The Smiley Smile Message Board

Posting it here before settling in for a read myself. Enjoy!

http://www.rockcellarmagazine.com/2013/04/02/al-jardine-smile-beach-boys-interview/

"I’ve got a pile of acetates down in my home studio and I’ve listened to them over the years and I really enjoyed what we did."

Discuss.  ;D

He says they tried burning tape after hearing the stories of Brian destroying the original SMiLE tapes.

Can't be done! Classic :lol

 :lol  Smile out takes even!

Cool article, thanks for posting and nice work by Al slipping in a plug for Postcard

RIP The Surf's Up Sessions :violin

Here we go again...everything you thought you knew about SMiLE debunked again !  :P

Cool little interview. Here's a few things I took from it:

• Al still seems to think that "Do You Like Worms" isn't really "Do You Like Worms". Odd.
• He always seems to say they recorded Pet Sounds and SMiLE simultaneously. Which I guess is somewhat true, cuz they did Pet Sounds and "Good Vibrations" at the same time. But not really.
• Although seems to think "Barnyard" had no lyrics. Odd once again.

The last point, it's probably because the only vocals are from the demo. None (as far as we know) were recorded.

Claims that Pet Sounds and Smile were recorded simultaneously, and Pet Sounds was extracted 'out of the majority of the material and left the rest of it unfinished.'


Quite.

This is a great interview-I am happy that they addressed Brian's state of mind in 67.  Obviously a very confusing period.  I find it very interesting that he discussed the Smiley version of Heroes being one of the great disappointments of his career.  The other BBs have never really discussed this topic at length.  The Smiley Smile period had to be a very pressure filled period.  You wonder if there were a lot of heavy subjects being discussed or if everything was just left unsaid.  I mean was there a big discussion about Monterey?  About labeling the album as "produced by the Beach Boys" rather than Brian? About Brian's decision to re-record Smile tracks in radically different form?About drugs?  About Redwood?  Why was Bruce basically absent the whole summer it was recorded? Perhaps the BBs just didn't really address all these issues and just let things lie...but one wonders.

Also interesting:

Al thinks "Heroes And Villains" flopped as a single. I don't get it. How is a number 12 single a flop?

It's also amusing that he thinks the official SMiLE version of "Heroes..." is so much better than the Smiley Smile version, since in reality the version released on SMiLE has a great deal of elements from the Smiley version.

That sounds about right. Boys liked, cooperated. Brian was on task and organized. None of the Boys were fighting with or against Brian or Van Dyke. They didn't want Brian to scrap SMiLE. The Boys didn't really know why Brian did what he did.

I remember Mike Love saying in an interview that Brian was never the same after his work on Heroes and Villains.  I can see where Al is coming from when he says H&V was a flop compared to GV, but then again how do you follow up a masterpiece.

 
I still think that Brian considered (and still considers) "Heroes And Villains" to be one of his top pieces and when he brought it to that radio station he was hoping it would be a huge hit. I know a few people (like Al for instance) feel like he purposely underproduced it, but I don't. I think he got it the way he wanted it after all that time, and the fact that it "only" got to number 12 really got to him. Apparently Jack Rieley even wrote something about how much the  perceived "failure" of "Heroes" bothered Brian. I think that's a shame. Because I'm pretty sure "Wouldn't It Be Nice" got to number 8, I don't think that's a failure. Or "Do It Again" at number 20. They seemed (and still seem) pretty happy with that. Start of their concerts with it. I understand that "Heroes" followed up "Good Vibrations", but still, it's a great, super artistic, musically and lyrically amazing piece. And it got to number 12. Not bad at all.

Thanks for posting this link.

Outsiders (outside of the basic 3 creative smile people) never seem to get it right, but Al is both honest & diplomatic which is always a welcome commodity in Beach Boys land.

Nice interview, but the award for most misleading headline of the year goes to...

