I am too young. What BB fans thought in the late 60s concerning Smile

[Mikie]

You mean like that guy in the ad that says "Sure to sell a million units in January?" That reference to happy in-store displays for the Smile album?  I've never even seen a picture of one of those before.  Did any exist?

[bgas]

You mean like that guy in the ad that says "Sure to sell a million units in January?" That reference to happy in-store displays for the Smile album?  I've never even seen a picture of one of those before.  Did any exist?

Now THAT"S what I'm talking about... 
I'm guessing: Not. Which doesn't mean, of course, Capitol didn't order some to be made, which are stored, even now, next to the booklets and covers in Scranton

[A Million Units In Jan!]

You mean like that guy in the ad that says "Sure to sell a million units in January?" That reference to happy in-store displays for the Smile album?  I've never even seen a picture of one of those before.  Did any exist?

Now THAT"S what I'm talking about... 
I'm guessing: Not. Which doesn't mean, of course, Capitol didn't order some to be made, which are stored, even now, next to the booklets and covers in Scranton

Someone please refresh my memory; when did that Capitol promo album for the salespeople appear? Late '66? Had to have been because when was it that Brian told them it wouldn't be ready until January? If they were going to make an in-store display, they would have had to rush them. I think that's the ONLY reference to the displays. I've never heard of anyone ever seeing one.

[Mikie]

Capitol superior's jumped the gun, Capitol superiors jumped the gun!

[Magic Transistor Radio]

Don't really recall when I first heard that the next BB album was going to be called Smile, but a Capitol Records ad in the program for the first Beach Boys concert I saw, in Dec 1966, said "Watch for the release of the Beach Boy new album Smile including 'Good Vibrations' coming in January", so at that time for sure I knew a new album was coming out.  Pet Sounds and Good Vibrations were very avant-garde, so my expectation would probably have been for more cutting edge stuff.

January came and went and no new Beach Boys album appeared.  Watched BW perform 'Surf's Up' on the Bernstein/Oppenheim Inside Pop tv special in April 67, so at that time I was also expecting 'Surf's Up' on the Smile album.  And, hearing Surf's Up was a confirmation in my mind that Smile was going to be a cutting edge album. H & V was released in July, so I figured a new BB album release had to be imminent, since this now made two hit singles (Good Vibes and Heroes) that were not yet available on an album.  While my preferred method of listening to my favorite songs at that time was to select eight 45 rpm singles in the order I wanted and stack them on my Garrard record changer, I decided not to buy the Heroes single at that time since I'd have the song on the Smile album.

At some point, but I don't recall when, I heard that the Smile album had been scrapped and that Brian Wilson was starting over.  For sure I would have heard this from my friend Ross, who was a huge BB fan and seemed to know the latest info, but I don't recall if I also read that info somewhere.  And at some point I read that Brian Wilson said he had burned the Smile tapes, but I think that may have been a year or more later.

As PS posted earlier in this thread, the mainstream press paid a lot less attention to 'rock' music at this time than they did in later years, and a lot of the reporting in the US would have been in 'teen' mags or Hit Parader, since Rolling Stone did not appear until the fall of 67.  GO magazine, which was a weekly newspaper-like freebee sponsored by a local radio station in each market in which it was available, also had really good coverage of the music scene, including lots of record company ads.  Dominic Priore's book "Look! Listen! Vibrate! Smile!" contains photo copies of a lot of articles which appeared back then, but unfortunately they aren't in good chronological order and the source and/or date of the article is often missing.

In September 67 I walked in to a local record store and saw Smiley Smile.  I thought, wow, Brian Wilson has changed his mind.  Smile has come out, but they just changed the title.  Good Vibrations and Heroes and Villains were there, although I did notice that Surf's Up was missing.  But my friend Ross told me that Smiley Smile was not Smile, although he was unable to articulate why, other than to repeat that Smile had been junked.  I was skeptical, asking him, "If Smile was junked, why is this new album called Smiley Smile, with a title super close to the original one of Smile?  Plus, it contains Good Vibes and Heroes, both of which we knew would be on Smile." 

I didn't get around to buying Smiley Smile until a few months after it was released.  I can't say exactly why other than my funds were limited, both the front and back cover looked sorta weird, and I already had the Good Vibrations single.  My next BB album purchase was to be Wild Honey in December, which I played incessantly at the time.  And, it was starting with the Wild Honey album that fell into the category of a superfan and bought every BB album and single as soon as it was released.

When I bought 20/20 in January '69 I had absolutely no idea that Our Prayer and Cabinessence had originally been slated for Smile.  When I saw Van Dyke Parks listed as co-writer on Cabinessence I remember thinking, "Cool, Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks got together again and wrote a new song." Don't recall how long it was until I found out that both songs had originally been intended for Smile.

Prior to the release of the Surf's Up album there was a huge amount of hype concerning the appearance of the legendary Smile track on the forthcoming BB album. As we all know, the legend of Smile continued to grow over the years, especially with the appearance of Smile bootlegs.  When I first heard the Brian solo version of 'Wonderful' I couldn't believe how much better it was than the Smiley Smile version, even though the multi-generation cassette recording I had sounded like hell from a sound quality standpoint.  So, as time went on I gained a much fuller appreciation of what Smile could have been, especially with the appearance of pristine sounding recordings on CD (both the box set and boots) and LPs.

