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680598 Posts in 27600 Topics by 4068 Members - Latest Member: Dae Lims March 28, 2024, 07:20:36 PM
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101  Non Smiley Smile Stuff / The Sandbox / Re: Pet Sounds and Race on: September 28, 2016, 04:52:23 PM
It's just some young person's MA thesis, guys. Nothing to get worked up about. Three-quarters of the people I know wrote something that looked exactly like this in the last 10 years.

Emily's post above is good, btw.
102  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Stack-O-Tracks: Who picked the tracks, and why? on: September 22, 2016, 09:20:32 AM
The Stack-O-Tracks LP credits "The Beach Boys" for production. Presumably that means there was some degree of collaborative effort in choosing what tracks to include.

To me, the track selection is curious. The biggest US hits ("I Get Around," "Good Vibrations," "Help Me Rhonda," "California Girls," "Barbara Ann") are all missing, while some lesser-known oldies ("Salt Lake City," "Little Honda," "You're So Good to Me") are included. Some of the lesser-known tracks seem to have been selected to show off the complexity and beauty of Brian's productions ("Salt Lake City," "Let Him Run Wild") but some others are just very basic early backing tracks (e.g., "Surfer Girl") of little interest in themselves.

Have any of the Beach Boys ever spoken about the track selection or the rationale for the production of the album?
103  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Thread for various insignificant questions that don't deserve their own thread! on: September 08, 2016, 03:00:25 PM
BRI would have owned the recording itself. Someone (probably McCartney's MPL) owns the Holly publishing on the underlying song "Peggy Sue", but again, anyone can cover any song and they just have to pay a flat royalty rate.

I would guess it was either down to a slashed budget, or someone at BRI or Capitol just decided they didn't like that track anymore. If someone came to BRI members and said they had to slash one song, they'd probably pick a song they'd receive less or no songwriting royalties on. But it's all just guesses.

If this were a DVD, then I'd say it's for sure a song clearance cost issue. But with CDs, its the same rate for any songs as far as I know.

The only thing that makes me think it wasn't a cost issue is that, if they were looking to slash the budget, why not drop like 5 or 7 songs or something instead of one?

I thought the answer to my question would be pretty cut-and-dried, just a fact I didn't know -- but it turns out it really is a little mystery! The potential royalties explanation makes some sense (it's the only cover among the '70s tracks) if there really was an ultimatum to cut one song. Your theory about the maximum number of cuts per compilation policy possibly being in effect here makes sense, but it seems odd to cut just one track if budget was the concern. And it's not like the package cheaps out in other regards -- the fairly detailed liner notes from UC are carried over, aren't they? The same production team (Pawelski, Elliott, Sandoval, etc.) are credited on both CDs, I believe.

I'm inclined to wonder if the "somebody at BRI just hates the song" explanation is the most reasonable. Maybe someone considered it incomplete or subpar or otherwise embarrassing and objected to it being available?

104  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Thread for various insignificant questions that don't deserve their own thread! on: September 08, 2016, 11:50:05 AM
Why was "Christmas Time is Here Again" -- and only "Christmas Time is Here Again" -- deleted from Ultimate Christmas when it was reissued in 2004 as Christmas with the Beach Boys?

It seems like every year EMI and its licensees put out a new cheap version of the Christmas album, but this was different -- the 2004 release was clearly meant to be a "serious" archival release of that material, just as Ultimate Christmas was. So why did they fail to include that one track, and just that one track? Rights issues involving "Peggy Sue"?
105  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Correct speed of 4/4 Big Sur? on: September 08, 2016, 09:46:35 AM
There are two different versions of the 4/4 Big Sur that's available. One is significantly slower in pitch than the other. Does anyone know which of the two is the correct one?

Version One: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVamFiNw-rs

Version Two: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX3M77IuDvg

I tend to agree with the poster above who notes that the voices in Version One sound unnaturally draggy. Version Two must be correct.
106  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Songs that are still not officially released but out there on: September 01, 2016, 10:28:04 AM
Want to try to make a list here for the studio stuff. Here are the ones I can think of off the top of my head:

Visions

I thought "Visions" was the same thing as "Number One" by Rachel & the Revolvers. Did the BBs record it?
107  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: How much of Smile '67 would have been (in your judgment) instrumental? on: August 30, 2016, 02:51:09 PM
If you believe the theory that Vegetables was originally a part of The Elements, then perhaps the other sections that were never recorded would have had words to them as well.

I'd say that The Elements and Love to Say Dada would have likely been the only instrumentals. I don't believe that I Wanna Be Around/Workshop would have been on the finished album.