 ;D

There's not much here that Al hasn't addressed in previous interviews. Sometimes I think he's full of crap and/or has a bad memory. His recollections are miscombobulated. He's always felt that way about Heroes & Villains. In this interview (like others) he's said that it sounds too muddled. While I can't disagree with him there, for him to say it was a disappointment is just nuts. For many years, he sang lead on it in concert. It was a mainstay in the Beach Boys setlist. Pet Sounds was extracted from the Smile sessions? What the hell is that? Maybe it seemed like that to him after the intermittent on and off touring/studio schedule in '66 - '67, but the material between the two albums is just so different! But Al feels like it was a continuous run of sessions. Al is the one who said he was made to crawl around the floor and make "embarassing" animal noises and he felt used and humiliated by it. but he sure didn't mention that here.....

I like Al. He's a nice guy. Willing to talk. Both times I shook hands with him in 2010 he made sure he held a pen in the palm of his right hand. And my hand was clean! Not sanitized, but clean! But.........Keep it clean with Al Jardine. Here's a Beach Boy who never listened to the Smiley Smile album until late 1973. I sh*t you not!

It's not about numbers, though, it's about impact, legacy, sh*t like that. "Heroes" was to be this advanced new take on pop music, this huge adventurous single among a sea of huge adventurous music, the next logical step after the huge achievement of "Good Vibrations. I think Brian, Van Dyke, and apparently even Al and some of the other guys really thought this could rock the boat, so to speak. And then... nothing. It's not finishable, it comes out in compromised form (in a sense, not the the single mix isn't awesome as is) but that's okay, it's still good, right? Right? Van Dyke leaves the project, Smile can't be finished, Brian can't see his ideas through, "Heroes" is viewed as a commercial and creative disappointment in light of being the follow-up to "Good Vibrations", it sells but doesn't do nearly as well as "Good Vibrations" or anticipated, the album tanks, etc. etc. etc.

Brian probably ended up thinking he was wrong. Like... really, really, really wrong. It's no wonder the guy got uneasy about the song and subject of said song for a few decades after. See Darian's "inappropriate music" comments.

What’s this dissonant train whistle chord? Is he talking about the H&V siren before you’re under arrest? And is Al just playing the sh*t out of his acetates??

Al is justified in saying that. Lots of time the initial slate isn't the finished song title. "Worms" is on the box but its just an early production title.
Brian could come up with interesting stuff, probably off the top of his head and not premeditated. He had a lot of practice. 

Fer instance, "California Girls" didn't stay "You're grass and I'm a Power Mower" like Brian slated it in the 8th take.  ;D

I think the "Worms" title made it beyond just a "for fun" title, really. It's world's more interesting than "Roll Plymouth Rock", at least. I think Al's just upset/confused because the song literally has nothing to do with worms, but there's no rule that your title has to be consistent with the lyrics.

Brian's reaction to the "failure" of Heroes and Villains sort of reminds me of Pete's reaction to the "failure" of "I Can See For Miles".

It's interesting what Van told Al - apologizing to him for "ruining his career".  ;D

Thats what I am picking. 2.40 in on the sessions disc 1.

I don't understand what's wrong with the Smiley version of Heroes and Villains. It's essentially the "Smile" version of the track minus the cantina section...

Edit:
No wait. The Smile version is essentially the Smiley version plus the cantina section.

For Beach Boys standards at that time everything not top ten was a failure. And after GV and the hype of H&V everyone expected another no.1






No, the organ was added during the Smiley Smile sessions plus Brian's lead. I'm not sure about maybe some other parts. I can see what Al means. The sound of Smiley Smile (and Wild Honey) are miles away from the sounds they would've gotten with the same recordings done in a proper studio like Goldstar or whatever

Context is everything. Do It Again got to number 20 (and number 1 in the U.K. btw!) at a time when the previous single didn't even make the top 40.

Heroes and Villains got to number 12 when it was the follow-up to a transatlantic number one. In the U.K. it performed worse than Then I Kissed Her...

This interview is a good example of why sitting the Beach Boys down to talk about Smile one more time will never give us anything useful.

Also, I assure you all that recording tape can definitely be burned.

downer comment of the month?

