The Beatle's - Esher Demos and the Beach Boy's - Smile [unreleased 1968]

The year was 1968, and the Beatles had just returned from India with a bag of new songs and ideas. Having spent time with Donovan, Mike Love and the Maharishi must have been a gas, for the demos knocked out quickly at George Harrison's Esher house upon return provided all the love that was needed for the 2 LP White Album, to be put out later that year. Hearing these beloved songs in their creative inception is a joy and privilege not to be missed. The background talking and one-off charm add to the vibe, and it is still amazing forty years later to think that this amount of great material could be contained. Cuts like John Lennon's "Child of Nature" later surfaced as "Jealous Guy", and the mostly acoustic takes are like a love letter from the past, before it all got complicated.

In the post-Sgt. Pepper world, on the other side of the globe, Brian Wilson was strategizing and struggling with the next Beach Boys release, Smile. The other members of the band reportedly hated the new material, and were concerned about playing it live. Tracks like "Good Vibrations" and "Heroes and Villains" were recorded 30 or more takes, with wildly varying ideas using orchestra, theremin and radical edits. As Brian Wilson's LSD use and increasingly disorientated state affected the Smile project, Van Dyke Parks was brought in to help with lyrics and assembly. Final tracks like the still incredibly moving "Surf's Up" were completed, but ultimately the project was scrapped.

There have been various attempts at reconstruction of Smile over the years, and Mr. Wilson himself released his 2004 version of this mythical record with newly recorded parts. The good folks at Purple Chick have made the definitive version to look for, with some judicious edits merging various sources to make the most listenable, correct running song order matrix available. The amount of research and debates as to what "would have been used" is mind bending. Ah if all this effort were to be applied to something simple like cold-fusion!

Forty years later, with the times in an ever-repeating spin-cycle, we have an antidote for you. Find these two bootleg at all costs. The key to the Universe may just be contained in the ones-and-zeros there-in.

Uncle Jeff 8/2008