The Smiley Smile Message Board

I did some searches and I found this on AGD's website:

January      Brian meets Gary Usher (born December 14th, 1938, San Gabriel, CA) for the first time and
 immediately begins a songwriting partnership with him.

Where can I find more info on him before he met Brian?

After I posted this, I thought about google.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Usher

Now I wish I could figure out how to erase this topic to avoid a thrashing from AGD.

But I'm learning....slowly.

Are there pictures of Gary Usher?

Try Google Images...(note calm response)

Wikipedia. I know a guy who looks just like him.

I've looked in the past, but only really found one very formal looking photo of him. I was wondering if anyone had anything Google couldn't give me.

No sweat. Just need a little work on the order in which you're doing this kind of thing.  ;D

(http://www.coolhand-records.com/Gary-Usher/garyusher-young14.jpg)

Google images, first page, second row.

But the wiki site leaves out these crucial items, I hope this helps:
GU was a bank teller at City National Bank in Beverly Hills by day  :o
He was trailblazing the rockstar lifestyle by living with his Granny  :o

I love Sagittarius. His work with the Byrds was great as well. I wish the 80's sessions with Brian had borne more fruit.

Huh? There's about 10 or more candid photos of Gary on Google images from all different eras.

So "My World Fell Down" isn't blatant theft from what Brian was doing with Smile? Not that it isn't an enjoyable piece of pop-psychedelia, but damn if I were Brian in '67 and heard that some heads would roll.

Having said that I think Usher and Brian made a terrific songwriting team. But "My World Fell Down"...it's just too blatant. :)

No, it's not. Point me in the direction of a similar collage of musique concrete from the Smile sessions and I'll reconsider, but until then...

Heroes And Villains for one, of the variety Brian would play for people as he was creating it. The kind of dubs he'd play for Vosse, Anderle, et al.

The first section, the intro of the record...would that keyboard arrangement have sounded that way if one of those producers-writers had not heard "Bicycle Rider"? Various sections sound like Smile-lite to me, the various production touches like the specific drum hits, the modulation in the chorus and the heavy 4/4 parade beat, the overall sounds, the piano winding down at the very end...tell me that doesn't sound like Smile music!

And maybe it was just a rumor, but didn't Brian himself think this specific record was "stealing" his production ideas, since it came out in summer '67? If that is just a rumor, please correct because it's something I've heard for years and it has biased me a bit in the discussion.

Allegedly - their recollections are are both fuzzy and contradictory, plus when the "MWFD" single came out (the album version lacks the collage) i don't recall anyone saying "My God, that sounds just like the stuff Brian used to play is !".


To me it sounds like a sunshine pop song psychedoozied up. Is all.


Can only speak for myself, but I've never seen anything that even obliquely indicated that Brian ever thought that. The closest I've seen is this, from the liners of the excellent Sundazed reissue: "There is an intriguing rumor that Usher took the bullfight section straight from the Smile cutting room floor, but there is no evidence to substantiate it." Of course there's no evidence to substantiate it: exactly the reverse, in fact - there's a session sheet detailing what's on each track of both the 4- and 8-track tapes for the central section. It's entirely an Usher concoction.

Thanks for the pic, AGD. Never seen that before.

Another question about Usher- how did he die? Forgive me if the Wiki article covers this, I just didn't see it when I skimmed.

Lung cancer. Brian came to see him just before he passed on.

I was a bit too harsh in my original post, but I'm trying to remember where I heard about Brian thinking his production ideas were stolen, and relating it to this specific record. Maybe it was a few statements like that which just got attached to My World Fell Down through the years, because of the similarities? I just can't remember.

It is interesting to hear the original release by The Ivy League, and then play it back to back with Usher's production. The sonic elements Usher added sound a lot like what Brian was doing in the studio at the same time with Smile, or at least in the half-year or so leading up to the release of My World Fell Down. Those elements were not there on the original, and unless Usher had those sounds on another release before this, it sounds a lot like it *could* have come from some Smile sessions.

It would be an interesting question to ask Bruce and Brian, if they have not been asked before.

Whether true or not, it was reported in some book somewhere that Brian became suspicious of outsiders hearing the SMiLE tapes after becoming aware of what Usher had done with MY WORLD FELL DOWN (Bruce Johnston appears on both MWFD and the SMiLE tracks, right?). If there is any truth to this, I suspect Brian was responding to the modular arrangement of MWFD and how it hard edits dramatic dynamic shifts in a similar manner to the SMiLE material.

Bruce's contribution to "MWFD" was one vocal session.

Stephen McParland's epic research into the life of Gary Usher. Phenomenal read ... and over 600 goshdarn pages !!  :o
http://www.pipeline.moonfruit.com/#/reading-reviews-2/4516681984

Weather or not My World Fell Down had any parts stolen from SMiLE, I think its an awesome song!

