The Smiley Smile Message Board

One might wish to compare VDP's Twitter acknowledgement of Brian Wilson's birthday to his acknowledgements of the birthdays of Chet Atkins and Errol Flynn. What would one surmise?

That there is a strain in that relationship of some sort.

Maybe it's preprogrammed to insert name and send on the recipients dob

Ah Van Dyke, there is an old saying - Out in the barnyard, the chickens do their number.

Yeah...he wished two others a happy birthday the same date with some kind of nice comment included about their talents. Not Brian. And he posted a link to a video mocking the band. Huh.

The insiders here say theres no bad blood between them, but honestly stuff like this makes me feel differently. Maybe its a joke or something but over a long stretch of time these kinds of jokes stop bein funny or endearing and just come off as mean

VDp is slipping quicly into dementia

Maybe slipping in popularity around these parts. Dementia? He's as sharp witted as ever.

I actually tweeted at him about this, which is kind of dumb I realize, but he was clearly trying to mock Brian in some way. Between this, his agreeing with Loren Daro and his "victim of Brian Wilson's buffoonery" comment, I really don't like the vibes Van Dyke Parks is putting out there about Brian. It all comes off as very bitter and mean-spirited.

One of the reasons I always love VDP--in addition to his literary nature--was that he seemed at least above the sort grapes grudge-holding that seems to infect rock 'n' roll is general (and the BBs in particular); when he tried to correct Mike Love's revisionism on the SMiLE Sessions, he at least formed an argument that wasn't bilious.

I must say, this hat doesn't look very good on him...

Bitter, yes. Mean-spirited, not necessarily, depending on what actually went on between these guys.

That said, I find myself less and less interested in that kind of soap opera stuff. VDP is a brilliant artist and a big part of some of Brian's most celebrated work. These days that's what I prefer to focus on.

Honestly it just strikes me as childish and silly. If he is ticked at Brian, whatever the reason it would be, surely theres a better way to go about it than this. Just be the bigger person and move on. If asked about it, say why you're ticked. Or just say Brians not a part of my life anymore, I dont wanna talk about him. But all the petty digs on Twitter just reduces him to middle school level bullying. I'd expect more from the man who wrote the thought-provoking lyrics to SMiLE.

If there's no bad blood and this is all coincidence...then Van ought to work on how he comes across. The fact that theres been quite a few threads wondering about this should be a red flag that maybe hes not coming off well. Brian even just called him his favorite collaborator very recently...and how does VDP treat him in turn? Not very respectfully at all.

What gets me is throwing himself behind Daro. Even if Daro WAS telling the truth (which Im highly skeptical of) he was still unspeakably rude to Brian's family, posters on this forum he doesnt even know and was generally unpleasant. Why stand up for a person like that? If that's someone VDP is willing to go to bat for, that speaks volumes and none of it good :-\

Barks used to have a lot of credibility among BB fans. Some people took verbatim his story about that flight with Mike Love after an accordion session, and Mike supposedly gave him a business card so Van could reach him and collect the airfare costs. According to VDP the phone number did not work anymore. At the time I thought he was making up a story; these days I kinda wish it was true.

Still, a remarkable musician and lyricist.

I don't think his tweet was necessarily mean-spirited... but maybe that's because I always thought the Beach Boys shred video was hysterical. More questionable than the video he linked is the fact all he wrote was "Brian Wilson, born June 20", while he elaborated on Errol Flynn and Chet Atkins.

Credit is everything in the music and movie business. I think Van Dyke Parks was in sort of a Wag The Dog situation with Brian and Smile. He was under credited for his some of his contributions and uncredited for others; orchestration for one.

If he has feelings about that, it is perfectly natural and understandable. I don't have a problem with him airing his opinions, observations and feelings on his social media site.

But then...just be an adult and honestly say so. I dont care if he and Brian are friends or what. But if you dont like him, either keep it to yourself or explain why. Dont just fling barbs whenever you get the chance, its not going to get you any respect. However, if he really was the mastermind behind a lot of the arrangements (and not just lyrics) for SMiLE, thats awesome and Id have a lot more respect for him if he just said so. Id believe it too, itd really explain why Brian says hes his best collaborator--because he challenged Brian and forced him to create better music than if he were left to his own devices.

It's quite common for several musicians to contribute ideas to an arrangement without receiving record-sleeve credit.

Was VDP hired as an arranger? Did he write out charts for strings, horns, or woodwinds? If not, he has no beef on that score.

Agreed.

A quick VDP story:

One year my Yahoo e-mail account was hijacked and started sending everybody in my mailing list spam mail including Van Dyke who kept replying to each spam message with some funny stuff before I figured out that my e-mail had been hacked. I'll have to do a search in my e-mail to find what I'm talking about. One of the replies I remember was telling me to keep my shoes on. As bitter as he may come off with some people, he was genuinely hilarious to me. How many people respond to a  half dozen spam messages other than VDP???

  Van Dyke and Mike should go in a room to write songs. Maybe they don't need old Brian Wilson.  :lol

he probably was unbusy.

Well that makes one of us.

This guy has a huge ego and comes off as a pretentious pain in the ass. His claim to fame concerning the Beach Boys is that he worked with Brian on an album that was scrapped. It was a great work, and some of the tracks saw the light of day in the 60's and 70's, but still he walked off the project and Brian scrapped it. That is the bottom line. His name has come up, and in most cases with tons of praise for decades in books, articles and documentaries about Brian and the BB's. In reality he has gotten way to much credit and publicity from his blip in time with Brian.

The man had squat to do with what...99 percent of the body of work from Brian and the BB's yet has been making snarky comments concerning them since...well decades really.

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In reality he has gotten way to much credit and publicity from his blip in time with Brian.


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Mighty potent blip.

This thread should have ended with this post rather than going on with lame attempts to discredit VDP's inimitable body of work from the last 50 years. He's almost like Brian Eno's antecedent.

can someone please post what he said so e can see for ourselves? thanks  ;)

https://twitter.com/thevandykeparks/status/612279658428563456

thanks  lol.....not sure what to think about it...

The video is pretty f#@king funny.

yes I like the video...just not sure if he posted it because he's just being silly or if he's trying to make a statement...lol...

Could you elaborate a bit on the possibility of Van Dyke being the possible mastermind behind the Smile arrangements? I have never heard him contributing more than the lyrics on the project, much less potentially being the mastermind behind the arrangements.  ???

I was just responding to someone else's theory that maybe he feels gyped that no one credits the whole of his contribution to SMiLE. I don't think he's the mastermind behind the arrangements per se, but it was his idea to include cellos in GV. Supposedly one other point of contention between the two was his feelings that Brian wasn't going far enough. That his arrangements should be more complex. And Brian thought VDP was asking for too much. I don't have a source for this tho. Anyway, it stands to reason VDP would shoot off ideas about this kind of thing to Brian. Unlike Asher, he was a seasoned, trained musician. And he was willing to be just as out there as Brian wanted to go.

Considering one of them is a R&R Hall of Famer with numerous songs classified both as massive hits AND artistically significant, and the other is Van Dyke Parks, well...time has borne out which was 'right'.

What is the Beach Boys secondmost acclaimed album again? Isn't it also Brian's firstmost acclaimed solo album? I forgot. Could have sworn he won his only two Grammys for it. Wasn't some guy named Parks heavily involved in its creation, direction, writing, and initial recording?

Perhaps. I do think the two of them together was a match made in heaven in any case. I liked a song or two on Song Cycle but overall it rubbed me the wrong way. Haven't listened to VDPs other stuff. Pet Sounds is amazing but I think SMiLE is still head and shoulders above it and VDP is to be credited for writing lyrics as layered as the instrumentation. And if it turns out some of *that* was his idea too...so much the better. He obviously pushed Brian to be better because he (Brian) never made anything half as great since, and Brian reigned in his pretentiousness and gave it a catchy sincerity to make it relatable. I'd say they were both right. Or neither was right.

I'm pretty sure I read about that disagreement here on the forum. An earlier thread discussing some article from LLVS

According to Vosse in '69, VDP would suggest ideas which would then get shut down by Brian arbitrarily.

According to Brian sometime in '04, he didn't feel as though Smile was commercial because of the non-musical portions like Workshop which were mostly encouraged by Parks.

Van Dyke wanted the Beach Boys to release their Kid A. They didn't. The Beatles did instead, in the form of Sgt. Pepper. And we know how the rest ends.

That's what it was! The Vosse interview. Alrighty.

That's surprising that things like Workshop were VDPs idea. I honestly thought Brian was the one veering too far off course until Van had enough. Again, I don't have a specific source but I recall reading he was put off by the Psychedelic Sounds skits and Brian's behavior in general. I always had the impression that Brian would be recording random feels as he pleased while Van tried to get him to focus and eventually gave up.

Do you know if the Americana idea was VDP's ? I always suspected so. He saw the Boys themselves as modern Americana and he seems to be really into that subject in general. Again if that was his idea, he deserves a lot of credit for how great SMiLE is because those are the strongest tracks on the album, I think. They have a drive and energy that the moodier "life" tracks don't quite match. Plus I love the idea of challenging the British Invasion directly and reaffirming American culture while still openly acknowledging the horrors of our past.

One of those Grammy's was for Best Rock Instumental. No Parks involvement. Other was for Best Historical Album for the Smile Sessions boxed set, which technically doesn't count as Parks had no involvement with compiling the boxed set, but I'll grant you that one.

Now since we're using sarcasm to attempt to prove a point, answer me this....which of the two is constantly taking pot shots at people on Twitter or interviews (including yours truly)? Here's a hint...it's not Brian Wilson.  Which of the two seems to always take the high road and seemingly goes out of his way in order to avoid being too harsh towards someone? Here's a hint...his initials are BDW.

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Brian never said VDP came up with Workshop, only that he encouraged him to put stuff like that on the album when Brian was having doubts. At least that's how I remember the quote. I remember Brian was speaking about the '60s sessions, but the tone suggests he was feeling it more from the BWPS sessions.

I've never seen VDP take a direct potshot at Brian. Indirect shots, maybe, but he's never outright said anything negative or bitter about the guy. The people around him? Absolutely.

---

VDP : "Manifest Destiny, Plymouth Rock, etc. were the last things on his mind when he asked me to take a free hand in the lyrics and the album’s thematic direction. (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2006/jan/12/smile/)"

BDW : "We wanted to capture the mood of early Americana, Plymouth Rock and all that. Van Dyke had a lot of knowledge about America. I gave him hardly any direction. We wanted to get back to basics and try something simple. We wanted to capture something as basic as the mood of water and fire. (https://web.archive.org/web/20090108103456/http://www.pastemagazine.com/action/article/949/feature/music/brian_wilson_remembers_how_to_smile)

I see. The interesting thing is I agree or disagree depending on whether he meant the 60s or 00s. The former I say put all that weird sh*t on there. Workshop, the Undersea Chant, the Veggie Fight...all of it. It would have been totally cutting edge, unexpected and psychedelic. It would have fit perfectly with the times and set the trend for what was to come in the Summer of Love. The latter? I say they screwed up big time by including as much material as they did. Who's idea was it to include scraps like Barnyard and Great Shape? It's too long, ruins the flow even for a live set and dilutes the message. I'd say some of the more secondary tracks like those and Holidays ought to have been cut.

Not surprising at all that the Americana theme was Van's idea. The direction of the "life" tracks is pure Brian tho. And they're fantastic, but I feel like that theme was explored already and better with Pet Sounds. It's really that dissection of America that sets SMiLE apart, and which adds new weight to the Life tracks. How wonderful could also be a metaphor for the raping of the Americas by the settlers for example. Or serving as exposition for Surfs Up which talks about how society is breaking down.

What stuns me is Brian saying they wanted to do something simple considering the insurmountable ambitions of the project. I guess the chords are relatively simple (from my extremely limited understanding) but the arrangement, lyrics and modular editing are anything but.

Yeah, but what else should have happened in order for Van to be pleased? Not much else IMO. They worked together, clashed in one way or another, collaboration's over, VDP is credited as lyricist.... What else? Apparently, like Mike, he wanted to work with Brian alone in a room for TLOS; but that cannot poison you for years.

If he claims to have made contributions other than lyrics, well that's new. He's made those "glorified scribe", "I got a Volvo out of the deal", "Brian gave me dah dah dah dah dah dah dah dah.... and I gave him lyrics for that" quotes for years. He never claimed credit for the music before. And I don't think he's doing so now.

If it wasn't for Brian Wilson, I wouldn't have the first clue who Van Dyke Barks was ...

  Parks has become a miserable old man.

The recent comments from Mr. Parks do not coincide with the "Southern Gentleman" persona he has cultivated over the years.  He had previously come across as a gracious and proud collaborator who expressed appreciation for his involvement in the ambitious project, and was always complementary of Brian. 


Conversely, I have not heard a peep from Tony Asher, a seemingly classy individual who doesn't feel the need to seek accolades and attention.

No one has seemingly noticed that Van Dyke posted four tweets on the 20th to celebrate famous people that celebrated their birthday that day. In every tweet he said something about the genius of the people (f.e. Chet Atkins and Eroll Flynn), but Brian's tweet was just a shred of I Get Around. Like he wanted to make a point that the other people were really geniuses and modest people and Brian wasn't.

Alas Yorick, you have hit on the juxtaposition! While the “shred” is indeed humorous, and while in another context its inclusion could easily have been deemed innocuous and even fanciful, the positioning here is quaintly obvious and even puerile. It is surprising indeed that one glib as VDP would resort to such schoolboy antics.

And if I am correct – an old man often isn’t – it is improper etiquette to “sub-tweet” one who has a Twitter account. In this case, the posting is not linked to Brian Wilson, though he does indeed maintain such an account.

It seems that VDP is fit with the stuff to write in his rub – indeed through the recess, the chalk and numbers, a coy bump into the one, one, wonderful. “I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.” And yet through the opera glass you see the pit and the pendulum drawn.

If this tweet bothered Mr. Wilson half as much as some of us here, I think I'd actually be surprised.  Brian has people heaping praise upon his genius everywhere he turns.  Who knows, maybe when something a little irreverent comes from someone Brian actually knows, the guy steps back and has himself a laugh?

I don't know.  I guess I don't see the same malicious intend behind it that some others do.  To me, it came off simply as VDP having a little fun of noting Brian's birthday.

But maybe I'm reading things wrong.

I'm never 100% sure how to take VDP.  A cube of salt helps.

Even without Smile, VDP is a great artist. But what I really wanted to add, considering his tweets (I follow him, a true gent) is that he is also hurt by Love and Mercy not giving him credit for the cello on GV.

This appears to be a follow up, but it doesn't make anything any clearer:

https://twitter.com/thevandykeparks/status/612320604876767232

His latest "tweet" concerning Brian is anything but being a gent. As far as being hurt by love and mercy...did you read all the nonsense from Carol Kaye last week? Going off on a rant because she would not have been confused by or questioned two baselines. VDP and Ms. Kaye apparently have never seen a biopic and don't have the slightest idea about the way a movie is put together. Pohlad and company would not and did not contact and bring in every person that would have had something to do with Brian 20 or 50 years ago. The movie was not about Smile, VDP or Ms. Kaye. Maybe if VDP had been seated in the assistant directors chair and re-worked the script so that his character got equal screen time with Brian he would be telling us how great a movie it is.

I'm pretty sure neither of them have seen the movie and even if they have, they were both making snarky comments about it without having seen it. That's very childish, petty, and disrespectful to Brian.

I've always disliked the cello bit in Good Vibrations.  I would have used rapid, descending
bass guitar (higher notes) arpeggios.  But I will always love Parks' statement in the American
Band video about the legitimacy of a band that sang about the place where the ocean water touched
the shore.  Very Shakespearean that.  Don't care much for what gets said today.

Sounds like a lame cop-out. "Oh, it was just a satire!" Umm...how?

Didn't Brian say in an interview during C50 that the cello was Carl's idea?

Nice 1970s BW look! ;)

Yeah, he must have, because I was thinking the exact same thing.

yes, on the "Doin' it Again" DVD

True? Untrue? I am an old man, but Brian makes the claim about Carl and the GV cello use in this article from 1988.

https://web.archive.org/web/19980630154219/http://www.petsounds.com/bam.pdf

Oh, the unmitigated gall of that alliterating fool!

His only other claims include the cello suggestion and playing some instruments. Unfortunately I've not heard any corroborations for VDP regarding the cello bit. During C50, Brian said to Mike that Carl suggested the cello, which surprised Mike. I'm sure there are other people who could say "Yes, the cello was thanks to VDP" but I'm not sure how many of them are still alive.

Brian says it was Carl on most occasions. During the Theremin Odyssey documentary, he also claimed that the theremin was added after the cello (https://youtu.be/E8oiqcur1DU?t=107). We know this doesn't add up chronologically. Other time he says he doesn't remember a single thing about writing or recording Good Vibrations. So it's not impossible that he's mistaken.


That sounds about right.

Why are we surprised? Brian's memory is notoriously faulty especially regarding this period

Yeah but I'm expecting some people to use this as the sole exception where Brian is the absolute authority on what went down 50 years ago -- just to spite VDP.

For the record there is a Brian interview in Harvey Kubernik's book where he credits both Carl and Van Dyke with the ideas for a cello on GV.

And here is Carl interview from 1989 from a Guitar magazine I scanned and posted here a few years ago:

(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/CarlWilsonp2.jpg)

I think I find VDP's claim is more credible maybe unless Brian and Carl mean it in some way I don't get.

“For example, Good Vibrations, the cello. The man played the fundamental to the chords, and this is Jesse Ehrlich, he came in and played the cello, see, to make it right. Now I couldn’t play the cello. Brian went into the talkback  in the control booth, the first string player that he had ever assailed of such veteran ability and he said 'Barko, Barko, the man played Good Vibrations, Sound Sound the studio sensation'. It was no longer the performance, something tremendously individual happened that only improved the value of the group, to enforce the performance. I have a feeling that Good Vibrations is what guides me…”  VDP [LLVS p. 68]


“I worked as a studio musician for Brian Wilson during Pet Sounds, playing what he dictated on keyboards and marimba. I've always been gratified he accepted my suggestion for the cello triplets on 'Good Vibrations', so it can be said that I made one  clear musical contribution.” VDP 12/25/98

"I suggested to Brian Wilson that he put a cello on 'Good Vibrations.' He did, and it became a signature sound of that song. I also suggested the triplet fundamentals in the music. I did that." VDP  http://www.newtimesla.com/issues/2000-04-06/music.html


“I didn't casually suggest the cello in "Good Vibrations". In fact, the triplets in this pedal point became a signature part of the production. There was nothing casual about it. And it worked.” VDP  http://www.l-m-c.org.uk/texts/parks.html

Those links might be obsolete now.

Pick up VDP Recorded Live at the Ash Grove. Very good.

 :violin

Thanks, I'll give it a shot

If smile did come out way back when it probably would have been heralded as the greatest album of all time, lord knows how many millions it would have sold and what it would have done for Van's career.

Maybe as he get's older it's been bothering him more that smile got shelved and holds some resentment towards Brian for it.

I don't know, in my opinion it's the only way to explain Van's cheap shots at Brian.

100% agree with that first paragraph.

For the speculation...I can see it. Makes sense.

It would have been a commercial disappointment -- too arty for the mainstream, too pop for the counterculture. I can see it having become a cult hit critically, though, along the lines of 'Forever Changes'.

Much better for Brian's rep that it went unreleased, so as to develop its legend as a lost masterpiece.

I disagree, with Good Vibes on there it could've been a huge hit

I noticed.  That's why I mentioned it in black in the Happy Birthday, Brian thread.

Also 100% agree with that first paragraph.

As for the recent Van/Brian apparent falling out... I am guessing (based on pure speculation) that it has to do with money/credits or something of that nature, a circumstance specifically relating to the release of TSS in 2011 in which perhaps Van felt he got the short end of the stick in some way. The details/parameters are of course shrouded in complete mystery to us, but I would be very surprised if it were anything other than something in the ballpark of what I've described. I also suspect that the release of TSS and C50 were in some way interconnected, so who knows how that could (or maybe not, if I'm utterly wrong) have affected Van's point of view, if bargaining chips were maneuvered around in a way that affected him negatively. Maybe promises were broken in some way, and Van didn't get his version of a "room" with Brian. I dunno. I have a feeling I'd have some empathy for Van's gripes if I knew what they were specifically.

But it really must ultimately come down to feeling slighted and shortchanged in some fashion.

Mike and Van are perhaps the two guys in BB history who got shafted the most, though obviously in very different ways. For all the ways that Mike felt slighted for his being deprived of credits for decades, at least Mike was nonetheless a multimillionaire many times over from touring, as well as for making money of the other hit songs he was in fact credited on.  That had to have significantly eased the pain of his legitimate gripes from the credits.

Comparatively, Van really must have fallen on hard times to do session work on Summer in Paradise, and I don't blame him for probably having quite a lot of resentment (which perhaps has gotten way worse over time, and apparently has magnified since whenever the recent falling out happened) surely over the factors (and people) he blames at least in part for why SMiLE never came out originally. It sucks that he has found no other way to express himself but to vent in the way that he has apparently chosen. I'm sure he has his reasons, though I can't say he's doing himself any favors, and I wonder if he knows, or at 72, if he gives a hoot about that either.

I'm sorry but this myth really needs to die.

Pet Sounds went top ten and its sales were underreported by Capitol so it probably did even better. They were voted the #1 group in the world. GV was #1 and their biggest hit yet. They were just as hot as they ever were. Capitol hyped up SMiLE big time. The Brian is a genius mantra was ramping up and getting people excited. SMiLE very well could have went #1 had it come out in January as planned. It probably would have went top ten as long as it came out prior to June and was at least released neck and neck with Pepper.

I'm not sure why the "Pet Sounds flopped"/"SMiLE would have flopped" talking points are so prevalent but they have no basis in fact. Sgt Pepper is pop. I'd say even outright fluff. And it went number one and for reasons I still can't figure out, got hailed as some innovative masterpiece. SMiLE is ten times are innovative. It's also more daring, in how it tackles mature themes in an unapologetic way while seamlessly merging them with the classic Beach Boys sound.

It may not have been as impactful at the time as Pepper just because the Beatles are the Beatles. But it would have been a hit. People who appreciate great music would have respected it over Pepper. And as time wore on, it's stature would grow, similar to Pet Sounds, to where it would be hailed as the best album from 1967. Of that, I'm sure.

