SMiLE Sessions box set!

[buddhahat]

I'd be surprised if the 1st track leaked to promo TSS was fire. I'm sure the guy just made a mistake.

[Shady]

How do you mix up Fire and Cool, Cool, Water

[hypehat]

Well it IS the blueboard....

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

How do you mix up Fire and Cool, Cool, Water

Heh...at times like this I wish 'Fire' was named 'Oil', cause then you'd be mixing oil and water.

[BiG GRiN]

I'd be surprised if the 1st track leaked to promo TSS was fire. I'm sure the guy just made a mistake.

WFUV Playlists clearly indicate "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" from BWPS with link to buy it via  Amazon

[ghost]

The guy probably heard "is it hot as hell in here...." and thought it must've been the Fire song he heard about.

[monicker]

Does anyone think that the swedish frog section is one of the things that Brian vetoed recently? I have a bad feeing it is. It would be tragic if that part didn't make it somewhere on the four CDs.

[ghost]

Does anyone think that the swedish frog section is one of the things that Brian vetoed recently? I have a bad feeing it is. It would be tragic if that part didn't make it somewhere on the four CDs.

I think Brian himself is still the same guy that was into that sort of thing. But the guy is so self-conscious, he really might think it's inappropriate for The Beach Boys still even though there's been a whole new world of bizarre music happen since Brian's heyday and in comparison Swedish Frog is not too unusual.

[Shady]

Everytime I get really pissed that we didn't get smile this summer I go back and read the billboard article..

Capitol Records is planning to release the Beach Boys' great lost album, "Smile," later this year.

Then I calm down and get excited again

[The Heartical Don]

I never could make that much of the oft-quoted 'modular method of writing songs' etc.

I'm glad you said that.  That quote jumped out at me in the Mojo article and gave me pause.  The idea that his working method was to first record these fragments and then "write" or assemble them into complete songs seems so obviously wrong and does a disservice to the material.  I mean, clearly he had the song first right? Even  take 1 of "Good Vibrations", the modular granddaddy of them all, isn't THAT different than the 45.

The Mojo article and interview is so poor. It's like the Larry King interview approach..

Thank you, Chris (and also Cam Mott, who wrote words of support too, earlier). I think that the fantasy about the genius first recording pieces of some gigantic puzzle, without having a true concept of the whole, may be appealing. But well, IMHO is't a fantasy. Brian always was known for developing full songs in his head, he has an uncanny ability to 'hear' wholes, and it took him little time to make clear to others what he wanted, where, and when. Fooling around aimlessly was totally contrary to his artistic abilities.

This should not be confused with trying out variations on some whole idea. There are recordings of different versions of Good Vibrations all right. But I am convinced that the, um, Platonic 'idea' of the song Good Vibrations was complete.

[hypehat]

Does anyone think that the swedish frog section is one of the things that Brian vetoed recently? I have a bad feeing it is. It would be tragic if that part didn't make it somewhere on the four CDs.

Seeing as it made it onto the 1993 box, I see no reason why not - Brian was in the business of vetoing Smile material on that set too, he shut down any attempt to put Fire on there for instance.

[buddhahat]

I never could make that much of the oft-quoted 'modular method of writing songs' etc.

I'm glad you said that.  That quote jumped out at me in the Mojo article and gave me pause.  The idea that his working method was to first record these fragments and then "write" or assemble them into complete songs seems so obviously wrong and does a disservice to the material.  I mean, clearly he had the song first right? Even  take 1 of "Good Vibrations", the modular granddaddy of them all, isn't THAT different than the 45.

The Mojo article and interview is so poor. It's like the Larry King interview approach..

Thank you, Chris (and also Cam Mott, who wrote words of support too, earlier). I think that the fantasy about the genius first recording pieces of some gigantic puzzle, without having a true concept of the whole, may be appealing. But well, IMHO is't a fantasy. Brian always was known for developing full songs in his head, he has an uncanny ability to 'hear' wholes, and it took him little time to make clear to others what he wanted, where, and when. Fooling around aimlessly was totally contrary to his artistic abilities.