Which one?

whole lotta thingie

What "downer comment".  AvanTodd's right!

when you roll a rock over, there are usually worms underneath.

and the conquest of the north american continent is a real can of worms.

and yes, i like them.

And what do we make of the claim that McCartney was at the Smiley session. This is surely mis-remembered. Aren't there newspaper reports that date this?

What do you often find when you roll over a rock?   Worms.

That's what I always got from it as well. Doesn't the Frank Holmes illustration has the sandwich isles and the worms also? (I could be wrong, I don't have the book to hand)

Yeah, especially Plymouth rocks.  There's lotsa worms under those.

Yeah, but there never really was a finished Smile version of Heroes and Villains in 1966/1967, besides the "cantina mix"... I wonder what Al expected Heroes and Villains to be, the "cantina" version???

Some have suggested that the Plymouth Rock is a type of chicken that feeds on worms.

The shapes in Lava Lamps can look like worms. I like the idea of the Lava Lamp LSD experience in Brian's totally irresponsible and unreliable bio. When you start such a lamp up the mass eventually rolls over & becomes more like worms. On a Beach Boys LP these things might better be made into something one could relate to their all American image.

Brian said "I cannot teach you or tell you what I learned from taking it" to Tom Nolan. This is in keeping with the typical ineffability of the spiritual LSD experience.

So when the SMilE creators speak of 'visual' references it is because there is no accurate verbal reference available for the ineffable spiritual experience professed by Brian Wilson to be the basis of SMiLE.

Al Jardine approaches the project from the opposite angle (as do most "experts") by giving tantamount importance to the verbal aspects of the work.

This may be the dumbest thing I have ever read.

Um, what? Time to put down the bong mate...

Plymouth rock is a breed of chicken.

(http://chickscope.itg.uiuc.edu/resources/standard_varieties/figures/figure_01.jpg)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Rock_(chicken) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Rock_(chicken))

True but I'm going to go out on a limb and say I'm pretty sure Van Dyke was thinking of The Mayflower Pilgrims landing in New England when he wrote the lyrics.

And it's not plausible that he was writing about something with multiple levels of meaning? Because Van was clearly into non-stop puns. I, for one, don't underestimate Mr. Parks.

I think Brian was working on religion and humor and Van Dyke was was working on a history/political lesson. I think they were rarely on the same page and not all that confident in what the other was doing.  That's why Brian reset to Smiley mostly without Van Dyke's contributions.

The Boys were just waiting to be told when to jump and how high and that's why they didn't want Brian to dump their work on SMiLE but it happened anyway.

Out in the barnyard the chickens do their number....

One thing that's cool about SMiLE is that all 3 of the project's creators never have a single problem with any of the other creator's output. Brian has never spoken a bad word regarding Van Dyke's lyrics (tough I will give you that Van Dyke was a bit taken aback by at least one BWPS lyrical choice). Van Dyke never questioned Brian's music and neither Brian nor Van Dyke had any issue with Frank Holmes' art. Brian may question the scope or advanced nature of the project but never does he explain flawed thinking or thematic confusion or anything along these lines.

Basically all three creators have no qualms with the material that was created. SMiLE makes sense to the album's 3 artists.

Fans and basically all of those apart from the 3 creators, on the other hand, have loads of problems with SMiLE. What does this mean? What does that mean? How does this fit with that?

More often than not the fan perspective seems to disintegrate into Brian was doing this stuff that NOBODY understands. Van Dyke added his American viewpoint to the project and Frank was just somebody they found to illustrate Van Dyke's lyrics. Frank basically did his own thing. So it was just 3 guys doing their own thing and that's why Smile is the way it is.

Another fan favorite is to collect reference after reference disclosed by the 3 artists. Eventually they end up with a basket full of references that they cannot connect in any all encompassing sense. This seems to satisfy most fans likely because they believe the artists were all doing their own things.

But based upon the comments of the albums 3 main guys----SMiLE makes sense.

makes sense to me.


care to divulge which lyric that was?