But "Dada" has the "wa-wa-ho-wa" vocals...and it really sounds bare and unfinished, i.e. lacking a main melody that I have to assume vocals would provide (unless Brian intended to overdub a clarinet or guitar part or something, seems doubtful). Surely "I Wanna Be Around" would have had a lead vocal too; it too lacks its main melody (unlike "The Old Master Painter").

Fire has vocals too but it's still considered an instrumental. I think that Dada would have had more wordless vocals, but no actual lyrics.

"Fire" has vocals? Aren't the vocals on the track on the Smile Sessions from "Fall Breaks and Back to Winter"?
108  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: How much of Smile '67 would have been (in your judgment) instrumental? on: August 30, 2016, 04:56:00 AM
If you believe the theory that Vegetables was originally a part of The Elements, then perhaps the other sections that were never recorded would have had words to them as well.

I'd say that The Elements and Love to Say Dada would have likely been the only instrumentals. I don't believe that I Wanna Be Around/Workshop would have been on the finished album.

But "Dada" has the "wa-wa-ho-wa" vocals...and it really sounds bare and unfinished, i.e. lacking a main melody that I have to assume vocals would provide (unless Brian intended to overdub a clarinet or guitar part or something, seems doubtful). Surely "I Wanna Be Around" would have had a lead vocal too; it too lacks its main melody (unlike "The Old Master Painter").
109  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: How much of Smile '67 would have been (in your judgment) instrumental? on: August 29, 2016, 01:55:13 PM
Isn't "Our Prayer" the exact opposite of an instrumental?
110  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / How much of Smile '67 would have been (in your judgment) instrumental? on: August 29, 2016, 07:58:59 AM
Apologies if this is an old or stupid question.

Most of the BBs' '60s albums had at least one instrumental. The exceptions are LDC, Christmas, Today, Party, and WH -- 5 out of 15, and two to three of those are arguably stopgaps, not "proper" albums. Notably, Both Pet Sounds and Summer Days had had instrumentals. Thus, one might assume that having an instrumental track or tracks to include would have been "expected" by Brian and/or the group for any given album as it was being planned and recorded.

Do you believe that Smile '66/'67 was expected to have an instrumental track or tracks in this way? And, if so, which ones?
111  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: European 1 CD version of Smile Sessions on: August 16, 2016, 08:51:16 AM
I ordered a European (German) copy of Smile Sessions online and rather than the 2 disc set which I believe was the smallest offering in the U.S. it is a 1 CD collection. 
Anyone have any knowledge of how the sound is on the Euro CD's??     

The European 1 CD edition of The Smile Sessions is identical (in sound and contents) to disc 1 of the US set.
112  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Beach Boys in 3D sound on headphones on: August 14, 2016, 04:31:06 PM
I have a now unfortunately no longer produced pair of Phillips virtual surround earbuds which I have been buying several times over the years for between $10 and $25. I am now on my last pair unfortunately. They are far from the best for fidelity, but on certain songs they produce an interesting 3D effect, especially on Sunflower. I don't know if I'm getting the matrixed layer or not, but on a song like Get To Know the Woman, I'm hearing a 3D effect on the backing harmonies. Does this reflect what one would hear with the spatializer.

I'm probably making some technical errors/oversimplifications here, so bear with me.

Decoding the matrix surround information on albums like Sunflower requires a piece of dedicated hardware, a decoder. As far as I know, no-one has come up with a different means of decoding this information. It's a bit like those quad LPs of the same period that used a guide signal to encode four discrete channels into the two stereo channels, relying on a hardware decoder to play them back properly.

There are lots of ways of producing "virtual surround," most of which involve simple software calculations (producing four channels by means of L, R, L minus R, or R minus L, something to that effect). But the cheap earbuds advertising this effect usually just have extra holes or even an extra driver (simple electromagnet) in the back side of the "can" which produces extra "ghost" frequencies around the ear, using the same audio information as the basic stereo channel. Grado headphones, for example, achieve this same effect by having a very porous back. As my spouse has often pointed out, they are actually louder on the outside than they are on the inside.

The result is a crude 3D effect, sound seeming to emanate from beyond your ear. However, if the recording was made with the dummy-head method (i.e., binaural recording) -- records such as Lou Reed's The Bells from 1979 -- the surround effect on even standard headphones can be quite convincing even without the addition of such hardware or software tricks.

COMMENT to Maggie:  Gaming headphones that have multiple drives within the ear cup can be used to give a unique sound to any song, but in the case of Sunflower and others, the sonic scene is different. One of the more successful designs of the past was the Sony MDR series that set off the ear and allowed the pinnae to reflect some information back into the ear. At any rate, any good set of earphones is all you need to fully appreciate any of my recordings.

