I know, Jude, it's utterly wack, isn't it? As in so many areas, the law doesn't seem to take account of any of the realities where (in this case) music recording, composition, or songwriting are concerned. It just looks at the finished track and says 'anything that led to this is essentially... the same thing'. Well, no. And maybe that could be challenged in some cases, although you'd probably have to have time, patience and a profound love of paying lots and lots of shiny moolah to copyright lawyers to get that idea to stand up in court...!

I mean, to take a very on-topic example... I read a review of the Party set somewhere in the last couple of weeks that mentions that in the sessions running up to a take of one of the tracks that ended up on the album, a guitarist (can't remember who, and haven't got the set myself, so can't check) is noodling the riff to what later becomes Billy Strange's riff on Sloop John B. Does that mean that legally, the session for that Party track also protects the copyright of Sloop John B, as one might be said to have ultimately led to the recording of the other...? What about recordings of in-studio live band jams that end up leading to ideas for multiple tracks...?

Law in 'resembling donkey' horror shock...

I'm no copyright lawyer, but I would guess the basic answer is no, because most of what was recorded at Beach Boys sessions in 1965 HAS been released — as completed tracks on the albums that came out in that year. The sessions leading to the finished tracks with vocals might not have come out officially, but the finished tracks being out, as I understand it, means the copyright on those sessions continues to exist. I believe copyright law deems that the finished tracks and the sessions leading to them are part of the same recording (however screwy that might seem to musicians, the general public, or anyone who knows how multitrack recordings are made).

If I understand this situation correctly, this means that the only recordings on which copyright might expire at the end of this year are tracks that were recorded then, have been booted since, and have never been released officially in ANY form. And as folks were discussing upthread... there aren't actually too many of those as far as 1965 is concerned. Read upthread if you haven't already... 1965 is not a great year for booted but as-yet officially unreleased BB stuff. Even stuff like the orchestral arrangement of Three Blind Mice came out on the SMiLE boxed set, so copyright continues on that. Other than that... there's a mere handful of tracks. The contrast with 1963, which had all that stuff that came out on The Big Beat, is quite stark.

I may have some wires crossed in my explanation above... if so, I'm sure someone will be along to correct me shortly...!

I don't recall that, Upside-down Follow-up To Pet Sounds... I remember establishing that some of the EU-based on-line music sites were selling lossless files truly derived from the production masters (ie NOT MP3s back-upscaled to lossless files, with the MP3 compression still in them)... but I don't remember anyone selling CDs. Or not legit Capitol/EMI authorised ones, anyway.

Not saying you're wrong, by the way - just that *I* haven't encountered CDs of The Big Beat or KAEOS '64 being on sale here in Europe...!

Sure John, I agree, it's great that we've received what we've had so far, and I don't doubt that the releases we've had have been better than the bare legal minimum required in terms of track listing thanks to having Mark and Alan involved. But they can't spirit Capitol budget out of nothing if there's no will in the Tower to spend it. It sounds as though that willingness was there for The Big Beat '63, as there were lots of tracks new to official release on there that needed further copyright protection. And KAEOS '64 may have been a special case, as in addition to the legally required tracks for the 1964 copyright extension, there were these other tracks that had already been mixed for a canned two-CD release of mixes of 1964 material prepared from the returned Shut Down Vol.2 multitrack work tapes a few years back. So KAEOS '64 ended up combining all of these available 1964 tracks, and Capitol were happy to put it out with all those tracks, because they'd paid for some of it already and the rest needed to happen for the copyright extension anyway.

For 1965 on, that might mean the copyright extension set for studio recordings  - if there is one at all - is not as lavish as the 1964 one.

May I be double-wrong in all of this, with an extra side helping of 'inaccurate', and grated 'utterly mistaken' sprinkles on top...!

It's a cost issue, though, isn't it? Basically, the releases are no-frills, and just there at all to satisfy the legal requirement that they have been released in some form so the artists can have the copyright extension... so the record company doesn't pay any more than absolutely needed to get the record 'out there'. And design costs them money, and paying someone to do liners would cost them money... so it doesn't happen.