SMiLE not coming out in 1967 isn't good. It severely damaged Brian's confidence and the band's reputation. It robbed the musical world of a masterpiece and the counterculture of a more worthy banner to rally behind.  

+1.

Even if SMiLE hadn't been as culturally or chartwise Earth-shattering upon its initial release in 1967 (if it had come out then), I have little doubt that in a few short years from that point, that it would have really, majorly be seen as a complete masterpiece of innovation and psychedelia by the early 70s. It would have been a game-changer for the BBs, as well as influential on pop music + other bands for decades.

Did I say that SMiLE would have flopped? I said it would have been a commercial disappointment -- a couple of weeks in the top ten, say, and not a #1, and certainly not selling "millions and millions". Sgt Pepper didn't sell millions.

Sure, the Beach Boys were hot late '66, but were they really the #1 band in the world? Talk about myths. Some UK music mag voted them the #1 vocal group, that's all.

I still feel like you're selling it short. I honestly think the blending of pop and avant garde psychedelia is SMiLE's biggest selling point. I think people would have heard it and been blown away. I was. And I didn't even like psychedelic rock then--this was my introduction to it. What got me hooked. I'm sure my experience would have been the same of many young teens in 1967. Even if it wouldn't have been multi-platinum or whatever, it still would have sold very respectably. Better than Smiley, that's for sure. Probably would have encouraged Brian to keep on experimenting which would keep the group well-loved into the Seventies and paid for itself 100x over in that regard.

The fact that the readers of a well known magazine voted them that should be indicative that they were thought highly of by and large at the time. True, just because it was in one magazine doesn't make it so...but it still says a lot. Keep in mind their biggest competition--the Beatles--hadn't released an album in awhile, had quite touring, was steeped in controversy after the "bigger than Jesus" remark and people seriously thought they were breaking up. In comparison, the BBs seemed to be on top of the world

I'll run my mouth a little bit.  Van Dyke strikes me as one of those guys who's so damn intelligent, but it actually gets in their way a lot.  He probably has days where he's the funniest, most charismatic guy around.  The whole intellectual world has turned into snarky, sarcastic comments and when that stuff is 'on', it's 'on' and he's probably hilarious... at times.

There's probably other days where he's 'off', and just comes across as a bitter asshole.  Several times i've seen him interject politics into conversations he's having about people; he's one of those folks that if he finds out someone believes something politically different than him, his mind closes up really quick and he loses all respect for them... and can't keep his mouth shut about it. 

I kind of feel sorry for the guy.  I imagine he truly did care about his friendship with Brian, and we all know Brian has a buffer between him and the people in his life (and for good reason)... so if for whatever reason, Van Dyke has been shut out of Brian's life that's probably pretty painful although he may never admit it.  So now he's doing childish stuff like posting crazy crap on Twitter. 

That Smiley couldn't break the top 40 is a good indication that Smile wouldn't have sold huge amounts.

The man has worked with giants like Harry Nilsson, Ringo Starr, Ryuichi Sakamoto, U2, and Robert Altman, and you think he's unhappy about the career he's had? Give me a break. VDP has always said that he enjoys sidemen roles more than being a frontman.


That's interesting. Maybe the truth is something in between.

What if Carl suggested the cello and VDP suggested the triplets?

Bullshit. Smiley didn't come out until September, nearly a year after it's intended release and about 6 months after the hype died. By then, the Beach Boys had missed Monterey and were starting to be considered uncool. Everyone knew SMiLE, the much anticipated supposed masterwork was scrapped. Anyone who did buy it was probably severely disappointed that it not only didn't sound like the psychedelic rock that was dominating but it didn't sound like the Beach Boys either. I imagine word of mouth was probably disastrous.

Sorry but the success or failure of the two are completely unrelated. Too many variables had changed for us to be able to use Smiley as a comparison.

From Wikipedia:
The band's eighth LP, it debuted in the UK at number one – where it stayed for 22 consecutive weeks – selling 250,000 copies during the first seven days.  American radio stations interrupted their regular scheduling, playing the album virtually non-stop – often from start to finish.  It occupied the number one position of the Billboard Top LPs in the US for 15 weeks, from 1 July to 13 October 1967.  With 2.5 million copies sold within three months of its release, Sgt. Pepper‍ '​s initial commercial success exceeded that of all previous Beatles albums.

That would be "arse-id" alliteration...

It took a very long time to self-reveal his contempt and revulsion for this band...things have a way of "coming out in the wash."

All that pseudo Southern gentlemanly charm?

Behaving just as those late 60's and early 70's kids, who were (or thought they were) just "way too cool" and "way too smart and intellectual" for BW/BB's...

And yet, his lyrics and other works will endure...

Go figure.  I'mv very saddened at the utter immaturity of that back-handed HB to Brian...he might be happy for his friend Brian...Wow.

Mujan - I'm one of those who "bought the album" and was not disappointed in the least.  

Disappointed in what? GV? Heroes? Wind Chimes? Wonderful? Vegetables?  We knew it was a "glimpse of something big" and at that point "incomplete" but those vocals disappointed no one. It was bona fide BB vocal work.

The larger fault lies with the lack of promotion from the record company for under promotion, starting with Pet Sounds.  

Unfortunately the "word of mouth" was confined to concert attendees, who were wondering out loud as to when the "rest of this little treasure" would be released...before the World Wide Web of networked fans.  For those of us who bought Smiley, the ultimate release of the Sessions was well worth the wait.  We are generally, a "patient lot."

Youre misinterpreting me I think. I dont dislike Smiley, but Im quite sure a lot of people did at the time. GV and H&V would not have helped sales. By then GV was old news and anyone who wanted one had a copy. H&V underperformed.

Nah! You can't jump into the "Smile way-back" machine and know what people were thinking.  Or infer from a wiki page, what the context and dynamic was...

Smile (and smiley by incorporation) was "telling a story" and maybe not unlike an opera telling a story...we didn't know what the story was...people reserved judgment until they got more, which happened incrementally, eg. 20/20, Surf's Up, GV box set...we heard these "mysterious" tracks, not really knowing (except for Surf's Up) that they belonged to Smile.  

 :thewilsons

I must say, I often tire of the Brian coddling that goes on.  He went through a tremendous amount, yes, and I feel for him just as much as anyone, but I also feel that because of his tremendous gifts (which really are/were super tremendous, obviously) he is almost universally given a pass and his his own repugnant behavior at times in his life is excused and/or skirted.  
Derek Taylor made comments about some of the ways in which Brian behaved during his tenure with the band, and it gives the impression of an overgrown, spoiled child.   Mozart may have been amazingly talented, but he was also probably a childish pain in the a** much of the time to those who knew him.  This could be true of Brian (and quite frankly, may be true for many of us, me included - everyone has their foibles at times).   I'm not trying to bait anyone's ire here, but the reality is that Van Dyke, and others (even Ol' Mr. Love) probably have quite legitimate beefs, and were/are genuinely hurt by many of the ways Brian behaved/behaves.   I don't know any of these people at all, so I really can't say, but all I am saying is that everyone is human and no matter how amazingly talented one is, perhaps they too have some amends to make?  

(ducks head and runs like hell)

Absolutely, there's always two sides to every story. But, to me, this is about public context. It's understandable that there may be long standing issues to resolve. But, those should be privately held and privately resolved without resorting to sly put downs in the media. Mike and Van Dyke constantly take public cheap shots at Brian. Meanwhile, Brian takes the high road and compliments them in every interview. Brian may have behaved like a spoiled child in the past, but the ones making catty comments in interviews and on Twitter are the ones who are now looking like 13 year old drama queens.

Yes, very good point.  True, true, true.   

Exactly. Its not the fact that they had a falling out that people are blaming Van and Mike for. Its how theyve dealt with it, publically putting him down while offering nothing constructive or explaining their feelings. Like I said before, if Van feels the need to make his dislike known Id actually respect him a lot if he just flat out said what was bothering him. With Mike, I know what was/is bothering him, I completely empathize, Id feel the same way...and if he just dropped the talking points and expressed his hurt/vulnerable side about it, Id have so much more respect for him.

The two sides is nonsense. The inference from that old black and white satire-altered video, as a Brian birthday greeting, for me is, "this is who you were before you met me." You were nothing till I came along.  It was condescending disrespect for the BB roots, to the whole band.  They were breaking boundaries long before VDP came on the "cool scene."

On the flip side, you can't take his body of work from him.  I like his influence in the Popeye movie, my favorite Robin Williams movie.  It has a BB feel. The kind that it appears that he disdains.  It is hard to understand the paradox.

I think that it is no secret that Brian uses people to an extent. I say this just from what I have read over the years. Brian does not keep people in his life very long. From childhood friends, collaborators, so called friends like Danny Hutton. None of these people stay in Brian's circle very long. Even the story from 2003 with Van Dyke, where Brian calls him out the blue, they finish up lyrics, take Smile on the road. He's off and on with him through TLOS and then they're done. Shoot, Ray may be the longest ongoing friendship that he has going. There may be more that are out of the limelight, but it seems that the ones who are in the limelight are in and out of this circle of friends. I may be way off-base due to ignorance of not knowing everything about Brian, but from my observations from following Brian over the years, it just looks like a pattern. Again, just an opinion.

I think this is a fair observation.  From an outsider's point of view, I tend to agree.  Look at Andy Paley and Joe Thomas.  There's a period when they're in the circle and collaborating, and then we don't hear from them for a while, and then sometimes they pop back in for another project.  But in thinking about my own life and career, it's not much different.  I work on projects with people and when it's over, we move on to the next project individually and sometimes work together again when the need arises (I'm a civil engineer).

So, maybe Brian views these relationships as more of work and a task to be completed rather than a personal connection, whereas the other person may long for something deeper which may or may not materialize.

I agree, though, I'm sure there are plenty of folks we don't know about who are dear friends who have been around a long time.

I agree. Linking to the shred video was a deliberate put down of Brian's efforts prior to meeting Van Dyke and his ilk. Unfortunately, that whole 60's LA arts scene comes across as a bunch of pretentious pseudo-intellectuals and "artistes" to me. Van Dyke included. I think his relationship with Brian likely started from a point of condescension that's become magnified as attention to Brian has escalated this year.

As to Brian's collaborators coming and going; I think that's true with most of us. When I change jobs I rarely keep in contact with those who were close working partners before, because the thing we had in common was the work. I wasn't "using" them. I was working with them. Collaborating on music is a job for Brian. Those he works with need not be close friends, as well.

If people had wanted to buy the next Beach Boys album they would have, be it in early '67 or September. H&V not making the top 10 was a good indication that the established fanbase was divided by Brian's new direction. For all it's on the surface weirdness, Good Vibrations was at it's core still a pop song. Nothing else on Smile/Smiley had that balance and sales suffered.
The hype machine in GV's wake would have undoubedly sold more copies of Smile but nothing on a huge scale.

The released H&V was a compromised version.

I prefer it over any Smile sessions version. Do you honestly think a full Cantina version would have been a massive radio hit in 1966?

I'm not sure what you mean by full cantina version, but I think the Smile/BWPS arrangement of the sections is superior. Also, the smiley version has always sounded muddy to me, which doesn't help.

Personally I've never quite understood why they arranged H&V the way they did on BWPS. But one thing is for sure is that no such arrangement would have been possible during the Smile era. Indeed, the Cantina version that Mike's Beard referenced is the closest thing we have to a Smile era version of H&V.

Though only compromised by one guy, the composer.

Sure, but it's probably not representative of what the original might have been.

It'd be tough to say that Brian under-produced, under-composed, or under-sang the released H&V. Also, in its shape it is a rather cohesive patchwork (or re-recording?) of the then-extant fragments. There is no half-assed attempt at it, I think. They gave it their all and it wasn't a smash. To think that if it had had more comedic episodes, or the cantina bit or whatever it would have scored higher, is wild speculation.

I'm in the minority here who think that if Brian had turned to Mike Love as a collaborator for Smile, they would have succeeded a la Good Vibrations while still preserving Brian's more quirky or experimental edge. Those two, as collaborators were on a roll back then; and everything they put their hands on turned into gold. And the darned thing would probably have been completed.

I think it's true that Brian seems to have "seasons" with a changing group of whoever his "new best friend" is. To those listed above, you could add Tony Asher, Roger Christian, David Leaf, and others. And while Van Dyke's lyrics for Smile were a definitely cut above past BB albums, I don't think they rise to the level of genius. Clever, yes. Smart, yes. But if there's genius involved, surely he would have had other BIG successful projects since 1967. He's made a living, done some noteworthy things, but let's face it: if any random person knows VDP's name, it's because of Smile.
Furthermore, what else did Tony Asher do that is Pet Sounds-level? Why aren't top-notch musicians clamoring to collaborate with Mike Love as their lyricist?
Brian elevates the people he works with, and few of them have ever risen any higher than during their brief sojourns with him.

Very astute comment, sir.

You are right. In fact, I use that very same argument when people question Brian's real involvement on recent projects: go listen to the Wondermints albums, or the many works of his collaborators... They never do as good as when working with Brian. It is BW who brings the distinct quality on the table and makes his collaborators excell. I still think that others can help Brian bring out the best in him, achieve his artistic goals and reach the biggest possible audience. In the 60s, that collaborator was Michael Edward Love.

And, there are random people that associate Brian Wilson with Surfin' USA.

What does that mean? And, what does that matter?

Personally, I think Van Dyke Parks' relative anonymity, has served him well (well, maybe he could have been served more money). He has not been pigeonholed as a musician, arranger, composer, lyricist. He has much more artistic flexibility than some others of his generation. And that comes from having talent, skills and empathy.

He's had and is having a great career. It doesn't matter if some Beach Boys fans sneer that he's only known for SMiLE, that's an inconvenience he has to put up with from obsessives. He's worked with the best of the best and had chances to put out his own eccentric oddities that give a lot of people great pleasure, if you guys want to sniff derisively at that... shrug.

You're so right. I ache to hear what the world missed out on with what could have been Mike Love-penned lyrics on Surf's Up.

If only some of us here would create them.... (harp glissando)

can't wait :p

Besides, he never makes a claim about success or sales or fame. If there is a grudge with BW, it is a personal thing.  Nevertheless, being silent is better than making those obtuse references to a guy that does nothing to him.

Surf's Up probably wouldn't exist as we know it if Van Dyke hadn't collaborated with Brian.

But what would have Good Vibrations be like with a Van Dyke Parks lyric? Would it be the classic we praise? Would it have been a smash? Someone post a VDP lyric to Good Vibes please.

It wouldn't be as funny. Mike Love has more humor value than VDP, it's scientifically proven. Plus, Mike Love's moon June spooning and lyrical obsessions are way easier to parody than VDP's topsy-turvey wordplay. Give it a shot if you think you can, tho!


Yeah, it is a bit embarrassing at times and isn't worthy of him. I wish they'd patch things up and work on one last project together, but at least VDP has some amount of wit and varies his spiteful comments from interview to interview unlike some other of BW's former collaborators.

I came back just to post this.

Whenever VDP tells the story, he mentions that Jesse Ehrlich was already at the session. I never understood that key point until now. Carl is why Ehrlich was there. VDP is why Ehrlich plays. Now it makes sense.

Surf's Up *absolutely* wouldn't exist without the VDP/Brian combo. Nor would Cabinessence.

See, the problem is that while Mike absolutely could often write a very catchy hook when called upon, and while Mike could *possibly* have helped out when it came to finishing up certain other unfinished songs in that era, the fact was that in terms of bringing stuff to the table, he unfortunately (in addition to the good catchy-writing skills) also brought a bad attitude, seeped in jealousy for being pushed aside, and to some level, closed-mindedness. Can I empathize with the pushed-aside jealousy? I can. Can I also say he probably acted regrettably in hindsight, and let emotions get in the way of how he should have best dealt with the situation? Yeah, I can (though Mike doesn't seem to ever do such). VDP seems to speak with some regret in his voice about having walked away from the project due in part to the family circumstances.  Heaven forbid Mike could do so too.

Was there room for an in-between situation where Mike could have made some esoteric material a little bit "better"? Possibly. But it's mighty tough for someone to contribute suggestions, even good ones, if they are gonna have a cocky attitude.

I don't think it's odd to suggest that Brian's best work was Pet Sounds and Smile, and that his most creative and noteworthy artistic goals were achieved with the former. In that sense, only a few songs from that era were written with Mike. I agree with the point about audience but not necessarily the rest of it.

Also, while I do think Mike was capable of great lyrics, and while his turn-of-phrases are really overlooked, I don't necessarily think that Mike was the secret ingredient in making Beach Boys hits. What I do think is that Brian thought that Mike's lyrics worked best with one of his styles and it so happens that it was his more commercial sounding style.

When was cello first used in GV and when were the cello triplets first played? Was it Juneish ("Inspiration") or earlier or Septemberish? A possible problem with Carl's version in that one interview is he seems (to me) to put his suggestions at the end of the process with the finishing of the final track and recording vocals of Mike's last minute lyrics.

(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/vdphat.jpg)

Brian would be the first to tell you; he wanted a hit after Good Vibrations. The thing is, in 1967 Top 40 was not ready for Van Dyke Parks. While most of Smile could still have lyrics by VDP, any potential songs for AM radio would have most likely done better with a Love or an Asher type lyricist.

Sure to sell a million units in hypothetical January! I love that music as it is so can't agree or pine for such a thing. The music wouldn't have happened like it did without VDP involved.

Tho I've heard dark, sepulchral whispers and rumors of Mike Love actually penning lyrics to "Surf's Up" and would love it if one of you archival freaks had some more information on that!

As for the barks, meows, and tweets...  I figure, VDP made "Discover America." He gets to say whatever the hell he wants, really.

I love it too, but doesn't mean the masses would have. We're die-hard's, we love most anything Brian writes. To this day what do the masses love most of all? The hits! The lyricists of those hits were people who knew how to write for that audience.

"What's the matter? You made too much money, buddy?" - Murry

Eh, they had a nice run of hits. It was time to stretch out a bit. Things got stretched, they snapped, popped back into place decades later for a nice narrative happy ending. Worked out ok, really!

I just heard Brian say in an interview this weekend that the "Rubber Soul" album was the best thing he had heard. He's been consistent on that for decades, saying the concept of a full album where the whole thing was "a gas" had been an inspiration to him to follow suit, and from that came the idea of his own album, Pet Sounds. Not as much a concept album (since that term was soon to be bastardized) but an interwoven set of songs that created a certain listening experience, doing what some of the Sinatra-Riddle classics of the 50's and Miles Davis and others had done for previous generations and in other genres. This one was for "the kids", and how Brian received and perceived Rubber Soul acted as his catalyst.

He needed a collaborator who he felt could develop an album where the tracks would all connect and flow for the listeners. Not as much a hit single or two and various tracks surrounding them, but interconnected songs that flowed in the way he had heard Rubber Soul. Make this one an "album" in a more literal sense than what industry practice in the "teen" genre had been focusing on. Make it one of those where listeners who may have bought it to have the singles in the past would now buy it, put it on the turntable, and listen to the continuous flow of the songs, again as he did with Rubber Soul.

Mike had been the collaborator for some of the bigger hits, alongside Gary Usher and Roger Christian earlier. They knew the lingo, they could turn a phrase, they could deliver what Brian needed on those compositions. For Mike, it as the hit single, the turn of a phrase that could translate the music and melody into words that resonated over the radio or on a 45rpm record or jukebox. He could come up with these hooks that made for solid radio singles.

But perhaps the ability to sustain a full album that was not being done as a collection of hits in concept but rather a full album experience was something Brian perhaps wanted to go with another collaborator. There is a difference between crafting a single based on a theme and creating a killer hook in order to present that song to the audience, and sustaining an underlying thematic current that runs from song to song and exists as a greater whole in the form of an album.

And just like he went to Roger Christian for the car lingo, just like he went to Gary Usher for certain themes, just like he went with Mike to deliver that commercial hook to put the song over the top, he didn't choose any of them to work on a full album. He went with Tony, obviously, for his answer to Rubber Soul's "the whole album is a gas" notion, and went with Van Dyke for the overreaching theme and concept that was to connect Smile as an album.

The hit single in between all of this was Good Vibrations. Was it originally designed to be a standalone hit single when it was cut for Pet Sounds? Probably not. When Brian wanted some elements for this as a single, his "hit single" collaborator who could come up with a hook was involved. When it came time to write a full album's worth of material around a theme or even with an undercurrent connecting the songs, he didn't involve the collaborator who was delivering the radio hooks. Because it's not what the project was about.

And this stands out how exactly as something to speculate or opine how Smile or anything else would have been had Mike done the lyrics? It's like asking what Pet Sounds would have been if Roger Christian had done the lyrics. The material and concepts being explored perhaps were not in their respective wheelhouses, whereas hot rod lingo from Christian and crafting hooks for a hit single from Mike was their strength. And consider how many Beach Boys "albums" prior to 1966 were pure Mike-Brian collaborations on each track versus a combination of various collaborators, cover songs, Brian originals, Brian-Mike collaborations, and throwaway filler like Bull Session and Our Favorite Recording Sessions.

Is it worth pointing out that Heroes and Villains was a bigger chart hit than Wild Honey and Darlin' which came out only a few months later?

I don't know what's up with VDP.  I often don't know exactly how to take him, so I always do so with a grain of salt.  Just when I think he's being literal, he makes a pun or a pun on a pun and that blows that all up.

I do know that Brian, while on a dais with Bill Pohlad and John Cusack, just a few short weeks ago during a Q/A said "I owe that (the appreciation nowadays of SMiLE) a little bit to my collaborator Van Dyke Parks.  Who was a genius lyricist and a great music guy.  And together we created a very special kind of music thing."

Wasn't SMiLE heading that way too: various collaborators, cover songs, Brian originals, Brian-Mike collaborations, and throwaway filler?  Not so certain on the "throwaway filler" except it might cover "Elements" or the supposed between track dialogues or some such.

bgas, do you still have the 6-reel set of the "London Wavelength Presents The Beach Boys Story" radio special?

Did it, now?

Stretching out led to the band playing for crowds of less than two hundred people in 1968 and colleges for much of the early 1970s. Praise the studio work of the era (and it's amazing stuff), but at the end of the day, if Brian wasn't filthy rich from royalties, the Beach Boys might never have been able to carry on as long as they did with such limited commercial success.

