The Smiley Smile Message Board

hi everyone,

i recently rediscovered this tune while putting a mix together from itunes......i remember hearing it for the first time sometime in the mid-70s way down on the left side of the dial late on a sunday night and all i could think was 'wow, that sounds like the beach boys....'  flo & eddie were sitting in as co-hosts of a show and i couldn't tell whether this was 'serious music' or something from dr. demento......

i wasn't aware of the lyrics, but now listening to it, it's a great song with some great stuff about the beach boys and the beatles thrown in - did flo & eddie or the turtles for that matter do any other tunes that sound like the beach boys?

Well.... there's 'Surfer Dan' for starters.  From the Turtles' Battle of the Bands album.

I think Mark Volman is in Brian's famous "All my friends"  @ the airport picture.

Were Mark and Howard ever asked to join the group back in the day? Seems like it would have made alot more sense than Rickey and Blondie.

It's one of these? 

   (http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww302/bgasnow/1084930002271_beachboysphoto3.jpg)

 
   (http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww302/bgasnow/1082362677653_beachboysphoto1.jpg)

Yep. The guy with glasses to the far left in the first one.

Good; I always have trouble remembering which is Howard/Mark

Who's the girl at the front in the second picture?

I've never seen that second angle before

The girl in the front, meaning the one with the long blond hair? That was Jules Seigel's girl, the one that according to the famous story Brian thought she was a witch and had Vosse keep her and Seigel out of the studio later on in the Smile saga when it started to fall apart. It was either serious, or a put-on by Brian to keep them out of the studio.

But that's her, and Seigel is the one wearing the glasses and sportcoat in the very front of that same shot.

I love those photos: the fact that people seem to drift in and out of the camera range depending on which shot you're viewing is interesting. One shot has Van Dyke and Durrie, one has Diane, one has Jules Seigel, but then another in the series has those folks out of the shot.

I believe there are at least 5 of those photos from that series which have been published? At least I think that's what I have or have seen. Black and white doesn't do them justice.

Part of the Smile box set should be as many of those airport photos as possible...in full color of course. Please! :)

I see Van Dyke Parks and his wife Durrie, David Anderle and his wife Cheryl, Annie Wilson, Danny Hutton, Mark Volman, Dean Torrence, Michael Vosse, Marilyn Wilson, Diane Rovell, Barbara Rovell, Jules Siegel and his girlfriend, Terry Sachen, and I think Steve Korthof among others at L.A. airport waiting for the rest of The Beach Boys.

They were not waiting for the other Beach Boys at all that day, the photos were Brian's circle of friends outside the Beach Boys core group who was in another state at the time - that was one of the underlying themes of the photos at least in my opinion. This photoshoot was the weekend Brian and Michael Vosse flew to Michigan for the live premiere of Good Vibrations. On the plane ride back from Michigan, there are two versions of what happened: Either Brian had a radio message sent to Marilyn from the plane en route to LA to get the group together for a photo when he landed, or Marilyn organized it as a surprise gift for Brian (that version according to Mark Volman...maybe that's what he was told at the time).

Korthof is not in the shot, and I don't think Terry Sachen is there either: The mystery folks not normally mentioned in the Smile saga are Danny's girlfriend who he's holding hands with in one shot, and Dick and Carol Maier (or Mayer?) the blond guy and the girl wearing the scarf...of whom I know nothing about. And also Barbara Rovell's boyfriend is shown.

The group photos above were taken by Guy Webster. I read (from more than one source) the Beach Boys lousy attitude gave Brian Wilson a notion to have the participants of SMiLE meet him at the airport for a group photo. Brian phoned this congregation together at the spur of the moment on the airplane back from Michigan because he instinctively knew that his friendships and the creative atmosphere surrounding the SMILE sessions would be in jeopardy upon The Beach Boys' return.

Details are in Priore's LLVS book and Carlin's book (pg 108). Supposedly Sachen, who was Brian's driver at the time, was there too.

Any word on if The Turtles albums are due to be reissued? The old CD's on eBay are tagged at extortionate prices.

Where exactly is Sachen in the photos?  All the people are accounted for.

