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Author Topic: Was there any evidence "Wind Chimes" was Air?  (Read 118836 times)
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« Reply #725 on: February 09, 2016, 01:32:42 AM »

Maybe this was Plan Z - when in doubt, record a live album. But back to known facts. Smile redux, despite being allegedly on the blocks and ready to roar... never happened, likely because it never was good to go. The live Hawaii tapes were so problematic that the band seriously considered faking it up in the studio: now, if there was product available, why do this, and in a commercial studio too with the additional expense ?

I can perhaps address the issue of why they used the commercial studio (Wally Heider) for the Hawaii re-records. Wally Heider had the only mixing board available that could accommodate the tape machines that were used to record the actual Hawaii shows, and the 1" 8-track tape machines they were recorded on. That board was designed and custom built for the Hawaii shows by Frank Demedio, Wally needed an 8-bus board for the dual 1" 8-track machines he would be shipping to Hawaii. According to Dale Manquen:

Recording the Beach Boys in Hawaii
Posted on 03.31.05 by Dale Manquen

This story doesn’t involve Wally to any large extent, but it describes Wally’s willingness to stretch the envelope.

The Beach Boys were headed for the Honolulu International Center (HIC) in Hawaii, and they hired Heider Recording to record the performances. This was to be the first double 8-track remote, two machines running together, making redundant recordings with a slight overlap so that nothing got lost. The 8-track 1” format was still fairly new, and not many people had two machines that they could send out on a remote, but Wally had two 3M Model 23 8-tracks ready for the job.

What Wally didn’t have was an 8-bus console to feed the 8-track machines. Frank DeMedio was working on an 8-bus console that would eventually be used in Wally’s Studio 3, but it wasn’t finished.



Frank and his father with help from Dale finished that custom console the day it was to be shipped to Hawaii for the concerts. Assuming some of the original tapes may have been included in the album plans, perhaps they considered using certain songs here and there which were truly live, maybe fake or fix the others, add crowd noise, etc or in any way work with the master tapes from the shows...if they wanted in some way to use those Hawaii master tapes within 2 weeks of those shows, Wally literally was the only one who had that equipment. Since they had already been to Wally's studio for Smiley Smile, and since Wally really did go all-out for the band for the Hawaii recordings using the most state of the art equipment he had, it would make sense for them to go there instead of doing it at Brian's house which was still basically ad hoc in early September.

They could have transferred those master Hawaii reels to another 8-track tape and gone anywhere to mix and fix, sure, but technical details aside they found a place where they (or Brian specifically) liked to work at Wally Heider's studio. Beyond mixing Smiley and the Hawaii session in September, a majority of the sessions in the Fall of 67, including Wild Honey and Brian's Redwood productions were still being done at Heider's.


Something else I caught in one of Dale Manquen's replies to my questions back in 2005:

I can remember Jimmie’s frustrations with the eccentricities of working with the Beach Boys. Things like irregular hours, recording in the dry swimming pool and the general problems of dealing with an undisciplined group.

It goes back to the issues recently discussed here about studio time and booking/working odd hours, it apparently was an issue for Jim Lockert working at the house.

« Last Edit: February 09, 2016, 01:35:47 AM by guitarfool2002 » Logged

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« Reply #726 on: February 09, 2016, 04:30:29 AM »

Craig, with all due respect, when you're responding to something I've posted to correct you, don't introduce a different topic to confuse the issue.

You quoted me and replied with these exact words (reply #718):

"With that time frame in mind, again I'd ask why would there be an expectation that an album specifically described in the July 25th memo as a release which would follow Smiley Smile that was even planned as of July 25th to include an explanation in the liner notes be released prior to Smiley Smile?"

... to which I rightly responded that I'd never said, or implied anything about Smile redux being released before Smiley Smile. Your response to this was as follows:

I was addressing this comment:

So... between July 25th and some time before August 26th, the Smile redux album went out the door. Why ? If Carl is to be believed, the tracks were waiting and ready to go, as was the booklets and cover art. Someone had to have said "no". Who ? And why ?