I wish they'd do it too... hell, I wish all this stuff was out on CD with lovely liners and beautiful art... but as I understand it, the only way any of it comes out at all is if it costs Capitol next to nothing.

Yeah, agreed, it's not looking good, is it Andrew...? And I think I'm right in saying it's not even *three* unreleased tracks for 1965 - wasn't BW's Three Blind Mice arrangement released (curiously, as it was way out of era) on the SMiLE Sessions box?

Ah, knickers. Lee Dempsey's post on the 'future copyright extension set' thread (the 19th in that thread at the time of posting, and located here) makes me think a 1965 studio set is much less likely to be waiting ready to go before this year's end, sadly. I explain my reasoning in the post right under Lee's.

As I did there, I'm hoping here that I am spectacularly, stupendously, ignominiously incorrect in this assumption, and that something packed with the cream of the 1965 sessions, new mixes, acapellas and Stack-O-Track mixes, kitted out with a title appropriate to the year, will be downloading its way to my iPod within a couple of days. Given how uncertain I now feel about that happening, I think a good title would be 'And Your Dream Comes True '65'...

Oh dear... that actually makes me much LESS hopeful for a 1965 studio set like the '64 one to still be coming our way. I remember someone saying (can't remember who, someone here) over the course of the last year that we wouldn't necessarily get a set like KAEOS '64 every year, and Lee's post above makes me think that might have been right. The Big Beat 63 made total sense as a copyright extension set, because so many of the tunes on it were new to 'official' release... and KAEOS '64 makes sense in the same way because there (a) were a few tunes that were never released but have been booted, and then (b) the rest of the stuff was clearly from a cancelled two-disc set of mixes of 1964 material made from the recovered Shut Down Volume II work tapes that Capitol obviously thought they might as well put out with the other '64 copyright extension stuff, because the time and money had already been put in to create those mixes.

That suggests to me that without a similar excuse for 1965 material for which unreleased mixes would already have been made and be lying around awaiting release, we *won't* be getting a set like that this year... if you follow me 

I still hope to be proved heinously, spectacularly wrong within hours of this post. But I'd say that makes it less of a likely thing... and indeed maybe less likely that we'll ever have detailed roundups of BB vault material arranged on an annual basis and to the level of detail seen on KAEOS '64 again.

But like I say, maybe, just maybe, I'm wrong. To quote the Rutles, I'm Living In Hope. And a very pleasant Derbyshire village it is, too. Cracking pudding up the road in Bakewell, too.

(Author's note: I don't really live in Derbyshire)

*all I can think of right now is Endless Sleep and that Christmas tune that was probably a Brian original**, but I'm sure there were a few others on the set too...
** [checks iTunes] ah, yes... 'Let's Live Before We Die', aka 'Christmas Eve'

Yep. I'm still checking in on this thread every couple of hours, hoping for something that contains an official release of that exact superlative backing track to be announced... very soon. It's sure to sell at least 500 units by January, guys!

I'm really setting myself up for a fall, here, but it's got to be worth checking in every coupla days briefly to see if anything else turns up to cover 1965's extraordinary studio sessions, right?

I'm happy others are happy, but the Chicago '65 thing just isn't doing it for me. Slightly flubbed live versions of what are really amazing tracks in the original studio versions. Nah. Not my thing (I didn't spring for Sacramento '64 either). But YMMV (and clearly does, from the number of happy downloaders already on this thread). Enjoy!

OK... so after giving it another shake, something else DID drop out of the Capitol vault supply tube before year end, in true 'Being John Malkovitch style' - great!

Is it worth anyone going up to the seven-and-a-halfth floor and having another poke around behind the filing cabinets? He said, hoping for some more studio session stuff, official stack-o-tracks/-vocals mixes etc etc...

...yeah, I know. I'm asking a lot. But, ya knaow, if ya never ay-asks... ya never getsks, right?

Plus, there's been no official announcement of the Chicago 65 Live set anywhere yet that I can find... so I'm hoping the imminently forthcoming official press release tells us all about the Chicago '65 set... along with er, the OTHER release that is, I'm hoping, about to drop...

