The Smiley Smile Message Board

I'm a big fan of your 'complete guide to..' with John Tobler (I also have Toblers late 70s hardback book too), I was just wondering what are your favourite Beach Boy and Brian moments as I don't know who's contributing which bits.
The reason I ask is because you are quite, er, opinionated on many aspects of the BB legacy (rightly so most of the time), so I wanted to know the bits which make you happy!  ;D

This may surprise a lot of people, but pretty much everything the BB did makes me smile, at least up to 1985.

I guess my single fave BB choon is "Wouldn't It Be Nice" - it's pretty much all there. "All This Is That" is far and away the best thing the band ever did without the slightest input from Brian, though "The Trader" is a close second. But in truth, pretty much all of it does something for me.

Except Gettin' In Over My Head: Brian should hang his head in shame for ever agreeing to be part of that, much less let it be released.

Thanks Andrew.
GIOMH has been discussed much, on paper its a great prospect, why on earth didn't the Paley sessions version of the title track get released, its far and away one of the best Brian lead vocals of the last 30 years, If they used 'Soul Searchin' and 'Saturday Morning.', form those sessions then they could have used GIOMH too.
In your opinion, what tracks should have made the cut (apart from obviously a whole new album from Brian), going on the pretext that it was an album of (mostly) remakes?

Even Barbara Ann?!

No - if I never heard that song again my life would be complete. I probably hate it more than Brian currently does.

Ummmm... your real name wouldn't happen to be Tony Rivers, would it ?  :)

Hi, Andrew!

I've been aware that you feel that way about GIOMH, but I've never really understood why.

I have the CD, and I find it pretty boring and fairly unmemorable--but not particularly embarrassing or shameful.  (Maybe THAT'S the problem--I found it so unmemorable, I don't remember what's wrong with it!)

So can you offer some insights about why you think Brian should be ashamed of himself for being a part of it and allowing it to be released?  I'd be really interested to get your thoughts on the matter.

:lol I knew you were forgetting something! That's how i feel about "In the Back of My Mind",  and "Winds of Change".

I didn't know Brian hates BA...why does he still do it then?!

BTW...who's Tony Rivers? :lol This is Billy...just changed my user name to reference a Daniel Johnston album (Yip/Jump Music)

No problemo.
 
1 - the vocals. They're beyond slapdash and well into shoddy. FI, there's a bit in "Fairy Tale" where Brian is supposed to sing "ever afterrrrrrrrr": what he actually sings is "ever afterrrrrrrrrurrrrgh", and elsewhere his double tracking is atrocious. It's like he was trying to get it over and done with. Plus, why didn't anyone stop the take and say "Brian, not good enough - you can do better". Actually, I know the answer to that...

2 - song selection. Brian had nothing to do with it. "My wife and managers"... It's been observed that the track listing looks like an attempt to stymie the bootleggers. Maybe.

3 - the mix. Once memorably described to me by a musician and huge BB/BW fan as "everything louder than everything else". The CD may have been physically mixed by Mark Linnet, but I'll believe the people who tell me that the shots were being called by someone with fewer creative smarts than Landy.

4 - the whole package. There are members of the band who are bitterly disappointed at  how the whole thing turned out. I've had it hinted to me that some were prepared to walk. The album was supposed to be released late 2003/January 2004, but wasn't because no-one it was offered to would take it. (Scotty Bennet said as much to a fan at the January 2004 Edmonton show: said fan related this on the BBB MB, the result being a request - actually an instruction - to remove the post from Brian's camp and a severe ass-chewing for Scotty.) In the end it was only released as part of the BWPS package.

5 - if Brian was really in control of the project, and even faintly interested, he would have canned it, or at least worked on it until it was releaseable. he can do far better, and he knows it. The question put to me was, did he want to do better ?

When I got a promo copy, I listened to it... then listened again... and again. After the third time, I got on the email and asked others who I knew also had promos if it was just me, or was it really that bad ? Without exception, they all replied with variations on the theme of "thank god for that, I thought it was just me".

Thanks for the thorough response, AGD!

Looks like I was right--the album was so unmemorable to me that I didn't remember any of what you described!

Andrew, are you saying that GIOMH was someone's idea of What Brian Should be Doing, and even after the final result was subpar (to say the least), this someone didn't feel like canning the album, making sure that it would be released even as a BWPS contract obligation?

I think so, and he'd be right.


And I even LIKE the album!

I've spoken with several people involved in the making of the album. No-one remembers the experience with any particular fondness. One of them doesn't remember it very much at all, because they were hardly involved in the later sessions.

He's said this in public, at the Beach Boys Stomp 2006 Convention (and got into deep doo-doo for it), so I feel OK with repeating it: Stevie Kalinich feels that GIOMH is maybe 20% Brian.

In answer to your question, yes, I do, based on what I've heard and been told by people whose integrity I respect.

I think Brian just doesn't care.  He's happy as long as the people around him are happy.  He sort of wants to still be in the public eye, and if someone else pushes the tide for him, he'll just surf along, even if he's not putting out the effort to make something good, or doesn't have the inspiration to do so.  Nor does he want the arguments if other certain persons don't agree with his ideas (and truth is, maybe his ideas aren't always the best, either, -- "Proud Mary," for example). 

At this point, after BWPS, why should he care? He's already done everything! Or really, though, why should  Meli Mysterious Person care either? He should be left to do whatever he wants ,even if its an album full of pregnant rabbits farting  over the sounds of frogs croaking used as the melody. Or, indeed, even if its nothing.

He's not going to have a #1 album in this day and age...why force him to record stuff he doesn't want to?

