The Smiley Smile Message Board

Not professionaly of course...Have you ever played in a band that covered the Beach Boys, if so, what tunes? A few years ago a little garage band I was playing in took part in a project that was put together by the posters at NineBullets.org (A Drive-by-Truckers fan site). Members of the forum contributed home recordings of DBT songs and they were put together on a compilation. It was a fun little project and the disc even made its way to the members of DBT. Would anyone be interested in a SmileySmile.com tribute project?

Like in: sending discs all over the world and doing overdubs on others' work? Sounds great. I can play the chords to Louie Louie, do I qualify?

No, it wasnt anything technically challening. Some chose to collaborate by sending files electronically, others just submitted live cuts which is what we did.

I think this sounds interesting and I would love to contribute alone or with my band.


btw check out the "Smiley smilers who make music"-board in the off-topic-section

Count me in too, my horrific voice notwithstanding.... maybe just an instrumental  :-[

That would be cool too. As far as voices go, I'm no Brian Wilson myself..... :lol

I'm about to head to the beach for the rest of the week but I'm gonna start thinking about what song and maybe play around with arrangements. Ya'll do the same. OF course all are invited to participate regardless of skill level. It's all for fun....

I will do an attempt at 'With Me Tonight' then. 'On and on she go dam be doo dam'...see, I already nailed the first line!

I'll ask my band and think about doing "Soul searchin'". Is there a deadline when we all should have finished our recordings?

I play, 35 year Lead Guitarist and Keyboards and WISH one of the bands I've been in would have played a BB song.
I especially have pushed for the live version of Sloop John B. for about 30 years now.........no one can sing all the parts!!  LOL
Here's me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQF1t-Nfcc8&feature=related   "I Want You To Want Me" cover
and my stuff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yFgu6OoOC0&feature=related  "A Heart With Wings"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su7B3zzdlp0   "Double-Oh-VII(007)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZguevHwqU_E&feature=related   "Romantic Gestures"
Copyright 2009 Old Ghost Music  ASCAP   Brian Ferrell

Cheers,
Bri

I'm in no hurry, I'm gonna try and do something in Garageband or Cakewalk so I'm gonna want a little time to work with the software. What do you guys think about a Halloween deadline? That will give everyone some time for trial and error (I'm sure I'll have plenty of those). Should we start a thread in the musicians forum to claim our song choices?

I play six string, mostly alone or occasionally with my talented child on six string, flute or mandolin.  But precious little singing takes place.  It is HARD to sing BB songs.  I have worked for years trying to perfect my solo acoustic versions of I Can Hear Music and Warmth of the Sun.  WOTS requires some serious 10 finger work for my solo version.  ICHM requires a strong steady rhythm.  I have to play it standing up with the guitar strap on.  I'll get back to you all one of these days when I get it nailed ;)

I've been trying to teach myself guitar for a few months now, have attempted some BB songs (Vega-tables, Wind Chimes, YSGTM, Little Pad, Summertime Blues, Surfin' Safari)...can't say I'm good...all those damn minor chords, major 7's, diminished chords, and 6 different chord changes within a single verse of a song (I'm exaggerating here!!) make it pretty damn hard for a beginner like me.

This really seems like it belongs in the Smiley Smilers Who Make Music forum.

I tend to either downtune (a step or two), or use a capo - makes some of them so much easier, like LHMR or Good Vibes. I tend to move to piano for most of the Today album, for instance - The chords are just too crazy  :lol

I got sidetracked from my musical ambitions (my username here is partially symbolic of that, 
actually), but would LOVE to contribute vocals to anyone's track if needed, I think my voice is pretty darn good, in all modesty. ;)

I could do a good approximation of Brian at the 1981 Long Beach concert!! :lol :lol :lol

I'm not in a band (currently) but I can play 'Wonderful', Wind Chimes' and the opening part to 'Song For Children' on piano

Well, this sounds interesting.  I've played guitar for many years, and have played in bands since I was in college.  In all those years with the various bands, I've played exactly two Beach Boys songs (Surfin' USA and Little Honda).  I've also played a number of covers that the Beach Boys have done (Summertime Blues, Miserlou, and others).  There are a couple of reasons why I never played more of their stuff, but the big reason is that I never had enough good singers to handle the vocals.  The band that I'm in now has three good vocalists, but you gotta have at least four singers to make most of that stuff sound really good.

I haven't recorded in many years, and don't have a home recording set-up, but I know folks that do.  I can sing harmonies fairly well, but I don't have a high voice, so I'd either have to use other singers, or do an instrumental.  It sounds like fun.  As long as nobody cares if I use fake instruments for everything except guitar and bass.

Once you figure out what the chords are really doing, you canplay around with capos and different keys...and some of those multiple chord changes in rapid succession are just movin a finger or two or changing position slightly.  Have someone who knows a little more than you just show you.  That will help tremendously to see what is actually happening physically on the fretboard.

My band did an instrumental cover of the entire Love You album, and now doing the same for BWPS. I'm also currently working on an a capella solo attempt at several BB tracks.

