The Smiley Smile Message Board

Any details on this ?  Wendy on first part,Brian on second.

First time I hear about this...  Where did you read about it?

ESQ, Spring 2002

Well, ESQ was probably reporting on a recording done several years earlier since Mr. Thomas and Brian's camp parted ways in Spring '99. Could a re-recording of "Surf's Up" been considered for inclusion on "The Wilsons" album (released 1997)?

What exactly did the article say?

The idea of Joe Thomas producing a version of Surf's Up is laughable.

I like to pretend the above is what you meant.

Wendy also recorded  In My Room, and was unaware that T.W also did the same latter.

Fixed :)

I liked the work Joe Thomas did with Brian on Imagination and The Beach Boys on Stars And Stripes. He's no Phil Spector and there were some things I would've changed, but I thought he got Brian and the guys to sound pretty good. I think he could've pulled off a good take of "Surf's Up". Thomas was able to get a certain cool "atmosphere" on songs like "Cry", "Lay Down Burden", "She Said That She Needs Me", "The Warmth Of The Sun", "I Can Hear Music", and "Caroline No".

No offense but I don't like Joe's work at all. I think he was a hack. I remember he laughed at an interview who suggested Brian's music can be progressive.

If you starck Brian's vocals on 30, 40 50 or more tracks and then ProTool them to hell and back, of course he's going to sound pretty good.

Are you serious Andrew? 30-50 tracks of vocals? That seems like an awful lot. If it is true, it's pretty sad. I mean I know it might seem besides the point but when you hear Brian's voice in 1965 on his vocal on She Knows Me.. etc.. which is just one track (I realise that those 30-50 tracks are backing vocals too) then it just makes me so sad.. of course everyones voice deteriorates with age but it couldve been so much better if he hadn't been so heavy into drugs etc.. I mean Im not a fan of Paul McCartney as a solo artist but atleast he still has a decent voice (even though it is probably edited)..

By the way, Andrew's post made me think of something, how many layers of Dennis vocals are on Thoughts Of You? I'm sure you all know which bit I'm talking about.

Hey, if that's what it took. But that's what I meant. He GOT Brian to sound good, better than BW 88, Orange Crate Art, and GIOMH. You're post obviously refers to the backing vocals. On Imagination, I was referring more to the leads. With the possible exception of BWPS, I think they are the best of his solo career. I also think his backing vocals on Imagination were also good BTW, ProTools or no ProTools.

For those critics of Joe Thomas, remember that those albums have Brian listed as producer also. Is this another case of excusing Brian (again) and blaming others? Jeez, the board must be slow if I'm resorting to defending Joe Thomas. :police:

Pro tools, shmo tools-who cares? Brian sounded closer to his glory days on Imagination than anything he's done since going solo and even before that. Isn't it more crucial to have him sound as good as possible on the finished product? Doesn't it help to sell better and possibly get some much needed airplay? I say bring Joe back asap.

Brian mentioned the number of vocals in the stack in interviews when the album was released. - I may have exaggerated slightly but it was well up in the 20s.

Dunno about "Thoughts Of You", but the chunk of "Ecology" that inspired it - "All Of my Love" - had 350 vocals on it, according to Dennis. Impressive for a 16-track console.

The whole Imagination project was a cynical and dispiriting excercise in decieving the fans into believing Brian was not only interested in doing it but also in charge of the proceedings. The studio footage ? Staged, every last second of it, with Brian being told what to say and how to act.

Imagination is terrible. It's cheese, through and through. The "atmosphere" is those annoying synth pads and meandering nylon string guitars. The little electric lines here and there suck. The piano parts are more Thomas than Wilson, and all you have to do is listen to the entirety of Brian's career against them to notice.

As for any studio vocal correction, it's the least objectionable part of things. The instrumental production choices, though, were atrocious, like giving up and admitting that adult contemporary was the way to go, and Brian Wilson was a castrated nothing, a name. Even the good songs sound bad.

And he included Jimmy Buffet, for f***'s sake.

