The Smiley Smile Message Board

Just listening to Pet Sounds whilst cooking cottage pie, and have long wondered how Brian achieved the sound at approximately 2:02 of Here Today.

To me it sounds like a piano and B3 organ playing together at different registers, but I've never been sure as the higher noise sounds too raspy to be an organ, but this could be bleedthrough from the piano.

I thought I'd avail myself to the experts on this board, of which there are many and I am but a few.

Thanx

What exactly is cottage pie? (Please forgive me, I`m an uncultured American.)

http://tinyurl.com/3mutly7 (http://tinyurl.com/3mutly7)

 ;D ;D

I like how ya did that.

It would taste even better if I knew what those instruments were.....

I think we've found AGD's new favourite site....

Listening now -
Definitely organ and some very staccato guitar chords (I can hear the attack on the strings)

The metallic sound seems to be a tack piano played "open" with a lot of resonance, maybe with the loud pedal pressed down. Definitely a Hammond organ playing along with it, the overtones could change with the drawbars being moved. The picked electric bass is playing in unison, and an acoustic string bass as well.

The best clue is to listen at 2:16 right after the segment in question and you'll hear those instruments separated enough to hear each one. The Hammond mostly plays quarter notes, the tack piano plays 8th notes, the acoustic and picked electric basses play the melodic line.

My guess.

Yes, I'm an idiot who doesn't know how to use Google. And I'm an even bigger idiot for not realizing that cottage pie is just another name for shepherd's pie, which is pretty damn awesome stuff.

Ah yes, those Wilson boys loved their tack pianos...  (And don't get me started on the nite club spinet that my Grandma bought for me in Brooklyn when I was barely five...  One of my favorite memories, so many, many years ago, watching while Dennis & Brian worked towards each other shoving tacks in the hammers of my piano while I tried to object...  She briefly served time aboard The Harmony, before mysteriously going missing...)
They had this very bizarre old English dude, who had been tuning Brian's pianos for years, that would constantly be re-tuning the various tack pianos - Dennis had an old beat one, too.  They both loved to tune them themselves in different ways, which meant I was forever calling in the old English dude   

Awesome story Ed! There is a lot of tack stuff on the BB's late 60s stuff too and eventually "You Need A Mess of Help..."

I just recorded one for my music and they sound like no other.

Not quite true, I don't think. Granted, I'm just another uncultured American, but I believe shepherd's pie would be with lamb; cottage pie is with beef. Same basic idea, though.

I thought cottage pie was a dish devised by Eddie Tuleja and Ron Altbach.

Quite...although people tend to just name the beef one shepard's pie anyway, but never the other way round.

Cool...Ed, do you recall if all the tack pianos used by Brian & Dennis were always uprights and spinets, or did they ever shove tacks into a baby grand?

Yes, that is a big component of the sound as well.  Actually a fairly odd use of guitar on Pet Sounds on this track--straight up chords.  There's an electric 6-string and an acoustic 12.

Hmm, I don't hear any guitar at all - you mean the big descending line at 2.02 right? not the chops beforehand that 1.48, which clearly do have guitar on them.

I think at 2.02 its just the piano, organ and both basses, with percussion as well of course. The weird, slightly off-key part is the organ. There's a possibility there might be an electric guitar doubling the bass but I don't think so.

I guess I could be listening to a different mix with different timings.  I was assuming the "chops"...

And while we're at it, do we know who did backing vox on Here Today? To what degree was it was a full-band effort and how much of it was Brian and 1 or 2  BBs overdubbing? Sounds quite BW-heavy to me. Brian is obviously there, and I think I can I hear Dennis esp. on outro to the vox-only on the box set.

It seems that, given we know that most of IJWMFTT BGs were BW, he seemed to use full group on the bigger cuts/singles, and maybe not on the other album tracks?

Cotage pie is made with beef and shepherds pie lamb