The Smiley Smile Message Board

Supposedly Jimi Hendrix once called The Beach Boys a 'Psychedelic Barbershop Quartet'. I'm not sure if this was meant as praise or criticism, but I think it is a cool way to think of the band circa the 'Smile' era. It would have even been an interesting album title, methinks.

(http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b151/originalskiss/PBSQ.jpg)

Not a big Hendrix fan, by the way - - I don't know about the rest of you. He was certainly innovative on the electric guitar, but not anything that I actually enjoy listening to.

A seminal figure. But couldn't care less about his songs.

One of the greatest artists of all time, made at least four of the most stunning albums ever made. Not surprised he'd be talked down here, tho. Too black, too strong.

I agree that his official discography from when he was still alive is flawless and I'm also a fan of the posthumous albums from the early 70's, Cry of Love through Loose Ends and his live set from the 1970 Atlanta Pop Fest.

I love Jimi, and never gave a damn whether he liked the Beach Boys or not. Jim Morrison was a fan though, which i think is awesome.

He might have dug Smile had he the chance to hear it.  Either way, favorite Jimi album is Axis: Bold As Love.  I appreciate his others, but to me this is the one I most love hearing.  Also, his Star Spangled Banner was, is and will always be the definitive version of that song - still as appropriate and resonant today (sadly, really) as it was when he first performed it. 

I also remember reading a Pete Townsend quote from the 60's where he says that Brian lives in a fairy tale world of gumdrops and peppermint clouds or something.
I wonder if Pete has come around at all since then. He seems to have mellowed a bit.

I've actually found myself agreeing with you a lot recently, but not on this one Ian. Maybe I've just never got it, but I never got into Hendrix. And it surely has nothing to do with his "blackness". I've liked artists from Charlie Parker to Sly Stone to OutKast, so being "too black". I've never been a huge fan of the guitar. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I'm not huge on guitar heroes. I thought George Harrison had a great style; very restrained. I like a bit of Clapton, I felt his had some soul. And I really like Lindsey Buckingham, but it's probably more for his songwriting than his guitar player image. And "too strong"? I don't get where you're going with that.

I gotta ask though, what is the fourth stunning album that you refer to? I suspect the first three are the Experience albums, but is the fourth Band of Gypsys or The Cry of Love, or possibly that re-configured First Rays?

I do feel however that I am missing out with Hendrix, that I'm missing something that I should be seeing. But through all these years, I just haven't been able to get into his stuff.

I'd put Hey Joe in the top ten(possibly my personal number one) of all time greatest  records. Right up
there with WIBN, good vibrations, Be my Baby, Runaway, strawberry fields forever etc. No guitar wankery either, great solo.. 
Sweet female background vocals on, too. Pretty amazing debut single.

I'm a big fan of the later stuff (Cry Of Love or reconfigured 1st Rays). In particular the song "Night Bird Flying" which I had played at my wedding reception. I think he was coming a long way from his earlier noisy stuff and was paving a way into 70's funk. Hell I probably have more studio bootlegs (digital downloads) of Hendrix than any other artist and all recorded in the span of less than 5 years. Amazing (although sometimes tedious).

I love Hendrix and agree with the statement that the stuff he released while he was alive is amazing.  I like the reconfigured "New Rays" album a lot too. 

Some people think that Hendrix was anti-BBs, but I'm not sure.  I love the 'Psychedelic Barbershop Quartet' comparison, even if he meant it negatively.  I think that it might have been influenced by hearing "Heroes and Villains," which fits his description quite well...  or maybe it was the whole Smiley Smile album.  I do wonder how he would have reacted to the finished Smile album--I have a feeling that he would have been impressed.

BTW, the idea that Hendrix was anti-BBs is partially due to the line "you'll never hear surf music again" in "Third Stone From the Sun."  THAT line was definitely misinterpreted--Hendrix was a Dick Dale fan, and the line was a reaction to hearing that Dick Dale had cancer.  Whatever Hendrix actually felt about the BBs, that line is not anti-BBs and not anti-"surf music" (of course, we can debate whether the BBs were ever "surf music" anyway, beyond their lyrics!). 

Hendrix was simply reacting to hearing the Beach Boys' latest record, which would have been the Smiley version of "Heroes and Villains".  Judging by the way the general public reacted to this album at the time, I think he simply said what a lot of people were already thinking... a generalized reaction of "Meh."

I really like Jimi Hendrix.  In my opinion, he has become so revered as a "guitar God" that his considerable songwriting skills are often overlooked.

This really bugs me as well. He was too good for his own good!

