SMiLE rarities

[Sheriff John Stone]

What percentage of art is given to the public free of charge for the sake of art?

Is it 0%?

Even if it's less than 1%, then I still want the SMiLE rarities to fall in that percentage. Hey, if you read my above post, I wrote that I was probably being naive.

[Mark H.]

IMO if she has them, and does own them....they are a part of their family heritage and would be due fare compensation...art or no art....should they decide to sell them.  There's no ethical or moral issue to debate.  Brian has made millions off his art.

I had heard here or somewhere that there were some Smile era acetates that came into Durrie's possession as a result of her divorce...yeah she might have just found them in an old trunk or something...I'm assuming she retained posession to that stuff.

[Mahalo]

What percentage of art is given to the public free of charge for the sake of art?

I understand if she wants to be properly compensated, but IMO it would be wrong to take advantage of the situation out of greed like Heather Mills(    ).

[Jason]

to take advantage of the situation out of greed

[Chris Moise]

It seems odd to me that they didn't at least audition the Parks acetates during the preperation of BWPS. Why write a vocal melody and new lyrics for, let's say, CITFOTM without at least listening to the most finished '66 version? (assuming there is a CITFOTM in Durrie's collection). I was really frustrating that with all the hoopela surrounding BWPS we still don't know what the CITFOTM lyrics were or what Great Shape was.

[Andrew G. Doe]

From what I have read in this thread NO ONE has said that Durrie got them from a divorce settlement (notice Mark H. was just asking the question, not stating a fact):

Ok, point taken. Just add "If Durrie obtained acetates through divorce....." before reading the posts that upset you. Emphasis on the word "if".

She did - when I went to Van Dyke's house for a wonderful evening in March 1985, I was told, without prompting that he couldn't play me anything from his collaborations with Brian as "my first wife got everything in the divorce - I suggest you contact her".

A further point - they're acetates, ergo you play them too much, they degrade very badly. How much is too much ? I've been told 20, maybe 30 times... plus, they were literally left lying around: Alan used to have a cardboard box full in his studio. You factor in nearly 40 years of careless handling & storage along with their being played to death in 1966/67, I'm thinking all you'd get is mono hiss.

[XY]

Once again regarding missing SMiLE pieces that were recorded: Back in the day they recorded over the complete first instrumental session for "Heroes & Villains" for example. So everything's possible. And I do believe (only speculation!) that Brian erased a lot of vocal-work that he became unhappy with.
BTW, from what I've read, BRI did try to get hold of the Durry Parks acetates. I contacted her two or three years ago (and before you kill me, I'm a free person and allowed to do that) and she confirmed that she still has all this stuff -acetates, tapes & videos (?) in her words.
Even more interesting IMO would be the H&V tapes Brian did for the BB to learn their vocal parts. I think Bruce & Al mentioned those in different interviews. So I guess Brian sang all the parts himself for the boys and perhaps he did guide-vocals for other SMiLE tracks, like he did for PET SOUNDS.

[LostArt]

From the archives of this very site, for those interested who haven't read this stuff:

 http://thesmileshop.net/index.php/Durrie_Parks%27_Acetates

[Chris Moise]

From the archives of this very site, for those interested who haven't read this stuff:

 http://thesmileshop.net/index.php/Durrie_Parks%27_Acetates

Thanks for posting that. Some of those Peter Reum quotes really frustrate me.

"Brian and Van are such creative guys that they wouldn't have to hear Durrie's acetates to finish Smile"

"Durrie's stuff was unnecessary. If there is material she has that is not on the finished composition, it probably truly is an outtake, and would be interesting only for an archival release of the session sketches, like outtakes from Pet Sounds on the Pet Sounds Boxed Set (e.g. Brian screwing up the verses to WIBN)..."

[Julia]

The myth will never die.....it's like the Energizer bunny.

You know the rest.

But yeah, Van Dyke's a little weird when it comes to discussing his contributions to Smile. Even Beautiful Dreamer did VERY little to inform us further. I suppose there are just things about Smile that we're just never going to find out. Perhaps it's for the best.

It's for the best because it makes great discussions, even in these post-BWPS days.

When Jon Hunt asked Van Dyke (before BWPS) whether he wrote lyrics for Child, he answered yes - but didn't elaborate on whether he had written verse lyrics or just the chorus (one line - child is father to the man).

Which is what bothers me about Van Dyke Parks. Thanks, Van Dyke, don't tell us what you know. Keep the/your myth alive. I know a secret and I'm not telling....

I find this annoying too. I understand Brian being cagey and contradicting. What I don't understand is VDP always reiterating the same dumb Heroes (wrote the first line on the spot), GV (cello triplets) and SU (Dennis...) stories for the umpteenth time but never going into any other song's conception. Or he always goes into the album as it existed in those first few brainstorming sessions but never how it changed. He never talks about the Psychedelic Sounds, nor what Mike actually did besides that one CE incident, nor sheds any light on the exact circumstances of his leaving. (Give us a date, what was that conversation with Brian like, why'd you come back--what convinced you...)

My most charitable theory is Van defers to the early stuff because it's all he can remember before the drug haze and Brian constantly changing everything. But your less charitable theory is certainly a possibility too. In any case, in the 2005 Priore book Van says CIFOTM was supposed to be an instrumental, but the very existence of chorus vocals and its repetitive structure in Brian's test edit precludes that. It's not like CIFOTM was another Holidays or Look--worked on once or twice then never again. It was remade, it was worked on next to CE and I believe on through Dec. It wasn't a minor track at the time, it became one as its lack of vocals (which were repeated on SU) rendered it a glorified intro to Surf by default.

