Darian and SMiLE

[SMiLE Brian]

That makes sense.

It's funny -- I've been arguing a lot of points here, although mainly in defense of BWPS. But I do think that there's no question it's a separate thing from the original sessions. Closely connected yes, but clearly a different beast (and, toward the end, one that comments on itself in the new VDP lyrics).

So I have no problem making the distinction, and also no problem saying that those original recordings are magical. And that original BB blend cannot be topped. Absolutely not.

But -- all of that being said -- I think BWPS has its own authority and integrity, and it doesn't come just from the fact that Brian authorized and performed it. It comes from the fact that Van Dyke was there. And Darian. And that the BW band put so much of themselves in re-creating the music in a way that honored yet didn't threaten their boss.

Because if there's one tangible difference between the versions, it's that BWPS is almost aggressively upbeat. It is driven, and it is looking ahead, and it does not look back, and it is not scared or sad or melancholic. It is joy and triumph, but it is a joy and triumph of determination and effort. The original sessions are haunted by ghosts, and full of unfulfilled potential. The joy is found in seemingly boundless inspiration that would soon become too bounded indeed.

I actually COMPLETELY agree!
Listen to AlternateBrianWilson Presents SMiLE, Specifically CIFOTM, it is so dark and mysterious!

Especially the part with Murry's voice spliced in.

[FatherOfTheMan Sr101]

Absolutely, that's some scary sh*t!

I am a huge fan of the melancholy sound of SMiLE, which is why H&V on BWPS was a big let down for me...

[Jonathan Blum]

...So you prefer your own mental perspective on what Smile could/should have been like, to the actual finished album as released by the guy who created it.

Yes, folks, "Smile" as released in 2004 is very different from what "Smile" would have been like in 1967.  "Smile" as would-have-been-released in 1967 is very different from "Smile" as would-have-been-released in 1966.  It was always a moving target.  The idea that it's still capable of moving even after 1967 (or 1971, or 1973) is a bit of a headspace-shift, but not really an impossible stretch to make.  So it's all been re-recorded?  "Smile"'s been built on rough-draft pieces being partially or completely re-re-recorded with different players ever since the second day of recording on "Good Vibrations".

None of the changes make "Smile" -- the released Brian Wilson album -- any less legitimate or authentic or true than "Smile" the unfinished Beach Boys album.

As usual with these sorts of exclusive canon/dogma debates, the problem comes when people try to present it as either-or.  "BWPS is not Smile"?  No.  BWPS is Smile.  And The Smile Sessions version is Smile.

Neither set of recordings is Smile-the-myth-the-great-unfinished-legend-of-an-album -- which I suspect some fans are more invested in than the actual music.  But when it comes to the actual work?  We aren't the ones who get to define it, the creators are.  (The creator to whom being "much different" still doesn't stop it being "Smile".)

Cheers,
Jon Blum

[Jonathan Blum]

Also, let's all admit that the elephant in the room here is Brian's mental illness. One of the reason the 66-67 stuff is revered is simply because Brian was absolutely in control of it -- perhaps the last time in his career we know for sure that to be the case. A lot of folks simply feel that Brian is not the same man today as he was then and therefore doesn't have the same creative authority to decide how his work is presented.

It's the idea that we therefore have that authority to decide instead of him which doesn't stand up.

No matter how you slice it, we had even less to do with producing Smile than he did!

I think the notion that BWPS is Smile because Brian says it is... might be a precarious place to make your stand. Do you think its a sure thing once the Smile sessions box is out and being promoted that Brian is going to be saying that BWPS is Smile and the box is not? I would not make that bet.

It's still his call rather than ours.  If he changes his mind?  That's his prerogative.  Heck, he could be like Ridley Scott and keep putting out new variations on "Blade Runner" every few years -- he can do that.  Doesn't mean we can't like a previous version better than what he sees as the definitive one.  But at the end of the day, it still isn't really ours to define...

Cheers,
Jon Blum

[ghost]

What if BWPS had Time To Get Alone & Diamond Head - still Smile?

[tansen]

Like Andrew said, BWPS is a version of SMiLE, but it's not the SMiLE. Nobody can argue with that.

[ghost]

BWPS is neither Smile nor not-Smile. It is not different, not similar. Dig?

[Micha]

Then, roughly 13,150 days later (aged 60, several breakdowns behind him as well as decades of sustained and considerable substance abuse, binge drinking, exploitation, chemical control, divorced and remarried with two newly adopted children) he was told that to revise Smile was the next logical step in his solo career.