Yeah that's a shame. I wonder why Mike's natural abilities to write commercial songs totally failed him during those years, sure Brian was sick and de-emphasized but Mr. Positivity should've been ready to pick up the slack with his uncanny ear for commercial hits. He really dropped the ball.

Was booking a tour with the Maharishi part of this "stretching out"?

Oh yes, the Smile lyrics – beautiful, obscure, transcendent and… in some cases, none of the above. The lyrics to “Surf’s Up” are gorgeous and fit as well with a composition as lyrics could. Pretentious? Of course, but majestic and surprisingly accessible when sung to such a wondrous composition. The lyrics to “Cabinessence” reach for and just miss this magnitude. The lyrics to “Wonderful” are just that – wonderful, fragile, perhaps not commercial. The “Wind Chimes” lyrics resonate, but was this song going to be a hit? Were either of the latter two songs candidates to be hit singles?

Many of the remaining lyrics are a mess – puns for puns’ sake, faux poetry and/or outright silliness, which in the latter case is not altogether a bad thing. But some of the lyrics are weak enough to make one wonder whether passive aggression was involved – “Don’t like ‘columnated ruins domino’? How about ‘Out in the barnyard, the chickens do their number. Out in the barnyard, the cook is choppin’ lumber’? That straightforward enough?”

The lyrics to “Surf’s Up” are probably commercial in the same way the lyrics to “Whiter Shade of Pale” were commercial, or “Strawberry Fields Forever.” The lyrics to Cabinessence and “Heroes & Villains” work best by far in the context of the full album, though I do think the H&V lyrics lack something – heart, perhaps. I do not think the lyrics to either song work particularly well as lyrics to a hit pop song , and they lose impact when not incorporated into the whole of the album.

Not one lyric written for Smile is as commercially adept or as beautiful, in some ways, as “I love the colorful clothes she wears and the way the sunlight plays upon her hair. I hear the sound of a gentle word on the wind that lifts her perfume through the air.” We are immediately transported into the presence of a gentle, alluring woman and understand very well what the singer feels – “I’m pickin’ up good vibrations.”

Then just a bit trippier but still straightforward and relatable – “Close my eyes, she's somehow closer now. Softly smile, I know she must be kind. When I look in her eyes she goes with me to a blossom world.”

No wonder the feeling needed a Theremin (or faux Theremin) to describe. This is as close as a pop song could get to describing a first feeling of utter enchantment and inner bliss – the edge of love. And the choruses? A perfect translation of pure excitement at having met this amazing person.

This is the same girl described in “Don’t Worry Baby,” now having become a woman. This is the kind of woman to whom one would sing “God Only Knows.” Regardless of who contributed which words, Good Vibrations is blessed with beautiful lyrics, and those lyrics are extremely commercial.

This is not to suggest that Mike Love or Tony Asher could have or should have provided the lyrics to Smile. It might suggest that Brian Wilson composed music that was not broadly adaptable to commercial tastes, regardless of the accessibility of the lyrics. But VDP’s lyrics do not seem to have been written to appeal to commercial tastes, and I think are uneven, at best, even as an artistic statement.

Still, one could be supremely proud, as a lyricist, of the artistic achievement represented by Surf’s Up.

It's a matter of nobody except the devoted buying what the Beach Boys had to sell. They could have been releasing Good Vibrations in 1970 and it probably still would have fallen on deaf ears.

Nah. That melody and those harmonies singing about hemorrhoids would've sold a billion medicated pads.

Next week, Carrot Top on why Pynchon is overrated.

Pynchon wrote the lyrics to "Out in the Barnyard"? Good Lord, that explains everything!

April 1967, Inside Pop, David Oppenheim and Leonard Bernstein suggesting on national television that there are new areas and directions being explored in the area of teenage pop music that go beyond the notion of presenting a hit single that in the words of Dick Clark's Rate-A-Record "have a good beat and you can dance to it". Implying too that the two would and could coexist while pushing the entire genre into something beyond what was expected. It all coexists, yet music was being created that shattered the expectation that a new Beach Boys record was expected to sound like "Surfin Safari" any more than a new Beatles record was expected to sound like "I Want To Hold Your Hand" or new Frankie Valli was expected to sound like "Big Girls Don't Cry".

The doors were open, there were a few artists who had already walked in and came back to hold them open for others, and there were those who instead chose to wait too long to the point where they got pushed into a line waiting to get to the doors without realizing they had already been shut.

Mike's ability to do beautiful even psychedelic lyrics that might fit some of the Smile songs is severely underestimated.  Good Vibrations is the proof, but another personal favorite of mine is She's Goin' Bald.  Trippy and humorous they are way better than He Gives Speeches!  What Mike would not have been able to do is bring that counter culture revolutionary columnated ruins domino attitude and theme.  But could he have done childhood lyrics, or pastoral lyrics for Heroes, I'm in great Shape and Cabinessence?  Sure.  Elements lyrics - Let the Wind Blow anyone?  Americana - more of a stretch but I don't think Worms is one of Van's better efforts anyway.

Seems to be your answer to every conversation you get in on. Screw what everyone else has to say and be a smartass.

One thing that I've never seen discussed was: what did the other BBs think of the Bernstein show? Do you think they all tuned in and watched it at their respective homes? Was there an element of jealousy since it just focused on Brian, and not the band? The Bernstein show aired only about a month before the final SMiLE session was held, which may or may not be relevant to the story in some way.

Sorry, father. I'll try to be more like you and carry your weird little personal issue into every single thread. Stop being so tedious. If you're going to engage in the discussion, go right ahead. I might be snarky, but I'm talking about VDP and Good Vibrations. I disagreed with the other poster. You're just bringing personal attacks into it... why? Are you still miffed your previous snipping missed by a thousand miles?

Enough with the tedium, please. When you're elected mod you can go right ahead and lecture me. Otherwise, file under "yawn." I swear, if you break out that tired old "waaah I don't like you waaah sarcasm" song, I'm going to fall asleep. Duly noted, disinterested, and definitely not up for rehashing your boring complaints for the 808508th time. Alert the mods if you're furious, but maybe just stop interacting with me on these forums if you're so touchy. When you see the avatar, just mentally scroll down a bit further to the next comment. There. Solved!

I assume if VDP wasn't involved he therefore wouldn't have brought his Americana and historical and other themes to the party and so those marks wouldn't have been there for someone else to try and hit. Another collaborator might have gone more in what I presume are Brian's directions of windchimes and vegetables and the Elements and humor and God etc., etc..  Something more like what Brian actually did with Smiley Smile, mostly de-VDP it and go goofier.

At you? Not miffed here. You aren't worth my time to feel anything, except pity for your poor sense of humor.

Right, that's why you have to point it out repeatedly. Out of benevolent disinterest. Thanks for the charity, doc. Christ, all I said was that I thought the music and harmonies made Good Vibrations and the lyrics could've been about anything and probably been a hit in hypothetical bizarro world. Hardly a controversial claim or something worth your snipping.

 Yeesh! Some people. This is incredibly tedious, so feel free to have the last word and show us your comedy gifts, which I somehow never felt the need to judge repeatedly...

Back to Good Vibrations and all the Van Dyking.

My personal take on the whole lot of them is that at least in Van's and Brian's case, they aren't always aware of how others will take what they're saying.  That's not to say that they're never aware of how others take what they're saying, just that sometimes they actually have no idea how insulting they sound.  Not that Brian himself has a mean bone in his body, of course.  Whereas with someone like Mike, there's never the case of "wait, was that an insult?"  If Mike's got an insult going through his mind, it will come out unfiltered.

Somewhere in my ten thousand BB bookmarks is an interview with Van, where roughly paraphrased he says he went to see the boys to congratulate them on being adults.  You'd think the bookmark would be under the folder "Interviews", but I seem to have placed it elsewhere.  Anyway, in the interview, he goes on to say that the boys are acting like adults by continuing to record instead of breaking up (and at least they're not recording Manson).  But man-oh-man if anyone I knew would come visit me and actually SAY "Hey, great job acting like a grown-up!", I'd probably slam the door in their face.  Oh, I have no doubt that linking to that shred in Twitter was intentional.  But outside that it seems to me that he's swallowed so many dictionaries that he's forgotten that words have connotations.

Brian on the other hand...  I've seen quite a few places where he's described as simply having a savant-ish ability.  My own original opinion of him was "as close to a savant as you'll get without actually being a savant".  That has since been amended to "probably has a bit of Asperger syndrome".  That is, enough autism to mess up his social abilities.  One of the key signs of Asperger is a lack of empathy (in this case, meaning the ability to understand what a person is experiencing from their frame of reference).  I don't think Brian actually understands how much he hurt Mike's feelings by going with Asher and then Van for lyrics.  Another trait of Asperger is a failure to react appropriately to social interaction.  Saw that plenty from Brian in the 70s.  That old RS article, Saving Brother Brian, it mentions Landy having to teach Brian how to interact with people (again).

I don't think Asperger explains Brian's weirdness.  His weirdness I personally feel was actually an overcompensation for depression and auditory hallucinations.  Overcompensation rarely works with mental illness, and it certainly didn't work in Brian's case.

Edit: Spelling.

A very bold stretching out maybe.

Surfs up
(Lyrics by Mike Love)

The surf is way up tonight
it totally makes me feel alright
like a surfer on the Kona Coast
(My wave my wave)
Going down to kokomo
Surfing is all we really know
Get your surf boards and wax them up
(My wave my wave)

culminated title wave ohhh oh

wet water over coming me
Surfing is fun can't you see
To a tide dissolved on the beach

 
surfin is where we like to go
wax down the surf boards and let's together again
in the moonlight, come with me
 culminated surfer wave
canvas the beach for bikini babes
are you surfing? Surfer John?
seagulls flying above our head
and flew just above our tidal wave
carried our boards
to steps into the water
the laughs come hard for surfer joe
The surf was raised the moon was bright
The fullness of coke a cola, in tin can coasting
while surfing, you'll do or die
A choke when wiping out
it's beyond belief a surfer too tough to lose

Surfs up ohhh oohhh
let's surf upon a tidal wave
come and be hip ohhhh oohhh
just like the other surfer boys
I heard the wave
it's coming through


Waves are the children of the earth

By crackies, you put a little finger poppin' on that,  it's gonna be a million-and-two seller.

I don't agree at all. I'm fairly sure Smile would have been a commercial flop and think Clack is on the money with his Forever Changes comparison. Yes Pet Sounds was successful but Smile and Pet Sounds are very different. Pet Sounds has universally relatable material - anybody with a heartbeat can connect with the themes of young love and heartbreak - Wouldn't It Be Nice, God Only Knows, Sloop John B - commercial radio friendly hits then and now - I don't see any Smile song bar Good Vibrations showing up in an Adam Sandler movie any time soon. I'm convinced VDP's lyrics would have stymied any commercial potential the album had. But VDP isn't to blame. Dylan got away with obscure, arty lyrics and sold sh*t loads of records but 'hip poet' was his whole oeuvre and a very saleable image at the time. Sgt Pepper is oblique at times but somehow manages to package the LSD experience into something universal. (You consistently underestimate the quality of that album. It isn't just a case of it sounding less complex/more shallow than Smile and therefore being not as good.) VDP's lyrics were too at odds with the BBs existing image (and existing market) and I think therein lies the problem. Folks were just not ready to buy that band producing those far out sounds, however incredible the music would prove itself to be.

Also I think it's worthing raising the issue of sex appeal. Smile is not sexy music. It's cerebral, complex, genius stuff but it doesn't strike me as sexy in any way, shape or form, with the exception of, maybe, Good Vibrations. The Beatles were sexy and (if we're focusing on the Sgt Pepper album) a lot of the tracks touch on boy girl themes - the opening track has that sexy Hendrix riff, lennon's cynical, sneery psycho-sexual weirdness permeates much of his songs, plus Paul's wide-eyed cutesy stuff - It's an arguably sexy album. Dylan's sex appeal is self evident. But Smile? Roll Plymouth Rock?? Heroes and Villains??? And let's not even get into Vegatables!!

The Beach Boys could produce testosterone-fuelled, sexy records when they addressed teenage, californian themes of surfing, hot rods etc. - metaphors for sex. But Smile with its whole Amercian expansion thing ... It's more like a history lesson! I love it, but it is not sexy and as we all know - sex sells  :afro

I don't take VDP's "shred" video as anything more than his attempt at just being silly. His past tweets from earlier this year could be interpreted as more incendiary ("Free Brian Wilson" anyone?) in my opinion.  When you take them all together, however, it doesn't exactly paint a picture of a guy who's thrilled about his legacy in Beach Boydom.

And I'm not a VDP apologist. I think Pet Sounds mops the floor with SMiLE (although it was never finished so it's a bit unfair to put it up against a solid, completed album). I like a lot of VDP's lyrics for SMiLE, although a few of them read like a 22 year old kid noodling in a creative writing class....and I have a feeling even VDP would agree with me.  

I wish he'd talk openly.  I'm interested in his and Daro's views.  Even if it's what most of us don't really want to hear and doesn't paint BW in a good light, it's an interesting perspective on the time.

I've thought he might have Asperger's too (and maybe it would be more obvious before the bad medications, etc.), though of course I'm not a psychologist and I don't know him.  But, based on what I've read of his social skills, his confidence/interest in limited areas (music), some of the ritualistic behavior (playing "Be My Baby" every morning), or possible stimming (the Linda Rondstadt story about working out a vocal arrangement while playing an unrelated pattern on the piano), it wouldn't surprise me.  Many people with Asperger's would take issue with the "lack of empathy," though.  It may appear that way to Neurotypicals on the outside, but that is not how many of them feel.  You seem to define the word better than some, but I'd say he had empathy, even if his social skills made it show differently.  He did cowrite "God Only Knows," after all.  There are many neurotypicals who would not express their souls and human emotions like Brian Wilson has.

I wonder if "Drip Drop" proves that he has Tourette's ?

Sure.  What songs do you think would've been on Smile?

You are forgetting that not only did Brian and Mike co-write the band's #1 hits. Mike also experienced growth and maturity as a collaborator. Side two of Today! is enough proof of that. Good Vibrations is a glimpse of what Mike could have brought to the table for Brian's Smile ideas. And Wild Honey is an example of lyrical maturity from Mike and a collaboration between those two on an album that, if not conceptual, provided a listening experience as a whole. Not only Brian lost momentum with Smile. Mike's finest hour wasn't utilized enough.

Suggesting "Good Vibrations" is a glimpse of what Mike could have brought to Smile is like saying Don't Worry Baby is a glimpse of what Roger Christian could have brought to Pet Sounds if he had been asked to contribute. Point is, neither one happened and speculating about the quality good or bad if it somehow had happened is as helpful as trying to figure out if you had worn a different shirt and shoes yesterday whether you would have won the lottery. And beyond that, is there any indication Mike pitched any songwriting ideas at all to Brian during Smile, let's narrow it down to the time up to April-May 1967 for the first cut-off point? Did he bring anything to the table after Van Dyke was out? Second cut-off point, take the next few years when various Smile tracks were revisited, released piecemeal, in the case of Surf's Up it became the title track of an important album for the band...where was Mike's contribution to those? The band was a democracy, they all had a say in the records by 1971-72, so where was Mike to "punch up" the Smile material that was revisited and released if he could have brought so much to the original Smile table being speculated about here? What did he ever bring to the Smile tracks when he had the opportunity to do so on several occasions? Why didn't he rewrite the "crow cries" line into something more relatable to the audience on Cabinessence instead of releasing it almost verbatim as it existed in 1966 lyrically and musically? Why didn't he punch up Surf's Up into something more relatable than the original? All the band basically did there was use the 1966-67 structure, arrangement, form, and lyrics verbatim, graft on yet ANOTHER Smile track from the vaults verbatim...and  lo and behold the only guy who one day showed up and actually added something lyrically to the coda was Brian! Wonderful, Wind Chimes, what did Mike add there when the band needed songs for an album? The only example was He Gives Speeches, which was a throwaway to begin with that didn't even have a place anywhere on Smile and was left as a stray fragment, which they took and added some cool studio vari-speeding ELTRO effects to punch up what was basically a revamped Smile castoff.

His fastball as a collaborator was something like Do It Again, take a killer groove that's catchy by design, radio-ready sonically from that first drum beat, and punch it up even more with lyrics. The radio single, in other words. Assuming they'd be scoring hit after hit if Mike had been involved in more collaborations is almost absurd, because for a variety of reasons aside from the logic of the Roger Christian-Pet Sounds example, it just didn't happen. And when Mike could have taken a shot at bringing his lyrics to some Smile tracks, when he had probably the best chance to contribute and possibly improve as some here suggest the Smile material to reach a wider audience, it didn't happen either.

Maybe Mike didn't want anything to do with it as a writer, then or later. It's as valid as saying had he been involved the sun would have shone brightly on the band's fate and fortune and Smile would have been "a hit" because Good Vibrations was a #1 single. That's not logic, that's not analysis, that's pie-in-the-sky fantasy.

It's worth noting too that the more mature Mike Love lyrics on Today did not lead to great chart effects. Please Let Me Wonder went to #52 as a B-side and She Knows Me went to #101. While the previous Why Do Fools did a worse #120, these showings were ultimately much lower than Shut Down (#23), Little Deuce Coupe (#15), In My Room (#23), and Don't Worry Baby (#25).

But guitarfool, claiming that Mike's fastball during the Smile year was to be limited to a Do It Again-type collaboration, or that the fact that did not re-work the lyrics to the Smile stuff that got released eventually is an indication of an inability to collaborate with Brian on Smile is more wildly speculative than my post. Your remark about Mike not pitching lyrics during Van Dyke's tenure as Brian's lyricist being an indication of lack of interest/will/skill (?) is hard to understand.  

Fact is Roger's lyrics to Don't Worry Baby show a sensitive side that good or bad was to remain unexplored later in time. The possible Pet Sounds collaboration is wild (absurd) speculation, but why would saying that he was capable of sensitive lyrics be off-base? Likewise, the Wilson-Love collaboration and its creative arch is for all to see; with Good Vibes he came up with lyrics that related beautifully to Brian's musical techniques that would be further explored on Smile, while reaching for audiences that Wilson-Parks never reached. I'm not just saying they would have remained putting out big hits, they could have achieved artistically-fulfilling results as well, and gotten the album finished (if we take Van's withdrawal as a cause for its abortion).

+1

Still...did Mike right the lyrics for Cant Wait Too Long ? That could be another glimpse if he did. I was gonna say Whistle In too, but that appears to have been solely Brian.

Those b sides did not score big, true. But within a year they would deliver three smash hits like Help Me Rhonda, Cal Girls and Good Vibes. So you've got everything covered: the hit aspect and the artistic side.

A lot of I, I, I in those quotes. Also funny how after Carl died he felt the need to claim credit. I was not there and don't care that much. I'm sure VDP had some input in Brian's use of the cello's in Good Vibrations. And I'm sure Carl did too. Bottom line is Brian is the one that made the decision to use them on HIS composition. Brian is the one that did take after take to get the sound HE wanted. In those quotes VDP comes off as if GV would not have been the smash it was without his input. That is laughable.

It was not until I saw Love and Mercy that it hit me that after Brian worked with Asher, and before Brian worked with Parks, it was Brian and Mike that had the smash hit. It really explains a lot.

Kinda. Various collaborators? Only if you think Tones would have made the cut. Cover songs? Gee was just a snippet in heroes that probably wouldnt have made the album cut. IWBA I strongly suspect wouldnt have either. It seems like OMP/YAMS would have, but as Ive been saying recently, I think the pairing is incredibly significant and gives this mashup track a whole other meaning outside the original context of those two songs on their own. IE, its not a straight cover songs so much as an experiment in making a new message from old material. Filler? No way. The Elements could have been a great instrumental if Fire is any indication. The Psych Skits may not have even been used (tho I think they would have) but if they were, theyd be important to one of the big themes of the album--that laughter and smiling (wink wink nudge) are the path to spiritual enlightenment.

I'm saying there is a limit that gets reached where speculation starts getting into fantasy, especially where reality is readily available. Did Mike add anything at all lyrically to Surfs Up, Cabinessence, Wonderful, Wind Chimes? No. He could have, especially the later ones when the band needed material to shape and fill their albums, but he did not. They used the lyrics almost 99% verbatim from the original Wilson-Parks songwriting collaboration, and the only person to add anything new was when Brian showed up and delivered the final lyric line in Surfs Up's coda. Where was Mike if he was filled to the brim with potential to bring the Good Vibrations lyrical and commercial magic to the Smile table? He didn't do anything! If the speculation is why he didn't after speculating that if he *did* things would have been better for the music and the band overall, that's anyone's choice speculate away, have a blast. But again, it's pure fantasy that has no conclusion.

I never said Mike's "fastball" was *limited* to Do It Again type radio singles, I just said that was his fastball which he delivered and which he could deliver. Could that be sustained over a whole album? Did the theme of certain albums call for that approach, or something different? Did Mike want to write full albums like that, did Brian want him to write full albums like that...it goes on and on as long as we want to spin the speculations into scenarios. But what happened...happened. Mike could deliver a hook for a hit single, that was his fastball. Maybe that's not always what the music needed, though. It's not a bust, it's not a dig at Mike, it's just the way it actually happened. God Only Knows turned out perfectly, as did California Girls, what happened is what ultimately served the songs best. Mike could have done God-Only-Knows what to God Only Knows too, maybe it would have hit #1 out of the gate, but the song is what it is in 2015 because Brian and Tony did what they thought was best for the song. Same with Brian and Van Dyke on Surf's Up, there's no point in even trying to suggest Mike would have made it better because the song is what it is and has it's rightful position in popular music history as of 2015 because of what it is, not what it could have been if another author took a shot at writing lyrics on top of it.

BW looks to get collaborators that can express what he feels the time of a song's creation. ML, Gary Usher, and Roger Christian expressed youthful excess. Tony Asher and VDP expressed a maturing BW. Point is BW is the main force behind these collaborations.

Yes, and also Barbara Ann and Sloop John B. Those were huge hits too.

I suppose this is my point -- that as good as Mike Love's lyrics were, they were not the magic ingredients for the Beach Boys to make hits. Brian wrote commercial songs and he wrote less commercial songs, and he wrote non-commercial songs. As the Today! B-sides demonstrate, a great song with a great Mike Love lyric does not necessarily a hit make, even during the peak era. Consequently, I don't really think that Mike could have done anything to alter significantly what may have been the chart position of Smile (maybe it would have been high, maybe not). Again, though, I think Brian had a knack for knowing which songs needed which lyricist.

