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Author Topic: Heroes and Villians early version  (Read 11912 times)
mike moseley
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« Reply #25 on: October 09, 2019, 04:10:37 AM »

Also verses/IIGS/BY seems to have been the guts of the song for quit e along time - those sections were tracked in Oct and still the only bits played to Humble Harv in Nov.

I think its therefore OK to say that was the bulk tune in 1966 albeit with some work ongoing.

I think its right after christmas he starts to seriously re work it..?
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wjcrerar
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« Reply #26 on: October 09, 2019, 05:31:43 AM »

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Bicyclerider
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« Reply #27 on: October 09, 2019, 10:16:37 AM »

Also this seems to have been a sections try out for the A side in Jan:

verse edit experiment/bridge to indians/indians(i.e. BR) - unless anyone thinks 'indians' could have been something else..?

Bridge to indians ends on a C sharp chord.

I suppose it could be argued that verse edit experiment was for the B side..?

I don't think so.  Despite the different master number I think this was tried as a replacement for IIGS for "Part 2" of Heroes, as cantina had previously been considered a part 2 (and the Dec "intro" part 3).
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Bicyclerider
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« Reply #28 on: October 09, 2019, 10:19:46 AM »


Hi BR - in the notes in the box set the chorus is logged as 'part 2' not 'side 2'.

In the single it is indeed part 2.

Could have been both - part 2 of side 2..?


 "the chorus, for example, was tracked with a different master number (57045 vs. 57020) and was marked as "Heroes bridge" and as "Heroes and Villains side 2."  

The master # corresponds to Heroes Part 2 but writing on the tape box, confirmed by Alan, is “Heroes bridge with spooky low strings and percussion” and “Heroes and Villains Side Two."
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mike moseley
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« Reply #29 on: October 09, 2019, 10:24:13 AM »

Right so in fact the BR part was in the song proper in Jan - even if only for a short time..?

I think Cantina came after the above tryout..?


Also this seems to have been a sections try out for the A side in Jan:

verse edit experiment/bridge to indians/indians(i.e. BR) - unless anyone thinks 'indians' could have been something else..?

Bridge to indians ends on a C sharp chord.

I suppose it could be argued that verse edit experiment was for the B side..?

I don't think so.  Despite the different master number I think this was tried as a replacement for IIGS for "Part 2" of Heroes, as cantina had previously been considered a part 2 (and the Dec "intro" part 3).
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mike moseley
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« Reply #30 on: October 09, 2019, 10:31:14 AM »

Was the single's chorus really the bridge at one time..?  For side 2..?  I'm trying to think of another par that would match that description but  I can't - can you..?

If that's what it was thats what it was - I'll chew these things over but will accept the evidence Smiley



Hi BR - in the notes in the box set the chorus is logged as 'part 2' not 'side 2'.

In the single it is indeed part 2.

Could have been both - part 2 of side 2..?


 "the chorus, for example, was tracked with a different master number (57045 vs. 57020) and was marked as "Heroes bridge" and as "Heroes and Villains side 2."  

The master # corresponds to Heroes Part 2 but writing on the tape box, confirmed by Alan, is “Heroes bridge with spooky low strings and percussion” and “Heroes and Villains Side Two."
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mike moseley
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« Reply #31 on: October 09, 2019, 10:34:17 AM »

FWIW I think the BR melody parts are much more 'hit single' than IIGS and Cantina.  (Although its fair to  point out we haven't heard fully finished versions of those sections.  I think Cantina was part of a test mix).
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Bicyclerider
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« Reply #32 on: October 09, 2019, 10:46:38 AM »

I interpret the recording activity after the Feb 10 mix differently - The Feb 15/16 sessions with prelude to fade and the tack piano theme and then the Feb 20 Part 2 and Part 2 revised sections seem to me all pieces he was recording in consideration for the B side of the single.  From the Tracy Thomas interview : “I’m doing the final mix on the A side tonight, but I can’t decide what to do on the other side.”   so all this recording was trying to decide what to do on the B side.  Now when he rerecorded the fade Feb 28 and the verse backing March 1, it seems he had rejected the cantina mix and was trying to start over again from the ground up.
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mike moseley
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« Reply #33 on: October 09, 2019, 10:55:34 AM »

I get you - but the single chorus track defiinitely started out as side 2 bridge - am I understanding correctly..?

