Smile - Pocket Symphony Mix (100+ tracks in a single, continuous experience)

[Spoonito]

Hey everyone! After spending the last few months listening to every single piece of Smile-related audio I could get my hands on, I figured it would be selfish not to share my favorite arrangements and mixes with the world. I’ve brought together over 100 sources representing the best-sounding and most-interesting arrangements, mixes, mash-ups, demos, studio sessions, unused takes, comedy bits, and even some of Brian’s party recordings to create a single, continuous, 43-minute musical experience. I was inspired by Brian Wilson’s desire to make Smile a ‘Pocket Symphony,’ a total reinvention of the album as a new kind of musical experience. He generated an incredible volume of material, but in light of his well-publicized creative implosion that prevented the world from hearing the finished product, I've always felt many of his statements of intent from the time were written off as unfocused over-ambition at best… or madness at worst. From a 1966 interview with Brian: “I'm using some new production techniques that I think will surprise everyone. The album will include lots of humor - some musical and some spoken. It won't be like a comedy LP - there won't be any spoken tracks as such - but someone might say something in between verses. I never want it to get boring. When you’re stoned, 30 seconds feels like 2 hours."

This mix applies the unconventional quality of the individual pieces to the album as a whole, reimagining it not as a collection of songs but instead a single, continuous, psychedelic experience—a rhapsody that leaps from one idea to the next, incorporating comedy skits, studio tricks, and meandering musical interludes into its architecture. For me personally, hearing Smile this way felt like I was hearing it for the very first time, rendering all of Brian's heretofore-inscrutable ideas into a perfectly understandable gumbo, a vivid pointillist painting instead of 100+ colorful dots. Although it plays as a single conceptual experience, I’ve split the download into 12 gapless-playback tracks to simplify finding specific songs (and as a nod to the 12 tracks originally promised to be on the album). Here they are, with sources as best as I can remember:

1. Good Vibrations (unfinished w/ Western Session Outro Jam)
2. Our Prayer / Gee (Rehearsals and party dialogue mix)
3. Heroes and Villains (11 minutes and interwoven throughout I'm in Great Shape/ Barnyard/ OMP/ Sunshine/ With Me Tonight Mashup/ Vegetables/ Vege Fade/ Heroes and Villains Part 2/ Heroes And Villains Variations into Cantina section/ Fire/ Chimes/ Underwater chant/ I Wanna Be Around/ 3 Blind Mice/ Bridge to Indians)
4. Do You Like Worms? (With He Gives Speeches and Barnshide fade ending)
5. Cabin Essence (with instrumental prelude and mashup vocal ending into I Don’t Know outro Jam)
6. Cool Cool Water
7. Wind Chimes (w/ Syncopated bass and Piano Coda)
8. Smile Solo Piano Medley (I’m particularly in love with this… it’s every solo piano part I could find inspired by Brian’s love of Rhapsody in Blue, mixed some Vegitone party dialogue like we’re we’re just listening to Brian noodle around.)
9. Wonderful (with backup singing)
10. Look (with an original Good Vibrations assembly outro skit)
11. Child is the Father of the Man (w/ piano part, instrumental parts, BWPS, and Heroes and Villains)
12. Surf’s up (including and building off Daniele Catalucci’s comedy outro skit with Brian Falls into a Piano, with Tune X and some more comedy bits mixed in by me)

Google Drive Download Link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1yiDXbh-WYlZ6GbYxeUWRGneDs5lk7zc8

Special thanks to all the brilliant fan mixers who’ve been doing this much longer than I have—you are so generous sharing your time and talents and your work is all over this project. Without hyperbole I want to say that you’ve made my life a more wonderful musical experience. This is for education/information purposes only, no commercial application or infringement intended. This is a new and improved update to 2017’s “Cantina Sketches" Mix. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Sincerely,
Nick Confalone
twitter: @nickconfalone

