Okay, missed my first bus home so had time to check into it. According to UPC numbers, the $72 set is indeed the double disc. It also looks like they'll be importing item by item from the States, so this might help to explain the inflated pricing. Which means that apart from CDWow (double and single editions), no supplier in NZ even seems to have the set on their books. Have spoken to Marbecks and to JB Hifi and checked Mighty Ape, and they have no record of any edition on their systems or schedules. Bizarre.

Hey all - any other Kiwi fans lurking, Monday October 31st seems to be the release date for New Zealand. Online store Fishpond is the only source showing a listing for the box - a whopping $243NZ (and that's after a 30% discount!!). One of the listings is clearly the vinyl - not sure about the other. It's called a "box" too, but $72 seems far too cheap for the big set and way too expensive for the double disc.

Linky:

http://www.fishpond.co.nz/Music/advanced_search_result.php?rid=1215201269&keywords=smile%20sessions

Initial reactions on snippets, bearing in mind low bitrate quality, out-of-context et al - which I'm sure I'll be called up on: sessions sound amazing, and well worth the price of the box. Disappointing lack of bvs on Worms, all things considered, fly-in on Barnyard fine, swear I've heard less obtrusive/better timed fan mixes of Great Shape (though this could be thwarted expectations talking). Surf's Up (both versions) amazing. Fire vocals great. Look fly-ins slightly distracting but probably great for new listeners. Child sounds phenomenal. Any regrets about ordering 3 boxes - one for me and two as gifts? No f*****g way. Can't wait.

Can see it now, couldn't at all this morning. Very strange.

No problem, Cam - hopefully the accompanying book makes some of these things clearer!

Cheers
Will (The_Holy_Bee)

Hi Cam -

All I can see is my previous post quoted. Were you replying to it? 

Thanks guys - was by no means hurt or offended, I'm just not much of a poster and have never been quite sure on the etiquette! 

Cam - not sure because of the posts quoted in your reply, but if you were responding to me, I'm very interested to know what the contemporaneous evidence is (sessions? Press quotes?) that makes a December vote unlikely. Incidentally, when I first got into SMiLE - in the early days of the 'net - your essay(s) on the Shop and message board posts were probably the most influential on me and my views of the project of all the "SMiLE scholars"; I like to think that like you I take a fairly historical/analytical view of events and my theories owe as much as possible to context and first hand sources. In fact, my recent swing to the "Veggies/Wind Chimes as part of The Elements" school has left me feeling vaguely traitorous! But that's a post for another time! 

Very interested to know how the evidence leans away from Mr Reum's suggestion of the end of the project proper occurring in December.

*laugh* Sorry! I didn't actually realise till posting quite what an epic that was. Will happily retire from the thread for the moment. 

Very interesting. Missed the original thread in '06, so have just gone through that with much interest.

With all due respect to Cam and others, the idea of an (early - my hypothesis) December meeting in which SMiLE, as originally planned, was voted down makes sense of several parts of the story. Not specifically the rejection of a 3-movement concept (which is actually difficult to physically reconcile with the LP format), but whatever record it was that Brian and VDP had in mind in the first part of that year and right through, probably, until October or November.

A hypothetical timeline:

Early-Mid '66 - While GV is being recorded, PS is being readied for release, Brian and Van Dyke write the songs for SMiLE.  The Boys continue to periodically tour and perform. H&V tracked in March and wiped. Full speed ahead.

August-Oct '66 - Sessions begin in earnest. "Brother Records" floated. "Vosse Posse" take their roles in the scene in earnest. At this stage, BW seems totally in command of the recordings (source: session tapes) and structure of the tunes being recorded (source: CBS Surf's Up, Humble Harv H&V demo, Child is Father mono mixdown, Wind Chimes rough mix et al). Whatever reservations the Boys have at this stage on the basis of the original tracking sessions they've heard or participated in, on their English tour at least they are generally positive about SMiLE and the new sound Brian is working on when quoted in the press.

