The Smiley Smile Message Board

Recently I visited a friend of mine who showed me a copy of an English white label promo album of Holland. The song titles are written with a pen on both labels and even written down are Side 1 and Side 2 with the song titles. Nothing strange so far. Funny thing is, that side one is the album side we know as side two (and side 1 is the 2nd side). Thinking about that, to me it sounds quite natural that the album would start with The Trader (because of the ‘hi’ at the beginning) and that album was going to end with the trilogy, as a sort of best for last. Does anybody know if that was the initial sequencing of songs on the album and if so, why they changed the sides of that album?

Interesting theory.  I always found it hard to believe they were actually going to open the album with "Steamboat."  Like it or hate it (I'm in the latter category), it's a dirge if there ever was one.

That is interesting. In this pressing, was it with Sail on Sailor or We Got Love?

Holland is actually my favorite BBs album, so I'd get a kick hearing about the details of it.

Well, I see now why you didn't include this one in your "Carl & Dennis" shows!

Wasn't "We Got Love" supposed to be in the "Sail On, Sailor" position? If so, it still makes sense that the album would open with "The Trader" (followed by "Leaving This Town", etc.) with "We Got Love" opening Side B (followed by "Steamboat") and the California Saga concluding the album. Once "Sail On, Sailor" came aboard, it probably made sense to open the album with it so the sides were switched to faciliate this without having to resequence the rest of the tracks.

In the famous original track-list - or at least the German one that got away - Steamboat opened side A.

If the original line-up of songs (with WGL, and without Sail On Sailor) and the sides being reversed, the theory of ending with the saga doesn't work. "Side B" would be Steamboat, the Saga, We Got Love.

I have a UK test pressing of Holland with the original track line-up, and, while the labels are completely blank, the matrix numbers indicate that the opening tack of the LP is indeed Steamboat, followed by the Saga, then We Got Love. If there was ever an opening track less conducive to further listening than Steamboat, I've yet to hear it. It certainly makes more sense to open the LP with The Trader. 

"Don't worry, Mr. Fulton, we'll get your Steamboat rolling" is a metaphor for the album, really. Sure, it's starting off slow, but don't worry, Mr. Fulton, we'll get this album rockin'.

I always thought Funky Pretty was a great prelude to Mt. Vernon   ;D

But of course it wouldn't have mattered whether the sides were flipped in that regard: at the time of release, the end of the album wasn't a prelude at all. They were separate records. (Hard for younger ears who discovered this music on CD--and in fact on twofers (such as me) -- to keep that sort of thing in mind. Must have been a very different experience with all the albums.)

And I'm the next generation, I guess - I upload all my CDs to my computer and listen to them in iTunes, which arranges albums alphabetically by artist. After Holland comes In Concert, which is wonderful. I have to go out of my way to listen to Mt. Vernon, which is why I've only listened to it a few times.

I usually do take that in consideration...had I grown up then, I prolly woulda done the same, right after Holland's ending, I'd pop on Mt. Vernon and dem the lights.....  :angel:

I think Steamboat is great. Perhaps I'm alone. The EP does feel like a seperate record in some ways on vinyl.

I like it too. It's a real album cut for sure, wouldn't have made any sense as a single or even as a concert tune. Totally unique addition to DW's oeuvre, which makes it an even better song as far as I'm concerned.

About STEAMBOAT: I think the song may have taken on a more lumbering feeling after Jack Reilly's lyrics were added. I've heard an alternate mix of Steamboat (sounds like Dennis counts off the track) and at the break, before the slide guitar solo, Dennis comes in on a vocal track for a few seconds. He's singing his original lyric, "Honey, don't get me wrong..." he begins another line and the channel fades, unfortunately. 

Steamboat is great...very Smile-esque in a way...but in a 1972 fame of mind. Typical of Dennis in that it is much darker than most BB's music.

To tell you the truth, "Mt. Vernon And Fairway" was a pain in the neck. After Holland was over, you had to get off your chair/bed and change records, pulling out this little EP, listening to a couple minutes of it, then get off your chair/bed again, and flipping the side over. No CD's, no remote controls - needles and tonearms! :-D

OK, I'm gonna be Mr. Meany, but, I never liked Carl's kid saying "Hi" at the beginning of "Trader". It always sounded out of place to me, on such a cool song. I'm sorry....

