The Smiley Smile Message Board

https://youtu.be/ITjoVGDa5Ng (https://youtu.be/ITjoVGDa5Ng)

Yo yo yo.  It's another video from me.  If you hated the last one you'll hate this one even more.

When I Grow Up (to Be a Man) is an interesting track, and I've chosen to focus on Al's bass line(s) and the harpsichord part.  You'll hear me talk about that, and then hear a nearly exact replica performance of the basses and harpsichord at the end.  I guarantee you it's a better Friday Night watch than you had planned.  (Or whenever you read this...)

Spectacular work !!

Excellent work. It's long been one of my favourite Beach Boys songs, thanks for giving it this treatment!

Gotta love Al, nice to see him highlighted.

So, c-man once said he thought it was an electric harpsichord, then later said he wasn't sure. Has this "mystery" been settled?

Last comment, I love how the little flourishes add colour to the song. I'd call it an inventive arrangement but then I'm no scholar. Hearing it isolated it doesn't really give away the main melody and harmonies, which shows how much is going on.

The Baldwin electric harpsichord doesn't have a 4-foot stop (the higher octave double) so it can't be that.  Also it doesn't sound like one.  Compare something like the Beatles' Because to the WIGU instrument and I think you'll hear it.

This is great!
Love the harpsichord on WIGU, Wonderful etc.

Fantastic, and thank you for giving the bassline the highlight it deserves. Al really was an underrated bassist

Interesting to imagine an alternate reality where Al just goes for it and becomes the bassist for the band.  In my next video (dance dance dance) I talk a little about how the Beach Boy might have progressed playing on their own records more than they ended up doing...

I think if they had we’d have gotten an album like Wild Honey sooner

hanks for the video! Will check it out later.



The band's own playing imo is a very interesting topic. Not only becase for so long the legend was that they didn't play on any of their albums after "Surfin' USA" but also because imo they were actually a quite capable live group. To be able to play a song like - while we're at it - "When I grow up" with just four instruments while at the same time singing all those parts and don't sound like a watered down version of the record is very impressive to me. And that energy (especially while Brian was still touring with them, the energy laked a little when Bruce joined, even Dennis' drumming wasn't as rocking in '66 anymore)! So to analyze and theorize what they were able to play in the studio and what they actually did play sounds like a cool idea. In many cases I guess the main reason that they were not playing on some of their records was that they were on tour while Brian was at home to make sure they could keep up with their impressive output. I'm not saying that they could've played some stuff from "Pet Sounds or "Smile" like no problem; those are quite complex songs and arrangements. But there's no need to believe they couldn't have played on more songs from "Summer days..." if they were in town.

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Perhaps the reason for them not playing on more of the peak-period tracks wasn't just about ability and musicianship but rather about personalities.  Listening to the session tapes, it's clear that Brian had a wonderful rapport with the studio musicians.  Those guys (and gal) were total pros and loved working with him. It's truly magical to listen to Brian's banter with the so-called Wrecking Crew.  The other BBs had egos and opinions of their own and strong personalities and didn't necessarily, as kindergarten teachers say, "play well with others."  So, sure maybe the group could have played on more of the tracks, but let's not forget that things really began going south from a hit-making perspective when they did start playing on the tracks in the home studio. As  Hal Blaine once explained, "I think the main period of hitmaking for The Beach Boys ended when they put that studio in the home, because the other guys were around making decisions and getting in the way, whereas before, Brian was in control. In a regular studio, it was a more professional situation."

I don't think that you are wrong -- but on the other hand, I can't think of any session tape or any indication (pre-Pet Sounds) that Carl or Dennis or Al had any issues with the music or playing the music itself.  In fact, Al and Dennis are usually pretty subdued at a tracking session.  That said, who knows the dynamic when the mics were off and they were outside.  And I'm sure it was freeing for Brian to not worry about whether his musicians could handle it.

