The Smiley Smile Message Board

Hi all,

I'm a longtime reader and guest of the board, but this is my first post. I know it's poor etiquette for my first post to be so self-serving, so please forgive me.

I'm an occasional columnist at the newspaper I work at, and they let me write about music. Pretty nifty gig, right? I've been able to write about Paul McCartney, the Monkees, Kurt Cobain, lots of my favorites.

Here's my latest column, written for the St. Cloud Times (a newspaper in Central Minnesota) about Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys, the music of "SMiLE‬" and the 10-year anniversary of the release of "‪Brian Wilson Presents Smile‬."

On Sept. 28, 2004, I was preparing for a new adventure. I'd loved the "Smile" recordings for years, and the release of the BWPS‬ studio album just gave me such a huge charge. It still does.

I'd love for you to read it and share your thoughts.

http://on.sctimes.com/1rrPlvg

And again, my apologies for my first post being some self-promotion. I've been a regular reader here, just haven't had much to contribute that others haven't said / expressed better before. Figured this community could understand my excitement with BWPS (even if it isn't the 1966/1967 "Smile" recordings).


Thanks!

It's always good to hear how fans reacted to the release of Smile in 2004, along with the live concert experiences, the online experiences, the whole deal. If someone would publish it I'd tell my own story related to the "live" experience and how a lot of really odd coincidences and connections came together to create a magical night of music in Boston, but I digress.

It's Smile, that's all i can say.

I like the personal angle in the column, very refreshing and it also establishes a connection to the anonymous thousands of readers who see the article. I wish more columns and reviews added that touch, although more like this one in a positive way rather than some of the usual critics' "I know more than you" tone. Not just critics, but also music blogs, certain current and former message boards, etc.

The stories connecting Smile to family, to the experience of getting and driving a car, how it ties into real life events: You'll never remove that or those feelings from the music, and that's what makes music just so damn special and personal.

I remember *exactly* where I was and how I felt when I received a CDR in the mail of that first Smile premiere concert a Royal Festival Hall (At that time for various reasons I only had dial-up access and could not DL it even if I was offered it...). I got the CD, after doing some sessions I put it on in the studio room - we sat in almost stunned silence and listened to it, breaking that silence occasionally to say things like "my God..." or "Holy sh*t" or to even choke back a tear or two.

I remember reading "Matt B" (who still posts here) as he reported back "live" from that premiere, when only those in that venue knew what was happening. One of the greatest shared experiences I have ever had or may ever have online with hundreds of people logged on from around the world. The world was *MUCH* smaller that night as we all watched Matt's reports come across the screen, it was a very special experience to share with true fans.

I remember getting those low-bitrate mp3 "sample" tracks of BWPS - Heck, I'll call it "Smile" - streamed online before the release. I'm not ashamed to admit I actually wept, the full tears of joy thing, as I first heard In Blue Hawaii, putting lyrics to music I'd imagined what they'd be for years. The quality sucked, but the total release and pure musical joy of that song just slayed me that day...and it still does.

Those reading all of these things from us sentimental types who like to write  ( :) ) will either get it and have personal experiences as well, or they will not. Their choice...their loss, I'd say too.

Nice column, thank you for sharing!

Now, why haven't you posted here before this week?  ;)

If no one minds, I'd like to move this to the main forum so more board members can read Chris' column and thoughts on the 10-year mark of the album. Hopefully more will see it on the main forum, read it, and even comment on it, perhaps sharing their own stories too. I think it's worth a read and some comments in return.

Edit: MOVED!  :)

I remember following those posts from London too...I was so excited I thought I was going to have a panic attack, but a good kind. If that's possible. It was like finding out Santa Claus was really real after being told, and thinking, he wasn't. What a magical time this was, hearing something I never thought I would hear...and having it turn out so good, when it could easily have failed.

This was of course before the backlash a couple years later.

Pulled out my BWPS recently to see how it held up...and damn, is it ever good. A miracle.

Onkster: Right on! I think it may be easy to forget how there was a time not much more than ten years ago where the thought of having *anything* done toward finishing Smile in any capacity would have been impossible if not unthinkable. Fan mixes were the order of the day, pure speculation and fantasy sequencing with what fragments and pieces were available.

Then, that one night as the online reports of a finished Smile version actually being performed on stage came in from England, it was actually happening. It was magical. I'll never forget it.

So if I can say this with equal parts wink-and-nod humor and some seriousness too...f*** the backlash. It was and is really that good.  :)  Smile as Brian "presented" it in 2004 via the shows and the album really was *THAT GOOD*!

Thanks for moving the column, to bring more exposure! I appreciate it a lot.

Because of the limits of print, a lot of what I wrote (and wanted to write) couldn't make it to the page (and thus, didn't translate to online ... sad), but right on with everything you've all been saying!

I remember being glued to my computer in February of 2004, downloading files from message boards and groups, getting the opening night show.

I shared it with a few other friends/fans (my university had dual T3 lines, so downloads didn't take forever), and we were just spellbound.

We listened to the first set, we didn't fastforward through it. Hearing the "You're Welcome" intro. Hearing the introductions. People talking about "Smile," launching into the golden oldies first ... It heightened anticipation, while also reminding you where this music came from ... and what came from it, too.

When we got to the "Smile" portion, my friends and online pals were very quiet. There'd be the occasional comment or IM, along the lines of "Brilliant!" or "IT WORKS!" or "That piece DOES fit there!", but for the most part, we just absorbed it. Volume on high, ears set right at the speakers, letting it all in.

At the end of "Good Vibrations," an IM pal wrote, "You can feel the ghosts of Carl and Dennis there, smiling and applauding too." I don't know that I'd go that far ... but damn, it sure felt right.

That night was special. Every fan board, every webpage that was anything BB/BW-related had SOMETHING about it.

It was one of those nights where you actually DID feel like music COULD solve every problem, do anything, bring EVERYONE together ... because it sure felt like everyone WAS brought together.

Now, certainly, even at the beginning, there were those who talked about the quality of Brian's voice, or the missing Beach Boys' voices, or whether or not this track would have followed that track in 1967, or if this lyric ever existed, all those "and what about ..." situations.

