Question about SMiLE LP jackets (ones that got printed)

[I. Spaceman]

BUT the question is why would a picture be chosen sans Brian, not why Brian is not in the picture. Someone needs to Photoshop Doe into the Last Supper, though.

[Andrew G. Doe]

BUT the question is why would a picture be chosen sans Brian, not why Brian is not in the picture. Someone needs to Photoshop Doe into the Last Supper, though.

Ummmmm... because that's how Brian wanted it ? He's got a huge solo color shot in the booklet.

[I. Spaceman]

BUT the question is why would a picture be chosen sans Brian, not why Brian is not in the picture. Someone needs to Photoshop Doe into the Last Supper, though.

Ummmmm... because that's how Brian wanted it ? He's got a huge solo color shot in the booklet.

Yeah, I know that! Some other peoples are slow to grasp that, though.

[Surfer Joe]

Same reason that I'm not in Leonardo's 'Last Supper' - I wasn't there. 

But dammit, that's the only reason!

[Surfer Joe]

Years ago, there was a front-cover slick in Rockaway Records in Silverlake selling for $5,000.  Pretty intensely cool thing to see.

[Cam Mott]

There aren't any Capitol internal memoes requesting/approving the destruction of 400+K SMiLE "covers" and booklets?

[Andrew G. Doe]

Same reason that I'm not in Leonardo's 'Last Supper' - I wasn't there. 

But dammit, that's the only reason!

Yeah, me an' Leo, back then we were like... that.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

[guitarfool2002]

What a nostalgic thread! Some of my favorite Smile conversations involved the story of the various Smile covers and variations. I think a large chunk of the saga has been posted online at various times at various places over the last few years.

Always look at the top of any Smile front cover, and whether it reads "Duophonic" or "Full Dimensional Stereo". That would be the key to determining how much money you'd want to shell out for a "genuine" Smile cover at auction, or the pedigree/history of ones you may see hanging on display or being offered for auction somewhere.

The back cover was shot in Boston I believe, along with some of the Smile booklet photos (from one of Boston's harbors and backstage...), along with other BB's photos which didn't make it into the Smile project. Even if that back cover never made beyond the mock-up stages, I think it was a pretty lame back cover. It has absolutely *no* relevance to the album, or the music supposed to be on that album. Brian or no Brian, I just never dug that back cover concept at all, even though it was/is just a mock-up. Unless Brian wanted us to laugh at the whole idea of that bad photo, which I think Vosse or someone else hinted at in an interview - If I remember he even called it a bad photo, suggesting it was done on purpose.

What is this about a Leid In Hawaii album cover??? This isn't a put-on, is it?

[runalot]

Thanks for the info, guys.

Does anyone have a decent image of the various front and back cover of these SMiLE albums? And, how much are they worth?

[I. Spaceman]

Buy a book on the BB's. Then come back. 

[Surfer Joe]

Assuming everyone's seen the Bruce Spizer books on the Beatles releases- what would you all give for The Beach Boys Story On Capitol Records, with those same production values...?

One volume for singles, one for LPs...

Andrew, how busy are you these days?

This should probably have been a new thread.

[Cam Mott]

I'm pretty certain they wouldn't be in Capitol plants/warehouses except as finished "covers": cardboard sleeve with front and back liners printed and glued in place by Queens Litho [and their subcontractors] and BertCo in the case of the SMiLE album covers.  If the story of the "destruction" memoes regarding SMiLE covers are bogus, then that is a different story I guess.

[Andrew G. Doe]

I'm pretty certain they wouldn't be in Capitol plants/warehouses except as finished "covers": cardboard sleeve with front and back liners printed and glued in place by Queens Litho [and their subcontractors] and BertCo in the case of the SMiLE album covers.  If the story of the "destruction" memoes regarding SMiLE covers are bogus, then that is a different story I guess.

Cam, you probably recall this better than I, but weren't the slicks trashed in something like 1979 ?

Or was that a typo for 1969... whatever, they're in a northern NJ landfill now.

All my information indicates that beyond about 6-10 mockups, no finished covers ever existed. Of course, the back slick couldn't have been printed much before Christmas anyway, for the obvious reason.