Nov - Dec '66 - Things start to fall apart. Much conjecture has been made over why, of course - to a large extent that question is why we're all here. Problems with Capitol appear on the Horizon. The album's due date is right around the corner and then suddenly past it. There are so many good, if brief, musical ideas that working out how to combine them - and deciding what to leave out - starts competing for precedence with the actual sessions. The Beach Boys, their leader unwilling or unable to explain anything very clearly about what they're doing here and why it's taking so long, turn their doubts onto Van Dyke, who also chooses not to, or can't, answer them. The CBS-filmed Wonderful vox session "goes very badly". And then Murry hires private detectives. Seigel's girlfriend's a witch. Phil Spector starts producing movies to mess specifically with Brian Wilson. In other words: Brian's finally being overwhelmed by his emotional and addiction problems. This seems to be Mr Reum's thesis in any case - that the pressure and chemical intake was causing long-repressed (or at least hidden) psychological problems to start making themselves more apparent - and Brian, before anyone else, knew it. (Apologies if I have misunderstood this.)

Which brings us up to crunchtime. The heart of my conjecture is that perhaps the Capital memo is more important than we give it credit for being.

Here are two alternate histories, both leading to the same result (I understand there is no official record of the meeting at which the vote occurred, or whether given the amount of time now passed, any witnesses could be expected to specify a date, so I'm not sure we can actually quantify now which if either of these is closest to the historical truth):

1. Memo, then meeting.

As pressure mounts to complete the record and make the cover art, either Carl or Diane (presumably with reluctant input from Brian) have to draw up a tracklist. Ten or eleven of the songs are discrete and self-explanatory, but a couple need to be covered vaguely. Is Vega-Tables part of the Elements, which they know to include Fire, but that's only an instrumental...? Throw 'em both on the list. "Open Country Song" isn't part of Heroes anymore, but it's been recorded, along with its intended fade, Barnyard. Call it "I'm in Great Shape", which is the name of that first section. "Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine" could really be a part of anything, a link track, fade or its own banded item. There's some consternation about including it, but once again our phantom author errs on the side of caution. And so, clearly, as a result of some pressure, a list is sent to Capitol and the back of the slick designed.

The point being: setting a precedent for much of the next twenty years, this is one of the first instances of someone - usually Carl - having to step into finish what Brian started. The difference is at this point no one has come to expect it, and it's worrying that with all the time and expense already committed, someone else has to say what tunes are going to be on the album because - and I'm guessing here, but give me another alternative - Brian simply won't.

So a meeting is called - it may not have seemed particularly major at the time to those calling for it - to discuss whether Brian is actually going to be able to make this '66 version of SMiLE, and do it in time. Brian, suffering increasingly from his illnesses but endeavouring - and largely succeeding - to hide them and get the job done, needs support from the Boys and from the label. They, in turn, need his assurance he has sufficient idea of what the album's going to be to get it done quickly. This he can't give, so a vote is called and it's decided to scrap SMiLE, at least for now, and do something simpler in order to meet their demands to the label and stay in the public eye. Brian, as quoted in BD, knows he needs another six months to finish up and work out how it's all going to go together, and they just don't have that time to give him.

There is always the intention to return to the tapes (it'd be a massive investment, in all senses, to just decide to junk the whole thing forever so easily), hence Taylor's description of "scrapped", but they'll just do something else while Brian "cools out" and is ready to finish SMiLE up. We know how this turns out.