And that stuff is fascinating, in its own right, and totally valid. I don't dismiss any of it.

But for me, "Smile" had been one of those impossible-to-reach-for projects. Because no matter which fan mix did THIS or did THAT, nothing ever really felt "just right." But the 2004 live shows, and the "Brian Wilson Presents Smile" album, it felt right. Maybe it wasn't perfect, maybe it could never be perfect (especially without the other Beach Boys' voices on it), but damn if I wasn't just blown away and thinking, "This is about as good as it gets."

As I've said on some Facebook groups, where I've shared this article and the discussion of 2004 BWPS vs. 2011 Smile Sessions box have already been brought up, I'm just happy to have ALL of it. I don't have to choose one over the other.

The 2004 stuff isn't how BW would have done it in 1966/1967. That's cool. I accept it. But he didn't finish it in 1966/1967, either. I take what I can get, and marvel at all the goodies along the way.

The music is beautiful, it's timeless. Whether it's the pristine, virtuoso vocals of 1966/1967 or the worn (but still emotional) vocals of 2004, it FEELS right. Boy, do I love the music of "Smile." 2004 or otherwise.

I'm so glad to see that, at least so far, you guys feel the same way.

Music, in and of itself, can be a worthy and marvelous topic for discussion. But having those memories, the sentimental attachments, those glimpses into your own mental and spiritual fabric, those are the elements that people can't take away from you. And it's those reasons that make music so important to individuals and groups. You may not hear things at the same time, or in the same way, or in the same form, but you can bond over the shared love of something and share all that texture of experience with each other.

It's a beautiful thing, really. It truly is.

Many thanks for sharing the column and those experiences.

Sept 28 2004 was the day I completed my six-month Pacific Crest Trail hike so, being in Manning Park BC, I didn't get to hear the album on the day of release. I'd been to all six RFH concerts back in February that year though, and had recorded each so that I could listen to them on the way home on the bus each evening.

So I'd had that music spinning round in my head, on the psi-fi, throughout that six-month hike.

I was give a ride into Vancouver by friends and when I got there bough six copies of the album and a portable CD player specially so I could hear that album. (Which in a way mirrors how, about 15 years earlier I'd bought my first-ever CD player, specifically to listen to my first CD purchase - a Smile bootleg).

Gaah… ten years!!!!!

Count me in as a huge fan of BWPS too, folks -

it's a thing of beauty on its own terms. I always loved Robert Christgau's take on it, by the way.

http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=Brian+Wilson

http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/cdrev/wilson-rs.php

(original source:)

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/smile-20041014

Great article, and a great story. And yes, guitarfool2002, I *am* still here, ten years later, and still in love with Brian's music. I have a similarly personal take on the SMiLE premiere, some of which I've shared here before. The night itself was incredible: getting to the concert on the South Bank in London, crossing the Thames from Embankment tube station to the Royal Festival Hall with less than five minutes to go until show-time and taking our seats on the balcony *just* in time for the start of the concert, listening to the music unfold in the auditorium, obsessively scribbling notes to myself on a big pad of paper about how they'd connected all the disparate fragments and pieces of music I knew so well from hissy tapes, skipping CD-Rs, and badly encoded audio files, so that I could refer back to it later. It was already a mind-blowing day, one I would never forget, when I left the RFH, but there was still so much fun to come, and I didn't even realise it. I was staying in my Dad's flat in London, so my wife and I didn't have far to travel after the gig. We went for some dinner first, and then got back to the flat probably about an hour to an hour and a half after the concert ended. My wife was really tired, so she went to bed, and I just thought I'd log on to the SMiLE Shop board briefly (ha ha) to see what everybody made of the concert.

To my surprise, there wasn't much discussion yet. I had thought that the concert-goers would already be in full posting spate about all the details, as the gig had already been over for a couple of hours, but while there *were* loads of posts on-line about the concert, they were mainly from USA-based posters clamouring for more details. There had been a few UK concert-goers on the threads, but they were mainly posting things like 'Wow, my mind is blown, that was awesome' - which was absolutely true of everyone that had been there, but not much help to anyone in the States (or further afield...) desperate to know how Brian had performed SMiLE in a complete form after all these years. I think the most detail that was up by then was a set list, but that didn't really do justice to how the pieces were assembled within each song, or to how the songs were connected together.

I started with a not-very-detailed post, but pretty soon everyone was piling in asking for much, much more detail, so I quashed all thought of sleep, reached for the notes I'd made during the concert and started writing as much as I could. I had so much fun doing that, and as everyone in this thread has said so far, there was an amazing sense of being linked into a global phenomenon that was developing as I typed. That sounds over the top, but it really did feel like that. I was simply in the right place at the right time, connected to the Web (something of a chore in itself back then, compared to the iPhone-enabled ease of today), and with the information all the SMiLE fans worldwide wanted to know. I don't think I got to bed until after 4am UK time, by which time I was completely typed out.

I honestly think an experience like that is completely unrepeatable in my lifetime, as it would all be different even today (even assuming that there could again be the level of interest in an album like SMiLE being performed live for the first time, which is in itself an unrepeatable phenomenon). These days, people can stream video and audio live from concerts via their smartphones, and we couldn't really do that then to any similar extent. I was posting on a dial-up connection via a land-line phone on a pretty clunky Apple iBook, and I had to get back to a dwelling before I could even think of posting on the discussion board (if I'd been going home that night to my house 65 miles outside London, rather than to my Dad's flat, I probably wouldn't even have logged on until the morning, and the whole thing would have happened completely differently again). I'm pretty sure the discussion, if it happened today, wouldn't be taking place on one discussion board, either: it would be on a million Facebook sites, on Twitter, in one-to-one text exchanges. And there's no way it wouldn't already have happened an hour and a half to two hours after the concert. People would have been discussing it in real time, almost.

But for one night in 2004, people were hanging on everything we RFH concert-goers could add to one thread, on one board. It was an absolute blast. And quite apart from that, the evening had been the most extraordinary musical experience. It was probably one of the greatest evenings I will ever have, for so many reasons. Not least of which was this: my wife, no great Beach Boys fan and a long-term patient and understanding tolerator of my SMiLE obsessions, had found it an overwhelmingly brilliant experience as well, which clued me in that Brian, Van Dyke, Darian and the band had achieved something really quite extraordinary that evening. It wasn't just the SMiLE nuts that were blown away. SMiLE live translated to anyone who liked music; it really did.