I interpret the recording activity after the Feb 10 mix differently - The Feb 15/16 sessions with prelude to fade and the tack piano theme and then the Feb 20 Part 2 and Part 2 revised sections seem to me all pieces he was recording in consideration for the B side of the single.  From the Tracy Thomas interview : “I’m doing the final mix on the A side tonight, but I can’t decide what to do on the other side.”   so all this recording was trying to decide what to do on the B side.  Now when he rerecorded the fade Feb 28 and the verse backing March 1, it seems he had rejected the cantina mix and was trying to start over again from the ground up.
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« Reply #34 on: October 09, 2019, 10:59:11 AM »

As for the single chorus being "Heroes bridge" of course we don't know what sections it was supposed to be bridging.  The single chorus is just the same tack piano theme Brian had recorded twice, but on harpsichord with percussion and strings overdubbed.  He'd already recorded the "Gee" followed by the various Heroes sections, presumably for the B side of the single.  There is a mono mix done of Gee followed by the various sections in the usual order but with the "Swedish frog" animal sounds from Part 3 cut out of the tape.  Was this supposed to go in its' place?  If so I would think he would have recorded it as an "insert" or as Heroes Part 3 or 4.  Or was it meant to follow Part 4 to bridge something else, before Prelude to Fade? It's all conjecture at this point.

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mike moseley
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« Reply #35 on: October 09, 2019, 11:02:16 AM »

Well my main takeaway from all this is that the BR melody was in the actual 45 much earlier than I thought/remembered.

I think it was right to use it in the single.  I think the single flows well as a song but isn't very well produced.  For some reason which isn't clear to me he just couldn't make his mind up.
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« Reply #36 on: October 09, 2019, 11:05:11 AM »

I get you - but the single chorus track defiinitely started out as side 2 bridge - am I understanding correctly..?

I interpret the recording activity after the Feb 10 mix differently - The Feb 15/16 sessions with prelude to fade and the tack piano theme and then the Feb 20 Part 2 and Part 2 revised sections seem to me all pieces he was recording in consideration for the B side of the single.  From the Tracy Thomas interview : “I’m doing the final mix on the A side tonight, but I can’t decide what to do on the other side.”   so all this recording was trying to decide what to do on the B side.  Now when he rerecorded the fade Feb 28 and the verse backing March 1, it seems he had rejected the cantina mix and was trying to start over again from the ground up.

According to what was written on the tape box, yes.  But one could always argue that someone misunderstood when they wrote that, and perhaps it was meant to be "part 2" even though it was written as "side two."  I don't think an engineer would misunderstand "bridge" though.
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mike moseley
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« Reply #37 on: October 09, 2019, 11:09:58 AM »

Sure.   I know this has been hashed out a million times but  I haven't had a go since the box set came out.

 I think the Durrie acetate shows that 'my children' was being tried in December + the witness account of 'sunnydown snuff' also in December.

I feel like I've got more of a true understanding of what they were up to than I have in the past - like a couple more pieces of the jigsaw have appeared Smiley
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wjcrerar
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« Reply #38 on: October 09, 2019, 11:17:13 AM »

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« Reply #39 on: October 09, 2019, 05:19:18 PM »

Good point.  Heroes bridge COULD have been added when the tapes were reviewed and archived by Stephen and Carl in 1972 - but why would they write bridge when the piece is actually the chorus of the single which of course Carl and Stephen would be well aware of?  If the notation was from 67 then someone must have mentioned it was the bridge, I doubt an engineer or assistant (Diane?) would presume to make that decision as to the purpose of the piece on their own.  So many questions, so few answers.
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wjcrerar
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« Reply #40 on: October 09, 2019, 05:30:22 PM »

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guitarfool2002
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« Reply #41 on: October 10, 2019, 08:00:57 AM »

Just so we're on the same page: It seems like you're pinning most if not all of your opinion that the "Cantina" mix was not done by Chuck Britz on the information written on a tape box. In doing that, did you consider the accounts of how unorganized, sometimes inaccurate (as in tapes being in the wrong box, mislabeled boxes with box notations not matching what was on the reels, boxes with no tape in them at all, etc.) , and often confusing those tape boxes and their notations were with the Smile material on all those reels?

If you're saying the date on the tape box of Feb 10 '67 excludes Chuck Britz from the scenario, would you also consider a 3-minute single mixdown could have been prepared with the same material sometime after Feb 10th at Western, or even another time during that week of Feb 6 when those sessions were held? All of those elements you cited were tracked Feb 7th...The Beach Boys did not have to be present for a mix session after everything on the single mix had been recorded, and most often the group was not present at mix sessions, even according to interviews I have seen with Chuck Britz. It was Chuck and Brian the majority of the time.

As has been offered many times here and elsewhere, the notations on tape boxes and even written on session sheets is not always airtight and 100% accurate, and definitely not infallible.

If you have questions about previous interviews with Chuck Britz, consider dropping a line to Domenic Priore and asking him, since he was one who interviewed Chuck to get some of this info on the Heroes single mixes. Go right to the source via email or Facebook.

