The Smiley Smile Message Board

Tried to lay out my perspective after all these years regarding SMiLE. I may expand but here's where it stands if anyone is interested....

http://www.goodhumorsmile.com/page26.htm

Kinda cool how Vosse Posse folk's POV makes sense given this interpretation. Jules Siegel's POV about Brian & hip works out. David Anderle's opinion that much of the weight of SMiLE falls on the public's assumptions plays into it. Michael Vosse's insistence that Brian was in control & cool seems accurate.
The LSD guys: Brian, Van Dyke & Frank also fit into this view quite well.

A fairly recent by Brian reeks of truth, "A lot of the groups and singers in the mid 60s were taking acid and all those kind of drugs, and what it did was expand people's consciousness to the point where they didn't know how to handle it, you know?".

What Brian did at the time, and his way of handling it, seems to correspond with the way things are outlined in the previous post's link. It's quite amazing how folks gravitate to status quo points of view.

It's good to see you Bill! Those magazine clippings you posted on your page at the link above are not ones commonly seen or reprinted, yet they show where Brian was at while making Pet Sounds and going into later 1966. As much as some have tried to downplay this, Brian's thoughts from that time show that he was ahead of the curve along with a very small group of his musician peers who saw that pop music was moving beyond love songs and into deeper content which required more than a surface analysis or reaction from the listeners. This was a big realization and it took the mainstream a little more time to really see what was happening. It's the whole theme of "Inside Pop" where Leonard Bernstein and David Oppenheim put this on TV in the form of a network news special that took until April 1967 to air. But over a year prior, in a so-called "pop" magazine, there was Brian laying it out. Therefore, it was no surprise that Brian was featured in that show as one of the marquee appearances.

I'm due for a re-read of your site, Bill. Going back 20 years+, you were tapping into the elements of the Smile saga that are so crucial to forming a more universal understanding of how it all came together. You and a few others inspired me personally to dig deeper into areas that were not as widely dissected, including things as mundane as day-to-day life during this era and how Brian's psychedelic experiences, religious explorations, and his general quest for knowledge during this time all contributed to his creativity and the products of that creative spark.

I always thought since Brian wasn't what they used to call a "college man", instead of the formal college classroom, Brian first studied his craft in a post-grad kind of way by hanging around the LA studios and watching his peers produce and create recordings. Then as many who go to college will do, he started to expand his worldview by delving into philosophy, religion, and different ways of seeing and perceiving one's existence in the world. And it all added up to what started to come out in his music. His growth as a writer, producer, and arranger simply from 1964 to 1966 is amazing to consider, and all we need to do is listen to those records chronologically to hear that growth. 2 years! It's comparable for those who attended college to see who they were at age 18 entering college and who they became by the time they were in their last semester. All that knowledge and experience in a short time eventually has an effect, whether we realized it at the time or not.

And as I'm fond of saying, none of this happened in a vacuum. What eventually turned into the Smile era was built on many elements and foundations that were coming together in that short span of a few years leading up to Pet Sounds and Good Vibrations.

And that's why I'll editorialize a bit and say one of the more sad developments I've seen in the world of Beach Boys history and reporting is what looks like a deliberate attempt to pack all of this stuff that we're discussing into a closet in favor of what's written on tape boxes and AFM contracts, and what certain individuals wish to tell as "the" story which simply cannot be done with Smile.

I sincerely hope that we will return to the types of Smile discussions and analysis that was the norm 20 years ago and thereabouts, and not have individuals try to create an "official" narrative on Smile which excludes elements that may be inconvenient truths for whatever reasons that happens or is happening. The beauty of Smile is and always has been how multilayered and open to interpretation it really was and is, and I think that was by design from the creators. No one will interpret it the same way, which is the whole point. Some people will see Frank's cover at face value, and others will see the deeper interpretation of it. Same with that back cover of the band rowing a boat in Boston harbor: Some with get the absurd humor that Vosse pointed out, others will see it as the band in a boat.

I hope there will not be an "official" history that tells a narrative based on documents while shutting out thousands of possible external and internal elements that all came together to create what we hear and see as Smile. And I truly believe the psychedelic experience and the quest for enlightenment was a major part of it. Let's not exclude that. 

Nearly 30 years ago, Conan O'Brien hosted Don Was who was then promoting the IJWMFTT documentary.  Was made a comment about Brian that has always stuck with me. He said, "Everything that I could say about Brian I could also say the opposite about him."

In that vein...

The music from the Smile sessions was LSD-influenced... and also not LSD-influenced.

Brian was a neurotic mess incapable of finishing Smile... and also Brian was, as in Vosse's view, totally in command, "leading the charge" and perfectly capable of finishing Smile.

Brian cared deeply about winning the approval of Mike Love, the group, Murry et al. or whomever ...  and also Brian was confident in his personal vision and couldn't have cared less what Mike Love or anyone else thought.