2. Meeting, then memo.

Same stimulus, essentially, only the first deadline is likely to have already been missed and the rest of the band want to make sure they have an album ready for the next one. They ask Brian how long he'll be and, more crucially, to start making some decisions about what will actually be on the record so they can start finishing off pieces and not endlessly reworking old ones and beginning new ones. Brian is utterly unable to articulate his ideas. In desperation, it is voted on and decided that Carl will take responsibility for collating a track listing and they will complete SMiLE as a far more orthodox pop LP than originally planned. Brian, who though none of them realise it, is slipping further and further into his illness, either tries but fails to comply - or his confidence shattered, abrogates responsibility almost entirely to the rest of the band, particularly Carl. (Hence the sessions for "Tones" and "I Don't Know", and the bizarre distraction of the Dailey recordings.) Finally, he decides to try and do with the Heroes single (up till then, NOT one of the record's more problematic or complicated tracks) what he wanted to do with the whole album, and the endless grunting-doo doo doo-ing-seemingly pointless re-recording-fragmentary H&V sessions begin. We know how this turns out.

**********

Either way, this all seems to tie in with all the other info we've received over the years, and if anything clarifies much of it. The most interesting part of this version of history, if true, is that SMiLE as originally conceived was actually dead in '66. The '67 sessions are specifically singles; H&V re-recorded and held off in the battle with Capitol, Vega-Tables as an alternate release on their own label, Da Da for reasons we just don't know. But SMiLE, as conceived, written and almost entirely recorded by Brian and Van Dyke, dies in December. And, removed from those increasingly formless and manic '67 sessions, doesn't the project as a whole seem so much more focussed, so much more understandable, so much closer to a final reality?

Almost all the songs, up until December, have a pretty relatable and documented structure. (Lead vocs and sequencing seem to be the big absences from a practical viewpoint.) Perhaps this is part of the problem - SMiLE wasn't proving to be as avant garde as Brian had hoped. But all this "twenty seconds of stuff we couldn't put together" stuff Brian's been saying lately is pretty hard to accept considering we have '66 rough assemblies, mix downs, edits and mixes by Brian of H&V, CE, Worms, GV, WC, Wonderful, CE, VT, OMP, CIFOTM and the demo of Surf's Up - that's got to be well over 80% of the record.

And, with the exception of the changing structure of H&V/"Great Shape" - at least after November, as all indications are the Verses/IIGS/Barnyard structure (with YAMS around in March to boot) was pretty solid right through till the Humble Harv demo - none of these contradict each other. I mean, there isn't an edit of Child with Bicycle Rider or one of Wonderful with "Grand Coullee Dam" interspersed. Yeah, "Iron Horse" may not have been part of Cabin Essence originally, but it works and we have a rough assembly of these sections together - while we don't have a version of Worms or Wind Chimes with "Iron Horse" inserted.

That's not revisionism or reductionism; it's entirely borne out by all contemporary (1966) recording, comment and quotation. Perhaps there were to be "Three Movements", but - and I utterly believe Mr Reum and his sources there was a vote in December - if the death blow came then, it must have been a result of Brian's genuine, medical inability to get the last few yards across the finish line; not because the album itself was so far away from completion or comprehension.

In short, SMiLE was following Brian down the rabbithole, and not the other way round.

But if this meeting happened and SMiLE abandoned in December, and the '67 sessions stricken from the record, I would argue that we're actually closer to a completed record than if we date the death of the album to the following year. Food for thought.

Side One
(unlisted) Our Prayer
1. Do You Like Worms
2. Heroes and Villains (Alt version up until "False barnyard", replace fade with another section)
3. Wonderful
4. Child is Father of the Man (according to BW 3.03 mono mix)
5. The Old Master Painter (with barnshine fade, ie. TSS)
6. I'm in Great Shape (WBA/FN-IIGS-Barnyard-H&V concluding section)
7. Cabin Essence

Side Two
1. Good Vibrations
2. Mrs O'Leary's Cow-Water Chant/Holidays (The Elements)
5. Wind Chimes
4. Vega-Tables
5. Surf's Up

Despite the imbalance in numbers of track per side, both are roughly equivalent and come in at under 20 minutes in my edits. Nothing massively new here apart from some of the individual track constructions, and it does work as both a twelve-song album and a cohesive work. (Admittedly due to some historically dodgy editing decisions - the "CIFOTM" piano bit actual runs into the first notes of Vega-Tables, and after years of being in the "four short instrumental pieces" camp, I've abruptly switched into the alternate view for reasons we don't need to go in here.)