In line with my bank balance...!  

Ah, fair point Andrew, thanks for the correction. I must admit, the Party set doesn't really float my boat, so I haven't been keeping an eye on any of the detail about it, release date or anything. I thought it had been out a couple of weeks already!

I must say, though, that I said the same thing about The Big Beat 1963 when that first came out... and I ended up buying that eventually! If there's one thing history proves in my case, it is that where BB releases are concerned, then completely unlike Margaret Thatcher (which I'm very pleased to be...), I absolutely AM for turning.

Probably all it would take would be someone giving me one good reason to buy the set, and I would crumble. I'm a sucker for the Beach Boys harmonies. But on Party they always seemed a bit lacklustre to me, a bit *too* off the cuff to be really good. I really liked the 'De-Partied' Mix of Devoted To You on the Hawthorne set, which shows their singing off beautifully... but of course I have that already. And I can't think of anything else on Party that I would want to the same extent. I'm not that wild about the *finished* take of Barbara Ann, let alone the flubbed takes that led up to it...

So I don't think I'll spring for this. But ask me in six months, and I might tell you different...!

I dunno about this... I mean, I'd love to see another copyright extension release to cover 1965, sure — what BB fan wouldn't? — but isn't the Party set already likely to be that? Record companies, rightly or wrongly (usually wrongly IMHO) hate putting out releases by big groups too close together, claiming that sales of one detract from another, and the space between October and December isn't very great. I've always thought that this kind of record company release logic doesn't hold for the hardcore fans anyway, as we will buy pretty much anything whenever it's out, and especially a KAEOS64 style release for 1965, but then 'Newsflash: Record Companies Proved Immune To Logical Thinking' isn't likely to be a headline any time soon...

I really hope I'm wrong, but I wonder whether the Party set might be it for this year. I mean - what would they put on a 65 set apart from more live stuff? (as you can see from this comment, I'm a bit 'meh' about live releases, especially from this period, and am really only interested in studio stuff). Most of the stereo mixes that can be done from that time are out now, I think? I'm not an expert on the period though, so if you can think of a killer tracklisting for a 65 set that has slipped my mind, feel free to educate me!

Meanwhile, I hope to be proved spectacularly, staggeringly incorrect within mere hours of this post. [starts counting seconds...]

Dude, that's quite a tall order you're making there. It's not just a question of someone 'having the information' and posting it up. You'd have to listen to both releases in minute detail to figure out what was common to both and what was missing from each, and make copious cross-comparisons and take notes as you go. You have to have both time and inclination. Most people here, I'm guessing, are lacking one, other, or both.

There was a similar thread recently about SMiLE: what was on the SOTs that wasn't on the official box, and vice versa. Difference is, many people (especially some of the hardcore fans on this board) are more familiar with the SMiLE SOT material because they've been studying it for years (literally: the SMiLE SOTs came out in, what, 1999? 2000? and the official box was released over 4 years ago now. Even so, with all the time people have had when they could have done such a comparison, they hadn't, really — because it's a long, tedious job to compare releases in that way. The thread on SMiLE here did prosper, but only because one dedicated poster sat down and did the hard graft needed to make the comparison accurate. My hat is off to him - it was a lot of listening and a lot of work. You'd have to REALLY like SMiLE to do it. And he did.

Rightly or wrongly, most people simply haven't made that kind of detailed study of the SOT Party! material because, broadly speaking, there are fewer complexities and it's generally less interesting (having said that, I'm sure there are BB fans who are more interested in Party than SMiLE... but I'll nail my colours to the mast and admit that I'm not one of them). Plus, with Party there's no puzzle attached as there is with SMiLE (which bit went where? could this have connected to THAT?? etc etc), due to the latter's unfinished nature, so people haven't pored over every take in quite the same way. And the new official Party set is only just out, too, so there hasn't even been much time to do that kind of thing, even if you wanted to and loved Party that much that you could devote the time to creating such a comparison.