Sunflower
and the other songs you will find on my website have all been optimized for headphone reproduction WITHOUT ANY DECODER or extra drives.  All you need is a standard pair of phones -- a good pair helps. This is because these albums were recorded in virtual surround via microphone acoustic-derived matrixes and other patented matrix devices at the time of recording. On my website, all the songs in all the study-videos have the playback matrix already applied, so all you need do is listen with a standard headphone to hear both the left to right and front to back dimensions. The headphone experience is one of my favorite ways of appreciating these recordings, so I went to extra lengths making certain the imaging and dimension envelopment was optimized for the renditions of all the songs on my website. There are old and new songs on the website that I believe you will find sound extremely good over your headphones just by plugging them into your computer.  Check it out ~swd  http://swdstudyvideos.com


Thanks, Stephen. Those videos sound amazing (I've been a fan for a while), and of course your recording and engineering contributions to some of my favorite Beach Boys albums are simply out of this world!
113  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Beach Boys in 3D sound on headphones on: August 14, 2016, 08:11:20 AM
I have a now unfortunately no longer produced pair of Phillips virtual surround earbuds which I have been buying several times over the years for between $10 and $25. I am now on my last pair unfortunately. They are far from the best for fidelity, but on certain songs they produce an interesting 3D effect, especially on Sunflower. I don't know if I'm getting the matrixed layer or not, but on a song like Get To Know the Woman, I'm hearing a 3D effect on the backing harmonies. Does this reflect what one would hear with the spatializer.

I'm probably making some technical errors/oversimplifications here, so bear with me.

Decoding the matrix surround information on albums like Sunflower requires a piece of dedicated hardware, a decoder. As far as I know, no-one has come up with a different means of decoding this information. It's a bit like those quad LPs of the same period that used a guide signal to encode four discrete channels into the two stereo channels, relying on a hardware decoder to play them back properly.

There are lots of ways of producing "virtual surround," most of which involve simple software calculations (producing four channels by means of L, R, L minus R, or R minus L, something to that effect). But the cheap earbuds advertising this effect usually just have extra holes or even an extra driver (simple electromagnet) in the back side of the "can" which produces extra "ghost" frequencies around the ear, using the same audio information as the basic stereo channel. Grado headphones, for example, achieve this same effect by having a very porous back. As my spouse has often pointed out, they are actually louder on the outside than they are on the inside.

The result is a crude 3D effect, sound seeming to emanate from beyond your ear. However, if the recording was made with the dummy-head method (i.e., binaural recording) -- records such as Lou Reed's The Bells from 1979 -- the surround effect on even standard headphones can be quite convincing even without the addition of such hardware or software tricks.
114  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Sophie’s Choice on: August 12, 2016, 11:53:57 AM
It's no Sophie's Choice the way I see it: to me, the answer is clear. Assuming he was indeed "no longer self-destructive," my vote would be for Dennis. No slight on Carl, but I need more Dennis music in my life and I want to hear how it would have evolved over time.

Carl pretty well had the chance to do what he was going to do artistically. Dennis had further to go. As for "the good of the Beach Boys band," well, I don't know where Dennis would fit in that organization, but I'd love to see him doing joint tours with Brian. If Carl were still alive I don't see that the Beach Boys band would be very different today than it is, or was 30 years ago. After Endless Summer, Brian has always been the key factor in what kind of enterprise the BBs proper are.

On the other hand, you could argue that Brian, and to a lesser degree Mike and Al, clearly miss Carl a lot more than they miss Dennis...and that Carl still being around would change their dynamic for the better...
115  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: the Bambu Sessions on: August 11, 2016, 04:26:46 PM
To be honest, I think they just put stuff where they did mostly 'cause it fit where it did. Although Guercio really wanted to end Bambu with "Piano Variations".

And, as I noted in my other thread, as beautiful as "Piano Variations" is, it doesn't really resemble "Thoughts of You" -- it's in a different key and has a largely different chord progression! (It's more similar to "Cuddle Up" and "Time" than it is to "Thoughts of You." I'm inclined to think it's a demo for a different song than all of the above.)
116  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: the Bambu Sessions on: August 11, 2016, 03:41:40 PM
Was there any logic as to what ended up as a bonus track on disc 1 of the Pacific Ocean Blue/Bambu set and what ended up on disc 2? I'm only just now realizing that things like "Only with You" and "Mexico" were recorded after POB was released.
117  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Michaels's Bald Head on: August 11, 2016, 08:18:23 AM
I clicked on this thread expecting the worst, but there's some good analysis here and some plausible armchair psychology too.

