The Smiley Smile Message Board

So I know this is kinda a ballsy statement to make after BWPS, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Brian (after the original sessions) was never incredibly impressed by what he did with SMiLE. I honestly think he made the switch to Smiley Smile because that was where he was at mentally. Those were the kind of sounding records he wanted to make at that point, and he just wasn't interested in those big productions anymore, at least after finally finishing "Heroes And Villains".

But fast forward to today, I never really hear him mention it too much or anything anymore. The only songs I've read of him speaking of recently are things like "H & V" and "Surf's Up". I think more of the reason why he did BWPS was because of his wife and manager (yeah duh, I know), and to satisfy his band and his fans. I'm not sure it was that incredibly important to him as music as it was to just get people to shut up about it. Then again, I don't really know him, so I can't say. But it just seems to me that as soon as the BWPS era ended, Brian got back out of the SMiLE mindset and went back to the 68-02 version of himself, where SMiLE was the real weird material, too weird. I think he's accepted that like "H&V" and "SU" are two of his best compositions but I doubt we'd still see him saying things like "SMiLE is a 10, Pet Sounds is a 7" or something.

I know I haven't articulated this argument very well, but I just wanted to see what the rest of you guys think. Especially those of you that may know more about where Brian is at emotionally and where he places the SMiLE material now in his heart.

He must know that songs like Cabinessence and Wonderful are unique and amazing though.

I wonder what a Smiley version of Cabinessence would sound like...

 

I reckon Lil Pad is a good indication of what the quieter parts of Cabinessence would sound like. The two always sound similar to me. As for the Who Ran The Iron Horse part, heaven knows what a Smiley treatment of that would've resulted in, but I'm sure it would've been groovy.

On a related note, somebody once posted that a musician/big BB fan once did a version of Tones with the Lil Pad lyrics over the top, and two went together extremely well. I found this idea fascinating as I've since tried to sing it myself and can hear the similarities, plus I've always wondered if Lil Pad was born out of Smile somehow. Anyone know the version I'm talking about?

I dunno. If SMiLE wasn't important in his eyes, why does he keep blocking the release of a boxset? I think a hidden reason is that he's somewhat... scared, of the original sessions. It's like if a tape of someone's mental breakdown was recorded. They definitely wouldn't want it released to the public. I've always wondered about the original wind section, though... What happened to it, for one? Wiped? Stolen? If it was stolen, how come it hasn't appeared on any bootlegs? And why would Brian wipe a piece of his biggest project?

I recall having read that even if Brian had wanted to, he could not have erased his own recorded material. IIRC, the tapes were property of Capitol (as they were paying for the sessions) and any engineer that would let an artist destroy or wipe master tapes would probably get in trouble with the union.

I believe Brian wiped the master for The Little Girl I Once Knew... And I can hear some trace elements of a previous track in I'm Waiting For The Day. So it's not completely unreasonable.

I agree with you.  Everytime they ask him about what he likes, or his favorite songs, or what he's proud of, etc... for instance... last week, in an interview he said that TLOS and BWRG are his crowning achievements.  Of cousre that's promo, but why not Mention Smile?  When asked what he likes to listen to, it's Rosemary Cloony or Diana Ross.  When asked what he regrets, he says taking drugs.  When asked what song he'd like to have Gershwin reimagine, it's California Girls.  I just don't think he's that into the SMilE stuff.  I think he was more into it when he was high, and he doesn't get high aymore, so he's just not as impressed with it. 

That's the conclusion I come to also. We want Brian to love and to have always loved SMiLE but he has made it very plain through the decades he was not really that into it beginning in 1967.

Well, let's remember that when Brian was doing the BWPS thing ad nauseam from late 2003 until the end of all of the touring in 2005, he was going on and on about how "Smile is my greatest work" and "Pet Sounds is a 4, Smile is a 10".

He was into it for awhile in '66 too but when he takes his longer view, beyond what he is into at the moment, all the decades he has plainly said he wasn't that into it. SMiLE is way down his list it seems to me.

Has Brian ever performed Heroes and Villains with his band like the single/Smiley version?

I find the BWPS version to drag a bit. It doesn't have the exciting edits it most certainly would have had, ala Good Vibrations, if Brian had finished it in full back then.

Not sure - been a while since I've watched the Radio City DVD. Anyone ?