And then the next day, I went to see it a *second* time - and it was even better than the first time, and a set of unrepeatable experiences for a host of quite different reasons. This time, I wasn't going as a paying punter, I was covering it for Sound On Sound, the magazine I was working for at the time. I got to watch rehearsals, to sit in the mobile truck recording everything outside the RFH, I got to interview the fantastically helpful and insightful Mark Linett during the afternoon... and then I got to watch the gig from the first few rows, along with the regular magazine photographer we used on these gigs. There was that translation again; Richard wasn't a Beach Boys fan at all, really, and just said he would watch a few songs of the live set, and then leave. I urged him to stay for the SMiLE part of the set, but he was adamant he would go. But the acoustic set completely hooked him, and he stayed. And at the end of the three-act SMiLE suite, he said he couldn't believe what a great concert it had been. He did leave at the end of SMiLE, so he missed the many-minutes long standing ovation Brian got that night. That was just another incredible experience to add to an already tottering pile of them I was having that weekend.

It didn't end there. Months later, when the album version was recorded, I got to meet Darian and Brian himself too, all for the Sound On Sound magazine article I was writing (see http://tinyurl.com/SMiLE2004SOS ). To me, SMiLE was the gift that just kept giving that year. It goes without saying that the music was unbelievable; I enjoyed every note of BWPS, and still do. For all the detractors and naysayers there have been ragging on it since, I cannot bring myself to think of it as anything but sheer creative brilliance, lightning in a bottle, in terms of the songwriting, the lyrics, the performance and the recording techniques involved - the complete package. But that wasn't all - there were all these other incredible, once-in-a-lifetime experiences associated with it for me as well.

Years later, there was an unhappy coda of sorts. In 2004, everything came together brilliantly: Brian and Van Dyke had finished and debuted a live version of SMiLE, it was (in my opinion...) utterly captivating, and I had got to see it, experience it, meet many of the major players and write about the recorded version in the way I had always dreamed I would like to. It's something of an understatement to say that things did not go so well in 2011. When the SMiLE Sessions box was ramping up for release that year, I planned to write another article for Sound On Sound about the original sessions. Mark Linett was, as ever, amazingly kind and generous with his time, and this time he put me in touch with Alan Boyd and C-man as well. I conducted lengthy interviews with all of them in late Autumn 2011 for another big article, full of the kind of detail we SMiLE-o-philes dream about.

At the same time, my wife was pregnant - a very, very difficult and stressful pregnancy, which nearly ended badly many, many times. Eventually, our son was born, in terribly difficult circumstances. He wasn't really well and out of danger until about February or March 2012 (two and a half years later, he is healthy and well, and absolutely amazing, thank goodness). Overlapping with that difficult period, in January 2012, after a couple of months of increasing weakness and mysterious illness, my father was diagnosed with terminal leukaemia. I spent the rest of that year trying to keep my writing business afloat during the day, being a father to my newborn son (with all of the challenges that usually involves anyway), and caring for my ailing Dad, which steadily became a round the clock task through the Spring and Summer as his condition worsened. Not unlike Brian with the original SMiLE (only with, in my case, a tiny fraction of the talent and inspiration!), I kept hoping to deliver the goods on SMiLE, creating new deadlines to deliver the article and repeatedly missing them; there just wasn't the time for me to do it justice. I never finished the article. I still have all the interviews and notes, but I never got it done. I'm still really, really disappointed that I never managed it.

My brilliant, wilful, cantankerous and difficult, but nonetheless fabulous father finally passed away in September 2012, after fighting a particularly vicious form of leukaemia for nine months. He greatly enjoyed That's Why God Made The Radio in his final weeks, and particularly the live Rolling Stone performances of the Beach Boys singing together for the first time in years, which I captured from a live stream and played for him. He was a jazz fan, really, far more in love with what Barney Kessel played in that vein than anything he ever played for Brian Wilson on Pet Sounds or SMiLE, but nonetheless, I do have Dad to thank for being a Beach Boys fan amongst everything else (he and my mother had a badly scratched copy of Live In London which I used to dance to when I was five - that's my Beach Boys 'in', right there), and he did really admire some of Brian's songwriting and work. In January 2011, a year before he became ill, and long before I ever knew there would be a Beach Boys track of the same name out within 18 months, we took a road trip up the Pacific Coast Highway together for three days after I had been in Los Angeles for work. We both enjoyed listening to Brian and the Boys on the car stereo as we made our way up past Santa Barbara, St Luis Obispo, Big Sur and Carmel, photographing the beautiful coastline as we went (Brian's songs are virtually required listening if you're ever making that particular breathtaking road trip). Dad never quite 'got' SMiLE, and he was pretty harsh about Smiley Smile and Friends, which he couldn't see much musical merit in at all (we had to agree to disagree on that...!) — but he liked a lot of the 63-66 stuff, Pet Sounds best of all, and actively loved That Lucky Old Sun. On that trip, I remember him being knocked out by little gems like Summer Means New Love, Your Summer Dream, and The Lonely Sea, which he had never heard before.

You could say it's inappropriate, because of course I know Brian didn't write any of That's Why God Loves The Radio for my father or me, but perhaps inevitably, I can't listen to any of the slower songs on that record without thinking of Dad. Pacific Coast Highway, of course, and Summer's Gone seem to spookily mirror some of my experiences during my father's last couple of years, and my feelings as the chill of Autumn began to take over in the early mornings from the summer heat in late August 2012, and I realised that Dad wasn't going to make it this time. Sheer coincidence, of course.