Asher and Parks didn't write full albums with Brian. Brian and Mike had written as close to a full album as either fellow and Wilson/Love did write the entire WH album I believe. Is their something to support speculation that Mike wasn't asking or wasn't asked to contribute to PS/SMiLE era? IKTAA, SGB, GV for instance?

OK, but is there anything that rules out his claims? What about Carl's claim quoted earlier?

Yeah "kinda" or debatable on a couple of points but still OMP, YAMS, IWBA (I didn't count "Gee") are covers and VDP didn't collaborate on every songwriting and there was Wilson/Love collab so not really different from every proceeding album.

Some would, yes. Some DID. Those are the ones who bought Smiley. But the more casual fans, the curious people who may have bought SMiLE just from reading about all the hype, the non-fans who heard and loved GV on the radio, the hip counterculture kids who wanted to hear how a surfer band would tackle psychedelia, etc...all THOSE people, those potential buyers and new audiences were lost. Thats what you dont seem to get. Yes, they had a core group of fans whod buy anything Beach Boys, but SMiLE was a big chance to change with the times and reach out to new people in a way Smiley wasnt. And again, Id argue a significant number of people who loved the Boys gave up on them before Smiley came out or else just after. Between scrapping SMiLE, cancelling on Monterey, and then releasing this seemingly lazy album that sounds NOTHING like Pepper or the Doors or Jimi or any of the other cool psychedelic music...they must have seemed like a band spiraling out of control to most of their old fans. A bunch of out-of-touch dinosaurs who ought to make way for the new generation of rock stars. Im sure a lot of their lesser fans just straight-up forgot about them in the long span of time between GV and Smiley. After experiencing Pepper, Hendrix lighting a guitar on fire at Monterey, all these new experimental bands like the Airplane and Pink Floyd coming out...Im sure for a lot of them it was like "Beach Boys? Beach Boys who?" and when no big singles came off the new album that was the death knell.

Honestly, this seems completely logical to me. No one factor could explain the failure of Smiley, but all of those all at once? Absolutely. It has nothing to do with SMiLE being uncommercial. SMiLE is irrelevant to why Smiley failed. SMiLE would have debuted under totally different circumstances so we cant base how it would have charted off Smiley's performance.

I think I remember Brian saying he asked VDP to collab because he was a good talker or something.

I wonder if Brian invited VDP with an expectation of lyrics like VDP's original lyrics on two songs and the religious covers of two songs on VDP's first two singles?

I think we can all agree that not showing up in an Adam Sandler movie is a good thing ^-^ All the same, I do see what you mean but I disagree. SMiLE is universal. It takes some thinking and putting yourself into it, but the themes and lessons are universal and poignant. Its NOT just goofy songs about Vega-Tables, it forces us to come to terms with the problems of our culture past and present, to cherish the innocence of children and realize that our actions have consequences on people (Wonderful and CIFOTM tie into that well). It's all about the search for a new religious/spiritual ethos and self-actualization. Granted, these arent as easily digestable ideas as "pretty girl, lets date/breakups are sad" but its still universal.

I cant stress enough either...it was 1967. Literally THE year for far out music. If the roles were reversed and Pepper never came out, I could see someone like you making the same arguments for that. "Oh, its about a circus poster...who can relate to that? Thats not a hit song!"

I agree the lyrics are the least commercial thing about it. But again, I think you could say that about a lot of songs from that year. White Rabbit? The lyrics make no literal sense. Astronomy Domine? "Neptune Titan Stars Can Frighten" whats that even mean? I could go on. It wasnt about making literal sense or getting it on the first listen. These psychedelic rock lyrics were about painting a picture. Using specific phrases and descriptions of abstract things to set a mood and tickle the imagination. I see VDP's SMiLE lyrics as the same kind of thing. Granted, Pink Floyd and JA didnt have to throw off a reputation of simpler soft rock/vocal pop, but still. The Beatles threw off the yoke. If the music was good enough (and it fucking was) I think people would give them a chance. They already proved they had the stuff with GV. Again, #1 hit, Capitol hype train, Brian is a genius campaign, voted best band in the world...this all does not equal a flop. It just doesnt. Maybe some returns/disappointed old fans, but not a flop. And as the Beatles said, they gained new fans with their new direction.

With all due respect, could you or someone else please tell me whats so great about Pepper? I asked this in depth in another thread where the subject came up between us both but you didnt answer. Aside from influencing other people, is that really the gist of it--that its watered down psychedelia? And thats somehow good because it got the masses interested in that kinda music? Again, not to sound snotty but I really dont see the supposed brilliance.

Ill agree that SMiLE isnt "sexy music" but Id argue that neither are the Beatles. Jim Morrison? Jimi Hendrix? (Especially) Grace Slick? Now *that* is sexy. Four former moptops in rainbow band uniforms singing about holes and meter maids? Im not so sure.

Clearly the band failing to strike while the iron was hot did them no favours but it doesn't automatically mean Smile would have sold zillions while Smiley didn't.
Also you seem to be making the assumption that everyone would have loved Smile when in reality many were turned off by Smiley. We'll never know for sure and they very well could have but to say it's an open/shut case that Smile would have been massive and gained the band a whole new fanbase is revisionist speculation.
It's also worth noting that the Beach Boys would have probably had a much better chance of selling their new type of music after The Beatles had opened up the doors for psychedelic music in the mainstream with Pepper.

They definitely need to screw and get it over with.

Nah... The screwjob happened many moons ago; Mike should just cut Van a check for a few mil, out of the goodness of his heart, as an apology for partially derailing SMiLE.

It's difficult to explain what's great about the Beatles without rolling out tired old cliches. Also, as a disclaimer, Pepper is no where near my favourite album but here's my take fwiw:

LSD culture demanded a new type of music. This posed a massive challenge for established groups - how to adapt whilst still maintaining one's identity and without alienating an existing fanbase. The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys were two casualties from the summer of love. However much one might love Smile/Satanic Majesties they were problematic albums for both bands (an understatement in the BB's case). With Pepper, The Beatles managed to create:

a) an album of great pop songs. With A Little Help From My Friends would've been a standard were it written by any band. Most of the songs are so freakin hummable and tuneful that (like most Beatles output) they've become sort of folk songs, school hymns, musical equivalent of the establishment - i.e boring and to be railed at. But that doesn't diminish the brilliance of the music as pop music.

b) but the songs weren't just simple constructions. A Day In The Life is complex and ambitious. It should be a pompous disaster but the marriage of Lennon & McCartney's two disparate songs via the mounting crescendo is genius - it flows, tells a story, feels natural, building to the climax of that one ominous chord. Imagine how many heads were blown by that piano note at the end?! What does it mean? I don't know, but it's ambiguous, open to interpretation - pop music as art. The genius of the song is in its structure and organisation.

We may well hear more interesting, complex music from the Smile sessions but the point is Brian and VDP never managed to organise it into a cohesive statement the way The Beatles and George Martin did with Pepper. A Day In The Life is the flashpoint of the album - the rest of it really is just great pop music for me building to that incredible moment. Surf's Up is the equivalent song from Smile and I see it fulfilling the same sort of function with its (gentler) crescendo and profound release at the end. If only they'd built and finished the album to house that masterpiece.

Mujan, I share your frustrations as do most of us. We hear Cabinessence, SU, H&V, Good Vibrations and marvel at the technicolour brilliance that simultaneously feels like a saturday morning cartoon and the great American novel - high and low art in perfect synthesis. If only they'd organised this stuff into an album it would've been the greatest art pop masterpiece* in the history of music, right? But the question is: Can it be organised in a way that does justice to the potential of those songs? In a way that cements all the bands' prior achievements whilst simultaneously looking forward and influencing other bands in its wake? Brian and VDP didn't manage it. However that really is what Sgt Pepper did for The Beatles imo and that is why I hold the album in such high regard, despite having many other Beatles albums that I actually prefer to listen to.


* critical, not commercial  ;)

  No. SMILE would have been released in Jan, right after "Good Vibrations" hit #1. SMILEY came out in Sept: the world had shifted in radical fashion those intervening months.

"Mike could deliver a hook for a hit single". Sure he could. But he also wrote full sets of lyrics. I wouldn't call the lyrics to the verses of Good Vibes a hook. Those are full lyrics. Asher's contributions to Pet Sounds don't get the "hook" tag and the term, when applied to Mike Love's work in the context of your post, sounds derogatory and I percieve slight contempt. Your whole argument, even if it's not your intention, is flavored by the concept that Mike would add a superflous idea to something that was already great (i.e. he was basically unable to provide greatness to the creation of a song), while others (i.e. Van Dyke) made weighty artistic contributions to the integrity of the songwriting. There seems to be a lack of ability or interest or will to consider Mike an artistically valuable member of a songwriting partnership. But what else should he have done at that time to prove his worth as a most successful lyric (and hook) supplier for Brian?

I think this and other supposedly snide or snarky remarks from Parks are very innocuous. I realise I may be biased in favour of him just as many of you are biased against him- because I do love the lyrics of Smile, perhaps as much as the music. But whether you like or dislike him or his work I think he's earnt the right to be given the benefit of the doubt and left alone.

Some interesting detours in this discussion, though.

And that, my friend, was your totally-out-of-the-blue dig at Mike Love of the day. Yesterday's was:

"Other real question: Can Jake Abel (Mike Love) get a supporting actor nom? If he did, would Mike himself try to crash the Oscars?" (L&M as early Oscar contender thread).

Excellent characterization. "Pretentious pseudo intellectuals, artistes..."  ;)

Workers for hire or collaborators come and go, and don't get the status of membership in the band.  It appears to be topic-specific or project-specific.  Work for hire. 

Paul J B - correct with the "I, I, I."  If you go back to the "Daro thread pulled?" thread, another poster who, IIRC, claims to have been an "English Major," uses "I, I, I," beginning every paragraph thusly.  Seriously?   No problem " hanging on to their egos." Reply #263.

Never have seen an English major beginning paragraph after paragraph with "I." Yikes!

I expect better than this of you filledeplage, however fiercely loyal to the band and all its members you are. Each of those sentences that begin with I are necessary to waht he is saying, and they all happen to be about him (who is the subject of the debate) so it is natural to commence so; it would be pointless to rephrase the sentences just so they didn't. It is not poor practice at all to begin lots of sentences with the first person singular pronoun, it is a matter of personal style. And in your other post you seem to be putting words in VDP's mouth regarding claiming more than his due.

Unreleased backgrounds - Paul J B picked up on something that "flew off the page" for me in January.  The use of the "I" which becomes "phased out" for second or third graders in the teaching of "creative writing."  It made me wonder what college or university gave him (Daro) a degree, in English, no less, with such writing.  Had he even been a Math major, he would still be required to take English Composition, for two semesters.  They "hold themselves out" as "experts." "Experts" represent themselves with what they write.

It is entirely unnecessary to use that personal pronoun, "I," especially for those who do lyric or other writing for a living or for those whose academic credentials include being an "English major." That is what we have other parts of speech such as nouns, verbs, conjunctions, prepositions, adverbs, and adjectives for.  Far be it from me to put words in either of their mouths. They can both "use their words."

That video as a Brian birthday greeting doesn't get a pass from me.  In my opinion it was calculated in its satirical context to be mean, hurtful and degrading to Brian and the members of the band. It represents them in an untoward light with those voice overs.  Unacceptable, on any level.  And, yet, the "two birds of a feather" appear to be getting a pass, from some posters.

Any poster, who is close to the college experience, or even high school. and who had term papers and graded poorly for the overuse of the personal pronoun, "I," might see this position.  Nice letter grade of "D"or worse.  

Sorry, we don't agree.

p.s. It would be "gentlemanly" to remove the video and apologize to Brian and rest the band.  It was beneath him. However, I won't hold my breath.

What creative writing courses teach is subject to the vagaries of fashion. A true prose stylist has confidence in his or her own work enough not to be subject to arbitrary rules.

The timeline of his claims leaves me suspect. 30 years after the fact and no Carl to add his recollection. Also, the more recent claims imply the whole cello thing was totally his when you acknowledge Carl took claim as well. I don't doubt he had some suggestion about the cello's. To imply he was responsible for GV being as great as it was because of his idea is a load of nonsense. That IS the implication Cam. I like a ton of your posts but you seem to be playing devils advocate a lot lately.

When VDP started his foolishness about Darro that was pretty much it for me. Anyone that read through the Darro thread and believed even half of it as being truthful is either naive or just plain stupid. Then Parks makes sure to take a dig at Love and Mercy, and tweets to his handful of people that actually care what he thinks to see the Beautiful Dreamer documentary instead. Well, Beautiful Dreamer has plenty of BS and inaccuracies in it too.

I like what VDP added to some of Brian's songs nearly 50 years ago. But that is all. Smile is great due to Brian's music. The lyrics could have been about used refrigerator parts and it still would have sounded great. Some people here and elsewhere think the guy is all that. Fine. IMO he is a pretentious bore that wore out his welcome concerning Brian and the Beach boys a long time ago.

VDP's lyrics were what the fashion of the times required in order for a work to be taken seriously, lyrics written in a style derived from the French Symbolists. They are of the time in a way that SMiLE's music, arrangements, and production are not. Those are timeless.

I'm gonna be round my crisper drawers
I'm gonna wash down my crisper drawers
I love you most of all
My favorite crisper drawer

It'll sell a million units.

Filledeplage, I'm sorry to say I often find your posts somewhat inarticulate (in no small part due to your excessive use of quotation marks) and find it ironic to say the least that you are calling VDP out on his grammar.


As for VDP's tweet, I'm inclined to agree with the above. It just seems like a slightly irreverent bit of fun to me. Granted, he has been a bit more negative about Brian and the BBs recently but I have no idea what has gone on between these guys behind the scenes. I certainly wouldn't dream of passing judgement on that which I know nothing about.

Buddahat - here is the difference...it was not my insulting and offensive YouTube posted with regard Brian Wilson/The Beach Boys as a Birthday greeting.  It is hardly "a bit more negative."

Quotes are there for a contextual purpose, or direct quote from another, whether you agree or not.  I am calling out VDP/Daro on his/their egocentric use of "I" at the beginning of a sentence. It is primitive and defensive. 

And while you have every right to characterize the tweet as "irreverent fun," - it it "fun" at "another's expense." And that is notwithstanding whatever went down between and among them all.  What happens in Vegas...

Isn't that the point though- if he has a beef with Brian, keep it in private and not in public?

What's wrong with devil's advocating when discussing BBs' "history"?

I don't pick up the implication that you do but I'm skeptical of both of their accounts although as of now VDP's seems slightly more credible to me. I was trying to instigate someone to do a little fact finding about what happened when and who was where at what time because I'm lazy.

Sorry if I'm not been reading carefully enough but what if both Carl and Van Dyke independently suggested cellos to Brian and he let them both think they were the only one who suggested it?

In any case, it doesn't make sense that Van's apparent grudge with Brian for the last 10 years or so is because Van resents not being credited for the cello on GV. There have to be other issues there. Wider and deeper. Under the influence Brian insulted Van publically about 20 years ago. Who knows what kind of relationship these two have had. I still think that if he's going to be public, Van should speak up or quit the indirect stabs. It's hard to imagine what wrong could Brian or the BBs have made to VDP's career or life.

Smile was never really due to come out in Jan'67. Brian said he would deliver the album by January to Capitol but the reality is he didn't have anything close to a finished album by that point. It was either (a) wishful thinking on Brian's part or (b) an empty promise by Brian to get the label off his back. Good Vibrations took over 6 months to fashion, for Brian to make an entire album of songs using the same modular recording approach in as many months was realistically never going to happen.

I think that is a possibility although from what is in this thread VDP seems to be suggesting his idea was early while Carl seems to suggest his was late. I could be reading it wrong or it just went down in a way that both felt the idea was theirs. Brian's memory would tip it toward Carl but he has also said the Theremin was Mike's idea so....I wonder how that would have played out?

Um... I don't think what I mentioned is so very out of the blue. The thread topic is Van and why he may be resentful and currently acting out (in admittedly childish ways) at this time, but I think it's part of a larger picture of Van feeling screwed over for decades, and having had to live frugally and not achieve his fullest artistic potential, not entirely dissimilar to Mike's acting out likely in part to the trauma caused by the songwriting screwjob that he himself suffered (though in Mike's case, he had a money-machine super successful touring band paycheck to fall back on, unlike Van). Do you not think that Van has thought many, many times over the years how furious he was at Mike for being part of Smile's demise? (And I'm not trying to debate what YOU think about the reasons for Smile's demise, I'm talking about what Van probably thinks or has thought over the years).

One cannot realistically divorce the wheeling and dealing behind the parameters of C50, Mike's "room" situation, etc. from Mike/Brian issues of decades earlier, anymore than one can realistically divorce Van being bitter these days from being a part of an overall series of feeling disrespected (probably at various times over the years by both Mike and Brian). And I believe one of the issues in the grand scheme of why Van is resentful on the whole probably has to do with who he (Van) sees as a (not necessarily "the") culprit in Smile falling apart, which is Mike. Van (much like Mike) unfortunately seems to be a guy who gets his feelings very hurt, and stews in his resentment in not the best of ways. I bet it pisses Van off to see Mike, who he probably views as less talented than himself, get to continue living as a mega rich multimillionaire, while he himself has to resort to session work on Summer in Paradise to pay the bills, which is why I made my comment, which is admittedly partly facetious, though I wouldn't be surprised if that thought has actually gone through Van's head at some point.

As to why Van is currently pissed and going on Twitter rants? Probably something to do with compensation/credits/broken promises that came from Brian's camp in recent times, or so I'd imagine. Pure speculation of course (though that's what we do). In the overall picture: Van for decades has probably been resentful at the band and Mike in particular, which is why I brought it up, and I think that Mike's actions in no small part colored how much of a resentful person Van is today. Thanks for trying to be the Mike Love Dig Police though.

You make it sound like Van is destitute! Also Mike Love doesn't owe him a living.

Mike apparently doesn't "owe" Van airplane fair either.  ::)

I think it's quite possible that at some points over the years, that Van has had to live quite frugally. Doing SIP session work might be seen as a desperation move, I don't know if it was also a (failed) attempt to mend fences too.  I think Van currently feels shortchanged (monetarily and respect-wise) to the max for whatever reason(s), but I think at least part of why he probably feels that way is pretty obvious. And no, Mike doesn't "owe" anybody anything, though sometimes people do things simply out of the goodness of their heart. I happen to have said what I said in part out of being facetious, but in part because I also think Van himself probably thought it at some point in his decades-long stewing.

I'm not sure if Van has been stewing for decades - he's worked with Brian on several notable occasions since Smile fell apart. This grudge he seems to have now seems to stem from something much more recent.

Absolutely agreed that this grudge seems to stem from something much more recent; disagree that Van hasn't had a probable undercurrent of resentment for decades pertaining to the SMiLE project (less directed at Brian, more directed at Mike).  He and Mike seem to have one thing very much in common: being resentful fellows.

Hm. Van has been very verbal when addressing his issues with ML. Many times in an uncalled-for fashion, bringing his name up in a fixation-type manner (little like some of your posts). There are issues with Brian, or Brian's people, since the day of TLOS. Also probably Van doesn't like/understand some of Brian's issues... There is this quote from the 70s where he says that Brian isn't crazy but needs some spanking (can't find the exact quote but I think I read it initially in Leaf's book).

I didn't mean to imply that people with Asperger don't understand emotions.  Because Brian clearly does know that Mike's feelings were wounded.  I'm just not particularly convinced he knows HOW MUCH Mike was hurt.

Many people were turned off by Smiley because it was completely different to what was hip at the time. SMiLE would have fit perfectly with what was hip tho, that's the difference. That's what you don't seem to get. Maybe SMiLE would have been big after Pepper too. I think so, but not as big as if it came out in January. Again tho, you can't factor Smiley into this. Smiley failed after Pepper because it was the antithesis to Pepper and every other big album of the summer. Not because it was different from their old stuff, but because it was the wrong kind of different

Ok, maybe this doesn't fit this thread, I'll throw this out, anyway.

Van Dyke Parks recently posted a link via his Twitter about Vaughn Monroe's 1948 hit BALLERINA.  He noted how the bar was raised for string arranging on that recording. He's right. It's quite an amazing arrangement. Right before the vocal comes in, there is a short quote of Holiday For Strings. A little later, after 'whirl, ballerina, whirl' you hear the spiral of strings. Jimmy Haskell had to have had that in mind when he scored the strings for Ode To Billy Joe. There are musical twists and turns at every other bar. This is all interesting and nice.
But, I noticed something else. I went back to the beginning of the tune. The second chord of the intro is a Neapalitan chord. This gives the arrangement a Spanish tinge. OK.

Listening further, again, "Dance ballerina, dance."
Wait a minute. Dance ballerina, dance?  Hm.  Could that lyric be the inspiration/reference for "Dance Margarita (don't you know that I love you), dance?"
Maybe not, But, to me, it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYVNuxcDcnE

What would you equate Smile to from that time that was popular? I mean, it wasn't Hendrix, nor the Doors. Certainly not Cream. It was not Bubblegum and it was not Top 40. So, I ask who would this have appealed to directly? I grew up during that time an honestly, I don't think any of my friends would have bought it. They were into Hendrix, Cream etc. While it may have sold well based on it's advanced publicity, I just don't think it was electric enough to compete with what the hip crowd in America were listening. It may have done better in GB and rest of Europe, similarly to Pet Sounds. I still think it would have been great music passed over by the masses.

Mujan - with all due respect, there was little deception about Smiley.  People knew it wasn't the full project. There was no "Surf's Up" track.  And it doesn't consider or take into consideration the maelstrom the band was in.  With Brian off the road, Carl was doing a lot of the parts.  Carl was under the supervision of the courts for "draft evasion."  It had to have been very stressful for the whole band.  

And, the fact that it wasn't released doesn't mean it would have sold "zillions" - we don't know that.  It is more coulda, woulda, shoulda...utter speculation.

Smiley is in the mix.  It was and is a snapshot of the project.

Who is to say what is "hip?" People just filtered in and out whatever they heard and then decided what they liked and what they felt was relevant.