I listened to Smiley today for the first time in quite a few months and have to say as much as I was enjoying the thing, when it got to track 6 and GV came on it hit me again with the force of a sledgehammer how far behind the rest of the record comes to matching it's brilliance. So I find it hard to believe that Brian chose the minimalist route for artistic reasons.

Good Vibes is the peak of the trip, man

little pad sets you up then WHAM good vibrations EVERYWHERE buzzing all round chuggachuggachuggachuggachugga psychedelic CELLO mystical sound goddess of the ocean and music luring you into the beyond

then back down to earth, to hawaii, with me tonight, i know you're with me tonight, on and on you go dom be do da

it fits PERFECTLY and it works to my ears, it makes GOOD VIBES sound all the better, and Smiley's tasteful unassuming scattered mind underproduced sound all the cooler

right at the end of Little Pad you have to take a huge hit of nitrous ready for good vibrations

by the time it's over you'll be coming down already, ready for With Me Tonight

see? it all makes sense

I think it's safe to say that if Brian didn't want to do Smiley Smile, he wouldn't have done it. PERIOD. This was 1967, way before the wifeandmanagers were in the picture. Never mind the fact that the voice heard in all the session tape count-ins and directions is Brian's. Smiley Smile was his first great "f*** you" to the band, Love You the second, and Adult/Child the third.

Indeed Brian was still firmly controlling the show in 1967, I just think SS turned out the way it did more because he'd rather be partying with Danny Hutton (and not spending hours in a studio for the perfect take), than because he was aiming for some big artistic statement.

Why can't that BE the "big artistic statement"? Sgt Pepper sounds like pretentious bullshit compared to Smiley Smile. I dare say many would have thought similarly about SMiLE had Brian continued going down that road.

I like to imagine, sometimes, Smiley Smile being a prank on Paul McCartney. Imagine: Brian knows that Paul is aware of a little bit of what Brian is doing with SMiLE. He heard Brian play Wonderful supposedly and one assumes Brian showed off telling him a bit about his grand ideas for the album. So he knows Paul's over there in Brit country with AGD trying to cook something up to beat him. So Brian reaches into his bag of tricks and pulls out Smiley Smile, just to f*** with Paul's mind. Imagine: you're Paul McCartney, you just made Sgt. Pepper with George Martin and those other guys, and you're feeling pretty darn good about yourself. Then you buy Smiley Smile expecting to hear Brian's big record that he heard about. Instead he hears Vegetables, Little Pad, With Me Tonight. He's been had. Brian tripped him up. Suddenly Paul feels incredibly self-conscious. He made this huge record thinking he had to compete with Brian's huge record, and instead Brian put out a whisper saying "Boo!" and it snuck right up on Paul. Now Paul feels like the kid at the science fair who got his dad to help and all the teachers know it.

When you go out on a limb, it's a vulnerable place to be.    

I think Brian spent the better part of his life second-guessing himself concerning Smile because it was so ambitious.  I think he thinks he showed his ass to the world.  A symphony to God?!?  Dad and Mike were right about me...who the hell did I think I was?  
  
What's that line in Smiley Smile?  "Don't think you're God"?  And then soon afterwards Brian was writing songs about puttering around the house, doing nothing, falling asleep, etc....

Maybe those songs about puttering around the house, doing nothing, and falling asleep ARE Brian's spiritual music. Sort of like Zen monks living simply, dig? We eat, we sleep, we get dressed. Brian's post-SMiLE music is VERY Zen... Imagine "I Went To Sleep" played in a soundtrack to a film about Buddha sitting under his tree. See? All makes sense in my mind.

No, Sgt. Pepper, compared to Smiley Smile, sounds like an album that has been properly thought out, recorded, and produced (nothing pretentious about that)...Smiley Smile sounds like an album that was recorded in someones bedroom and swimming pool...

What was it Brian said about what he learned on LSD? Something like - "I can't tell you what I learned, you either know it or you don't" ??

Same thing here man. Bedrooms and swimming pools are like paper covering the rock that is Sgt Pepper's indulgence.

I remember listening to Smiley Smile the other day, and when I got to track 6 (Good Vibrations), I suddenly imagined the songs on the album as people, and that Good Vibrations came on and said "Look at me! I'm Good Vibrations!....Wait, who the hell are these guys?"

Don't get me wrong, the Friends/I Went To Sleep stuff is one of my favorite BBs eras. 