In short: the info you seek isn't just sitting ready-compiled in a text file, waiting for someone to post it here. It has to be created by lots of time-consuming work. I admit it, I don't have the inclination, and because I'm not that wild about Party, I don't have the new set either, so I can't do it. Why don't you give it a go and post the results here? Lots of Party fans would, I'm sure, love to read it.

That really made me, dare I say it, SMiLE! Exactly the kind of thing I think Brian would have loved back in 1966. And I really enjoyed the way you edited the BW/Hal Blaine skit from Hawthorne, California into the tag, as well. Just great!

Sooner than that, even. In fact 80s-style production has been quite big in the pop world again for a few years now. Probably not amongst people who were around when BW88 first came out, much less those who were there when Pet Sounds first dropped, but, amongst, you know... pop kids (I can't type that without it looking horrendously condescending... for what it's worth, I *love* pop music, always have... and I'm now 44).

What goes around, comes around...

...and also in various stores over here in the UK. What I mean is, the 18-track disc that was only available from Target in the US was on wider general retail release here. That's how I got my 18-track version: in a traditional record shop in the UK.

Quite apart from the contents of NPP as an album, which I enjoyed for the most part, I hated the 'Deluxe Edition' thing. It's becoming a bugbear of mine with music releases, actually. A 'deluxe edition' to me should have some... well, *luxurious* aspect to it (it's in the name, guys...!). It's a nice big well-made box o' goodies with a beautifully printed colour edition book, a couple of lithographs, lots of rare extra tracks and photos, high production values... whereas increasingly, it seems that the record industry thinks a 'deluxe edition' is a CD same as all the others with a couple of extra tracks in a cruddy standard-issue plastic jewel case.

No Pier Pressure is a case in point. The so-called 'Target Deluxe Edition' was, IMO, pretty much what the album should have been. The ordinary non-Target Deluxe Edition was the standard album bewilderingly shorn of a couple of really good tracks, and the so-called Standard Edition was like a cut-down promo sampler that misses some of the really good stuff out!

The odd thing is that the Beach Boys CAN do this stuff — just look at the SMiLE Sessions box or MiC. THAT's what I call a deluxe set — assembled with love, and with careful knowledge of exactly what it is that will get prospective buyers of the set excited (well, in the case of the SMiLE Sessions set, with the exception of the bewildering million-dollar 'built-in light' versions, and the gazillion-dollar surfboard version, that is... sheeesh).

For a real humdinger, look at the Rufus Wainwright 'House of Rufus' thing or Jellyfish's 'Fan Club' box from a few years back. They are serious 'luxury' releases truly deserving of the name. NPP... not so much...!

I know — this is very much a first-world problem! But it still PS's me awf...

Or... couldn't he be playing back a four-track Pet Sounds-era multitrack? One with complete backing track on one track, a lead vocal playing back on a second track... and no backing vocals playing on tracks three and four at the time the pic was taken?

I seem to recall that there were a couple of Pet Sounds tracks still done on four-track. Or am I remembering that wrong?

DISCLAIMER: I have no idea whether that IS what was playing when the pic was taken, I'm just theorising aloud. For all I know, it was a two-track demo for an idea Brian was kicking around at home during early 1966 called the Barnyard Suite...   

Scheeeze. Has it really been TWENTY YEARS???

I'd love a DVD or Blu-Ray of this; it was beautifully made and filmed. Like JCM above, the Beach Boys and Brian had passed but obliquely through my orbit by 1995, and I was a fan of lots of artists that would name-check them, but I hardly knew any of their songs, and I wasn't any kind of fan. I could have named prolly three songs by the Beach Boys, max, and none by Brian solo.

All that changed when I sat down to watch Don Was's film, which was screened on BBC2 in the UK as part of Arena, a weekly arts programme. In my case too, the film was solely responsible for kickstarting a major obsession! The short sequence of Carl and Brian singing God Only Knows at the piano, and the similar segment at the end with Brian and VDP playing the title track from Orange Crate Art, are still some of my favourite Brian performances. I wish they were complete, although I'm guessing the filmmakers excerpted the best, most complete (or both!) parts of each performance for what we saw in the edited film.