Didn't Brian have something to do with the lyrics in Wind Chimes? It's interestingly credited only to Wilson on Smiley Smile. Maybe VDP just disowned the Smiley Smile version, haha.

I suspect Brian was always into the lyrics of his pieces, even if he didn't always write (all) of them. Maybe the nature of Tony Asher's writing relationship with Brian was different from that of VDP?

I am not looking at the session dates right now, but I believe the chorus using the Bicycle Rider tune was recorded after SMiLE was scrapped.

Wow.  Did Al say anything in this interview that is actually true?

IMO, Smile does belong to the fans, because without the fans, Smile would never have been released in any form. There would be no bootlegs, no BWPS, no boxed set.  And no, I cannot agree that Brian Wilson, Van Dyke Parks, and Frank Holmes (?!) had a fully realized vision and were all on the same page and that they made this perfect one disc album that most fans just aren't hip to.

I think the BWPS credits are a case of incorrectly thinking they were Van Dyke Parks' work because he was so involved with the original project. A lot of things like this were glossed over for BWPS, and it was to be expected, I guess. Still, in this case, all they had to do was take a look at a copy of Smiley Smile. "Wind Chimes" feels nothing like anything else Van Dyke wrote around this time period and has Brian's name attached to it.

Thanks for this article Pretty Funky.

Bossaro asked what lyric on BWPS didn't agree with Van Dyke Parks.

Yeah, if my memory serves me well VDP was uncomfortable with the "I'm in the great shape of the agriculture" line.

Puggal suggested that Brian had lyrical input & I agree with Puggal.

Runnersdialzero said:

I agree with you. If Van Dyke had a hand in the "Wind Chimes" lyrics it sort of shows that SMiLE wasn't the all about Americana thing it became.

Al is great. But there is a great disconnect between those who know what's going on and those who don't when we speak about the psychedelic experience. From Al's point of view he's accurate and we all should respect such honesty. No one could ask for anything more. Al is great.

The viewpoint of the album's 3 creative artists is different from Al's in a creative sense. They were more experimental and were privy to an alternate state of consciousness, reality, or what have you.

By virtue of that their art, reflective of that insight, is not easily recognizable to those who have no such experience.

Really? Where did VDP say this? I've never heard of this.


So unless you do acid you're not cool and you don't get it, right?

No that's not what he's saying. It's not about being cool, he's saying acid gives you a different outlook and perspective, creatively. Sorry if you don't like it, but its true. That's why psychedelic music exists, because people took psychedelic drugs.

I said:


SweetdudeJim said:


I was given that impression from a November 2004 Endless Summer Quarterly interview with Van Dyke Parks. Now I reread the piece it may be that VDP wasn't comfortable with the sequencing of that section. Here's the part of the interview.

ESQ: Were you involved in the sequencing decisions?
VDP: No. I thought that it was important for Brian to make the decision. I don't take any credit at all for the big picture. I'm not saying that I approve of all the results. When I heard "I'm in the great shape of the agriculture . . . " I wasn't so sure I was going for it.

I'm pretty sure I've read an article from the Smile 2004 period where the authorship of the Wind Chimes lyrics was brought up between Van Dyke and Brian/Melinda.  Please somebody correct me if this is wrong, but I think Van Dyke questioned why his name was not on the credits for the original Smiley release and requested this be amended for Smile 2004.  I think the article described it as a sensitive subject for Brian particularly in light of Mike's lawsuit.

Yes, you're quite right. I remember being surprised, as I always thought the Wind Chimes lyrics were very Brian, in that "so simple it's disarming" way he does so well. Obviously not though.

I recall it too… was it m=not in the Beautiful Dreamer doc?

“We went shopping one day and we brought home some wind chimes. We hung them outside the house and then one day, while Brian was sitting around he sort of watched them out the window and then he wrote the song. I think that’s how it happened. Simple. He does a lot of things that way.”
-Marilyn Wilson (“The Beach Boys” by Byron Preiss. 1979)