Yeah, the moment when GV starts on that album, it really drives home Carl's "Bunt/Grandslam" comment. 

Sgt. Pepper's only problem is over saturation and mass acceptance and decades of adoration. Because of that people with limited perspective sometime feel the need to take a contrary point of view because they feel hip or more original doing that. In the context of summer 1967 Sgt. Peppers was like a cultural orgasm. It blew everything away. In its moment it was the most progressive artistic statement by a mainstream artist that also had an equal commercial impact. There never has been an avante-garde household item with the penetration of Sgt. Peppers. Because of its hugeness of course there is backlash. Smiley Smiley is a tiny blip in comparison. What I like about Smiley is how lame it is...funny...or even pathetic. Yes moments of beauty and the singles are great. The album is quirky in a wonderful, original way...its way more daring than Pepper or most anything. But i doubt that was exactly intentional. Its like Brian had a brain fart in the middle of a brilliant hallucination and then he pooped his pants a little and went into a laughing fit that ended up with him crying in a fetal position. Smiley Smile is kind of retarded...but that doesn't mean its bad...and for many of us that derailed quality is what makes it good. As a 1967 statement nobody...and I mean nobody cared. It had no impact. The Beach Boys and Brian were in free fall as cultural icons and Smiley just made them fall a little faster. Sgt. Peppers was the opposite of that. It solidified and even raised The Beatles standing across the board, artistically, commercially, it made them hipper and it made them more mainstream...all in one fell swoop. Smiley Smile...ummm...it was so bad then, that its good now.

Pepper was 11 years before I was born so I can offer zero cultural perspective on the album Jon, only what I have read in the history books. Yes it was a watershed moment from a production standpoint, opened the public's mind to what a 'pop' group could achieve musically, spearheaded the shift from singles to 'album orientated material', blah blah blah......  but looking back years later can anyone honestly say "Being for the Benefit of Mr.Kite" is y'know, a good song? 

I think the Radio City version is just like the single version with the ascending vocal harmony thing at the end.  Or basicallly the BWPS version without the intro, cantina section or tag...?

It's good compared to "Whistle In".

I'd say they're a draw. 

Um... yeah? A good song is a good song no matter who, where, or what made it. It's like calling the Kinks outdated. Music that like doesn't date.

A fantastic song and production. I love it.

Curtis, my point was I thought it was a terrible song! Thought so when I first heard it around the age of 13, still think so now after Christ knows how many changes in my musical tastes. "She's Leaving Home" is another song I cannot physically listen to.

Ringo doesn't even think that Sgt. Pepper was the Beatles best album. It was more the feeling of the era, which permeated the record, that made it such a watershed moment.

I can't say I really like the original version, but the 'Love' version is fantastic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG2zgWdYgCY (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG2zgWdYgCY)

I'd have to say 'Rubber Soul' is my favorite album by the Beatles, but I can't think of a better song in their collection than 'Lovely Rita' - ok, maybe 'Here There And Everywhere', but still....

Revolver has always been my favorite Beatles album, I can still remember the first time I heard it.  I played that stuff so much when I was younger though I really haven't listened to any of it for years. 

since we're on the beatles and sgt peppers.  EVERYONE should watch this video of this dude explaining why sgt peppers is much better than pet sounds.  gosh it's just hilarious. so so hilarious. even the beatles' fans can't believe how bad it is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpH_grmjJxA

and in regards to this thread.  my thought is MEH.  brian always answers the most recent thing he's done.  i mean he downplays pet sounds a lot.  SMiLE was his masterpiece.  i'd relax on what he's saying now.

You hate "She's Leaving Home" too?! Ah, man...

I agree with a lot of what you say but I'm not so sure about the above statement. I don't think it's about taking a contrary pov purely to appear hip. Of course there are those that do that, but some people truly value under-exposure, and cult status and I believe these things becomes as much a real aesthetic element to them as the beauty of the music itself.

They are not being short sighted. The in-crowdness of this secret album or band they're into actually enhances the beauty of the music and the mythology that surrounds it. After all, we are not just enjoying pure sound when we listen to music, but the narrative within the lyrics, the personalities and biogs of the bandmembers - it all becomes intertwined and I don't believe it's possible to say one element is more important than another.