And a lot did buy Smiley did so because of GV...and maybe Heroes, less so.  There was a sublime beauty (Windchimes) that is undeniable. Comparing it to Sgt. Pepper is unfair.  The Beatles were never subjected to the record company disrespect that The Beach Boys were.  It built from Pet Sounds and the damage was cumulative.  They did get a slight break with Darlin' and Wild Honey.  To their credit they did not allow he non-release of Smile and the rest of  the events  along the way, on their journey to define them.  

But I've always wondered whether releasing an live album of some of those era's tracks might have been better than the studio albums. At least in the intermediate, to take some of the heat off the band and continue the momentum.  For example some of the 1966-1967 concert tracks that have found their way out there, that people just seem delighted to have.  It felt like a really long time between really good live BB albums.

Interesting...very interesting... ;)

Thanks, Olmec Donald, for reminding us why VDP needs to be respected despite his many personal foibles (which have been glaringly apparent since the beginning of his career, when, as we should all remember, he was a child actor...early fame in any form has a huge chance to warp personalities and perspectives). VDP is a wonderfully accomplished musician with nary a commercial bone in his body, and I'm sure it's extremely difficult for him to be considered BW's "caddy" on a project like SMILE when it's clear that he was more of a creative force than any of BW's previous collaborators.

It's very distressing to watch (read: read!) the variations of high-school-level finger wagging and jockeying for moral high ground that overwhelms the genuine attempt of many (including lots buried here in this thread...) to understand the complex, messy reality that collided during the SMILE era and that continues to have repercussions nearly a half-century later. All this meta-condescension is utterly useless and does not lead to more knowledge or greater understanding. If we were in an auditorium together, much of this posturing behavior would be inhibited by the physical presence of others, and the discussion would be a lot more civil. Even though it's tempting to hide behind this electronic wall where we don't have to see the effect of unkind words on others, let's try going back in time and simulating the idea that we are all in the same room, and that we don't want to hurt, annoy or anger anyone just because we're physically insulated from retribution.

I think those who are angered or annoyed with what VDP has posted should confront him with it and remind him of this fact--and that he almost certainly wouldn't say any of this to Brian's face. We all need to rediscover these boundaries and try to put the "social media toothpaste" back in the tube.

I don't think you can compare Smile to what was selling at the time though, certainly not VDP's lyrical themes and the music had as much one foot in the past as it did the future. The Beatles could pull it off because, well they're THE BEATLES and John and Paul could have recorded themselves farting into a mic for 40 minutes and people would have fallen over themselves to buy it.
Nothing outside of GV screams commercial success to these ears by 1967 standards. It sounds like you've bought a little too much into the David Leaf thinking of 'if only Brian had completed Smile they would have taken over the world' line of thinking. Maybe they would have but I think it's much more likely that it would have been a cult success similar to what the likes of what Zappa was achieving at the time.
In 1967 The Byrds put out The Notorious Byrd Brothers which I think overall hangs as a much better record than Smile. It could have easily been scrapped as the band was falling apart at the time. Just imagine if it had, it would be very easy to speculate that had it been released it would have been a smash as it's a Summer of Love era masterpiece. The fact that it was released and sold squat shows that you can't always predict what would sell.

  "Good Vibrations" was #1 worldwide in Dec 66. IF SMiLE had come out even by say March 67, a solid hit would have been quite likely. But  rock music was turned upside down Jan-Sept 67. Hendrix, Cream, the Doors, Jefferson Airplane, SGT PEPPER, and Monterey all changed the game. Crucial months went by, all The Beach Boys delivered was...BEST OF VOL 2 (July).

  SMILEY undoubtedly pleased a few listeners but just as certainly turned off scores more. It's a classic album, but also the biggest anticlimax in the history of rock & roll. I still believe a Spring 1967 SMiLE would have sold well.

 You do make a good point about NOTORIOUS. It's relative commercial failure seems hard to figure, but like The Beach Boys, the changes of 1967 seemed to put The Byrds in commercial eclipse.

Many people, me included, see Smiley as seemingly ahead of it's time.

I would agree. I'm just talking about how most people in 1967 would have perceived it

The main thing to remember though is that we simply cannot speculate on how well Smile would have done chart wise based on the chart success of Smiley Smile. As much as I like the album, it can sound amateurish in comparison not only to Pet Sounds but also to a lot of other albums making big waves at the time. I remember after buying the album when I was around 17 or so and putting it on for friends, one of which was a big Pet Sounds fan. None of us had heard it before. By the time we got to Little Pad, I got the request to turn the album off. The album is simply a whole other animal in comparison to Smile. I don't think these guys would have been so quick to shut those songs off.

On a side note, one only needs to take a cursory glance at the scholarly work being done in the humanities now to see that "I" is in frequent use. Most people that I know in academics, myself included, encourage students to use it rather than discourage them.

I would agree

Didn't Brian give Michael Vosse the impression that he thought the time for SMiLE had passed, he heard Strawberry Fields Forever (or something) in February and thought that the Beatles had beat him to "it" or something like that? And according to Anderle, Parks and Wilson were "clashing" over the lyrics being too sophisticated and the music not being sophisticated enough and couldn't work together "around February".  According to Taylor in early May: “BUT ALAS…Brian Wilson began to stare at the glittering ships of tape and as the day of the launch became nearer than a date on the never-never calendar, he gazed at his plans and he turned his mind’s ear inwards and the longer he stared and the more he heard, the clearer it became that he was now in his jet age, building steamships."

Exactly this. Thank you !

Fair enough. I still disagree, but I can see what you're saying. For what it's worth, I do think Pepper is a good album, it's just that its so unquestionably praised that I feel it's past time somebody dare to criticize it. Not so much as in the emperor has no clothes so much as "yes, he has clothes...but are they really any better than the rest?"

I dont see why Pepper should be so hailed and not SMiLE or Satanic Majesties except that Pepper came first and happened to be the one that got the attention. Their Satanic is just as good, I would say. I prefer 2000 Light Years from Home and She's A Rainbow to anything on Pepper, in fact. And I dont see why ADITL should be considered such a triumph of Lennon and McCartney. As you say, its two seperate songs stictched together by the crescendo of music. Id argue the two songs arent particularly meaningful or go with each other well. Just a guy reading some weird story in the news and a guy going about his morning routine. The orgasm of music was Paul's idea, but from what I understand he literally just told George Martin "hey, lets do this" and George made it happen. So I dont understand why that should earn so much praise and claims of the Beatles' genius. In one of the weakest SMiLE tracks, Brian did everything ADITL does and did it better. In My Only Sunshine, he combines two different tracks together to say something very profound about loss of faith. Yet, it's done very subtly, so much so that just about everyone including myself dismissed it as just a throwaway. ADITL, with all its "fancy" pomps and frills, falls flat in my opinion.

But at the end of the day, we wont convince each other. And this mini-debate is off topic from what we were discussing in the first place. SMiLE would have at least sold respectably just from GV and the advertising alone. There really is no question of that. You could argue whether it would have been a smash hit or modest one, but to say it would have outright flopped is just straight-up incorrect.

Youre correct. Im curious tho, what this has to do with my thoughts on Smiley

That Brian apparently didn't think SMiLE would sell; it wasn't timely or competitive and the lyrics  were too sophisticated, even in February.

I think Cabin Essence and CIFOTM would sound right at home rubbing elbows with the likes of Pink Floyd's Flaming, White Rabbit, and anything on Pepper. A finished Elements, even just the Fire we have now would sound fine alongside Hendrix's Third Stone From the Sun, Interstellar Overdrive and other freakout instrumentals. The social critiques in Surf's Up and Worms work well beside Zappa's We're Only In It For the Money and The United States of America. Admittedly, those last two were from a year later and the USA wasnt a hit, but all the same.

Not every great album in 1967 was electric, although Ill grant you that most were. Surrealistic Pillow was arguably the most iconic American album of the summer of love. Thats most acoustic sounding. Very folksy. The two big rockers are Grace Slick's, new to the band. Admittedly, those are the two most memorable and the two singles. Still, GV and Id say Cabin Essence rock just as hard as those in their own way. Ive always thought CE should have been the next single, not Heroes. Heroes was a poor choice that never would have sold as well, and the endless noodling of an uncommercial song to make it commercial was nothing but a waste of time.

And he was wrong. Psychedelic music became the big thing that spring, the summer of love was a cultural milestone built on it, and it continued throughout the sixties and evolved into progressive rock in the early seventies.

Brian was a genius but everyone makes bad calls. Everyone is their own harshest critic. And this is one of those times. To abandon an incredible masterwork just because another group had a good song is just senseless. Especially since GV came first and was just as far out there as Strawberry.

I know people knew Smiley wasnt SMiLE. Ive brought up that very point before as a reason why Smiley wouldnt have been well accepted. But c'mon man, even if they knew it wasnt SMiLE, no one could have known Smiley would sound like...well...that. They probably assumed it would sound something like the pre-Pet Sounds albums. Something not quite as advanced, but still fun and rockin and with the trademarked vocal harmonies. Who would have ever thought the Beach Boys would have released something with virtually no "harmonization" and no happy go lucky lyrics/sound?

Yeah, Im speculating when I say SMiLE would have been a hit, but its INFORMED speculation. Using the facts to make an educated guess. Looking at the factors at play like Captiol's intense marketing, the recent #1 single, the public voting them the best group, Brian being acknowledged as a genius for the first time, the fact that psychedelic music itself was starting to get popular, etc all point to at least a modest hit if not a #1 million seller. To just say "oh, but Smiley didnt sell well so SMiLE wouldnt. Case closed." is ignoring all the nuances and trying to point to a quick answer where there is none. It ignores the fact that Smiley was anti-psychedelic, came out months later, wasnt nearly so hyped, the band missed out on Monterey, the cancellation of SMiLE probably made them look bad, and so on. You're comparing apples to oranges and then accusing ME of baseless speculation. Then when I point this out, you're acting like I personally dont like Smiley when I do.

Yes, Smiley is a snapshot of the project...or, what it became FIVE MONTHS later (8, if you're talking about the January release date) but thats just it, it was such a long stretch of time that everything changed. Half a year during the most turbulent year in pop music is an eternity, and Smiley is a VERY different album than SMiLE. The two may be related in terms of how one project evolved into the other, but NOT in how they would have been accepted by the public. End of story.

"The Beatles could pull it off because, well they're THE BEATLES and John and Paul could have recorded themselves farting into a mic for 40 minutes and people would have fallen over themselves to buy it. "

THANK YOU. That's my point, when people go on and on praising the brilliance of Pepper and using its sales figures as proof of how great it was. The Beatles had a built-in audience and hype machine that no other band ever had. Hence how a decent album which aped the techniques Brian pioneered with Pet Sounds got all the praise in the world while far better ones were ignored.

Anyway, its not that I think they would have taken over the world if they released SMiLE. Brian still would have succumbed to his illness eventually. They still would have released some subpar material eventually. But maybe they would have gotten more respect. Sold more albums. Been thought of as equals to the Beatles. They wouldnt be thought of as that summer group that also released that one great album (with SMiLE being something only the hardcore fans bothering to learn about.)

I think SMiLE would have been a cut above the cult classics like In the Court of the Crimson King, Forever Changes, Zappa and the USA. Why? Because an established band was releasing it. A band that had just recently put out a million selling single. If some newcommers released SMiLE, yeah, itd probably fly under the radar to all but the most dedicated music buffs. But no way the next BBs release coming off a recent hit album and single would just go unnoticed.

For quite a while I've wanted to start a grindcore band that plays covers of Beach Boys songs and call it "Dyke Parks Van"


Clever, right?

Funny how this guy is all completely obsessed with this unreleased hodgepodge of music and can't comprehend how people think that one Beatles album is as great as it's cracked up to be.


Huge Beach Boys fan here, not really into the Beatles at all. I think they're overrated as all hell. But I still dig the Sergeant Pepper album over the tracks that belonged to the abortion known as Smile.....



Comparing the success of Good Vibrations to the success of Heroes & Villains, I don't think the general public were ever ready for a Van Dyke Parks as lyricist for The Beach Boys album..... Regardless of how great you think Smile woulda coulda been had it been a thing that actually exists....

Hey man, nothing wrong with an alternate viewpoint amiright?  :hat

Im glad we can agree the Beatles are overrated, but I must ask...so you really think SMiLE is an abortion? What don't you dig, the lyrics or the themes or just the general incompleteness of it? Just curious. It's tough to imagine a Beach Boys fan who likes something like Pepper cant also see the merits in at least the better SMiLE tracks, but different strokes i guess...

I dont think the issue with H&V charting lower than GV was in the lyrics so much as another issue of timing and for the fact that H&V doesnt rock like GV does. Once again I say, Brian chose the wrong track to be the single. CE, Surf's Up, even Vega-Tables or CIFOTM would have been better choices. They're more psychedelic, more emotional and even more commercial. I love the idea of putting out Surf's Up with John Q Public seeing it and thinking "oh, just another typical Beach Boys song" and then putting it on at home and being completely blown away. H&V is just an uncommercial song to begin with, and all Brian's work trying to force it to be more radio friendly just ruined what would have set the song apart--that it was a formless musical comedy--and wasted months of time which sunk the album.

But it was time for Brian to lead, not follow.

I feel the opposite. I think Sgt pepper has received its fair share of flak over the years, as does any work of art that gains mainstream acceptance as 'great' - the backlash is inevitable (and of course necessary for an ever-changing culture to redefine itself).

I kind of feel like you're missing the point. Every era calls out for an album that defines it, whether it's gen Xers lauding Never Mind The Bollocks, or OK Computer capturing pre millennial tension etc. etc. Those albums become sort of archetypes, embodying more than just the music contained within the sleeve. Of course, when we revisit them 'cold' (from outside of the context from which they were originally created) it's easy to ask "What's so great about this?" Taken at face value, the music may not sound as good as albums by their contemporaries (or even other albums by the same band i.e. Kid A might be preferable to OK Computer just as Revolver might be preferable to Sgt Pepper), but the point is the album is great not for the music alone, but also because of how it captured the zeitgeist and public imagination at the time.

As far as I can tell, you are taking Sgt Pepper  out of context and comparing it to contemporaneous albums and saying "It sounds better - What's all the fuss about?". But 'the fuss' is the point - It's considered important because it embodied 1967 for so many people, because it represented the peak of pop music's exploration of psychedelia from which point on most other artists of significance threw in the towel and pursued alternative paths. It might sound aesthetically less pleasing than other albums of the time. It does to me too. But that doesn't change its place in history.

As for whether it's a better album than Satanic Majesties - Ha! I've had this exact same argument here before. I enjoy the stones album and used to listen to it loads at university. (It was my alarm CD at one point - I woke one morning, extremely hungover, and thought Keith's snoring was actually somebody in the room with me!) Personally it feels like an unfocused facsimile of Pepper. The Stones don't really sound convinced and it has a laziness and sloppiness about it, although there are some stellar songs, granted.

Is it better than Smile? It depends on what we're comparing. I agree that music from the Smile sessions is more beguiling, more enduring (it stands up far better to repeated plays), more complex, more dazzling. Aesthetically? Yes the Smile music is better by a mile imo. But as an artistic statement? Pepper wins hands down because VDP and BW failed to finish Smile. No statement was made. Arguing that it would've trumped Pepper had it been released is ridiculous. In that fantasy scenario what's stopping us adding Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane to Pepper to level the playing field? You change one reality surely you can change the other?

  Some of the songs from SGT PEPPER -"Mr Kite", "Good Morning Good Morning", "Fixing a Hole", "Within You Within You"-are average by the usual standards of The Beatles.

   The concept "Sgt Pepper's band putting on a show"...rather quaint, don't you think?  "Let's put on a show"....Judy Garland & Mickey Rooney did that at MGM in 1939. The "concept" disappears after "With a Little Help from My Friends" (definitive version by Joe Cocker) only to resurface at the end.

  Compare the above to the American Gothic majesty of SMiLE. Seriously.

  Elvis Presley's HOW GREAT THOU ART beat PEPPER at the Grammys for "Best Engineered Album of 1967"...I'm glad.

  Pete Townshend once described SGT PEPPER as "extremely non-physical."

  Bob Dylan once reportedly told someone "Turn that off" as the PEPPER platter played.

 "I Am the Walrus" obliterates PEPPER in about 5 minutes of demented brilliance.

Yet the Beatles were able to finish their masterpiece on time! 

 Yes. That's the part that hurts.

The concept breaks surface briefly at the end of "Within You, Without You"----the tittering audience.

Agreed, agreed, agreed about "Walrus"!    

It should not hurt...it took Gustave Flaubert 5 years to write one book; his masterpiece, Madame Bovary. 

Flaubert was looking for "le mot juste" - the correct word.

Art demands that it not be rushed.  :thewilsons

 

Except BWPS was a vastly inferior work with a bastardized sequence. IMO.

BWPS is sort of a confusing misnomer for me.  I automatically  think of Brian Wilson Pet Sounds (live.)

At any rate, Smile "live," I think, was a "coming out" party, in the  former sense in which, debutantes are/were "presented into society." (Reminds me of "The Waltz")  :lol    I think that is one for not "barking at VPD."

It wasn't the original studio vocals, done by the BB's but the core track assemblage with assistive technology, and presented/interpreted by Brian's great band, with the appropriate stage "props."

Calling it "bastardized" is sort of unfair; I'm thinking it was presented almost as an operetta, telling a story...and may have been inherently constrained by that live performance limitation.

As a live performance, it was wonderful. For Brian, and all his fans. It's only the release of the CD and its billing as "*the* finished SMiLE" that I have a problem with

Exactly.

So, at the end of the day (overused phrase) it is, like life, a "definite maybe."  :lol

Everything is still relative and it was "final" until the Box Set was released. (Who knows what was not released?)

I waited 37 years for something more definite.  I was not disappointed.

There is always some treat awaiting fans in the treasure trove...just waiting or needing to be "unearthed."   ;)

But that is how Brian wants it heard for forevermore. He even had Mark Linett sequence the Beach Boys version that way. So then, Brian is wrong twice. Once for not completing & releasing Smile on time and second for releasing it the way he wants it heard. Do I have right right? No wonder he shelved it and kept it locked away for 37 years. ;)

Once more, I get what your saying and concede your point. But there's something to be said about the test of time. Nobody can say which works of art will hold up decades later, which buried treasures will find an audience and come to prominence or which "classics" lose their luster and fade into obscurity. Some things that capture the zeitgeist of the time end up feeling dated years later. I'd argue Sgt Pepper is a textbook example. Another would be "The Graduate" a film which came out the same year. Just doesnt hold up, while it may have been loved at its time. SMiLE on the other hand, is timeless. It may be psychedelic but it is so in a way that doesnt feel "show-offy" or pandering like Pepper. It really does feel like a modern symphony which inspires endless analysis and continued listening. Pepper doesnt warrant that. "Oh, the lyrics for this song were ripped right off a circus poster. Thats...neat, I guess." Compared to that, people will be discussing the meaning of Columnated Ruins Domino for years to come. Im not trying to take it out of context so much as put it in a larger context. Im looking at it with an objective eye (ear?) removed from that zeitgeist you speak of and viewing how it holds up half a century after the fact. I dont think it holds up well at all, wheras SMiLE, the USA and others from that period are still just as brilliant and relevant to the modern world as they were then. "The American Metaphysical Circus" is more significant now than ever, with TPP set to pass and corporations becoming more powerful now than ever... By comparison, who cares about Rita the meter maid or what Paul's gonna do when he's 64?

To each his own. Personally, Satanic is the only Stones album Ive bothered to buy on vinyl. Ive yet to listen to their 70s output, but their 60s albums tend to be very uneven to my ears. Let It Bleed kicks off with Gimme Shelter, one of the best songs ever...and then it loses me every time Ive tried to give it another chance. Until Monkey Man comes on and catches me by storm! But yeah. All their 60s albums are like that for me, except Majesties. It's just a fun album to listen to with some nice little songs and interesting studio techniques. I'll admit it's one of the lesser albums of the year, but I still like it and still prefer it to Pepper. Maybe I'm letting what I see as the over-hype and over-praise of it taint my opinion of the music, but Pepper just oozes pretentiousness and emptiness to me. With Satanic, I dont get the idea that the Stones were trying to take the world by storm as the Beatles and Brian were. I see Satanic as them saying "hey, this psychedelic sound everyone's doing is really interesting. Let's try our hand at it." It seems like everyone's quick to pounce on them for jumping on the bandwagon, but so did the Beatles. The latter just did it at the right time, and--Being the Beatles--they could get away with it. But Paul McCartney attended Pink Floyd's early shows in disguise. They were heavily inspired by Pet Sounds. They didnt invent psychedelic rock, just watered it down so it was more acceptable to the masses. Fine if someone loves it, Im just not buying the claims of its brilliance, especially in comparison to albums I see on the same level such as Majesties.

I dont see the fact that it wasnt finished as altering the equation. Even in its unfinished state, even in the awful BWPS/TSS sequence, I enjoy listening to SMiLE far more than Pepper. In an alternate sequence designed around a two-sided album, with use of Psychedelic Sounds and Smiley to fill in some of the gaps, I enjoy it even more. I wish it had come out at the time so the public could have heard it and the bands reputation would have been saved, but thats not the issue. We have both NOW. And listening to each, SMiLE blows Pepper away easy. I dont see it as changing the timeline to speculate that with everything it had going for it, SMiLE would have been a hit record had it come out. Its not about setting it up to trounce Pepper, I just think its simple fact that with a #1 single preceding it, coming off a critical and commercial hit album, with capitol building it up, Brian billed as a genius, the band being voted the best in the world and finally the best music ever recorded to back it up...SMiLE would have sold well. I just dont see how this can even be debated.

@Mujan

It can be debated, because it never was released. Can I borrow that crystal ball that you're using. I'd like to go back and change a few things, myself. ;)

I don't follow this point. Lots of people are still talking about Pepper, particularly in comparison to Smile. It's also not watered down psychedelia. The Beatles may have been inspired by psychedelia but they were inspired by a lot of other things too. In fact, their listening list at the time of Pepper couldn't be exactly called psychedelia: Lovin' Spoonful, Pet Sounds, Indian, avant-garde tape experiments. They weren't watering down anything for the masses - they were making the kind of music that they wanted to make for themselves.

EDIT: I also disagree with you about The Graduate. I'm not sure I can think of a better movie that's been made in the last 20 years and the idea of a guy who has graduated from college without knowing where to go or what to do seems more relevant than ever.

