New Smiley Smile Tribute Album

[Pretty Funky]

Lets get off the Mike threads for now. Sounds pretty sweet!

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http://endhits.portlandmercury.com/endhits/archives/2013/11/06/listen-to-portland-bands-cover-the-beach-boys-smiley-smiles

Listen to Portland Bands Cover the Beach Boys' Smiley Smiles

Posted by Ned Lannamann on Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 10:02 AM


As we lose another hour of daylight, it's fitting to turn to sunnier-sounding music to warm our bodies from the ears on out: Brazilian tropicália, perhaps, or Jamaican rocksteady—or those kings of California, the Beach Boys. To that end, 11 Portland artists have covered the Beach Boys' 1967 album Smiley Smile, the weird but magnanimous record put together from the infamous, aborted Smile sessions. (It's such a strange album, where luscious mini-symphonies like "Good Vibrations" and "Heroes and Villains" butt heads with downright oddness like "She's Goin' Bald" and "Wind Chimes.")

Portland Smiles was spearheaded by Jesse Bettis—of the band Rio Grands and formerly of Oh Captain, My Captain and Rocky and the Proms; his latest outfit, the New Move, takes on "Vegetables" here. Other contributors include Radiation City, Dave Depper (his "Wind Chimes" is a slow-mo freakout for the ages), and Typhoon. Everyone's sounding like they're having a lot of fun with this genuinely wacky material—and special plaudits to Adam Brock and Colin Jenkins for credibly tackling "Good Vibrations" and "Heroes and Villains," respectively.

Courtesy of Tender Loving Empire, we've got stream of the whole thing here for you to check out. You can buy the album as a digital download from TLE and you can also get the accompanying beer coozy—hop over to Tender Loving Empire to score those. Meanwhile, on Friday, November 15, the Eagles Lodge on SE Hawthorne will host the record release show, with performances by Rio Grands, the New Move, Church of Surf, and Adam Brock, followed by a "beach party karaoke block"

[EgoHanger1966]

Only 30 seconds in and the guy doing H&V gets the majority of the lyrics wrong (can't tell if it's on purpose), and feels the need to change the word "city" to the word "shitty". Damn hipsters.

[FatherOfTheMan Sr101]

ugh really ugh.... "back in the shitty"

[Pretty Funky]

Damn old farts critiquing every detail.

Just go with it for what it is.

 

[EgoHanger1966]

Damn old farts critiquing every detail.

Just go with it for what it is.

 

I think you'll find that both of the people who commented 21 or under, so....  

(the Good Vibes cover wasn't bad)

[Andrew G. Doe]

H&V - sucks. I mean, it's really, really terrible to the point of being insulting.

Vegetables - interesting approach, I like it.

Fall Breaks... - great farty synths... oh, no, then it goes all... sucky. HM guitars. Blah.

She's Goin' Bald - kooky, and in a good way. :-)

Little Pad - too much reverb

GV - not bad, in a minimalist way

WMT - pretty faithful, pretty good. But damn these people loves them some reverb !

Wind Chimes - again, not bad. Again, sounds like it was recorded at the bottom of a very deep well with the mike at the top. Gorgeous tag, mind.

Gettin' Hungry - choruses are fine. Verses suck.

Wonderful - quite lovely, but again, way too much reverb and that spoils it for me.

Whistle In - cute acoustic treatment, nice sub-Hawiian chant vocals. Nice closer.

[Cabinessenceking]

H&V -  unlistenable. People have strengths and weaknesses in life. His singing ability does not fall under the former.

Vegetables - trippy as hell and a

Fall breaks - synth part is very groovy, guitar part not so much.

She's Goin Bald - very interesting that they recorded the different sections in such a variety of styles. Very cool use of effects and tasteful instrumentation.

Little Pad - there is much reverb in this one but I think it is a very beautiful and certainly very true to the original.

GV - easily the hardest to do, since the original is so iconic. Good effort and it certainly has some appeal with me, but some of the vocals sound very bland and boring (especially the chorus). Also I feel the singers slur with the words a little to much. Very hard to replicate the seemingly effortless tender vocals of Carl on this one.

With Me Tonight - nice use of organ in this track. some vocals are slightly dodgy but they really did pull this challenging tune together. The percussion part and bell is creative but how much does it fit in?

Wind Chimes - easily the best on on here. Great use of bass heavy synth and organ and the vocals manage to convey the 'worried' vocal and make the tune sound very haunting, even more so than the original. Heck this was a pretty commendable effort.
The best part: It sounds as if Van Dyke Parks is singing this treat Could be right off freaking Song Cycle itself if it had more vintage production.
Whisperin Winds section was very nice as well. Best fan version of a Beach Boys song imo.

Gettin' Hungry - very heavy on reverb but cool production and very true to the original. not sure about the 'megaphone' processing of the vocals though. Overall a pretty decent effort.

Wonderful - Very pretty vocal production, nice to hear a womans vocal on this. Very creative bridge section (original SMiLE Vega-Tables fade). The effect on the 'na nan anana' outro is of very poor choice however and leaves a disappointing aftertaste.

Whiste In - remade into folk song? cool idea. This was a fun ending of this cover album.