It just occurs to me, after fourteen years rejecting the Prokopy/Priore model, I've ended up pretty much returning to it.

Ever since the news of TSS reawakened my SMiLE obsession, I've been thinking of how my personal mix is going to be improved by the resources on the box (a bit unhappy about being stuck with fold down mono, but seriously that's an extremely small quibble). Being an academic sort of guy, that's provoked a whole lot of re-reading of articles, posts, conjecture etc and re-thinking my goals for the mix.

Being a disciple of the original Smile Shop - back in the dark days before I got editing software, Messers Lane and Hunts' edits were far and away my go-to mix - I've always tried to bear in mind the requirements of a 60s pop LP, the fact that covers were printed with twelve discrete titles, and all other contemporary bits and pieces of info available. Knowing (or being pretty confident with the available evidence) that

* H&V originally included "Great Shape"/"Open Country Song" and Barnyard
* That these were moved out of the song at the very latest by February (to make room for Cantina and presumably the barnshine fade)
* There was a song on the December tracklist called "Great Shape"

It's easy enough to conjecture, as many have done, that the IIGS verse with tape explosion and Barnyard stayed together when being expelled from H&V. There is also talk of an "H&V" part two, of course, so I took a stab in the dark and decided, in the absence of clearer evidence, that "Great Shape" was basically that part two (as well as the famous Barnyard suite): excised sections of the original H&V structure, with a few other Heroes pieces and the clip-clop fade as an outro (which, as a happy coincidence, leads into my side one closer Cabin Essence delightfully).

All this done mainly for my own aesthetic reasons, of course, and like most of us to try and use as many of the finished pieces (ie. with vocals) as possible to get the most completed sound for the album.

But recently, re-reading the Fusion piece and particularly Vosse's recollection of OMP/YAMS being extended into a barnyard section with animal noises, and further connecting "Wanna Be Around/Friday Night" with that sequence, I started messing about with some other sequencing for my versions of H&V and Great Shape.

One thing that occurred to me is not only does "Wanna Be Around" - which frankly I've never had much time for before - come in beautifully after OMP/YAMS/Barnshine, but its (unrecorded) lyrics, "I wanna be around/ to pick up the pieces/when somebody breaks your heart" are perfect following Dennis' past tense "Only Sunshine". And while listening to the piano track on Friday Night, something else occurred to me - its tempo and pattern is very close to that in the Open Country verse backing track we have (though far less so the Humble Harv demo version). So I did a quick edit of "Workshop" cutting into the IIGS backing.

I put that rough edit of the sequence on rapidshare, but I wasn't sure about such things so I wanted to check whether providing a link would be okay before doing so. Otherwise anyone keen to hear it, please PM me. As I said, it's obviously very rough, but like Wonderful/Look on BWPS, the movement of one into the other does seem like it could have been planned. (Of course, like Wonderful/Look it'd need some tweaking which may not have been possible in '66). What's more, it lends more credence to the importance of the bracketed (Great Shape) notation on the session log/tape box.

Not sure what you'll all think - as I said, it's a very crude edit -  but I thought it was worth finding out what people thought and if, as I suspect is the case, it had been suggested before.

Oh - sorry drbeachboy, I misread what you were saying a bit. Yeah, I agree - the question that has to follow, if he was that tuned into "what rock sounded like then", is why the BBs didn't try and get a bit heavier in '68/'69. Maybe Brian just wasn't up to it, or didn't know how, no matter what he may have heard in the charts?

I mean, they never really got into "hard rock" very convincingly, even under Carl's auspices much later on. When they tried it was Carl's solo stuff, "Under the Moonlight" and "Student Demonstration Time" - not bad rock music, necessarily, but owing far more Chuck Berry than to "Dazed and Confused" or "Baba O'Reilly".