I am not a Hendrix fan, and that is not because the man was coloured (self-evident, this), nor because he played 'strong stuff'. Even analysing the term 'strong stuff' could take hours on end, by the way. Distortion and decibels don't define 'strong', IMHO. If you ask me, Pet Sounds contains more strong (= real) emotions than the (to me) seemingly interminable guitar antics of mr Hendrix.

So no, I don't like endless guitar noodling. For me that has nothing to do with the Platonic idea of great music. I see myself as a classicist, not a romantic, in this respect, and whenever music induces an association with 'bohemian life', I get unwell (to wilfully exaggerate).

The genius of Brian lies in the expression of deep emotion within the boundaries of superbly crafted musical forms, and more often than not he succeeds in this as per pieces lasting two to three minutes. That is an unique gift. That is why I love him (but it's not the only reason - he's often pictured, by illiterati, as a rather weak man who squandered much of his talent for a strong drug and alcohol habit; that's nonsense, he fought heroic fights that many people won't encounter in the whole of their lives).

I see it as only natural, or logical, that I adore Wilson, and Beethoven, and Charles Ives, and Bach, and Debussy.

So, the upshot: I don't like music that, shall we say, 'cuts loose', to never form a satisfying whole, a structure.

Please flame away at your leisure (the Don just doesn't 'get' Hendrix, for instance). I can have that, even have a jolly good laugh about such a difference in opinion and taste.

Yes Pete has definately come around since then. At the time he was scathing about Pet Sounds and Good Vibrations (too much production being one of his complaints, which is somewhat rich from the man who gave us Tommy), but he´s since had a change of heart and can be seen close to tears in one recent(ish) clip of him meeting Brian backstage, even going so far as to say Í love him´. I´m sure i´ve read somewhere that he particuarly likes Smiley Smile.

From what I have heard and can imagine, many people feel drawn towards Brian's childlike personality. He does not come forth as one of the many bullshit rockers who have strong opinions and view themselves highly compared to others. Brian to me is a very humble and has a very down to earth personality. Even today he speaks about the Brian back then as something he can't fully understand was his former self. Almost as if he says to himself 'I could never be that guy'. Quite fascinating really!

Is that on Brian Wilson On Tour DVD? I remember Pete saying he loved Brian, but don't remember him being close to tears meeting him...

I love the fact that 3/4 of The Who love BW/BBs. I wonder if John Entwistle loved 'em too.

Townshend's definitely come around since the 60's. After all, he's a fan of ABBA (naming SOS as one of the great pop songs of all time), and those guys were all about producing.

I think it's on the On Tour DVD, Pete says something like "I love Brian Wilson so much. I find it hard to live with."

Thanks - I had fun creating it.

Anyone can like or not like Hendrix's music on an aesthetic level, but in terms of this thread I don't think it's fair or accurate to run with a premise based on his comments when asked a direct question about one particular Beach Boys record, a record which at the time received many comments and reviews that echoed Hendrix's less than positive feelings.

Hendrix approached music, guitar, and the recording studio in a way that no one at that time was doing, above all he was an innovator and a trailblazer beyond comprehension at a time when folks buying a Mac laptop have a program installed which offers more recording capability and power digitally than Hendrix had with Eddie Kramer in the studio in 1970. You would think as a result there would be a lot of recordings in 2012 that could do what Jimi and Eddie Kramer did times 10, yet where the hell are they? Just food for thought.

Like all the greats, Hendrix was not great all of the time, and had many off nights as a performer and had studio recordings and experiments which didn't fare as well as others. yet the overall legacy of his body of work is immense, and deserves all of the historical context and praise which it receives - taking into account exactly what he was doing at a time when no one was putting it together that way.

Listen to his core studio albums with headphones, good headphones, and a lot of the technical aspects are mindblowing, again for the times when it was recorded. Eddie Kramer and Hendrix deserve equal billing on these - they had to co-exist to make it possible.

Go to YouTube and find any number of live performances. Some are just otherworldly in how Hendrix - at heart a blues guitarist - managed to create stream-of-consciousness improvised music and not sound contrived or as if he were recycling old ideas. And using just a few guitar external effects, how he would coax and wrangle those sounds from what today would be considered a bare-bones guitar rig...it's amazing.

In the big picture, the fact that Jimi didn't care for Heroes And Villains is insignificant. If some fans of the Beach Boys hold that opinion against him, I have to think it's their loss.  :)

And I'm not convinced it was a putdown on Jimi's side.

Me neither. In fact, he was just stating a fact. Psychedelic barber shop is a very apt way of describing Smiley Smile -era.

