The Smiley Smile Message Board

Just landed on the doormat:

New (archive) pics, new 2012 sessions pics, interviews with Blondie, Tony Asher, Todd Rundgren, Carol Kaye, Wayne Coyne, Johnny Marr, and apparently all the surviving BBs.

Phew!

It's time for me to cogitate…

Add: the crossword competition prize is the SMiLE Sessions box… the big one.

Ooh, I might pick that up later to stave off the suicide I will no doubt be contemplating after a 15 hour day in the library. #student

Pet Sounds Revisited

Track One:

Saint Etienne: Wouldn't It Be Nice
Gorgeous, and – get this – throws BARNYARD into the mix!

Me too!! Saw the green edges to the cover, then the cooper black font and finally the goats as I peeled off the shrink wrap!! Looking forward to reading this one.

Don't have time to go through in depth right now, but the fact this is a 25 page feature is really blowing my mind. Let's hope the fact checking has improved since the smile special.

There's a nice sidebar piece about BW by Wayne Coyne. Kind of makes up for the negative stuff he said previously.

That sounds so awesome. If it's $70 like it usually is here I'll buy it but if it's upwards 10 to 15 dollars then I don't know.

Yeah there're some pretty excellent covers going on - standouts for me so far: Saint Etienne, Magnetic North, Jeffrey Lewis, Gaz Combes, Flaming Lips (wow) and Les Liminanas (double wow)

I should check my college bookstore. They import it.

Wow - so Mojo is posting various video covers of Pet Sounds songs.
Here's Lets Go Away For a While with a Vince Guaraldi feel.
It's great.

http://mojomagazine.tumblr.com/post/21429414559/mojo-presents-neil-cowley-trio-lets-go-away-for (http://mojomagazine.tumblr.com/post/21429414559/mojo-presents-neil-cowley-trio-lets-go-away-for)

I'm excited to see/hear this. Specifically Gaz's track: I always liked Supergrass, and heard shades of a BW influence in some of their melodies and chords...I guess he is a fan after all! This will be neat if I can find the issue.

There was a "Supergrass' Record Collection" article in Q magazine in about 1995 where they chose Friends as one of their ten favourite albums, and mentioned that they used (or wanted to use? This was 17 years ago I read this...) Meant For You as a walk-on track for their shows.

Very cool, I did not know that! In 1995 I was financially limited with the magazines I could afford to buy, so I definitely wouldn't have seen that in Q. ;D  "In It For The Money" is a terrific disc, because of this thread I'll be spinning it this weekend for sure. :)

I want to hear this pretty badly but there is no Mojo to be had in Slick City.  :'(

Has this hit the stands at Barnes & Noble for instance? I think they stock it, and I don’t often pick it up, so I don’t know how much time passes between the issue hitting the UK and subscribers and when it hits stands at places like Barnes & Noble…

I always give my local B&N a call to see if they have it in--they're always more than happy to take a look.

I called mine. No dice. They say they just turn up at random times. So I guess I'll be calling my B&N every morning.  :lol

US BRITS HAVE SOMETHING THE GUYS AND GALS IN U.S.A. WON'T  ;D (Unless you pay big bucks that is)

Makes a bloody change  :(

Anyway you have the rather nice Walmalt special product to look forward to , we won't ! (unless we pay big pounds)

(http://s7.postimage.org/8qz4e1k7f/image.jpg)

Why does Brian's face look a little off in that pic?  For a second, it seems Photoshopped...

Looks like they shopped Brian's head from this picture for whatever reason.

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Seis_Beach_Boys.gif)

It is. Original source pic:

(http://s13.postimage.org/7gzxcrgrr/pic7.jpg)

Excellent, thanks Lowbacca.  I knew it seemd off.  I suppose they wanted a better shot of Brian since his face is pointed lower than any of the others. 

Thanks Ebb and Flow .... did they really swipe the face from the "tent" picture?  Brian's eyes are facing directly at the camera while what we see in the modified pic on Mojo, his eyes are pointed downward towards the animals.  Perhaps they did swipe it but then re-worked the eyes?  Pretty ridiculous what these people can do with pictures today...

Kinda makes him look like this fellow:


(http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/6830/stanlaurel2780752.jpg)

Who, Dick Van Dyke?

Both equally joyful and sad geniuses who made a lot people smile and forget their day to day worries for a few minutes, and will continue to do so for a long time.

Amen.

One of the greatest comedians of all time, he really knew how to make people laugh. Actually I used to be a member of a Laurel and Hardy forum, a true genius.