I'm sorry, I forgot that Brian is now a helpless and uncreative vegetable that had absolutely no input in BWPS whatsoever. Thank goodness there were people who were able to cover his old works.

I just think describing as a 'cover' is underselling it slightly given that it was still recorded by/with the participation of the original creator (albeit 37 years later).  Can you really 'cover' your own material?

I think of it as a re-recording personally.  But these are just labels really and quite unimportant.

This is the argument I follow.

My own personal view is that had he finished it in '67 it would have been a whole different beast,

No doubt about that!

but if he and VDP say this is the finished SMiLE, then I accept it as that.

So do I, unless someone proves to me they said that for marketing reasons only.

I notice that none of you people who want to disregard the original sessions

You know, although I regard BWPS as the finished SMiLE, I don't "disregard the original sessions" at all.

But to say that the latter "IS" Smile, and that, by implication, the earlier sessions are NOT, is ludicrous.

I don't imply at all that the earlier sessions aren't SMiLE. As someone else stated here, they BOTH are SMiLE. The 1966/67 recordings exist in a never finished limbo, SADLY. The 2004 album is a finished original work.

I yam what I yam; it is what it is.

Blow me down, it is!

My biggest gripe with it is just the sound of the thing.

Mine too, BWPS doesn't sound near as good as the 1966/67 recordings.

What if BWPS had Time To Get Alone & Diamond Head - still Smile?

Must be a reason it hasn't!  

[Micha]

...So you prefer your own mental perspective on what Smile could/should have been like, to the actual finished album as released by the guy who created it.

Yes, folks, "Smile" as released in 2004 is very different from what "Smile" would have been like in 1967.  "Smile" as would-have-been-released in 1967 is very different from "Smile" as would-have-been-released in 1966.  It was always a moving target.  The idea that it's still capable of moving even after 1967 (or 1971, or 1973) is a bit of a headspace-shift, but not really an impossible stretch to make.  So it's all been re-recorded?  "Smile"'s been built on rough-draft pieces being partially or completely re-re-recorded with different players ever since the second day of recording on "Good Vibrations".

None of the changes make "Smile" -- the released Brian Wilson album -- any less legitimate or authentic or true than "Smile" the unfinished Beach Boys album.

As usual with these sorts of exclusive canon/dogma debates, the problem comes when people try to present it as either-or.  "BWPS is not Smile"?  No.  BWPS is Smile.  And The Smile Sessions version is Smile.

Neither set of recordings is Smile-the-myth-the-great-unfinished-legend-of-an-album -- which I suspect some fans are more invested in than the actual music.  But when it comes to the actual work?  We aren't the ones who get to define it, the creators are.  (The creator to whom being "much different" still doesn't stop it being "Smile".)

Cheers,
Jon Blum

I agree with you.

[rab2591]

...So you prefer your own mental perspective on what Smile could/should have been like, to the actual finished album as released by the guy who created it.

Yes, folks, "Smile" as released in 2004 is very different from what "Smile" would have been like in 1967.  "Smile" as would-have-been-released in 1967 is very different from "Smile" as would-have-been-released in 1966.  It was always a moving target.  The idea that it's still capable of moving even after 1967 (or 1971, or 1973) is a bit of a headspace-shift, but not really an impossible stretch to make.  So it's all been re-recorded?  "Smile"'s been built on rough-draft pieces being partially or completely re-re-recorded with different players ever since the second day of recording on "Good Vibrations".

None of the changes make "Smile" -- the released Brian Wilson album -- any less legitimate or authentic or true than "Smile" the unfinished Beach Boys album.

As usual with these sorts of exclusive canon/dogma debates, the problem comes when people try to present it as either-or.  "BWPS is not Smile"?  No.  BWPS is Smile.  And The Smile Sessions version is Smile.

Neither set of recordings is Smile-the-myth-the-great-unfinished-legend-of-an-album -- which I suspect some fans are more invested in than the actual music.  But when it comes to the actual work?  We aren't the ones who get to define it, the creators are.  (The creator to whom being "much different" still doesn't stop it being "Smile".)

Cheers,
Jon Blum

I agree with you.

Indeed. I really don't understand the resistance to BWPS as being SMiLE. It is Brian presenting SMiLE (as the title states). In 2004 Brian recorded what he wanted recorded, and released it as an album. Thus he finished it...thus it is definitive. Because he went back and re-recorded it does not make it illegitimate. It just makes it what it is. There was no SMiLE 66/67...however there is a released SMiLE that Brian calls finished...how this is so hard to grasp is beyond me.