All of that could have been true... and none of it could have been true... as the "truth" about Brian Wilson is a moving target, varying by the day... even by the hour or minute.

For me, one of the most interesting post-Smile primary sources is the audio interview by Jamake Highwater (1/11/1968). Brian comes off as very cogent and articulate, dispelling the myth that he was some sort of catatonic mess in the months that followed the collapse of Smile.  At the same time, he admits that he had  experienced bouts of "paranoia" in the preceding year.  We've all heard the story about Brian thinking Jule Siegel's girlfriend to be a witch messing with his brain with ESP.  One must assume that to be a paranoid fantasy.  Was that mental illness?  Or simply the sort of paranoia associated with over-consumption of high-grade hash?  Neither? Both?

Bill delves into the ethereal/intellectual side of Smile - the things that aren't on tape but were, on a grand or microscopic level, very much a part of Smile. Things that I never really thought about or knew (before reading his work), but things that make sense once you connect the puzzle pieces. And Bill has done a phenomenal job of assembling even the most obscure puzzle pieces and fitting them into a more cohesive picture.

Guitarfool, you mention some parties wanting to pack all of this into a closet, and that's 100% spot on from what I've seen. Which is both foolish and sad, because both the abstract (Brian's religious/world views) and the tangible (the recorded music) are integral parts of the Smile story. But for some reason certain parties attack those with any theories regarding the abstract.

Specific to the Jules Siegel story, it's been suggested that the whole witch story was a ruse or a put-on to get rid of Jules himself, as his personality was starting to grate with the people he was hanging around with. That girlfriend was Chrissy Jolly, who is also in the airport photos. I have a feeling she was just the scapegoat to get rid of Jules without having to tell him not to come around anymore. The first we heard of any of this was in Jules' own article about Smile, and of course Jules is prominently seen in the GV promo film probably more than or as much as the Beach Boys, which means he was very much "in" the inner circle for a time. So something soured as they were hanging out, and if you listen to the Smile "lifeboat" tapes, Jules does get a little more salty and forceful than pretty much anyone else, and the whole mood goes from a party game to a tense conversation. Is that the personality trait that eventually soured the whole thing? That's up for interpretation, but I think the whole witch/ESP thing was an easier way to get rid of Jules than outright telling him.

And taken in that way, it plays into another personality trait of Brian's, two actually: His desire to avoid confrontations and conflict, and his love of the put-on. I think a lot of observers misinterpreted Brian's humor, which goes back to Hawthorne, as something other than the grand tradition of the put-on. To people not familiar with this, a lot of the most widely reported cases of Brian acting like crazy Brian were taken at face value rather than seeing the type of humor he engaged in. There are examples of this reported and published, and others that were not. Most famous among them might be Brian showing up for an important interview or meeting with his face painted green, playing one of the heads of A&M Records the Jasper tapes instead of what they though was his own work they'd be bidding on, the karate kick with Elvis, people showing up at the house and finding Brian digging a grave, Brian playing Shortnin Bread with Iggy Pop and Alice Cooper for 40 minutes straight until they finally left, etc. If you take each of those at face value, then obviously it's bizarre. If you take it as Brian's humor dating back to Hawthorne school days, each of those can be pretty hilarious to visualize. And the beauty of the put-on in humor is as much in the build-up and preparation, and the payoff is the reaction of the person being put on.

One of the books mentioned a joke Brian used to pull driving around Hawthorne, where he'd have a milk carton full of wet oatmeal, and when they came to a stop next to another car, Brian would lean out the window and pretend to be sick and vomit the oatmeal out of the car window. The reaction of the people in the car next to them who saw all this was the payoff, the punchline that got the laughs. I think the whole witch/ESP thing with Ms. Jolly was a put-on, maybe to get some laughs, but also to serve a purpose of keeping Jules out of the sessions and outside the inner circle. And it's not too far from the humor that led Brian to greet a visitor wearing green facepaint or digging a grave, it's a way to both avoid something and get a laugh, and also put the people off guard.

So I'd say, potentially, "neither". I don't think Brian really thought Ms. Jolly was a witch, but it was a means to an end to serve a purpose. I'm not saying Brian's humor was on the level of a Jonathan Winters or Oscar Levant where sometimes you legitimately could not tell if they were suffering a mental illness or just doing their schtick (and in their cases they truly were ill and people couldn't always tell if it was schtick), but Brian's humor and love of the put-on was something he would put to use when he wanted or needed to, and I think it got misinterpreted sometimes by people who didn't get that kind of humor.

I certainly don't understand it, and it does sadden me because that's not the world of Smile discussion that got me hooked decades ago and which I eventually found online. Part of me says the attacking is because expanding the topics too far, or entertaining other theories outside the standard information, might go against a preferred narrative, which seems to want to point one way when it comes to Smile. But it's not that easy of a conclusion to reach. And that's not how the history should be written for future readers, when there is and was so much else happening to create what we call the Smile Era beyond what is logged on studio sheets. It is sad for anyone who missed the original discussions that used to happen around Smile and will potentially only have whatever the preferred narrative is for future generations who discover the music as we did. 