The account you gave is in several books, but keep in mind you're reading a biased account with the phrases "lousy attitude" and "instinctively knew". What evidence does the author base that on to tell that side of the story?

Also note Mark Volman said he was told the group was called together to "surprise" Brian on his return from Michigan. I'm assuming for now that may have been what Marilyn told the people in the photos to get them together. I do believe Brian sent the radio message from the plane, which was something usually reserved for emergencies, not the whim of a musician wanting to take a photo.

You couldn't "phone" something like that direct from the airplane at that time: a message would be given to the cockpit to radio that message to the ground, where it would be forwarded. The advent of the "radiotelephone" on airplanes was still several years in the future. That is why it was unusual for a message like that to even be considered aboard a flight in 1966, but that's how Brian apparently got the word to Marilyn. If that's the story we accept over Mark Volman's account.

Ask Priore and Carlin! I don't know! poo! I'm paraphrasing Dominic Priore and Peter Carlin! And Maybe Sachen isn't in the picture, but he was there according to Carlin and his source. It's all there in detail if you read Carlin's book, page 108.

Were you there, Guitarfool? You seem to know a helluva lot about who what where and why with that day. Though you can take Priore with a grain of salt, Carlin is even more credible as far as I can see! I'm sure there are other sources that can back up their stories....

Who the fuuck cares anyway???

I care

Nah, you don't give a rat's ass, Bgas. You just have the pictures. Did you know all the people in there? No, probably not. Where'd you get the second one - never saw that before.

Obviously I wasn't there and please don't take me the wrong way  :) I'm just getting more information out there about those shots and those people because I've done quite a bit of reading and fact-checking on that weekend for a writing project which is still "in the works" due to a general lack of information available and lack of free time (i.e. laziness) on my part.

The statement was made that Sachen and Korthof are in the photos, and they're not to the best of my knowledge and every shot I've seen. The statement was also made that they were there waiting for the Beach Boys and that's not why they were there - it was Brian and Vosse returning home from Michigan.

The statements about Brian getting a hostile reaction from the Beach Boys in Michigan or feeling as if the entire Smile era of creativity and hanging out with those friends was about to end after the Beach Boys returned home are assuming a bit too much, and those phrases I quoted are slanted to the negative, which is pretty easy to spot. I'm just offering the notion that there may be more to the story, not unlike the earlier report that Brian was hassled about lyrics in front of a CBS News camera crew during Smile, which went down as a fact for years.

One report we haven't mentioned states Brian was feeling paranoid on that flight home to LA because he had smoked weed prior to the flight, and these paranoid feelings hit him hard as he was on the plane and felt the immediate need to contact Marilyn as if it were an "emergency". Perhaps that's true - so we can add the drug element into the possibilities of why those photos were taken if we're putting it all in the mix.

Well, I don't know them all really well personally; mostly just to say hello, how ya doing, kind of thing

I can't tell ya where I get everything!

Here is one of the few angles where you can see everyone who was there at the airport, except for Dean Torrance who is partially covered by Michael Vosse's floppy hat. The photo in Bgas' post was published in Brian's Smile tourbook, I believe, in 2004-5, in color if I recall. At least that's one place I remember seeing it...I think. Corrections welcome!

(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/smileairport1.jpg)

From left: Danny Hutton, June Fairchild, David Anderle, his wife Sheryl, Mark Volman, Chrissie Jolly, Jules Seigel, Michael Vosse, Dean Torrance (hidden), Diane Rovell, Marilyn Wilson, Brian, Annie Hinsche Wilson, Barbara Rovell-Gaddy, Gene Gaddy, Dick Maier, Carol Maier, Durrie Parks, Van Dyke Parks.

There are a few more published shots available. I'd love to see the whole series...

Picture was taken in front of the TWA terminal at L.A. Airport.  How did I know that?

Bgas, where'd you get the second picture? C'mon, it's just between us.

Are those acetates that Durrie Parks is holding?

You must really be Guy Webster?

Edit/correction: June Fairchild is with Danny Hutton. Gene Gaddy is with Barbara Rovell-Gaddy.

