what a shame. 

Thanks, Tony S, C-man, Jay, Ian and Rocker!

The "Going Platinum" special on the KTSA album is quite good; it's relatively (for the era and in context) honest in its portrayal of the band's struggle to stay relevent/on the charts, etc. Nobody (either the band or the host/narrator) seem to be delusional as if they just *know* KTSA is going to be a huge hit.

This special definitely deserves an official release. Some nice studio tidbits (I recall a nice brief a capella bit of them recording vocals for "Goin' On") and some interesting interviews.

Also note that those "in studio" bits miming to the studio KTSA tracks feature some slightly alternate mixes of those songs unheard elsewhere. In particular I recall "Oh Darlin'" being a different mix with less vocal overdubs (most noticeable near the end of the song).

I actually have the whole show on VHS somewhere; the interviews were good, as were the shots of A's Barn and the beach near his house in Bug Sur, where the band was seen walking. I remember how disappointed I was when they lip synched, as opposed to singing live, to the new tracks. Oh well, good commentary otherwise.

It's an interesting show. In-studio footage includes scenes of the guys talking about and working on the then-unreleased "Goin' To The Beach". For the "live" performance, I seem to recall that local BBFUN members were invited to comprise the audience. At one point, right before the sax solo on "Goin' On", Carl's lip syncing is off; he realizes it, and gives one of his famous "faces". He then carries on, while smiling and briefly nodding at someone off-screen (the director, or someone in the audience), as if to acknowledge it and say, "Yeah, I know - but it's OK". Priceless. Also interesting is that there is absolutely no mention of Dennis; he was ostracized from the band at this point, but you'd think they would have at least acknowledged his absence somehow, especially since they make a big deal about how these album sessions marked a newfound "togetherness" and sense of unity for the band.

January 28th (two days before the onstage video shoot) was a busy day indeed for our Boys, who worked their balls off at Rumbo Recorders:  not only did they spend three hours adding some vocals to "Some Of Your Love" and "Oh Darlin'", guitar and horns were added to one song during another three-hour session, four hours were devoted to tape-copying and editing together the 24-track master of "Sunshine", an hour was spent dubbing cassette copies for the band, and 1.5 hours were allocated to making mono TV mixes of "Some Of Your Love" and "Goin' On" (yes, the TV special's audio is in mono - and this would seem to indicate either that mono mixes for the other tunes included in the program were made on another day, or simple stereo-to-mono fold-downs were made from rough mixes of those tunes). This information all comes from a CBS Records work order.

Many of the rough mixes used in the television program are indeed unique - for instance, the song "Keepin' The Summer Alive" lacks the eventual Joe Walsh slide guitar solo, enabling us to hear Carl's original "place-holder" solo; and "Goin' On" lacks the tympani overdub that was added on January 31st (the very next day after the video shoot). Also of note is that three of the album's songs are not included in the live "performance", and are absent from the special altogether:  "When Girls Get Together" (likely because it was a ten-year old recording, and wasn't well suited for a psuedo-live setting), "Santa Ana Winds", and "Livin' With A Heartache" ("Winds" was not completed in its final form until January 31st-February 1st, and "Heartache" was not tracked until January 31st, with overdubs following on February 5th, 14th, and 17th).  

Indeed. The channel in question had some really good stuff that I wish I had copied, like twenty or so minutes of footage from a 1983 San Diego concert with Dennis, and footage of the group with Carl in a 1997 performance as part of a news broadcast.

FWIW, here are a couple of minutes of "Goin' on" and "Going to the beach" in the studio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_3ZlgzFqz8


EDIT:

This was new to me, I think. The promo KTSA interviews:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YZ1tnwR_10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rwBpgvEBgc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdWxJk2Pvq0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl4z_3RmvvY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyQWGIocUz4

I believe Ben Fong Torres was the narrator/host for this

Interesting thread. Think I'd seen it in youtube, going by descriptions. Would like to see it again, in entirety.

Yep.

It was distributed by Showtime. I just watched it on the DVD I had made from a Betamax tape I recorded when it was first shown in 1980 (On TV Ch 15 in Phoenix, AZ).
It was the first in a series of shows called "Going Platinum" (not Goin') hosted by a Rolling Stones magazine editor.

Yes, Ben Fong-Torres as stated above.

I also have the full footage.

If anyone decides to post more of the footage, please let the board know!

It would be so nice if the powers that be decided to release a compilation DVD of all the major tv performances over the years.  I know a lot of people have this stuff in bits and pieces but it would be great to have a good bit of it on one release. 

Including the foreign stuff, like "Gran Gala Du Disque" from Holland, and the full New Zealand and Australia shows from '78 (assuming they still exist).