I have to admit I got sucked into the afm contract and tape crowd during the smile sessions. I wasn’t the nicest to Bill Tobelman and I apologize to him.

I hear you on the humor thing.  One of my favorite Brian stories (I can't remember where I read it) involved a  1970s era meeting of the Brother Records principals in a law office.  Brian allegedly decided to take a nap and/or pass out on the conference table during the meeting.  When it came time to vote on whatever issue or contract was at hand, all attempts to wake Brian from his slumber appeared futile.  Finally, exasperated, the lead lawyer running the meeting said, "Brian, if you can hear me, and and wish to vote 'yes' on this thing, just knock on the table.  If you want to vote no, knock on the table twice."   What do you know? Darned if Brian didn't respond by knocking on the table...three times.

And yet I'm not of the opinion that Brian's struggles with mental illness dating from the '60s are or were mostly a put-on.   When he mentions to Highwater having experienced "paranoia" in 1967, he sounds sincere.  One could argue that the slowness with which his family got Brian psychiatric help might partially be explained by everyone thinking that Brian was just "eccentric" or "putting people on."

Not this again.. Please see the old threads for more on this.

Hi guitarfool and juggler,

I’m not denying Brian’s unique sense of humor (comedy skits on some of the early albums and also those recorded for Smile), and I agree that the karate kick with Elvis was very likely a joke, meant to be an ice-breaker, etc. However, I have a hard time believing that none of these stories were (drug-) or mental health-related, specifically the one about Brian digging a grave in his backyard. I don’t know as much about Brian’s personal life as you both (and many others here on the forum) do, so I’ll gladly largely retract my statement if you have more info that I likely don’t know about.

Yeah, this again. Because this is integral to Smile in general. What do you think Brian was reading/studying when he made the damn album? Absolutely he was reading Buddhism ("healthy eating," the Elements, etc) and it affected his entire worldview at the time. He was reading other esoteric tomes as well. Brian was well-read and prone to that kind of book.

What is the "this" which you're referring to?

I never said or suggested that none of the stories I mentioned were 100% one thing or the other. It's a case where we hear a story second or third hand, and ultimately only the people who were there know exactly what happened and how it happened. There is usually if not always a middle ground where it was either an attempt at humor or suggestive of other issues at play. I'm just offering that middle ground for discussion and to suggest to others that maybe they consider a different angle for some of these stories or anecdotes, not that it was 100% either way.

I was thinking about this and considering too how many stories there are of musicians doing crazy things or acting crazy, to the point where it becomes part of their "legend" and is actually looked on as a funny or positive thing by (at this point) multiple generations of fans. We know many of the legendary tales of rock and roll debauchery and bad behavior. But consider if it were not Keith Richards, or John Lennon, or Pete Townshend, or name any other rocker: Would it be considered normal behavior to drive a car into a swimming pool, throw televisions out of hotel windows and destroy hotel rooms, smash and destroy expensive guitars, wear a toilet seat around your head, etc etc etc. Absolutely not, yet those stories and behaviors are looked on fondly by fans. If your neighbor who is a regular working guy suddenly threw a TV out of his bedroom window or went out to grab a coffee wearing a toilet seat around his neck, you'd think "wow, that guy flipped his lid" or something. But if a rocker does it, many fans think it's hilarious.

Again not suggesting anything about the topic at hand, but you can see where there is a middle ground which makes such behavior acceptable if not accepted and almost praised by celebrities' fans and what would be considered strange or totally crackpot if the guy who works a normal job were to do the same thing.

Some people just have a bizarre sense of humor which makes things even more hazy. And with Brian Wilson specifically, I think unfortunately some fans after reading and hearing things about him might assume the guy acted a certain way or was a certain way 24/7, even during the bad periods, and that just wasn't the case as it isn't the case with most people in similar situations.

Basically it comes down to the idea that Brian Wilson was/is a human being. See him as a human being during the Smile-era, dealing with certain emotions and exhibiting certain behavior.  It's not an either/or situation where we have to choose between two extremes: (1) he's insane or (2) it's all just in good fun.  He's having trouble, it's serious trouble, and at the same time he's making music.  Can the two things be related in some way?  If so, how...  one thing that might influence a person's view is their subjective opinion about the music Brian was creating during this time. If you don't like the music of Smile (and Pet Sounds), then you might be more receptive to the view that Brian was insane, or sick, or is fried on drugs, etc.  This is in fact a good way to discredit Smile and Brian's efforts to create that music.  You can "pathologize" Brian Wilson as mentally ill, and by extension, you can do the same to the music, and thereby discredit it. 