The shot in Brian's tourbook has them facing the wall. My bad.

Guitarfool, did you find the details of how Brian "phoned" in the request on the airplane to Marilyn to have all those people assembled at the airport?

I guess maybe Priore's a little bit credible too these days since he did write four soft cover books on Smile and was selected to write a book to be included in the new Smile box set.  So I didn't mind transferring his viewpoints on the airport assemblage here. I know in the past his writing was questionable (to say the least) but I pretty much trust his judgement now.

Just as an aside, I think June Fairchild is one of the most stunningly beautiful women of the 60's. Danny Hutton suggested her stage name Fairchild while they were dating, and June suggested his band name "Three Dog Night" in return... :-D  Danny was a lucky man.

OK, what's Jules Seigal's girlfriend's name (the witch)? Then we'll know everybody there.

Of course Brian's the hippest one there in white Levi's and tennis shoes.....

There was no way for a passenger on a commercial flight to make a direct call from that flight to someone on the ground in 1966. It had to be done as I described in the earlier post, where the cockpit would radio the tower and they would in turn forward the message. But this was usually done only in emergencies. The technology that allowed passengers to dial and communicate directly from the airplane came some time later.

And June's original name was June Wilson, so she was fated to be at the airport for the photo. 
Gotta love her on that Kim Fowley Album cover!

How about that Fowley shot?! Damn! I didn't realize she was one of the harem girl dancers in the "Can You Dig It" sequence from Head.

Also...after checking further, the whole deal with the call from the airplane is described in the Carlin book just as I described it before knowing it was in the Carlin book with that detail. Anyway, that's how it was done in 1966, no doubt about it.

Guitarfool, do you have Peter Carlin's book on The Beach Boys?  Turn to page 108 and read the details there - about how the stewardess on the plane at first balked at Brian's request, then later delivered the message. Agreed that cockpit protocol dictated that pilots only radio the tower during emergencies - maybe there was another way, I don't know. I just want to say right here that I believe everything that I read.  :)

I said I just checked the book and there it was, but I wrote what I did before knowing Carlin went into detail about it. There was no other way for an airline passenger to communicate with someone on the ground in 1966, end of story. And having a civilian musician do this for non-emergency reasons was unusual for sure, but Brian did it. :)

Dominic Priore essay - from pages 290-293 of "Look, Listen, Vibrate, Smile"

In late 1966, Brian flew to Michigan State University to sharpen up the group's performance of "Good Vibrations" and lend his production touch to the "Live" master tape. Although this session helped prepare the touring group for their invasion of Britain (see pages 24-47), the group's attitude gave Brian Wilson a notion to have the SMILE participants meet him at the airport for a group photo by Guy Webster. Brian phoned this congregation together on the spur of the moment, on the airplane back from Michigan. for he instinctively knew that his friendships, and the creative atmosphere surrounding the SMILE sessions, would be in jeopardy upon The Beach Boys' return. These group photos feature Van Dyke Parks, David Anderle, Danny Hutton, Mark Volman, Dean Torrence, Michael Vosse, Marilyn Wilson, Diane Rovell and others posed with Brian at Los ANgeles International Airport.

So Priore's detail of events pretty much aligns with Carlin's source(s), right Guitarfool?  Brian's reguest was made during the flight back from Michigan.

Except they didn't have phones on planes in 1966...  unless Mel Brooks was ALSO on the plane and Brian used his Shoephone!

Priore suggests the group's attitude was the catalyst behind those photos, and suggests because of that reaction Brian "instinctively" knew Smile and his whole circle of friends was in trouble after the "Boys" got home, so he wanted a photo.

I say...where is the proof of that? It reminds me too much of the reports given of the Beach Boys harassing Brian over Smile lyrics as a CBS News crew was filming for Inside Pop. Where is the proof? Surely not in Oppenheim's notes.

Again, where is the proof? And where did I suggest Brian didn't contact Marilyn? What I said was Volman's memory was that Marilyn organized it as s surprise gift for Brian, casting doubt on the origins of it as told earlier. And I said Brian would not have personally phoned anyone from an airplane in 1966, which is true.