One way of reading Brian's comment in the interview, that's still relevant to my posts above, is not that he knew what was going on in music and just didn't bother to try doing it - but that in '66, on the cusp of what should have been his brightest achievement yet, he could see the wind changing and realized that where it was blowing just wasn't he or the Beach Boys were meant to go (except in that stripped-back WH/White Album/John Wesley Harding way, which of course the BBs were a year too early to get any love for). Ie. it wasn't a matter of "won't", but "can't" - which makes what the statement in this latest interview not only revealing but extremely and bravely honest in a weird kind of way.

Of course, that's just what I'm reading into it!

I'm just saying I'm not sure it is a matter of hindsight: the "chill out" comments from both Carl and Brian hail from the early seventies, and the "improvement over PS" quote from late '66. I think Wirestone got it bang on - and we all know that SMiLE was the beginning of the great retrenchment that "Love You" aside never really ended, at least as far as the BBs and Brain were concerned - but I'm interested by the specific nature of his answer to the WSJ.

Which is to say, the lack of support from the family and label would never have been conducive to completion of the record, but listen to Pet Sounds, Today, "The Little Girl I Once Knew" or just Brian in the studio on the SMiLE session tapes. This is a guy who has real ego, real push, real authority. The great loss of faith (and "faith", whether it be in God or to whatever higher muse, is a recurring and important component to how Brian viewed his own work) in the album had to come from somewhere.

In context with the great risks and leaps of the past two years, I'd say it also had to be something specific, and largely internal that shook that faith. My suggestion is that Brian started to realise, better than anyone else involved, who had their own agendas and angles of perception - the Vosse Posse, loving the resources, freedom, friendship and incredible music they were hearing; Capitol, already gunshy after Sounds and still trying to sell the group as surf music; the Boys, at once thrilled by the musical experimentation and frustrated they weren't having any say in the direction of a product they would have to present to the public, not to mention understandable concern over their bank balances - that no matter how good it was, the music he was making would not achieve the goals he set out wanting for it. That's got to be a killer, and who do you share those concerns with when there are so many people depending on you? How do you even articulate that fear to yourself?

Which I'd say is fundamentally different, psychologically, than noodling around with your family on a Baldwin organ or recording vocals in a swimming pool for a laugh. It didn't mean he didn't care, or that he stopped being interested in new sounds and ways of recording (though I'd argue reading the 1976 interviews on this site that's exactly what had happened by 15 Big Ones). He just stopped investing so much; as many people have said, he "gave up the production race". That's why it was easier to put out SS, WH etc even if they were weird and out of step with the rest of music. He wasn't trying to be the best anymore, but had settled for just being in the game, and maybe doing something technically or musically adventurous when inspiration struck. But he was no longer forcing his muse to offer up its secrets.

Not, I add, that there would be anything wrong with that if there was any evidence to suggest that Brian was much happier as result of that step back - or that it was a positive step forward and not a partial surrender. I'd argue that the events of the next twenty years would pretty conclusively argue that wasn't the case.

I wasn't arguing SMiLE really would have been worse for their careers than the albums that did come out; just that for Brian an ambivalent critical and audience response to SMiLE would have been far more devastating than an actively negative one to Wild Honey, just because of how much he had invested in the former.

Hi drbeachboy:

I think it's the difference between the most elaborate part of your four course meal catching alight and singeing a grilled cheese you're making for a friend. It's as much about your own investment in the meal as the reaction of the people you're making it for.

Vague confusion or ambivalence about Smiley Smile - it's okay, it's "music for people to chill out to". Vague confusion or ambivalence about the album that's "as much an improvement over Pet Sounds as that was over Summer Days" - devastating.

"Were you angry or relieved when Capitol pulled the plug?

Relieved. Van Dyke and I and Capitol decided that the music was too advanced. We all had had enough. Capitol said maybe in a couple of years people would be ready for it. If it had come out in '67, people would have called it a bunch of junk. It's not really rock 'n' roll, when you think about it—you know, the way rock sounded then. It was too different."