[AllIWannaDo]

 

[AllIWannaDo]

oops 

[AllIWannaDo]

That makes sense.

It's funny -- I've been arguing a lot of points here, although mainly in defense of BWPS. But I do think that there's no question it's a separate thing from the original sessions. Closely connected yes, but clearly a different beast (and, toward the end, one that comments on itself in the new VDP lyrics).

So I have no problem making the distinction, and also no problem saying that those original recordings are magical. And that original BB blend cannot be topped. Absolutely not.

But -- all of that being said -- I think BWPS has its own authority and integrity, and it doesn't come just from the fact that Brian authorized and performed it. It comes from the fact that Van Dyke was there. And Darian. And that the BW band put so much of themselves in re-creating the music in a way that honored yet didn't threaten their boss.

Because if there's one tangible difference between the versions, it's that BWPS is almost aggressively upbeat. It is driven, and it is looking ahead, and it does not look back, and it is not scared or sad or melancholic. It is joy and triumph, but it is a joy and triumph of determination and effort. The original sessions are haunted by ghosts, and full of unfulfilled potential. The joy is found in seemingly boundless inspiration that would soon become too bounded indeed.

I actually COMPLETELY agree!
Listen to AlternateBrianWilson Presents SMiLE, Specifically CIFOTM, it is so dark and mysterious!

agree with this, BWPS is a positive and joyous take on SMiLE, probly as its still carries thru the live performance momentum from his band, it's less contemplative, subtle and gentle.
Also the dynamics/accents in the mix's between the 2 really differ alot (more so in some sections than others like Fire etc) , which can make a huge difference in what emotions it conveys to the listener.
An example (altho totally dif music) is Marvin Gaye's 'What's going on', on the deluxe edition they've also included the rejected and unreleased Motown mix of the album, the difference is unbelievable in what it projects and conveys, it changes the whole dynamics of its content lyrically and musically.

i think this is the crux of what the dif with BWPS and SMiLE 66/67, the performance, mix and execution are very very different to each other - there's alot of albums remixed/remastered that show improvements/impairments/changes in the finnished piece - if dif people make a cake to the same instructions, with the same ingredients - you dont really get the exact same cake, thats what makes us human, its the human element involved in this that surely bring out the dif vibes

[AllIWannaDo]

great thread this by the way, really interesting thoughts - Darian defo helped facilitate BWPS massively, that cant be indoubt, that BWPS informs TSS alittle, implies Darian's influence has helped us finaly arrive at the impending TSS.

Something ALOT of fans, and obsessives must be thankfull for finally getting their hands on - after all this is the most famous unreleased Boot in popular music.
That it's now coming out as a Session Boxset seems the best presentation for this 'album' - Like alot are saying, the source never was finnished, but it put down some roots that are finaly coming back up thru the soil

we've had...
Smiley Smile
GVBS - 30 odd mins of Smile stuff
BWPS Live
BWPS - Recorded

and finally the actually sessions that started the whole thing off
that has got to be seen as brilliant book end to this fantastic period of BB's

[SloopJohnB]

They should have named BWPS "Brian Wilson Presents the Smile Sessions" or "Brian Wilson Reimagines Smile". It would have been closer to reality and this thread wouldn't even exist.

Or would it? 

[AllIWannaDo]

They should have named BWPS "Brian Wilson Presents the Smile Sessions" or "Brian Wilson Reimagines Smile". It would have been closer to reality and this thread wouldn't even exist.

Or would it? 

seems abit pernickety tbh - BWPS kinda does what it says on the tin, and links in with his live BWPS tour he'd been doing

[ghost]

Listen up guys, I just put Smiley Smile on blasting through my 25 watt marshall amp with the EQ and gain set to my liking.

Let's get something straight about Heroes & Villains: The Beach Boys vocals will never be topped by anyone, ever. There is enthusiasm and a youthful glow to their voices that Brian's band DOES NOT HAVE AT ALL. Brian's voice was unmistakable back in the day - for its strange alluring quality. On BWPS it takes some explaining to get into it. I tried to get friends into it around 2004 and some did take the bait but under the understanding that "This is the old man re-version, not the real deal as it should've/could've been" - Smile is a sustained myth by now, and listening to BWPS is often largely an imaginary experience only aided by the album itself. It's a What If mystery all the way through. Nothing ever completes the myth, it just keeps morphing around certain basic archetypes, certain skeletal structures of thought in which the concepts roam.

