The Smiley Smile Message Board

In a Q magazine interview not so long ago Brian said 'Mike and Dennis hated SMiLE. They hated it!' But wasn't it Dennis who famously said 'Smile is so good it makes Pet Sounds stink..' It's kinda an established fact isn't it that Denny was, unlike his band members, always very enthusiastic re Smile. Do u think this is just Brian getting confused as he occasionally seems to do these days?

Yeah.

Dennis was his biggest supporter.

Exactly. It's a pity Brian says things like this coz they can stick. Recently he's got into the habit of going on about how the BBs weren't good musicians and it's just not true.. Mind you in the same Q interview he spoke rather pleasantly about Charles Manson so maybe he was just having rather a strange day...

He's certainly been having a lot of those lately...

At this point in BB history, I wouldn't be surprised if even Mike Love actually LOVED SMiLE. Dennis certainly did and he was one of the first session tapes Bootlegers in the 70's, although probably unintended.

I think if it weren't for the drugs (and feeling slighted that Brian didn't want to work with him), Mike would have liked it.

What did Brian say about Manson?

Which issue of Q is this?

BTW, I saw two different interviews with Brian in '04 when "SMiLE" came out...in one he said that Mike & Carl hated it, in another he said Mike & Dennis hated it.  Clearly confusion. 

Yeah, besides that one Brian quote, everything else we have from Dennis quotes in 66/67 to his death indicate Dennis supported Brian with Smile.  Dennis also supported Brian when Brian didn't want to include Surf's Up on the second Warner's album - but obviously they were outvoted.

The surprise to me is that Carl either didn't support Smile or Brian felt he wasn't supportive, and in retrospect I can believe it.  Carl expressed reservations about Good Vibrations as well.  I think Carl, being on many of the sessions, saw Brian wasn't getting anywhere with the project after a year of work.  I think it was more out of consideration of Brian's mental state and the need to produce a single and album quickly than out of disagreement with the artistic direction/songs/lyrics though, because at least publicly (American Band) he always expressed admiration for the Smile music and of course was the principal BB that pushed to complete and release selected SMile cuts (Cabinessence, Prayer and Surf's Up).

Really? from what I've read Carl loved Smile and attended as many sessions as he possibly could, when their touring schedule allowed.. Poor Carl. He really did seem to be constantly stuck in the middle in the middle didn't he?

Okay, now, this sort of goes along with what I was talking about with Brian's mental illness.  Wouldn't things be easier if everyone just took what Brian says with a grain of salt? Couldn't some of it be related to feelings of paranoia and/or confusion about the past? Brian has said:

Dennis hated Smile
Smile is inappropriate
Dennis slept with Marilyn (I think that was in Q or Mojo, a la "Dennis slept with everyone...")
Smile is better than Pet Sounds
Pet Sounds is better than Smile
My falsetto was girly and embarrassing
I never said that. I'm proud of my falsetto.
My current band is better than the BBs
I'm proud as hell of the BBs. They were the best.

a grain of salt and a spoonfull of Haldol.

There's a very recent theory that the 3-movement Smile was voted down by the Beach Boys in a family meeting.

Well, who would vote in a meeting like this in Dec'66? Brian, Mike, Carl and Dennis. 2x2 would be a tie. 3x1 meant that Smile would be compromised as a project to be reconfigured as a 12 track album. Which ultimately killed the project.

So:
1. Dennis voted with Mike and Carl
2. Dennis killed Smile

 ;)

Interesting...

The meeting is merda fantasy. Even Mike worked hard on Smile, Brian is told what happened he doesn't remember.

Mike said with his own lips in the EH documentary that he doesn't care for the lyrics. As for the music, I'm not sure, but he also said that he felt that H & V was the last great Brian track. I think that he liked the music, but disliked the lyrics. He probably also was annoyed at Brian's paranoid state (ex. Brian thinking that the Fire tapes causing buildings to burn down, and Phil Spector bugging his house, etc)

And he's perfectly justified in feeling that way, IMHO, although I personally love the SMiLE lyrics.