On the other hand, if you're a big fan of Smile and similar music, and if the music makes sense to you when you hear it, then you're confronted with the apparent fact that he was having trouble while he made it - paranoia, irrationality, effects of a bad LSD trip, inscrutability, etc.  So you have to reconcile these two things, and there are various ways to do that. The best way to do this, in my opinion is to see Brian as a human being first, rather than as "mentally ill" or a "genius."


So I think "middle ground" is the right way to think of it - a position that reconciles, or harmonizes different facts in a way that makes sense.  Easier said than done. But it can be done, provided that some very unpleasant realiies about Brian's life are fully aired, so that Brian's actions as of the mid-60s can be properly contextualized.


There are some books and at least one documentary in which David Anderle mentions Brian's idea to have Anderle, or some other friend, start a fight in a bar, so Brian could record the sounds.  This is usually offered as evidence of Brian's craziness, or at the least, his strange eccentricity at the time.  Which makes sense - who would want to do that.  It's interesting, as a kind of minor footnote, that Alex Chilton apparently did something very similar around the time he was recording Big Star Third (another album that collapsed)- they're in a bar, Chilton picks a fight, and someone has a recorder and hits "record" and apparently there was, or is, a tape out there (this is mentioned in the Chilton biography). Jim Dickinson was, I think the producer or somehow involved in those sessions, and later, Dickinson produces the Replacements' Pleased to Meet Me, on which, lo and behold, one of the cuts features (pre-fabricated) bar-fight sounds in the middle. It could just be a coincidence though.

Bill's theory. I think if you have a look back at the history on here you'll see it's just a fantasy.
I'll add to that, i'm pretty sure that was confirmed by those that would know.
Brian was spontaneously rolling through an age of significant change.
Joining the dots, after the fact and drawing a preconceived conclusion doesn't make it correct. 

I may not agree with all of Bill's theories, but in fairness how many articles or books or dissertations do we all read on a regular basis where we agree with the author 100% up and down? Just on the page link Bill posted above, I saw article clippings that I did not remember seeing, and they're not as widely reprinted as others, and those made me think about other topics related to Smile. For that I'm thankful for Bill for posting those, and isn't taking some new knowledge or information about Smile or any other topic the whole point, even if we don't agree with everything the author writes?

I said it earlier in the thread, I miss the way Smile used to be discussed in earlier years, where many people who had a love for the music and a deep connection to it would offer discussions and theories online and it made others with a similar interest think in perhaps a different way about a topic than they had before, and open up some new doors. It really did make the music itself as well as the backstory on how a guy went from "Be True To Your School" and "Finders Keepers" to "Cabinessence" and "Surf's Up" in roughly 3 years more interesting and fascinating. At least Bill's site offered some of the possible elements that led to that kind of growth and change in such a short period of time, and people reading could check those sources out for themselves. You don't have to agree with everything in an article in order to take something informative or thought-provoking away from reading it.

I'd rather engage in more of the philosophical and theoretical analysis of Smile over the more recent trends of what can feel like finger-wagging lecturing with the implication "this is how it is!". And closing down entire, very valid, channels of information because they don't fit whatever narrative is being pushed. And I don't agree with nor do I particularly like the narrative which has been taking over in so-called "official" circles in recent years. The story cannot be told fairly or completely with recording dates and what's written on tape boxes.

Jake: The section of your post I put in bold is one of the most on-point comments I've read so far about the change in narrative regarding Smile especially in recent years. I think you nailed it, or at least explained a large part of it. I'd also add to what you said, beyond the factor of not liking the music, there is also a factor of promoting (and protecting) a narrative surrounding Smile and that time period for which discrediting both the methods and the music leads to a larger point about Brian as a  person  and what effect it had on the band's trajectory. And therefore, it also removes blame from both other persons and other external factors.

As we both said, the real truth sits somewhere in the middle of all this stuff. And ultimately what happened with Smile cannot be reduced to a few sentences in conclusion. And thank you again for pointing out one of the factors that has the Smile narrative trying to be bent and shaped in recent years.

I  think official narratives - for businesses, or institutions - have their purpose, and I don't think I'd be interested in trying to change the official story (to the extent there is one), which would be impossible anyway.  However, it might be possible to offer informed, well-reasoned (or well thought-out) analysis for its own sake, to a tiny readership or interested and open-minded fans. Let's see what happens.

I have picked up a thing or two from Bill Tobelman's site. Most of the information there is presented in a disorganized fashion. Maybe that's fitting, however, appropriate to the subject matter. 

My concern is that we have already had a few "official" narratives presented in past decades, in particular one being an authorized TV movie bio and the other being an actual legal filing that is public record, which were complete bullshit regarding Smile. I only use the BS expletive because they were so wrong as to be laughable. But it's not a laughing matter when how many people shaped their opinions based on that movie for one.