(As for Andrew's discussion of vocal tracks, I don't doubt that at all, and it's not even unusual or a big deal, really. There is an interview from OCA wherein either Brian or VDP says he quadruple-tracked every part, and they often used four parts. So you're looking at 16 tracks there. In some of the parts with bigger vocal arrangements in terms of backgrounds, you could very, very easily top 20. Hell, I top 20 regularly at home, and that isn't even for big arrangements sometimes. Let's also keep in mind that doesn't mean simultaneous. Unlike with tape, you have no reason to keep the numbers down--if a part comes in early and disappears, and a different part comes in later, you may use two tracks just to make it easy to remember what you're doing. So if you're quadrupling them both as Brian was, that's eight tracks for maybe 10 seconds of music. It's not a big deal.)

Orchestrated by who(m)?

Hmmm, I go to purchase a new Brian cd and I start woncering if it was recorded under "cynical and dispiriting" conditions. Jeez, I wonder if Brian was totally "in charge", even though he hasn't been in charge for some time now. Do I not end up buying his cd and trying to enjoy it because of the possibility that these conditions may or may not exist? I don't think so-Regardless of whether they were a fake or not, both the cd and the video were enjoyable and it was good to hear Brian sound as good as he did. I don't approach Brian's music on the basis of deception-what people do behind the scenes is not as important as you make it out to be-what counts is the finished product.

I agree with that. And so I hate the bulk of Imagination, and am sad about the rest of it for how good it could have been under better circumstances. Multitracked, pitch-corrected Brians are fine. But there is so much there to dislike in the finished product: the intros to "Cry" and "Lay Down Burden" alone are enough to make me tense up with anger (once I finish vomiting). Two ruined recordings of could-have-been-great songs.

So you find the sight Brian Wilson rigid with stage fright and clearly wanting to be anythere else but where he is "enjoyable" ?

Says it all, doesn't it ?

Oh, I see, you were there when they taped it, right? Brian has been "rigid with stage fright" for many years-so lets not listen or watch anything he does ever again-we'll just wait until he returns to his 60's mind set and then we'll all be dead anyway-sounds like a plan.

I both love and hate Joe Thomas' work with Brian (and the BBs).  I really dislike the instrumental tracks (nylon guitars, the piano tinkles and boring MOR synths).  But the vocals are really well done.  And having a fair bit of experience with pitch correction and protools they CANNOT completely save a bad vocal.  Yes it can put the vocals in tune (a huge help for sure), but if you slur, or phrase incorrectly, have poor timing in your delivery it is not a magical wonder machine that makes everything sound perfect.  I think we have to give Joe Thomas some credit that he did get Brian to deliver some strong leads and he recorded them well.  When they originally turned in some early versions (not finished) of the imagination they were told to go back and make the leads better.  Brian has to re - sing those leads until they sounded better.  I give Joe Thomas credit at the very least for getting Brian to do a great job with that.  I think many of us agree that Brian needs someone whom he trusts to kick his butt and say you can sing that better.  I think many of us agree that didn't happen (as much or at all) with GIOMH (though I still like a fair bit of it) but it sounds like Darian was able to motivate Brian to a much do better job vocally with Smile (and Brian's vocals are great on the Christmas cd too).  Joe may have created some terrible instrumental beds but he looked after Brian's vocals in a big way.
And for those who think imagination is all bad what about the vocals only versions of Your Imagination and South American?  Pull 'em out and have another go.  They are really great.  I would have loved to have the whole cd in a vocals only version.  Brian may not have contributed too much (or at all) to the instrumental ideas on Imagination but don't tell me he didn't contribute to some of the beautiful vocal arrangements.  He did, and they are great.

That's a really good post.

Where did you get that info re the rejected early vocals, and reworking of them? I haven't heard that before.

And lastly, I would like to reiterate my hatred for those instrumental tracks. For emphasis.

Right on, Rich-a very well constucted post .

I know what you're saying. When I heard those tinkling pianos and nylon-stringed guitars on those songs, I immediately thought this was another case of people either writing songs or finishing songs for Brian. Like you or somebody else stated, as a long-time Brian fan, I knew he wouldn't/couldn't write something like that.