May This Be Love is at least as beautiful as anything on Pet Sounds.

Well, Hendrix did go on to say he didn't care much for it. However, the Hendrix quote appeared as a quick review in a trade publication (NME? Melody Maker?) just after the single was released; it was probably the first words out of his mouth to a reporter as he was tuning his guitar to hit the stage or on his way to the van. It's impossible to judge what his overall appreciation of the Beach Boys were from those few sentences.

As for Townshend, being a rocker in the mid-60s he probably was put off by what he would perceive to be pop embellishments in the Beach Boys records. His assessment undoubtedly changed as he took a keener interest in production himself. By 1982, he described one of the demos included in SCOOP as having a SMILEY SMILE feel. Anyone who would reference that album in '82 would have to be a fan to some extent.

I probably haven’t given Jimi Hendrix a fair shake. I am very biased against him, but I don’t think it’s because of race, as Ian mentioned. God, I hope not.

For me it’s because I resent the move toward guitar hero rock (I also find Led Zeppelin distasteful) that buried the Beach Boys under a wave of Baby Boomer bias that still lies at the bedrock of our culture’s consciousness to this very day.

But I’m not stupid or deluded enough not to see that my bias is just that, a bias. I accept that Jimi Hendrix is a great.

I have the same grudge against Nirvana (the 90s band, not the 60s band) for stealing any hope away from the shoegazers of making any kind of a dent on the public mind. But that's also because that scene never found an innovator great enough to take up the baton from My Bloody Valentine.

I was quoting Malcolm X.

So you must not like any post-bop jazz either, which puts Hendrix in pretty wonderful company, by default.

"Guitar hero rock" began with Chuck Berry, a huge influence on The Beach Boys. Shoegaze never made a dent on the public mind in the USA, because no mainstream listener even knows the term, let alone any bands in the genre, which is a shame. The funny thing about your two examples is that shoegaze is very much "guitar hero" oriented in terms of reliance on the instrument at the expense of individual songs, while Nirvana are pop-song oriented.

I think that, more importantly than racial prejudice, for many people,  there is sometimes a prejudice or a suspicion against artists that are too widely popular  or too commonly critically lauded; artists such as Hendrix. These are people who like to discover things for themselves, not be told what is good and what they should like. They like to find, and personalize their own idols to support their ego. It could be that  these personality types are drawn to The Beach Boys because they have been undervalued for so long and by a great measure by both the public and critics alike. Personally, race doesn't really matter to me when I listen a a record if I think it's good, and I believe that to be true of most people, as witnessed by the great success of so many popular black artists over the last 50 years.

I hope that my post on page one might help in seeing more of Hendrix's legacy as a recording artist and as an innovator in the studio as much as his association to the guitar, or the "guitar hero" image, which I think falls short in trying to describe his influence. Of course he was a guitarist, but like Charlie Parker mentioned earlier or any of the truly unique innovators, it can't be boiled down to just that description.

I don't think it was as much Hendrix, of all those who were promoted as "guitar heroes", as it was the record labels and the media trying to cash in on an image. Hendrix didn't fit the bill, he didn't fit the image at all because he was just so unique and out-of-step with what was going on. He was a superior showman, he loved playing up certain show-stopping elements for an audience, he loved showing off and basked in crowds watching him do his thing, but the element that makes him stand out was the fact that even now, in 2012, does anyone and I truly mean *anyone* sound like him? And again I'll suggest giving the studio albums a new listen, with headphones - more Axis and Ladyland for the studio craft, Are You... for the uniqueness and musicianship.

Guitar heroes can be obnoxious, but I think that's more of a marketing thing and image than the reality of the guy playing the instrument. The musician can't be blamed for the image which a media or a label entity in the business of selling records and image creates around that musician. For all of the complete frauds and phonies who have been put up as guitar heroes, the music doesn't last nor does it hold up as anything all that original. The original voices are the ones, like Hendrix, which you can identify after hearing a few notes and whose sound still stands out today.

Duane Allman comes to mind - he simply defies explanation, like Hendrix, because his is such a unique sound. If someone wants to label Duane a guitar hero, it's out of his control, obviously. The music he made carries the most weight.

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Great posts on this topic, GF2002.

I agree, when it comes to crafting beauty in music BW takes the cake.  Hendrix is interesting, and nice, but is it other-worldly in the way Brian's music is?  Not at all from the way my ears pick it up.