I think this is such a f***ed up opinion. You have a problem with Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks billing their finishing of SMiLE as the finished SMiLE? How dare they. It's only their work. They definitely shouldn't have dared to return to an unfinished work after 36 years, should they have? Seriously, what would you have preferred?

I think Brian found it hard to lead when those behind him started to catch up, and then at least in his eyes, started to surpass him.

Its a sensitive subject. On the one hand, of course Brian has the right to call it the finished SMiLE as he pleases since its his music. Yet, he also is quoted saying the original would have been 2 movements not 3 and "less uplifting" than what he made in 03. I think making an album of the songs listed on the original tracklist flows a LOT better and leaves a more focused, concise message than the bloated, everything and the kitchen sink 03 setlist. I think a real harpsichord would have sounded better. Of course, I think the original Beach Boys vocals would have sounded better too, but at what point do such criticisms become ridiculous?

In any case, I see them as seperate projects. There is SMiLE the unfinished modular psychedelic studio album and Brian Wilson Presents Smile the 3 movement live pop symphony.

You're opening a can of worms that will spin into an infinite circle of illogical discussion with Mujan.

You'd think the artist himself giving the stamp of approval on BWPS would be enough for some people. And frankly I couldn't care less that people don't like BWPS, everyone has their own opinions, but most here who hold that opinion have the common courtesy not to express it monotonously in every thread relating to Smile.

Point me in the direction of some in-depth dissection of Pepper. Something on the level of what we do here for SMiLE, or the Smile Shop essays. Because all I ever see is just circle-jerking over how great it is and the like.

Yes, they are separate, but the way Brian wants Smile sequenced has pretty much stayed intact. I think 3 Movements has been in Brian's mind since at least the early 80's. This is how he wants it. To me, the second movement is near utter perfection on both the solo and Beach Boys versions.

True. It obviously evolved over time, as any creative project would. If he were to live another 30 years I wonder if he might think differently

Sorry, I dont mean to be rude.

The board kinda degenerates into the same circular talking points often in any case. Look how a conversation about VDP's tweet got to where we are now. Give it time and maybe this'll become yet another Mike v Brian argument.

Anyway, Im sorry if it hurts people's feelings, but I just think BWPS is an evolution of SMiLE that's nevertheless different from the original intent. Similar to Smiley in many ways. Im willing to drop it if you are :3d

You may want to begin by acquainting yourself with this scholarly book published with articles by 12 different scholars:

https://books.google.ca/books?id=DN6hAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA129&dq=sgt.+pepper&hl=en&sa=X&ei=9gmMVaSjEMvy-AGahIHQBg&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=sgt.%20pepper&f=false (https://books.google.ca/books?id=DN6hAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA129&dq=sgt.+pepper&hl=en&sa=X&ei=9gmMVaSjEMvy-AGahIHQBg&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=sgt.%20pepper&f=false)

After that, we can look at the singular academic essays devoted to the album. You simply cannot compare the enormous scholarly attention that Pepper has received to the discussion on Smile.

I think it's also a matter of Brian just being burned out and the dominoes came tumbling down as a result. When you're hanging by the proverbial thread, anything could make it snap. The Strawberry Fields incident ("they did it already") seems to be the breaking point.


I'm somewhere in between agreement and disagreement with you on this. Sure, Brian and Van Dyke "finished" it for live performance but the fact that the running order was tinkered with yet again for The Smile Sessions sort of makes one wonder whether Brian really did consider the 2003 sequence "final." As far as the original back cover list goes, I don't see that as a definitive indicator of what the album would have been, either (though it made for fun mixes when the tracks were ordered in the same way as the list). If it were, the tracks would have been listed in their running order.

I also don't think BWPS has the magic of the original recordings. Live, it was another story, of course; I'd have preferred BWPS as a live album because that's where the suite sounded best and it was sequenced for live performance to begin with. At least one other poster here besides myself has half-jokingly referred to the studio BWPS as "the K-Tel repackaging" (albeit with a much bigger budget than K-Tel crap) because it just doesn't have the same feel as the original recordings. I do agree with Brian that his original vision would have been much darker and not as uplifting as what became BWPS. Just a cursory listen to the sounds he was trying to get on the record is proof of that - Pet Sounds may have dealt with some dark subject matter at times, but Smile was another story. Of course, there's also the possibility that something like what eventually became Smiley Smile would have ended up being closer to Brian's original vision, since there isn't much that is uplifting on there to begin with.

Of course it is different. I doubt anyone would argue that point. I'll say this, a three movement Smile gave Brian many more options than what he was afforded in 66-67. Trying to put together a 12-14 track single LP had to have been torture trying to figure it all out.

Of course this is true but what doesn't change is the impact the album had in its own time.

I wish you were right that people will grow indifferent to Sgt Pepper whilst interest in Smile will snowball but I can't picture it. The Beatles and Sgt pepper are a historical phenomenon that will be dissected for centuries at least. Smile will always be a niche thing, more's the pity.

Picture two musical archaeological finds: An acetate containing a missing song from the Sgt Pepper sessions (something they'd planned to include but had somehow mislaid then forgotten about - I'm not talking about a 'Carnival of Light' style free-form wankfest but a proper, bonefide, previously unheard, classic Lennon & McCartney composition that was earmarked for Sgt P) and an acetate containing a finished sequence and mix for a complete Smile c.early 67 (which Brian had also mislaid and forgotten about - not so far-fetched). Both these artefacts coincidentally materialise in the same year sometime in the future - say in 2040 (when I'm 64 as it happens ;)). Which discovery gets more column inches? I'd wager it would be the lost Pepper track by a mile. It would make the evening TV news here, front pages of all papers I'm sure, whereas I suspect the Smile story might feature  prominently in the music press, but as far as the newspapers go - buried in the entertainment section of the weekend broadsheets at best.

Where we can agree is that Smile sounds less old fashioned than Sgt Pepper. If what your saying is that musically it has more longevity, then this is something I also believe. It strikes me that the restlessness that permeates the Smile music is very much present in music these days. It does sound more 'now' to my ears. But that doesn't mean that it will ever be more popular, or historically significant, than Sgt pepper.

Honestly, thank you. I would genuinely like to read this and maybe see what Im apparently missing here.

If you haven't seen it you should watch the Beatles Anthology to get a sense of just how incredible their career trajectory was. What floored me was just how massive and total Beatlemania was across the globe. It's breathtaking to watch. Then you realise it's only 1964, like you're on dvd two or something, and there's still 6 more years of their career left and that from that point on each album will surpass the last. It's like the band had five different careers in one. I am a Beach Boys fan primarily, but when you comprehend just how much The Beatles achieved in such a short space of time - It boggles the mind.

I 100% agree with this. I've never understood the "concept" when it seems to be dropped halfway into the album and is only brough back with the reprise of Sgt Peppers. I like the songs and the album but as a concept it's not very complete.

I love this topic. It's passionate but not aggressively so.

i just feel every time I see The Beatles compared to what Brian and the Boys did that it should be "The Beatles and George Martin". That man was so incredibly important to their sound and to their success, I feel.

Martin is a great producer and undeniably crucial to the Beatles sound, but his importance does get overstated quite often. There were many people that helped contribute to The Beatles sound and success - Brian Epstein and Geoff Emerick being two other major contributors (the former for the success, the latter for the sound).

The Beatles have all said it wasn't a concept album.


I dislike Martin's production style on early Beatles records; rubbish bass sound which is also pushed too far back in the mix to make room for the rhythm guitar. Compare them to the bass sound The Dave Clark 5 were getting at the time.

Do you have any quotes or sources? Here's what Lennon said:

"It's called the first "concept album." It doesn't go anywhere. "Mr. Kite," all my contributions have absolutely nothing to do with this idea of Sgt. Pepper and his band, but it worked because we said it worked.  And that's how it appeared. "

He doesn't deny it's a concept album. He just admits it isn't as cohesive as people make it out to be.. but because they said it was, people believe it is.

Ringo says on Anthology that they went into the studio and laid down the title track and Mr.Kite before saying 'sod it' let's just do tracks.

Back on topic. VDP just posted this:

http://www.americansongwriter.com/2015/06/paul-zollo-blog-van-dyke-parks-portrayal-love-mercy/

"the Melinda Wilson biopic"

OUCH!!

Guessing that she is the one who he has a bone to pick with, not so much Brian. She probably asked him what "Over and over the crow cries uncover the corn field" means, too.

I really don't understand all the Melinda hate. Brian might be dead right now if it weren't for her. Plus, Brian obviously loves her very, very much. That's good enough for me; Brian seems to be at peace these days, and he deserves it. I know personally, I'd be lost without the wonderful woman I have in my life, I can relate to how Brian seemingly feels about Melinda.

If Van Dyke does have some bone to pick with her, I truly wonder, what could it possibly be over?

Well, for those who were complaining that VDP was being too vague in his tweets, he lays it out in the article.  

So VDP wants more recognition for the music of SMiLE, not just the lyrics? Um..ok.

He thinks Melinda purposely diminished him to let Brian have all the credit? Melinda ain't the writer and director.  

Mocking Brian for mispronouncing the cellist's name? Kind of a low blow.

No Melinda hate from me. For VDP to call the movie "The Melinda Wilson biopic", that sounds like he has issues with her.

If you mean 'arco,' that's a technique, not a name.

If anything it was a low bow.

Oh most definitely. I knew you weren't hatin' on her, my apologies if my response came off like I thought you were  :smokin

If there was any doubt that Van Dyke's personality is so similar to Michael's, well, this little interview really will change some minds. I also don't get all the Melinda hate, either. A lot of conspiracy theory nonsense from where I sit. She's not evil.

It wasn't his music and if he wants to believe it is now then I don't know what to tell you. People get on Mike for decades about not having spoken up sooner about credit for lyrics. So what music for Smile did he supposedly write? Also, the movie is a story about Brian, Melinda and the Beach Boys. It is not the story of Smile or an obscure lyricist no one has ever heard of.

A tweet from about twenty-five minutes ago indicates that he more than likely has not seen the film. When asked if he had seen it and if he liked it, he replied, "Those who were there & can remember, tell me it's a combo of "Fantasia" & "Reefer Madness"." So, he's being told about it. What is he being told - that simply he is not shown inventing the cello part of Good Vibrations? He also just re-tweeted this remark: "I enjoyed your 1.5 seconds in the film." I'm not sure what he expects this film to be.

I think he had a very legitimate gripe to complain about his portrayal in that awful TV movie from 15 years ago. This, I don't particularly understand. But ultimately I suppose that no biopic can please everyone who was actually involved when the events portrayed were actually occurring.

 :lol

I think both of them would laugh at that idea. Or, be insulted.

Similar personalities clash.

VDP's tweets continue to suggest that he hasn't yet seen the movie, so I don't see where he can make a sound argument. The movie is not about him and it wouldn't really fit to highlight his contributions. But maybe THAT's his gripe. 

Still don't get VDP's beef. He wants a credit on the record jacket : Countdowns by Van Dyke Parks? Thanks to Van Dyke Parks for a suggestion on the cello arrangement on 'Good Vibrations'?

That is obnoxious. "Those who can remember?" Relying on hearsay?  He can go buy a ticket and see it himself.

True friends are happy for their friend's triumphs and successes.  The film targeted two periods and it was about Brian, not focused even on The Beach Boys, apart from the genesis of the band. This is Brian's time, not VDP's.  All about Brian.  

It is about extricating a friend from a predatory therapist.  Even if Brian was a garbage man, and not a musical legend, his friends (Melinda and Gloria) extricated him from this evil force. It is a universal theme.  

The real truth is that it could have gone the other way! Landy might well have killed Brian.  He might be happy for his friend's very important story being told. Therapist in the amended will? Yikes!

It brings to mind the brouhaha over some young artist's tribute work on Smile artwork a few years back.  Court injunction barred the exhibit.  

Omissions?  There is little about Brian's band, called The Beach Boys.  The film can only cover so much subject matter in two hours.  So unrealistic of him.  VDP isn't that important.  Too bad he didn't get the memo.

It is a distraction from the beautiful work done on the sets, the integration of the music, to tell this important story...too bad...maybe more to to be pitied, than censured...

Agreed.  He should be glad that he was even portrayed in the movie.  Poor Tony Asher gets about 2 seconds, and we haven't heard him complaining...

He also must have way more lines than Bruce and Al. I'm not sure I can even recall them speaking in the film.

Totally agree with both of you. And Pet Sounds is/was a completed masterpiece that does stand the test of time. Smile is/was subjective to what it should have been and ended up as, be it TSS or BWPS.

This guy apparently is one of those people that go through life making bad decisions repeatedly over the same issue. He walks off in '67 before Brian is done, refuses to add commentary to TSS book, takes legal action over a Smile related art exhibit, and now has to try and keep raining on Brian and Melinda's parade. Well the parade is on rain or shine and with or without Parks.

VDP is famously oblique, so it becomes as difficult to parse his train of thought as it was to pin Bill Clinton down on the definition of oral sex. But it is clear that he remains haunted by SMiLE and probably feels that he was used in order to complete a BWPS, and then summarily discarded. He's clearly had a strange off-and-on relationship with BW over the years, and it's one that's always leaving him dissatisfied. (Which is where that connection to Mike's experience, alluded to in some recent posts, becomes very intriguing.)

Many of you are quick to dismiss the influence of the Laurel Way crowd on Brian's musical evolution, preferring to paint them all as pretentious dilettantes. But  it's clear that there was musical "value added" from several of these folk, with VDP (who had a much more encompassing musical education than BW) being key to this. There's a barely articulated assumption that BW leapt from Wall of Sound influences to bass-driven "technicolor arrangements" to "Copland-esque" kick-ass tone poems ("Cabinessence") all on his own, or (as it's implicitly argued in LOVE & MERCY) due to sonic hallucination. While much of that is the case, there's room in that scenario for some amount of "expansion of musical horizons." I don't think it's outrageous to speculate that some of this came from VDP, who was in tow for the spring of '66 in the build-up to SMiLE.

And the fact that two of the major songs that hit a brick wall ("Surf's Up" and "Cabinessence") have much more overt VDP elements (the arrangements of these songs are more ambitious and unusual than the rest of the SMiLE tracks) might indicate how his view of SMiLE and what happened to it contains a perspective that is at odds with what now seems to be the "received wisdom." VDP resisted telling his own definitive version of that story for decades, preferring to be cleverly oblique. Possibly there are aspects of the story that he experienced which would paint everyone in a bad light (including himself) but that would have demonstrated how his role was larger than controversial lyricist...possibly he regrets not taking such a path earlier, when such a narrative could have been of some benefit to his own position--but throughout all those years, SMiLE was a failed Icarus-like moment, awash in myth, and given BW's long incarceration, he seems to have felt that he should lend support by remaining cryptic. One gets the sense that he's come to regret THAT decision.

So...locked out of credit as a musician and a creative supporter, self-censoring over details about the process for decades, kow-towing to BW's legend, losing out on song credits in several phases of his collaboration, feeling "seduced and abandoned" in the runup to BWPS...one can see how a troubled, complicated guy who's always been too precocious for his own good might wind up in a spot where he can only continue his oblique commentary instead of laying out a story that would put many in a bad light and would likely create more backlash against him. Trapped in the ongoing myth, relegated to a position that is a good bit less lauded ("controversial" and "pretentious" lyricist), VDP is probably feeling a not-inconsiderable amount of pain about all of this, what with the end of his life a whole lot nearer than his musical heyday.

None of this condones the behavior, but it does provide some plausible perspective (and a lot less moralizing) about why he's doing it and how he got himself into such a predicament. Acknowledging that he might well have some legitimate pain (and, quite possibly, some legitimate beefs) about things is less condescending than pitying him and less judgmental than censuring him. Clearly he's fallen victim to envy--and that's a shame, because when that happens, nothing good can come of it.

Brian essentially invented (or was attempting to invent) the concept of non-linear editing while making SMiLE; that in and of itself was such a forward-thinking move that the album - from a technological breakthrough standpoint alone - should get a bunch of brownie points in whatever "competition" between the album's contemporaries that SMiLE finds itself in.

Indeed.

Despite going about his gripes in a poor way, I feel really bad for Van. He was a massive part of the most (or 2nd-most) artistically lauded project in the band's career, but I guess he wanted a scene or two showing more of what he brought to the table. Much like with Mike (who apparently (?) still hasn't seen the film, but seems to want to have a beef with it from the onset), I am curious to know what additional scenes or changes would be both  Van's or Mike's own personal desires for the film to have for them to feel content and happy with the film, and how it portrays their place in history.  

For Mike, I don't know if he could ever be pleased by a Mike film portrayal in a BW biopic, since I think his own sense of self/ego is way skewed beyond the parameters of reality, despite some absolutely legitimate essential contributions to the story. For Van, I'm not so sure it's quite as severe, but again - let's not forget that for whatever gripes or feeling shortchanged that Van feels (vs Mike), Van never seemingly came out ahead money-wise or career-wise, so in a sense I have a greater sense of empathy for his feeling shortchanged to a degree in the game of life, despite having a career that many people would absolutely still envy.

I guess maybe Van would like the film to present his character in such a way that the viewer would feel compelled to learn more about Van, his own talents (aside from working with Brian), or something of that nature. As has been pointed out, this is a film about Brian, and yes, Melinda being a part of the major storyline of the film, is going to get a disproportionate focus of the film; there's no real way around that if the film is inherently just about a few specific eras.  If a film was made specifically to mainly focus on the creation of SMiLE (as the main centerpiece of the film), I would better understand if he felt underrepresented.

I do think that whatever falling out there was between Van and Brian (which I wouldn't be surprised peripherally may involve Melinda) started well before the film's production (there was that "buffoonery" comment among other stuff, right?). I would also tend to think that in an alternate reality, if Van and Brian were perhaps on fantastic terms during the film's production, that possibly that could have led to one more scene of Van being shown in a positive light. Not saying that Van's or Mike's talents were shown to a lesser degree out of "revenge" or anything like that, but that it stands to reason that if somebody is on one's current sh*t-list in some fashion, it isn't a situation that's exactly going to *encourage* a greater quantity of scenes going out of the way to paint that given person as a more pivotal and important (in a positive way) to be included in the film, anymore than I would expect Mike to re-record Brian's Back in 2013, or for Van to do a tour performing the entirety of Orange Crate Art nowadays either.  

But yeah - it's sad, sad, sad to see old men fighting and feeling shortchanged out of things in life during their twilight years. Van was/is a huge talent, and what he brought to the project of SMiLE beyond just themes/lyrics is in fact something that isn't largely well-known or explored, and I can understand him feeling hurt over that. But I do still wonder what set off the post TLOS bad terms between the guys. Their collab on TLOS was stellar. Something went wrong somewhere along the line though, and I have a feeling that it might be something that I'd have a bit more understanding and empathy about than a request for a "room".

Did you ever see VDP promoting TLOS?

I think that's your answer right there ...

Is there any indication that TLOS was originally ever intended to be more heavy on BW/VDP collabs than it eventually wound up being? I wonder...

Maybe there's a reason right under our noses for why the post-TLOS falling out happened. I dunno.

Don Malcolm - it is a true struggle to be neutral about VDP at this point.  And I like to give the devil his due and the benefit of the doubt.  However, some of us who bought the LP called Smiley Smile wondered whether the legacy would continue and be handed down.  Probably yes, with young people seeking it out, even via Kokomo, as was my experience teaching Pre-K.

But, with info on this board, about a young artist who was cut no slack, after inviting VDP to this Smile art exhibit, the response was, not supportive and celebrating young people becoming involved in the whole music/art dynamic, but an injunction.  Is this passing on a legacy and encouraging young minds and artists on their journey.  I happen to feel that it is our duty to encourage and nurture those who will carry the torch after us.  He crushed that artist. What artist does that to another artist? One paying tribute to the artwork? It's hard for me to understand that kind of meanness. He can "pick on someone his own size." He is a gifted guy who has done enviously diverse work.

Of course we weren't witnesses to the music creation.  We are only spectators.

It defies logic that this movie producer would not do his due diligence to present a picture as transparent as possible.  His reputation is constantly under review.  People tend to act consistently.  This movie wasn't a fairy tale.  It wasn't Fantasia. (One of my Disney favorites.) And why would VDP disrespect Brian's wife.  Daro disrespected Marilyn.  Is it analogous?

These tweets have an underpinning that appears taunting the reader. Is there a need for this behavior? Did he want recognition or just lyric credit? If he was owed royalties, he could go to a court and assert a claim.  The recognition thing may be what is the core issue.  Tweeting this stuff can only make him look bad. 

... And why would VDP disrespect Brian's wife. 

[/quote]

He is not dissing the wife. He is referring to Melinda, the partner in the business of Brian Wilson. She is a public figure now.  If she had no legal say-so or sway in Brian's business and creative affairs, I believe she would be hands off to such critical mention.

Can someone elaborate on this incident with VDP and the artist?

When asked at the time of TLOS, Van said he expected to see/collaborate with an old friend, or catching up with an old friendship, but it was not to be.

So: VDP's problem is he wants credit as arranger for Smile. And may I submit that the reason he did not contribute an essay to the Smile Box was precisely that reason. All would be fine if Van hadn't given the world his "I was a glorlfied scribe" quotes for decades. His problem is not with Melinda. It's with Brian; it dates from 1967 and has increased as Smile became what it is now.

He is not dissing the wife. He is referring to Melinda, the partner in the business of Brian Wilson. She is a public figure now.  If she had no legal say-so or sway in Brian's business and creative affairs, I believe she would be hands off to such critical mention.
[/quote]

She's still his wife. VDP hasn't sunk as low as Daro calling her a cow or personal insults but he still implies that she's some kind of manipulating figure in his life. I think she's well meaning if possibly overprotective myself. I can understand Mike or VDP feeling disrespected by being mostly cut-out but I don't think that's all on Melinda

Edit: he also publicly supported Daro which means he has no problem with what he called Marilyn. Very classy

I believe TLOS was originally announced as a sole BW-VDP collaboration. It did not end up that way.

I'm pretty sure the origins of the current estrangement date back to then ...

I don't understand why he would sell himself short like that unless he expected Brian to good-naturedely correct him and say "no, Van was essential to the SMiLE sound and helped with the arrangement" but if that was his hope...he's a fool.