Yeah that is a great album. The next one was pretty good too. This Gaz Combes cover is excellent, and sounds very Supergrass. Surprisingly one of my least favourite is the Tim Burgess Don't Talk cover. I like a lot of his Charlatans stuff, but he misses some notes here and it just doesn't work for me.

The Flaming Lips - God Only Knows:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om0EXBW623Q


Hmm, GOK as a song doesn't really seem to fit the Lips style. Almost sounds like the original recording filtered through a "generic Lips sound" channel. Lazy. What do you think?

i guess i'll just check barnes and noble every so often.  I remember walking in the store and randomly saw the smile issue with the single just sitting there.  this was a few weeks after

also the street date for this is april 24, so we won't see it in the states for a week or two i'd imagine.  A couple websites sell magazines individually, i think i'll do that. 

I've lost touch with Supergrass, it will be good to hear something new with this Gaz track, as soon as I can get it. That music at the time it came out was fantastic - great songs, great beats, fantastic guitar sounds. I miss them quite a bit, but those albums will always hold up. A friend-of-a-friend told a story of seeing them walking down Newbury Street on what was probably one of their first tours to Boston, and he recognized them, made contact with them, and took them shopping to some of the hipster clothing places like John Fluevog Shoes and hung out with them for an afternoon. That was before they'd be more recognized here through MTV and all of that. They were young guys, it's easy to forget as time goes past.

Great story! I was listening to some of the albums today. The 2nd and 3rd are my favourites - the 3rd in particular has some beautiful songs. I think they really had it nailed at that point.

I like it. I think they're feeling it, although it's maybe not as creative as some of the other covers.

Can't wait for this! Mojo is such a fantastic music magazine. For those who've never read 'em, i'd strongly recommend the features they'd done previously on Smile, Holland and Dennis (complete with a great anecdote about Dennis pretending to be a worker and scaling the World Trade Centre framework while it was still in construction).

Saint Etiennes and Magnetic North, I both found very ho-hum and boring. The Jeffrey Lewis (w/ Wooden Wand and Janet Simpson of Delicate Cutters) cover of IWftD felt cluttered and thrown together in a very lazy fashion (thought I thought the juxtaposition of the casual song and the wiki bio about Brian and Pet Sounds was an interesting idea).  For me GOK, IKtAA, and Pet Sounds are the real standout tracks. Overall I think it is a really fitting tribute.

If anyone across the Pond wants to set up a trade - a Mojo with CD for a Walmart zinepak with CD - drop me a PM.

Can't wait to hear the Gaz Combes cover. Supergrass were always by far my favourite britpop band (much as they hated the britpop label themselves). I didn't know they were BB fans - that's very pleasing to learn.

pixeltwin aren't you in utah?  they had an issue there? *or did you use other means*  :police:

Other means.  :angel:

All very good , but not had chance to read the mag yet ( just got it )

Must say though that my mates version of 'Lets go away for while' really should have been on there  ::)

Yep Sean Macreavys version with lyrics

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHspcnTZIZE

Will consider it. There's one that's a bit out of the way for me. Will call them and if they have it, will try to pick up 2 (one for me, one for you sometime around Sunday-Tuesday

Picked this up today, not had a chance ot listen to the CD yet and have only had a quick skim through the Beach Boys article - the Blondie Chaplin piece is very interesting and probably explains why he is not involved with the 50th.

What did he say?

That's mighty wonderful. Check your PMs... and thanks!

So who's read the 'Top 50 Beach Boys songs of all time' feature yet? I've got a few issues, namely:

Every single Pet Sounds track in the top 50? Yes it's their seminal album, but this shows a somewhat limited imagination doesn't it, especially as...

There's NO tracks from side two of Today! included, at all. No Please Let Me Wonder. No Kiss Me Baby. No She Knows Me Too Well. Are these list compilers even Beach Boy fans??

According to this list, the best track on Sunflower is.... Tears In The Morning. It ranks higher than Cool Cool Water and Forever (This Whole World doesn't feature at all!)

Dennis is utterly sidelined - he only just manages a single track in the top 40 (bearing in mind Bruce has two!!)

A very unusual list then, which somehow manages to be surprising but unimaginative at the same time. Still, it's still great to see such a big feature on the BB's in such a highly regarded music magazine, and on the cover too (pity Brian's face has been weirdly-photoshopped though).

