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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2020 20:11:02 GMT -5
Maybe a hot take- I think it’s a shame Bruce and Dennis never truly collaborated on songs together. I think Dennis benefited from Bruce’s musical acumen, and Bruce could have benefited from Dennis’ avoidance of fluff/shmaltz. A true 50-50 collab might have yielded some excellent results. That actually could have worked -- and I think there's an argument that could be made that those two were in some ways the most compatible members of the group. You can get some idea of what difference that could have made by comparing the Knebworth version of "You Are So Beautiful", with Bruce on keyboards playing those very Bruce-ish chords, to the ones from 76 before Bruce rejoined the band. (That's another hot take of mine, BTW -- Bruce is the only instrumentalist in the band who was truly musically distinctive as a player. You don't hear a guitar part and instantly think "That's Al Jardine!" or anything like that, but hear a bar of Bruce playing piano and you know it's him.) I would add Brian to that list. Hammering triads with melodic movement in the bass is distinctive Brian piano.
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Post by andrewhickey on Dec 20, 2020 9:49:32 GMT -5
That actually could have worked -- and I think there's an argument that could be made that those two were in some ways the most compatible members of the group. You can get some idea of what difference that could have made by comparing the Knebworth version of "You Are So Beautiful", with Bruce on keyboards playing those very Bruce-ish chords, to the ones from 76 before Bruce rejoined the band. (That's another hot take of mine, BTW -- Bruce is the only instrumentalist in the band who was truly musically distinctive as a player. You don't hear a guitar part and instantly think "That's Al Jardine!" or anything like that, but hear a bar of Bruce playing piano and you know it's him.) I would add Brian to that list. Hammering triads with melodic movement in the bass is distinctive Brian piano. I considered that -- Brian does have a weird, backwards style in that respect. But Brian mostly plays like that on demos or when he's showing people things -- there's only a handful of times where he's played like that on a finished recording or on stage, while Bruce's playing *always* sounds like Bruce.
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Post by bittersweetsanity on Dec 21, 2020 22:37:04 GMT -5
mike should've shaved his head, embraced the bald, and kept a short beard
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Post by bittersweetsanity on Dec 22, 2020 4:06:38 GMT -5
that reminds me, i thought it was funny how mike almost always has some facial hair but was clean shaven during c50. seems like that started after carl died, bringing the beard back. i think he looks good w/ the goatee
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Post by highllama on Dec 26, 2020 8:06:12 GMT -5
Unpopular opinions? Okay… One of the very best tracks on the first Smile bootleg was “Holidays” – actually Here Comes Da Honey Man by Miles Davis and Gill Evans, and put on a tape by a serious collector to track, very successfully as it turned out, any subsequent miscreant sharing. We should really all be Miles Davis fans. Gershwin, Miles Davis, and Gil Evans...what more could you want? Coltrane said he didn't know when to stop soloing, when Miles complained about the amount of time he took up during their concerts. To this, Miles replied, "Try taking the saxophone out of your mouth." Maybe we'd have a finished Smile if Miles was producing.
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Post by filledeplage on Dec 26, 2020 9:15:38 GMT -5
mike should've shaved his head, embraced the bald, and kept a short beard That was not the sixties and seventies. Only few would have braved a futuristic 21st century look. One - Yul Brynner.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 26, 2020 12:18:17 GMT -5
Ok here's my hot take. I, like practically everyone else here, am seriously looking forward to the Feel Flows release. I have found quite a bit among those teaser tracks to whet my appetite for this set. But there are a few tracks that I know are going to do absolutely nothing for me, and will make no difference to me whether or not they're in the set:
Good Time Carnival (Over the Waves) When Girls Get Together and any alt. version of Don't Go Near the Water
Yes, I've heard some of the "unofficial" versions of the first three songs over the years and have never gotten excited about them. To me they are merely curiosities and I'll most likely never understand where they might have fit in among the songs that were released on the album. When I see discussion about them on these boards, my attitude is "With all due respect....big deal".
And Don't Go Near the Water is a song that I've been pretty vocal in my dislike for.
