The Smiley Smile Message Board

Has anyone ever attempted to log the whereabouts of the various instruments used on BBs recordings? I'm sure that some are accounted for, and that the fate of many others is unknown.

Also, I figure there must be some instruments that were used on some very classic BBs recordings that are likely sitting in someone's garage, unknown to the owner of the history. 

According to Brian in 2015-ish, the Baldwin organ used in Le'id in Hawaii and in the Bellagio studio is likely to be stored in one of their storages.

Ray Pohlman's niece has his Fender bass.  She has posted pics of it to social media.

Actually I think Ray's Wife still has the bass, but his niece was able to photograph it:

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,26773.0.html (http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,26773.0.html)

I suspect this is the kind of thing that happened with most studio musician instruments.  Either their families still have them, they are in museums in the case of the more prominent players, or they get auctioned off.  And of course a lot of it is truly out there with forgotten provenance.  In the case of the Beach Boys gear, either it was stolen or they still have it around somewhere (in storage), or they sold it off.

It's so sad to know that the fate of most iconic instruments used by the Boys and by sidemen (or sidewoman in the case of Carol Kaye) stays in a simple unknown or lost status/fate.

IIRC, Carol used to trade her instruments in order to avoid changing the strings (i read that on a Facebook status posted by her some weeks ago) so it's possible that most of her iconic instrumens are wandering around from hand to hand of collectors or in pawn shops

What about Denny's Drums?

IIRC, Scott Wilson has a drum set used on the 60's by his dad

But is it the exact set used on the track Denny's Drums?

Brian's white precision bass? Where did that go?

Over the years I’ve read about several vintage things stored at Al’s barn including the boat set from the mid 70s, a set of Dennis’s drums , and the white Yamaha piano.

Yes, I believe the white baby grand Al can be seen playing in recent videos (like 1998's documentary "Endless Harmony" and the little clip of him singing rehearsing his part on "Meant For You" prior to last fall's tour) is the white Yamaha Brian played on stage from the late '70s to the early '80s. In a fall 1982 BBFUN interview, Al stated they had retired that piano from the stage and were setting it up in Al's studio. So any white baby grand piano seen onstage after that would presumably be a different one.

That bass was stolen on the road in the mid-60's, I would say in the late 66 to mid-67

I don't know, maybe he used a studio drum kit for that improv

You do recall correctly.  It strikes me as a strange way to do it, but then, Carol Kaye has always done things her own way.  She says she was too busy to change strings but that’s kind of silly, you could do it in 10 minutes, or drop it off overnight or something.  I wonder if she traded in as much as she says?  And I wonder if it had more to do with getting an instrument with strings that had been under tension for a bit?  New flatwounds are almost unrecordable in my opinion.

She also made the eccentric decision to convert her Guild Slim Jim cutaway into a 12-string, rather than buy a bellzouki.  Tells you how little the pros thought of that instrument.  It obviously worked ok because she never upgraded to a properly designed electric 12.  And thanks to that, her 12-sting guild is one of the very few electric 12s we can know for a fact, heck it’s one of the very few exact guitars, period, we can know for a fact is the guitar on certain BBs tracks!

Kind of related. Carnie Wilson said she has the piano used by Brian while writing Good Vibrations (and others I’m sure). She tells a story of Elton John trying to buy it from her dad at about 3.30.

https://youtu.be/N_LNEbRbbMk

I recall Brian's Chickering piano up for sale in the late 70s via BBFUN.  It sold but I forgot to whom.  I wonder if this is the instrument Carnie has?

I seem to recall it described in BBFUN as the instrument Brian used to write Pet Sounds.