I know I've heard it or read it somewhere before, so it's good to see someone else who remembers this aspect of "My World Fell Down" - the part where Brian thought it was too close to what he had been recording for Smile, and how many people had access to hear those tapes in 1966-67?

I'm not a believer of conspiracy theories as facts can conveniently get in the way of even the best of those theories, but I am an aficionado and someone who devours the details of the better ones. So if there are such theories about My World Fell Down and Smile, the dots aren't that hard to connect.

The song was the first song project he did which he'd eventually name Sagittarius, so it stands alone apart from the album where it eventually appeared. He originally wanted Chad and Jeremy to record the cover, but they balked, so Usher did it himself. He was recording at and working on the staff of Columbia Records, so there is *no doubt* of the possibility that he and Brian (and Bruce and Terry) were in the same place at the same time (Columbia studios in LA) and hanging out at each others' sessions. Note the Pet Sounds-era photos of Bruce, Terry, and Asher sitting around Brian at Columbia's mixing board...they were always hanging out and listening.

One of the things Brian did when he started to feel his ideas were being taken was to *close* access to his recording sessions. No outsiders or non-essential people allowed. This is mentioned in Jules' Goodbye Surfing article. Brian's paranoia, or was there something specific that triggered this?

It's just too damn easy to connect at least 4 people involved with "My World Fell Down", not to mention a shared recording facility and other shared things like some of the Wrecking Crew, if there were any there who someone could name. What I'd like to know, if anyone has this, is the recording session dates, the release date (not as important), and any similar info on "My World Fell Down" with the dates and such.

But I guess it ultimately comes down to whether you think the record sounds like parts of Smile or not, and I just happen to think it shares some production elements with Smile.

Thank you both for singing it's praises; just checked it out and I'm adding Sagittarius to my MORE PLEASE list!

Jolly Good! ;D

I think Crawdaddy made that claim didn't it?

I don't have it but supposedly the Sundazed release of Present Tense shows a session sheet in the booklet for MWFD and the sound effects were added Feb. 9 1967.

I think I know which book that was, and it's not considered reliable in that respect.


Bruce: one of the band... Tony: lyricist... Brian: one of the band... Terry: Columbia staff producer. Hardly surprising they were 'hanging out'.


Session dates for "MWFD" along with Brian's dates of the period:

January
  3 - Smile session: Heroes And Villains ['Do A Lot', 'Mission Pak', 'Bridge to
       Indians' and 'pickup to 3rd verse' vocals, 'Bag of Tricks' and 'Part 1 tag' - Columbia]
  5 - Smile session: Heroes And Villains - part 2/'Bicycle Rider' vocals [Western]
  9 - Smile session: Wonderful ['version 2 (rock with me, Henry') incl. vocals - Western]
10 - Saggitarius session: My World Fell Down (album version)
12 - Dennis Wilson session: I Don't Know [Western]
20 - Smile session: Heroes And Villains [vocals - Columbia]
23 - Smile session: Surf's Up [2 sessions - Western]
25 - Jasper Dailey session: Teeter-Totter Love [Western]
27 - Smile session: Heroes And Villains ['Children Were Raised' and 'Whistling Bridge'
        vocals, 'Cantina' section/'All Day' [Columbia]
31 - Smile session: Heroes And Villains [vocals - Columbia]

February     
  2 - Smile session: Heroes And Villains [Western]
  3 - Smile session: Heroes And Villains [vocals - Columbia]
  7 - Smile session: Heroes And Villains ['Cantina' section vocals - Columbia]
  7 - Smile session: Heroes And Villains [Columbia]
  9 - Jasper Dailey session: Teeter-Totter Love [vocals - Western]
  9 - Saggitarius session: My World Fell Down (single version)
10 - Smile session: Heroes And Villains/My Only Sunshine [vocals - Columbia] [BW]

"MWFD" was released in May 1967.

Interestingly, it is not easy to find Gary Usher's praise for Brian's work of that era.

Much the reverse in fact - in the liners to the Sundazed reissue of Present Tense and also the booklet of the Ballroom/Millennium Magic Time box, he makes some utterly ludicrous statements about how very much more progressive and out there Curt Becher was at that time. Thus:

“No one was more at the cutting edge of what was going on than Curt Boettcher.  There is no comparison between Brian Wilson and Curt.  I’ve worked with them both.  In terms of raw talent and genius and the ability to do things and hear things and see things, Curt was light years ahead of Brian.  No one’s gonna believe that, because Curt never had the notoriety, but I’m telling you.”

