Official facebook page now with Bootleg Gallery!

[Freddie French-Pounce]

The Beach Boys are now telling us to embrace the bootleg by uploading photos of our bootlegs online here: http://www.facebook.com/thebeachboys?sk=app_264044756974029

I find it quite odd and cool at the same time that they are almost sanctioning these unofficial releases...

[Justin]

It seems to me that they feel like their new product, The SMiLE Sessions completely trumps and erases all other bootleg sources which is perhaps why they are sort of flaunting it on their FB page..."post your pics!  We don't care anymore---you can't beat this new big bad ass box set anyway!"  I don't think it's some kind of conspiracy or trap to get people in trouble. 

In all the interviews and news peices it's been mentioned how heavily bootlegged this album was over the decades.  So they're not really shying away from this aspect of the story.  It's part of its history , no doubt.  I think it's cool that they are okay with inviting people to talk about it and post pictures. 

[hongkongcrowe]

I think this contest is great!   It speaks to the genesis of SMiLE over the years and how the story of SMiLE was spread via bootlegs.  As we have discussed in another post, it would be cool if people could post their own mix and then have those mixes available for download for a nominal sum....

[JohnMill]

I'm not a Mike Love apologist by any means but I must admit it's a bit unfortunate that both The Beach Boys' official Youtube channel and now their FB are littered with anti-Mike Love propaganda.  There are all types of anti Mike Love comments on the new SMiLE YT videos and someone just uploaded some SMiLE artwork where Mike is listed as being a moron.

Sad.

[Margarita]

I highly doubt that the bootleg gallery is a trap.  Yet when I first read about it, I immediately thought of this Dilbert strip:

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2000-08-18/

[thevigilanteoflove]

I think it's great that they aren't pretending that the last forty years of the evolution of SMiLE didn't exist. They aren't selling this release as "music that's never, ever been heard by anybody ever!" They are being honest about it being an assumption of what the album could have been like. I'll say it again, I've been very impressed by Capitol's class with this project. Except for that surf board...