I get the point about the reliability of tape box notes and session sheets, but in this case the date of the mix written on the tape box lines up neatly with the information we have about the session on that same day. There's no contradictory evidence or justification to be sceptical about it beyond... a long-standing assumption that it was "the Chuck Britz edit", which doesn't seem to be directly substantiated anywhere, even in what Priore says about the matter. On Feb 7, the group were at Columbia for vocals before flying out to Miami, and towards the end of this 6pm-11.30pm session (specifically 10pm-10.45pm) Tommy Tedesco was called in to add two mandolin overdubs to Cantina. Presumably before they went home a mono mix of the Cantina section was dubbed down, with the mandolins in place, but missing Brian's opening line lead vocal replacement for Mike, the laughter, and "you're under arrest". Now unless all of these additional parts (conspicuously not involving any Beach Boys other than Brian) were added in the less than 45 remaining minutes of the Feb 7 session after Tedesco left and after a mix was created, that means they were added at a later date while the others were away. Considering the documented session dates we have prior to the others returning from tour and sections like Prelude being recorded, anecdotes in the press about Brian doing the mixing alone while the group are away, and the date on the safety copy mix itself, the only session date here that computes is Feb 10 at Columbia. Unless we're looking at an undocumented session at Western in the intervening days after Feb 10 but... as far as I can see there just isn't a good reason to suspect that.

Here's what Chuck had to say in Leaf's book:

"It was done like 'Good Vibrations'; it was just one hell of a song. It was a great song. Then I understand, they went up to his home [studio], and they did a lot of things. They cut it and inserted an organ down at the bottom of the [swimming] pool to get the pool quality [all the water was out]. They did all kinds of things, but I think basically it could have been as good a classic as 'Good Vibrations' or better. . . . Our [version] ran about five or six minutes . . . it was just a further step from 'Good Vibrations.' It had some great melodic lines . . . the arrangement was so full, and it was just'something that I was very disappointed in when I heard the final product."

There's nothing here about mixing/editing the 3 minute version that survives. I am gonna drop Dom an email because I'm genuinely curious about it, but based on everything I've read from Chuck or about things Chuck allegedly said, there's no citation to actually tie him to the mixing of this specific version of H&V. Maybe the use of 'our' in that quote lead to it.


Keep posted on your email to Domenic, I'm curious to hear what his thoughts are if he replies.

Just to clarify for those reading, there are two issues at play regarding Chuck Britz - The specific "single" mix and also the issue of a two-sided single at one point in time, which both Chuck and Vosse have said existed...yet some still deny this ever was a possibility.

This single mix has been referred to by me and I'm sure others as the "Chuck Britz" single mix for over 20 years. How and why it got that name, I honestly can't remember, but when it has existed as such for that long (and there were discussions about this stuff back on the Smile Shop, on the Yahoo Smile group, and other outlets for years), and it's *not* a Chuck Britz mix...why hasn't it been corrected officially so the accuracy is noted and logged as fact? Honestly, I haven't seen hard proof that this was *not* done by Chuck Britz other than connecting dates and events on a timeline that itself is incomplete, along with tape boxes that we agree can be notoriously misleading if not incorrect. I see the possibility in the timelines and events logged...but I haven't seen the probability as definitively as you have stated. Maybe there is no definitive answer? Until I see something definite beyond suggesting "this is what happened Feb 10th, this is what didn't happen Feb 10th, therefore the following is true and factual...", it's hard to dismiss something I've been hearing and reading for almost three decades at this point about that "single" mix/edit based on an "if...then..." logic based on session sheets and tape boxes in a timeline. And I say that not to argue, but just to lay out where my information and opinions stand.

So yes, it would be helpful to have more from Chuck Britz's comments and interviews. I wish I could offer more but I have no clue where to start looking in my own archived gigabytes of various crap from the past decades... Grin

Consider too the anecdote from one of the Ron Hicklin Singers who says he was with Chuck as Chuck played him a mix of Heroes, and went on to relate a story about how much better the track was "six months ago", but Brian invited someone who was hanging out in the studio to listen...and when that person said they liked GV better, Brian immediately trashed whatever mix of the song he had played and started over. So what was *that* mix, and doesn't that also suggest Chuck had a major hand in the mixing of Heroes overall if he played the tracks for a random visitor when Brian was there mixing the track?  Is that story "apocryphal" or did a random guest's opinion of whatever mix that was end up scuttling a version of "Heroes"?


A quick postscript/sidestep: The "Chuck Britz edit" (sorry, I can't stop calling it that for easy reference) does *not* have the train effect "woo woo woo" vocals before "you're under arrest", yet as we've heard other more modern finds and mixes have that right before the arrest line. This means the woo-woo was either edited out or edited in at some point. Since my brain hurts a bit...which was it? And when was that edit done, since there was obviously an edit?