I just remember that feeling, watching Brian pound out God Only Knows and hearing Carl singing along and thinking, 'Wait, I know that song... kinda. BUT I NEED TO KNOW MORE...!'

And then, near the end of the film, the performance of 'Til I Die' really sealed the deal. It felt like the top of my head was coming off watching that. By then I was like, 'What's THIS song?? I MUST POSSESS IT. NOW!!!!!' I went out and started buying Beach Boys CDs the very next day like they were going out of fashion.*

For me, the 1995 Brian solo performance of Til I Die still shades the 1971 version, although I'm aware that I'm probably in a minority on that one...

I still have the VHS I made of the BBC2 Arena transmission of the film, but something better with outtakes and full interviews, if such a thing is still possible, would be very sweet...!

* Which they sort of were. In 1995 I couldn't find the Surf's Up album anywhere in the UK, and had to make do with the Was film soundtrack, the Beach Boys then-current Greatest Hits 2-CD collection, and the Smiley Smile/Wild Honey twofer. That wasn't bad going, though, because the last of these led me to find out about SMiLE, and so, eventually, to be posting here...

Oh — yeah. That's another possible interpretation of what Andrew meant, too!

I'm sure everyone is poised to ask Andrew this, but can't quite bring themselves to do it. I'll bite, however!

So: Andrew, do you mean that the band recorded *another* song called 'She Believes In Love Again' — just like Bruce's song on the 85 album, but NOT that song — which subsequently went unreleased on the 2012 album?

Stupid question, I know: but it just seems so unlikely that there would be another song called exactly that during the TWGMTR sessions...

(Stranger things have happened in BB land, however, so I'm not pre-judging either way!)

Alternatively, did you mean that the song in the bridge to which She Believes In Love Again allegedly nods is NOT Full Sail, but a different song...?

In short, were you replying to NateRuvin or CenturyDeprived?

Thanks!

PS I ask because Bruce's 1985 'She Believes In Love Again' is a real guilty pleasure of mine. It is, admittedly, *arch*-80s fermented curd, prime gorgonzola — but I like it. There, I said it. And I would love to hear a slightly 'de-eightiesed' version, which is what I had thought the unreleased 2012 recording might be until Andrew's comment. I have a feeling a simpler performance (maybe just Bruce and a piano?) would sound better, and wondered it it was an out-take in that style that we might get to hear one day. But of course, if the 2012 track is a completely different song, that puts paid to that idea...

Wow - this is a *fantastic* interview. But I'm kind of cheesed that within a few posts, this thread all about it *IS* turning into another 'Mike vs Brian' yawnfest. There's so much else that's excellent in the interview to discuss, why do we have to focus on that part, which is but a small aspect of the whole article?

So I'll try to save this thread from itself. Let's talk about something else. It sounds as though great, exacting care has gone into the presentation of the musical scenes in the 60s part of Love & Mercy, both in terms of historical accuracy and *musical* accuracy. How many music bios have we all seen where it's obvious the actors aren't singing or playing bass or piano or whatever? This sounds as though it's different. The impression I've always had is that Darian cares so much about the music as well as the people involved, so I'm not surprised the musical side is so well-represented if he was given a major say in its portrayal.

So, to anyone who's already seen the film: are those scenes as convincing as it sounds they are from what we're hearing...?

The stuff about Brian's personality is fascinating too, although it's stuff we all sort of knew, it's really on point. I think the Eagles anecdote has been told here before too recently, and it's very funny, of course, but Darian's take on WHY it happened is the most interesting part; that Brian just did it because that's what he really thinks. Most of us, in that situation, though we might think 'well, the music is OK, but it's not that amazing' would just nonetheless write 'great' and leave it at that in the interests of being smooth and having a quiet life, but the idea that Brian might think 'wait, actually... that's not quite right, I'm going to take it back and change it for just 'good', as that's more accurate'. Some of us might even think that for a fraction of a second, but social mores would prevent us from taking it back and actually changing it. But like a big kid, Brian just goes right ahead and does it. "Like a tank through wheat", as David Anderle said all those years ago...!