I'm not trying to be argumentative. Funnily enough, I got into a disagreement on a message board a few years back with some guys that favoured Satanic Majesties over Sgt pepper. I said, "surely if you'd never heard pepper, then you heard it, it would blow your mind - much more than satanic Majesties?" But in retrospect I was missing the point I think, because they preferred the stones album. Whatever the reason, they preferred it. It was more beautiful to them either because it just was, or its underdog status made it more attractive - who knows. I guess you can take this argument to its logical conclusion and say, if somebody prefers the chicken song to Strawberry Fields Forever and somebody else is the opposite, who is right? It is a very complex problem I think.

Where in I'm Waiting for the day can you hear elements of a track other then the main one?

Now that is just hysterical: reminds me of a five-year-old stamping their foot and screaming "because I say so, because it is !!!".

Honestly, I don't see why it can't be accepted that Brian apparently thought the "feel" of Smiley Smile was what he wanted go with instead of the original SMiLE sessions. Why does it have to be that he wasn't telling the truth when he decided he'd rather put out an album like that. Obviously, his head was more in that way at the time, as people have said (i.e. "Busy Doin' Nothin'", "I Went to Sleep", etc').

It was obviously important for him to finish "Heroes" and as evidenced about the big to-do about bringing it to the radio station that one night, he still wanted to have it be a big deal. So, maybe his aesthetics switched. I am honestly a believer that he just wasn't into doin the SMiLE thing anymore, and he did what he wanted to do afterwards.

As far as I can tell-Brian ran out of time on Smile-due to a large number of factors-and that the BBs convinced him that they had to get a product out quickly as over a year had passed since Pet Sounds.  So they hastily recorded Smiley Smile to get some product out, however Brian still believed in Heroes and wanted to finish it.  I believe that he thought he had a great single-and it is pretty damn good-but I think that he over thought the thing-which many musicians do when they have too much time to play with it-it was better in Feb 67 than it was by July 67.  I think Smiley Smile other than Heroes was less about art and more about getting something in the shops.  Bruce's virtual absence-suggests that it may also have been an attempt by the group to rebuild a slightly damaged relationship with the head BB-after arguments over the previous year.  Hence-Brian's also agreeing to play Hawaii-to get back some BB spirit and the "straight" BBs decision to get a little crazy that summer-to bring the band closer together

There is no way Brian was 100% happy (heck, I'd even say 60% happy) with Smiley Smile....this is not based off of any factual information, but off the quality of work (compared to that of SMiLE) that was produced during the Smiley Smile sessions.

When he completed Pet Sounds, Brian took the album back to his place and he and Marilyn listened to it and cried...It was Brian's heart and soul on an album.

Can you imagine Brian taking 'Smiley Smile' home to give it a listen with Marilyn and crying afterwords at how beautiful it was? Hell no. I can see this happening with SMiLE....but not Smiley Smile.

Personally, I think after the failure (delayed success) of SMiLE, Brian went into 'I don't give a sh*t' mode where he still wrote beautiful music (Busy Doin Nothin', Time To Get Alone), but didn't have the drive/self-esteem to make any more FULL conceptual albums.

I like how Phillip Lambert phrased the transition Brian made from his progressive era to Smiley Smile and ever after: he stopped working to change the paradigm in which pop was created [as he did from Today! to Pet Sounds and the Smile sessions] and began to work within the dominant paradigm [giving us e.g. Wild Honey, Friends, and so on]. There is no denying that his work post-Smile is excellent and bountiful, but it is not at all the same sort of music that he was making before, when he was at is artistic and creative peak. I love the stuff he made after he stopped trying to change popular music, of course, but it is still disappointing listening to what could have been potentially but ultimately never was actually. So it goes...

That's how I see it, too. And Brian has such a great musical gift that the music couldn't stop coming out of him even if he didn't give a merda.  I also believe that the decision to shelve SMiLE was Brian's alone. But that doesn't mean that he wanted to shelve it.  I think he just saw no way to get it out and make everyone happy - and he lost confidence from the negativity, drugs, etc.  As has been previously mentioned, if SMiLE were just some album that Brian got bored with or felt wasn't his direction any more, it wouldn't have been such a big deal for him all those years. He would've had no problem talking about it and wouldn't have felt the need to hide from it.

I liked the rest of the post, but this doesn't add up. If it was just an attempt to 'get some product' out and only that...well, there were a few songs more or less completed already in the can. Maybe they needed some final splicing or editing or something, but they were pretty much done.