I remember vividly the first time I played my promo copy ... well, the first fifteen minutes, as I genuinely fell asleep I found it that uninteresting ...  :-\

And here we have it again, a chance for me to force my dream onto others!

It is that very thought that makes me wish all Brian would do would be to record what he wants, when he wants, and release it with or without the assistance of labels. Internet singles are not exactly an expensive thing to create and release, and frankly, his sales would probably be about the same that way as if he got a deal and went through the traditional in-stores method of selling. Besides, without an entire album to finish, but only a song or two as he got to them, he might show some enthusiasm for the music he did, as opposed to the results like GIOMH. (I still dislike Imagination more, but I definitely understand the awfulness of Brian's GIOMH vox.)

I'd gladly buy spirited singles every few months, even if they're just silly "throwaway" pop songs, as opposed to massive, epic "SMiLEs" that never actually get done, or get done in a halfass way.

That's a great idea. Brian would just have to worry about one song. "Hey, let's go in and record that song I wrote the other day!" Like those Christmas songs that were on his site. All the hardcore fans are sure to download it, and if it's a success and he amasses a dozen and there's a demand, they could eventually put it onto an album. Have you posted this idea on the blueboard? I mean, it's worth a shot.

I did, a while back. Predictably, it got ignored.

In an unrelated note, I no longer remember my password for that site...

I have said that before on there. Response was typically one of the following:

1) No way, I want another album just like [SMiLE/Pet Sounds/Love You]!!! He can do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2) I don't care what he does--every single note he's ever recorded is brilliant!!!! P.S. nothing good has been recorded since 1967 other than Brian's and Paul McCartney's albums.

3) I, being an audiophile and uber-collector, want to make sure that he doesn't release music that way, and absolutely insist on a 50-disc box containing [whatever outtakes and bootlegs] because they're all better than anything the band ever actually released. And they have to be released on [whatever]-bit fidelity (yes, I'm making sh*t up now) because even though they were recorded on John Stamos' fucking cassette player in 1989, I can tell the difference.

Or some such thing.

Actually, that last one is more representative of the sort of response I'd get on this site... Whoops.

A little to much disrespect on this board sometimes IMO

All boards are created equal, and are subject to a little mockery, lest their heads grow too big.

I actually enjoy Brian's first solo album quite a bit. I think its far and away his best original solo album and is up there with Love You. I don't hear a lot of critics giving high praise to this album, but I feel it is a triumph. Not in the way that Pet Sounds or Smile is, but up there with Friends, Sunflower and Love You IMO. Rio Grande I think is his best track since Til I Die.

I agree with you about the 88 album. I didn't buy it for a while because I kept hearing about how "80s" it is. Well, it IS very "80s," but it's also very Brian and even recalls some Spector.  I think it's excellent, particularly Rio Grande.

Never fails to crack me up when folk complain about "the 80's production style" on this album. No-one ever moans about the way Pet Sounds sounds like it was produced in the 60s, do they ? Personally I think it would have sounded better with a 90's production myself.

It is a perfectly legitimate complaint.

Obviously, the fact that it was created in the 80s means it is more likely to sound of that era. But my complaint about the album is that the production style seems to have absorbed the worst aspects of that era, what sounds like (although I know isn't) the complete abandonment of natural instruments for synthesizers; terrible drum sounds; cheesy guitar tones.

Pet Sounds was a 60s production, of course, but does't take cliches of that era in the way that BW88 does. Frankly, I have the same complaint about plenty of 60s albums, including the much-revered Forever Changes, the production of which I think does the same thing with 60s sounds that BW88 does with 80s ones.

Artists were capable of making great albums in the 80s that didn't sound so terrible. Tom Waits is a wonderful example, who did a couple of his best albums in that decade...and not a reverby drum machine to be found.

I agree that it's legitimate to dislike the 80s sound, just as it's legitimate to dislike the 70s sound or the 90s sound. If Imagination represents the 90s sound, then I'd rather hear the 88 album.

It's true that the 88 album has a lot of 80s cliches, but to me, it has a lot more drive to it than the adult contemo sounds of Imagination. I don't know, maybe I've softened to the 80s sound. It can be a lot of fun. And the 88 album has the added attraction of Brian's harmonies and some very good songs-- more good songs, I think, than Imagination. It's not exactly Rick Astley.

There were some 80s albums that ignored the "80s sound." The albums REM made between 1983 and 1986 are good examples. You can't tell that Fall on Me was made in 1986 just by listening to it.

Don't get me wrong--I hate the production of Imagination as much or worse. Same basic reasons, although they were differently wrongly done (to my ears).

I actually think that the BB recordings from the 60s sound fresher and less dated nowadays than their 80s recordings. There will always be people that make organic recordings like Brian made them in the 60s, while the synths and fake drums on the 1985 BB and the 1988 BW albums are very typical for the 80s.

Agreed. The more of your time you try to be with any art, the more dated it will become out of that time. Trying to be fashionable is just begging for unfashionability.

I kind of disagree with era styled recordings always being bad. I think that there are some very good 80s sound songs. I happen to enjoy songs like 'Safety Dance', 'Our House', 'Cars', 'Rock Lobster' and many of the new wave era songs are very good. I wouldn't say I am a big fan of the 80s cliche procucing style, but some people new how to produce it well. I could say the same about any production era style.

Do I make any sense or is it just Van Dyke giberish?

"I actually think that the BB recordings from the 60s sound fresher and less dated nowadays than their 80s recordings. "

Their 60s recordings sound fresher than many other artists' work - including the Beatles, imho.

Yes Magic_Transistor_Radio you are saying  there are good examples of any genre as well as bad. I agree and feel even the best music ever recorded in during the first two decades of rock music, any style, has people within it who make cheep ripoffs of a certain sound.