Mark Volman's recollections (with not much more detail about how/where Marilyn was asked to convey the message)

"I am not sure just how much I want to talk about this. I do recall spending many evenings up at Brian's house. One of my best friends was Danny Hutton and Danny was a really good friend of Brian's. We would go to the house with the sandbox and hang out. Brian would play tracks from his then unfinished album which he would eventually call "Smile." We would sit around a very long dining room table with headphones and .......... Listen, this stuff really has nothing to do with The Turtles and it always made me uncomfortable talking about it. It always made me feel like a groupie for Brian. I am glad Brian is doing better and his music was always exciting to watch metamorphose over time. I also felt that others were never given enough credit for his success. The photo happened because his wife Marilyn asked us all to come and surprise him at the airport. We went, someone shot a photo and it came out in a book. "Smile" must be available somewhere because I have many versions of it."

Badman alludes to the day at the airport in his book on page 153.  Reasoning behind Marilyn's request is that "Brian feels insecure and needs to be loved". One of the Webster pictures was blown up and hung on Brian's living room wall on Laurel Way.

Chrissie Jolly.

Noted! And added to the caption on page one.

Hang on, I gotta e-mail three different authors of Beach Boys books to ask them if their sources for information are reliable in relation to how and why Brian contacted Marilyn to have a group of friends show up at L.A. airport to meet Brian Wilson.

Don't have my Paul Williams book "How Deep Is The Ocean" available and my other contact (Tim White) passed away, so I can't ask him.....

Wait a damn minute!  I'm gonna e-mail Marilyn Wilson-Rutherford herself and see if she remembers the circumstances surrounding this historic day at L.A. Airport!  ;D  Yeah, that's the ticket!

While you're doing that, I'll ask Brian - that should cover all the bases nicely.

Check out the thread about  Labor Day Weekend 1961 and the various threads about early live Beach Boys shows for further examples of items written in BB's histories for years that turned out to be less accurate than assumed.

Mikie I have no issues at all with you but you started out in this thread posting inaccurate information about those photos, and isn't it worth correcting it if possible? If I'm wrong in my facts or my assumptions I'm hoping someone will answer with the correct information to set the record straight.

My issue is the way some authors jump to conclusions about various events to enhance a point of view - and when I see something that looks that way, I'll call it out - mostly because I took some of those jumps to be the facts, and that wasn't always the case.

There's no need to get sarcastic about it, but if you want to send those emails to those folks let us know what they have to say.  :)

(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/bbmichiganbright.jpg)

This is one of the few photos of Brian on stage with the band during rehearsals for the Michigan shows: I suppose we could ask Al, Bruce, or Mike if there was any kind of disagreement that weekend which involved them being negative, or we could track down Vosse and ask him what happened since he would have been there too.

Now you've done it!  NEVER show your soft side to mikie. He'll take that as an excuse to run roughshod all up your back side. 

Say, are you really Jimmy Robinson?

IIRC it didn't have anything to do with the other guys being negative. I think it was just one of Brian's spur of the moment ideas.

Here's what Vosse told me in '01: "This was pre-cellphone era and Brian got the notion after we boarded a flight... so this involved the captain of the aircraft etc. using cockpit phone so Brian could tell Marilyn to organize the shoot. A whim. The lighting was harsh, the gathered friends sleepy and irritated, so anyway we all look like Eurotrash criminals.”

"This is the trip during which Brian used his star power to get the pilots of the flight back to LA to call Marilyn or let him call her on their cabin phone to tell her to summon photographer guy webster and as many of his pals as she could round up, to meet the flight and take group photos at LAX.  She did, Guy was there (along with some unhappy campers who were unfortunate enough to answer the phone calls ) and photos were taken."

Me: The Velvet Steamroller

Who is Jimmy Robinson? I'm not him and I don't get the reference. Remember I'm the same guy who didn't get the "Groundhog Day" reference with Sonny and Cher. :)

I'm not into getting personal with anyone, it's just a debate but at the same time I think if there is mis-information posted or whatever, it can be refined or corrected without wagging a finger at someone. I have no ill will here at all, but this topic is of great interest to me and I spent a lot of time on it within the past year...and am always seeking more info.