Was it because he expected Brian to die young, and/or SMiLE to just remain some vague legend? And now that Brian survived it all and is as revered as ever, with SMiLE finally released and getting mainstream recognition he feels like he's missing out on his due credit? I mean, that's a real shame. And I guess he can't set the record straight without looking like a Mike Love. So he's hoping Brian will set the record straight himself which will never happen. We all want Brian to spill the beans and tell all he knows about those sessions, but he can't or won't. He probably doesn't even remember vdps contribution. And these lame pot shots aren't gonna make him want to talk if he does.

It's a shame because his best chance to give himself credit without looking like a jerk was the box set and he blew it. From what I'm told, he had a valid, non-petty reason for doing so, but still

The 'life of a record,' as they used to say in the record business, was eight weeks. If the record charted and was successful, you got an extension. All of the pre-planning, marketing, promotion and distribution was in place  just prior to and/or during this span of time. It was fly or die; after the record ran its course, no more money was spent on it and not much attention was paid to it; it was on to the next release.

I don't know the movie business, but there must be a 'life of a movie.' There is lots of money being spent on making the public aware of Love & Mercy. Interest is high. If  it's nominated for an Oscar, it will add more life to the film.

There is no better time than now for VDP to be airing his views. After the movie runs its course, the general public's interest will die down, drastically.

Disagree. To do so now would be like Mike suing Brian in 2004. It would look like a bitter old man trying to steal the spotlight.

Hmmm, I'd go with Olmec if only VDP was actually airing his views. Instead he beats around the bush and doesn't say much of anything at all. Ready Fire Aim 

She's still his wife. VDP hasn't sunk as low as Daro calling her a cow or personal insults but he still implies that she's some kind of manipulating figure in his life. I think she's well meaning if possibly overprotective myself. I can understand Mike or VDP feeling disrespected by being mostly cut-out but I don't think that's all on Melinda

Edit: he also publicly supported Daro which means he has no problem with what he called Marilyn. Very classy
[/quote]

Exactly.

He's had 50 years to let the world know that he had a hand in the musical side of Smile and he's said jack, getting pissy about it now is not doing him any favours.

A whole hand? Isn't it more like a pinkie finger? Can anyone definitively say what he contributed musically, beyond, arguably, the cello triplets suggestion and playing an instrument or two here or there on Smile? So he may have, and probably did encourage or influence Brian to expand his musical horizons. That's great, and his lyrical contributions to Smile are just as important as Asher's on Pet Sounds; they are evocative, and fit perfectly with the music, but that's different than actually composing, arranging, and producing the songs.

Symptoms of ASD and the obsessive-compulsive spectrum are scattered amongst those with psychotic disorders - the very word 'autism' itself was coined as a trait marker for the schizophrenic as opposed to the pediatric developmental disorder it would later become. You would not call these individuals autistic, but rather, schizotypal. For it to be autism the signs and symptoms must be present in early childhood as well as adulthood, of which we have no evidence Brian had any autistic symptoms at all during childhood.

Agreed completely about the not doing himself any favors thing. But I am perplexed why he didn't publicly mention the arrangements thing much earlier, if indeed that has been bugging him for years.

Or maybe it becomes more of a situation like with Mike, where he might have been told or he thought it was implied by Brian's past generosity that Van would get more crediting or compensation than what eventually came to pass decades later upon the actual release. It's very strange, but maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle of all this.

But IMO, I think the falling out ultimately probably has to do with the fact that Brian's team wants to solely be the barometer of collaborators' crediting amounts, and argumentative pushback is not particularly well-tolerated. There may be an overprotectiveness to prevent collaborators from trying to take too much credit (perhaps even when a bit more crediting is actually due), which is probably a reaction to the decades of people actually taking way, way too much credit than deserved. It thus may be a tad unfair to Van, or maybe a tad more than a tad, but he seems to have an attitude about it which sadly probably hurt his cause to start with.

Personally I think we need to cut him some slack. After years of being asked about Smile, the thing finally comes out - there's renewed interest, a movie that touches on his period with Brian, and all in all I get the sense he feels his contributions have been undervalued, financially or otherwise. In short he probably feels shafted by the Beach Boys/Brian Wilson hype machine and he's being vocal about it. There's a lot of talk about how one should behave in these situations, but can any of us really comprehend his situation - the frustrations Smile must have caused him over the years?

When I listen to Smile I hear something wholly different from anything the band did before or after. I remember when I finally heard Song Cycle, I realised just how much of VDP's sensibilities are all over the Smile material. The guy deserves more credit imo, and more consideration from all those piling in on him because he's not always glowing about BW and the band, because he's raised the GV cello thing a few times and is not enthusiastic about the movie.

I just read your post after posting mine - you communicate my sentiments far more sensitively (and eloquently). Spot on, Don!

Personally speaking, I've always found such "shredding" - of anyone - to be about as humourous as a severe attack of piles. Truly, truly infantile.

Well, different strokes, certainly when it comes to what is and isn't humorous. Personally it strikes me as the sort of goofiness that a young Brian Wilson would love.

That said, I can understand why some wouldn't find it funny. What I can't comprehend is why some here find it offensive.

How often did session guys from the time talk about Van Dyke arranging or producing those songs?

They didn't. Because He didn't.

A player in them? Sure. Someone who made suggestions? Undoubtedly. But it's been long-established -- including from VDP's own words -- that BW was responsible for the Smile music. Full stop.

The BB shred has its humorous side for me but shredding in general is a pain in the arse.

Well if you want to take that binary approach to who did what, so be it. I don't think Smile can be so easily compartmentalised. I believe the two artists' sensibilities bled into one another right there in that sandbox. It's the only way I can explain the genius of the music. It's not just one guy tacking words onto the work of another. It's a collaboration through and through. Once VDP left the whole project fell apart. That speaks volumes to me.

Potayto, potahto -  I can't comprehend why some posters here... well, bother at all.  ;D

He is not dissing the wife. He is referring to Melinda, the partner in the business of Brian Wilson. She is a public figure now.  If she had no legal say-so or sway in Brian's business and creative affairs, I believe she would be hands off to such critical mention.
[/quote]
A recent diss regarding the L & M film...referring to it, in some fashion as Mrs. Wilsons biopic...

Happy Friday people!  :beer

Regardless of one's opinion regarding the "shred" -- humorous, silly or offensive -- context is everything in this case. It seemed rather apparent from the context that VDP meant it as a rather less than opaque insult to Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. I say "rather apparent" because while it seemed obvious to this old man, others disagreed. Subsequent comments from Mr. Parks on his Twitter account and elsewhere offer further evidence that it was intended as an insult, or perhaps worse, as a dismissal. I assume Mr. Parks' reasons seem adequate to him.

Touching back on the point someone raised about TLOS being the start of the dissonance between VDP and BriMel, didn't Live Let Live originally have lyrics by Van Dyke which were replaced with lyrics by Scott?

Exactly. How does a glorified scribe, regarding Smile, suddenly become as responsible for Smile as Brian. You don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to see that he got a bug up his butt after BWPS and TLOS. As is the case many times in life... sometimes you can't go back. His "new" lyrics for BWPS sure didn't work for me. Maybe trying to recreate the magic starting with BWPS , was a mistake. Maybe in '67 Parks was pushing the album in a way Brian did not want to go. Maybe he rubbed Melinda the wrong. Maybe he rubbed Brian the wrong way. Remember what happened with Jeff Beck...they did not click at all. 

In any case, no amount of speculation or guessing by fans or anyone else will change the fact that matters. That fact being that VDP is losing his credibility by behaving like a jealous teenager.

Van Dyke's been around long enough to know that the business is just that…. business. He's never complained in the past about being slighted where SMiLE is concerned and at times seemed to want to distance himself from the association altogether. Now, all of a sudden, he's in the same "I did that" mode that Mike and Carol Kaye are in. If they feel they need more credit, that's fine. Hammer it out where it matters. Snarky interviews and tweets about a critically acclaimed movie is only looking petty and unprofessional. Love and Mercy is not a movie about the making of SMiLE or Pet Sounds and it's not about the Wrecking Crew. It is a movie about Brian's creative zenith collapsing under the weight of psychological issues and substance abuse, his painful fall and his eventual recovery. He's being brutally honest about his own issues,  putting them on the big screen for all to see. That has to be painful, and that takes guts.  I find it sad that so many people who should be rejoicing that he survived at all want to make this about them. Let the guy have his moment of triumph, lay off the childish public comments, and correct the inaccuracies in the history books.

I mostly agree, be factual not petty, but I don't think Brian's repeated claims that the movie is very accurate are helping the situation where people who were also there feel it is not accurate about them from their point of view.

Some, though certainly not all, seem more willing to criticize Mike Love’s behavior toward Brian than to offer the same criticism toward VDP’s actions. I’m reminded of something written by the great sportswriter Blackie Sherrod – “If you bet you can make three spades, that's entertainment. If you bet cotton will go up three points, that's business. See the difference?”

Monetarily, at least, both Mike Love and VDP have benefited from their association with Brian. That is not to say that they must genuflect. I will observe that – monetarily, at least – Brian has benefited greatly from his association with Mike. Both through receiving a share of money earned over the years from Beach Boys tours and through increased record sales that surely have resulted from the constant touring, Brian has doubtless made a great deal of money.

And make no mistake about it – Mike Love has labored long and hard for the money he has earned. One can make many credible observations about Mike, but one cannot credibly say that he has been lazy, that he has lived off his cousin’s legacy, or that he has failed to contribute to the success and longevity of the Beach Boys and of Brian Wilson’s music.

VDP certainly contributed to Brian Wilson’s legacy – and to a lesser extent contributed work that made Brian money. But it is laughable to compare his contributions to those of Mike Love.

So both VDP and Mike Love have every right to criticize Brian Wilson and the biopic of his life. Indeed both men might have legitimate reasons to be critical – and it would be impossible for them not to have their own perspective on events. If Hank Briarstem had been depicted in the film, Hank Briarstem and his former wives doubtless would have felt that they had every right to comment on that depiction. But there ought also to be a deep well of gratitude within Mike and VDP for what Brian’s work brought to their lives. It would be nice if commentary and criticism was delivered in a way that honored that gratitude.

I might add that Brian would probably do well to say, at some point – “I appreciate that Mike Love has given much of his life to showcasing my music again and again to the public.”

As to whether Brian Wilson could have made the creative leap from Pet Sounds to Smile without VDP, he made in astonishingly rapid fashion the creative leap from “Surfin’” to “God Only Knows.” Certainly the work we know as “Smile” would have been different in debatable but important ways were it not for VDP’s contributions, but I suspect that in any case it would have been quite marvelous. One can only speculate the extent to which the outcome might have been different.

They need to get over it. What's he gonna say? "The movies a pile of sh*t that makes everyone look bad"? And sabotage his own triumphant moment? Not realistic. People like VDP and Carol Kaye need to understand that in a film you've got to condense years into minutes. So maybe Carol wouldn't have questioned Brian about X, but that was the most effeicient way to show Brian was thinking on a level beyond his peers. And maybe SMiLE was more VDP's than we realize, but this isn't the time to hash that point. Ultimately it's irrelevant to what the movie is about. If he's upset he hasn't got his due, he had his chance to to set the record straight all these years, especially 2004 and 2011 and he didn't.

Out of the people who are making these inaccuracy claims, who besides Carol Kaye has actually seen the movie?

Mike admitted he never the saw the thing, Van Dyke Parks basically admitted that he hasn't seen it. Brian's repeated claims about accuracy aren't helping? Aren't helping what? From his perspective the movie is very accurate, and until these people actually watch the movie they really have no right to comment on the accuracy of it.

Carol Kaye was very well presented in that film, I think. Her character was strong, assertive and very fashionable in cool shades and true-to-the-era costuming.  

There is an exchange between Carol and Brian where she questions whether playing two keys is a mistake. She is questioning Brian! I found the scripting priceless and find that she serves as sort of a good role model for young women in music from that era.  And it is a cameo appearance.  Her character may even have more lines than those portraying BB's.

Yes, but supposedly she's taken offense to that, saying she never would have thought that was a mistake. That's what I'm referring to

Who said Kaye saw it. When she went on her Facebook rant she thanked her fans for alerting her. She may have seen it since then but she was making obnoxious comments before she had.

True. I think she posted again, after that initial rant, having seen the film and she still had ridiculous things to say about it....but I could be wrong here, going by memory.

Panties in a bunch all over the place.

I had to go listen to The Cookies - Don't Say Nothin' Bad About My Baby.

Which reminded me, Rev-O-Lution (Rachel & The Revolvers) is Loco-Motion over the Don't Say Nothin' Bad About My Baby template.

Ah, feelin' better now.

And vice versa, if you claim things are accurate you might anticipate another point of view from those involved who disagree.

Which is fair unless the other point of view is formed without having actually seen the thing.

As I said, they should be factual not petty.

Women's Studies Departments might disagree with her.  On a very credible level, Kaye appears to have broken a "glass ceiling" in the music business.  Maybe she wasn't the first, but certainly had a high profile role.  And she wasn't a woman dressed up as a man (George Sand) but was very much au courant, style-wise, but apparently accepted and in demand as a session musician. 

She isn't presented as passive but sort of ahead of her time, and with this film, will likely be remembered in such terms, notwithstanding whatever issues she is asserting.

In fairness to Carol Kaye, the point of that scene was not to showcase a woman exerting her presence in the studio in 1966. Rather, the point is to illustrate how Brian knew more about music and the bass than his session players did. As she is playing the part, she looks over to Brian in the studio as if she is saying, "You were right, Brian."

There are two sets of released lyrics; each of them are by VDP.

Of course, the role is incidental to the movie, and her character assents to Brian's grand plan, as you note...but "taken as a whole," alongside The Wrecking Crew work, it is significant for women to note her success in that era.  A young woman could be favorably influenced and/or inspired by her participation.  

Very well said.

I dunno, we had this conversation on the board a few years back. A quick listen to some of VDP's pre-Smile singles and Song Cycle makes me think it's entirely possible that some of Van may well have spilled into the music for Smile.

True, she does represent the very possibility of women working in that capacity and to that extent in the business when many probably thought it was impossible. In that sense, an absolutely influential and inspirational model.

No doubt.  I've always thought VDP's music/style/feel influenced Brian.  However some of Phil Spector and The Four Freshmen spilled in too, but that doesn't mean they wrote or arranged any of the music.  The fact that VDP was there and influenced Brian and counted off the start of the songs doesn't mean he wrote or arranged the music.  He may have, but I'm not sure what spilling and counting prove beyond his influence and presence at the sessions.  Given his past statements giving Brian full credit it seems odd he is making these insinuations now.

EoL

Given that individuals who are portrayed and/or discussed in a book or movie frequently state that they haven't read the book or seen the movie, in order to avoid answering questions concerning the specifics of the book or movie, it's possible that Mike and/or Van actually have seen the movie, but by stating that they haven't seen it they are afforded a free pass in not being expected to discuss any aspects of the movie they don't wish to publicly address.

I don't know if I hear VDP musical influence over SMiLE or not. Not, I guess, but I'm not a very good judge. Not.

I had a left over "not".

Judging by VDP's pre-SMiLE lyrics, I bet Brian was expecting something other then what he got (like sunshine and God) and that might be one of the reasons he didn't really embrace most of VDP's lyrics and mostly de-VDPed SMiLE for Smiley.

Also I bet VDP's demeanor that is coming out now was responsible for some of the clashing and dominating and egoing and going and coming back and forthing reportedly at the time. But still I personally can see where he possibly has grounds for a complaint about his character in L & M, if he has or when he does see it.

Quick reality check:

OK, so everyone is assuming Van Dyke Parks is asserting that he was instrumental in arranging/influencing the music of Smile, and not just the lyrics. Did he actually say that, or clearly imply it? I'm honestly asking. He may very well have and I missed it; I have only done quick scans of this thread as time allows. But all I have seen from the source himself - VDP - are comments on the cello part in Good Vibrations. The only time I saw it mentioned clearly in print that VDP has long gone uncredited for his influence on Smile music at large was in the blog article linked to earlier in this thread. But note that those statements came from the blogger. I wonder if the blogger, based on VDP's comments about Good Vibrations (which let's face it, he has been saying for years), made a bit of a leap in logic there.

Just want to be careful, because you know how message boards are - one person says something and it gets chewed on and thrown around and blown out of proportion and becomes something else entirely.

So I humbly ask we take a real close look again at what came from the source - is it entirely clear that Van Dyke himself is claiming he contributed musically to Smile, beyond that cello part, and to what degree?

In any case I have to say that Van Dyke Parks is coming across very poorly in these tweets. It's sad to me because I have the utmost respect for his talent and unique artistry. Don Malcolm, I LOVED your post - very speculative on what might be going through Van Dyke's head, so probably not totally on the mark, but VERY possible and very compassionate and fair-minded all around as to likely scenarios.

I also think there's something in the TLOS thing - I remember hearing that announced as a BW/VDP collaboration at first too, and remember being disappointed when that didn't pan out, and I remember thinking to myself "I wonder what happened and how does VDP feel about it..."

https://mobile.twitter.com/thevandykeparks/status/607315361923362816

VDP clearly had an enormous influence on the Smile project -- I won't deny that -- and it's closer to a true 50-50 collaboration between him and Brian than most of BW's work with lyricists. (With the exception, perhaps, of something like "I Get Around" or "409" where Mike actually made direct musical contributions that were critical to the song.)

If anything, Van Dyke had a conceptual influence on the project -- there's that word again -- that cannot be understated. The band was wrangling with it through the Holland years, at the very least. And, again, he was a session keyboardist and helped bring Brian's songs to life. No denying that.

But the thing is, we've all known this for years. We've talked about it for years. And none of it translates to Van Dyke having a sizable hand in the composition or arrangement of the Smile music. Song Cycle, except for being played by some of the same Wrecking Crew guys and having a certain modular quality to the songwriting, sounds very little like the Smile sessions to me. It's far denser and more angular.

I mean, Don Randi never made a fuss about getting a co-writing credit on God Only Knows, despite contributing one of its signature moments. Glen Campbell never groused about not being more acknowledged for changing the Dance, Dance, Dance riff. All these guys contributed to Brian's music, but it was ultimately his creation.

It seems I'm in the minority here in that I like Van Dyke a lot. I think his music is terrific, and he seems to be a great guy (if a tad prickly here and there). But he had many, many years in which to make these claims and state his case. He worked with Brian again in the mid-90s and, again, in the mid-oughts. They gave joint interviews, for gods' sake. There was so much time, and so much space, for him to say what he needed or wanted to say.

Doing so now, in these circumstances, isn't cool.

I am assuming it is coming up now because of the movie which is more specific to his time with Brian than past biopics.

Counting off the music isn't done by some random spectator in the studio. It is done by the session leader or conductor.

Seriously. The guy needs to actually watch this thing before he gets all snarky about it. It's not an American Family type hatchet job. Van Dyke is depicted as scholarly and well spoken and very much involved in SMiLE, even taking the lead in explaining the concept to the dinner guests in the scene where Brian's auditory overload happens. So what if no one actually stood up and listed his credits? That's not the story that is being told. Parks is in the business. He should know this. It's not a movie about SMiLE or Van Dyke. It's not a documentary. It's a movie about Brian's collapse and recovery.

Everyone, from Mike to Carol Kaye to Van Dyke were treated fairly, IMO. If any of these complainers who haven't actually seen the movie want the story told their way, they can get their own screenwriters and do it. But, if they do, I expect them to do more than just say, "See, I did this! Look at me!" To be in Brian's league in this, they need to have the balls to plaster all of their own personal pain up on a 22 foot screen for everyone to see and comment on. Then I'll pay attention.

Preach it!

Which has nothing to do with whether or not he wrote and/or arranged the music.  Your statement is a straw man.  No one is claiming VDP was a random spectator, everyone acknowledges he was integral.  The question is whether or not he wrote and arranged it. His own answer for years and years has been no.  Why the apparent change now?

Surprised no one's mentioned today's tweet yet.

https://twitter.com/thevandykeparks/status/615562914422849537

I don't want to reignite a fight.  ("So why are you posting this?")  But that hyphen is pretty interesting.

Maybe VDP should hire a PR firm to handle his tweets from now on.

So what's the deal with VDP claiming to play marimba and keyboards on Pet Sounds? A quick scan of the credits in the box set does not link him to any of the sessions.

Touchdown! Grand slam! Goal!

The hilarious thing about all of this is that Parks now IS the goof he was portrayed as in American Family. Remember the scene where he is sitting atop something and spews off some jibberish like a little weasel. It's reality now. That's what he and his tweets have become. It's kind of stunning.

Another dandy.

@elkensky "Love and Mercy" needed more @thevandykeparks VDP: Lithium has a detrimental effect on memory. That relates psycnet.apa.org/journals/abn/9…
5:17pm - 29 Jun 15

Van Dyke Parks is the biggest butthole in the world https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgAMHVL9hBQ

Someone needs to tweet this to him  :p

Absolutely.

Of course, we'll know just how bad it is if we get Mike Love Presents Smile in a year :lol

he must be hanging out with Carol these days,,,, :lol

:lol

The definitive Smile. Including the true lost tapes of the original GOOD VIBRATIONS, a Love/Parks masterpiece featuring Carol Kaye on bass. Just so we are clear...if you listen close you can hear her baseline even if there's another one in the mix. I think this might also be the version with 6 cellos all going ape sh*t at once.

OHHHHH. But, I thought Mike's show was gonna be "50 Years of SMiLE… a Mike Love Concept Album."

Under and under the crow walks cover up the Wheatfield. ..

That's just childish and petty.

It appears to me that for whatever reason, Van Dyke wants attention, weather good or bad...he seems desperate to get Brian to notice. Odd.

all this nonsense makes me wonder what other B.W. associated people think of Love & Mercy. Like David Leaf. I bet he'd have some interesting things to say about the Landy era scenes. He managed to maintain contact w/ Brian throughout that period. An impressive feat, no doubt.

Very well put. +1.

Just got back from L&M. Half an hour too long, a bit (if not inaccurately) Angel Vs Demon in the latter day stuff, but I liked it a lot. Do have a couple of observations as a result I think are relevant to this thread.