It was really mean of Hendrix to call out 'SURF MUSIC IS DEAD' during his Monterey pop set.

here's the full quote:

"Don't particularly like the Beach Boys. Makes me think of a psychedelic barbershop quartet."

hey at least he considered them psychedelic, which I take as a compliment. If SMiLE had been released in 1967, i think Jimi would most certainly have been a fan and might have even been out there covering "VegaTables" or "Surf's Up" the day it was released... the same way he covered "Sgt. Pepper"

the surf music quote is from "Third Stone From the Sun" not Monterey.

more info on wiki:
Towards the end of the song, which was the only instrumental on the album, Hendrix, in what has been popularly perceived to be a taunt[citation needed] to the popular music of the period, says, "To you I shall put an end, then you'll never hear surf music again." However, according to popular surf musician Dick Dale in the liner notes of Better Shred Than Dead: The Dick Dale Anthology, the line "Then you'll never hear surf music again" was Hendrix's reaction upon hearing that Dale was battling a possibly terminal case of colon cancer, intended to encourage his comrade to recuperate. Dale, in gratitude to his late friend, later covered this song as a tribute to Hendrix. This interpretation is given some credence in the aforementioned overdub sessions which reveal two additional sentences:

Hendrix: ...Then you'll never hear surf music again. That sounds like a lie to me. Come on, man; let's go home.

One Rainy Wish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5taTzrv400&feature=player_detailpage#t=111s

The stereotype seems to be that Jimi was a guitar hero.  Which he was, of course, but if that's ALL someone thinks he is, then the best explanation to me is that they haven't spent a lot of time with his music.  He was also a songwriter, a lyricist, and a studio innovator.  I think you can give BW a lot of credit for the whole "studio as instrument" concept, but "Electric Ladyland" is one of the best examples of that concept around. 

Hear hear! Don't blame Jimi for the mistakes of his followers. The guy was a poet, a genius and a musical force of nature.

Listen to Machine Gun. Not very structured, but damn it's impressive. He really paints a landscape there, an ugly picture. One of the few pop/rock guys who manage could do it as well as Brian.

was he really refering to the beach boys? because everyone in the industry knew they had left that behind years ago. I would go as far as saying surf music as a genre only survived in the beach boys until All Summer Long at the latest. He might have been refering to the genre in general, which he was very correct about, surf music was certainly dead by mid-1967.

See bossaroo's post above (already quoted a mere three posts before yours) for the story behind the quote; it had nothing to do with a dismissal of surf music.

Also, I think it's important to point out that the "Don't particularly like the Beach Boys..." quote needs to be placed in the proper context. Hendrix was being asked by a reporter to appraise a number of new singles, "Heroes & Villains" being one of them. It's likely what he meant was "Don't particularly like the Beach Boys (new single)...Makes me think of a psychedelic barbershop quartet".

Stack was referring to the scene in the Summer Dreams film, where a misconception drawn from Steven Gaines' book was taken to a hilarious extreme.

Here's a clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aiwjTvefbc

I get the feeling that some folks are assuming too much based on misconceptions, misunderstandings, improper context of certain events and words, and above all an unfamiliarity with Jimi Hendrix. On the latter point, I want to voice an opinion that the "famous" Hendrix songs with perhaps a few very notable exceptions are in no way representative of what the man could do with his music. Mention Hendrix - immediately some folks who have heard him on the radio think Purple Haze, Foxey Lady, Hey Joe, All Along The Watchtower...the songs the radio plays. Add on "The Star Spangled Banner", which has become a legend, an icon, and Wild Thing from Monterey because the image of him setting the guitar on fire is another visual icon of the era - and that sums up Jimi's sound for a lot of people.

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with Purple Haze or Foxey Lady or Hey Joe - but if that's the most obvious example of Hendrix which a good number of people have been exposed to most often, of course the bigger picture will be missed and Hendrix's overall legacy will be misunderstood.

Quite frankly, there is a reason why the man is put on such a high pedestal and considered one of the all-time greats and a true innovator, and the reasons are not in the grooves of Purple Haze.

I'll repeat my call from the previous post to actively seek out at least the Axis and Electric Ladyland studio albums, and listen with a decent pair of headphones. I seriously think Hendrix is one of the special ones that came and went in the history of music and left an incredible legacy in a very short period of time, and I think those who have expressed doubts on that legacy or have compared him to the Beach Boys should consider giving those Hendrix albums another listen, a first full listen, whatever the case before judging them.

Those albums are very rewarding, and again I'll say they are some of the greatest technical achievements to come out of the recording studio from the rock era, especially considering what was available in 1969 and 1970.

Very true. Amusing to come across that type of thing on a Beach Boys board, as the above words perfectly summarize what BB fans have been battling forever and a day.

