American band, Smile piano 'Worms'

[XY]

You know, that pic of Dennis filming Brian makes it clear for me that the dark room film isn't CBS footage for sure. It doesn't make sense, except if it would be a still from what Oppenheim & crew filmed. Who took that photo?
The pic with Al wrapped up in mic cables can also be found in the SS/WH booklet.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

Maybe having the TV crew in the studio was a big deal, so Dennis brought his camera that day.  But it just fits the description of the Oppenheimer footage so well. I don’t see why they’d go through all the trouble of perfecting the lighting like that just for a whacky home movie….although the patio footage follows it. Maybe Dennis was making a promo clip for Smile.

[Zander]

Would Alan Boyd be able to confirm whether it's just a different mix of "Worms", i.e. piano only etc or atleast know what masters where taken from the archives for the American Band footage? 

[andy]

You know, that pic of Dennis filming Brian makes it clear for me that the dark room film isn't CBS footage for sure. It doesn't make sense, except if it would be a still from what Oppenheim & crew filmed. Who took that photo?
The pic with Al wrapped up in mic cables can also be found in the SS/WH booklet.

You don't think it's possible that Dennis and CBS were both filming at the same session?

[andy]

Would Alan Boyd be able to confirm whether it's just a different mix of "Worms", i.e. piano only etc or atleast know what masters where taken from the archives for the American Band footage? 

He might be able to confirm that someone was hired to play that for the American Band video. If you're asking if there's a chance it's BB, it's not.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

You know, that pic of Dennis filming Brian makes it clear for me that the dark room film isn't CBS footage for sure. It doesn't make sense, except if it would be a still from what Oppenheim & crew filmed. Who took that photo?
The pic with Al wrapped up in mic cables can also be found in the SS/WH booklet.

You don't think it's possible that Dennis and CBS were both filming at the same session?

Well I sure as hell do!

We need to find the cans of film and kick the door in an take 'em, vigilante style. Who's with me? Has  the quest to understand Smile pushed you beyond the brink of insanity? Well, don't hold it in! Get an ax and a pitchfork and let's charge the mound.

What were you doing last night? Nothing? That's what you call cool, is it?

Tomorrow, when someone asks you the same question, you can say "We didn't do nuthin'" or you can say "We helped this lunatic storm the fortress". That's not a knife....this is a knife! G'day!

So yeah, I think Hawthorne Blvd. would have been on the Hawaiian live album since it was mentioned at the overdub session. Either that, or there's a studio cut of that baby somewhere....

Personally, I think Hawthorne Blvd. was just an embryonic "Do It Again", what with a little "Surfin'" organ riff thrown on top. Yessir. That's my baby.

Is it just me or is Dennis directing the Wind Chimes tag vocal session?

And if Dennis had time to record the barely audible "Truck Drivin' Man" stuff during the Smile sessinos, how come he couldn't spend 5 minutes to record the lead? Vosse article says it was meant for Dennis to sing. I think we need to look harder.

We didn't land on Brother Records....Brother Records landed on us.

I think we are wasting our time trying to figure out Smile. Smiley Smile is the real mystery. 

[andy]

Haha, whoa.

[Alan Boyd]

After perusing this thread there are a few quick points I should make clear...

 (I'm kind of in the middle of something else at the moment so I'll make it short for now, but I'll address details later when I have some free time!)

I've been doing some research into all of this, going through old archive files (which we've just recently obtained from the facility that handled The Beach Boys' masters at the time) and talking to Ron Furmanek and others who were involved with the AMERICAN BAND project.  Some things are becoming clear:

The raw footage from the Oppenheim film has never been found, and was not available to Malcolm Leo or used as source footage for the AMERICAN BAND film. 

The footage of Brian in the dark playing the piano was on a short silent 16mm roll obtained from Dennis' first wife. 

Footage of Brian, Mike, Alan and Carl in the studio (with fire hats) was on another 16 mm home movie roll from the collection of Ed Roach. 

If the producers had HAD any of that raw CBS footage of Brian and The Beach Boys in the studio working on Smile, I'm told that they most certainly would have used it.  Chances are the original outtake footage from INSIDE POP was disposed of years ago... studios and networks are notoriously bad about storing anything that's not "current." 

Sad to say, The INSIDE POP outtakes are probably on a shelf in that great vault in the sky, next to the camera negatives of Orson Welles' original edit of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, the complete version of Erich Von Stroheim's epic GREED, and the original uncensored release of The Marx Brothers' HORSE FEATHERS.  Either that or in a landfill in Jersey.

I'm told that the music in question, including the piano vocal version of "Summer Means New Love," was created especially for the film.  An associate of Malcolm's, whose name I don't know, was hired to create some original music for the film to cover gaps and create ambient backgrounds for segments where the cost of licensing original masters might have been prohibitive.  I have to say that whoever it was did a very good job.