Overall some very good moments, others were painful to listen to but I got much more out of this than I thought I would. I recommend anyone reading this to at least give Wind Chimes a listen  


edit: Wind Chimes a goshdarn must-listen for any Beach Boys fan. My mind is blown by that.

[puni puni]

Oh Christ these arrangements are so cliche and "modernized" that they make a DX7 sound like a Steinway.

[Alex]

At the end of She's Goin' Bald it sounds like they used the "chorus" sound on a Casio keyboard my family had when I was a kid.
This keyboard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_SK-5   

Came complete with lion, laser, and dog sounds.

[Pretty Funky]

At the end of She's Goin' Bald it sounds like they used the "chorus" sound on a Casio keyboard my family had when I was a kid.
This keyboard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_SK-5   

Came complete with lion, laser, and dog sounds.

At 50 sec Stamos gets a nod.  

BTW. On Spotify now for me.

[chrs_mrgn]

A lot of hate in here!

It really has the sound that a lot of Portland bands have these days. The whole DIY / lo fi music scene

Personally I liked vegetables and little pad the best

Wind chimes was REALLY well too.

[Please delete my account]

I liked this a lot. Due to the remarks on here, I skipped H&V and only listened to it last of all. It was indeed very annoying.

But I thought the rest was great, especially coming solely from one scene in one city, with no hope of much remuneration. And considering most groups probably didn't get to work on their first choice. A lot of work gone in here.

Whistle In was probably my favourite, for doing something completely different with the song that still worked. Gettin' Hungry gets very exciting at the end. And yeah, Chimes and Vegetables and Bald.

[Gertie J.]

Veggies is cookin!

[sockittome]

On behalf of Oregon musicians, I must say this is really........














........embarrassing

[Don Malcolm]

Mmmm....just imagine what these folks could do to All Summer Long.... 

[theCOD]

Changing "city" to "shitty" in H&V is so idiotic I feel personally insulted. Pure garbage.

[dynomike]

Changing "city" to "shitty" in H&V is so idiotic I feel personally insulted. Pure garbage.

yes.  what the f***!!!  other than that, H&V wasn't as bad as y'all made out, some interesting moments.  cantina section is out of place on a smiley smile version though, duhhh.

Vegetables - that half feel backbeat sucks.  really.

Fall breaks - This rocks. No complaints throwing up the  horns.

She's going bald - interesting, but shitty. not that the original was a masterpiece.  torn between my desires for something good, and something interesting (see below)

Little pad - as others have said, too much reverb, but enjoyable cover.  indie easy listening.  not interesting tho.

GV - apart from that bendy guitar in the chorus, nice cover!  easy to listen to.  not super interesting. kudos to accurate tamborining.  actually the bendy guitar is growing on me by the end.

with me tonight - too much reverb, shady lead vocal (sounds like on purpose :$) another friggin half feel beat.  i hate that.  nice background vox on this one though!

wind chimes - excellent, i was expecting a bit more variation from the original though given the comments here.

gettin hungry - synths, beat, chorus section are great. could do without those ultra-indie verses, yuck.  when i heard the drum fill at the end, i was afraid the beat was gonna come in... HALF FEEL... but thank god it came in rockin.  very nice!

wonderful - not my favorite vocal, but i really like the arrangement and production!!  <3 my favorite

whistle in - more or less what i hoped for, coming from portland.  they sure love their half feel beats... its appropriate here.


Overall well worth the listen.  Easily the worst part is when the guy says "shitty" at the very beginning.  WHYYYY

[Cabinessenceking]

did no one like any of it? I keep getting back for Wind Chimes.

[donald]

Damn old farts critiquing every detail.

Just go with it for what it is.

 

Old farts rule!

[runnersdialzero]

I realize I'm two months late to this, but it really sounds like the guy who did "Heroes" is... well, not someone who regularly speaks English. I'd even think so outside of the "shitty"ness. Listen to him also say "malgalitas".

[Andrew G. Doe]

runners - always at the cutting edge of breaking news. 

[sockittome]

Two months later and I still don't like it.....

[RangeRoverA1]

I won't dip into detailing every track, just will name the highlights & good sides of this tribute.

- Heroes & Villains: the "radio" intro; lead vocal overall until the girl's voice kicked in; the overdriven guitar outro. Also, I agree with RDZ that the singer is a foreigner, otherwise the text wouldn't make sense - judge for yourself: "I've been in this town so long that back in the sh-it-ty I've been taken for lost and gone...". We're talking adjective vs. noun (city).

- Vegetables: the sonic effects & change of beat in the 2nd verse.

- Fall Breaks: sheer coolness from start to finish, esp. the hard rock guitars. In fact, I liked that segment better than the synths (save owl).

- She's Goin' Bald: the seesaw, choral laughter with chipmunks in-between & more dissonant sounds. Best use of reverb.

- Gettin' Hungry: my 2nd favorite after "Fall Breaks". Some of it - say, intro - sounds like a Japanese neo experimental music. A-1!

- Wonderful: very imaginary, I'm like in a fairy tale. Love the echoing. The last goat-y "Na-na-na" is a terrific way of ending.

Wasn't impressed by the rest. Still thanks to Pretty Funky! Nice to hear sth. fresh & obscure.