I was at the final Beach Boys concert of the 2012 C50 tour at Wembley, London in late September 2012 with my wife and two good friends. Like AGD here, I think that will probably be the final 'proper' Beach Boys concert the world will ever see (though you know, never say never...). If so, it would be an appropriate finale for me - my father's memorial service and cremation had taken place earlier that very week. I was exhausted in every possible sense of the word, and perhaps that soured me on the concert - I thought the Boys were quite rough and unimpressive throughout, and although it was a fun experience to attend with fans of the music, and to know I'd been there and to look back on in hindsight, it honestly didn't hold a candle to attending the SMiLE premiere, in my personal opinion. But I've never been a great one for live rock concerts anyway - I'm much more into recorded sound - and anyway, I think I would even have found it hard to be impressed by a personal accapella concert given by a time-travelling visit from the 1966-era Beach Boys at the end of that particular week in September 2012 (can it really be two years ago to the day?). Perhaps it isn't surprising that the rather ragged, discord-riven septuagenarian ensemble that cranked out the hits in Wembley that Friday evening didn't really do it for me on that occasion. In personal, shiver-down-the-spine terms, the concert didn't come close to the power of watching the dawn come up through my kitchen window in early Autumn 2012, listening to the last few tracks on TWGMTR on a good pair of headphones, as I did a few times that year. I look forward to No Pier Pressure, as I'll always look forward to new work by Brian Wilson, but he has paid his dues as far as I'm concerned, and created all of the amazing music I'll ever need. Anything good on the new record is a bonus, and he gets a free pass from me, even if the whole album proves to be musical wallpaper (which, incidentally, I doubt it will - however misplaced it may turn out to be, I have a good feeling about this album...).

Wow. A bit like the original post about the SMiLE premiere, I didn't really mean to write all of that. But there you go.

MattB
Cambridge, England

Superb post MattB, many many thanks for sharing.

And of course he wrote PCH and the like for you and your dad. He wrote it to move all of us, in whatever way it works…

I can only echo what John said here. Superb.

Matt, this is the kind of music writing I love to see--not so much minutia about trivia, but how one listens to music--what it does to them, how it relates to their life, how it helps them grow, makes them feel, changes their mind, changes their path. For me, this is what makes music so important.

I was sitting with my boss in an edit bay the other day, and we were talking about a local music show for some reason. He said, "I just don't get the music thing...at all." For him, sports is all...the numbers, the statistics, the winning, winning, winning. The absolute over the fluid. I'd feel sorry for the guy if he weren't so disdainful of anything outside his arena (no pun intended.)

I'll take the worlds of music, film, art, writing any day. And SMiLE, from the first times I heard the music, truly did change me in many ways, and opened my mind up to many new adventures.

SMiLE, 100; Boss: 0!

Matt B: That was superb, indeed, and moving. Thank you for sharing and posting those words and thoughts.

For those who were not around or who missed that premiere that night back in 2004, as Matt was busy typing and sending his initial reports from the show, it really was everything we're making it out to be. The world did seem to get much smaller, for BB's and Brian's fans glued to their screens that night, it felt like we were all in the same room waiting for the next report. Matt, the work you did that night will never be forgotten!

I, too, believe it will never be replicated, as technology and the idea of "instant information" has gotten even more instant in the past 10 years. While that is in some ways a good thing, I feel as Matt had said, with Twitter and the like, you may never have that shared experience feeling online as much as it was felt for that premiere.


When I also think back...ten years!...on what 2004 was versus 2014 personally, it can feel like two different worlds, or even three or more depending on various life events. Ten years, a lot has changed and some good and bad things have happened, but thinking about Smile and the events of 2004 makes me feel good. I think about all of the events, I think of all of the coincidences and seemingly unrelated events that led to seeing the Smile tour as it hit the US, and all of the good people online who came together to listen and to experience and to share...it makes me smile, above all!

10 years after the premiere and the album, coming up on 50 years after the original concept and sessions, we're smiling, we're sharing experiences with each other, we're enjoying the music, we're discussing the music...Brian (and Van Dyke) got it right. They did it.

Matt B, thank you so much for that. That was wonderful.

I'm so glad to see so many people still loving and appreciating BWPS. I know a lot of fans who still give it its due, but with reservations. But I can never dismiss any part of it, just because of the time, the memories, the "it actually is happening" excitement.

As you folks say, it'd be difficult / impossible to recapture that kind of feeling again. The world is smaller, but more diversified. When everyone can tweet or text or send a Facebook update, it means so much is being said and so little is being read. It's a matter of who shouts the loudest, and you start missing out on the discussion. The hushed excitement of shared experience. The little things.

In February and September 2004, two great things happened: SMiLE was unveiled as a "finished" work, and then SMiLE was released as a studio effort to be enjoyed in that medium. Matt B's experience at the first shows, wow! When I saw him in 2005 on the SMiLE Tour, I'd already heard the bootlegs of the first few shows. And I already had the studio album. So while it wasn't revelation upon revelation for me, what stood out was just how wonderful it truly was. Knowing how the music worked together may have deprived me of the "wow" first impressions, but it in no way lessened the thrill of seeing it LIVE, of seeing BRIAN WILSON doing SMiLE LIVE! Hearing "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow," hearing "Roll Plymouth Rock," getting "In Blue Hawaii," etc.

What a great time. What an important time!

Thank you all for sharing. It's been so great to read comments, to read the memories you've all shared.

Great posts!  I'm also a massive fan of BWPS.  I always took the view that as a standalone album (forgetting the history) it was, and is, a better album than just about anyone could record and release.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with a composer revisiting work he started decades before.  In a few hundred years 40 odd years will seem like nothing!

So many snapshots in that incredible year of SMiLE. One that I will always remember is standing in line at midnight at Easy Street Records in Seattle's Queen Anne neighborhood (that particular shop is now sadly closed).

Twenty four twenty-somethings all waiting in line for the strike of midnight. All waiting for the official release of the Holy Grail. Kids that were born in the early 80's...but they knew the mythology,  they knew what was about to transpire. Epic moment in time.

I looked back at the crowd and I SMiLED...thinking, wow. What a long strange trip it's been!

A long trip, a strange one, lots of twists ... but wow, what a destination when you got there.

Sometimes I really think, "You know, some folks lived for this music. Never got to hear it. Wanted to. Never did. Passed away, lost hearing, whatever. Some folks who loved BW, loved the Beach Boys, loved music, saw the Leonard Bernstein special, wanted to get it. Never did. I have. I've gotten it. I've got BWPS. I've got the Smile Sessions box. I've got history. I've got stuff they never did."

