Desper has posted several times that he has the track with a Carl lead vocal. Then said he didn’t
He deleted “.” all his posts claiming that he had a cassette copy of Carl singing the lead on SOS.

So I promise I'm not making this up, but Stephen Desper played what I thought was an acetate over the phone for me in January of 2014.

You can see in my post history that I asked him some questions, he offered to answer them over the phone. We had a long conversation and I mentioned the lost take. He said he had it, I told him how it was a holy grail, he told me to call back a few days later. By then he had found it and played it over the phone.

Like I said, I thought he said it was an acetate, but that was during the first conversation when he first told me he had it, so it's possible he just initially misremembered the format, but you could hear it was relatively low quality.

I really wish I would have recorded it, but didn't even think to at the time, although my wife did come in and hear it. I'm convinced it's Carl, best I can describe it was it sounded like he was sitting on a stool in the corner of a country bar, surprisingly twangy and laid back.

Again, I'm just someone on the internet, so feel free to be skeptical. I only came back here to see if it had made the box and was surprised to see it still hadn't at least been privately passed around given what I thought was Stephen's understanding of its significance.

But, yeah!, agree these are great - but frustratingly have not yet had time to give 20/20  a full spin yet - I'm going to compare it with the Starline pressing I have.

For the most part, 20/20 sounds phenomenal.  The heavy wax really does Desper's work justice - with no neighboring groove bleed, you can really hear how much effort was put into keeping things clean.  Cotton Fields is a great one to A/B.

I think it's the same mix, but it does sound a bit rough presentation wise - maybe an indication of tape wear, and maybe an indication these pressings are from analogue sources rather than wrongly assumed by me digital sources.

The wrong mix thing was a half-joke.  It's largely the same, but is absolutely missing the percussion punch, especially noticeable on the opening triplets or during Al's pre-chorus.  I was already running a bass-heavy EQ to fix the synth noise (I love the farts), but it didn't help here. 

Good Time has a similar enough sonic profile (lots of separation between the parts, very punchy drums) and it sounds just fine.

I still really like these reissues. I listen to records pretty loud and can hear more of the subtle parts than on original pressings, but this song kind of went the other way and just became a wall of mud (which just made me realize that the difference is similar to the Smiley Smile vs. Smile versions of H&V.)

Sound: ... This brightness indicates the mastering source is highly-likely digital (almost duh, but no-one's officially said yet that I've read) and sounds relatively similar to the '01 toof.

Honkin' Down the Highway is so different from any other version I've heard.  I'm halfway convinced that someone screwed up, like with the more cowbell version of Bluebirds Over the Mountain.

Not that I'm aware of but hey, what would I know ? 

Slightly off topic, but what's your opinion on Carl's lead?

[Surfin' Safari]

Wrote this ages ago about the underrated closer on Surfin' Safari:

"I have often wondered why no one (to my knowledge) has ever mentioned 'The Shift' as a pointer to the future. Most reviews quickly dismiss it as 'a fashion statement by Brian and Mike' or words to that effect. On the face of it, the main tune is a 12-bar blues (I I I I IV IV I I V IV I V). However, Brian 'shifts' the key up a whole tone in bar 3 and back down again in bar 12 (in Carl's solo too). As far as I know this is unique----no-one else has ever done this."

This is a great aspect of a Beach Boys song that doesn't seem to get mentioned at all.

Lambert calls it "a step forward in Brian's musical development."

I think his interpretation is in line with yours, but it might be a little more in-depth:

Overall the song is in the key of A major, but when the A section begins we hear two bars of G chords.  After that there are two bars of A chords, and then the song continues as a blues progression in A through the end of the section.  In other words, Brian plays on the song's title by "shifting" the first two bars of a blues progression down a whole step from A to G.  This is all anticipated in the introduction, where a C chord similarly shifts up to a D chord.  In fact, at the beginning of the song, when we hear the intro C and D chords and then the vocals enter above G and A chords, it's hard to tell exactly what key the song is in; the key only becomes clear when blues progression eventually asserts itself.  This is Brian in experimental mode, placing his personal stamp on a time-worn convention.

He also mentions that something similar happens in "Finders Keepers."

The real question: is there any amount of money that could be offered to 2014 Mike to get Mike to perform Looking Back With Love (the album) live in its entirety? Kickstarter campaign, anyone?

This is the only time in the history of the world that anyone has questioned whether or not Mike Love could be convinced to do something for money.

Only a guess, but my guess would be that "Good Lord, How She Boogaloed It" is a bit awkward and doesn't flow as nicely as "How She Boogaled It". That could be the why. As to the who and the when, I have absolutely no idea.

Thanks for the reply c-man.

The explanation I kept landing on was that it was simply transposed from the track master during the banding, but from Desper's description of the WH mixdown process (e.g. re-amping onto the final two track), it doesn't seem likely that Muntz would have done a separate banding process for the 4 track (although the reel release does have noticeably different fades, the most obvious being "Darlin'", which doesn't fade out until after the lyrics from the second chorus ["I was living like..."] come in, exposing the technique of copying and splicing single run-throughs chorus/verse backing tracks.)

I guess a combination of WH's short recording schedule and the presumably increased lead time of a third-party manufacturer (also, Capitol's spectacular attention to detail) could explain how a provisional title would make its way onto the slick.

Man, Occam's razor is no fun...

What I want to know is who came up with the original title, Good Lord How She Boogalooed It, and why /how it got shortened.
( hope I don't have to wait two years for a good answer)

It hasn't been quite two years, but does anyone have more info, at all, on the original title?  I can find four references to it: the 11/15/67 session logs in Badman, this post (which I imagine was based on the same), a Twofer track list on a Beatles fan site, and, the reason for my curiosity, the Capitol Stereo-Pak (4 track) tape that I own.   

Song title changes are a very, very common thing, but seeing it on the Muntz tape makes it seem like a last-minute change, one that I figured would be well-documented and oft-mentioned (especially with the drama over the  "God Only Knows" title.) 

So, anyone?

COMMENT:  Why don't you just wait a month or so until the study-video of Sunflower is available.

I didn't realize they were that close to release!

I'm actually very familiar with your study videos (they inspired this kind of tweaking and experimenting), so I'm really looking forward to this.

Thanks again.

Mr. Desper,

As someone who appreciates your work (especially the technical innovation and non-traditional psychoacoustic approach), I've been trying to replicate the 360Surround effect so I can "unlock" Sunflower and finally hear it as it was intended.

I think I might be close, because the percussion (bongos?) in "It's About Time" just blew my mind. 

It seems like they're continuously panning.  On my non-ideal 2.1 setup, they move to the very extreme L/R, but on my headphones, they appear to go move all the way to behind my ears (like 15 degrees or so.)  Additionally, some of it sounds incredibly deliberate, as if it's chasing the other parts around for either sonic effect or to make room in the soundstage (the guitar in the "I'm singing in my heart..." section is the most obvious example.)

Am I on the right track?  I'm afraid this might be covered in your book, so I understand if you can't give details, but since I haven't been able to get even a used copy, I'd really appreciate a gut check on my tweaking so far. 

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide and for being such an amazing resource.