Wonderful
Wind chimes
'Fire'
Vegetables
He Gives Speeches
Our Prayer

They could have easily hastily assembled the finished product, finished up Heroes & Villains as is, then recorded the five or so other songs Smiley-smile quick-like. Would have been even quicker, in fact as half the album (rather than one song, good vibrations) would have already been recorded.

Sure the album would have been an obvious hodgepodge, patchy affair, but, hey it's product and still might have been more commercial than Smiley Smile.

I think getting product out was a primary concern of hte record label and probably the Beach Boy organization as a whole.

But I honestly think Brian deliberately set out to make a bad record. Part of him might have been sick of the material after having worked on it and the artist in him needed to move on; part of him was pissed off at elements in the band who weren't excited about it(I mean, he'd written Surf's Up! They thought it was sh*t--you can see where that would piss you off and bruise your ego, of which I think Brian might have had plenty of; pissed off about the record company pressure; part of him was just a little wacked out anyway. Maybe it was a joke, part of Brian's weird sense of humor; maybe it was a gigantic f*** you to everybody, including the stupid fun-in-the-sun fans, who knows?

I think it's more due to an artist's obligation to finish the product. You don't release a half finished painting. If the idea was tossed around, I have a strong feeling Brian would've vetoed it.

Who knows what went through Brian head during that time? If I remember correctly, he had some sort of mental breakdown. And I think the Smiley Smile sessions were largely controlled and assembled by Carl by that point, in order to simply work with the material Brian had already written.

One of the biggest problems with SMiLE is that Brian kept reworking it and tinkering it, adding sections whenever they popped into his head. For an artist who was as productive as Brian, this was a major problem. And then Van Dyke walked out because of the band, and it all fell apart. Too many reasons for why SMiLE was shelved.

I believe that he shelved it, simply because he had to. There was no way he could continue on with it.

To my untrained ears, Smiley Smile sounds like a passive agressive smack at the overproduced sound the group (and probably Brian) were tired of waiting for.  I think he made a lot of SMiLE with a certain amount of friends and people around that he was having some ... ehum...'good times' with, and after a while it grew a little heavy, the album was still far away from the majestic huge vision he had in his head, the other band members didn't like that everything took so long, I believe he was in a lawsuit with the record label, he was fighting with his wife, his dad, and his brother... Lots of stress, lots of work, and lots of production going into this album

So he just took a backseat, recorded some half ass tracks and that was that.  It was kind of the moment he stopped being super-productive.  I know he worked hard on stuff after that, but really to finish that album on the level he wanted to, that took an immense amount of work, which is obvious in the endless takes of H&V.  That was the moment the current version of Brian was born who doesn't always give a sh*t. 

I think there must have been a moment in his head when he said "Why am I trying so hard"... really he was working much harder than he needed to.  The stuff before this album came pretty easily, even Pet Sounds took what, 4 months?  That's not horrible for a huge, huge album... and all the earlier albums were very fast.  I think there were many many reasons he was quite ready to drop the album, I've heard people say that Sgt. Peppers kind of took the wind out of his sails, and made him feel that SMiLE was already dated before it was even released.

really a lot of speculation, we dont' know what was in the m an's head.  If you listen to SS, though, it sounds like a reaction to the overproduced sound of SMiLE. 

Oh, btw best exhibit is "With me tonight".  Nearly acapella, and he's what playing just single notes on an organ for the music?  That's almost as plain as him saying it outloud that he was done with the huge productions. 

I'm not sure if you're responding to my post or an earlier one. If not, then please ignore this, but I really believe that Sgt Pepper's brilliance is not a fixed thing, and that somebody arguing that Smiley is better, is not necessarily because they lack historical perspective to properly form a judgement. Cultural values change generation by generation. This is partly why, in those ubiquitous 'best album ever' polls, the albums at the top change decade by decade. I'd be extremely surprised if any respected music mag would put Sgt pepper at the top any more. This is not because they have limited perspective and can't appreciate its brilliance, but because the album's over-exposure has become a genuine negative attribute - it has become part of the cultural perception of the album. The album has not changed, but our relationship with it has. Revolver generally trumps it now in the polls I've seen, and I'm sure in the next decade we'll probably see The White Album trounce that and so on. When Pepper came out it was all about polish, and craft. It was the supreme example of a pop album as a piece of craftsmanship, and ironically once it had achieved that status, it automatically made the pursuit of technical excellence passe, opening the door to more laid back, homespun records: John Wesley Harding, The White Album etc.