Not to be heavy. I'm not that important. But it's a form of context. I'm just not one to quibble over what I've been lucky enough to receive. Some stuff is better than others, or at least I like some stuff better than others, but I tend to fancy myself as being pretty lucky for what I've been able to hear / see / hold. I mean, John Lennon didn't get to hear it / see it. George Harrison. A lot of Brian's entourage from the 66/67 period. Chuck Britz?

When I think that Smile ... "came back to life" ... in 2004. And that it was TOURED. And then released AS AN ALBUM. And that people really loved it. And it did well. And it really made it hard for people to ignore / bury the original recordings, that demand (if anything) grew? That it led to the 2011 box? I mean, wow, we've gotten some great, wonderful gifts.

Sure, it isn't what Brian would have done in 1966/67. That's OK. People can still try to piece together what they think it could have been / should have been, if they want. I'm content with BWPS and the (slight) revision to the sequence on TSS. It ... just ... feels right to me.

I'm no insider. I haven't heard all of this or that. I've got a lot of the bootlegs. But I was born in 1980. I got into the Smile stuff in the mid to late 1990s. I was basically handed all this glorious stuff. I didn't have to slog through so much of what so many of you had to. I never had to feel ... I dunno ... betrayed? Disappointed? Rankled? ... by what was released. I was just like, "Damn, I thought the bootlegs were cool, but THIS is phenomenal!"

Hey, seriously, thanks to all of you for adding your memories, your impressions. I really do get a blast from reading them. It's just good fan reinforcement. Sometimes it's easy to go on a "but it could have been better" bender (I'm sure we're all guilty of that, whether it's with this album or something else in our lives), and it's just cool to be able to chill out and be like, "Yeah man, that is some really great music."

And thanks for reading my column. I appreciate it. :)

.

St. Cloud!  Go Huskies!  ;)

Right on! #GoHuskiesWOOOO ;)

(To be honest, I'm a transplant ... came here for the job. Still, been here 10 years, I like the place. :) )

First things first, Welcome to the forum!  :)

I can't tell you how many times this very train of thought has occurred to me regarding "SMiLE".

Like you, I feel tremendously lucky to have been present for this. My SMiLE obsession started in the late 70s, and I bought each and every bootleg available as they were released. I never DREAMED the original sessions would ever be officially released, much less that the project would be completed by Brian AND Van Dyke, and RELEASED and TOURED as a finished work. Mind officially blown.

At least as far as I go, I know I will never again in life have this type of experience. That's not to say I won't have other happy surprises occur, but as far as music is concerned, this was the big one for me, and nothing else will ever come close.

To add to what the others have said, I remember how excited we all were when they debuted the BWPS version of Heroes And Villains
on some radio show, and posts were flying fast and furious from all over the world saying things like "Their going to be playing it after the next break! Oh My God...I'm going to explode"  What a exciting moment that was. The night the show debuted in London, I was gigging, and COULDN'T WAIT to get home and get on the forums to find out what was going on.

Lucky dogs, the lot of us are, lucky dogs.

I really enjoyed your article, Well Done!  :)

P.S. I would like to encourage Matt B. if he's still lurking, to think about someday sharing those interviews he did with Mark, Alan and Craig. I know I would love to read them!

 :)

This thread is one of the finest I ever saw here, for obvious, but also personal reasons. It brought back so many fine memories... seeing some serious Blueboarders for the first time, for instance (the beautiful Anne-Marie Gregory, Robert Wheeler; Sue and Stu Levinson; and meeting Paul Adsett and his wife Ashley for the second time); and seeing Darian and other band members after the show; and also the Swedish Strings And Horns, including Markus Sandlund (R.I.P. Markus).

And going online sometime in the middle of the night, the hostel where we stayed had a separate computer room (thankfully), and watching the then Smile Shop and the Blueboard (that really had something to offer, then, not always, but frequently) alternatively. The massive and intense interest Stateside was so gripping... I did not sleep, nor did I want to.

Q: are the original messages from the US posters still saved and available somewhere? To enjoy a bit of nostalgia?

Tricycle Rider, thanks for the warm welcome and thank you for reading my article. I try not to get bogged down too much in the whole "we have this, while others have less" or whatever ... It can be a downer, and it can sound like I'm finger wagging or scolding or getting on a soap box. But sometimes I can't help but think, "Sometimes, we're pretty darn lucky." And the SMiLE stuff is a perfect example of that. :)

And The Heartical Don, I am not sure that I've met any Blueboarders in person (I've been to four BW shows, so it's quite possible ... we just never planned to hook up with anyone, and I'm a pretty passive viewer of the Blueboard these days), but that sounds like it was a fabulous time to be meeting those folks. :)

I don't know if the original messages from US posters are still available anywhere, I've been on a bit of a nostalgia kick recently (well, obviously), and I haven't come across much. A lot of the old Smile Shop stuff that I used to be able to find even a couple years ago has disappeared into the ether. Alas ...

Oh, I'm still here lurking, and really enjoying this thread too. Add me to the list of people that considers themselves very lucky to have lived to see all the SMiLE stuff finished and released (er... and then released again in 2011!). I first heard the Beach Boys aged 5, as mentioned above, but I didn't become a real fan until the Don Was documentary aired on BBC2 here in the UK, in 1995. So my wait for SMiLE (which began within weeks of the Was doc being on TV, as I voraciously snapped up all the info I could find about the Beach Boys' back-story) was literally decades shorter than that of a lot of dedicated fans. But it was still long enough to have felt that frisson of excitement when a big brown parcel arrived at my rented Cambridgeshire house in 1996 from somewhere in the middle of America containing... The Prokopy Tapes. How many others here had that feeling, or something very like it, I wonder?

At the risk of coming over 'it were all fields round 'ere when I were a lad', it felt amazing to put those hissy cassettes on and hear, for example, the SMiLE-era recording of Wind Chimes, Wonderful, Mrs O'Leary's Cow, or some of the wilder Heroes & Villains sections for the first time, when I only knew what was on Smiley Smile before that (and even that, I had only known about for a few months). Perhaps some of the younger members here felt the same way when some of that stuff became available on-line via various means, I don't know... but then I always liked cassettes; they were 'my format' when I first got into music in the late 70s. And then there was all the tracking down of CD bootlegs, the Sea Of Tunes stuff coming out, those amazingly beautiful long boxes and all the goodies they contained...