No, I actually think the BBs (well, Al and Dennis, at least) were more than happy to let the "pros" lay down the instrumental tracks. It was hard enough work doing take-after-take worth of vocal tracking, with Brian's meticulous ear. On the tracking session for "All Summer Long", it got to the point that Dennis actually said, "I hate this song!" That was after numerous takes and false-starts. I think they loved letting Brian and the "Crew" lay down the backing tracks, and whatever amount of work went into it, then devote their full energies to singing the song later.

Well, the minor iv chord has been known to bring even the most fortitudinous of us to our knees.

That certainly speaks to their self-identity of being singers at heart.

I think the perfect way to actualize this idea is to listen to the Studio Pro version of Sandy and then listen to the Boys' self-contained version of Sandy.

Do we know on average how long a BBs tracking session took per song vs. studio musicians? I can definitely see the appeal on all sides, particularly given the circumstances with their contemporaries pretty much all doing it, too.

Dance Dance Dance is up next – is Help Me Rhonda getting an episode?

It is -- and it nearly kills me to go out of sequence, but it just wouldn't be a Help Me, Ronda video without a ukulele, but I don't own a ukulele.  So I have to do some fundraising for one.

I guess I'll take the opportunity to say, friends, if you love Help Me Ronda and want to see it analysed soon, you could donate a little to my music fund.  Ukes aren't too expensive.

Then I'd have it for the next Help Me, Rhonda video, Dada, etc.  If I can get one soon then the OCD among us won't be in agony about the songs being out of the sequence of the Today LP.



Today's Help Me, Ronda is a bit of a tough one to transcribe.  It's locked in mono and very much is a wall of sound production with very little individuality given over to any one instrument.  I am doing my best!!!

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Love to say Dada?

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https://youtu.be/MeXQTOUVkyo?t=25 (https://youtu.be/MeXQTOUVkyo?t=25)

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Just sounds like it's miked up with a healthy bit of preamp gain on it, to me.  But as we've established, my mental acuity is vanishing by the second.

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It's a strange production!  Pitman was playing a lot of Dano then but who knows!

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I don't know, there are a couple of moments on the session tape (LTSDD part 2) where the rhythm instrument sounds very electric - on TSS box, disc 4 track 11, at 1:17, there's a specific upstroke that sounds very guitarish, and like it's coming out of an amp. Same goes for 0:28, when the instrument is playing alone. The strumming style and voicings (only a couple notes per chord) do make me think it could be a ukulele though.

It sounds like a steel string uke on Love To Say Dada.

A somewhat rare practice, but certainly it's done.

Have any of you listened to Lyle's first jazz uke album?  It's a great record, and there are a few times his uke sounds pretty electric guitar-ish on that, too.

I've had the LP for a number of years. It's a fine album! There is a change in one of the songs that uses the same change as he used in bar four of  Diamond Head.

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The jury is still out for me -- however, this is interesting either way (I had used this clip, when the video first came out, to solidify my idea that there was uke on the 67 track):

https://youtu.be/OrZS6rxTqoM?t=823 (https://youtu.be/OrZS6rxTqoM?t=823)

Either there is uke on the original track, vindicating my initial assessment, OR it continues to prove that contemporary Brian neither remembers, cares, or has any grasp of what he was up to in those days.

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Wow...tough room.

PS - Watching the recording of the BWPS album as linked above is pure joy for me, and erases many if not all of the misconceptions and false information that went around regarding Brian's role in making that album. You're seeing a guy produce amazing music after so many counted him out in that role. Essential viewing.

It's a wonderful clip, but it's frustrating as a musicologist when it's just as hard to get answers about what musicians were playing in 1967 when the dude who orchestrated the music is still alive as it is to figure out what musicians were playing in 1667 (My other musicological special interest).  Buxtehude, of course, being long dead!

Not to derail the thread, but I was just looking up something about one of Bill Pitman's guitars... and I stumbled on the fact that Bill celebrated his 100th birthday a couple months ago.  How freakin' cool is that?   Was I the only one who was unaware of this milestone??

I knew he was getting close to the century but I didn't remember the exact day.  That is indeed amazing and I'm glad he is still around.  To many more years, Bill!

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