“I’m over at Studio Three West with Brian Wilson.  We were with (engineer) Chuck Britz, doing something.  I think it was a movie soundtrack.  The (tape) machine was stopped.  All of a sudden, I heard a sound, and the instant I heard it, I froze just like someone had thrown a bowling ball at me.  My ears just perked right up.  And Brian looked at me, I looked at Brian, and we both said simultaneously, ‘What was that?’ “I walked over to the hallway,” Usher continued.  “We put our ears out the door and listened to what was coming down that way.  We went right down the hallway, around a corner, and when we followed the sound, the louder it got.  We were walking and walking and walking up to the point where we were running into this room.  And here’s this little kid with an earring.  That was the first time I met Curt, and it was while he was producing Lee Mallory’s record ‘That’s the Way it’s Gonna Be.’

“Brian said, ‘What is that?’  That record stunned Brian.  He’s doing little surfer music, and here comes this kid who is light years ahead of him.  I had never seen Brian turn white.  It stunned him.  All he talked about for a week was that song and that kid.  Brian sensed that was where it was at, that’s where it was going.”

[the date would be spring 1966, when Usher had long since stopped working with Brian, and Brian was, of course, doing rather more then "writing little surfer music". In this instance Usher is totally unreliable.]

Yes, based on that excerpt if people read that not knowing the date and time issues, and how nothing fits with the truth, they might come away with quite a negative view on Brian...and "totally unreliable" is a more charitable way of saying Usher is full of crap in this instance.

Seems like some bitterness there and attempts to diminish (pun... :) Brian's reputation, maybe lingering unresolved issues from back in the day.

In what year did GU make those remarks?

The top one was 1988... I think the lower quote was roughly the same time.

Thank you for the dates and session info. I quoted the part about them "hanging out" to clarify: It definitely is not surprising considering their associations with Columbia, and by the phrase "hanging out" I meant more along the lines if they were in the Columbia studios building, or any studio facility, they'd drop in and check out what was going on: It was common practice, it was the order of the day, there was nothing close to the secrecy and spectacle of some artists posting armed guards at the studio doors to ensure complete privacy.

There are the mentions of Henry Lewy ducking into the control room to hear "Fire" according to Vosse's piece, we have the photos, audio, and film of the various GV sessions where guests would come and go...not that they said "Hey, let's meet up at Studio A tonight and hang out!", but if there were sessions running at the same time, they'd naturally drop in to check things out.

The point where Brian thought his sonic ideas were being stolen by this openness in the studios is what interests me, and it is a possibility some of it could have come from "My World Fell Down"...I say could and not did.

If the record was released in May 1967, couldn't that match the time when Brian stopped going to his go-to studios like Columbia, Western, and Gold Star, stopped calling the Wrecking Crew en masse for sessions, and stopped recording as he had been doing since 1963? Jules says he started posting people at the studio doors to keep guests out, but offers no date...but the release date of MWFD in May 1967 *could* be used as more ammo to suggest that song set him off somehow. If you're prone to suggesting that.  :)

So, he made those remarks right after the end of the "wilson project". I wonder if they are the result of bitterness produced by said failed project, or Usher held Brian's work in such low regard while collaborating. Per McParland, at least we know how low Usher's opinions were of Brian's original songs in which GU did not take part.

I'd prefer to think that it matched the time when Brian was done with Smile and not recording anyway. Occam's Razor applies.

Seigel was pretty much out of the picture by Christmas 1966: Brian thought his then-wife (Chrissie Jolly, the 'unidentified girl' in the LAX photo in the box set booklet) was a witch who was messing with his mind via ESP.

Of the songs from 'The Wilson Project', how many were Wilson/Usher co-writes?

It's a shame that their final collaboration produced such inferior (imo) material.

world fell down reminds me of black sheep!!

scr_w Gary Usher!

I want more pictures of AGD!   :o

 ;D

Seriously, I'm glad you started the thread!  Fascinating reading, truly!

-- David

Thanks! I hadn't seen much discussion about him. At the same time, I'm being trained like a dog how to do a little research by my master AGD! :)

Well obviously saying that Brian Wilson was making "surfer music" in 1966 is ridiculous, but some of Curt Boettcher's productions and arrangementsfrom 66-68 are unbelievable and ahead of their time (especially the Millennium).  I honestly don't think Gary Usherwas trying to knock Brian in that quote. IfI the quote is indeed from 1988 Gary Usher was probably praising Curt Boettcher so much because he had just recently died.  Usher probably felt that Boettcher wasn't appreciated enough.

I think Curt was the second best producer from the 1960's but he's still a distant second from Brian. Usher knew this and his comment is obviously sour grapes for being maneuvered out of the BW songwriting camp for a second time.  It also comes off as a bit rich from a guy who spent most of the 60's apeing Brian's early sound.

Yes, I've always taken this quote as a case of sour grapes on Usher's part. Whilst I think Boettcher was indeed an early pioneer of psychodelia, Brian's influence on him has always been more than evident. And wasn't he also one of the "keepers of the flame" regarding SMiLE (according to Dom Priore anyway)

I love Boetcher's music though, "Would You Like To Go" is a particular favourite