OK, enough nostalgia - I *am* starting to sound like an old git (I'm 43). But the point is... I was able to go from released stuff (Smiley Smile, Cabinessence on 20/20, Surf's Up on, er, Surf's Up) to bootlegs in a couple of months. Those who were around in 1967 will have had to have waited a decade to even do that in a rudimentary way - that's how long it took before even the first poor-quality bootlegs of SMiLE stuff began to surface. So I feel lucky. And finally, to experience the live SMiLE, to have had the pleasure of writing about SMiLE with the brief access I did have to the major players was a true delight, and then to live to see the release of BWPS *and* the original sessions in full quality. Yep, I've got no complaints, to say the least. There were many who didn't live to see that happen.

And Tricycle Rider - regarding the interviews I conducted with Alan, Mark and Craig in 2011; well,  I would *love* to do something with them, but the truth is, I'm really embarrassed that I promised those guys a big technical feature in one of the best mags out there for that kind of material, and then it never came to anything, which is wholly my fault. If I were ever to complete my work from those interviews, it would have to be with the explicit agreement of the original participants that it was OK to do that. They were extremely kind and generous with their time, and in return, I would owe them that courtesy at the very least. And then there's the question of where any such article would or could appear. I still write in the pro audio sphere as a journalist - that's my business - but persuading media outlets to take a big article on SMiLE would be quite tough now. The moment for that has kind of passed, which I regret.

Still, as I said of the Beach Boys reforming earlier in this thread... never say never...!

Finally, regarding the original posts from the SMiLE Shop on the evening of February 20th, 2004... aren't they archived here somewhere? After all, this IS the board that succeeded that one, isn't it? I know the Jo(h)ns Hunt and Lane are no longer directly involved here, and haven't been for years, but I could have sworn that this is the same place, code-wise, where we were posting back then. And I seem to remember being able to still view stuff from that night a few years ago here. Or has my brain melted?

Failing that, I *do* have them archived somewhere... because for a while, I did take copies of threads from here that were interesting, and I know I was doing that at around the time that SMiLE was debuted live. But which ancient computer they're on now, I really have forgotten. But I'm pretty sure I have copies of some stuff around somewhere. I'll take a look. (I can't say the same for the Blue Board, which I have never been a member of, or wanted to be, so I don't have anything from there that night).

MattB

Welcome to the board, Luckyoldsmile, and thanks for sharing your writing. I really enjoyed your recollections about BWPS.

Matt B - What a tremendous post about your RFH show experiences. It completely drew me in. It's a shame there's already a 33 & 1/3 book on Smile as you'd be the perfect candidate to do it justice (I found the recently released one a little 'dry', overly conceptual and frustrating that the writer takes 2/3rds of the book to even get to the Smile period).

Have you ever considered compiling your experience of the 2004 show and the research you've apparently done for the aborted piece on the Smile Sessions and trying to write a book about Smile as a whole? I think what your post above captured was the fan aspect - the message board craziness, bootlegs etc. It's all as much a part of the Smile myth as the stuff that went on in the 60s imo. VDP certainly thought so, as evidenced by some of his 'new' lyrics. Anyway my point is that Smile is not just the 60s stuff, but the 2004 work also, and you really had a front row seat in that sense. I'd certainly buy a book, or essay, you decided to write on the subject but I appreciate this sort of thing is extremely time consuming with little to no financial incentive.

It's nice to see all the love for BWPS in this thread. I went to the RFH 2nd show. It's weird because, at that point, I considered myself a Beach Boys fan inasmuch as I loved Pet Sounds and the albums that followed it up to about Surf's Up. But somehow I'd not really connected with Smile. The Smile stuff on the GV box, H&V aside, hadn't really grabbed me. Seeing the show, hearing it all sequenced, with stuff I'd never heard before like OMP, Barnyard, Look, CIFOTM, Fire etc. was revelatory.  There was a point during the slow part of Child where I had what can only be described as a musical epiphany. There was something about that sad, acid-fried sound, that I related to on a really deep level having had some bad drug experiences and mental health issues as a teenager. There's a great interview on Beautiful Dreamer with a concert goer at the end of the show where he describes Brian's ability to write songs that rip your soul out, show it to you, then put it back and pat you on the shoulder! I thought the guy nailed it with that description because that's exactly how CIFOTM felt to me.

Needless to say, after having such a powerful musical experience at the show, I became obsessed with Smile and it was, more or less, all I listened to repeatedly day in, day out, for the next few years. I started to worry that I would never want to listen to anything else! The Beatles are great, but only Brian Wilson can write music sends you completely 'round the bend!

Loving this thread and a great piece of writing - thanks Matt too for your recollections.

I was at the second show and can remember feeling quite impatient waiting for Smile to start but feeling so nervous.

For the next 47 minutes I was spellbound and shed a few tears as tunes came and went in the three movements - the Wonderful >Surf's Up segment was particularly magical.

And then there was the standing ovation - I have never heard anything like it - before or since - as Brian took the plaudits. I just went on and on as everyone recognised what a personal and musical achievement it was.

I saw Smile again in Oxford and Bristol and each time it moved me to tears.

Thank you Brian most of all for having the guts to finish it and thanks to all those musicians involved who brought it to life.

There will never be another Smile as broad as Brian's that night in the RFH

Thanks for the comments, buddhahat. Yes, I have considered writing something on SMiLE, but it's just time that prevents me, really. I have a family to support and a writing business to run, which, on the whole, is about much drier, more technical stuff than pure music writing - though I do really love the latter, so it would make a nice change. It's certainly not out of the question...

I have the Pet Sounds 33 1/3 book, but I didn't know there was one for SMiLE. I'll have to check it out. Sometimes, all you need is a spur to do something, which as much as anything can be "Jeez, I know I could make a better job of this book than... this!".