For those who don't have access to the magazine, the Top 50 reads thus:

1. SURF'S UP
2. GOOD VIBRATIONS
3. GOD ONLY KNOWS
4. CALIFORNIA GIRLS
5. TIL I DIE
6. CAROLINE, NO
7. HEROES & VILLAINS
8. DON'T TALK
9. WOULDN'T IT BE NICE
10. I GET AROUND
11. CABINESSENCE
12. FEEL FLOWS
13. I JUST WASN'T MADE...
14. YOU STILL BELIEVE IN ME
15. DON'T WORRY BABY
16. SAIL ON SAILOR
17. LET'S GO AWAY FOR AWHILE
18. SURFER GIRL
19. IN MY ROOM
20. I KNOW THERE'S AN ANSWER
21. DO YOU LIKE WORMS?
22. OUR PRAYER
23. I'M WAITING FOR THE DAY
24. PET SOUNDS
25. FUN FUN FUN
26. THE WARMTH OF THE SUN
27. SURFIN' USA
28. DISNEY GIRLS
29. DARLIN'
30. HERE TODAY
31. I CAN HEAR MUSIC
32. YOU'RE SO GOOD TO ME
33. BREAK AWAY
34. BARBARA ANN
35. ALL SUMMER LONG
36. TEARS IN THE MORNING
37. SLOOP JOHN B
38. COOL, COOL WATER
39. WHEN I GROW UP
40. CUDDLE UP
41. LONG PROMISED ROAD
42. LET HIM RUN WILD
43. LITTLE DEUCE COUPE
44. THAT'S NOT ME
45. WILD HONEY
46. DO IT AGAIN
47. VEGE-TABLES
48. HELP ME RHONDA
49. WIND CHIMES (Smiley Smile version)
50. FOREVER

WTF is going on with "I'm Waiting For The Day" on this CD? 

Everything else has been really great.  I'll be listening to this often.

Yeah. The idea is interesting but it is just a jumbled mess.

HA pixel...I just read your post above and saw that you mentioned that it was Brian's Wiki page they were reading and that's EXACTLY what I thought it was when I first heard it.  Yeah some of it was off key and just like "EH, where's the skip button?"  Such a great song wasted....

Great thing about CDs like this is that it makes you appreciate the original songs even more and if the covers are done right-- it makes you look into the artist that covered it.  Totally digging "Let's Go Away For Awhile."  Might have to look into the Neil Cowley Trio now....

Yeah I think Lets Go Away and Pet Sounds are my two favorites - the instrumentals no less!  :lol

It looks off because the light and shading on Brian's face is going in a different direction than everybody elses'. Seriously Photoshopped! :lol

Trust me, it looks even weirder when you're holding the magazine in front of you...

It's nice to see an article on the BB that tries to put their whole catalog in perspective, but this list reads like someone who sort of appreciates the Beach Boys threw it together. It can mostly be compiled by reviewing a comprehensive hits package, Pet Sounds and Smile. It's like what any of our top 50 lists would be about 2 weeks after getting heavily into the band. Throw in a few random suggestions from people in the MOJO office: "Oh, you should put Tears in the Morning in there, it's really nice". No side 2 of Today. No Friends. Very few deep cuts outside of Pet Sounds and Smile. It was a fun read but ultimately unsatisfying and disappointing. You just can't depend on someone in the staff having a complete mastery of the catalog like with the Beatles, it seems.

For a band with so much incredible material under the belt I would hardly include any hotrods in the top 50 except IGA and DWB.
There is nothing from Love You, CATP, Friends, Today or Holland(save Sailor).

It is one of the better ones, but as aforementioned one could compile this using only PS, Sounds of summer and warmth of the sun compilations.

God I hate them compilations for not cutting deeper. Mix deep with the popular stuff off Smile, PS, SoS and WoTS, and you get something quite unique...

They did include one CATP song - Cuddle Up - but it was far down the list at 40 (rather depressingly, that was Dennis's highest placing (Forever scraped in at 50).
The complete dismissal of side two of Today is the biggest error. How could they??

this thing has finally arrived at US barnes and noble.  Yeah the list is pretty crappy minus the top 10. 

I love the lead photo with Barney Hoskyns' story on the reunited Boys. Done by Robert Matheu. They look so at ease, and contended... And Brian comes across very healthy and very positive. And it is a huge picture. Hope it will be published without the lettering laid over it someday. It's a keeper.

And the piccie of Mike is so funny: in 'competitive mood', doing some, um, hypnotising fingerwork at the viewer.

Oh, and I forgot: the Todd Rundgren contribution, where he relates an anecdote of Brian going to a show by jazz person Larry Coryell. The latter is doing a song (or instrumental), and Brian jumps on the stage, to sing 'Be Bop A Lula' in a different key and tempo than Coryell's performance. But Coryell tries to play along with Bri, until the 'Brian Posse' takes our man out of the venue...