[Cam Mott]

Brad reported those memoes were from August and October 1969 the way I got it.  Never saw them of course; would like to and have them looked at by Capitol/Queens Litho former employees.

From my understanding, the front liner prints [SMiLE shop] from that time are probably either pre-press stats or could be press proofs, a short run done by the litho company on the press and sent back for approval by the Producer and Capitol before mass production for the album covers.  The actual album front liner prints probably went from the litho press to the fabricators to be pasted on to the cardboard sleeve along with the back liner which would be printed by the fabricator and glued on as well with the finished covers then shipped to the Capitol plants.

[Peter Reum]

There were never any assembled covers. I know people who were there in the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties, and Nineties. The archives include samples of the booklet, front, and unfinished back covers. No one ever saw an assembled cover because the back cover was never completed. People who have worked there through the decades have all said the same thing. Several of them have unfinished back covers. An assembled one is the bigfoot of the Smile world.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Peter, please...

Sasquatch.

[Noble Surfer]

  Andrew, you were at the last supper!

[Andrew G. Doe]

That's a keeper !

Thanks, mate.

[Cam Mott]

I talked to George Osaka, the Art Director for Capitol, Gene Voris of Capitol's Production department, on the memoes in LLVS, and Richard Roth of Queens Litho, assistant to Barry Cohen, on the memoes in LLVS, at the time. All recognized the artwork when sent to them but none remembered specifically what happened to the SMiLE album covers and they were all directly involved.

Mike seemed to have known there were "sleeves" finished in April 1967 which showed song titles and order that would not be accurate anymore in July 1967.

If the covers were destroyed, it makes sense none exist I suppose but it is curious that there is no corrected back liner proof in the files; although lots of material seems to have escaped from those files over the years.

I'm just sayin' it doesn't seem as Bigfooty to me.....

[Bicyclerider]

You would think a corrected back cover slick would have existed in the Capitol art archive if it had been corrected, wouldn't you?  There were booklet proofs and front cover slicks.  If the back cover never got corrected, then the covers couldn't have been assembled.  Which would mean that only the front cover slicks were destroyed in 1969 - the back was never printed.  Would there need to be a separate P.O. and printing request for the back cover slick?

[Andrew G. Doe]

The tracklisting was handed in - by whomever - mid-December... allow, say, two weeks to mock up the back slick. Factoring in Xmas and such, you're looking at early January, by which time Capitol were aware the album wouldn't deliver until 1/15. Deadline passes, no master and bells begin to ring in the Tower.

Hence no completed, corrected back slick.

[guitarfool2002]

What happened to this Leid In Hawaii album cover? Or is there also new 8mm footage of Bigfoot/Sasquatch making the rounds?

[Cam Mott]

I would think a corrected proof would be in the file which brings up the question about the state/security of the files.  I wonder also if similar files for the other BBs' albums are complete or all contain proofs for back liners/artwork.

On the other hand, my understanding is everything was ready and approved before covers were begun, so the fact that covers are mentioned as in existence in memo should mean the covers were complete and shipped to Capitol. Unless the info about what the inventory memoes say is incorrect of course.

POs would be the thing to see, what was actually ordered and paid for by Capitol; wasn't this Capitol's-financial-records-angle what Brad was working on at one time.  I had tried to get info from some of the companies involved and mentioned in the memoes but if the companies still exist they don't retain records back to 1967 or those records may be incomplete.  For instance, Queens Litho still had a card catalog for files they retain from even before 1967 but even though Cap memoes refer to POs with Queens for 2580 no card for Capitol 2580 could readily be found; the question is do no records exist or is the card for the records misplaced, lost, destroyed etc..  Maybe a more extensive search, if they still retain the records [ I think Queens was bought since], than they were likely [but kindly] to do for me might produce something.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Something slipped me by - Capitol knew way earlier than I thought that Smile might be in trouble. The memo stating that it wouldn't be delivered by 1/1/67 but "in all probability some time before January 15" is dated 12/16/66, the day Brian told Karl Engeman he couldn't deliver on time (for the second time, apparently - the original release date was pre-Xmas). Thus Capitol knew before the track listing was handed in (or very shortly after) that the album was at least a month away.