And it's funny you should mention Child Is Father Of The Man, because I've always thought that's one of the most amazing SMiLE tracks too. Despite its fragmentary nature, and the difficulty (indeed, the impossibility) of assembling any kind of 'finished' version from what Brian recorded in 1966, I thought the unfinished sections were always never less than incredible, even when I first heard them in absolutely AWFUL sonic quality. I always think Jules Siegel absolutely nailed it with his fantastic line about 'sequences of extraordinary power and beauty' when remembering the bits of SMiLE that really struck me when I first heard them (Siegel was primarily talking about Heroes and Villains in that quote, although also about other unspecified parts of SMiLE that were never released at the time). For me that line is the *perfect* description of some of the SMiLE recordings: they are nothing less than sonically powerful, but they're not just wall-of-sound overwhelming - they somehow manage to show economy, restraint, and, yes, great beauty through their intensely complex instrumental arrangements as well. In this, I'm thinking of, say, the 'thunderous' version of the Bicycle Rider chorus, with the mournful, distant minor-key piano, the deep, deep bass, and the clanging percussion accompaniment. Or the Fade To Vega-Tables, with all of it's intense instrumental and percussive complexity, and the vocal acrobatics on top, all without a word of lyrics being spoken. Or the 'thresher and hover' tag to Cabin Essence. This stuff can shake you to the core, it's that powerful, but not in an obliterative, take-your-head-off, destructive, full-on-heavy-rock kind of way — it *moves* you as you listen, as well as deeply impressing you. The other touchstone quote about the best bits of SMiLE, for me, is Van Dyke's comment about how Brian used to 'saturate the tape with music'. The best parts really do sound like that!

And (to return to what you said), for me, parts of Child Is Father Of The Man are in that club. In particular, the bit with the 'liquid guitar' and the muted trumpet that ended up with the 'Easy, My Child' lyrics over it in 2004, and the wordless instrumental version of that section which opens the track on the 2004 recording (I hesitate to call it the 'verse', because I'm not sure that the pieces were ever that well-defined...! I guess you could say it's the 'verse' in the 2004 version... that's about as far as I would take it).

Incidentally, in my opinion (and I know a lot of people can't get on board with this, but here goes), I think the 2004 live performances and studio recording provide the best versions of that particular composition. Not just because there are lyrics and singing at last over the formerly instrumental-only sections (although personally I do really rate VDP's contributions there, and the cascading 2004 vocal performances over that part); more simply, I think it's just the only version that really hangs together. And of course, it's a complete version that's available in the form of a high-quality recording, which absolutely wasn't true of any of the other versions in 2004, at least. The other thing about the 2004 version is that it's integrated beautifully into the second movement, which is probably my favourite of the three suites in terms of how well it fits together. Like I suspect quite a few people, I think some of the SMiLE sections suffer from what I call 'the Abbey Road' problem. They're great, or even incredibly amazing, little musical moments (didn't Bruce call them 'incredible little musical bites', or something on Endless Harmony?), but they don't make songs on their own, in the same way that Mean Mr Mustard or Golden Slumbers can't really work on their own outside the Medley. With SMiLE, I think the sections are much more impressive than the parts in the Abbey Road medley, but still they needed to be part of a larger whole to really make them work, and unlike with the music on Abbey Road, until 2004 we never had that framework around the parts of SMiLE that made them add up to something bigger and better. Whether the 2004 'frame' did and does justice to the sections on SMiLE is a debate that will never, ever end, but in my opinion, the most satisfying of them all was the one around the second movement. As a complete whole, I still find it hard to beat. For me, the structure of the movement magnifies and enhances the already incredibly interesting and satisfying brilliance of the pieces in Song For Children, CIFOTM, and Surf's Up, and takes them to an even higher level.

Anyway, I'm not sure if you were talking about the effect that the same section of Child Is Father Of The Man had on you, but I certainly feel the power in that part. The guitar playing arpeggios, with the slight triplet delay, has always sounded like the forerunner to sequenced electronic music from 20+ years later to me. The first time I heard it, that was a part where I honestly thought 'Wow, this guy really was ahead of his time'. People say that all of the time, and it's become a cliché, but I really did think that about that part of CIFOTM - like it really was a recording from the 90s that had been recorded in the 60s. In fact, I had that feeling from all sorts of parts of SMiLE, and the more sections I heard, the more I just couldn't believe what Brian had created, usually in quite small rooms in Hollywood in 1966-7. Someone (was it Tom Petty?) said in the 1995 Was documentary that he thought the best of the music Brian had made was "about as good a music as you can make", and the music recorded during the SMiLE Sessions absolutely fits that bill, for me.

Wandering off topic again, I'm afraid. I seem to have turned this post into 'what it is about SMiLE that I love', which wasn't really the original idea. And I still haven't directly thanked luckyoldsmile for kicking this discussion off, or for his great article, which inspired me to write more words on this subject than I have for years...! So, er... thanks!

Great stuff Matt. It's lovely to read such passionate posts about Smile again. We spend a lot of time here posting about 'what Brian might have intended' but not nearly as much about how the Smile stuff makes us feel on a human, emotional level.

Yes, I was talking about the same Child section. Of all the Smile fragments I think it's the most impressive in terms of sheer mood, atmosphere and its ability to transport the listener. I like your description of 'liquid guitar'. For me it's the aural equivalent of heat haze and conjures up images of awesome, arid, shimmering wild-west vistas, underpinned by a queasy sensation of psychedelic excess. Strawberry Fields Forever has this same acid queasiness to it - the summer of love beginning to spoil.

I can honestly say I've never been so moved by another single piece of music. The only thing that's come close is hearing certain Bach pieces for the first time. I don't mean that to sound pretentious (I'm no classical expert) and I am not trying to draw comparisons between the two composers - just that Bach is the only music that has come close to moving me in the same way as that Child section, make of that what you will!

Matt, your posts are a thing of beauty.  And if you ever do pull that article together, I will *so* be there for it.

Cheers,
Jon Blum

Smile continues to inspire, through the music and the ways in which it all became possible as of 2004 for us to actually hold a ticket in our hands and say "I'm going to see Smile performed live by Brian Wilson".

I can't help but to point out again that as late as 2002 and perhaps going into 2003, this notion would have been considered pure fantasy if not an impossibility.