Thanks Cam for the clarification - everything Vosse said lines up with what I've posted here, and I see no mention of Brian reacting to some kind of negativity he encountered with the Beach Boys in Michigan. I'm thinking perhaps Marilyn used the "surprise" request which Volman mentions to get them to the airport, since they didn't seem to happy to be there.

I submit: If that negativity from the band were as crucial to the story as Priore's account and others have written it, Vosse probably would have mentioned it in some way. Instead he described it as a "whim" of Brian's, and in fall of 1966 we know Brian was full of such "whims" to just go out and do something no matter how bizarre. So having a pilot radio the ground to contact his wife isn't too much of a stretch...considering this same man was considering having his friends walk into a bar and start an Old West-style barroom brawl as another whim.

Check this google reference to June:  http://armandsrancho.blogspot.com/2010/02/june-fairchild.html
One of the comments is from Jimmy , who is/was an engineer/recordf producer.  Isn't that what you do? 

That's cool, I just checked that link! I don't recognize the name Jimmy Robinson but it looks like he knew June and worked in some nice studios at a great time to be working in a big studio. I did co-own a local studio/production company at one time, but it was mostly local artists and nothing we had done there (yet... ;)) made it big.

I've probably said this before but sometimes if you ask directly the scene people, that have or we think they have given the impression the Boys were confrontational, if they witnessed any confrontations: the answer is no. Try it sometime if you get the chance. On the other hand they have witnessed Brian getting his way and doing whatever was his whim.

And if you're going to do it, do it SOON!!  People aren't getting any younger, yaknow.  ( except Mikie) 
Just sayin...

This goes to my earlier point about those accounts of this photo at the airport: There were *two* people who knew exactly what happened on that plane and the events leading up to it: Brian and Vosse. If Vosse doesn't mention the supposed conflict, then how did it get written into the story in such a way that people reading those accounts in various books will connect the idea of the Beach Boys being negative with Brian wanting to have a group photo taken at the airport? The quotes are there, yet Vosse who sat on the plane and was Brian's traveling companion that weekend doesn't mention what others have reported as the impetus behind that photo. At the end of it all, Brian in this case did get his way no matter how bizarre the request, where the pilot radioed the ground and most of the people showed up at the airport for a photo. That says a lot about the entire scene.

It is just my guess that they they are exposed to same sorts of "history" we are. It is my experience that they will tell the sort of party line we learned but when you ask, it turns out they are not telling it from their direct experience. Please, try it yourselves if you get a chance, maybe it is only true of the few guys I've been able to ask.

Well, you have talked to Vosse then, Cam? He said there that wasn't any confrontation? Isn't he one of them who said that the Boys resistance is what led to the demise of SMiLE? Not being confrontational my friend, just asking  :)

Yes. That is my recollection. Did he say that?

In the Vosse interview, he says 'A lot of the arguments that took place were between Brian and Mike. And a lot of people would go off into corners together-the sure sign that a group is in trouble'.

Maybe the lesson is don't trust a 35 year old memory or don't trust a 60 year old's [me] memory.

Maybe a little of both  ;D

To place this in the context, Vosse said that about the sessions that took place after the band returned from their October/November European jaunt and the immediately subsequent US Thanksgiving tour - the late November onwards sessions.

Context is so important as mentioned above: Vosse's comments were not about the Michigan concert nor the plane ride, again he said it was a whim of Brian's to get that photo session together from the plane. He says nothing about conflict related to the Michigan show weekend he witnessed firsthand with Brian - not ruling everything out 100% but just pointing out that he does not mention a conflict with the Beach Boys. I'm still wondering where that notion came from.

To his Fusion article: piggybacking on the late-November onward session timeline, he does point a finger squarely and in no uncertain terms at Murry and certain members of the Wilson clan to paraphrase him about those who *did* openly challenge Brian and question his decisions, with Murry going so far as to question "Good Vibrations" even as it was becoming a major hit on several continents.

The call from the plane thing.

Unlikely IMO but a call prior to boarding could become a call from the plane many years later . :smokin (know what I mean?)