[BJL]

I find this annoying too. I understand Brian being cagey and contradicting. What I don't understand is VDP always reiterating the same dumb Heroes (wrote the first line on the spot), GV (cello triplets) and SU (Dennis...) stories for the umpteenth time but never going into any other song's conception. Or he always goes into the album as it existed in those first few brainstorming sessions but never how it changed. He never talks about the Psychedelic Sounds, nor what Mike actually did besides that one CE incident, nor sheds any light on the exact circumstances of his leaving. (Give us a date, what was that conversation with Brian like, why'd you come back--what convinced you...)

My most charitable theory is Van defers to the early stuff because it's all he can remember before the drug haze and Brian constantly changing everything. But your less charitable theory is certainly a possibility too. In any case, in the 2005 Priore book Van says CIFOTM was supposed to be an instrumental, but the very existence of chorus vocals and its repetitive structure in Brian's test edit precludes that. It's not like CIFOTM was another Holidays or Look--worked on once or twice then never again. It was remade, it was worked on next to CE and I believe on through Dec. It wasn't a minor track at the time, it became one as its lack of vocals (which were repeated on SU) rendered it a glorified intro to Surf by default.

Quick, what were you working on in October and November of 2005?

I was in High School. I could maybe, if I spent a ton of time thinking it through, come up with what classes and activities I was in and who my main friends were. But what was I thinking? What assignments preoccupied me? What were we working on in those classes? What was the AP Euro midterm essay on? What were my friends and I talking about? Forget it. The only way to get detailed, new recollections out of someone, beyond the mythologized stories that *everyone* tells about their own life, and uses as a shorthand to describe to others and to themselves what they were like in college, or how their first job went, or whatever it is, would require confronting Parks with evidence. Not: what do you remember about Smile? But, let's listen to acetates of Child is the Father of the Man and see what it brings up. But even then, you're guaranteed to be distorting the stories you get based on how you ask the questions or what material you present, and a lot of things just might not be remembered. Brian and Darian did some of that in 2004: they confronted Van Dyke Parks with the material they had, to see what he remembered, and it sounds like he did remember some things. But other than that, there's not really any way to get these kinds of memories out of someone unless they really, really trust you and they are personally motivated to explore that part of their life. And Van Dyke Parks seems to have complicated feelings about all this, which makes total sense, and not all that much desire to make Smile even more central to his legacy as an artist than it already is.

[Julia]

Quick, what were you working on in October and November of 2005?

I was in High School. I could maybe, if I spent a ton of time thinking it through, come up with what classes and activities I was in and who my main friends were. But what was I thinking? What assignments preoccupied me? What were we working on in those classes? What was the AP Euro midterm essay on? What were my friends and I talking about? Forget it. The only way to get detailed, new recollections out of someone, beyond the mythologized stories that *everyone* tells about their own life, and uses as a shorthand to describe to others and to themselves what they were like in college, or how their first job went, or whatever it is, would require confronting Parks with evidence. Not: what do you remember about Smile? But, let's listen to acetates of Child is the Father of the Man and see what it brings up. But even then, you're guaranteed to be distorting the stories you get based on how you ask the questions or what material you present, and a lot of things just might not be remembered. Brian and Darian did some of that in 2004: they confronted Van Dyke Parks with the material they had, to see what he remembered, and it sounds like he did remember some things. But other than that, there's not really any way to get these kinds of memories out of someone unless they really, really trust you and they are personally motivated to explore that part of their life. And Van Dyke Parks seems to have complicated feelings about all this, which makes total sense, and not all that much desire to make Smile even more central to his legacy as an artist than it already is.

I get it. I could tell you some of my classes, friends, overriding predilections, but not details. It's not totally Van's fault, he should've been asked about this or (in the interests of history) offered his perspective a lot sooner than the mid-late seventies or whenever he did his first interview. Memories are imperfect as-is and absolutely fade over time. I look at some of my old diaries and stuff from high school and I'm like "oh wow, I forgot that happened!" That said, I remember "big things" like breakups, emotionally charged conversations, when I got/left a job, WHY I left a job. One would think that for VDP, as a relative nobody in the bizz, to tell arguably the biggest man in the industry (Van has described Brian in words to this effect himself) and a potential ticket to future references/success, "I can't do this anymore, I have to leave this madhouse" that'd be a memorable moment. Unless things just kinda fizzled out, but even that would be memorable in its disappointment ("I wanted to keep working on it, but he stopped taking my calls!")

I absolutely agree that if you want more than vague platitudes or disconnected anecdotes it helps to present evidence. One of many reasons I think reporters and documentarians through the years have dropped the ball. I mean, maybe there's hours of outtakes for Beautiful Dreamer where David Leaf had access to the tapes and played them to the principals to job their memory, or read them the most provocative excerpts from previous books, but I doubt it. If TSS had been released twenty years earlier I think we'd have so much more info than we do. All the same though, I find it hard to believe VDP couldn't tell us about more songs than just Heroes and Surf--the music was out there even when Don Was asked him in the 90s if he really needed a refresher. I think Van just resents the project and Brian to some extent and doesn't like talking about it--like Alec Guiness in Star Wars--he thinks it's somewhat beneath him.

[BJL]

I think Van just resents the project and Brian to some extent and doesn't like talking about it--like Alec Guiness in Star Wars--he thinks it's somewhat beneath him.

In his heart he must know it's the best and most important thing he ever did. But I think I'd be a little resentful too in his shoes. Among other things, simply the fact that this incredible work he did got buried for so long would be a reason to be resentful. And then that as it came out over time it sort of continuously overshadowed the rest of his career would be another reason to be resentful, from the opposite direction...