So, you were responding to a post from me that never so much as mentioned it being released before Smiley Smile by asking why I thought it might be released before said album. Rather, I was putting forth the likelihood that between those dates the potential release was junked, or exactly the opposite to what you thought, or wanted to think, I'd said. I didn't. Because I wouldn't: the memo is very specific as to when they hoped Smile redux to be released. So, can we lay this to rest, please ?
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« Reply #727 on: February 09, 2016, 08:43:28 AM »

Surely someone can shed some light on what happened after the Gettin' Hungry single and Smiley Smile flopped on Brother and then Wild Honey was released on Capitol.  Who was "in charge" of Brother Records after Anderle left?  I suspect Mike, always involved with the business side of things, might recall why the change.  the commercial failure of the second two Brother releases likely had something to do with it, but presumably the contracts and agreements with Capitol settling the financial dispute as reported in July stayed in effect through the release of Wild Honey and onwards?  Any renegotiation would have been reported in the music press?
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« Reply #728 on: February 09, 2016, 08:47:55 AM »

Like the draft of the Wild Honey tracklist mentions an upcoming live release but nothing ever came of it, we have that internal Capitol memo that says at that point on July 25 there was something in the works regarding the Smile tracks and the booklets, but nothing ever came of it. Do we know when or exactly why that upcoming live release ever happened, any more than we know exactly when or why the Smiley follow-up never happened? Is there a memo, document, or statement which exists from July 67 to anytime into 1968 which declares either the Smile remnants thing with the booklet or the live release off the table?

We know definitely they both did exist as plans both from and for the band based on that documentation - we also know neither project ended up happening in the long run. Since I still have not seen anything similar in terms of a comment or a document to suggest a point in the process when it was decided not to move on the Smile material with those booklets, no more than we've seen anything to suggest when it was decided not to release the upcoming live album mentioned in the WH tracklist draft, there is as much speculation that could support a theory that the band may have been planning to move on it sometime after Smiley Smile's release as to suggest the idea was dead based on the timeline of Hawaii projects. At some point after Wild Honey, they decided to abandon the live album idea too which was to follow that album, we don't know when or even why but it just never happened. I can see a parallel there.

If there is more documentation that exists similar to the WH memos and the Engemann memo, I hope it somehow turns up.
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« Reply #729 on: February 09, 2016, 08:51:12 AM »

Who was "in charge" of Brother Records after Anderle left? 

Nick Grillo.
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« Reply #730 on: February 09, 2016, 09:50:52 AM »

I can see why the Live album didn't come out, maybe because the material wasn't suitable for release.

Why not the SMiLE leftover album though if, as Andrew pointed out, Carl and Dennis were right (and Brian was wrong) that SMiLE was finished and in the can and had been ready for release since May?

I can imagine that Brother possibly not being a workable label that couldn't even manage to release their own studio albums had something to do with it too, but Smile Redux was Capitol's idea with Brian just agreeing to the plan as I remember, so why not on Capitol at least as they supposedly already had it in the can and were able to release BBs' albums as a label?
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« Reply #731 on: February 09, 2016, 02:24:49 PM »

I think we have as much evidence as we need to safely say that a Smile redux was pie in the sky.

1. It wasn't released in 67
2. It wasn't released in 68
3. When Carl - the guy quoted earlier in this thread as saying Smile was done and ready to roll - worked on the tapes with Desper in Fall '72 (thank you AGD), he found it was not done and he couldn't manage to roll his own
4. When Bruce Johnston talked about releasing he Smile tapes in the late 70s, as a UNICEF charity thing, it wasn't released
5. When the tapes were (supposedly) exhumed during research for BWPS, VDP was called in to help create new bits because it had never been finished
6. When TSS was compiled, even meticulous archive research turned up nothing to indicate a ready to roll redux
7. Erm, that's it.

