The Mike Vosse 1969 interview from Fusion

[juggler]

Although it was a big part of the BEAUTIFUL DREAMER doc! I think going with Mark London's work was the right choice for BWPS - it compliments that album just fine. Frank Holmes' work is best saved for the BB SMiLE box set.

Very well put. Save the real art for the real music!

Well, okay, and when is this "BB SMiLE box set" coming out?  10 minutes after NEVER.

[Dove Nested Towers]

Ye of little faith, my son...

[A Million Units In Jan!]

And never once have I thought of the original cover as being 'not well done'....

[Bicyclerider]

Well, by "dumb" I guess vosse means primitive.  But that was the intent - and a major move in art of the 60s with art borrowing from cartoons and comics and popular culture.  Brian ahead of the curve as usual.

[Cam Mott]

Frank was inspired by the Hairy Who school which was hot in Chicago; I think they had just had their first major exhibition at the time.

[doinnothin]

That link to the interview is dead. Any chance of a repost or a PM? Thanks.

[doinnothin]

Found one: http://www.thebeachboys.ch/Forum/viewtopic.php?p=4249

[onkster]

So it ends with the Cabinessence bit? It feels like it should go further to me, on quick examination...

[Bill Tobelman]

This is a great piece of recorded history.

Given Vosse's statements it will be interesting to see how much humor stuff is in the SMiLE Sessions release.

[puni puni]

All links are dead...

[Chocolate Shake Man]

Although it was a big part of the BEAUTIFUL DREAMER doc! I think going with Mark London's work was the right choice for BWPS - it compliments that album just fine. Frank Holmes' work is best saved for the BB SMiLE box set.

Very well put. Save the real art for the real music!

Well, okay, and when is this "BB SMiLE box set" coming out?  10 minutes after NEVER.

I was wondering what time it was.

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

Although it was a big part of the BEAUTIFUL DREAMER doc! I think going with Mark London's work was the right choice for BWPS - it compliments that album just fine. Frank Holmes' work is best saved for the BB SMiLE box set.

Very well put. Save the real art for the real music!

Well, okay, and when is this "BB SMiLE box set" coming out?  10 minutes after NEVER.

I was wondering what time it was.

And *I* was wondering if anyone has a new link to this interview? All the old ones are indeed dead.

[buddhahat]

Although it was a big part of the BEAUTIFUL DREAMER doc! I think going with Mark London's work was the right choice for BWPS - it compliments that album just fine. Frank Holmes' work is best saved for the BB SMiLE box set.

Very well put. Save the real art for the real music!

Well, okay, and when is this "BB SMiLE box set" coming out?  10 minutes after NEVER.

I was wondering what time it was.

And *I* was wondering if anyone has a new link to this interview? All the old ones are indeed dead.

Bit Groundhog Day this but ... I have a print out that I can scan later and post. Hopefully it'll be legible.

[metal flake paint]

Although it was a big part of the BEAUTIFUL DREAMER doc! I think going with Mark London's work was the right choice for BWPS - it compliments that album just fine. Frank Holmes' work is best saved for the BB SMiLE box set.

Very well put. Save the real art for the real music!

Well, okay, and when is this "BB SMiLE box set" coming out?  10 minutes after NEVER.

I was wondering what time it was.

And *I* was wondering if anyone has a new link to this interview? All the old ones are indeed dead.

Here ya go:

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,17157.msg430386.html#msg430386

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

Although it was a big part of the BEAUTIFUL DREAMER doc! I think going with Mark London's work was the right choice for BWPS - it compliments that album just fine. Frank Holmes' work is best saved for the BB SMiLE box set.

Very well put. Save the real art for the real music!

Well, okay, and when is this "BB SMiLE box set" coming out?  10 minutes after NEVER.

I was wondering what time it was.

And *I* was wondering if anyone has a new link to this interview? All the old ones are indeed dead.

Here ya go:

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,17157.msg430386.html#msg430386

God bless you, sir!

[Julia]

Revisiting this thread...

I agree with the posters who mentioned this article is notable for what it does NOT say as well as what it says. It was a satisfying irony that I was directed to this and his other fantastic interview in TeenSet magazine, in order that I should see that Wind Chimes was air. Yet, Vosse has multiple times to raise that connection and chooses not to--even describing WC as "a music box sound" as opposed to "airy breeze/wind carrying vibrations" or anything of the sort. Vosse even specifically references the Nov 4 vocal experiments and thereby calls attention to their importance in the overall project. He describes what we now call "Swim-Swim" or "Undersea Chant" and says Brian intended it to transport the listener to Atlantis. And yet there are people who still deny any connection to Water Chant (and the Water element itself), give me a break.

I can't help but be melodramatic about this, so please indulge me, we're all fans after all...

In my mind, there are 3 great primary sources of the SMiLE sessions: Vosse, Anderle, Siegal. Roughly in order of importance, though Anderle's close to Vosse while Siegal is a distant third. Siegal's account did more to create the myth at the time, but he's since been accused of exagerrating and he doesn't go as in-depth. Vosse says less overall (just the two articles I mentioned) but he really gets into some specifics, has been vindicated by history, goes into the breakdown more thoroughly than anyone, and focuses on some of the more fascinating but less "obvious" aspects of the project. (Brian and Van practically always talk about Heroes & Surf, if anything else gets mentioned it'll be Wonderful and CE. Vosse talks about the Barnyard suite, Wind Chimes, Veggies, the Psychedelic sounds, things like that.) Anderle gives probably the most extensive narrative outline in Leaf's first book (the SMiLE chapter is basically an extended Anderle memoir) and some lesser but still important musings in Crawdaddy.

Because the importance of these sources were so hyped to me back then, I half-jokingly referred to them as the "Synoptic Gospels" of SMiLE, three overlapping accounts of the same story with different emphases and biases. Now I think it's more like Anderle is Mark (narrative skeleton), Vosse is Q ("Sayings" and scattered reminiscences), Siegal is the "Double Tradition" of things shared between Luke and Matthew but not Mark. These three formed the groundwork for all the books (gospel-equivalents), later developments (acts-equivalents) and message board theorizing (epistle-equivalents) which forms the ongoing mythology of SMiLE. Along the way, other primary sources have added some specific anecdotes but, no overarching accounts on the same level (if Hutton, Webster, Holmes, Volman, Jay Robbins, the Rovells, Williams or Gordon have ever published significant memoirs of their time with Brian, I implore anyone to tell me). These are the equivalent of like, the materials unique to each of the three synoptic gospels of Jesus, just fleshing out details. This is the well of information, along with hard documentation and whatever half-baked oft-repeated, frequently contradicted, basic factoids you'd get from Brian and Van.

Then the various books that drew from this common pool of info as was available to them, they are like the gospels telling the same story with notable differences to satisfy the author-editor's unique agendas. Like how Matthew compiles Jesus' teachings into 5 discourses, Gaines frames Brian's descent with the stark differences between the freestyle Laurel Way house with the fortified Bellagio mansion. Or as Mark uses the motif of Jesus' disciples not understanding his message, Leaf is prone to emphasize how Brian was victimized by those around him. Luke ties progression with geography, Badman chronicles things day by day. John has long discourses and miracles to slowly reveal the whole power of the Logos, AGD breaks things down song by song to slowly reveal the band's development. It's wildly different subjects, across two millennia of history, but the same basic principles apply. Only a few primary sources write things down in any kind of depth in a timely manner, and then this compounds.