Something tells me that even if more footage from the 1978 Australian/New Zealand  tour existed, it probably wouldn't be released anyway. The Melbourne show doesn't really show them in a very positive light. Which brings up the question, Was the tv broadcast of that show ever shown again  after the initial airing?

Some of you here may remember Bruce on the Brit site prior to the release of the Knebworth DVD/CD. He was pretty negative TBH about the quality of the show(s) of the time, mainly down to members of the group and their issues. In the end it was of historical interest, not importance, that it be released I seem to remember him saying.

To release shows from only 2 years earlier when things were even worse? Doubtful I think.

The knebworth show was "sweetened".  The original tapes-are much rougher.  But this is the norm with concert recordings-seldom are they released warts and all-artists usually start tinkering.

That’s correct. He owned them or instigated the original recordings I believe so probably knew them better than most.

Regarding the 2002-ish DVD/CD release of the Knebworth 1980 show and Bruce’s opinion of it at that time, I remember talking to someone who worked on it, and they had a pretty logical explanation for why Bruce seemed not so hot on releasing Knebworth ’80. In Bruce’s mind, it remained an *unfinished* project. They had undertaken, if I’m recalling correctly, *more than one* attempt at releasing it in some form back in the early 80s. They did some overdubs, and I think there was a second semi-attempt towards (or consideration given to) a release around 1982 or so.

Curiously, they *did* allow ample footage from the show in the 1981 or 82 “20th Anniversary” TV special. But apart from that, the whole thing remained on the shelf, and even when they pulled a track from the show for the “Endless Harmony Soundtrack” in 1998/2000, they waffled back and forth on whether to use the overdubs on “Darlin’”, resulting in two different mixes.

From what I recall, while Bruce isn’t a part of BRI and therefore had/has no ownership stake in the Knebworth recordings, they were considerate enough to honor Bruce’s request for his performance of “I Write the Songs” to be left out (perhaps he had some say as the original “Producer” of the recordings; but I’m guessing it was a more a case of just honoring his request to avoid any additional snags in getting the stuff released).

I also recall hearing from that same person who worked on the release that Bruce suggested to *instead* release the Washington DC 1980 show. This helps to explain why Bruce was not as hot on releasing Knebworth. While he viewed Knebworth as an unfinished project, he remembered well that the Washington DC 1980 show had been successfully overdubbed and “released” (meaning in this case airing on TV).

The quote in bold above brought back some memories, and triggered the thought that so many people born after 1980 would most likely not remember watching TV when it was *all* in mono. No stereo to speak of. TV sets (there's an old term, right?) either had one speaker, or dual speakers that amplified the same signal on both, i.e. mono signals only when it came to broadcasts and cable.

I know there were various tests and experiments done going back to the 50's, where networks would try to simulcast and sync up a TV video broadcast with an FM radio audio simulcast, or in one test I think they even split one channel to AM and another to FM. But the caveat was you had to have all this gear at home, not to mention being in a location where you could receive all of this. Again, all of it was very experimental in nature and would take several decades to actually translate into a true stereo broadcast that people with stereo TV's at home could receive.

If I remember, NBC started running episodes of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show in stereo in July 1984, and that Fall there was buzz around their new show Miami Vice which was set to be their first series and regular broadcast to be available in full stereo. Imagine, nothing consistently broadcast in stereo for the vast majority of viewers until late 1984 and beyond.

Reading this about mixing mono for TV just triggered a memory when we got a new GE television set to replace others which I burned out the tube thanks to a Magnavox Odyssey video game console...It was Summer 1986 or '87 if I recall, and I got home from an event at the local park in the afternoon to see the delivery guys carrying it in the front door.

It was stereo, real stereo, which was the first time we could experience that. However, not all programs even by 86-87 were broadcast in stereo - You could tell because on the display an icon would appear in yellow that said "STEREO", and if it were mono it wasn't there. And at that time, a big deal that never really did much later on was the SAP (second audio program) feature, which would show up as an asterisk if it was available. Not many channels bothered with it, and most times - if anything - it was a Spanish audio track, and again it wasn't much compared to the potential some had for this new tech.

The only thing with the TV was it only had RCA stereo input jacks...no outputs to connect to a receiver or amp for better or fuller sound. It only came through the console's built-in speakers. I still have that TV and it still works. The first VCR we got was around 1989, and due to cost factors even that was only in mono. The hi-fi stereo feature on VCR's added what I remember was a decent increase to the price.

But reading that about mono mixing for TV triggered those memories, and it's amazing to think how long it took TV to start broadcasting in stereo despite FM being around for quite some time by 1984, and the fact that prior to 1984 and even in the next years after people were not able to receive TV programs with stereo audio, and it was all in mono.