Mike knew he was the oldest member of the group -- almost six years older than Carl, and that kind of age difference means something when you're in your teens and twenties. The hair was one sign of this. And if you look at promo materials from the 20/20 era, Mike looks 20+ years older than everyone else, and his hairline is a big part of that.

 Afro
118  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Couple of questions re: POB and Bambu (\ on: August 08, 2016, 05:20:14 PM
Well, the bootlegged rough mix of "School Girl" contains some (wonderful, IMO) scat-singing at the end, which was wiped from the master tape.


As for "Holy Man" - yes, Carl scatted the melody on an old reference mix. What Taylor contributes songwriting-wise was turning Gregg's original lyrics, which were more in prose form, into a singable lyric (according to him).

Incidentally, if your as big a POB/Bambu fan as you seem to be, you'll want to check out my sessionographies and essays for those two albums, if you haven't already:

www.beachboysarchives.com
 

Thanks for the link, Craig. I've read and enjoyed your essays but it's been a while since I looked at your POB/Bambu entry! Thanks for the clarification regarding the authorship of "Holy Man." Do you know if Carl's scratch vocal has ever leaked? That feels like a pretty significant omission from the Legacy set.

I appear to have confabulated the wiped scat singing on the coda of "School Girl" with the "it's a big erection" lyrics of the alternate "Wild Situation"!
119  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Couple of questions re: POB and Bambu (\ on: August 08, 2016, 08:11:23 AM
Hi Maggie. Are you sure you don't mean "Wild Situation"?

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

You're almost certainly right, John! I've never heard that before. For some reason I thought I had read it was "School Girl," but I probably arrived at that assumption because of the long stretch at the end of the latter with no lead vocal (giving the impression something has been erased).
120  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Couple of questions re: POB and Bambu ("Holy Man", "School Girl", etc.) on: August 08, 2016, 06:28:22 AM
Three random questions about late-'70s Denny. My apologies if these really belong in the "random questions" thread, but I thought it might be helpful to concentrate some of the more nitpicky archival issues relating to these sessions in one thread.

1. I have read that the melody of the Taylor Hawkins vocal version of "Holy Man" is based on a scratch scat vocal by Carl. Since Hawkins gets a co-writer credit on the released version (but as far as I know didn't contribute to the lyrics), I wonder how complete that scratch vocal was. Has anyone heard it? How much is Hawkins's vocal melody "inferred"?

2. Apparently the booted/early version of "School Girl" ended with some provocative lyrics that are not included on the released version. I've never heard or seen these. What are they? And why were they erased?

3. "Piano Variations on Thoughts of You": Does this title actually originate with Dennis or is it an archivist's designation? The chord progression doesn't resemble "Thoughts of You" that much -- it is actually more similar to "Cuddle Up" and in the same key of C ("Thoughts of You" is in D flat).
121  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Mike, Bruce, David, and b.v.s on TWGMTR on: August 08, 2016, 06:19:15 AM
Thanks for the thoughtful replies, guys!
122  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Mike, Bruce, David, and b.v.s on TWGMTR on: August 05, 2016, 05:30:45 AM
Bruce sings one of the high parts on Isn't It Time and is actually quite audible.

Ah yes, I forgot about the chorus of "Isn't It Time." As you say, that's clearly Bruce.

The "Bill and Sue" breakdown was a good call too. I can sort of hear Bruce on "Think About the Days" but I mostly hear Jeff and Al there. A lot of times I simply don't recognize who the voices are, which is very unusual for the Beach Boys for me.

For what it's worth, I'm a big fan of this album, pitch correction notwithstanding. Whoever's singing the harmonies, they're lovely, and the songs are great.
123  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Mike, Bruce, David, and b.v.s on TWGMTR on: August 04, 2016, 04:19:42 PM
Hello folks. First-time poster.

During my lurking, I saw some discussion (not very conclusive) of the backing vocals on the That's Why God Made the Radio album. This brought to mind a question I've had since I first heard the record, namely -- what background parts are sung by Bruce and Mike (and David, if applicable)? Does Mike sing bass on TWGMTR? Where is Bruce singing? I can sort of hear him on "Shelter" ("dit-di-it" on the chorus) but I guess I don't know what his 21st-century voice sounds like well enough to recognize him elsewhere.

One poster suggested that almost all of the background vocals on the album are a wall-of-Brian-and-Jeff effect, with little involvement from the other BBs except where they have lead breaks. (The same poster contrasted this with NPP, which apparently has a lot more Al and Blondie in the blend throughout than TWGMTR has Al, Bruce, or Mike). Is that true?

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