Carl Wilson has a great quote in an article from the 60s that "things just happen" and that they never felt like they were doing anything - it was all being done. That's my paraphrasial take on his meaning reflected back into my particular understanding. The problem with Brian's band is that they are too self-aware of their place. The Beach Boys were a living entity not done before in that exact way - it was new, spontaneous, real. Brian's band are tuning into a dead thought, basically, and imitating it for recreation. It's The Bible, instead of Christ walking around with stones in his sandals. Smile in 1966 and 1867 to this abstracted "I" of chaos mind is 'avant garde' or whatever you want to call it. It's definitely not fluff pop like Harper's Bizarre. That music has always sounded faceless to me, well done but without depth. Brian went abstract - think of the parts that eventually became Cabinessence! BWPS is a live performance on most tracks right? It's not record verse / record chorus / splice together, right? That defeats the whole point of Smile as far as I'm concerned. Smile seemed like it would have been an album utilizing the genius techniques in Good Vibrations that gave the world a taste. After all, if the people enjoyed the jarring edits in Good Vibrations [not bad cut ins, just obviously not one band live entire song] then surely they would enjoy Heroes and Villains, Cabinessence... right? Brian seems to have been a very idealistic fellow in his early twenties and perhaps even still is just in a crushed, defeated, now shattered and saint like way, but one can easily imagine him flying on some substances and thinking he's onto the most progressive sound in modern pop - at least when considered within the context of his contemporaries. I realize there was a LOT of music around and strange music has always been around but that it was Brian Wilson channeling these LSD consciousness songs like Do You Like Worms is just very, very intriguing. On Smile 1966 or whenever Worms was done I forget, it has an eerie, mystical, LSD trip like psychedelia to it - the Bicycle Ryder section is all the proof Bill Tobelman needs that Smile is LSD inspired Zen rock. It sounds just like you drifted off into an acid dream. It's entirely absent on BWPS. If that satisfies the rest of you then I guess that's ok by me but I'd rather take the fragments of the real deal, the mystical harpsichord over Darian's lame samples and phony touch keys with no life to them because they're just digital. The reverb is all wrong on BWPS too, it doesn't work in stereo as it does in mono! Hello - Phil Spector! Mono! I thought this was a Brian Wilson record? What's this stereo sh*t? I think all the devoted fans should voluntarily be hit in the ear with a 2 by 4 so that we can join Brian totally in the Vision of the Mono - Vision of the One - the None - the No-Thing - Smile is Zen rock, transmitting the doctrine beyond words - wahalalulei wahalalula keeni waka pula, wahalulei wahalalula keeni waka pula wahalalulei wahalalula keeni waka pula, wahalulei wahalalula keeni waka pula wahalalulei wahalalula keeni waka pula, wahalulei wahalalula keeni waka pula wahalalulei wahalalula keeni waka pula, wahalulei wahalalula keeni waka pula. That part is pretty good on BWPS - I dig how Brian does it live actually with his knowing Smile to the zen freaks in the audience. Maybe Brian was into the mystical Hawaiin religion where you tune into your subconscious and unconscious to manifest magic in the word. Is Smile magic? Is Smile Zen? Here's Bill with the weather -

[rab2591]

They should have named BWPS "Brian Wilson Presents the Smile Sessions" or "Brian Wilson Reimagines Smile". It would have been closer to reality and this thread wouldn't even exist.

Or would it? 

LOL. This would imply that there was an original completed SMiLE to begin with....you can't reimagine an album that never existed in the first place.

As you said earlier, Brian re-recorded songs he wrote in 1966/67 in 2004. He added lyrics with help from his original SMiLE collaborator Van Dyke Parts. He assembled the songs into a cohesive manner - allowing the use of his element suite, his bicycle trip, and his spiritual songs - and then he released the songs....how this does not make it a legitimate version of SMiLE is beyond me. He IS the artist. He is the composer...thus, as has been said numerous times above: he is the only one that gets to define what it is. If he wants to call it SMiLE then it is SMiLE.

Your version of SMiLE doesn't exist, never has existed, and will never exist. However Brian's finished version does exist...he said so.

[SloopJohnB]

They should have named BWPS "Brian Wilson Presents the Smile Sessions" or "Brian Wilson Reimagines Smile". It would have been closer to reality and this thread wouldn't even exist.

Or would it? 

LOL. This would imply that there was an original completed SMiLE to begin with....you can't reimagine an album that never existed in the first place.

Ok, let's say "Brian Wilson Reimagines the Smile Sessions". Ha! What now?

