Monday, October 7, 2013

The Beach Boys - Landlocked



The Beach Boys – Landlocked
(soniclovenoize reconstruction)
Side A:
1.  Loop De Loop
2.  Susie Cincinnati
3.  San Miguel
4.  H.E.L.P. Is On The Way
5.  Take A Load Off Your Feet
6.  Carnival
7.  I Just Got My Pay
Side B:
8.  Good Time
9.  Big Sur
10. Fallin’ In Love
11. When Girls Get Together
12. Lookin’ At Tomorrow (A Welfare Song)
13. Til I Die
 
The third of a four-part Beach Boys upload, this is a reconstruction of the unreleased 1970 Beach Boys album Landlocked, an early version of the 1971 album Surf’s Up.  All of the tracks that have been officially released have been compiled from their best possible sources (spread over six different releases), and the remaining unreleased tracks were personally remastered from bootlegs for their best possible soundquality.  All tracks were volume-adjusted with appropriate track leader to create a finished, cohesive album as a whole—the album that could have been Surf’s Up, as of late 1970.
Reconstructing any unreleased album from this period of The Beach Boys’ recording history is tricky.  Landlocked (or at least the sequence of songs that have come to be associated with the title “Landlocked”) is actually one of three different unreleased Beach Boys albums from the 1969-1970 period; to understand Landlocked’s context we must examine her older twin sisters.  Remember that what we think of as Landlocked is essentially a tape of nine Sunflower outtakes (of which only one would make the cut onto Surf’s Up) and four of the songs that The Beach Boys were then currently working on for the Surf’s Up album (only two of those would make the cut).  Also of note that there has been a dispute over whether this album ever existed at all!  Some say that not only was  Landlocked” never really a serious working title for the Surf’s Up album, but that this track sequence—which was indeed an early running order for the album that eventually became Surf’s Up—was never called Landlocked anyways.  I will put this argument aside for my blog’s purposes; the working title of Landlocked and this specific tracklist has become linked—erroneously or not—over time.  Besides, if Landlocked never really existed, it would truly be an album that never was! 
Landlocked’s genesis essentially came out of the band’s flurry of studio activity in 1969 while making the Sunflower album.  Between January and March The Beach Boys had recorded nine-or-so songs, just falling short of an album’s worth of material.  Of these initial Sunflower sessions, Landlocked’s “San Miguel” and “Loop De Loop” were recorded.  A second session in July and August yielded another four songs, with even more sessions resuming in October and continuing until January 1970.  The result was nearly 30 songs, more than twice needed for an album!  The first attempt to compile an album from these sessions, called Reverberation and meant to complete their contract to Capitol Records, was rejected for unknown reasons (this sequence contained the two aforementioned Landlocked tracks recorded during the initial Sunflower sessions as well as an instrumental “When Girls Get Together”).  The Live In London album instead took Reverberations' place to fulfill their contract, and the band compiled a completely different sequence of tracks from the recording sessions as their first offering for Reprise Records.  This second unreleased album Add Some Music contained the eventual Landlocked tracks “When Girls Get Together” (with vocals), “Susie Cincinnati”, “Fallin’ In Love”, “Carnival”, “I Just Got My Pay”, “Good Time”, and “Take A Load Off Your Feet” and was eventually rejected by Reprise for not having an immediately radio-friendly hit single.  After a final recording session in July 1970, the strongest songs from the past year and a half of recording were resequenced into what we know as the Sunflower album, leaving all of the aforementioned tracks on the cutting room floor.  But what are some labels’ trash are other bands’ treasure, as the Sunflower rejects became the seeds of The Beach Boys’ next project.
