The Smiley Smile Message Board

Hi everyone, it being late in the day I chose to present this as a new topic. The admins are free of course to move it over to the VDP thread in 6 days or so. I wanted to bring it to the attention of a much people as possible. And do read the last four lines of the post, gobsmacking stuff...
(I hope original writer Jan Jansen from Germany doesn't mind me pasting this here)

(http://vandykeparks.com/images/inaracover.jpg)


Van Dyke Parks & Inara George to promote their new collaboration in concert overseas
  Van Dyke Parks and Inara George will be traveling overseas with a chamber orchestra later this month to promote their collaboration An Invitation. An Invitation (billed to 'Inara George with Van Dyke Parks') features a song cycle of twelve songs and an overture written by Inara George (except for "Family Tree", which was co-written with Mike Andrews).
Inara George, born in 1974, is the daughter of Lowell George, the late frontman of Little Feat, a long term collaborator and friend of Van Dyke Parks, a name probably familiar to most visitors of this site.
Parks not only wrote the string charts and conducted the orchstra on the album, but also played acccordion and piano.
The album, which received great reviews in the US press (see selected links below), was released in the US on Everloving Records, and is available as an import only in the rest of the world, where it has received very positive recognition in the music press nonetheless.

Three tour dates have been confirmed for Europe:
Nov. 20--Den Haag Crossing Border Festival, The Netherlands (with chamber orchestra, conducted by VDP)
Nov. 22--Ghent, Belgium (with trio)
Nov. 23--London's Jazz Cafe, UK (with trio)

a selection of online reviews:
Wall Street Journal:
Spin Magazine
LA Times
Variety Magazine
 
Coming soon to a hi-fi near you: Surrounded by your favorite Cycle of Songs
According to Van Dyke Parks the Parks family recently re-acquired the original master tape of the 1968 album Song Cycle and is now planning a remix and rerelease on a Uk subsidiary of Warner Music. Rerelease plans include a 5.1 surround mix DVD. When further details on this project become available, I will keep you updated here during one of my far too infreuqent updates (i know, i know..).

I wish I could, but yellow text is EXTREMELY hard for me to read. I don't get why people do that.

I am sorry, did not know that. Will change it now.

Okay, now that I see, thanks.

It's funny, all those reviews are from American magazines, but Van Dyke's album is being rereleased in the UK and he and Inara are only playing in Europe. I really wonder why there's no market for this stuff in the US.

I feel like General Music Discussion is turning into General Van Dyke Parks Discussion...

He he, I see your point. Yesterday I tried to eliminate the starter of this thread since the review one could as easily acommodate messages like these, but I didn't know how to.

Your remark is spot on. I would extend the argument: why was Pet Sounds received much better in the UK? Why were SMiLE and TLOS premièred in London? I could make an argument for Europe thinking more cliché-free then the US: we like to see SMiLE and such more as pieces of art and hence not bound up with time. I read several times that the States have a tendency to categorize, to 'file under'. Like:  'Brian Wilson? Isn't that the singer of some sixties band? Which one? Oh, he's playing out state fair, I see...' (US) versus: 'Brian Wilson? The Beach Boys founding genius? Playing SMiLE live? Hand me my cellphone, I must order tickets NOW, NOW, NOW!!!'