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Post by #JusticeForDonGoldberg on Dec 27, 2020 16:56:34 GMT -5
Ok here's my hot take. I, like practically everyone else here, am seriously looking forward to the Feel Flows release. I have found quite a bit among those teaser tracks to whet my appetite for this set. But there are a few tracks that I know are going to do absolutely nothing for me, and will make no difference to me whether or not they're in the set: Good Time Carnival (Over the Waves) When Girls Get Together and any alt. version of Don't Go Near the Water Yes, I've heard some of the "unofficial" versions of the first three songs over the years and have never gotten excited about them. To me they are merely curiosities and I'll most likely never understand where they might have fit in among the songs that were released on the album. When I see discussion about them on these boards, my attitude is "With all due respect....big deal". And Don't Go Near the Water is a song that I've been pretty vocal in my dislike for. Good Time is great, but it’s not exactly Brian’s most “inspired” lyric. But I’m extremely excited to hear the full 40 second instrumental cover of “You Never Give Me Your Money” recorded at the same session as Good Time. Sure, it’s only 40 seconds, but it sounds so cool. I can’t wait to make my own mix of Good Time with YNGMYM stuck to the beginning or ending, it sounds like it would fit right in. Carnival is a song that never ever needed to exist, and could be left off the set and I wouldn’t be mad at all. When Girls Get Together was one of my least favorite BB songs for the longest time. To clarify, I’m talking about the version that appeared on KTSA. The vocals were boring, the instrumental was lifeless, and the lyrics were stupid. But then I heard the original 1969 instrumental, without the kick drum overdubs, and without Bruce’s terrible production choices, and it is absolutely stunning. I love this instrumental, and it just makes me even more mad that Bruce had to ruin a perfectly good song. As for it fitting on Sunflower, it doesn’t. But it could have fit on an album between Sunflower and Surfs’ Up. Don’t go near the water is fine. I can really take it or leave it. I do wanna hear the rest of those alternate lyrics though. Al singing “I think that it killed my dad” very much peaked my interest
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Post by #JusticeForDonGoldberg on Dec 27, 2020 17:42:51 GMT -5
without Bruce’s terrible production choices, and it is absolutely stunning. I love this instrumental, and it just makes me even more mad that Bruce had to ruin a perfectly good song. Uh, what exactly were Bruce's terrible production choices? The mix? I'm not usually a Bruce production defender but he didn't... do anything to it. Scott Mathews' bass drum only augments some other drums added in 1976. Bruce hardly changed it. This backing track is also sped up about a semitone, only due to the particular bootleg it came from. His terrible compression that’s all over KTSA. It turns all the BB vocals into mush, they all sound like they’re singing in a closet facing away from the microphones, and all the instrumentals sound completely drained of all energy. Even the boots of the 1969 mix with vocals is better than the KTSA version.
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Post by #JusticeForDonGoldberg on Dec 27, 2020 18:09:24 GMT -5
His terrible compression that’s all over KTSA. It turns all the BB vocals into mush, they all sound like they’re singing in a closet facing away from the microphones, and all the instrumentals sound completely drained of all energy. Even the boots of the 1969 mix with vocals is better than the KTSA version. That's an engineer's work, I don't think the blame could be laid on Bruce beyond giving it the thumbs up. Mixed Oct. 22, 1979 at Kendun Recorders, Burbank, CA Steve Desper (Chief Engineer, Mixer); Chuck Leary; Chuck Britz; Rodney Pearson; Brian Behrns (Second Engineer) Dang Desper, with all do respect, what happened? Sunshine is worse, for the longest time I couldn’t even tell what the lyrics were without reading them. That one was produced by Brian Wilson and engineered by Chuck Britz, according to the 2fer. According to the Hoffman board, I’m not the only one who thinks the production, especially the vocal production, on this entire album is just... off. Everything sounds so polished and yet so strangely mixed at the same time. Also, what’s up with the horrible squealing noise all over Some Of Your Love?
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Post by #JusticeForDonGoldberg on Dec 27, 2020 18:30:42 GMT -5
Oddly, the versions of the KTSA songs that are played here are much more pleasing to my ears.
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Post by Mikie on Dec 27, 2020 18:56:49 GMT -5
The 'Keepin' The Summer Alive' album has sounded just fine ever since I first bought it in 1980. Sonically speaking, no issues whatsoever - either on vinyl, 8-track, cassette, or CD. Played it on very good stereo systems over the years. Still have my Sennheiser, AKG, and Sony headphones, and my ears don't lie. After all this time, I've never heard or read that the album doesn't sound good on an aural level. In fact, I still have the exact same headphones that these guys wore in 1974! Can you believe that?
