Guys--the MONO MASTER TAPE of If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears has been located,NOT the session tapes,and so far,only for the first album.I too would love to see outtakes and unreleased tracks,but we can't because THERE ARE NO TAPES LEFT!!!!---With very few exceptions,here & there,around 1973,a decision was made at ABC/Dunhill (Jay Lasker is usually the one blamed) to THROW AWAY any session tapes,and any MONO tapes(IF there was a stereo equavilant...).Mono was obsolete by 1973,and as far as session tapes,the thinking was hey,we have the two-track stereo masters,why should we pay to keep the multi-track tapes in storage????
I do recall that John Phillips (if he can be believed....) once said that the multis for (about) four M&Ps songs still exsist,and the only reason they survived was because he had taken them out of the vault,in order to mix a QUADROPHONIC M&Ps Greatest Hits album (Which is the reason the Grass Roots' multis survived...)
There is now ANOTHER problem,that Universal doesn't want to talk about---a few years ago,there was a fire a Universal Studios,and MANY,MANY master tapes were destroyed.At first they said it was just a small amount,"really nothing too important".In the years since,the truth is slowly leaking about exactly what was lost.And it's VERY sad.
Big Time.....And to add to it,some people have said that the could have been saved,or at least not as many that were lost HAD to be.One story is that the firefighters were too busy trying to control the (easily replaceable) attractions at the Universal Theme Park,than to concentrate their efforts on putting out the fire around the IRREPLACABLE tape vaults.Other story is that the tapes weren't even supposed to be where they were.----Apparently,Universal-the movie/TV company,no longer has any connections to UMG,the music division and the tapes were supposed to have been removed,but they hadn't yet bothered to....(AGAIN)