Next year's 50th anniversary is the last opportunity for an anniversary release of a newly discovered finished 66/67 Smile. It aint goong to happen. After that I'm going back to Brad's boot with the Miles Davis track as my go-to definitive Smile, and I'm going back to writing it as SMiLE.
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« Reply #732 on: February 09, 2016, 02:38:31 PM »

What he said.  Smiley
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« Reply #733 on: February 09, 2016, 06:46:45 PM »

Brian had just deliberately scrapped the songs, so one wonders how anyone involved thought seriously he was wanting to release them.  The fact Brian didn't release the songs that he didn't want to release is no surprise to anyone but Engemann I guess.
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« Reply #734 on: February 09, 2016, 07:27:55 PM »

I can see why the Live album didn't come out, maybe because the material wasn't suitable for release.

Then why mention an upcoming live album on those proposed tracklist and liners for Wild Honey? At the point in time when those liners were written, a live release was still on the table. At the point in time when the Engemann memo was written, something was on the table. When Carl and Dennis spoke as they did, they had something in their mind which made them say what they did, unless Carl was completely clueless about their own label in Fall '67 (which is a ridiculous notion) or they were not being honest (which is absurd).

The bizarre part of this is no one has yet turned up another memo which had followed up on the ones we know and have seen, and memos flew around Capitol and any other office every day with two or three carbon copies, so we don't have all the background. As an old Smile bootleg had the title "Bits N' Pieces", ultimately that's what we have and yet some of the suggestions imply fact where there is no way to back it up.

One example: When exactly were the Smile booklets finally destroyed? And the cover slicks, too? We know they were, but when? Some have said 1969, some even said they were in a Pennsylvania warehouse until 1989...Do we have any of the inter-office and company-wide correspondence that gave a definite time as to when those booklets were absolutely not going to be used at any future time, and therefore should be destroyed? Or was there any memo or letter that advised all parties and departments involved that it was officially a done deal, let's clear all those cases out and send them to the furnace?

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« Reply #735 on: February 09, 2016, 08:27:31 PM »

I can see why the Live album didn't come out, maybe because the material wasn't suitable for release.

Then why mention an upcoming live album on those proposed tracklist and liners for Wild Honey? At the point in time when those liners were written, a live release was still on the table. At the point in time when the Engemann memo was written, something was on the table. When Carl and Dennis spoke as they did, they had something in their mind which made them say what they did, unless Carl was completely clueless about their own label in Fall '67 (which is a ridiculous notion) or they were not being honest (which is absurd).

The bizarre part of this is no one has yet turned up another memo which had followed up on the ones we know and have seen, and memos flew around Capitol and any other office every day with two or three carbon copies, so we don't have all the background. As an old Smile bootleg had the title "Bits N' Pieces", ultimately that's what we have and yet some of the suggestions imply fact where there is no way to back it up.

One example: When exactly were the Smile booklets finally destroyed? And the cover slicks, too? We know they were, but when? Some have said 1969, some even said they were in a Pennsylvania warehouse until 1989...Do we have any of the inter-office and company-wide correspondence that gave a definite time as to when those booklets were absolutely not going to be used at any future time, and therefore should be destroyed? Or was there any memo or letter that advised all parties and departments involved that it was officially a done deal, let's clear all those cases out and send them to the furnace?



Did the info about a proposed live album appear on the Wild Honey album? If not, apparently plans changed between Wild Honey's proposed liner notes and the actual liner notes, but we know for sure that live album did not happen.

Do we need a memo to know for a fact that neither album was released? If you are implying my quoted post is implying fact, please read it again. Is your claim that Carl's claims (when compared to Brian's) show he could be mis-informed or ill-informed is a ridiculous notion a fact?

I don't have copies but we are told there are Capitol memos starting August 1969 (the month after the BBs' Capitol contract ended) asking permission to destroy the SMiLE covers and booklets and permission to destroy was given in October 1969.
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« Reply #736 on: February 09, 2016, 09:22:05 PM »

We're talking memos that are near-50 years old. My office has a special filing place for memos of les than 50 days old, especially inaccurate drafts, and memos acted upon since written … chances are that unless a fan saved any such paperwork for his/her own collection, they were similarly recycled decades ago. The survival of anything that exists today, such a draft liner notes for albums released in very different formats, is against the odds. Even docs saved by fans are subject to floods, fires, unhappy spouses and having shopping lists written on the back of 'em.
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« Reply #737 on: February 09, 2016, 09:27:55 PM »

I have to get back to this once more as I have been accused of being disrespectful and having "issues" which isn't true. I had been thinking of taking it to PMs but decided against that because if I'm on the wrong track maybe some of the other posters on this thread will be kind enough to tell me so. Some posters have confided me their sympathy with my points over the weekend, but other third party views are welcome.