In August 1970, the band began recording their follow-up to Sunflower, tracking  “Lookin’ For Tomorrow”, “Big Sur”, “Til I Die” and “H.E.L.P. Is On The Way”.  By September, a tape was compiled of these four new songs as well as the aforementioned nine Sunflower outtakes and submitted to Reprise records (albeit with a Capitol Records letterhead!).  While some claim that Landlocked was never actually an early title for Surf’s Up, documentation connects the title to this tape submitted to Reprise on this date.  I am using this sequence for my Landlocked reconstruction as it was not only historically accurate to the rough sequences at the time, but it simply sounds great!  Unfortunately, Reprise Records disagreed; they rejected the album and new Beach Boys manager Jack Rieley urged the band to restructure the album into a more commercial and “socially relevant” album.  The entire Landlocked sequence bit the dust (save for “Lookin For Tomorrow” and “Til I Die”) with their replacements recorded between April and May 1971.  Included was the newly-finished SMiLE outtake “Surf’s Up” which became the title track for the album’s release in August 1971.  But what of Landlocked, the Surf’s Up that never was?  Half the songs staggered out as b-sides and as exclusive tracks on anthology releases, with another handful appearing only on bootlegs.  Two were even rerecorded for later releases (“Big Sur” and “When Girls Get Together”) and another found it’s way onto yet another unreleased Beach Boys album (“H.E.L.P. Is On The Way” on Adult/Child, which I will tackle shortly).  Here we can re-essemble what The Beach Boys really had in mind to follow-up their Sunflower album before big-business pressures squeezed all of the fun out of being landlocked. 
Side A of my Landlocked reconstruction—the silly side—begins with “Loop De Loop”, a song that Al Jardine had been tinkering on for some time, even up until it’s release in 1998 on the Endless Harmony soundtrack.  But presented here is its original 1969 mix, remastered from a bootleg to match the EQ of the final version.  “Loop De Loop” runs directly into the original single mix of the upbeat rocker “Susie Cincinnati”, taken from the 2000 compilation Greatest Hits Volume 3: The Brother Years.  Note the modern remix found on the 2013 Made In California box set was not used here because the mixing did not match the aesthetics of the rest of the songs.  The original mix of “San Miguel” follows, taken from the 1993 Good Vibrations box set.  Also from that box is the transparent jingle “HELP Is On The Way” edited to match the original Landlocked version (as noted on the September 1970 tape box).  The goofy yet adorable “Take A Load Off Your Feet” is culled from the most recent remaster of the Surf’s Up album and is followed by the dizzying unreleased “Carnival”, again reEQ’d to match the rest of my reconstruction.  The side concludes with “I Just Got My Pay” from the God Vibrations box set.
Side B—the serious side—opens with my own remaster of the up-until-recently unreleased “Good Time”; the newly remixed version from Made In California again omitted here because it frankly sounded better than the rest of the songs, as well as a little light on backing vocals, in my opinion.  Following is my own remaster of the unreleased original 1970 recording of “Big Sur”, particularly reEQd to un-muddy the mix and bring out the missing highs and lows.  Next, the modern remix of Dennis's “Fallin’ In Love”, taken from the 2009 compilation Summer Love Songs, is re-edited to match the original 1969 version.  After my own remaster of the unreleased original 1969 version of the equally brilliant (musically) and inane (lyrically) “When Girls Get Together” is “Lookin’ For Tomorrow”.  This version is taken from Surf’s Up as the overly flanged version seemed to fit the neo-psychedelic vibe of the rest of the songs.  Concluding Landlocked is my one instance of creative license, the longer Steve Desper mix of “Til I Die” found on the 1998 Endless Harmony Soundtrack.  Although Landlocked would have actually included a version of similar length to what was released on Surf’s Up, I felt Desper’s longer version was more appropriate to end the album. 
With the addition of a less-gruesome cover image to match the carnival-on-acid vibe of the album, our reconstruction is complete.   But how does our resulting Landlocked compare to Surf’s Up and even Sunflower?  For one thing, it is decidingly more psychedelic, goofier and more, well, fun.  The tracks don’t seem to be concerned with commercial potential: just songs for their own sake.  While Sunflower and much of Surf’s Up seem overly serious, Landlocked seems whimsical and certainly doesn’t take itself too seriously.  We also have a sound more reminiscent of the SMiLE era, although lacking the poetics of Van Dyke Parks or any conceptual or sonic envelope pushing.  But at the same time, one can surely see why Landlocked was never released: it was not the correct album for The Beach Boys in the early 70s.  If Sunflower and Surf’s Up were the engines that drove the band for that decade, Landlocked was merely the dining car, filled with libations and merriment, but unable carry the weight of the whole train.  But with that said, I’d much rather be having a drink than shoveling coal… 
 
