The Smiley Smile Message Board

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/word-podcast-171-with-very-special-guest-van-dyke-parks

Some good Smile stuff 12 mins in ish

September date?

Frank Holmes artwork

Didn't know Beatles reviewed Smile on the invitation of Derek Taylor

Brian failed by system

He hasn't heard it yet

Plus much much more

That's up for debate. Highly doubtful.

That's what he said

I may be late to the party here, but I didn't know the singles were already up at Amazon (and have been since May 10?) - and they are REALLY good, very Song Cycle/Discover America VDP!

Best solo stuff he's done in a long time, in my view.

Where can one order the vinyl singles with the designer covers?

Yep, that's his story... and he's sticking to it.

Ditto the assertion that Smile is coming out as 3 LPs.

Say what you want about VDP... He's remarkably consistent in interviews, unlike his good friend, Brian.  :lol

Yeah! Just saw that the other day. The Paris single is really good. I think Parks has got a great thing going here - releasing small symphonies of music instead of an entire album. And the collaboration for the cover art is a great idea. Can't wait to hear more!

The vinyl singles are as of yet unavailable; my understanding is when they do start selling them, they will only be available by buying a subscription for all 7 of them; this information should be available soon from bananastan.com. The first two singles are available for downloads now at itunes.

http://bananastan.com/

Ordering is now Available for the VDP 7" series.  $70 shipped to the USA, $90 to the rest of the world. I signed up just now!! 

7" Singles Series by Van Dyke Parks
Be the first on your block to subscribe to the first 6 releases of Van Dyke Parks' new singles project! The singles ship the date of release, the first two in this series ship August 16; the third single will follow in October. Look for each subsequent 7" single to arrive about every 2 months, for a total of 6 singles.

http://bananastan.com/

man tempting...but kinda steep.  there's so amazing looking though.  And i can get the music for 2 dollars on itunes, even though i hate having only digital copies...i'd want the digital copies anyway for my ipod.  DANG.

I found Van Dyke`s remarks about Smile belonging to the collectors and bootleggers very astute. He correctly perceives that the music took on a life of its own regardless of what he and Brian thought about it. He said that he "would have rather had a pool and a Mercedes," but he was glad it was coming out...due the the shame he felt about being famous as the lyricist of the most famous unreleased album in rock. From that standpoint, there was a healing for him in 2004 when he and Brian finished. As someone who has witnessed this thing get bigger and bigger since 1978 when the first 20 minutes of music turned up on cassette, it has been a very amazing thing to witness. I am glad that Brian is letting it be released. I think these tapes show how far he was ahead of studiotechnical/engineering capability in doing this music, and I think he deserves to the in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a producer for the modular style of production he came up with during Good Vibrations and Smile.

Frank Holmes is to some extent in the same boat as Van Dyke SMiLE-wise but without any 2004 healing (though his wounds may be less deep).

The modular style was unique to the SMiLE project as was Van Dyke's lyrical style and Holmes' visual style. It was all part of the awesome album concept.

I have a guess that the only person ever present during the creation of any SMiLE music besides the 3 primary creators was Dennis Wilson during the writing of "Surf's Up." Other then that it was a pretty private creative matter.

Excellent interview. Yucca and Argyle... I had to think for a minute, but that's the backdoor to Capitol Records. Funny. I remember hearing about the Beatles listening to tapes. I was told by a friend about 20 years ago.

I'll second a Producer Hall of Fame induction. Not just for the modular style, but for his overall ability to make something from nothing and for the new sounds he created in the studio. Inventive and intuitive.

Thirded - the guy is a musical genius