This should not be confused with trying out variations on some whole idea. There are recordings of different versions of Good Vibrations all right. But I am convinced that the, um, Platonic 'idea' of the song Good Vibrations was complete.

Fair point, but I get the impression there was less focus with some of the smile material, particualrly H&V. The sheer amount of recording for this one track alone suggests he was changing his mind as he went along, so may have had it sketched out on piano initially, but as he came to record the sections, was shuffling pieces, rerecording sections he was dissatisfied with, deciding to create new sections etc. Heroes feels to me like a song that didn't have an underpinning blueprint and so may have run away with him a bit. You can argue that GV was the product of a huge amount of recording time too, but (from memory - haven't listened to UM15 in a while) most of the recording is devoted to developing the core sections that would appear in the final 45. The same is not true for H&V where many of the sections seemed like experiments that either grew into new songs, or were dumped entirely.

I'd argue that if, partway through the heroes sessions, Brian decided to axe several sections (barnyard, great shape) in favour of entirely new sections (cantina), and create new songs (great shape) with at least one of the axed sections, perhaps by juxtaposing them with sections from other existing songs (no evidence for this admittedly) then that's a pretty modular approach. This sort of section swapping is rife throughout the smile material and makes for a far more fluid, structureless body of songs than had existed previously, so I do think the modular thing is relevant to smile. It has much more of a 'cut & paste' aesthetic than any of the previous material, where songs shift unexpectedly into new songs. Cabinessence in its finished form is clearly the marriage of at least two different songs, and although not proven, I'm inclined to believe Vosse's claim in the fusion article that the Who Ran The Iron Horse section initially existed alongside the bicycle rider parts from Worms.

[The Shift]

The sheer amount of recording for this one track alone suggests he was changing his mind as he went along, so may have had it sketched out on piano initially, but as he came to record the sections, was shuffling pieces, rerecording sections he was dissatisfied with, deciding to create new sections etc. Heroes feels to me like a song that didn't have an underpinning blueprint and so may have run away with him a bit. You can argue that GV was the product of a huge amount of recording time too, but (from memory - haven't listened to UM15 in a while) most of the recording is devoted to developing the core sections that would appear in the final 45. The same is not true for H&V where many of the sections seemed like experiments that either grew into new songs, or were dumped entirely.

I'd argue that if, partway through the heroes sessions, Brian decided to axe several sections (barnyard, great shape) in favour of entirely new sections (cantina), and create new songs (great shape) with at least one of the axed sections, perhaps by juxtaposing them with sections from other existing songs (no evidence for this admittedly) then that's a pretty modular approach. This sort of section swapping is rife throughout the smile material and makes for a far more fluid, structureless body of songs than had existed previously, so I do think the modular thing is relevant to smile. It has much more of a 'cut & paste' aesthetic than any of the previous material, where songs shift unexpectedly into new songs. Cabinessence in its finished form is clearly the marriage of at least two different songs, and although not proven, I'm inclined to believe Vosse's claim in the fusion article that the Who Ran The Iron Horse section initially existed alongside the bicycle rider parts from Worms.

… and I'd say it's symptomatic of someone under extreme stress, no longer sure that he's got it right and striving to improve, improve and improve again, ad infinitum. As much it's the work of genius that we all recognise, it's also a sign of someone who doesn't have enough hours in the day to achieve an outcome he hasn't had chance to sit down and design properly.

If he hadn't actually had the courage to scrap the release, I wonder if he'd've worked on it for years to the even greater detriment on his health?

[Micha]

I'm inclined to believe Vosse's claim in the fusion article that the Who Ran The Iron Horse section initially existed alongside the bicycle rider parts from Worms.

Actually, the chords for the Who Ran The Iron Horse section are F-B-F and the chords for the first section of DYLW is F-B-F-B... quite similar two-chord sections.

I remember a quote from one 60s article claiming that eventually parts from one song became parts of other songs. Anyone remember where that quote is from?

Anyway, I'm sure that anytime Brian recorded a section for some song, of course he knew for which song it was intended. But it seems that he changed his mind a lot about sections he already had recorded. My interpretation: While before SMiLE Brian was pretty secure about which feels would add up to a specific songs, it wasn't that easy for him with the SMiLE feels. DYLW sounds pretty much scrambled together anyway.