 
 
Sources used:
Endless Harmony Soundtrack  (1998)
Good Vibrations: 30 Years of The Beach Boys  (1993)
Greatest Hits Volume 3: The Brother Years  (2000)
Landlocked: The Last Capitol Album  (bootleg, 1994 Invasion Unlimited)
Summer Love Songs  (2009)
Surf’s Up  (2012 remaster)

flac --> wav --> editing in SONAR, Audacity & Goldwave --> flac encoding via TLH lv8
*md5, artwork and tracknotes included

38 comments:

  1. Thank you for this and all the time and effort in making this and all your other posts available to us all.

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  2. thank's for your information and i like your post

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  3. Thank you very much. All your Beach Boys posts are truly appreciated. The thought and care in assembling these pieces of would-be history are wonderful.

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  4. Just fantastic, job well done. Thanks

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  5. Amazing! Really looking forward to Adult/Child! :D

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  6. Interesting project. Will you try compiling the lost "Reverberations" and "Add Some Music" albums?

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    1. That is a good question, and the answer is that I will not. The reason is because there was too much overlap between those two and this, it would seem redundant.

      What I did was I made a quick "rough cut" of all three albums, and decided to go with the one I enjoyed the most. Of the three, Landlocked was my favorite, and so I did that one. It is also the most far-removed from it's officially released counterpart ( it's only about 1/4th of Surf's Up), as opposed to the other two (both Reverberation and Add Some Music is about 1/2 Sunflower, if this makes any sense).

      BUT anticipating this very question, here is my suggested tracklist to reconstruct both albums, but they end up replacing both Sunflower and Landlocked, without overlapping tracks:

      REVERBERATION
      Cotton Fields
      Loop de Loop
      All I Wanna Do
      Got To Know The Woman
      Slip On Through
      Break Away
      San Miguel
      Celebrate The News
      Dierdre
      Soulful Old Man Sunshine
      Forever


      ADD SOME MUSIC
      Susie Cincinnati
      Good Time
      Our Sweet Love
      Tears In The Morning
      When Girls Get Together
      Back Home
      Add Some Music To Your Day
      Take A Load Off Your Feet
      This Whole World
      I Just Got My Pay
      At My Window
      Fallin In Love

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    2. Landlocked would still exist, using the Surf's Up tracklist of course!

      Don't Go Near The Water
      Long Promised Road
      Disney Girls
      Fourth Of July
      Student Demonstration Time
      Feel Flows
      Lookin' At Tommorrow
      A Day In The Life Of A Tree
      'Till I Die
      (Wouldn't It Be Nice) To Live Again

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  7. I would like to request an alternate universe type scenario for a "Wild Honey" album released in the wake of "Smile" in 1967, as opposed to the bunt, "Smiley Smile." I won't get into the details of this alternate timeline but if you're interested many folks have pontificated this on the smileysmile message board. I've made a playlist with a tentative track listing: You're Welcome, Lonely Days, Little Pad, Fall Breaks and Back To Winter, He Gives Speeches/She's Goin' Bald, With Me Tonight, Can't Wait Too Long (SS/WH "two-fer" mix '67), Cool, Cool Water ('67 mix), Gettin' Hungry, Wild Honey, The Letter, Darlin, I'd Love Just Once To See You, With A Little Help From My Friends, Their Hearts Were Full of Spring ('67 mix), Whistle-In...