Sources:
TSS Box Set
1967 Sunshine Tomorrow
Good Vibrations 30
Made in California
Hawthorne, CA
Vegitone 110, 111
BWPS
Seltaeb's Smile A.D. http://bit.ly/2GkkH4C
Daniele Catalucci http://bit.ly/2Dm5fBW
Soniclovenoize http://bit.ly/2FtUSle
IheartMikeLove http://bit.ly/2HslsYw
Summertime Blooz http://bit.ly/2Ikd3b2
sydsutcliffe's Alternate Smile: https://bit.ly/2GwMUV6

DETAILED MIX SOURCE SPECIFICS: Over 100 individual audio files are my sources for this, and here’s where they are as best as I can recall... Good Vibrations is the IHeartMikeLove mix that rebuilds it in stereo, segueing unfinished into a Western Session Jam mixed with a Vigotone vocal mix” carrying us to… Coming out of GV you’re hearing some unused Heroes and Villains piano tracks with Brian's Smile Party recording from Vigotone 111. It’s as though the boys are getting ready to begin a Sgt. Peppers-esque show within a show as we hear TSS’ Our Prayer dialogue and rehearsal takes into sydsutcliffe's stitch of the Our Prayer sessions. Gee is a combination of TSS dubbing session and Soniclovenoize’s stereo mix. Heroes & Villains begins with sydsutcliffe's durie parks mix, into Daniele Catalucci’s stereo mix, into the Smile A.D. mini-mix. I was inspired by the Piano demo where Brian links H+V to Great shape and Barnyard, so we take a quick diversion to TSS Great Shape before right back to HV next verse, then the flutter trombone segues us to Barnyard (soniclovenoize’s mix, plus my own original one), a comedy mashup of the two (my own mix incorporating Brian’s piano demo interview off TSS) into OMP/sunshine (Summertime Blooz and TSS), before seguing into Saltaeb’s mashup of With Me Tonight/Vegetables (which is made from several different Vegetable mixes combined by me), into Saltaeb’s mashup of the Vegatables Fade/Heroes leads to a stripped-down reprise of HV with acoustic rehearsal chorus from 1967 Sunshine tomorrow and a vocal verse with the backing track inserted. In the Cantina section, after “you’re under arrest,” I go into a mashup of Fire/chimes (got the idea from the Smiley forum!), then into nedstuff’s mashup of Underwater Chant /I Wanna Be Around. Three Blind Mice is used as tag after I Wanna Be Around, segueing via Bridge to Indians into… Do You Like Worms is BWPS’s verses with Soniclovenoize’s pre-chorus and chorus and there’s some Endless Smile in there too I believe. He Gives Speeches off TSS links to the sunshine fade (from alternative smile mix I think) followed by a bit of Brian’s Smile Era Party recording where he yells “Put on another tape!” Cabinessence has such a beautiful instrumental arrangement put together from TSS in the alternative smile mix that I open with it, into my own mix combined with Summertime Blooze’s for the chorse vs verse, with an extended Grand Coulee Dam section mixed from soniclovenoize’s combined with Saltaeb’s vocal mashup. TSS’s  “I don’t know” made the perfect outro to me with the banjo feel. Wind Chimes is a few sources including summertime blooz’s mix for the syncopated bass section but I also love the Piano Tag, which I added some party sounds underneath… As Heroes and Villains is throughout the album, this leads into a personal mix of Children Were Raised, to a Heroes and Villains Part 2 chant that uses another TSS piano part as a bridge into... Wonderful is Sydstutcliffe’s and Summertime Blooz’s mix with TSS backup singing added in by me. Look is several mixes together (Smile AD mostly) going into an original assembly of a bunch of TSS’s Good Vibrations sessions for a little comedy bit before… Child is the Father of the Man, a combination of about ten things because it just keeps sounding better and better the more I combine… TSS, Alternative Smile Mix, BPWS, Daniele’s, Summertime Blooz’s, and Saltaeb’s) then a final Heroes and Villains chant mashed-up over Darien Sahanaja’s amazing bridge into Surf’s up which is a mix of a bunch too but my brain is fried writing all this down, so… let’s just be done.