I really like cover albums like this. Even if I don't like every track, there are usually enough really interesting versions of songs to make it a very worthwhile listen.

I've joined up here as I don't know much about the BB and am going through their music. So much easier now than (ahem) years ago when I was a teenager. I've had Pet Sounds for a while, just received That Lucky Old Sun in the mail yesterday. Looking to pick up Surf's Up and 20/20 next. That'll get me Sunflower and ... which album is paired with 20/20?

Perhaps then I'll have enough exposure such that my first paragraph up there will actually start having some meaning.

"I Know There's an Answer" on this CD is blowing me away. I love the rhythm and bassline and overall feel.

i really dig Gaz Coombes IJWMFTT cover.  no surprise from the songwriter of supergrass i suppose

I like that cover CD a lot. It's where you draw the line re: your expectations. As a freebie it is totally enjoyable and user-friendly, amusing, entertaining, and indeed, very good in places.

My feeling exactly.

Can't wait to dig into the magazine itself... tonight, I hope. (It's funny; as soon as I picked it up in the Barnes & Noble, I noticed Brian's face looked odd in the cover pic. I immediately thought of Photoshop...)

That God Only Knows cover by The Flaming Lips is quite awful.

agreed.  sometimes, those guys really bug me.

The list is kinda meh but I dig everything else. Thanks again to John Manning for trading me this for the ezine.

In particular, I really find the photo of Brian holding the good humor hat interesting. He seems there but he doesn't. Pretty good photo showing Brian at that time.

My B&N just got these in Today, it seems, so I bought it! Yeah Brian's cover pic seemed off to me also. haven't explored the contents in any detail, but one thing I noticed has a nice collector's feel to it: the images they use showing the 45labels for #1 SU and #5 TID are the MUCh more difficult to find USA Reprise Steamboat label 45s, as opposed to the standard  USA Brother-Reprise issues.

The montage pic of the group made up of album covers is pretty damn great! I'll give Mojo that, even if i don't much agree with their choice of songs...

The MOJO reunion article has a few interesting tidbits in it, but needed to be a lot longer and more in-depth.

The "Top 50" list was interesting to read, and plenty of awesome stuff is on it. But I get the feeling they threw in a few "whaaaa?" tracks just to get our attention and be different. I like "Tears in the Morning" well enough, but it isn't Top 50 in any of my lists. I think "Feel Flows" is amazing, but #12 is a bit much. "I Know There's An Answer" at #20? Again, 50 enjoyable songs on this list, no question. I knew they would go out of their way *not* to have "Good Vibrations" at #1, and I may well at certain times in my musical moods put "Surf's Up" at #1.

I can take or leave the stuff on the tribute CD. I sympathize a bit with anyone covering this material or anything for that matter. A straight-forward cover tends to elicit a "so what?" reaction, and the far out versions sound like they are going out of their way to be different. The thing overall sounds a bit too "trying to sound indie" to me. But again, I give the artists credit for attempting it.

Finally bought this tonight, listening now.  I'm up to I Know There's An Answer now, and so far the only track I like is Let's Go Away For Awhile.

My expectations were that I would get to hear some talented musicians pay their respects to a brilliant album. What I heard was mostly people who were either struggling with material that was obviously too difficult for them to perform, or who were probably trying to be artsy fartsy by destroying everything that makes the original versions so beautiful.

The only covers I enjoyed were 'I Know There's An Answer' and 'Here Today'. The cover of 'I'm Waiting for the Day' is really beyond awful (not sure if they were actually trying to make something worth listening to or if it's an attempt at sabotaging the whole project - I seriously couldn't tell) and so is 'God Only Knows' (if you really love that song, how could you possibly do that to it?).

Gotta say my opinion:

IJWMFTT and You Still Believe In Me  were done great justice on these covers. Very very well done, beyond my expectations.
The instrumentals were done very differently and I admire the creativity, would be hard to tell PS was that song if not stated explicitly ^^

IWFTD is outright lazy production wise, something done to warm up the voice in the morning...
I found it interesting that so many french/non-english 1st language artists wanted to cover as their english is lacking most prominently on I Know There's An Answer, great arrangements though!

I love those rumbling drums Coombes did on IJWMFTT.  And that radar sounding effect in the same area. 

Perhaps it's because I'm already a huge Flaming Lips fan, but I quite enjoyed their take of God Only Knows.  It has that same emotion, but it's a lot darker now, with all the electronic interjections and super loud guitar bursts.  All in all, I quite enjoyed the entire CD, in that each band tried to put their own take on the song.  I don't know if I'll listen to many of them again any time soon, but it was a good listen for what it is.