[hypehat]

Bb, not B! but point taken

[tansen]

Bb, not B! but point taken

In Germany/Scandinavia B = H, and Bb = B

[37!ws]

Just a coupla thoughts...

First, I don't have a way to listen to the Fornatele link yet, so I'm just guessing....the posts here refer specifically to the play list -- is it possible at all that PF actually played a Beach Boys-era "Fire" but they documented it as MO'LC for whatever reason, either a clerical error or flat-out lie??

Second....yeah, I don't think any "real" boots have "Fire" with vocals, but I have heard a couple of "desktop" boots in which someone OOPSed the stereo "Fall Breaks..." from I think Archaeology, which resulted in the vocals being isolated, then synching the isolated vocals with "Fire"...

[The Shift]

First, I don't have a way to listen to the Fornatele link yet, so I'm just guessing....the posts here refer specifically to the play list -- is it possible at all that PF actually played a Beach Boys-era "Fire" but they documented it as MO'LC for whatever reason, either a clerical error or flat-out lie?

Don't think the replay link is available yet but yes it's possible (albeit only slightly possible) that it was mis-documented, accidentally or deliberately. Unlikely, but rather exciting if that was the case.

[Sam_BFC]

What does one mean by OOPS?

[tansen]

What does one mean by OOPS?

Out Of Phase (but also Out Of Print, but that's not what he's talking about
Because I'm too lazy to write it out, check this link for an explanation:

http://blog.youdownwithfcp.com/2010/06/29/how-to-remove-vocals-from-music-with-phase-cancellation/

[37!ws]

"Out of phase stereo." It's a way to cancel out the imaginary "third" stereo channel: everything in the center. There are many ways to do that:

1) If your playback device has speakers that connect via TWO wires -- a positive and a negative -- just take the one speaker and connect it to the receiver via the positive port for the left and the positive port for the right. Mind you, this could damage your speakers. The advantage, though, is that sometimes things aren't mixed exactly in the center, so you may have to adjust the balance, which is easy to do this way.

2) I had a receiver that had RCA outputs for "rear." Turned out those actually played "OOPS."

3) But now that we all have fairly advanced computers, the easiest way to do this is to just load a WAV or AIFF (but NOT MP3s -- something about the nature of MP3s renders this process useless) into your favorite sound editor/processor software (Audacity should do it), split the stereo file into two separate mono channels, and "invert" one of the channels. This will literally turn that channel upside down. Played back on its own it sounds like you did nothing to it, but played back with an uninverted channel sounds weird. But anyway, once you invert one of the channels, re-join them into a single stereo file again, and convert that stereo into mono. Everything in the center cancels out. What's really cool is a lot of early Beach Boys stereo mixes have the instrumental tracks panned dead-center with the vocals spread left and right, so OOPSing them will give you a capella tunes -- "Cabinessence" sticks out in my mind, and "Louie, Louie" is surprisingly revealing.

BTW, I know of at least one piece of software that does all of this in one step...it's called SoundFX, but it's only available for Amiga...I think it's called "StereoDiff" in that one.

[buddhahat]

The sheer amount of recording for this one track alone suggests he was changing his mind as he went along, so may have had it sketched out on piano initially, but as he came to record the sections, was shuffling pieces, rerecording sections he was dissatisfied with, deciding to create new sections etc. Heroes feels to me like a song that didn't have an underpinning blueprint and so may have run away with him a bit. You can argue that GV was the product of a huge amount of recording time too, but (from memory - haven't listened to UM15 in a while) most of the recording is devoted to developing the core sections that would appear in the final 45. The same is not true for H&V where many of the sections seemed like experiments that either grew into new songs, or were dumped entirely.