I've seen in recent years, via conversations or comments posted online, an attempt to reduce Smile to one factor: drugs. And as you suggested earlier, if you do that then the music gets diminished, as do the creators. I also noticed a little earlier than that the efforts to diminish, discredit, and even slander people like David Anderle, Michael Vosse, even Van Dyke Parks and others in the core Smile group to suggest they were hangers-on, grifters, opportunists, even crooks...and THAT is just plain wrong.

So who writes or dictates the "official" narrative? My worry is that some of that same nonsense that got thrown around online, in comments, even in some so-called "official" biographies and movies will actually be taken as the official version of events. The pendulum cannot swing that far, and I worry that some of the same parties and opinions that created all that garbage and tried to suggest that Brian was drugged out and surrounded by interlopers who fueled all these activities will have a hand in writing this hypothetical "official narrative", or already have. Look at the "Beautiful Dreamer" documentary, and the criticism it received because David Leaf edited in concert footage from different nights of the premiere live run. Is that all there is to criticize and does it mean the rest of the information presented should be thrown out too?

I just don't like the undercurrent flowing beneath some of the commentary surrounding Smile as of 2023, maybe I'm paranoid too but it isn't going to serve the music and the legacy of that music to push one side of the story when there are hundreds, or to have people charged with writing it who seek to diminish the whole project. And I say that too because Bill's site at least puts some of the other factors in the Smile backstory into the public realm for their own interpretation and analysis.

Well obviously what makes Smile fascinating is all the conflicting info floating around-did Brian have the whole concept in his head or was he winging it, did he begin to have issues with Van Dyke’s lyrics or was he always in sync with him, did certain BBs really hate it or was it just his paranoia, could he have finished by May 1967 with more support or was he lost and unable to figure out the puzzle without Van Dyke. Also were there many more Smiles tapes and acetates that were lost or do we basically have all the music made between Aug 66 and May 67?

All valid questions. I will suggest that some of the answers can be found or at least addressed in the Michael Vosse "Fusion" article, the David Anderle/Paul Williams interviews, and to a lesser degree the Jules Seigel "Goodbye Surfing" article. I want to address one or two points specifically in a separate post after this point.

And that brings me to a question I've asked before, but I'm especially curious to hear your opinions Ian as someone with a history of being in the trenches with research and interviews: Specific to the Vosse piece, but involving all of the above sources, given the 50+ years of what we've learned and uncovered since those articles first appeared in 1967 and 1968, what if anything did those articles get wrong? Were there any factual errors or outright "wrong" information presented in those published articles from 67-68?

I ask because part of my comments above addressed the attempts in more recent years to discredit all of those people named above and their writings about what happened during Smile, to the point where both official and unofficial comments could be considered slanderous toward those people. I don't see any justification for attacking them and questioning their observations, personally, and I found some of the attacks to be absurd. Yet there has been what seems like an attempt to discredit them and therefore discredit what they observed and wrote about the history of Smile.

I'm asking what did they get wrong, if anything, to justify the attacks. Or are the attacks designed to serve a larger narrative that needs to discredit them and what they saw and said in order to exist?

Well you know the answer….it’s gotten wrapped up in the band issue…those guys, mostly, painted a picture of a genius artist slowly becoming disheartened because of the lack of support of his band mates but in recent years the narrative has become one where Brian was becoming lost amidst a bunch of users and hangers on, who gave him drugs and isolated him from the band. So then the issue becomes who to believe? Is the truth somewhere in the middle or are their real Heroes and villains. The BBs have noted that they were good soldiers and did everything Brian asked…even lying on the floor of an empty pool to sing. There is of course the issue of the Siegel article alleging that there was a big fight during the Inside Pop filming but the footage is gone and the filming notes that were found don’t mention a fight …so some people say it never happened. In the absence of further evidence, I don’t see how this is ever definitively settled. And many would say let sleeping dogs lie….there is enough division in the BBs world.

The comments in bold are exactly why I have an issue with the way the history may be told or recorded as fact in the future. One statement is patently false, the other is opinion and statements based on firsthand observations of those who were there to witness this activity. Unless there is proof that Van Dyke Parks, David Anderle, and Michael Vosse were users and hangers-on who were giving Brian drugs, that's simply a false statement about them. And it's the same narrative shown in that ABC "official" bio-pic "An American Family" to where Van Dyke took legal action based on that false portrayal of his "character" in the film. In this case, it's almost a no-brainer to believe the truth, again unless the charge is valid that Vosse, Anderle, and Parks were Brian's drug suppliers and hangers-on. We all know the history there: Anderle was the manager of Brother Records until Nick Grillo, who Anderle brought in, took over that role. Parks was Brian's songwriting collaborator. Vosse was originally hired to head up the film branch of Brother but eventually took a role more like Mal Evans had with the Beatles, as Brian's assistant and traveling companion. So however things played out, they actually had official roles within the Brother organization, they weren't hanging on to anyone and surely not just drugged up suppliers for Brian.