Hah, I just went back and looked at Magic Transistor Radio's original question starting this thread, to see if I'd left anything out, and discovered he asked what long time fans thought in '68-'69.  I had somehow remembered his question being what we had thought about the album coming out in 1967.  So, sorry about the length and details from '67 contained in my response, but I spent too much time writing them to junk 'em!

This is awesome! Exactly what I was looking for. I am sure this is similar to a lot of people. So when did these boots start circulating?

[Mikie]

"So when did these boots start circulating?"

Magic Transistor Radio, you haven't read the entire thread, have you?

[bgas]

"So when did these boots start circulating?"

Magic Transistor Radio, you haven't read the entire thread, have you?

"Let's Go Back To Your Childhood"

[juggler]

You mean like that guy in the ad that says "Sure to sell a million units in January?" That reference to happy in-store displays for the Smile album?  I've never even seen a picture of one of those before.  Did any exist?

Now THAT"S what I'm talking about...  
I'm guessing: Not. Which doesn't mean, of course, Capitol didn't order some to be made, which are stored, even now, next to the booklets and covers in Scranton

Someone please refresh my memory; when did that Capitol promo album for the salespeople appear? Late '66? Had to have been because when was it that Brian told them it wouldn't be ready until January? If they were going to make an in-store display, they would have had to rush them. I think that's the ONLY reference to the displays. I've never heard of anyone ever seeing one.

A decade or so ago, on one or another of the messageboards, I read someone's claim that the in-store display was a cardboard stand with mock Smile covers (standard Frank Holmes version).  It's was a long time ago, but if I recall correctly, the poster claimed that he had actually seen one of these displays in his local record store in Southern California (for some reason, I want to say it was around Riverside, CA)... and then he described how disappointed he had been when the real thing never materialized.

[Magic Transistor Radio]

Magic Tran-sis-tor ra-di-o........glowing Magic Tran-sis-tor ra-di-o.  Oh, sorry!

I think I first heard about SMiLE around 1976 or 1977. Then I picked up Leaf's book in 1978 and learned a lot more about it. Then right around 1980 there were copies of a cassette tape floating amongst collectors. By around 1983 there were three or four different tapes of various SMiLE material making the rounds. I remember it was to be a secret if you had it - not for distribution! Then soon after that there were vinyl album bootlegs of SMiLE. I played the heck out of those bootlegs. There's been a TON of stuff that has trickled out slowly through the years since then. Waaaaayyyyy more stuff (maybe 30 years worth) than what was known about at the time and existed in those first tape copies.

Sorry. By the time I read the whole thread, I forgot about this. But I wasn't totally sure this was just your discovery, or when they actually started circulating.

[desmondo]

I think there was also a detailed story about Smile in an issue of New Musical Express that I read in the 70's.

That would be Nick Kent's 3-parter "The Last Beach Movie: A Story Of Brian Wilson 1942-" printed in summer 1975. That was the single item that turned me on to Brian, The Beach Boys and Smile. This may, or may not, have been a good thing.

Me too

I seem also to remember a big album by album spread in Sounds (it may have been NME though) around the same time - it was around the time of 20 Golden Greats and before Love You came out I think - they were the first two BB albums I bought - was hooked on the story there and then

[guitarfool2002]

The best information for these in-store Smile promotional items came from LLVS, where Bill Earl's diaries are reprinted with some commentary. According to those pages, there was an in-store display but it didn't seem to be exclusive to Smile...it was the Smile album cover shown among other covers for the new Capitol releases. He says in a diary entry on the next page that a record store gave him a Capitol promotional poster which also contained the Smile cover among other albums.

Unless I'm wrong neither of those items have ever been reproduced, unless we saw it and didn't realize it. If anyone has copies or even a photo of either item it would be awesome to see if they still exist.

[guitarfool2002]

Short of ever finding or seeing these items mentioned by Bill Earl, I wonder if any in-store items promoting Smile are still out there somewhere, or in a collection but being kept top-secret.

Here's another one from 1963:



And there is a small photo in the 2-fer booklets showing Brian in front of a store display with the "Party!" album bags of chips. Capitol apparently had 1 million of those chip bags made up to give away with the album, and correct me if I'm wrong but have none ever surfaced through the years? Or does someone have one of those bags stashed away somewhere?

Any in-store display items are very rare...anything with Smile would be over the moon, rocket-to-Mars rare. I hope some of this stuff surfaces in the wake of the box set if it exists.

[bgas]

Short of ever finding or seeing these items mentioned by Bill Earl, I wonder if any in-store items promoting Smile are still out there somewhere, or in a collection but being kept top-secret.

Here's another one from 1963:



And there is a small photo in the 2-fer booklets showing Brian in front of a store display with the "Party!" album bags of chips. Capitol apparently had 1 million of those chip bags made up to give away with the album, and correct me if I'm wrong but have none ever surfaced through the years? Or does someone have one of those bags stashed away somewhere?

Any in-store display items are very rare...anything with Smile would be over the moon, rocket-to-Mars rare. I hope some of this stuff surfaces in the wake of the box set if it exists.

YES!  It would be very cool for some display pieces to surface.  I, sadly, probably had a chance top buy the display piece you show, about 35 years ago, in Memphis TN. But I was pressed for time, and thought I'd ask on my next visit. When next I returned, not only was the store gone, but the building with it. ( A dreary day for me)