Without provoking another round of "Brian's memory" or "ask him the same question after lunch", the "not really rock'n'roll" quote intrigues me.

We've heard "too advanced" ad infinitum, but my suspicion has always been that the main problem with finishing SMiLE was Brian's terrible and growing sense that what he was doing simply wasn't what people wanted. Not that it wasn't great; not that he didn't enjoy making it, at least in the early stages. But we know Pet Sounds' comparative commercial failure disappointed him, and to a certain extent that was a steroidal expansion on side 2 of Today. We know a great motivator of SMiLE was to make people - a lot of them - smile. We know, from countless interviews, the emphasis he puts on "hits" and "hit albums". What he was doing in '66, his hash-soaked "one key" riffs and modular structures, was another thing entirely, and we know he - and everyone else involved - knew it.

What we also know is that though Brian didn't have a huge connection with the outside world - even at that time, isolated to a certain extent even then by fame, drugs, family and incipient mental problems - he was listening avidly to the radio and to LPs, particularly those of his "competition" The Beatles. He must have heard, as the stoned whimsy of '66 slowly turned into the acid edges of '67, that where music was going was in the opposite to direction to where he wanted to take it.

And I also believe that in '66, at least until November, he did know, fairly specifically, where he was going to take it. Most songs have mono mix downs or track assemblies of some sort. Heroes, as we can divine from several contemporary articles, was very likely similar to - or at least held the sections of - the Humble Harv demo. "The Elements", which I suspect was a pre-VDP idea of Brian's that stuck around for SMiLE (pure conjecture on my part, of which more later),  I'm in Great Shape and final sequencing aside, there are 12 written, tracked and publishable tunes there.

So why suddenly start obsessing, reordering, tinkering, confusing the issue? The lack of support from the label, the Boys, the lawsuit, the drugs - of course. But I can't help but feel Brian almost allowed those issues to distract from the work, or rather they really started to affect the work, because of something far more terrifying he knew to be true: this was music, though wonderful music, that wasn't from where everybody was coming from or going where anybody else was going; it was from another planet and only heading out further into space.

After all the money, the hours, the fun, the family responsibilities, what could he do but try to keep going? But in the way of people with a massive and mounting workload, you start concentrating on one sales proposal at the exclusion of the 500 emails in your inbox: hence H&V and Vega-tables in '67. Maybe if he could get those right... So the Pepper's story EDIT: sorry, should be "Strawberry Fields" not Pepper's, obviously (Brian and Vosse in the car; "they did it already" etc), which has been emphasised and deemphasised continuously in SMiLE myth these last twenty years, might be revealing if not decisive as an event. I think Brian was increasingly aware that winter of '66-'67 that SMiLE was so different to what everybody else was doing, and what "the kids" were wanting to hear, and that there were only two options: that SMiLE would revolutionize rock in a way never done before or since and cause the rest of pop to fall in step with it; or that it would be revealed, at least in the short term, as hopelessly out of step with the times itself.

The hype was massive; the buzz was huge. But apart from Surf's Up on Inside Pop - notably sans band and SMiLE production techniques - Brian gets more and more reticent about letting any of the new music out to the public (endlessly postponing the announced single to the point Capitol had to release "Then I Kissed Her" in the UK instead, much to the band's disgust). These are the actions of either a perfectionist, someone insecure about the commercial appeal of their work (ie. demanding both aesthetically and commercially) - or both.

So isn't it possible he essentially, or to some extent, killed SMiLE - or let it be killed - rather than end up crushed, embarrassed or exposed? Which is of course a crying shame, and only conjecture on my part. But it seems to have certain psychological plausibility from what was said at the time and after by Brian and others.