That's where I suggest yes, there is a separation between the truth and fiction (or negative opinion), and people should not be dragged through the mud that way especially the two out of the three who are not able to defend themselves against those accusations.

And if the goal is to tell an accurate, all-encompassing history of Smile or just the band in general, I know some things would be better swept under the carpet according to some factions and narratives, but it doesn't serve the goal of telling an accurate history if outright falsehoods are weighed as equally as facts.

But…if you are going to attack the BBs for their behavior…they have said (and it is unarguable) that whatever their personal feelings about Smile and what was going on…they were good soldiers and participated in all the sessions they were asked to by Brian. Now maybe they made it clear they didn’t like that material (a very very contentious discussion) or maybe they didn’t.

I have a few angles to consider on that train of thought. First, Vosse says he would start seeing two "camps" within the band go into separate corners which he saw as a sign that things were fractured inside the core band. I always assumed who those "camps" were based on subsequent comments and observations, but Vosse unfortunately didn't name names. He did specifically call out Murry as someone trying to sow seeds of discontent within those around Brian regarding Good Vibrations, and how Brian's experimenting with the music would lose their fans. That clearly was not the case, as it became a worldwide #1 smash single, but again it suggests there were factions actively working against the new sounds Brian was recording.

As far as them recording the vocals they possibly didn't like, my offer there is what choice did they have? No one else was writing music for the band at that time which would have been usable for an album. I can see Mike being upset again that he wasn't chosen as the lyricist except on the single Good Vibrations, we have Al on the record saying he objected to things like doing the animal sounds in the studio (yet he actively participated in Brian's BWPS tour years later doing the same thing, and his own "Take A Load Off.." track had quite a few obvious nods to Smile's experimentation, not to mention the band went on David Frost's show handing out vegetables to the studio audience and having them wave veggies around during their performance of the song...so how bizarre was all of this if they later participated in the same things?). Carl and Dennis were being mentored by Brian in the studio to take up more of the production duties and ended up recording practice runs that sounded...like Smile! So I don't think the Wilson brothers objected to the music as much, unless or until it started possibly affecting their ability to play it live. I think Carl and Dennis always loved the music, at least based on their comments through the years. I think the "Love And Mercy" movie shows where the rest of the band was at with Smile in the well-crafted swimming pool scene. You can see each member in a little more shallow part of the pool with Brian, in the water up to his neck, and Van Dyke outside the pool watching from the edge. It's a pretty good allegory of where the band members were at, and who was in deeper with Brian and Smile than the others.

We know they sang the lyrics and cut the tracks with Brian when asked, but what does that mean other than they were following the same pattern they had followed for the past 2 years after Brian quit the road? And my thought is, they really didn't have a choice as no one else was writing material suitable for the band except Brian at that time. The only non-Brian composition the band offered throughout 1967 was "How She Boogalooed It", which to some is a good rocker and to others is painfully weak as a song and an album cut. 

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Yeah…obviously Brian was the man in 1967 that they were depending on-hence their anxiety when he began to retreat a bit from the band in the autumn. Obviously a big point of contention is the three dog night episode-if it did happen the way it was alleged-it’s understandable that the band would react that way-as they we’re still really dependent on Brian. 1968 was really the year when they began to take greater interest in songwriting and production but in 67 it was totally understandable if they were very jealous of his relationship with Danny Hutton and his group

I don't know how understandable it was - according to the version of events that happened at Heider's - for a few Beach Boys to break up a session at an outside studio because they were jealous or were demanding Brian produce them. At the least, it was unprofessional. But that's a separate point, the underlying notion is that Brian had been working with outside artists since 1963 or even '62 if we consider the Bob Norberg/Bob & Sheri tracks (and other related). Whether any of them were chart hits is beside the point, but consider Brian had been doing this fairly regularly even during the peak of the Beach Boys' success, and he wanted to emulate Spector by writing and producing other artists. The most prominent criticism or pushback I can think of came from Murry, especially after Brian "gave away" Surf City to Jan & Dean instead of keeping it for the "family".

But was there this jealousy among the band members over things like writing and producing "Guess I'm Dumb" for Glen, or any of the Honeys records, or Sharon Marie, or fill-in-the-blank-artist leading up to 1967? They seemed pretty happy as long as the money was rolling in, except Murry who seemed to be the voice of discontent trying to pull Brian back into the family and family only after Surf City became a hit.

And I know I've harped on this point before, but Brother was set up to allow Brian and the band members to bring in and work with outside artists, yet when he did just that in Fall '67 and had a group with some potential to make money for the new business venture, they shut him down, literally during a recording session. And the irony there is Brian had already cut a new single, Wild Honey, with the band's "new sound", and it was set for release in October '67.