I'm not going to defend or decry VDP's recent tweets, but considering the decades he's spent trying to correct the record on the Smile sessions - "a very athletic situation" etc - to see the whole period (and his involvement) reduced to a) a freak-out at the dinner table (immediately following the VDP character's use of the word "Smile") b) an underwhelming recreation of the last part of the "Surf's Up" demo recording c) Brian running around the "Fire" session with a pair of fire extinguishers d) Brian wandering a studio for "two and half a hours" to decide the vibrations aren't right and e) a climactic "band meeting" which he stalks off from after a verbal challenge from Mike Love...  you can see why the film might rankle. Those sections of the movie are basically a capsule summary of every - in his repeated view - cliche and misrepresentation about Smile he's spent four decades attempting to dispel. Even the near entirety of the tracks actually used from Smile are part of a "Brian's break down" audio collage.

Which would be one thing if this was a Beach Boys Co. hack job like "An American Band". But it's the fully-authorised Brian Wilson biopic, with the complete support and involvement of Brian and Melinda. After 2004 - watch the two of them together in "Beautiful Dreamer", and see how pleased VDP seems to finally be able to "complete the job", let alone "set the record straight" (and how genuinely and honestly sorry he is for "not being a big enough man for the door" when things got tough in '67) - surely it's possible to see why Parks felt he - and Smile - could have expected better than they got in a major release motion picture which to many inexpert eyes is going to form the definitive representation of the period.

Not saying that sarky tweets, if sarky tweets they are, are a reasonable response - but there do seem to be valid grounds for hurt feeling.

Interesting post. And not having yet seen the film, I give you 100% credit in that Van can feel mis represented by the scenes you describe. However, one may wonder what "setting the record straight" may mean in this case. Is it stating that Smile was a serious artistic attempt? Is it showing the world that Brian was not an idiot savant surrounded by whimsical hippies of which VDP was but one? It seems to me that Van's main issue these days has to to do with creative credit; i.e. after decades of self proclaiming a "glorified scribe" he now believes that arranging, compsosing and/or production credit is due. But then, doesn't setting the record straight require a straightforward approach instead of the oblique remarks that lead to more speculation as to their meaning?

Komera - you didn't start this information sharing.  Not your fault. 

First - "Then-brilliant Brian" - calculated to be unbridled offense to Brian's intelligence and creative ability. Every word is a bullet with him, and abuse of his literary gift.  More leaks seem to be springing on his boat.  He doesn't appear to want an open conversation but prefers to launch barbs when it suits him.  This is beneath him.

Second - SOS - "as it is supposed to be sung by Ray Charles?" What does that mean?  He certainly performed it during the 25th show in Hawaii.  Is this a direct diss to Carl, Blondie, Brian, or whomever else performed the lead?

Why these insults now? If he hasn't seen the film, he might reserve judgment until he has.  Otherwise, his opinion is uninformed.  And just not credible.

If he has a problem with credits, let him go litigate it (like everyone else) with solid proof in a court rather than whining on twitter.  Maybe he can join this board, just like Brian Wilson.   ;)

I think it would be really helpful, if he wants to set the record straight, for him to see the film so he knows what the record actually is. He admits that he has not, and until he does, I don't find his opinion to be valid one way or the other. So far he hasn't said anything clear about how he feels the SMiLE era should have been represented in the film. All he's done is make some snarky comments about minor credits he feels he deserves, and take sarcastic jabs at Brian.  I don't think this is about what's really in the film, or being accurate . This is about something else, and the film made a nice catalyst for some indirect swipes at Brian. And frankly, the last couple of tweets were just plain offensive, directed toward someone with Brian's history of mental health issues and addiction. I expect better of Mr. Parks.

Cyncie - you are way too kind.  They are direct hits at Brian, not indirect ones. And I agree that without seeing the film, it is not credible.

You are correct. Perhaps I should have said, The film made a nice catalyst for some hateful swipes at Brian, with a poor attempt to disguise them as "wit"

All of these rants lead me to believe that his character was authentically treated in the film.

You start out by saying the film was half an hour too long them spend a really long paragraph explaining that the Smile stuff was reduced to very little. For the last time...this is a movie about BRIAN WILSON...not Smile or Parks. There are no myths about smile in this movie. Beautiful Dreamer, though it has its strengths is not reality either. You think documentaries are not scripted to an extent. It is a David Leaf production. It is implied that all Brian needed to do was finish Smile and he would shed some kind of deamons and be able to sort of return to his old self. That was BS.

People that want to defend this guy right now, and you are by trying to rationalize through his imagined perspective, and say things like, if they are snarky tweets, really need to stop. A day back another guy said "seemingly" about this guys tweets. There is nothing seemingly about them. These tweets from this learned genius are spiteful, rude, obnoxious, and completely uncalled for. He has taken shots at Brian, Melinda, NPP, Love and Mercy and more. He is not a Beach Boy, he is not a family member, he is not a spouse, and he sure as hell is not was not and never will be Brian Wilson.

Van will never admit to having seen the film when and if he does. This way, he can keep throwing his poisoned darts without having to comment specificially about the film.

VDP may have very vaild points but he's doing himself no favours with what he's tweeting. For all his Southern gentlemanly charm he's coming off as no better than Mike on a bad press day.

When I linked that tweet, this thread had fallen to close to the bottom of the page.  If I hadn't said anything, it's possible that this thread would have dropped to page two, where it'd have been less likely to continue.  That's why I excused myself.

Simply put, Van Dyke is being a d*ck, and he needs to be reminded of how to treat a friend.

 :rock :woot

I don't know why he would be upset with anything having to do with his portrayal in the film, he's not in it that long and when he is it's pretty much the tings we already know, like him getting offended by Mike questioning his lyrics then leaving the project,that's pretty much it, how else are they going to show him quitting the Smile project? after all that was a major part of Brian's story, and the turning point in his mental illness... I thought that they were being very careful with his character by not showing him too much and not having him say too much,, so I' not sure why he would be upset..

I tweeted with VDP yesterday about his portrayal in the film, arguing that he was portrayed as hip, intellectual and on the right side of history. He responded with a snarky "YOU DON'T THINK ADDING THAT I WROTE THE CELLOS TO GOOD VIBRATIONS WAS IMPORTANT? LITHIUM CAUSES MEMORY LOSS." I'm paraphrasing.

He deleted it but I took a screenshot.

(http://i.gyazo.com/a0bc6a9645d3645409ba4b05f1c0f075.png)

Sounds pretty petty in the overall scheme of things. I guess he's becoming a bitter old man.

Yah but, hey, it's twitter. It's a good place to come off snarky and bitter. The guy is great irl. I love this interview he did with the High Llamas dude.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Lei1FFjb4k

And of course, he still got his musical chops.

Bad paraphrasing. Just quote him.

thanks, dad.

de nada

Is it absolutely a fact that VDP came up with 8th-note cello triplets for "Good Vibrations"?  The addition of the cellos to the mix has been attributed to Carl, Brian, Van Dyke...

and me! ;)

FWIW, that description is part of the YouTube video he linked, not Van Dyke's own words.  Still, I'm in no way defending him, and think he should shut up!

The latest ...

Van Dyke Parks ‏@thevandykeparks  19h19 hours ago
Great collaborators, Laurel & Hardy, deal with amnesia.  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IU7eSAw3IZs …

Not sure if this has been posted before, or not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRVy6HjxnYE&feature=youtu.be&t=20m58s

VDP at a lecture discussing string arrangements and using "Good Vibrations" as an example.  He mentions his suggestion about the cello.

Hi all - no takers for what is known as "the redemptive reading", then? Fair enough! Especially if VDP hasn't actually seen the movie and this is all a rather strange and embittered twitter war about "credit". Related question - I don't remember any particular data earlier in the thread identifying which particular credit he felt robbed of, except the GV cello part. And if that's the case - and his whole reason for the "Then-genius Brian" etc stuff is indeed that a two hour movie didn't include a scene in which he was shown advising on that arrangement - then yes, I agree. WTH?

But:

sure makes it sound like he's seen the movie, and is just choosing which of his beefs are a) straight-forward enough to back-up quickly and c) can be squeezed into 140 characters.  [On a related note: the fact that Mike Love immediately loved Good Vibrations, from the time it was a single chord cluster, and collaborated on every version of the lyrics, including presumably the first set usually credited to Tony Asher, is new to me. That was an aspect of the Good Vibration compositional process that received a substantive chunk of screen time.]


And, Paul JB, a couple of comments:

Starting out with a sarky dig (and one unrelated to the actual substance of my post) is sloppy debate, and does your argument no credit. And if you think that was a long paragraph, try reading some Dickens!  :-D

Sure, and the conventions of the biopic mean that ellisions and conflations of real events will occur. But Smile and Parks are in it - if someone made a movie about your hometown and featured one scene of you being at your absolute worst, don't you think you'd feel misrepresented by what they chose to include and not include? That's all I'm saying here. That the feelings might be valid, if not the response.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm not saying that Love and Mercy made VDP look bad; that's a subjective argument I don't think is particularly worth having. I'm just saying that an individual might understandably be concerned over what is included or not included in a movie "based on a true story" - and the perceived effects of those decisions - when they were involved and are included as a part, no matter how small, of that story.

Okay, let's define "myths" - or rather, let's talk about facts, and the historical record. As VDP as pointed out on numerous occasions, the Brian Wilson of late '66 was at the top of his game, musically, and in total control of the studio, whatever he was like outside it. This can be borne out by listening to the session tapes, either the edited versions on the box or the longer cuts on SOT etc. He knows what he wants from the musicians and the band, and it's only in '67 that Brian starts demonstrating any inarticulacy or irritation with the Boys. So at least five months of recordings, well over a dozen tracks and several dozen sessions, show a young genius "playing the studio" like a pro - much like we got in the Pet Sounds scenes in the movie. This competence was totally replaced by confusion and unprofessional antics for the few glimpses we got of the Smile sessions. (You can see my comprehensive list of these scenes in my previous post.) So maybe there are no "myths" included, but what's presented is a far cry from the reality borne out by the only first hand record we've got, the actual session tapes.

Oh, and was there a session that was cancelled because Brian wandered the studio for two hours not liking "the vibrations"? If so, I can't recall reading about one. The last, cancelled "Dada" date maybe? Does anyone have a source for this scene?

See my first post, really. I'm not trying to defend the tweets - I'm really not - I'm just trying to imagine from his perspective, as you say, why VDP might rationalize posting them. Actually seeing "Love and Mercy" - if VDP has too - made it clearer to me why he might be, and I thought that might be worth posting on this thread.

Sorry, but saying the movie was too long and then complaining or trying to understand Parks view is not sloppy debate. My Grammar is sloppy that I will admit. That movie is not about Smile or Parks. That is my point to you. To elaborate on Parks and Smile would take away from lots of other scenes in the movie. It was not needed. It's about Brian and his collapse and Landy and Melinda ect. Not Carol Kaye or Parks. If you want to try and get into Park's head that's fine. I don't care to.

Parks makes a good point in that it would not have stalled the film in any way to simply depict him at a Good Vibrations session.

But at the same time, the complaint is totally uncharacteristic of a man who says "s'not open heart surgery" when asked whether it's important who came up with the name Buffalo Springfield. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z0fphNakvM

Paul J B -

[/quote]

Sorry, but saying the movie was too long and then complaining or trying to understand Parks view is not sloppy debate. My Grammar is sloppy that I will admit. That movie is not about Smile or Parks. That is my point to you. To elaborate on Parks and Smile would take away from lots of other scenes in the movie. It was not needed. It's about Brian and his collapse and Landy and Melinda ect. Not Carol Kaye or Parks. If you want to try and get into Park's head that's fine. I don't care to.
[/quote]

Right, I did misunderstand your point, and I apologise. I'd say that you could have easily lost ten (five, actually) minutes of the "Pet Sounds" session stuff and moved that over to SMiLE, showing the Surf's Up backing session, for instance ("I want it to sound like jewellery") - just so the competence and the eccentricity of those sessions were represented, as well as the dramatically-expedient freak-out stuff - but that of course is entirely subjective. I do agree tough choices need to be made in any film of this kind, and I'm glad I didn't have to make them!

I think it's quite clear you don't care to "get into [Van Dyke's] head" - or at least, attempt to empathise with why he might be acting as he is. But since many posters here have been quite happy to call out, on sometimes spurious evidence, his motivations and character ("pretentious", "bitter", "total butthole", "learned genius" - btw, when has VDP ever called himself a genius? Are you calling him a genius? Are you quoting someone else?) - surely it's not only reasonable to try and present, as I said, a "redemptive reading" for his actions but, in fact, a sign of health for the Board to have counter-views expressed, respected and considered.

Haven't seen the movie yet-- does it, in any form, credit anyone with the cello idea for Good Vibes? Does the cello part receive a specific mention or attention in it?

I'll say that, just like any of us, he has a right to say "hey, what's mine is mine". However, there's two things with this:

1. Van is still oblique with his issues with Brian. This cannot be the reason why they've been estranged the last 10 yrs. He seemed to be ok with ("then-brilliant") Brian during OCA. Claiming credit for the cello triplets cannot be the reason for this crap.

2. Van Dyke had shown himself as a lyricist for Brian period. For years. Nothing more. Nothing less. This whole thing now makes no sense. Unless he speaks out and explains. Which he never does.

As I recall, there is no explicit credit in L&M for who thought of adding cello to the GV track. There is a scene, however, in which Brian explains the rhythmic effect he's after (the triplets, essentially) to the cellists - the source of VDP's grievance? - which pretty clearly gives the credit for the idea to Brian himself. There's then a follow up scene in the control booth of Mike complaining about how long Brian is taking getting that part recorded.

Hope this helps.

EDIT: Now I think of it, there's actually a line in which Brian explains "you're the rhythm part now" or words to that effect to the clearly amused and impressed cellists.

All correct.  I recall Danny Hutton saying in an interview a couple of years ago that he personally watched Brian work with the cellists just as shown in the film.

Success has many fathers, but is failure is an orphan.

Fwiw, i too loved the movie, thought it was 30 minutes too long and thought they didnt focus on smile sessions enough.

The plot thickens! The game is afoot! VDP linked a rather less than wholly admiring article about Brian with an accompanying comment from a tweeter who interestingly was making his first tweet and has but four followers, including VDP:

@BBC_Culture It's the myth that grates. He really represents a wrecked dream- that Beauty & Consumerism are two sides of the same nickle.
2:42pm - 9 Jun 15

Correction: James Cracknall has no followers. The account follows four, one of which is VDP. Cracknall a Song Cyclist?

"Mercy, me!"

I will say, with every tweet like that it's more difficult to read many of these links and posts as anything but gratuitously vindictive. Ah well. I'm pleased I tried, regardless.

EDIT: Actually, just read the article. Not exactly glowing, but not really damning either. Back on the fence I go.

I believe my description of the article as "rather less than wholly admiring" is accurate - unusual given my lapses in mental prowess. Yet it is the comment made to Twitter and the source of the comment that is far more intriguing, and certainly much more telling.

Bee. Or anyone else...

Many people have called Parks a genius including Brian I believe. I have also heard Brian call Dennis and Lindsey Buckingham a genius. Very talented people but genius no. Parks has a reputation for being a very educated, sophisticated intellectual. That is why I referred to him as the learned genius. Do you think he is behaving like an intelligent man or a horses ass? I think you know my opinion.

I'm just a guy on a message board so who cares what I think. At the same time, I don't want to come off as one of those people that just comes here to troll and rag on someone. I think the lyrics to Surfs Up are terrific. I think Parks has talent. I also think Smile fell apart largely due to Park's involvement. Yes, Parks was both good and bad for Brian's follow up to Pet Sounds. I think he and Brian had some visions in common and some that were not.

Here is the most important thing, at least to me regarding Parks. Brian is the reason I love Parks contribution to Surfs Up or anything else Smile related. Brian's voice on that piano demo from TSS sums it up . Brian took poetic obscure words from Parks and breathed life into them the likes of such I can't put into words. Brian did that with The Lonely Sea, Please Let Me Wonder, Don't Worry Baby and on and on. He took complex arrangements that he was responsible for crafting and then dusted them with the most unbelievable complex harmonies we are unlikely to ever hear again. Parks, Mike, Kaye, Carl, Blaine, David, Bruce, Denny, Alan.... We here, are familiar with these talented people because of ONE man. Brian Wilson. When I say here I mean just that. Not wrecking crew fans. Here. BRIAN lovers,  BEACH BOY lovers.

So forgive me but when Brian has just been portrayed for the world to see in a terrific film, and has just released what I and many others consider to be his finest solo album, I'm gonna be more than a little disgruntled to have to keep hearing about childish tweets from a guy no one here would know, had Brian not invited him to work on an album 50 years ago.







A

Well said, Paul.

Yes, this happened. It was in the Goodbye Surfing, Hello God article by Jules Siegel that appeared in Crawdaddy magazine...the one with the Mama Cass centerfold.

Speak for yourself.

I'd never thought I would see the day where Mike Love is more popular than Van Dyke Parks.

This. Pretty sure his gigs with the Byrds and Disney predated SMILE.

I was actually thinking that last night.

Hi Paul, I didn't think you were trolling, and I appreciate where you're coming from. As it happens, I was into Van Dyke Parks before I knew he co-wrote the Smile tracks (this is back in the late nineties when I was in my teens), but I admit this is probably untrue of most people, especially here.

But Brian did invite him to work on that album 50 years ago, and then again eleven years ago, and they did work on it together both times. (Incidentally, does anyone know the financial arrangements in 2004? I believe Parks was salaried in '66, right, as well as receiving writing royalties?) Van Dyke might think that that - as well as "Sail On Sailor", OCA, TLOS contributions etc - should mean he has earned some consideration and due credit when those collaborations are covered in an authorised Brian Wilson product such as this movie. Whether you or I are here because of Brian Wilson or Van Dyke Parks or Mike Love or Darian's Astonishingly Tall Hair is really beside the point.

As a matter of fact, I came here when the old Smile Shop Boards shut down (which indeed was largely why these forums were created), so no - I'm not here because of Brian Wilson. I'm here because of the SMiLE album, which is primarily a collection of songs conceived of and written by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks, with documented musical input from both. Who approached or paid who in 1966 simply isn't relevant. I'm here because of a thing they did together. And even if I wasn't, this is a thread devoted to Brian-focussed activity on Van Dyke Parks' personal Twitter account. Am I not understanding the internet again? Isn't this a reasonable place to talk about this, in an open, reasonable and reasoned way?

Do you actually feel this thread shouldn't be open to a more considered or balanced discussion of those tweets than just "[Van Dyke] is behaving like... a horse's ass"? Or are you simply not interested in any position less equivocal than "Brian is great, Van Dyke is being mean"? Which is totally fair enough - that's completely your call, and I suspect quite a few folk agree with you. But - and I'm really not trying to be a jerk here - if that's the case, maybe a thread dedicated to exactly the subject matter making you so disgruntled isn't the best place to hang out? Or should I have seen the Thread title and realised this probably wasn't the place for the kind of discourse I think's worth having? Quite possibly.

Anyway, I thought NPP was a total blinder too - just fantastic.

Thank you! Good to have that clarified.

Ah yes. "Barks" was employed as a verb in much the same way VDP might have done. And I do believe he is doing some barking.

It makes me sad. I like Van Dyke very much, and I wish he felt better about his association with BW.

Same here. I hope they don't live out their time with this estrangement unresolved (and maybe explained to the rest of us watching from the sidelines). That hyphen threw me…

Thirded. SMiLE is my favorite work of art from anyone in any medium. It's a shame the men who made it aren't on good terms.

Slightly off-topic, and I haven't seen it yet either, but it's a shame that the SMiLE scenes in the movie supposedly only focus on the "craziness" too if that really is the case. It deserves better, and while it's not the focus of it, the movie could have done a lot to introduce people to that material and show how brilliant it is. That Brian didn't just make Pet Sounds and disappear. I can understand vdp's beef if that's what's bugging him, but I don't think it is, and in any case he's going about it in the worst way possible. Just be honest, Van, if you're reading. Be sincere and eloquent about it. But the snarky tweets are so beneath him it's pathetic.

 Couldn't agree more.

Before this thread appeared how many people here ever used the word, "snarky?"

The Vosse Posse told us that Brian and Van Dyke got along at first then they didn't get along and Van Dyke didn't like being dominated or told "no" and Brian would tell him "no" just because he could and they "clashed" with Van Dyke thinking Brian's music wasn't sophisticated enough and Brian thinking Van Dyke's lyrics were too sophisticated and eventually they couldn't work together. (paraphrasing)

So conflicted and/or hard feelings toward each other aren't exactly news imo.

First, there is something wrong with that quote box, cause my name is there but no quote from me.

Olmec, so you and Bee are both big Parks fans and that's a prime reason why you are here? OK. Most everyone here comes to discuss Brian and the Beach Boys. Were there no Brian there would have been no Beach Boys, were there no Beach Boys, people HERE would not exist as there would be no Smiley Smile Dot Net message board to discuss Parks. You seem to imply that I don't think Parks would have had a career without Brian/Smile. Not at all, and I don't care one way or the other.

Parks has overstepped his bounds and is looking for way too much credit or wants to marginalize Brian or some freakish thing because of some apparent beef with Melinda, Brian and who knows whom else. And yes, I will say again he his being an absolute horses ass. I was never real big on Parks but I also never felt any animosity towards him until recently.

You in particular Olmec, seem to be going out of your way to defend the indefensible. You remind me of the parent that gets a call from their child's school because their child has done something wrong, and then you blame your child's teacher, friends, or what have you instead of your own child that did the wrong thing.

Have you been reading carefully all of the posts by other people that are pretty big on Parks and how they are really disappointed or downright disgusted as well?

The career of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys did not begin and end with Smile, and certainly not with Parks.

Also, if you believe like Parks, that his 'tweets' are justified then why don't you contact him and the two of you can lay it out and explain just how he is/has gotten the shaft from Brian these past 50 years. Is it all about the money? Did he want to be onstage singing beside Brian when he toured Smile ten years ago? Did he want BWPS to be titled VDP presents Smile? Was he promised a big pile of cash from Melinda and then she didn't deliver? I'm serious...please enlighten us.

I can see this will be like a Love/Wilson thread where people dig in their heels so I'm pretty much done commenting on Parks. He has lost credibility and respect with me. I'm sure he's all broken up about that.

First, sorry about the quotes.

I have been a Brian Wilson and Beach Boys fan since Surfin' Safari. This is why I come here.

I am not defending Van Dyke Parks' recent tweets that reference Brian, Melinda, the movie, or Smile.