But, for some reason, it didn't bother me that much. I felt that a) if Brian DID produce those parts, then they were OK with me. I thought he/they were trying to be "current", or b) if he didn't write them and didn't give a damn, then I wouldn't care either. I know that doesn't make a lot of sense, but I guess I started to not care anymore.

I do kind of agree with you, Luther, and others who don't like that slick 90's production for Brian, but I'll repeat it again - why didn't Brian do something about it? And if he's gonna put his name on the record as artist AND producer, then who's really to blame?

I think, ultimately, I overlooked the production and, because Brian sounded really good vocally, I accepted a lot of it. My biggest gripe - then and now - is the number of songs on the album (too few) and the depending on old BB/BW songs. I thought that after 10 years between solo albums, there should've been a load of material to be recorded.

Edit: I almost forgot why I originally posted... Regardless of the production, IMO, "Lay Down Burden" is the best song of Brian's solo career.

I want to be clear: I hate those things I've mentioned whether they're Thomas's or Wilson's. But because they're so anomalous to Wilson's other work and in line with what I understand Thomas's to be, I have to assume they're the latter's. But if they're Thomas's and Wilson signed off, I still hate them. They sound terrible. And good vocal performances on mediocre songs with terrible production just aren't enough to get me to like it. I can like or appreciate the vocal performances while despising the bulk of the remainder of things on that album ... and I do.

In reference to a JT SU, I was told that the BW camp had originally wanted Thomas to help finish SMiLE with Thomas assuming the role that was later assumed by Darian.

That interview regarding early versions of Imagination songs came out during the promotional rush for the Imagination cd in an on-line article but I can't recall the publication.  That was when I first started using the internet to find out about Brian.  Lauri Klobas used to have a great site called Breakaway and I discovered that interview as a result of that site.  
That was an interesting time to be a BW fan.  I can remember that a small clip from the song Your Imagination was posted on the internet as a teaser around that time as I was excited about how good Brian's voice sounded.  I was really looking forward to Imagination's release and when it did come out I was happy for the new material and LOVED the vocals and vocal arrangements but REALLY DISLIKED the instrumental work.  I had heard the bootlegged Wilson/Paley material and I was hoping for vocals that sounded as good as the Imagination vocals but I wanted the organic real instrumental approach of the Paley stuff.  I thought She Says That She Needs Me was great to have on Imagination because no other officially released version was available but Keep An Eye On Summer and Let Him Run Wild were a foolish to choice to rerecord.  Brian's vocals sound good on them but how do you compete with the original versions (you can't).  I wished they would have used some of the Wilson/Paley tracks here.

RobMac,
I shudder to think of the possible results if Joe Thomas were to finish Smile with Brian.  The vocals may have sounded great but he would have RUINED the beautiful instrumental, arrangement and production ideas that made Smile legendary.  Darian did the BEST possible job helping Brian realize the Smile vision both instrumentally and vocally.  Bless him for it.

A Joe Thomas Smile would have been ridiculous, like a Mike Love Smile. Terrifying thought.

I'm gonna jump in here and say has anyone heard the audio of somebody (ie: not Brian) humming the melody of Your Imagination over the track? (can't remember where I found it) What's the deal with that?

I agree with both of you guys.

The section of the fan base that disliked BWPS would have had real jusitifcation for complaints if JT had touched SMiLE.  "Wonderful" with those "tastefully improvised" gently-plucked lite-jazz classical guitar licks? Uh, no thanks! 

Though it would have been fun to watch Dom Priore's head  explode if that happened!

absolutely!

Good point.  Supposedly Brian's vocals were autotuned on GIOMH, and even though I'm one of maybe 4 people who actually LIKED GIOMH, well... you know how his vocals turned out on that one.