I think a lot of breaking down the misunderstandings has to come from the listeners themselves who need to go beyond what the popular media outlets would feature on a more convenient, more regular basis - I hate to dwell on what is a really cool record, but Hendrix does in fact come down to a record like Purple Haze for a lot of folks because that is the one most often and conveniently heard. The rewards are found when looking beyond that, much like whatever impression someone may have of The Beach Boys can be shifted in so many different directions by simply handing them a certain album from a certain era, and having the music shatter those preconceived notions of who the band was or is.

I'm just a singles/45's type of guy when it comes to singers I didn't hear growing up. So yeah, I dig Hey Joe, but I don't define a man with that kind of talent on one song alone. I've been getting into listening to albums, slowly but surely, for a number of years now, and Jimi's a guy that I want to delve into.
I actually owned some of his discs in the distant past, but again, preferring the safety of the one song I dug, to the fear of the unknown, I never gave em' a listen.  I also had a bit of a teenage snob complex. I guess, it was probably his widely disseminated image. The ubiquitous posters, the
ridiculous hippie clothing, Playing guitar w/teeth, idol worshiping the "27 club", all that stuff led me to believe, that the guy must
actually suck, despite having no proof, and liking the work that I had actually heard. I wanted the jump on everybody once they realized it too!
Ergh....Nowadays, I rather enjoy trying to overcome the limiting aspects of an iconic artist's image, seeing how good they actually sound. For example, even
though Elvis was one of the singers I did hear growing up, I at one time, became suspicious of post-return -to- live performance  Elvis. Soon of course,
I realized that, I was full of sh*t, and was no longer  bothered by  "oh, that was when he was dressed like one of those impersonators and refused to play with scotty moore and D.J instead of the TCB band, just like George (impeccable taste) Harrison said he should have) type of  thoughts, and not only began
enjoying Aloha in Hawaii again, but started listening to things like Burning Love while picturing in my head not Elvis singing, but just some guy in shirt and collar and jeans from the south with a  haircut. In other words, after having been through a great deal of time wasted on people's image poisoning their art, or their craft or whatever you like to call it, I decided that if I can eliminate a harmful image from my mind, I might as well replace it with a fairly neutral and or helpful image of my own choosing.  If the ubiquitous image I've always known
is harming my appreciation of  music...I'll replace this dude with an unfamiliar dude who is not a fussy dresser, and whose image is more conducive to
active listening, more conducive than trying to "think of nothing", which can be quite exasperating. ..uh I ramble on....


Guitarfool, I must say, you are a most persuasive advocate for the music you love. And that music  coincidentally seems to be stuff
that I'm interested in exploring, but at one time was quite afraid of. Axis bold as love is going on my "records to buy this month" list. Stereo or Mono, though? Also on the list are Nilsson's first two albums, and Van Dyke Parks Song Cycle. After hearing his version of Vine Street, I've got fairly high hopes.

EDIT: I poked around. it seems like the mono reissue of axis is not too popular. I think I'm gonna focus on finding an appropriate stereo.
 I wanna have my check now, goshdarnit, Not tommorow, not after breakfast, NOW!

Also,  I always thought to myself "hmmm... psychedelic barbershop quartet, that's vague! He could have liked it.." I never
remembered the "I don't care for the work of the Beach Boys" part...

Sorry for bringing this back up but I've only just seen it. You're completely right that there was no-one else as good or innovative enough to challenge MBV. Other bands around this time like Swervedriver, Chapterhouse, Adorable and Curve just didn't have the songs to crossover. Have you seen The Year That Punk Broke-1991? Chapterhouse following Nirvana on the Main Stage just summed up what was wrong with the UK scene at the time and, obviously what was to come.
Funnily enough, and I hope you agree with this, but I feel that 'shoegaze' was a reaction to the previous indie scene of The Smiths, (early ie Pre Sit Down) James amongst others. Ironically, it was the first Suede album and Blur's Modern Life Is Rubbish, both coming out in '93, that started the counter-reaction to Nirvana et al.
I saw MBV a couple of years back at The Roundhouse and it was like standing next to a Boeing 747 for 2hrs. But by God, could they write the most amazing songs!

Exactly.  My dad didn't like Hendrix because he thinks it's all guitar noise, and he didn't like the BBs because he thinks they are all teen-pop fluff.  In both cases, I needed to educate him.  Play stuff like "Little Wing" or "Angel" or "All This is That" or "Big Sur," let him say "What's this?  It's really beautiful" and then tell him who it was.