And again, I'll reiterate another point - I can verify that there's virtually no way in which all of those tracks that were eventually booted as part of the SOT series were dubbed or created during the making of AN AMERICAN BAND.  At the time the boys' masters were stored in a very secure facility, and there's paperwork for every single tape that was requested and pulled on behalf of the film.   Again, I say that it's time to put that particular theory to rest.

I will say this, however:  the producers of AMERICAN BAND found a great deal of incredible material and made it available for the first time.  One of my challenges while making ENDLESS HARMONY was to find enough unseen footage so that, for BB fans (like myself), the two films might complement each other. 

Thanks,

Alan

[andy]

Wow, thanks Alan! I'd wondered who the sources for the SMiLE footage were.

[XY]

Thank you very much, Alan!
That only leaves one question open: How were they able to remove David Oppenheim's commentary from "Surf's Up"?

[Alan Boyd]

Jasper,

Good question - I forgot to address that... Malcolm had access to the original M&E (Music and Effects) tracks for the finished version of INSIDE POP.  Studios keep those separate elements on hand in order to facilitate dubbing of foreign language dialogue and narration tracks. 

[buddhahat]

Thanks Alan,

A very informative post - I think it puts a few queries to rest!

I know it's cheeky but, whilst you're on the subject of Smile artefacts, do you have any further information on the Durrie Parks acetates, Alan - i.e. has someone listened to them yet, are they being archived, preserved etc? I know this is a subject that quite a few on this board are curious about.

Many thanks,

Ben

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

Well, that puts a lot of things to rest. Thanks Alan.

 I’m still interested if anyone can figure out what he’s playing, though…

Alan is right about that Ambersons analogy…it's just as depressing to think this footage is gone forever. At least the reel descriptions survived, to give us a couple more clues (Open Country Song)…

So….if the American Band people didn’t copy the master tapes, where did they come from? Since the boxes appeared in the 90’s, does that mean it may have happened more recently? Or were there copies made at the time of recording that someone sat on all this time? Al Jardine said that there were another secret tape machine taping all their studio work without there knowledge. How does that happen? What was the purpose? What does it all mean?

I will say, though, that I am so thankful this material has been available for us fans to hear. Listening to take after take of this material is such a facinating experience. The 'Boys should "bootleg the bootleggers" so to speak and release official CDs of the session work through their site.  Heck, I just saw the unofficial Pet Sounds session boxes sell on eBay for $140 a shot. There's a demand. A BRI regulated release would put the money in the Beach Boy's pocket, where it belongs. And we'll certainly line up and throw the money down.....even if it's material we already have.

And yes....we need to know what became of Durrie Parks' acetates.

[buddhahat]

I’m still interested if anyone can figure out what he’s playing, though…

I will say, though, that I am so thankful this material has been available for us fans to hear. Listening to take after take of this material is such a facinating experience. The 'Boys should "bootleg the bootleggers" so to speak and release official CDs of the session work through their site.  Heck, I just saw the unofficial Pet Sounds session boxes sell on eBay for $140 a shot. There's a demand. A BRI regulated release would put the money in the Beach Boy's pocket, where it belongs. And we'll certainly line up and throw the money down.....even if it's material we already have.

I agree I'd be intrested if anyone could identify the tune he's playing.

And yes, Beach Boys bootleg material is fascinating but I am praying the Smile sessions especially become available in some commercial form. Just to hear all of this stuff in remastered clarity would be glorious. I guess that raises another question - Could the Smile sessions be remastered to the same quality as the Pet Sounds Box? I'm thinking specifically of tracks like Child/Father of the Man.

[37!ws]

I guess that raises another question - Could the Smile sessions be remastered to the same quality as the Pet Sounds Box? I'm thinking specifically of tracks like Child/Father of the Man.

REmastered?

[Roger Ryan]

I guess that raises another question - Could the Smile sessions be remastered to the same quality as the Pet Sounds Box? I'm thinking specifically of tracks like Child/Father of the Man.

REmastered?

37!ws is correct, everything would need to be "mastered" first. Regarding "Child Is Father Of The Man": I recall asking Mark approx. 6 years ago about sync-ing up the existing backing vocals to the then newly discovered edited backing track. He replied that it could be done if one wanted to by isolating the vocals from the multitracks and overdubbing them onto the mono backing track mix. Ultimately, this would be a "fake" mix and not necessarily desirable for a historical accurate "SMiLE" sessions set, but it does confirm that vocal elements and at least a safety copy (2nd generation?) of the edited backing track to this song exist in good quality. Perhaps Alan can clarify the quality issue regarding "Child" and other tracks.

[Bicyclerider]

RF has been desgnated as the culprit for the SOT tapes for so long, I'd assumed this was a fact - if not him, then who or how?  Could someone else associated with American Band have run a second line to a tape recorder as tapes were auditioned for use in the movie?  If not AB, then it surely was a BB insider with access to the tapes who did not necessarily have to fill out the paperwork with checking out tapes in order to copy them.

