The Smiley Smile Message Board

Okay, here's another one for the experts out there. What's the deal with this record?

http://www.discogs.com/release/933619

Notice track B3, titled "Surfit" is credited to Brian Wilson/Mike Love/Van Dyke Parks! Is this legit? What's it like if it is?

Here's a guess:  a medley of Surf's Up and Surfin'.

I haven´t heard  "Surfit", but Tim Souster is a British composer of electronic music and an admirer of the music of the Beach Boys.

quote T.S.:

"I have long been fascinated by and attached to the music of the Beach Boys so, when in 1977 I was commissioned by Merseyside Arts to write a new work for the concert to be given by my group OdB at the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, I composed the tribute that had been echoing round my mind for some years. I had already made a short studio composition based on Beach Boys material called Surfit which was issued on the record Swit Drimz the previous year, but in Song I wanted to explore the material in greater depth and write a genuine concert work for the group to play. Nevertheless, to achieve the density of sound which was occasionally required I used a four-channel tape to 'back' the three live players. But the material of Song is very homogeneous. It is entirely a 'quotations piece', but, as it contains nothing but quotations one is not really conscious of specific references, nor are any meant to obtrude. (As Carl Wilson says in the opening quote, what matters is the feeling created by the sound.) The tiny 'loops' taken from Beach Boys songs are deployed by the players, with a certain degree of freedom, in reaction to the tape part and to each other's playing. The deeply layered textures which result are analogous to the extensively multi-tracked voicings of the original songs but, because of the combinations of many different tonalities and the repetition of almost subliminally small harmonic progressions, the effect of Song is very different from that of the songs themselves. The work is a distant, fog-bound evocation of the Californian dream of sun and surf. Alas, it only lasts fourteen-and-a-half minutes."

Isn't She's Goin' Bald a Brian Wilson/Mike Love/Van Dyke Parks composition?

I saw Odb (Souster, Smalley and others) perform a number of works including Surfit, in Bristol in about 1977. At the time it was certainly a mesmerising piece - including quite novel use of interview 'samples' and interwoven parts from various songs, including California Girls, Good Vibes and Surf's Up.

I was aware of Souster's love of Smile and Californian music in general about 1970 - he was the person who brought the music of Terry Riley to the attention of UK audiences (and therefore to Pete Townshend, who wrote Baba O'Riley partly based on Riley's ideas.) Souster wrote a superb review of the Surf's Up album in 1971, which compared Brian's use of percussion to the orchestrations of Ravel....

Tim Souster sadly died in the 1990s of 'a mystery virus contracted while on holiday in Thailand....'

Yes it is. Brian and Van originally wrote it as "He Gives Speeches." Mike's contribution I believe is changing the lyrics to the She's Goin' Bald theme.