I wish there *was* a vocals only version of Imagination, because the instrumental tracks are pure unbridled ass. The guitars on LDB,for instance, sound terrible...you hear more "scraping" then plucking!  The drums...well, Eddie Bayer's no John Bonham (hell,he's not even in Jason Bonham's league),but there's no excuse for how poor the actual sound of the drums. To be honest, as much as I love to harp on how poor the production was, special  mention must go to the mix. Honestly, a half-dead Rottweiler could've done a better mix. Mixing in Pro-Tools is no excuse, as I've used Pro-Tools myself while I was in college and can honestly say that I've never heard such a sh*tty work  as this. Hell, my instructor actually brought Imagination to class to point out what NOT to do . (that was embarrasing, by the way, as everyone else knew I was/still am a big fan) Digital recording doesn't mean the end result has to sound tinny and/or plastic-y.

Obviously not enough of them.

A Smile with twelve tracks on the level of Good Vibrations? I wouldn't mind having it in my collection.  ;)

Seriously? Joe Thomas defenders, there's a damning piece of anecdote right there!

Don't believe everything you read-sounds ambiguous to me. ;)

I like Imagination, could be better, could be worse....no beef here....I know it's "adult contemporary", but Brian was how old when he recorded that?  :3d

Hey, if that's what you want to pretend it would've been...

My understanding is that  few, if any, of the vocal tracks on GIOMH were auto-tuned or ProTooled. Maybe the track cut in 2002.

A lot of people on the, for want of a better word, 'inside' were bitterly disappointed with how the whole project turned out.

Sorry I have to be a bother, but I think this requires stepping in. (It might not, and if I'm wrong, correct me.) "ProTooled" doesn't really make sense. Usually when that term or ones like it are used on this and other boards, the poster means digitally changing the audio to correct pitch, rhythm, etc. But Pro Tools is just the software through which the music CAN be processed, but also through which it is often recorded, mixed and can be mastered. My understanding is that Mark L. has been using ProTools for all of Brian's stuff with this band: Smile, GIOMH, Xmas, the singles, etc. But using ProTools doesn't imply any kind of correction. And you can do those sorts of pitch correction or other enhancements outside of and without ProTools.

I believe all the music on GIOMH was "ProTooled" in that it was all done on ProTools. Whether Mark or anyone else did pitch correction or other editing is a different issue.

Apologies if I'm wrong, and it wasn't recorded or mixed on ProTools. And apologies if nobody else cares about this issue at all. I just get tired of a multifaceted piece of software being used synonymously for one of its possible features.

When you use spellcheck in Microsoft Word, nobody says "oh, that document was MS Worded." See what I mean?

You're right, of course - mea culpa, I tend to use Pro-Tooling as a generic phrase for vocal correction. The pitch-correction is but a very small part of the whole program, and most studios use a dedicated plug-in anyway.

And if the album was thusly tweaked... well, can you imagine how bad it sounded originally ?

If there were any auto-tuned vocals on GIOMH it would probably have been the backing vocals to the title track which had been co-produced by Joe Thomas back in '98 or '99 (much of that version remains on the 2004 release).

Back in '97 or '98, some rough mixes from the "Imagination" album were played on Steve Dahl's Chicago-based radio show prior to release. I remember "South American" sounded pretty good with a boogie-woogie piano part played high in the mix. On the released version, that piano all but disappeared under a deluge of synth horns and nylon strings which made the song sound DOA like the rest of the album.

I actually rate the songwriting on Imagination as some of the best of BW's solo career. Still, none of that material ever got me excited. BW88 on the other hand might have its flaws and suffers from an over-the-top synth-heavy production as well, but it still sounds like an energetic effort, like something worth rediscovering every once in awhile, for there's still some  magic moments among the undeniable sterility. You know, grown-up men don't have to necessarily make their once soulful music sound like adult contemporary pap just because they got older. That, to me, is one of the biggest flaws of BW's solo career, Joe Thomas being involved or not: up until the realease of Smile, it's full of totally unnecessary compromises, decisions that didn't even help to make those records sell at the end of the day.

Mike would have delivered the goods, like he did whenever his lyrics were requested in the sixties. Would "Warmth of the Sun" be a better song if its lyrics were about sun watches and the march of white men to the west?

Whatever, Brian still wouldn't have finished Smile.  :)

That is so true.  It seems like too much of Brian's later work is pitched at A/C and the supermarket music market (he's actually had some success there, I've heard his music played in stores, but I don't know how well that pays).  That might be a condition of getting record companies to back him.  I think he would be far better off releasing his music through the Internet and having a lower studio budget.   