I am pretty sure Mike thought the songs were OK, but they weren't what he enviosioned as "Beach Boy" material. Also you have to figure that it was around this time (I think) that he learned about getting jacked over by Murray for song writing credits and putting out another "Brian Wilson" album with little to no creative imput from him was probably a blow to his ego.

Just my .02 I may be .98 worth wrong.  :p

Mike could've done his work on Smile and objected to the 3-movement concept.  It's possible he would've objected to that format for the sequencing, which seems to have been an unprecented idea for a pop band at the time.  Could just be an example of Mike thinking in business terms.  A 12-track album - for late '66 - just seems like a safer bet. 


By the way: I'm not necessarily contesting that the meeting did not occur.  The evidence doesn't appear conclusive that it did.  But I suppose that I'm naive enough to consider that it's possible it happened.

Me too. Even without making much sense, they set an athmosphere and just sound beautiful. I wish I could write lyrics like that.

Well as far as what Brian wanted for Smile, whether it was a 3 movement opus, or a collection of songs with interweaving themes, we can't know today. I don't know if he ever knew himself exactly how it would come together. To me this whole meeting ganged up thing sounds like one of those Brianasta rumors. The thing is Brian had final say over the records through Surf's Up. Surf's Up was the first time they really went against his wishes. Mike could have grumbled but I think Dennis and Carl supported Brian, and by continuing to work on it so did Mike. Remember Brian put Smile down a lot over the years. I think basically he couldn't figure out how to finish it, he was obsessing and basically said screw it. That's as good a theory as any I guess.

Amen to that. I think it's the most tragically under-represented theory there is on the subject. Don't misunderstand: I don't think the others necessarily loved it. And I don't think he was in the best mental (or chemical?) condition to be making great decisions. But I think it's a shame that the biggest problem is what seems to be the least widely believed part of the story--or at least the least-publicized part: just Brian not ever having had a real, cohesive master plan, and not being able to decide what exactly to do with the bigger-picture ideas he had. The devil, they say, is in the details. 

Brian had final say over the records until Friends - he had little to do with overseeing the albums after that (except for 15 Big Ones and Love You), he just contributed songs.  Carl finished Brian's songs and productions and decided what went on the albums.  If Brian had had his way Old Man River would have been on 20/20.

If you read the Desper book and study others you see that Brian's role in Sunflower, and Surf's Up was more pervasive then many claim. Everything else stopped when Brian was ready to work.  Brian still had a lot authority on every album really until Still Cruisin. Even then it was Landy who got in the way. In the case of something like 20/20, he didn't fully exert his power. You can argue Old Man River but it wasn't completed to his satisfaction, people got sick of him tinkering with it and he moved on. Surf's Up was the first strong objection he had that was overruled. Also Warner's executive David Bernsen (I think that's how you spell it) said in NME 1975 Nick Kent article that it was Brian he went to about Add Some Music being weak. Now Carl did the final mix down because Brian didn't hear stereo, but at very least he had a say as to his songs arrangements and how the album was put together. In other words he chose to get involved and his input was welcomed. I think Carl and Bruce both said that it was the last time that Brian really took charge (I mean he was a different guy by 1976) and Brian also said that the first time they didn't run songs by him was 1971. Carl most assuredly would have sought out and factored in Brian's opinion. Take "I Can Hear Music", I assume Brian said it was good and approved of it being a single.

Really I think the truth lies at the heart of everyones speculations. I can see every theory on why he never finished SMiLE having an element of truth to it.

I agree, and it would seem narrow-minded to pin the downfall of the project on one incident.  It seems like it was just some kind of "perfect storm" of conflict:  Drugs, pressure to get material released, no clear idea of a finished product, some personal issues within the band.  I feel like the 12-track idea - wherever it came from - was the best idea to get that brilliant material out.  But when the leader (who was not well-equipped to handle them) keeps the drugs flowing, it's not very surprising that focus on the end-game was lost, and the wheels came off of the project.

As for Dennis, I feel like he was too much of a renegade and too adoring of Brian, as a brother and an artist, to object to Smile.  I would think he would be more into turning people on to the music Brian was creating than to worry about alienating the fanbase.