Your version of SMiLE doesn't exist, never has existed, and will never exist. However Brian's finished version does exist...he said so.

It exists, and it isn't Smile. Except for the wifeandmanagers.

[AllIWannaDo]

this is where the thread becomes a tad like the Boxset Thread which ive tired of going on now...

before it was interesting, now its about 'wife and managers' and ''I'm right cus i said so, nope I'M right cus I said so....''
lets keep this on topic, that way its much more fun and pleasantly informative at times

[ghost]

The original Smile does exist - in Imagination. This is the living myth. Each fan has the original Smile. This is the secret & the final truth. Smile is within us all. The smile that you send out returns to you. Indian wisdom. Smile is not something "out there". It's "in here". Dig it, guys. You dig Worms, right? Easy.

[LostArt]

I had no idea that so many here regard BWPS to be the Smile.  That seems to be the opposite of the majority of views expressed on the boards back in '04.  I happen to like BWPS.  When I saw Brian and his band play the piece in October of that year, I was absolutley blown away.  One of the best concert experiences that I've had in all of my 55 years.  When I bought the CD, I played it a lot...probably too much.  There are some great things on that 2004 presentation of the Smile music.  That second movement still blows me away.  The musicianship is great, the recording is fine, the vocals are all good, although Brian is...well...older (which works to an advantage on some songs, and not so much on others).  I never cared if the harpsichord or tack-piano were sampled.  They sounded good to me then, and they still do.  I don't play BWPS very much anymore, though, and there are reasons why, but it's difficult to put into words.  

The '66-'67 recordings have something magic in them.  I (and others) have called it the 'spook' factor.  That, to me, doesn't necessarily mean that the original recordings are scarier or darker (although in some cases they are).  I guess the 'spook' could be a number of factors.  Yeah, recording techniques, vintage equipment, etc. have something to do with it, that's obvious.  There was something else happening, though.  The environment has to be considered.  The world, and perhaps especially L.A., was going through some big changes in 1966.  Morals were changing, music was changing at a frantic pace, it was an age of exploration.  Experimentation with various narcotic substances, experimentaion with various philosophies was the norm among the young and young at heart.  Brian Wilson was no exception, and you can hear it in the music that was recorded for Smile back then.  This was 1966.  Nothing like this was being recorded in L.A. in 1966.  Magic.  Alchemy.  In a nutshell, I think that is the 'spook'.  I can hear that 'spook' whenever I play the original sessions.  That is what is missing in BWPS.  

So, are the '66-'67 sessions "Smile"?  Nope.  The Brian Wilson of 1966-1967 never finished it.  So, BWPS is finished, so that must be "Smile", right?  Nope.  The spook still lives in 1966 with 20-something year old Brian Wilson.  They're both not around anymore.  "Smile" can never be, because it never was.  

edit: I think ghost just said it better than I could, about 5 posts above.  Perhaps he'd add to my last sentence 'Smile will always be, because it always was'.

    

[onkster]

Yeah, people complain about the sound of BWPS...on CD. But I also recall hearing people say BWPS sounds amazing on vinyl. (And please...spare me the whole vinyl-is-God thing. It's apples and oranges to me...)

BUT...I do recall asking a couple years back if anybody had done a needle-drop of BWPS...or perhaps talked the good Dr. Ebbetts into doing so. Did this ever happen?

I would love to add a needledrop to my SMiLE library...if only I could find one...

[LostArt]

Yeah, people complain about the sound of BWPS...on CD. But I also recall hearing people say BWPS sounds amazing on vinyl. (And please...spare me the whole vinyl-is-God thing. It's apples and oranges to me...)

BUT...I do recall asking a couple years back if anybody had done a needle-drop of BWPS...or perhaps talked the good Dr. Ebbetts into doing so. Did this ever happen?

I would love to add a needledrop to my SMiLE library...if only I could find one...

I never had a problem with the sound of BWPS.  I think it sounds great.  It's missing something else.

[ghost]

Yeah, people complain about the sound of BWPS...on CD. But I also recall hearing people say BWPS sounds amazing on vinyl. (And please...spare me the whole vinyl-is-God thing. It's apples and oranges to me...)

BUT...I do recall asking a couple years back if anybody had done a needle-drop of BWPS...or perhaps talked the good Dr. Ebbetts into doing so. Did this ever happen?

I would love to add a needledrop to my SMiLE library...if only I could find one...

Damn man me too... I heard Joanna Leary's Cow on vinyl [it's on YouTube] and it really does sound good. I've been looking for a vinyl rip of BWPS for YEARS.