The Smiley Smile Message Board

GILES Martin seems to have found his niche with the Beatles, just as his father did 40 years ago.
The son of "fifth Beatle" George Martin shared production duties on the "new" Beatles album, Love, remixing original material to create new versions of classics such as Get Back and Strawberry Fields Forever.

Now the younger Martin may tackle some of rock's other classic material. He has been approached by former Beach Boy Brian Wilson about remixing the Californian band's material, including the album Pet Sounds.

Wilson was inspired to write and produce the Beach Boys' masterpiece in an effort to top the Beatles' Rubber Soul, produced by Sir George. Pet Sounds was, in turn, influential on the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, also produced by Sir George.

Wilson approached Giles Martin after hearing Love in the setting for which it was created. Cirque du Soleil's show Love has been a sell-out in Las Vegas.

"Brian heard the music and saw the show and loved it, which for me is just fantastic," Martin said in Sydney yesterday. "They asked me if I would be interested in remixing some Beach Boys stuff, remixing Pet Sounds."

The latest Beatles album, which was approved by surviving members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr as well as Olivia Harrison and Yoko Ono, melds snippets of Beatles songs into one track. Martin said he would stop short of doing that to Pet Sounds. "You can only do mash-ups for a reason," he said.

"Otherwise it would just be 'Giles Martin goes and destroys bands' projects'. We did this (Beatles album) for a show."

Unless the band is Led Zeppelin, that is. "Led Zeppelin interests me. I'd love to sit down with (guitarist) Jimmy Page and discuss doing something like this," he said.

Martin said he and his father were given approval to work with all of the Beatles tapes in any way they wished. The only stipulation was that they had to use material that was already on tape, except for Sir George's new string arrangement on While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

"What I got from this is that as a four-piece band, the Beatles really played. You hear them play Come Together and it's them playing as a band. There's no studio trickery," Martin said.


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This is a shame...I't Could of been rather intrsting.

Well then...
For a similar acid test & treatment you could try out Alex Brennans audio 'Last Smile of the Pied Piper' for size.

More interesting would be Brian asking him to do the SMiLE tapes, the bitty nature of the tunes on there would mean that they could slot together any which way, with lots of the alternative stuff that weren't used in that or BWPS.

Good.  It would be like giving the Mona Lisa another coat of paint.

You mean something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu7G67A2H28

(shameless self-promotion, sorry)

That Never fails to amaze me...

Just wondering!!!..Where do you get all your Rare footage??

The Paul McCartney-footage is from the Mal Evans Home Movies 1966/67 DVD. From the day he met Brian, wearing the white suit and red shoes Brian remembered in interviews.
Carl riding the bicycle comes from a "Little Honda" promo film, filmed by Dennis, but put together later (by Alan Boyd?).
The rest is from the Brian Wilson A&E Biography, An American Band & E! True Hollywood Story.

Splendid footage indeed!

Was the Paul McCartney footage shot at Brian's house?

I don't think its a shame. I'm relieved and I think its nice that Giles Martin has integrity and taste.

Well yeah..But it could of been really intresting....Love is amazing..

But i'm not losing any sleep over it.

...Integrity is the issue, and I am glad that Giles has enough of it to refuse the project, He appears to have the class of his old man...

No, probably at Derek Taylor's house. The house number is 84xx and Taylor is standing next to the pool. Macca is waking around filming kids playing in the pool.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but anyone care to point out exactly in the article where Giles says he won't remix Pet Sounds ? 'Cause I can't see it. He says he'd stop short of doing a mashup of the album a la Love but he doesn't say he's turned down Brian's approach.

It's great to see all that footage with some of the more obscure Smile music as a soundtrack.

On the subject of Smile mashups I'd love someone like Dangermouse to do a hip hop mashup of the smile sessions in a similar vein to the grey album. That could be unbelievably good.

I would love to hear a Beach Boys album similar to the Love album. But they'd have to use the entire BB catalogue, not just Pet Sounds or just Smile.

I would love a Cirque de Soliel show to go with the Beach boys soundtrack of life. The first half of the show being surf/car/love songs and the second half going with the more psychadelic baroque pop era...stuff from Smiley, Wild Honey, Friends, Sunflower, Holland, etc...

And ofcourse the end of the show will be Pet Sounds stuff, Wouldnt it Be Nice, Sloop John B, Here Today, and God Only Knows...

You'd really need to end such a show on an uptempo note. The PS stuff is mostly too slow for that, it should be something faster-paced.

For the record, I have no interest in a remixed BB mashup album and have no plans to get the Beatles' Love soundtrack either.

Have you heard anything from the album yet? I think it's brilliant. Much more interesting than I thought it would be.

says who? :shrug

I think it would make more sense to start fast on an up tempo note and than bow out slow. Like Sgt. Pepper ended with A Day In The Life and Pet Sounds ended with Caroline No, but they both started with fast dynamic numbers to get people in the mood.

I just listened to this album, and think a similar project would work great using bb material, using the entire catalog. Take the greatest harmonies and instrumentals and mash it up and highlitning the really cool moments and stuff. Lots of harmonies and stuff are so hidden in despers complex sunflower and surfsupmixes. Having fun with those tracks and isolating stuff would be perfect. wild honey also has some cool tracks that (besides a regular stereo mix of course), could really benefit with a treatment like this making some sort of rnb/soul passage. TFor example, the harmonies of "here comes the night" sounds incredibly powerful acapella and up front.