The love of a lazy, unhinged album such as Smiley relates to a culture that embraces the slacker, outsider art, low-fi. People that value these things are more likely to prefer Smiley over Pepper. This doesn't mean they don't have the intelligence to appreciate the briliance of Sgt pepper, but that due to the values of their own cultural environment, Smiley Smile is a more beautiful record.

Responding to the youtube video explaining why Pepper is just sooooooooooooo much better than Pet Sounds. No slight intended to your good self.

Sorry, my bad, but gave me an opportunity to expound (as if I needed one), nonetheless!

Very early on in the mono mix - In the opening drum intro, there's SOMETHING going on, something very faint. Doubtful that it would be part of the actual track itself, it's too faint to hear without headphones.

Check out this thread for info on the I'm Waiting For The Day bleed through: http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=112858

Seriously though, once you've heard it, you can't not hear it so proceed with caution.  Now it bugs me every time I play the song and I probably would have never caught on to it had it not been pointed out to me.

Wow.

For a long time I used to ignore Smiley Smile and would listen to the SMiLE session material, because at that point I was comparing the two, but then recently I had another thought......Smiley is such a unique album and it indeed stands out, because I've never heard any other group who have handled psychedelia the way they had at that time, very stripped down and such. Whenever I hear a psychedelic album, the production is (most of the time) heavy and clean sounding, whereas with Smiley, they take a different route going the opposite direction, creating very light, thin and raw sound (I don't know if 'raw' is the best word), and that, I think, is why the album was hated at the time. Because I don't think many bands had approached psychedelia in that particular direction before, and the record-buying public had probably expected just the same as what they've already heard previously with other acts. The one thing that Smiley and Pet Sounds have in common is the kind of reception from the public the 2 records had received in the beginning. (Though, with Smiley, many of the original opinions still stand). Personally, even though Carl called it a bunt, which I can agree with production-wise, I think it was a foreward move from many other bands, just as SMiLE would have been a foreward move.

Whenever I listen to Smiley Smile nowadays, I don't think about SMiLE, I think of Smiley as a stand alone record that is special because its a unique album in their discography and it was a unique album for those times. Now I don't call it the best 1967 album. Nooo way, but its one of the more unique releases of that year.

I agree with this, but I'd feel a lot better about SMILEY SMILE if it didn't include "Heroes & Villains" and "Good Vibrations"; whatever charm the stripped-down weirdness has, it is not complimented by having two big productions leading off each album side.

i like viewing smiley smile as the cover shows it.  that building with the "smile" on it is actually "SMiLE" or at least the building on the original cover of smile.  you burn SMiLE in a fireplace and out the chimney of the building the smoke forms "smiley smile". 

makes sense in mah head.

What is Smile anyway? Is it the album that has "Barbara Ann" and "Kokomo" on it? You people seem to talk about it a lot. I bet you it's not as good as Peter Frampton's "Where I Should Be". He doesn't take all of the drugs that Mike Jardine or Al Wilson does. Isn't Al blind in one eye? Has to be the drugs! I prefer Herman's Hermits any day.

 :p

Don't forget the tacked on Smile coda to Vegtables. That has to be the most obvious splice of all time. They should have recorded that part in the home studio too. I wish someone had a photo of the look on the President of Capital's face when he was first presented Smiley Smile. It must have been priceless!!

Whatever it was, it was all Brian. If he wanted to finish SMiLE it would have been finished regardless of any wishes of the group, posse, label, et al.. No one told him what or when to do, he did in his own time and you could wait for it.

Brian's explained a lot why he wanted to drop SMiLE and do Smiley. If there is anything beyond what Brian explained back in the day, I'd bet it was just his desire to do a 90 degree from what he had been doing and/or what he may have thought the Beatles were doing. Or his developing crunchy sensibilities inspired a homegrown vibe. Who knows but whatever it was it was all about his Muse and the rest could go fish.

IMO, of course.

Don't forget that somebody had to master it as well...

I still enjoy the story of a friend of mine (since passed away) who bought Smiley Smile when it first came out. Him and his friends listened to it once then took it off of the turntable and flew it frisbee style into a tree.

The thing is as much as I like the bloody thing now, if I'd have been a teen back then, I imagine I'd have done the same thing!!

I suppose you could say they DID record that part in the home studio - It comes in right after the SMiLE part. Odd, odd way of handling it.