The reason why I put a lot of weight in this single version is because it matches up with descriptions of what was planned as the Heroes single given to various reporters and the like at the time. I weigh what we got officially on that 2-fer more heavily because it lines up with those descriptions, from the sound effects to the "comedy" to the random people saying things during the track, this sounds like more than a hasty test edit, and the editing and cutting is more clean and fluid than on the other Smile test edits. And based on the working methods, it would make sense (to me) that Brian would be mixing such a single on his home turf with Chuck at Western versus working on a mix at Columbia or elsewhere, at this point in time in 1967.
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mike moseley
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« Reply #42 on: October 10, 2019, 08:33:40 AM »

Cantina may have been a trial final sequence but it was rejected almost immediately.  I agree.  Although containing several sections of genius I don't think it hangs together as a hit 45 at all.  Or as a coherent piece.   I think it could do with the unfunny 'humour' removed and a couple of other sections put back in.

Non BB fans I've played it to have uniformly not liked it.

I'm much more interested in what was in the 1966 versions of the song.  Sunnydown snuff appears to have been tried in '66 so:

verses - IIGS - verses (possibly inc my children) - something/possibly sunnydown snuff - barnyard   -   the only real stab here is 'sunnydown snuff' but this seems to be approximately what the song was from oct till mid/late dec..?

Regarding the Cantina mix - I though the session logs show the mix at Columbia..?
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wjcrerar
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« Reply #43 on: October 10, 2019, 08:44:39 AM »

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guitarfool2002
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« Reply #44 on: October 10, 2019, 08:50:59 AM »

Cantina may have been a trial final sequence but it was rejected almost immediately.  I agree.  Although containing several sections of genius I don't think it hangs together as a hit 45 at all.  Or as a coherent piece.   I think it could do with the unfunny 'humour' removed and a couple of other sections put back in.

Non BB fans I've played it to have uniformly not liked it.

I'm much more interested in what was in the 1966 versions of the song.  Sunnydown snuff appears to have been tried in '66 so:

verses - IIGS - verses (possibly inc my children) - something/possibly sunnydown snuff - barnyard   -   the only real stab here is 'sunnydown snuff' but this seems to be approximately what the song was from oct till mid/late dec..?

Regarding the Cantina mix - I though the session logs show the mix at Columbia..?

How does "Cantina" being a trial mix match up with the description of Heroes given to multiple sources at the time lining up almost exactly with what the mix we have sounds like and incorporates? I disagree it was a "trial mix", because the editing is too smooth and fluid...much more so than any of the existing test edits that have been found. It sounds like they were going for a single mix. But that's just my take on it.

Did the session logs at Columbia actually log something as a mixdown session, or do they only note the engineer present? That was a question I had earlier in the discussion, are we going on something at Columbia which was logged as a mixdown session, was it a reduction mix to allow for further work, was it a rough mix cut to acetate to take home and audition, or was something logged as a proper Heroes mix session on that date?
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« Reply #45 on: October 10, 2019, 08:51:54 AM »

Quote
A quick postscript/sidestep: The "Chuck Britz edit" (sorry, I can't stop calling it that for easy reference) does *not* have the train effect "woo woo woo" vocals before "you're under arrest", yet as we've heard other more modern finds and mixes have that right before the arrest line. This means the woo-woo was either edited out or edited in at some point. Since my brain hurts a bit...which was it? And when was that edit done, since there was obviously an edit?

I'll add some proper thoughts on the rest later but just to clarify, the train bit was there originally and spliced out. "You're under arrest" was a punch-in on the 8-track after the woo-woo, but in dubbing down the mono mix Brian must've thought it broke up the pacing too much and cut it down.

Is there a rough date when or where this would have been done?
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« Reply #46 on: October 10, 2019, 08:56:36 AM »

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« Reply #47 on: October 10, 2019, 08:56:42 AM »

I agree that cantina was more than a trial mix - look at the trial mixes of the Part 2 sections and some other trial mixes of parts of Heroes, this was a professionally done mix for a single release.  Now to an extent you can call any unreleased mix a trial mix - since Brian ultimately decided against releasing it - but this wasn't just to see how the parts would fit together, this was meant to be a "final" version - until Brian decided it wasn't.
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mike moseley
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« Reply #48 on: October 10, 2019, 09:33:01 AM »

Fair dos chaps.  If Cantina was the single briefly he was soon changing it.  Its interesting but I want to do as good '66 mix as possible.
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mike moseley
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« Reply #49 on: October 12, 2019, 08:43:18 AM »

Is there consensus on 'bridge to indians/bichycle rider' being part of the A side early Jan..?

Or do some people think they were for side 2/B-side part 2 or whatever..?

Confusingly 'intro' was recorded in Dec quite early in the H&V process but its in E - the much later chants are in E/A so musically intro would go with those chants.

Of course there's no rules and a C sharp tune can have sections in any key as long as it sounds good.

I guess I'm just wondering if the 45 and 'part 2/side 2' were possibly being developed at the same time.
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