 by Brad Elliott* Originally appeared in "alt.music.beach-boys,rec.music.artists.beach-boys" on February 16, 1999, and reprinted here with kind permission of the author. *esteemed Beach Boys historian, author of Surf's Up! : The Beach Boys on Record, 1961-1981 1) Nowhere in Capitol's files is there any indication that such a pairing was to be released on 45. Some people point to the fact that the original "H&V" picture sleeve (Capitol 5826) says "Heroes and Villains" on both sides. However, that is simply an indication that at the time they printed the sleeves, they didn't know what the B-side was going to be. The "Good Vibrations" picture sleeve says "Good Vibrations" on both sides, but nobody uses that as an argument that Brian was planning a "Good Vibrations, Part 1" b/w "Good Vibrations, Part 2" 45. 2) The British music press of the mid-1960s covered the SMILE saga in great detail (as illustrated in all of the many clippings included in Domenic's "Look, Listen, Vibrate, Smile"). There is not a mention in any of the pieces that Brian was planning an "H&V Part 1" b/w "H&V Part 2" single. In fact, in a February 18, 1967 piece by Tracy Thomas, Brian makes reference to the problem he's having deciding what he's going to put on the B-side. Thomas reports that Brian told her, "I'm doing the final mix on the A-side tonight, but I can't decide what to do on the other side. The easiest thing would be to pull something off PET SOUNDS, but I feel that would be cheating the record-buyers. On the other hand, I want to keep as much of SMILE a surprise as possible. I may end up just recording me and a piano -- I tried it last night in the studio. It would be an interesting contrast, anyway!" The likelihood is that the A-side final mix he's talking about is the alternate version of "H&V" that was released on the SS/WH two-fer and the GV (the Feb. 10 date that was attached to the mix in the SS/WH two-fer was taken from a "protection master" -- in other words, a backup copy -- made on that date of the Jan. 30 mix). Given that it might have taken a couple of weeks in the 1960s for a Hollywood report to make its way (via overseas mail) back to England and then appear in print, the timetable seems to fit. So Domenic's assertion that the alternate "H&V" is Part One seems to be provably false. 3) Much has been made of the fact that engineer Chuck Britz recalls mixing down both parts of "H&V." All I will say about that is I have talked with Britz myself and I don't consider his memory about details of specific sessions to be good enough to rely on. 4) Similarly, much has been made of the fact that there are session sheets labeled "Heroes & Villains, Part Two." The first one is for a Jan. 5, 1967 session. The others are for consecutive sessions on Feb. 27 and 28 and March 1 and 2. Certainly, if Brian was planning a "Part 2" on January 5, he would not have been wondering at the end of the month (when he talked to Tracy Thomas) what he would put on the B-side of "H&V." In my opinion, the "Part Two" sessions sheets simply reflect the fact that Brian was recording songs modularly. The "Part Two" designation doesn't mean that he intended to create a stand-along "Part 2" for the song, but rather that he was working on a part that would be integrated into "H&V" -- perhaps as an insert or a tag. There are session sheets labeled "Surf's Up (first movement)" and "Tones (part 3)," yet nobody is alleging that those songs were to have been broken up into separate tracks. Everybody understands that those reflect the fact that Brian was building songs in modules. There also are session sheets labeled "Home on the Range" and "Who Ran the Iron Horse," but again everybody understands that those reflect sections of "Cabinessence" being worked on, not completely separate tracks. So it should be for "Heroes and Villains, Part 2." 5) There is no finished mixdown for a "Heroes and Villains, Part 2" in either the Beach Boys' or Capitol's tape vault. Just about every other mixdown for any Beach Boys single is present in one of the vaults, but rather than seeing this as an indication that "Part 2" doesn't exist, certain people want to rationalize that the tape is missing. Yes, there are some tapes missing, but those primarily are multi-track session tapes, not 1/4-inch mixdowns. Heck, there's even a mixdown tape for "All Dressed Up for School" -- mono, done by Brian! So why would the "H&V Part 2" mix tape go missing? It just doesn't make sense. Far more reasonable is to doubt that it ever existed in the first place. 6) Finally, don't you think that if "Part 2" really existed and Mark Linett was able to reconstruct it (from "three sections that needed to be spliced together" following "cues from Brian's instructions to the group," as Domenic contends) that it would have been included on the GV boxed set? Instead, Linett simply put together a collage of "H&V" fragments. Why should we assume that Domenic knows more than Linett, David Leaf and Andy Paley (who researched and assembled the GV box)? Leaf personally played the SMILE tracks that were included on the box for Brian and got his approval. Don't you think if Linett thought he had reconstructed "H&V Part 2" that Leaf would have played it for Brian and gotten his confirmation? But it didn't happen, did it? I think that's the most damning piece of evidence against Domenic's claim. Because I know that every one of those guys would have loved to have put the legendary, long-lost "H&V Part 2" on the GV boxed set if they could have. So, in closing, I don't think there's any real evidence of a two-part "H&V." Yes, Brian played with the song over an extended period of time, and we know of three different configurations that exist: the "demo" heard on ENDLESS HARMONY SOUNDTRACK, with the "I'm in Great Shape" and "Barnyard" sections; the alternate version from Jan. 30, 1967, with the "In the Cantina" section; and the released single version. None of them lend any creedence to the idea that there was going to be two separate parts to the song. I rest my case. :-) Surf's up! Brad |