I'll engage a conversation but not with someone whose goal might be more personal than something related to discussing the information. As I've already said, if your goal in posting this is to distract those who want to talk about the topics being discussed or make it about me and whatever issues you have against me or the board's moderation or anything else related, it will not happen here..

So, who's been talking about board moderation? Only you brought that up. I didn't. I was reflecting my perceptions oft your conduct in parts of this thread to you, but you don't consider them or explain to me what you really meant as I obviously got it wrong.


If you're here to discuss the issues, I engaged you in that and you chose instead to again bring up personal gripes, complaints, and everything else to make it personal. Your actions are unwelcome and if you're concerned about respect being shown by board members, start showing it in your own actions.

Some of your actions here are unwelcome to me, too. There's several instances where I found you to be not respectful at all. In what world is it respectful to just claim something and when asked for the source just go "Look for it, take more effort" - that's not what I would call camaraderie, that's condescending. And that is something I do have an issue with. Or do you find this respectful:

Oh, but Carl's word can be thrown out as he's been discredited, right? He only worked on the music, he didn't have access to session data and NME articles and timelines to reference.

Oh, so you choose to use sarcasm to discredit Cam? Is that quote not a "complaint", what you accused me of? GF, it's really too bad that you keep getting back to this style of discussion when people disagree with you, because you are very knowledgable and should not take disagreeing as a personal insult. That's how it seems sometimes to me. Maybe I'm just too sensitive and not tough enough to deal with this kind of behavior. It seems you have cooled down a bit in the last few days and I appreciate that. Still, I'll drop out of this discussion - the one about the situation of the band in summer 1967 and what led to the installation of the home studio - because I'm kind of emotionally drained right now.

The funny thing is, and not to diminish your own feelings in this discussion, but the things you mention: using sarcasm to discredit someone, and dropping out because someone made you feel emotionally drained... Those seem to very closely mirror what Brian seemed to experience in 1967 via some of his bandmates. I cannot understand why some people wish to diminish those items as they straw-grab and search for reasons why they were irrelevant to Brian's state of mind. Just as they are relevant factors in how you feel in this discussion, so were those feelings surely relevant to Brian.
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« Reply #738 on: February 09, 2016, 10:15:37 PM »

I think we have as much evidence as we need to safely say that a Smile redux was pie in the sky.

1. It wasn't released in 67
2. It wasn't released in 68
3. When Carl - the guy quoted earlier in this thread as saying Smile was done and ready to roll - worked on the tapes with Desper in (I think) 71, he found it was not done and he couldn't manage to roll his own
4. When Bruce Johnston talked about releasing he Smile tapes in the late 70s, as a UNICEF charity thing, it wasn't released
5. When the tapes were (supposedly) exhumed during research for BWPS, VDP was called in to help create new bits because it had never been finished
6. When TSS was compiled, even meticulous archive research turned up nothing to indicate a ready to roll redux
7. Erm, that's it.

Next year's 50th anniversary is the last opportunity for an anniversary release of a newly discovered finished 66/67 Smile. It aint goong to happen. After that I'm going back to Brad's boot with the Miles Davis track as my go-to definitive Smile, and I'm going back to writing it as SMiLE.

Thanks, John.

Were your family away for the weekend (ie, you must have had some spare time available to boil down the herring & elephant stew) - A

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« Reply #739 on: February 09, 2016, 10:33:31 PM »

Kids are away NEXT week so might have more time to play… currently waking at 4am for no reason so playing in the dark.
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« Reply #740 on: February 09, 2016, 11:54:39 PM »

I can see why the Live album didn't come out, maybe because the material wasn't suitable for release.

Then why mention an upcoming live album on those proposed tracklist and liners for Wild Honey? At the point in time when those liners were written, a live release was still on the table. At the point in time when the Engemann memo was written, something was on the table.