Why, just why, did Brian have to use all those black keys on the piano when writing songs???!!!! If I played an A where there's supposed to be an "Amaj7sus6dimadd9m7dim+/G#m" it just wouldn't sound the same...but it would be much easier!!! And don't get me started on chord progressions (ie. I-IV-V)...For the life of me that stuff is confusing. I'm much more comfortable with "play C them play Em then play G" than with trying to figure out what chords I, IV, V, etc. are supposed to stand for. Maybe one day I'll figure it out...or just play punk rock!!! 8) 8) Or maybe take up the drums...and play like Denny!!!

Grrr I hate playing black keys on the piano. He liked dem minors man.

Oddly enough, about 90% of the songs I write start off with a black key.

I'd be interested in this, wouldn't mind collaborating instrumentally, I could handle a backing harmony. I can assist with any sax parts. Well, on tenor anyway - I don't have a bari. I also know some Beach Boys tunes on bass & piano as well.

As far as vocals are concerned, on a good day I could do an OK approximation of Brian on a bad day...put a clothespin on my nose and I can do Mike's parts!!

I recommend you give it a shot. For me, anyway, learning music theory made everything much easier, because you no longer just learn this set of chords, but this set of chord types in succession. So your C-Em-G is all well and good as a I-iii-V (or maybe IV-vi-I), and thus it's the same as an A-C#m-E, for example. You quickly see the function and structure, so that music isn't a matter of memorizing specifics, but understanding mechanics.

On the other hand, by most accounts Brian had somewhere in the not-much range of understanding theory, so it's not as if it's essential.

Honestly, I'm more intrigued by effects, recording and mixing techniques, etc. than I am about musical notes, chord changes and progressions, etc.

  As I'm going through the process of recording my CD "The Human Experience" I find mySELF more and more interested in capturing EMOTION and Feeling moreso than the technical aspect of piecing this together.
And amazingly I'm writing material on the spot as I'm recording!!  Very cool creative "high" I'm on with my CD.

Cheers,
Bri

You'd never get me to discount those, either. And even less so the items Big Bri mentions about feel and emotion. In my personal opinion, though (as opposed to my NON-personal opinion??) the recording is the least important aspect of a song. Everything counts, adding to or taking away from the final experience. But my ears would rather hear melodies, harmonies, interesting constructions, emotion, wit, etc. than a perfectly engineered kick drum or funny phaser. Clearly opinion and hopefully understood only as such.

Just wanted to say that I gave the other members of my band some youtubelinks for possible Beach Boys-covers. I hope we'll decide next week, which one we're gonna do for this fan-cd

Oh, don't get me wrong, I love emotion/feel and good musicianship in a song...if I didn't like that stuff I wouldn't be listening to Smiley Smile or Wild Honey...the best engineering in the world won't save a crappy piece of music...It's just that the recording process draws more attention from me than the songwriting process. Or something like that.

Totally understood.

I'd be up for doing something, I have a myspace here;

http://www.myspace.com/brigadiermusic

I did a cover of 'that special feeling' some time ago too.

I'd be up for something too, here's my myspace page:

www.myspace.com/josephrichards

Funny really, I've just started to rehearse a whole heap of Brian Wilson songs for a solo tribute type of gig I was thinking of doing.

My preference would be to cover Surf's Up.

OK. I will do Carl in Melbourne then, including the apologies. Done deal.

So, well, should we start making a list now? I asked the other guys in my band and we're now gonna do "Wild honey".

Check out "The Orange Whip" in my signature to get a small idea of our sound

EDIT: Oh, and do you think if this "CD" is gonna turn out good, that it could be used on fan-meetings, etc? I think that would be cool...

Good choice! I'm currently a bit obsessed with BW88 at the moment, so might do something off that - 'Walkin' The Line' or 'Melt Away' being my main contenders. I'll have a go on them tomorrow, see what sounds better. Anyone else game?

Just picked up 'Bicycle Rider' on my keyboard. That is some FUN to play, or as I should say, it's fun fun fun to play

I just have to figure out what tune to do, or an instrumental medley, & I'm up for this.

I'm in! I'm in! I'm in!

"You Still Believe In Me"

That sounds interesting. The vocals are not easy.

Oh, so the result has to be good?  :)

No, I know, they're quite tricky. I'm not even sure I've picked them out correctly. Well, that'll show.

I've got confidence in you....

aight folks, I'm starting the thread in the musicians section. Stake your claim now....

Then we're one...

In its original key? Looking forward to that!

Yep, key of G. I already recorded a demo-version but just found out that a cable is missing and I can't get it onto my computer (still recording analog).

Guys, I got a question. Would it be okay, to upload our recording on our MySpace-site, after we finished this CD? I don't know about all this copyright-stuff, but I'd like to have it there for other people to listen to....

Sorry to bring this up. I just thought in case anybody is interested in participating in our own little Beach Boys-tribute I'd post the link again:

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,7740.0.html (http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,7740.0.html)

We're shooting for March 31st