What is amazing but not surprising is how *vivid* our memories can be regarding this stuff. Factor in everything that has happened in the past 10 years, every minute, hour, or day lost to time and faded memories, yet we can still remember specific details about where we were, what we were doing, etc. related to Smile concerts, the album, even discussions from afar on the internet. It's pretty amazing, really. I remember these details almost to what chair I was sitting in when that first RFH CDR went into the CD player and the music started to play. The live show...Boston, October 14th...I need to write about that too, with ten years coming up it's the right time.

Life is too short not to share and enjoy the common experiences. Smile, however it manages to do this, continues to inspire people as evidenced by this thread.

Thanks to everyone so far who has shared and has written very personal words and thoughts to share with all of us.

And as I said earlier, it is a reality, Brian did do it...I agree it will be tough to match in any way the effect that all of this had on those of us who followed the saga for years with that lingering sense that we'd never get to hear more than the various pieces and fragments scattered around bootlegs and other sources, and we were half a step away from declaring "that's all we're going to get". Then, that sliver of hope, that "what if..." sense of optimism led up to 2004, and it was a triumph. It actually happened, and as several have said, consider us fortunate to have been able to see it unfold right in front of us. Not to mention the ultimate positive in the whole story, which is Brian getting work underway with Darian, then being able to call Van Dyke on a whim asking about an obscure lyric, which led to "let's finish this".

Question: Who at any of the live shows did not choke back some tears if not let them openly run down our faces at various points during the shows?

Damn. I'm sentimental in my old(er) age, but this thread and reading all the experiences combined with reflecting over ten years plus...that gets me where it counts, you know?  :)

Lovely call, Guitarfool -

I recall when the first announcements about SMiLE going to be presented in its entirety live on stage did the rounds. For me it was Melinda on the Blueboard. And I remember my mind buzzing, spinning about that... competing thoughts: how on earth will he be able to pull that off? Must get ticket, must get ticket, must get ticket ad infinitum and ad nauseam... 'this can't be true, it's a joke by a troll', whatever...

...and boy, did it all turn out all right to the power of 10.

I remember when I'd heard that "SMiLE" was going to be performed live. I was in my second-to-last semester of college. I was working for the Columbia Missourian, as a nation/world editor and as a design paginator, so I was in front of a computer a lot. (Nothing much has changed. Heh.)

There are Google alerts now, but I don't recall there being much in the way of Google alerts then. So I don't think I'd gotten any kind of notice particularly timely about it. I don't think I knew the first day of the announcement it was happening. But I remember I was at work, sitting at my desk near the photo office, and reading the words and saying, "Oh my God!" I remember the person next to me looking alarmed and asking, "What's wrong?!" Heh. Ooops. ;)

Never once did I think, "Wow, will they pull this off?" Or, "Boy, I bet that's gonna stink." Or even, "Well, I hope they do it OK." I try not to think of myself as a cynic ... I try to think of myself as a realist, hoping for the best, preparing for the worst, expecting something in-between. But with the announcement, I was totally just upbeat. I was like, "I can't believe it. I can't believe it!"

I'd been enough of a fan for long enough at that point to know that "SMiLE" had been promised many times in the past. But as has been pointed out here, even as recently as 2000-2002, Brian didn't even want to talk about it. And when he did, he was curt and dismissive.

The all-star tribute to Brian, when he pulled out "Heroes and Villains," THAT was pretty magical. I mean, even when I watch it now, and hear how it hadn't really all been worked out yet, it still FEELS kinda magical. I've seen him do it live a few times and it's a lot smoother and more natural than it was in the tribute show, but the tribute show performance was ... well, not raw, but it was so electric. I felt sparks. I'm a fanboy. ;)

I give a lot of credit to that performance (and to the fan reaction to it and to "Surf's Up"), I give a lot of credit to BW's band, I give a lot of credit to Melinda for asking, "So why ISN'T this music out there?" I mean, talk about all things aligning just right. Stars, moons, planets, whatever. It all worked out, to our advantage.

Thanks everyone for the really kind words. Thank you very much for reading mine.

When I was a younger fan, I missed out a lot on being able to talk about this stuff with people when it was fresh. And when I was getting into things, a lot of people had started to get out of them. They'd lived with stuff, there was a lot of "been there, done that." I'm loving the give-and-take sharing on the thread. Thank you.

Thank you to Matt for his coverage back then, and Chris for his article with today's perspective. There are some talented writers that are members here, and these guys are two of them!

I saw Brian at the Puyallup Fair outside of Seattle on Sept. 21st in 2000 (Pet Sounds tour).

After the show, I encountered two hyper high school kids who were hoping for an autograph from Brian. We were talking all things Brian/Beach Boys when I asked them, 'what'll you think he'll do for a follow up to the Pet Sounds tour?' They excitedly told me that in speaking with someone from the crew they were informed Brian plans to tour Smile.

I just grinned and thought, oh righhhhty then. That'll happen!

I have no idea whether this grand idea truly had its genesis as far back as 2000, but I know what they told me at the time. And just like the record store experience a few years later, I was thinking 'wow, these kids are in high school and they're totally into Smile!'

I too would love to see from Matt any fresh writings about Smile based on his interviews of 2011.  Funnily enough, when the Smile Sessions came out, I submitted a request for an article about the release to Sound on Sound's online suggestion box  :)

I also thoroughly enjoyed his SOS article about BWPS.

Thank you very much, sir. That's high praise, indeed. Wow! :)

And I agree, Matt has such a great way with words, conjures memories and brings the emotions out.

A pleasure to read. :)

I was reminiscing and took the time to listen to the boot from the first show. As I did when I first listened to it that night in 2004, I started from the beginning. What a great show. What a moving performance. Just a thrill, even now. :)

Might listen to the second night sometime in the next couple days.

My thanks to the members of the Beach Boys / Brian Wilson fan community, past and present, who shared this music (and other music), which did so much for drawing me further into the band. I've enjoyed the thoughts, the writings (be it from published authors or forum posts), the perspectives, the rants, the raves. All of it.

It's been a wonderful journey so far, and I look forward to it continuing.

Thank you again!

Happy SMiLE Day, everyone.

11 years ago today, BWPS was released.