So yes perhaps the band members were jealous of Redwood, but Brian had been doing this same kind of work for the previous 5 years with artists other than the Beach Boys, and they had a new single in the pipeline ready for release when Brian was cutting with Redwood...so I don't see the justification for breaking up a session in front of other musicians and putting the kibosh on what was happening. And to bring up the earlier point, Brian was essentially handing them the opportunity to do the same things and start writing and producing whatever they wanted through Brother either for the band or with a proposed stable of Brother label artists, and none of them stepped up and did it. Criticizing and browbeating someone for not doing something while not doing something in return smacks of hypocrisy, or on a lesser scale a contradiction. And who's to say Brian's plan all along was to make records with Redwood and also produce the Beach Boys' forthcoming album to follow the Wild Honey single which was already set for release? He'd been juggling the two interests for the past 5 years and still making a lot of money for the Boys.

Well I suppose it’s possible that the band felt he was giving away two very commercial tunes when they were desperate for a hit. In 1965 they were riding high and had no reason to feel threatened by his outside pursuits. Mike has stated that Heroes and Villains was the last bit of “super dynamism” by Brian but was Brian’s decision to “stop competing” only in relation to the BBs-maybe they felt that he was laying back with them but still going like gangbusters with Redwood?

I don’t think it’s difficult, knowing the band politics of that era, to understand functionally why Brian was cornered and essentially ordered to stop working with Redwood. It doesn’t make it any less ugly or tragic. Not Mike (or Dennis or Carl’s) best moment in the saga. But just functionally, logistically, knowing how things were back then and how they handled “outsiders” (both handing songs off, and outsiders trying to give songs *to* the band) both then and later on in such a kind of grubby fashion, it’s not surprising the Redwood thing wasn’t going to fly with the other guys.

I think there is more than one conundrum in all of this with Redwood, consider the "what if" around the change in the band's sound being something which was agreed upon in the group. That leaves Brian as the producer and main writer now having to focus his writing in that direction, which was not where he was at while making Smile. We have reports of Carl, for one, loving the R&B sound and you can hear it in his vocals on Wild Honey. Again, they had a new single ready to release when Brian was recording with Redwood with this new sound that was nothing like the Smile material in sound or construction. All of their new efforts including the "live" Hawaii tapes which were still I believe set to be a part of the Wild Honey album in the Fall up to a certain point had that more stripped down, group-band kind of vibe. Not a lot of strings, less thick backgrounds, not as many experimental transitions and sections after the Smiley album, etc.

So Brian takes that production style and mindset, which he obviously still wanted to pursue in Fall 67, to his work with Redwood. You can hear it in the tracks. Darlin was an old rewrite from 4 years ago or whatever that had sat on the shelf until Brian got inspired by Danny Hutton's regular use of the word "darlin" in conversations, and dusted off an old BB's reject (ironically from another side project) to rewrite for Danny and Redwood to sing. And his other song was in the style the band, perhaps, agreed not to use anymore in favor of the leaner R&B sounds and style, hoping to get a hit with a new sound after they felt Heroes and Smiley under-performed on the charts.

Taken in that way, it's hard to rectify why the band would be jealous of the music Brian was making with Redwood when they already had a new single to herald their new sound, they were probably already in talks to plan out everything else needed to fill in the album around the single, and the sounds Brian was doing with Redwood including a rewrite of a thrown out song from years prior which they didn't record originally and a song which had the more overblown production style Brian was using on Smile and which they perhaps said they didn't want to do, or agreed with Brian in the change in direction, or however else that point can be spun.

If they already had their gameplan in place with the new R&B direction having already recorded a new single and more work on an album to follow, and Brian was doing what Brother was set up to do and which he had been doing for 5 years in producing and writing for other artists, it's tough to justify what went down unless it also included a heap of personal issues that had more to do with personalities than the business of the band. What exactly was the tipping point to lead the band members to halt Brian's work with Redwood as swiftly as they did? Were the songs that good? Maybe in the case of Darlin, yes, but Time To Get Alone wasn't anything close to the sound they would be changing to that Fall, and its production was closer to the larger-scale Smile productions which Brian must have felt the band wasn't as receptive to earlier that year, and which it seems they were trying to get away from if their official releases in the latter half of 67 are any indication.

I am not sure that the BBs lost interest in that Smile style...they were apparently pretty hot on Can't Wait Too Long in 1968 and Bruce stated in an interview that summer that it would be their next single-chances are that it was Brian who nixed it....seemed like he was losing interest finishing things in that period. 

Brian had all but stopped working on outside projects in the middle of 1964 - the point at which he begins his effort to steer the group in a different direction. In 1965, you have the production of "Guess I'm Dumb" (which is not something the other BBs would have been concerned about because, yes, they were "riding high," but also because that tune was, by the standards of the era, very weird and utterly uncommercial - who would want to sing that?).  And also  in 1965 there is - according to researchers, I believe, like Jim Murphy and Andrew Doe - something Brian worked on by an act called "Bob & Bobby." And that's it. And then after 1965, you have 1966 and 1967, and so on.