In 1998 I was really excited with all the enthusiastic reports about Imagination. Then I started to understand the pattern in fandom with new Brian releases. It never fails.

The adult contemporary producing values didn't bother me more than those in BW'88. But the latter had the songs, the former just didn't - IMO. That's a CD that coasted on my shelf for so many years that I ended giving it away.

I'm just glad to read others here like/appreciate Imagination as much as I do...I love everything about the album, even the arrangements...especially Dream Angel and Happy Days.

I try not to imagine that. I like some of the material from that album. I like some of the tracks. But there are spots--and yes, especially vocally--that are atrocious. Really bad. Demo quality. And I know I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, considering your many previous posts and reviews on this album's "quality."

I love Imagination. Even the arrangements.

Can't say I'm terribly surprised about that.  When you get three fellow legends (namely Elton John, Eric Clapton and Paul McCartney) to appear on your album and the music is half-ass, it's a big disappointment.  Fans had been clamoring for Brian Wilson to recording something with McCartney for years and the bland, odd and slightly homo-erotic song "A Friend Like You" is what we get?  Too bad.  At least Carl's terrific vocal of "Soul Searchin'" was finally released. 

The collaborations were the best songs on the album. Soul Searchin' is also great. Perhaps Brian should've had more guest spots on the album. Elton, Clapton, and Billy Shears, er, Paul, practically carried the album for Brian. I'd personally like to see Brian collaborate with Wayne Coyne or Thom Yorke. Brian could bring some much needed sunshine into the bleak world of Radiohead.

You mean he carried the one song he performed on?  Personally I felt McCartney's appearance on the song was completely wasted.  Other than primarily singing "A friend like you" repeatedly his presence was not particularly defined.  Would have been interesting if he had sung some of the verses; or even better scrapped this song completely and co-wrote a song with Brian that would have been better than this one. 

I thought the McCartney duet was among the worst few songs on the album. Terrible, really. A poor song with a poor performance from BW.

I think Brian's lead on "A Friend Like You" is his best vocal on the album.

But I do agree that the song was a wasted opportunity. Did McCartney even bother to record his part with Brian present?

The Beach Boys and Brian have certainly wasted some opportunities to do something really special or exciting with some bonafide superstars - Little Richard, Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan, Lindsey Buckingham (although HCGHPOBTM wasn't that bad), Elton John, The Fat Boys....

Well, the ones with Elton, Clapton, and Carl were good, and I kinda like Desert Drive. No matter how bad anyone thinks GIOMH is, its still better than MIU, LA, KTSA, Still Cruisin', and SIP. I'd imagine it's better than Looking Back With Love.

ascrodin, since you're a fan of GIOMH, you would be a good one to ask my question.

When I heard that Elton John was "guesting" on the album, I got a little excited - and optimistic. I didn't know what to expect, but I thought Brian Wilson AND Elton John together couldn't lose.

I'll admit I was also naive, because thoughts of "Your Song" and "Tiny Dancer" on the serious side, and "Crocodile Rock" and "I'm Still Standing" on the rock & roll side were flashing through my head.

No, I honestly didn't expect a stone cold classic, but "How Could We Still Be Dancin"? Come on.

BTW, give MIU, LA, and KTSA another good listen.

Sorry to ruffle your feathers, but I love that song. "Dancin, dancin, dance the night away, dance the night away..." I guess I'm in the minority on this one.

Relative speaking, HCWSBD has the best brian background vocals on GIOMH.  How anyone could NOT like that track is beyond me.

I really like HCWSBD. It is among my favorites on the album. I would've preferred a spirited lead vocal from Brian on it to the Elton one, but I'm OK with that, I guess.

As for the "superstar guesting" in general, I wish they'd never bothered. Overwhelmingly, across pop musical genres, I think they're ridiculous, usually doing neither artist justice. Usually it's some has-been Clive Davis is trying to resurrect paired with some horrific cheesy adult contemporary popster (I'm looking RIGHT AT YOU, Prince and Sheryl Crow).