    Just throwin' it out there.
    Love all the mixes, man. Keep'em comin'.

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    1. I certainly agree with the concept here. With a bit more ambition, Wild Honey could have gone a long way to erasing the memory of Smiley Smile. The main omission in your mix I feel is "I was made to love her", I feel that this is just an outstanding track - drenched in sun-tanned groove, it feels like it's one of the last tracks Brain actually enjoyed playing on.

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  8. Of all of the collections that erroneously trade under the title of 'Landlocked'
    this has to be the best I've heard. A great selection. The sheer volume of
    tracks that this band left unissued (even discounting SMiLE) is just staggering.
    Loop-De-Loop itself is better than some bands entire career output.

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  9. Thank you deeply for all of the hard work put into this, it is a brilliant effort.

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  10. I really enjoyed what you did with this one and it really blows away the bootlegs I had of this. Keep up the great work.

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  11. Thanks for your hard work on this Sonic. One thing though, I'm getting an md5 checksum error on Susie Cincinnati using Traders Little helper. (Tried several different downloads just to make sure).

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  12. I really appreciate this post and I like this very much. I am waiting for new post here and Please keep it up in future.
    Digital Asset Management Software

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  13. I've used your version of Landlocked as a jumping-off point for my own version. With mine, I've not used any songs which made the Surf's Up LP, but have added other tracks from the 1969-71 era to make a 14-song album that accompanies Sunflower and Surf's Up. Tracklisting:-
    1. Loop De Loop
    2. Susie Cincinnati
    3. San Miguel
    4. HELP Is On The Way
    5. Soulful Old Man Sunshine
    6. I Just Got My Pay
    7. (Wouldn't It Be Nice To) Live Again

    8. Good Time
    9. Big Sur
    10. Fallin' In Love
    11. When Girls Get Together
    12. Games Two Can Play
    13. Back Home
    14. 4th Of July

    It hangs together pretty well.

    Jules

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  14. Yet another great effort! These ATNW that you make are bringing a lot of pleasure to people in the real world. "H.E.L.P" (and Dennis' "4th of July") have long been part of 'my' own copy of "Surf's Up", so hearing it here was a little odd, but this reconstruction works well and is a worthy successor to "Friends" in its overall balance and appeal. Thanks again.

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  15. Hi, I really need to know which of these songs Brian was involved with. Was he involved with Big sur and carnival?

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  16. Thanks for uploading this CD...I enjoy it very much!

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  17. This here is for you Beach Boys fans, but mostly to you SLN: http://www.demonoid.pw/files/details/3403776/28713084/

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  18. I am a massive beach boy fan going back 55 years.thank you so much for all your efforts.really fantastic

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  19. Wow, thanks so much for all your hard work in compiling this and making it available. And in FLAC too!

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  20. Thanks so much for putting this together! Great to hear.

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  21. Hello,
    Could you please make this one available for download on mega?
    Hope to hear from you soon.
    Thanks very much,

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  22. Pretty sure Landlocked WAS going to have the Steve Desper mix of "Til I Die". The most common LP bootleg (Brother label) has a version that starts with an alternate mix of the Surf's Up version without the lead vox and drum track, then leads right into that version. Pretty sure this is the matching mix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeGVxcBiBac

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  23. Would it be possible to reup this? Thanks in advance

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  24. The Steve Desper mix is appropriate given it's the closing track.

    "Concluding Landlocked is my one instance of creative license, the longer Steve Desper mix of “Til I Die” found on the 1998 Endless Harmony Soundtrack. Although Landlocked would have actually included a version of similar length to what was released on Surf’s Up, I felt Desper’s longer version was more appropriate to end the album."

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  25. Any chance of an upgraded version after the Feel Flows boxset is released?

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    Replies
    1. Yep. Like the Dream Factory reconstruction, it'll be a multi-disc set with Landlocked, Reverberation and Add Some Music.

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