It's halfway endearing and it's halfway infuriating; halfway hilarious and halfway tragic. I can't imagine Don Henley was very pleased, and probably thought it was an enormous, incredibly catty slight on his talent. But you can sort of see how it wasn't, really. It was just Brian being Brian, and being honest to a point that most adults never would, or would stop themselves from being.

I can never understand why anyone would automatically discount the worth of a track on the sole basis that it's old, or that it's an out-take from a previous album's sessions, or a re-recording of something previously unreleased. Sure, discount it because it's any or all of these things AND IT'S ALSO BAD, but if it's a quality tune and you like the recording and performance, why hate on it just because of its pedigree? Seems a bit masochistic to me. "This is good, but I know the history of the track, and it's old, so I won't let myself like or enjoy it". WTF?

So, yes, Big Sur is a re-record of a Sunflower-era recording; so what? It's the only officially released version of that song there is, and it's pretty decent, with some of the Beach Boys' best humming on record outside Little Pad, in my opinion. Like a lot of Mike's solo tunes, it owes a debt to out-of-copyright classical works (I always wonder if he did this consciously, so as to be less sue-able, or was it a 'He's So Fine/My Sweet Lord'-type accident??)... but who cares when the result is this fine?

I'm not wild about The Beaks Of Eagles — the delivery of the ripped-off poetry is just too po-faced and pretentious for my taste. The musical bits in-between are fun, though, so I did my own edit without the poem which is my go-to version of the Saga.

Finally, I agree that California owes much — perhaps too much — to California Girls, but again, the performance and harmonies on the track are just so lovely that I can forgive it and just enjoy it. Plus, I'm a sucker for synth-bass... so sue me.

So for me, there's more to enjoy in the Saga than not. Especially if you edit out the recital of the Jefferson poem. As to whether it works as a trilogy... well, we know it wasn't written that way; the separate pieces were welded together later. But it sounds OK as a through-mixed suite of tracks in my opinion, and it's harder to break the recordings up than it is to listen to them as one piece (the single version of California never sounds right to me; it always sounds as though it's starting in the middle of something, which in a way, of course, it is)... so I say roll with it as a suite.

As a harpsichord and orchestral keyboard flood in...

[SNIP]

What does this even MEAN?!!!!!

Could it be that this is another one of those songs that just has too many bad memories associated with it for the BB collectively to release it? I mean, that was the insinuation about 'Carry Me Home' if I remember rightly (and possibly, I don't!)... ie. that the surviving members of the group couldn't stand to release a Denny tune on which he sings about being scared to die.

We're all at least one stage removed from that kind of position, and just want the songs out there, but I can imagine that one or other band members might veto certain tracks for personal reasons. And 'Stevie' is loaded with those, both for Dennis and Brian. Maybe it's just *too* loaded?

Having said that, I don't think Stevie is that great a track anyway. The music trades on previous Brian successes too much for me; I heard the nods to Good Vibrations the first time I heard the track. And the delivery isn't great, either. Brian's vocal is in as great shape as *he* was by the early 80s.

My personal take on Stevie (your mileage, as usual, may and probably does vary...) is that it's an OK track from a time in the Beach Boys' history when most of their material was dreck, so it stands out. If you were trying to find something listenable from their 80s career, this is a reasonable choice in something of a desert period for good songwriting. But it's not like it's a Wild Honey outtake or something. It's a track with some spirit and energy, a fun horn arrangement, a bit too much of a debt to the melodies and arrangement of the verses from Good Vibrations and a sub-Love You quality Brian vocal. Ho hum, yawn... I think I preferred St Etienne's take on it on Caroline Now!

(In fact, some of those Caroline Now tracks sound way better than the BB originals — see: Go Away Boy, Rainbow Eyes, Lines... and the version of Lonely Sea, with its extended coda, is awesome, too, even if it can't quite top Brian's original)...

Is it? Oh, cool!