Steamboat and other Dennis tunes of the 70s wouldn't be out of place on a Pink Floyd album IMO! And I love Pink Floyd!

I always thought it was Carnie?  Was it really one of Carl's sons?

It took about 15 years of listening for that song to finally grow on me...I do like it now.

Yeah, it's Jonah Wilson, I think. It sounds high-pitched, but boys and girls sound pretty similar when they're really young.

Over at Shut Down, somebody made a mix of Holland framing the whole thing with "Mount Vernon" and also included material from CATP I like it a lot, it makes some of the less-endearing stuff more palatable;

Side One

 1) Mt Vernon and Fairway (theme)
 2) You Need A Mess of Help to Stand Alone
 3) Funky Pretty
 4) He Come Down
 5) Marcella

 Side Two

 1) Trader
 2) Steamboat
 3) California Saga
   a- Big Sur
   b-The Beaks of Eagles
   c- Sunny California

  Side Three

 1) Leaving This Town
 2) Make It Good
 3) All This Is That
 4) Cuddle Up
 5) Only with You

   Side Four

 1) Mt Vernon and Fairway- A Fairy Tale
 2) Sail On Sailor

When I did the mix, I put a few bits of "Mount Vernon" on sides two and three, and then the resolution came on side four followed by "Sail on Sailor."

Oh, and I love "Steamboat"

I've done a Holland/CATP mix, too. I like both those albums well enough, but I think there was one really good single album's worth in there. (I've done the same with Sunflower/Surf's Up, although I think both of those are stronger to begin with and don't need to be messed with. Messing's just in my nature.)

Did that alternate mix also have the final vocals?

I like Funky Pretty as a closer tbh, but that fan mix looks cool, plus I really like Here She Comes after Mess...

I like it as a closer because it really feels to me like an afterthought more than a proper, full song. But I think of it more a semi-closer. I use it at the end of my "Side 1" (as if an iTunes playlist has sides...). Call it a plagal cadence.

Just the rhythm and the group tag vocals makes it very harmonious in the sense of the group...

Yes.

Other than the one line in "California", and minimal vocals on "Funky Pretty", is Brian Wilson on Holland?

He's there in spirit.  ;)

And...in the Les Chan interview from '81, Brian tells his visitors that CAPT and Holland are his favorite BB albums!  ;-)

Brian also played harmonica on Big Sur, and of course the Fairy Tale he co-sang and produced. People on here have said they don't hear it, but I still think he does the harmony line on Steamboat. Of course he can be heard throughout Funky Pretty as well as producing it.

It's funny, I was listening to Steamboat yesterday and thinking "This would sound better if Brian was on it". If that's him, then his voice had already declined a lot.

Magic Transistor said;  Steamboat would not  be out of place on a Pink Floyd album.   

I have always been acutely aware of the similaritiy between the guitar solo on If by Pink Floyd (Atom Heart Mother)
and the guitar solo on Steamboat.

And I love that sound.  Perfect for a slow, quiet rocker.

..................if I go insane, please don't put your wires in my brain...........hmmmmmmmmmmm a connection here?

a subtle Syd Barrett/Brian Wilson comparison ....?

Funky Pretty
He Come Down
Here She Comes
You Need A Mess
Big Sur (official 3/4 version)
Make It Good
Mt. Vernon
Take A Load
Feel Flows
Wonderbill
Long Promised Road
Leaving This Town

For some of you this line-up will make a great album. Not for me. Perhaps this list is a summation of what I like least about our Boys... it's that plodding '70 attempt to make 'serious' music like the Band did, I'd like to call it. Maybe Blondie and Rikki are great guys in person, but they added that pretense, that forced-funk aspect to the group, and I never was into it.
I can take in these tracks because they all are part of a greater work, with better tracks.

What bugs me most: on the Mt. Vernon EP there are about 10 seconds that I'd kill for. I mean the 'Radio King Dom' snippet which always sounded like part of a complete song, with superb choruses, sort of the call-and-response melodies that the group was so good at ni their prime.