Both were considered viable, by at least one party, at the time. Then someone changed their mind. Irregardless of how many times anyone says that there was "something on the table" or cites the memos, fact is... they never happened. I'd love to know why as much as you, but I'm not beating myself up about it. My father, who was the wisest man I ever knew despite leaving school at 14, told me more than once, "It's a wise man who knows when to say "sod it"". I really, really should have listened to him. Smiley

Quote
When Carl and Dennis spoke as they did, they had something in their mind which made them say what they did, unless Carl was completely clueless about their own label in Fall '67 (which is a ridiculous notion) or they were not being honest (which is absurd).

But apparently Carl was completely clueless, because his own words (and actions) in fall 1972 confirm that the album was unfinished.

Quote
The bizarre part of this is no one has yet turned up another memo which had followed up on the ones we know and have seen, and memos flew around Capitol and any other office every day with two or three carbon copies, so we don't have all the background. As an old Smile bootleg had the title "Bits N' Pieces", ultimately that's what we have and yet some of the suggestions imply fact where there is no way to back it up.

Time for another trip to LA, destination Capitol Tower...

Quote
One example: When exactly were the Smile booklets finally destroyed? And the cover slicks, too? We know they were, but when? Some have said 1969, some even said they were in a Pennsylvania warehouse until 1989...Do we have any of the inter-office and company-wide correspondence that gave a definite time as to when those booklets were absolutely not going to be used at any future time, and therefore should be destroyed? Or was there any memo or letter that advised all parties and departments involved that it was officially a done deal, let's clear all those cases out and send them to the furnace?

Of course, there had to be a memo, and The Camster has supplied the dates for them. Unless the warehouses in question were company owned, I can't see Capitol paying storage space for 400,000 booklets for something like 22 years, in any case. The back covers likely didn't need to be trashed, because it's almost certain that none were ever printed up beyond the dozen or so that were pasted on the sleeve mock-ups prepared by the art department for the band to OK, or not. There is evidence - admittedly, just the one memo dated November 14th 1966 - that the front slicks were properly printed. (interesting aside: the 1000 slicks that Derek Bill had printed in 1978 for his Beach Boys Collectors Series (as Volume 1) are, technically, the real thing, because he used the original 1966 color separation sheets).
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« Reply #741 on: February 10, 2016, 06:04:53 AM »

We know the redux didn't happen, so we don't really need memos about its cancellation to prove it. What we need are memos or evidence that Brian or Capitol ever did anything, anything at all, toward making a reality of the memo-ed album of all tracks that Brian had just deliberately and expensively scrapped from their just completed next album plus alternate takes of tracks that are already on their just completed next album.  
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« Reply #742 on: February 10, 2016, 07:05:21 AM »

The point of the memos is that at various points, there were calls for documentation, firsthand eyewitness accounts, even comments or interviews that dated close to the actual events being commented on to avoid memory lapses/biases/etc from creeping into the commentary.

And examples of that kind of evidence were produced related to various topics being discussed here, in the case of Carl's comments to the LA Times...

Excerpts from "The Beach Boys' Quickest Album" , LA Times, October 8th 1967:

"Well, the album didn't really head for any direction. We just decided to, or I should say Brian decided to, make a real simple album. So, with that in mind, we recorded it at his house and it's the quickest album we've ever done." (Carl Wilson quote)

"You see, the whole thing is that 'Pet Sounds' was really an expanded type of musical thing. It's really quite a musical album and we got into a thing where we just wanted to ease up and make a simple album. It was a nice change. It's very hard on a person to keep on doing a 'Pet Sounds.'" (Carl Wilson quote)

Last year, when "Good Vibrations" was racking up its million-plus sales, Capitol had the follow-up album scheduled under the title of "Smile." The album jacket already had been printed, a picture of a shop which dispensed smiles. But the album never came out and the Beach Boys became embroiled in a royalty suit against Capitol. Rumors said that Brian, a perfectionist, had destroyed all the tapes for the LP. "We didn't scrap them," Carl said. "We just haven't used them yet. We did it all from scratch when we started again. We actually had finished the album but then a lot of things didn't turn out the way Brian liked. We all didn't agree on different types of things. We decided to do something new."