I always thought this was some kind of bleed-through from an adjacent echo chamber. Or two studios patched into the same echo chamber by accident.  Listening to it again, I don't hear much echo on it though. But it sounds too clear to be just an improperly erased tape.

\
Jon - Hope you don't mind my finding your reflections here, as a newer thread on this work, has cropped up.  Someone from across the sea (not the pond!) sent this along, http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNnPl99-MFwfeature=related (hope this works!)

I watched the 10 or so sections the other day and found that I liked it because the narrator did not put words in the Boys' mouths and let the work "speak for itself" rather than all this editorializing all over the place so that people are more influenced by someone else's opinion rather than formulating their own, with their own native intelligence...

One thing I will say with respect to the Sgt. Pepper comparison (and it is like old Solomon story) that the cover (Smiley Smile) being in
green did not exactly make it "pop" in the LP display cases in the record stores.  Also, it was more in "primary colors" which as a former Kindergarten teacher learned that red, yellow and blue are the colors from which all the others emanate, and primarily "red" which is used for stop signs, red lights, almost universally because of its length in the visual color spectrum.  And, I am not "dissing the art" which is lovely, but, whether the original artwork might have helped it visually stand up to the essentially "primary colors" of Sgt. Pepper. Physiologically and from no other "value judgment" perspective, the human eye "goes for" red, yellow and blue, as primary colors, before it goes to green, orange and purple, as we learned in teacher training. 

That said, the initial design of the storefront in more primary colors might have been used for marketing the album more successfully.  That is one digression from someone who looked for Smiley when it was released for the "inside" LP and beyond the green cover.  It is not so much the artwork, which is fine, but perhaps not the best to "pop" and stand out among a plethora of other competing LP's at the time. 

The other thing about this video is that Brian discusses in one segment the fact that he/they worked so hard and for so long on it that that  had to "get away from it " for awhile (Brian's words paraphrased) for awhile...and that is the reason.  I was not there so I don't know but those are Brian's words.  I like that there are clips with the Boys' own reflections and responses to both music and other issues.  I think they tell the story best in a format that allows them to tell it.   

What seems pretty evident to me is that despite Brian's great band (and I like them a lot) the tracks which are not far off from Smiley plus whatever was released on Box Sets or on my French edition, described as bonus tracks are not far afield from what Brian released in '04 with his band.  I sat in the audience and listened to "what I had already heard" and not new material. 

Someone in another thread mentioned pretty astutely, and I think correctly, having lived through those Andy Warhol/Peter Max/Sr. Corita Kent, etc.(Abstract Expressionism) pop art days, I think that the Boys' approach to "psychedelia" was, IIRC, a lighter and "airier" approach and I think that is right on the money. I never thought of "light and airy" but it seems that it is so.  And, that vocally, no one, compares to the Beach Boys vocals, in 1967, at a vocal peak, as it were for that work.  I would love to see a box set of Smile Sessions of the Boys.   


   

I still adhere to the school of thought that Smiley WAS Smile.   Brian heard Strawberry Fields and felt the Beatles had gotten to that big, freak out production thing first, so not being a "follower" he went in the opposite direction and made the small, intimate freak out production.  Taking the key elements of what he had wanted to do with Smile and bringing them down to their essence.  I personally think Smiley Smile is a much more interesting album than Pepper ever was and certainly over time it remains so - it's still a mystery in a lot of ways, where Pepper is just Pepper.
Smile would have been awesome had it been, but Smiley was, and it's great, unique, and fun.  IMO one of the best albums they ever did.

I would place Smiley Smile as one of the most radical and inflential uses of the human voice as an instrument. It has influenced numerous vocal composers and arrangers since its release. The bridge ti the Smiley version of Wonderful has been lauded and copied in several choral compositions since SS came out.

Brian`s use of human voice to convey emotions was never so finely honed as on SS. In particular, his use of various vocalists became finely crafted vocal equivalents of Zen minimalist paintings, which he was exposed to at the time.

I think of Arny Geller`s GOOD!, Mike Love`s Yogi Bear "Ting a Liiiiinnnngggg," the reversed laughs on Vegetables, the Little Pad herb vocals, and the distorted voices in Fall Breaks among others as examples. Brian`s tonal cameos on SS are the opposite of what he was trying to do with Smile `66, and in my opinion, just as creatively radical.

Brilliant post, Peter!