[Alan Boyd]

It had to have been someone with complete unrestricted access - AND an awful lot of time on their hands! 

According to the archive tape logs from 1984-85, it's clear that the producers of AB weren't auditioning lots of tapes, and certainly not session tapes for projects like the Christmas album...

[Old Rake]

 

Ultimately, this would be a "fake" mix

No more fake than the mixes of "Worms" and "Vegetables," for example, on the box set -- done by Mark with an ear for historical accuracy, but still done by Mark and not Brian!

(which doesn't matter a whit to me)

[buddhahat]

I guess that raises another question - Could the Smile sessions be remastered to the same quality as the Pet Sounds Box? I'm thinking specifically of tracks like Child/Father of the Man.

REmastered?

Oops I've betrayed myself as a complete audiophile ignoramus!! By remastered I meant 'clean up', 'make sound pretty' etc. I'll get my coat ...

Regarding Old Rake's post: Please don't tell me Worms on the boxset is not a Brian mix!! That's another one I'll feel uneasy about in my Smile comp, along with boxset vegetables. So whilst we're on the subject, are there any other Smile tracks from the boxset that were reconstructed, apart from Heroes sessions? Also, was the boxset Worms formed by evidence of what Brian wanted for the track, or is there a certain amount of guesswork involved on Mark Linett's part?

[Roger Ryan]

The GV box set "Worms" was edited together to feature the fullest possible version (at that time), meaning that the backing vocals heard on the second verse came from a different tape than the lead "rock, rock, roll Plymouth Rock" vocals. I'm pretty sure the basic structure survived from '66/'67, but there were two different Hawaiian chant vocals found, right (one sung by Mike and the other by Brian)?

As far as original mixes go, I think only the alt. "Heroes & Villains" and maybe "Wind Chimes" were mixed in '67; "Cabin Essence" is from '68 of course and everything else was newly mixed for the box set. "Our Prayer", "Surf's Up", "I Love To Say Dada" and "Wonderful" were mixed from the multitracks I believe; "Do You Like Worms", "Vegetables" and "Heroes & Villains (sections)" were edited specifically for the box set as well as being mixed for it.

Feel free to correct me if I got this wrong.

[Andrew G. Doe]

So….if the American Band people didn’t copy the master tapes, where did they come from? Since the boxes appeared in the 90’s, does that mean it may have happened more recently? Or were there copies made at the time of recording that someone sat on all this time? Al Jardine said that there were another secret tape machine taping all their studio work without there knowledge. How does that happen? What was the purpose? What does it all mean? it's material we already have.

The timeframe would have to be before early summer 1993, because that's when the Columbia multitracks (notably absent from the Summer Days SOT box) were rediscovered. Whoever it was, they had access to the original multitracks and 3-, 4- and 8-track consoles to play them on. That some of the albums are patchily represented and others exhaustively chronicled might mean something to someone. It still means that someone sat on the tapes for at least four, five years (the first SOT set was in 1997, I believe)... and if you can do that, then why not ten or twelve ? Just thinking out loud.

Alan might be misremembering that Chuck Britz, for example, made a habit of running a two-track slave off the board during sessions to give himself a reference tape for the next day's work.

[Surfer Joe]

Call this a strong opinion: the tapes were copied to DAT and shared by several people on the fringes of the business during a period centering around 1989.  They were not real bootleggers, but certainly not ordinary fans.  They had focused plans (such as the 3 LP SMiLE vinyl set) and didn't think of anything nearly as ambitious as the SOT sets for quite a while, if that was even their work.  These guys are on top of a lot of rare material, including original tapes in some cases, but I don't have any idea if they ever had any original Beach Boys tapes- just DAT copies made in the still of the night some time long ago...

[Andrew G. Doe]

Interesting thing I've just remembered - the Smiley Smile SOT could have been better. There was stuff doing the (limited) rounds that should have logically been on there.

One thing that needs to be squashed before it raises its ugly head again -  Mark Linett was not connected in any miniscule way with the SOT releases. Fingers were iinitially pointed his way, but the fact that the Summer Days set lacks material that was included on the 1993 box proves the inaccuracy of this (not forgetting that Mark wouldn't do such a thing anyway). Remember, the people who copied the tapes had access to the original multitracks (most of the time), the appropriate consoles on which to play and mix them and the digital equipment with which to copy them. And the considerable time needed to effect the transfers.

[Surfer Joe]

Remember, the people who copied the tapes had access to the original multitracks (most of the time), the appropriate consoles on which to play and mix them and the digital equipment with which to copy them. And the considerable time needed to effect the transfers.

Right- they were skilled people in the business, but no one nearly as high-profile as Mark or Alan, etc.