"If he gets an idea it's now and it's better than something from the past. I've seen it a hundred times. We've seen a lot of potentially great songs just be shelved. They come out maybe two or three years later, but they're in his mind somehow. If that particular idea seems to fit what he's working on at the time it will just come naturally." (Mike Love quote)

In the case of Ian Rusten's collection of quotes from Spring and Fall 67 into '68, these excerpted selections out of all that Ian posted:

HIT WEEK-May 18 1967 (Dutch magazine).  The band were interviewed in Holland on May 14 and asked why they'd released the two year old single "Then I Kissed Her."  Mike answered: "Of course we'd prefer to release something new and we thought that Smile would be released directly after our British tour but Brian is a perfectionist, that's why it takes so long."   Dennis: "Everything was already finished, also the Heroes and Villains single, but my brother Brian is very serious, I find that a good thing."   Bruce (Discussing the rumor that Brian had decided to scrap Heroes and release Vegetables as a single instead: "Heroes evolved and really became too long for a single.  Vegetables also might be a bit more commercial."  

Sept 1967 Carl Wilson interview with Pete Johnson of the LA Times: "Those six months were a difficult time for us.  Brian just wasn't happy with Heroes and Villains until he had worked it over and over, throwing out parts and adding new ones.  So we had no new records and we were in a lawsuit with Capitol and then my draft problem developed....

Carl commented that the new album is not the same one that Brian was working on at the time Good Vibrations was released "He still has all those tapes but we decided not to have a complicated album this time.  We did Smiley Smile quickly in a couple of weeks to get something out.  It's not nearly as ambitious an album as Pet Sounds was.

Mike in Beat Instrumental February 1968 (Interview done in BBs brief visit to London in Dec 1967)- Regarding Wild Honey "Sure people were baffled and mystified by Smiley Smile but it was a matter of progression.  We had this feeling that we were going too far, losing touch I guess, and this new one brings us back more into reality....Brian has been re-thinking our recording program and in any case we all have a much greater say nowadays in what we turn out in the studio."


Add to that the Capitol memo(s) as documentation.

It has nothing to do with what was released or not, anyone knows that and it's stating common sense instead of looking at the history of the whole deal, and trying to piece together as complete of a picture as can be done.

We have the Beach Boys themselves, in each case from that time in history we're discussing, in their own words. We have Mike addressing the band's shift in style to Wild Honey, and a later quote from Carl on the reason why:

"We all really dug Motown, right?...So Brian reckoned we should get more into a white R&B bag. I also recall around that time the band, and Brian in particular, getting criticized very heavily for sounding like choirboys."


So we have memos, we have comments direct from the band, etc...yet almost every one of them have been run through the wringer, and attempts were made to suggest how or why what was said or written wasn't *really* what happened, but rather let's add speculation and come to conclusions 50 years after the fact to cast doubt on anything that the band themselves said, or that existed as a Capitol office document at one point.

Plans do change, yes - That's like saying Smile or the 10-track Smile deal didn't come out in 1967...we know this. That is quite possibly how Wild Honey became the follow-up to Smiley Smile in 1967 rather than the album of Smile tracks. In between everything going on, how about this: Wild Honey the single ended up doing surprisingly well in R&B markets, on R&B radio stations...the band according to Carl wanted to go for an R&B sound to toughen up their sound and try new things...and they do an album with more R&B cuts.

Plans changed. The market that was there for the sounds of Smile in late July and even early October when Carl spoke to the LA Times after Smiley Smile was replaced by this "new sound" the band wanted to promote.

The question may be - Firsthand evidence, interviews from that time, documentation...exactly what was asked for in terms of the history was provided for the discussion. And yet each of those sources in this discussion has been put through the wringer, has been attempted to be disproven, have doubt cast on it, or in some way shown to be "wrong", as in it didn't happen as was written or said in 1967 by the people involved. And we're told, too, that the possibility that Carl or any other voting member of BRI was in the dark about information when they commented could be more true versus their comments being accurate to that moment in time...how is that the standard of weighing any quotes or evidence at this point? Is it a case of seeing such a quote that doesn't agree with a particular theory or supposition so ways are found to question the accuracy of not just the words but the person speaking them too, and what they may or may not have known at the time based on assumptions rather than the facts?

