How much has leaked?

[Matt Bielewicz]

I totally agree with what Bob Flory has said. There will inevitably be moans on here about what's NOT on this box when it comes out... but when you consider what we'll be getting in return, it totally balances out for me. As someone else said here recently, if the set was JUST a CD of all the known SMiLE backing tracks in CD-quality mono with NO session stuff at ALL, it would STILL be a must-have for the tracks we don't already have in any way officially, and/or in decent quality (eg. Mrs O'Leary, Holidays, Look, Child Is Father Of The Man etc etc).

I'd buy that if it was out. 1 CD, 12 tracks, mixes in mono, no frills. Here's my cash. Where do I sign? And we're getting WAY more than that!

Well, we hope, anyway...!

MattB

[The Shift]

Blimey, I hope no-one interpreted my speculation as a moan. I'm checking online every day for a pre-order on each version of this set ('cept iTunes). No way will I be complaining!   

[Jason]

As far as the Smile box set is concerned I was definitely not expecting anything like the roughly 11 CDs of stuff that circulate now. The bootlegs will still serve a purpose as far as more in-depth listening is concerned; much like the case with the Pet Sounds box. Take them as a pair of stuff. You'll be more than able to have a succinct, fruitful listening experience with both the official box set and the bootlegs.

[guitarfool2002]

I remember Domenic Priore telling me about research into a Beach Boys appearance on "The Mike Douglas Show" where the group performed a few songs from "Friends", but the performance was lost, not by the tape being disposed of, but rather by tape deterioration which had rendered the tape unplayable.

I'm guessing this was the May 1968 appearance, coinciding with the release of Friends. That would be a shame! A large number of the Mike Douglas episodes survived, and just a few years ago the show's vaults were made available for fee-based licensing, so networks and programs could buy the rights to air various Douglas clips right from the vaults. It was neat that they had a search feature where you could search specific people and find out when they appeared. That website is no longer active. I do remember there were missing shows, especially from the 60's era...that would be the "Friends" program's fate it would seem.

[guitarfool2002]

I should add to this thread that when I was doing research for the TV/Film articles on the BBs that I contributed to ESQ-I got in touch with the David Frost archives and the Carson archives people. They were quite nice and took the time to answer all my questions.  As I feared-the "Lost" Frost app from May 1971 where Dennis performed "Forever" and "Lady" and the BBs sang "Vegetables" was indeed destroyed.  Clearly-however-there is an audio tape of this app-since it has been booted.  It also had a cool interview where Dennis discussed filming Two Lane Blacktop.  The Carson people also told me the same thing-the BBs made two 1968 apps on the show-with Johnny as host and both are gone.  The May 2 68 app would have been fascinating-because it was basically the BBs promoting their about to begin tour with Maharishi and talking about why TM is so great-plus singing "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring" and some "Friends" songs.  There is an audio tape of this too I should add-but tragically only the songs not the interview.  That being said-it is always possible that a fan made a kinescope of one of these shows that may turn up

The precedent is there for similar items showing up in a fan's collection: The "lost" Monkees appearance on Carson's show has been circulating for decades now on a poor-quality audio, but at least it still exists in some format. The infamous Lennon-McCartney appearance on Carson's program the night Carson was on vacation for the week exists the same way, but as both fan-recorded audio and home movie, which was basically the fan or his/her parents setting up a home movie camera in front of the family TV set and shooting a primitive kinescope at home.

The only thing that diminishes the hope for such a Beach Boys find is that the Monkees and Beatles had a larger teen and pre-teen fan base at the time of those appearances, who would possibly convince their parents to set up the camera and capture their heroes on a late night TV show (especially those past their bedtimes!). I have doubts that a Beach Boys fan who would be interested in TM and meditation would have set up the ol' 8mm home movie camera to capture that as the kids had wanted to see the Monkees and Beatles. I hope I'm wrong!