[Spoonito]

Almost forgot a youtube link if you want to stream it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njoq7-4KMYc

And if you're in a hurry, here's two moments in the mix that stand out as my favorites:
Smile Solo Piano Medley coming out of Wind Chimes Piano Coda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njoq7-4KMYc&t=28m15s
Look segues into my compilation of Brian layering Good Vibrations and goofing around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njoq7-4KMYc&t=34m15s

N

[JK]

Hi, Nick. Thank you so much for letting us in on the end result of what must have been a colossal job (read: labour of love).

I've bookmarked it for when I have more time. :=)   

[The LEGENDARY OSD]

Oh Spoonito! Never have I heard such an awesome interweaving of this incredible music. The segues and running order would be difficult to match by, well, anyone! I only hope that Brian gets to hear it and love it like I certainly did. Kudos, man and thank you, just thank you!

[Lee Marshall]

   WOW!!!    Brian said back when BWPS was released that  he'd put the project on hold back in the day because people just weren't ready for 'it'.  I disagreed...based on the 2004 configuration.  I figure people would have lapped that up like the magic elixir that it became.  Then there's this different jigsaw picture.  I appreciate the time and effort employed to deliver this but I have to tell you... ... ...NEVER, under the influence of absolutely nothing artificial or ingested have I ever felt so much like I am actually "stoned to the tits on acid."

Concentrating completely on this audio file as I have been now for 30 minutes of your presentation is reminiscent  of something I haven't felt since the last time I 'experimented' back in 1971.  Physically too I might add.  Like I said...   WOW!!!    Brian was right.  Generally speaking...folks would not have been ready for this 51 years ago.  Not if it had THIS affect on them.  THIS is as close to capturing an acid trip 'on record' as I have ever heard...except...when I was 'listening'.  

Thanks for the trip.  It's been won won wonderful...but 35 minutes in now...it's 2:42 AM and I need to get back to bed...

To be continued.  Child is the father of the man...indeed...

----------------------------------------

Couldn't turn it off...2:50.  NOW I've gotta turn in.  I'm welcome.

[Spoonito]

AHHH!!! Lee, thank you for the play by play  and OSD thank you for the kind words! I'm so grateful to all of you for opening MY mind to all the possibilities! So many ideas came from forum threads of yesteryear! 

Someone pointed out there was a youtube encoding error during Cabin Essence, so I've re-encoded it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As4IFTifnIk
... and don't worry, the mp3 downloads are unaffected! 

[thorgil]

Wow. Simply Wow. When one has listened to dozens and dozens of Smile mixes, doesn't expect to be blown away by the umpteenth one, yet it's what happened to me listening to yours. I consider this simply the best ever, with no offence meant to the many excellent ones. Thanks so much for creating and sharing (and re-encoding !) this psychedelic masterpiece.
Ah, I found also your fantastic 18-minutes Heroes & Villains, a dream come true. You fully realised what I have always thought, i.e. that Smile is inifnite because it's a fractal structure, where the parts are as complex and rich as the whole. And in fact, your H & V is as rich as Smile itself.
Thanks again!

P.S.
I forgot to add that imho yours mix is the nearest one to what a completed Smile should have been. I still think that, if released in 1967, Smile would have been much different, and somewhat disappointing, just like the released H & V, though very good taken by itself, was a pale shadow of what if could have been. It would have been a dozen very good songs, but hardly world rocking.
But your mix sounds like a good approximation of what could have come out if all the stars had aligned right, instead of wrong, and Brian had had all the support he needed (instead of some "support" he didn't need at all...). And maybe such a thing in 1967 would have Blown the Empire out of the Galaxy...  
 