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« Reply #743 on: February 10, 2016, 07:32:26 AM »

To state the obvious, they of course DID use the tracks . . . just as Carl predicted they might.  Prayer, Cabinessence, Cool Cool Water, Surf's Up.  Maybe that was the plan all along, instead of a followup Smile album, use the tracks when they would fit on another album.
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« Reply #744 on: February 10, 2016, 07:36:03 AM »

To state the obvious, they of course DID use the tracks . . . just as Carl predicted they might.  Prayer, Cabinessence, Cool Cool Water, Surf's Up.  Maybe that was the plan all along, instead of a followup Smile album, use the tracks when they would fit on another album.

Exactly. When they fit, rather than at a time when the band had changed their sound. The plans that were on the table changed, as plans always and often do in the music business.  Smiley
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« Reply #745 on: February 10, 2016, 07:38:54 AM »

Carl stated they'd finished the album. They hadn't. Carl was wrong, as proven by what he said in 1972. Why you cannot grasp this simple fact is beyond everyone else posting here. Carl was not infallible. I don't believe he was lying, but he was most certainly in error in this respect.
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« Reply #746 on: February 10, 2016, 07:43:35 AM »

To state the obvious, they of course DID use the tracks . . . just as Carl predicted they might.  Prayer, Cabinessence, Cool Cool Water, Surf's Up.  Maybe that was the plan all along, instead of a followup Smile album, use the tracks when they would fit on another album.

Exactly. When they fit, rather than at a time when the band had changed their sound. The plans that were on the table changed, as plans always and often do in the music business.  Smiley

I disagree. Was "Surf's Up" included because it suited that album ? No, it was included purely for commercial gain, as Van Dyke  suggested. Similarly, whenever they fell short of material, it looks like they went back to the motberlode.
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« Reply #747 on: February 10, 2016, 07:46:29 AM »

Carl stated they'd finished the album. They hadn't. Carl was wrong, as proven by what he said in 1972. Why you cannot grasp this simple fact is beyond everyone else posting here. Carl was not infallible. I don't believe he was lying, but he was most certainly in error in this respect.

Add Mike and Dennis too?

HIT WEEK-May 18 1967 (Dutch magazine).  The band were interviewed in Holland on May 14 and asked why they'd released the two year old single "Then I Kissed Her."  Mike answered: "Of course we'd prefer to release something new and we thought that Smile would be released directly after our British tour but Brian is a perfectionist, that's why it takes so long."   Dennis: "Everything was already finished, also the Heroes and Villains single, but my brother Brian is very serious, I find that a good thing."   Bruce (Discussing the rumor that Brian had decided to scrap Heroes and release Vegetables as a single instead: "Heroes evolved and really became too long for a single.  Vegetables also might be a bit more commercial."
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« Reply #748 on: February 10, 2016, 07:57:32 AM »

To state the obvious, they of course DID use the tracks . . . just as Carl predicted they might.  Prayer, Cabinessence, Cool Cool Water, Surf's Up.  Maybe that was the plan all along, instead of a followup Smile album, use the tracks when they would fit on another album.

Exactly. When they fit, rather than at a time when the band had changed their sound. The plans that were on the table changed, as plans always and often do in the music business.  Smiley

I disagree. Was "Surf's Up" included because it suited that album ? No, it was included purely for commercial gain, as Van Dyke  suggested. Similarly, whenever they fell short of material, it looks like they went back to the motberlode.

Personally I do think Surf's Up suited that album, but yes, Van Dyke was of the opinion that it would boost sales.  I doubt Cabinessence or Prayer were included for that reason, and Cool Cool Water was added as a suggestion by Lenny Waronker from Reprise.
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« Reply #749 on: February 10, 2016, 08:02:40 AM »

Mike didn't say it was finished, rather that they were hoping to release it after the UK tour, which isn't the same thing at all, and given the events of fall 1972, Dennis  was plainly as ill-informed as his younger brother. As we now know, the album was some way from completion.
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