I'd argue that if, partway through the heroes sessions, Brian decided to axe several sections (barnyard, great shape) in favour of entirely new sections (cantina), and create new songs (great shape) with at least one of the axed sections, perhaps by juxtaposing them with sections from other existing songs (no evidence for this admittedly) then that's a pretty modular approach. This sort of section swapping is rife throughout the smile material and makes for a far more fluid, structureless body of songs than had existed previously, so I do think the modular thing is relevant to smile. It has much more of a 'cut & paste' aesthetic than any of the previous material, where songs shift unexpectedly into new songs. Cabinessence in its finished form is clearly the marriage of at least two different songs, and although not proven, I'm inclined to believe Vosse's claim in the fusion article that the Who Ran The Iron Horse section initially existed alongside the bicycle rider parts from Worms.

… and I'd say it's symptomatic of someone under extreme stress, no longer sure that he's got it right and striving to improve, improve and improve again, ad infinitum. As much it's the work of genius that we all recognise, it's also a sign of someone who doesn't have enough hours in the day to achieve an outcome he hasn't had chance to sit down and design properly.

If he hadn't actually had the courage to scrap the release, I wonder if he'd've worked on it for years to the even greater detriment on his health?

I wholeheartedly agree with this. I work as an illustrator and have been in a similar place when I am just blindly feeling my way through a picture. Trying different heads for a character I'm drawing for example. Sometimes it's just a case of trying anything in the hope that something clicks. Horrible when a deadline is looming, and there is a point where you have to concede that you're not in the right place and must throw in the towel. Sometimes this 'instinctive' way of working can be successful but more often than not it is good to have an overall design sketched out first, otherwise you can find yourself going around in circles and making it up as you go along. I really think this is where Brian was at, certainly with H&V.

If the Vosse's recollections of the cross pollination between Worms and Cabinessence are accurate, then this swapping of sections was part of his method early on, and not just the act of somebody in a blind panic. It certainly fits with the Burroughs cut & paste technique that was fashionalbe in lyric writing at the time. Brian was just using the same technique to structure whole songs and it yielded exctiing results. However I think as pressure mounted to release H&V as a single, and complete the album this technique got the better of him and just left too many songs gutted and incomplete: Old Master Painter lost its barnshine fade to H&V, Worms obviously suffered a similar fate. I just think, ultimately, he lacked a vision for the overall structure of the album and was focusing much attention on H&V.

[tansen]

"Out of phase stereo." It's a way to cancel out the imaginary "third" stereo channel: everything in the center. There are many ways to do that:

1) If your playback device has speakers that connect via TWO wires -- a positive and a negative -- just take the one speaker and connect it to the receiver via the positive port for the left and the positive port for the right. Mind you, this could damage your speakers. The advantage, though, is that sometimes things aren't mixed exactly in the center, so you may have to adjust the balance, which is easy to do this way.

2) I had a receiver that had RCA outputs for "rear." Turned out those actually played "OOPS."

3) But now that we all have fairly advanced computers, the easiest way to do this is to just load a WAV or AIFF (but NOT MP3s -- something about the nature of MP3s renders this process useless) into your favorite sound editor/processor software (Audacity should do it), split the stereo file into two separate mono channels, and "invert" one of the channels. This will literally turn that channel upside down. Played back on its own it sounds like you did nothing to it, but played back with an uninverted channel sounds weird. But anyway, once you invert one of the channels, re-join them into a single stereo file again, and convert that stereo into mono. Everything in the center cancels out. What's really cool is a lot of early Beach Boys stereo mixes have the instrumental tracks panned dead-center with the vocals spread left and right, so OOPSing them will give you a capella tunes -- "Cabinessence" sticks out in my mind, and "Louie, Louie" is surprisingly revealing.

BTW, I know of at least one piece of software that does all of this in one step...it's called SoundFX, but it's only available for Amiga...I think it's called "StereoDiff" in that one.

Yup. It's a pretty easy way to do it in Logic too. And if you're a Pro Tools user already, then no explanation is needed

[Sam_BFC]

Ah cool I thought it would be something like that, just wasn't sure what it stood for.

I guess another way of doing this then would be through M/S (mid/side) processing, where you would remove the 'mid' channel:

http://www.voxengo.com/product/msed/

[tansen]

Ah cool I thought it would be something like that, just wasn't sure what it stood for.

I guess another way of doing this then would be through M/S (mid/side) processing, where you would remove the 'mid' channel:

http://www.voxengo.com/product/msed/

Love using M/S microphone technique for drumkits btw