Anyway, that's why  the "way rock sounded then" comment I found so interesting. I'm not sure I've heard Brian say that before without speaking more expansively about "too advanced" or "art records". For a guy with the pride, competitive spirit, track record and sheer sparkling talent of BW in 1966, wouldn't the idea of looking silly to his fans and contemporaries be just about the most frightening thing of all?

Hi MJP, thanks for trying to remember what you can at this distance.

I assume by the chants you mean the ones done by the Posse (the "big bag of vega-tables" round, the names of sea creatures) as opposed to anything recorded by the Boys themselves? Any chance - to your recollection - this could have been an early fan-edit done from the psycodelic sounds tapes?

Many thanks again.

[P]

Though Presumably this demo has never hit the proper bootleg circuit, if indeed it ever existed, I feel I would be reMiss not to perhaps gullibly join the above posters in expressing my interest in what it contained.

Great stuff, ChildisFather! Thanks!

It's Open Country. It was even referred to as 'Open Country Song' in an article from the period.

Which article is this, if you can dig out the info? Working on a new manner of compiling SMiLE facts and am intrigued to find out (if I haven't just forgotten reading it) that IIGS was mentioned specifically in the press, even if under a different name.

Many thanks
Will

EDIT: Googled it, as I should have done in the first place, and it looks like the "open country song" reference is from the Inside Pop reel notes. What a crying shame that footage was never found. I'd actually give a toe to hear VDP's original Child is the Father lyrics sung by a Beach Boy, even if just as a rough demo or outline.

Sorry, just rereading guitarfool's excellent post (which I only saw just as I was submitting my message above). Sounds like LLVS, while essential, might not be ideal for what I'm attempting, as dates etc are the sum and substance of the approach I want to take. Does anybody have any scans of articles from the original mags (from, say '66 to '78) that don't feature in the "Print" section on the board? Please send me a PM if so - am quite looking forward to getting started, actually, but want to make sure I'm being as comprehensive as possible, and any assistance in this area will be hugely appreciated! Of course anything I manage to put together will be posted here for everyone's interest/use.

And as I haven't said it before; I may not post very often but I was surprised just how upset I was when I thought the board was gone for good. So relieved it's back, not just at this very exciting time but for the future, even when things are quiet. I'm going to make more of an effort to keep up to date with the larger conversations happening even when the box is long in the public realm and we other discussions take precedence. It's only been due to the passion and enthusiasm of the posters here and on the old board that I really moved from PS and SMiLE into the wonderful weirdness of later BB eras. And, just to add my vote - Love You is absolutely my favourite released BBs record, even if it clearly isn't the "best" of them. It's just wonderful. Or, indeed "Wonderful".

Thanks Cam, and guitarfool for your advice - very useful, thank you.

EDIT: (A timeline is) more or less what I'm planning, though probably in tabular form. Track by track but also the other key issues - the state of completion at various times, reasons for the project's collapse, attempts to revive it, etc. But yes, each quote dated, referenced and in chronological order in each category. It'd be fascinating to see how much the consensus changes from during or just after - '67, '68 - to how the players remembered it ten years later. I'd suggest on my initial reading that actually most reports are pretty consistent at least through the seventies.

The actual method would be very simple, just time consuming. Amass all available articles, interviews, promotional material, print out and highlight the pertinent sections. Set up a spreadsheet as suggested above and retype those passages into it in attributed order. How people then choose to interpret that data is then up to them, but the - I guess - academic rigor of the exercise should make it easier to keep things straight, and perhaps paint a different picture of what was intended and what was actually recorded or preserved.

Let's take the early intentions for "H&V" as an example. We've got one debated but firsthand source - the Humble Harv demo - for those intentions in late '66. But there are at least two other mentions in period articles to a "Barnyard" section being a part of that song in a completed mixdown. Now, whether or not one believes - as I do - that Barnyard itself was a closing section of H&V in its original (or at least an early) state, and those articles are evidence for that argument, or one wants to argue the references are vague enough to refer to the "OMP" or Cantina fades instead, at least we've got a very clear and ordered assembly of the printed facts as they were reported at the time.