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gxios
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Post by gxios on Dec 28, 2020 6:53:07 GMT -5
I think the answer to the sound is right in the tech notes- the album was recorded with two 24 track recorders patched together. In an attempt to deal with the compounded hiss of 48 tracks they ended up with the mush that bothered me the first time I heard it.
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Post by craigslowinski on Dec 28, 2020 8:59:17 GMT -5
That's an engineer's work, I don't think the blame could be laid on Bruce beyond giving it the thumbs up. Mixed Oct. 22, 1979 at Kendun Recorders, Burbank, CA Steve Desper (Chief Engineer, Mixer); Chuck Leary; Chuck Britz; Rodney Pearson; Brian Behrns (Second Engineer) Dang Desper, with all do respect, what happened? Sunshine is worse, for the longest time I couldn’t even tell what the lyrics were without reading them. That one was produced by Brian Wilson and engineered by Chuck Britz, according to the 2fer. According to the Hoffman board, I’m not the only one who thinks the production, especially the vocal production, on this entire album is just... off. Everything sounds so polished and yet so strangely mixed at the same time. Also, what’s up with the horrible squealing noise all over Some Of Your Love? "Sunshine", as released, is a Bruce-produced, Desper-engineered 48-track remake of the Brian-produced, Britz-engineered cover of "Little Girl", which was cut on 4-track along with "School Days". The 4-track recording of "School Days" was incorporated in the final recording of that song, but "Sunshine" was redone from scratch. As for the squeal on "Some Of Your Love"...do you mean the saxophone? Or the fast-strummed electric guitar, heard briefly by itself in the little instrumental break? Or is something happening vocally that you're referring to?
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Post by #JusticeForDonGoldberg on Dec 28, 2020 10:07:28 GMT -5
Mixed Oct. 22, 1979 at Kendun Recorders, Burbank, CA Steve Desper (Chief Engineer, Mixer); Chuck Leary; Chuck Britz; Rodney Pearson; Brian Behrns (Second Engineer) Dang Desper, with all do respect, what happened? Sunshine is worse, for the longest time I couldn’t even tell what the lyrics were without reading them. That one was produced by Brian Wilson and engineered by Chuck Britz, according to the 2fer. According to the Hoffman board, I’m not the only one who thinks the production, especially the vocal production, on this entire album is just... off. Everything sounds so polished and yet so strangely mixed at the same time. Also, what’s up with the horrible squealing noise all over Some Of Your Love? "Sunshine", as released, is a Bruce-produced, Desper-engineered 48-track remake of the Brian-produced, Britz-engineered cover of "Little Girl", which was cut on 4-track along with "School Days". The 4-track recording of "School Days" was incorporated in the final recording of that song, but "Sunshine" was redone from scratch. As for the squeal on "Some Of Your Love"...do you mean the saxophone? Or the fast-strummed electric guitar, heard briefly by itself in the little instrumental break? Or is something happening vocally that you're referring to? The squeal I’m referring to is not a noise created by an instrument or vocal. More like a high frequency.
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Post by AGD on Dec 30, 2020 4:53:26 GMT -5
Where ? What time is it most notable ?
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kaivevo
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Salute NASCAR best album
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Post by kaivevo on May 21, 2021 14:06:50 GMT -5
I prefer Summer In Paradise over Surfin' Safari, Party!, Surfin' USA, Thats Why God Made The Radio, Still Cruisin', and MIU. I find the album to be entertaining unlike the previous albums I mentioned.
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Post by nts1drums on May 21, 2021 14:16:56 GMT -5
Where ? What time is it most notable ? Whatever it is, I don’t think it’s the one on the YouTube channel at least, bc I honestly never knew that there was such a thing. If I had to throw my opinion on the KTSA album, it’s a decent album but (with all due respect to SWD, Bruce and whoever else engineered/produced/mixed the album) was mixed terribly. The drum sound on some of the tracks is really weird for my taste (It’s Still Rock n Roll To Me has a similar feel, though I actually like that song).
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