[thorgil]

There is a Smile mix where the "With Me Tonight" (Smile take) chorus is mixed with the instrumental start of "Do You Like Worms" and it works PERFECTLY (it's rather exhilarating, indeed). I'll try to "recover" it and post a link.

[mike moseley]

There is a Smile mix where the "With Me Tonight" (Smile take) chorus is mixed with the instrumental start of "Do You Like Worms" and it works PERFECTLY (it's rather exhilarating, indeed). I'll try to "recover" it and post a link.

the 'on and on' bit fits - the chorus doesn't

[thorgil]

You're right, it's the "On and on" bit which was synced. However, I found that mix:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCEDU-Y_idM

I think that 1:04 to 1:40 is pure genius.

[thorgil]

Ah, here is Spoonito's mega-H & V:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arpt53KsHO4

It features (from 15:55 to 16:59) the very best version of "Barnshine", which must be one of the best pieces of music ever recorded.

[Spoonito]

You're right, it's the "On and on" bit which was synced. However, I found that mix:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCEDU-Y_idM

  ;DWOW you're right-- that "on-and-on" overlay... so good!   It perfectly captures what I love about Smile, the myriad ways these pieces fit together like a musical fractal. I'm sure if I hear enough nuggets like this I'll end up cracking open the mix again. My obsession with segues must come from loving The Dead/Phish   or Girl Talk, who used to make 40-minute mashups with hundreds of songs layed on top of each other in amazing ways (if you're curious  , start here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB7C3JN_TsU). But it's been nice to finally clean my desk up of the 100s of index cards scrawled with things like "vege/on-and-on same key link" and "windchime -> piano?"  

One thing I noticed in assembling all this material from various mixes around the internet... it was surprising how Heroes and Villains was so modular. It seemed like it fit everywhere, throughout Smile, like it was one and the same at times. I found a post on another forum that explained a bit about that feeling I was getting and led me to expand Heroes and Villains into the whole album, as it were. My thinking was, if Heroes and Villains was derived by condensing Smile, then it might be cool to expand Heroes and Villains and integrate it with Smile. (In making this I also really came to appreciate the inrony that Heroes and Villains lived up to the duality of its name-- cobbling it into a hit single was Brian’s only shot at buying himself the time he needed to finish Smile, but doing so meant cannibalizing so many musical ideas that Smile was left unfinishable... It was both Hero and Villain!). Here's the post verbatim:

"I suspect "Look" was abandoned because he took the "doo doo doo doo doo...." part and used it at the end of "Good Vibrations". This is the first Smile associated theft which killed a perfectly good song for the sake of a single. "H&V" took this to new extremes:

"Worms" lost it's chorus to "H&V". "Old Master Painter" lost it's fade to "H&V". "I'm In Great Shape" lost it's 'tape explosion' thing to "H&V" (though IIGS was part of HV in the first place so...), the 'sliding strings' thing of "My Only Sunshine" was stolen for "H&V" (see early takes of 'prelude to fade'), the laughter section of the cantina was stolen from "Vegetables", the chorus of "Cabin Essence" mutated into the H&V intro.

Who killed "Smile"? "Heroes and Villains" killed 'Smile'. "

Obviously there’s no definitively right or wrong way to reconstruct the musical pieces in the same sense that if you walked into a room with playing cards all over the floor, you can’t put the deck back together and definitively say this is how it was supposed to be. HOWEVER. If I told you Brian Wilson had just stormed out of there because he was THIS close to finishing a game of solitare, you might reconstruct the deck in ascending numerical order by suit, because now you understand HOW the cards got thrown all over the floor. In my attempt to put the pieces of Smile back together, I wanted to understand exactly HOW it fell apart in the first place; Heroes and Villains cannibalized something from almost every part of Smile as a whole until Brian had nothing left to release. In a very literal sense, then, Heroes and Villains is Smile, so if the question is what is Smile…? The answer is it’s Heroes and Villains.     (That's just the principle I followed to build the mix, I'm not saying this is anything difinitive or historically accurate or anything!  )