And yeah, I'm more than happy to act as researcher on this one. The liner notes of the box may well help to unravel some of these mysteries, but it's almost irrelevant to what I'm planning (and, indeed, as what I'm suggesting is as much about the way plans and perceptions changed, it could make a useful accompaniment to book as well). Referring to my earlier post, I'm assuming LLVS is the one obvious and vital collection of period documentation to begin with (as well as this board's fantastic resources too, of course)? I'm happy to buy one, but my credit card's taken a pretty big hit BBs-wise of late so if anyone was able to provide a spare copy or scans of relevant pages that would let me get started. Otherwise I can just wait until the Box is out to begin.

Hi all,

Long-time lurker, first time poster (since 2004 or so, which may have been the Smile Shop board then). It was a great thrill to return in May-ish when all the TSS excitment was starting and still see occasional posts from MattB, Cam Mott and others I remember as being responsible for fascinating and elucidating posts "back in the day". Though a relative newbie to SMiLE - 1997-8 and the early days of the internet - the upcoming box is still the manifestation of an overwhelming personal obsession of almost fifteen years standing, and every droplet of new info is so engrossing I'm almost a bit sorry the box is going to be released so soon! (If for some reason it now doesn't I'm happy to accept a small part of the psychic blame.)

But enough biography. One of the things I've been reminded of since returning to the boards/SMiLE as an active interest is the sheer wealth of info about the album available from different sources. I try not to listen to too many fan-mixes (I have my own, natch) because as we've all observed on these boards the mind is quite capable of playing tricks and a second-hand theory evolving, over time, into unattributed first-hand fact. But what I was surprised by was how many of the late 60's- mid 70's articles so generously scanned for the "Print" section have potentially revealing quotes and snippets about SMiLE, often offhand but not usually contradictory, many of them from the band not too long (5 years) after the fact. (For instance, Mike describes in one article the pieces of Surf's Up he believes were recorded as of, I believe, '69.) And those scanned articles don't even include the Williams-Anderle interviews or "Goodbye Surfing" (is the Fusion piece there? I can't remember seeing it).

Anyway, my fiance is doing a Masters in Anthropology and in putting together her thesis has made an enormous spreadsheet in which over a dozen relevant issues (she's studying how Policy is made by political parties, so you can imagine the scope for relevant issues) are cross-sectioned with who said them and when. I believe that referencing is a major issue in SMiLE discussion - ie. we'll all remember basically what Brian said, but not necessarily when those quotes hail from, and if we're talking, say, H&V, the difference between August and Dec '66 actually does matter - and using the raw contemporary data in the "Print" section I was thinking about taking a similar approach with the first hand sources.

All of which is preamble to an admission and a query. Admission: I don't own LLVS, but I realise it's a must-purchase anyway, and especially as a base for a project like this. My question is, I'm aware there are a wide range of cuttings and clips reprinted in LLVS - are the majority of these dated and attributed? Is anyone able to give me a run-down of the major articles included? (For instance, is the famous Anderle-Williams interview from Crawdaddy, which I believe is called "A Celebration of Wild Honey"? I know it's also available in "How Deep is the Ocean".) And, most importantly, is what I'm suggesting a new-ish idea, or does this resource already exist somewhere and the whole thing redundant?

Finally, as a more specific aside, the two-part "Still Waters Run Deep" article from '76 has a SMiLE section which gives the Elements as "Love to Say Dada (Water)", Veggies as Earth, MOLC as Fire and GV as Air - anyone know where this breakdown hails from? Early fan scholarship, or from someone in the BBs camp? It's presented very directly as fact, and the inclusion of "Home on the Range" and "Bicycle Rider" as tracks (they're listed as separate songs in several late sixties - mid seventies articles that mention SMiLE) implies the author didn't see the Capitol memo and is going either from someone's memory or tape boxes (or both). The first comps didn't escape till the Priess book was being researched, right?