I never cared much about their political and ecological stances (well, as long as there were no KKK members in there, I mean, there are limits). That is for others to do.

at least your lineup has Take  load off your feet, which isn't too serious....  ;D

...and not funky at all... :-D

Man, I can't believe how little love there is for Funky Pretty. That's one of my favorite BW songs (if you can ignore the middle eight lyrics) and always ends my Hypothetical BW SynthPop Album. I just love how extremely simple it is, very pared down.

I can't believe how little love there is for me in general.

Some really interesting stuff in here guys!

I've been out of the Beach Boys game so long it's good to see there's still new oddities popping out of the band's history.

Never thought to piss-about with the lineup from Holland, but this has piqued my interest in doing so. I really dig the idea of Trader being the opening track.

I have a lot of catching up to do around these parts.

Well heretics never go over well with the authorities >:D

I've always appreciated Funky Pretty, and always loved the live version

I've always liked the dreamy quality of it.

It's a perfect distillation of the escapist, utopian vibe of the early '70s Beach Boys, with an
ambiguous, almost menacing, opium-induced idealist imagery.

I'm ashamed, as a pretty well-informed longtime fan, to admit that I never knew that it was a D.W. tune. It's really interesting (and sad) to hear faint aspects of his disillusionment with his
Manson association and the beginnings of his general dissolution creep (no pun intended)
slowly into his work at around that time.

Some of his most beautiful songs (Cuddle Up, Make it Good, Only WIth You, Barbara) are from
this time, but there is a deepening melancholia that is becoming evident, and a desperate,
forced optimism (Sound of Free, Celebrate the News.) They're great songs, but you can hear him trying to hold on against inevitable forces of despair, that you didn't hear in "Little Bird"
(Maybe because of Kalinich.)

"Steamboat" is a hashish dream, metaphorically, with the good and bad that that entails. :) :'(

It is definitely Jonah saying "Hi" at the beginning of "The Trader" -- I got confirmation directly from him.

It's funny, but on the CBS European vinyl reissue, Funky Pretty is, in fact, a prelude to Mt. Vernon. The fairy tale's tracks were put on the end of Side Two.

Yeah I have been trying to find that and MIU since 1990. I saw them once but I didn't realize the MIU mixes were different or that Holland had  MT.Vernon on the LP. I passed them up because the reissues looked cheep because they all had the same back cover. POB was there I remember. People didn't believe me for years when I said these were pressed. Brad Elliot all but called me a liar ironic huh.

You know, MBE, I still have a hard time believing that the whole 70-ies album-series were re-released on Epic-vinyl. I have Sunflower, Surf's Up and Holland on Epic-vinyl, but never saw the other ones. And as I know Epic gave those 3 albums a special treat on CD as well (these 3 albums were released both separately and as a 3CD-box set, in a simple carton box), I still hold up my theory that only those 3 albums were re-released on vinyl as well...

But I believe you on your word...  :)   .... and hope to be corrected with evidence...  ;D

I am almost positive I saw most of them. I know for sure I saw POB. I was pissed because it didn't have the gatefold. Since the vinyl wasn't a box set I assume they all came out. Again they all had the same back covers. Did you find them all on Ebay?

Yes sir I did. Several of them (Sunflower twice, Surf's Up and Holland in 1 buy!). Holland even has the NicePrice sticker attached to it.

What surprises me the most is: all of them are printed in... The Netherlands! Strange is though that at the time of release I've never heard nor read anything about this. Let be that I saw them being sold. I bought all of my EPIC-pressings either from a German of a British seller.

Not that surprising really, at least nearly all CBS vinyl for the German market was pressed in Holland since 1979.

dogear, would you happen to know if in Germany any publicity was made on those vinyl reissues?

By the late 80's, CBS and, later, Sony had one vinyl pressing plant in Europe; it was in Holland. I suspect that the Beach Boys rereleases were pressed in such small numbers that bulk of them could have been printed with the Dutch collection society info (BIEM/STEMRA) and then distributed to other, smaller,  CBS affiliates (Scandavian, Spain, etc.), as needed. I have not seen German (GEMA) or UK pressings; they may exist, though.