The point is that Brian working with Redwood is not business as usual. It's "business as it used to be." At least it hadn't been business as usual for the last couple of years. What happened was that Brian had his breakdown in December 1964.  This occurred for many reasons, but one of the more immediate causes was that the nature of his career at that time was making less and less sense. The direction the Beach Boys were going in was, for Brian, wrong and anti-musical. And therefore, in his case, extremely unhealthy.  You can hear it in what's going on in the music during the second half of 1964. So then, the breakdown, and Brian comes off the road, and things start to change. Because Brian - the sole creator of the group's music - is now a studio-only composer-musician, he naturally begins to treat the Beach Boys themselves as his studio instrument. A crude way to put it is that the Beach Boys are gradually becoming Brian's "Ronettes." There is no longer any need for Brian to search for outsiders to work with. He can now do what he wants with the Beach Boys themselves. Which, from a strictly musical and artistic perspective (not the business perspective or family perspective) is the correct outcome; that's how things should be for this particular group.  "Puppets" is not a nice term, and not quite accurate, but that's the direction it's going in, and it becomes that during the Pet Sounds and Smile-era. Remember, Carl and Mike hated that "puppets" thing that was out there during that era. "Genius" and "puppets" really pissed them off.

Smile falls apart, the group is stripped bare in 1967, without releasable music at a time when lack of constant presence on the radio and in the stores means you're finished. In the mind of the family, Brian's problem is drugs and nefarious outsiders.  As has been discussed here many, many times (including by Guitarfool and myself) after Smile is over, the rest of 1967 marks a time when the non-Brian Beach Boys (aka the Wilson family) takes the reins and basically takes over. What they do (as evidenced by many things that occur in 1967) is revert to the band model of 1963-1964. It will become a  "band," a "group" a "family" rather than a Phil Spector + progressive music deal.  The band gets the production credit as a matter of principle, even though anybody with ears knows who produced Wild Honey and Friends. (And what about those songwriting credits on Friends? Really?) Brian is squirreled away in Bellagio and the wall goes up.  Sorry everbody, but this is what happened.

It's not a coincidence that Brian suddenly (it seems) reverts back to the outside-project model of production during 1967.  And that this "Redwood incident" (which did happen as Hutton and especially Negron have described in detail - let's just accept that as a given) occurs in an outside studio, not Bellagio. (This is why Hutton, specifically, has called into question the installation of the studio in the house) Brian's actions with Redwood speak for themselves. What they say is, "okay everybody, if this is how it is now, if I am (a) unable  to use the group in the way I want, or (b) not allowed to do that anymore, or (c) too mentally unstable, for some mysterious reason, to fulfill my duties as hitmaker, then I want to go back to the way it was, when we were a more unified band doing car-surf-high school and I did outside stuff."  This is what Brian's actions are saying - whether he could consciously think this, or articulate it verbally is another question.

And the answer to Brian's implicit proposal is no. At which point Brian is faced with a life choice. He didn't have to capitulate, but he did.  And so then, the real issue is why did he capitulate.


Right - they were not "jealous." What was going on was something beyond mere jealousy (they had no reason to be jealous of a scuffling no-name vocal group). It was something more serious. They believed that they held first priority claim to Brian's creativity, and I believe they wanted to protect that creativity from being poached by outsiders.  And so with the Redwood thing they were exercising their rights. And they weren't wrong to do it. If Brian didn't like it, he could leave the group. That was the unstated, underlying challenge being made. Just as Brian's actions can communicate a certain implicit message, so can the Beach Boys'.  At that point, Brian could either leave the Beach Boys or do what he did. 20/20 hindsight of course.

I don't think any of the Beach Boys - Brian included - would ever agree to this reading, but I think this is what was going on. It's really tragic, if you see it from the perspective of Brian Wilson. If you are a Beach Boys person and want the group to stay together, you should celebrate the Redwood incident.

I'm resurrecting this comment from last year just for the purpose of following up on what I said above about the possibility of providing new, well-reasoned analysis for its own sake.  

I've been trying to do precisely this, actually, for the past few months - since September 2023, I think (?) - on a site called "A Book of Brian". It consists of detailed commentary on the life and career of Brian Wilson, as founded on the information that has so far been made public over the decades as well as my own take on it.

I've been using the Substack platform as a convenient means to get the writing up on the internet. Here is the link:

https://bookofbrian.substack.com (https://bookofbrian.substack.com)

If you don't want to click on it, type: bookofbrian [dot] substack [dot] com into your browser address bar.

Although the Substack site is designed for paid subscriptions, I have things set up so that all the material is FREE for anybody to read.

I'll start a new thread shortly to offer a few more comments about this project. Thanks

Tried to do a few off the cuff videos recently just to maybe add some different SMiLE conversation to the fan videos out there. Yeah, I'm embarrassing and old these days. Sorry about that.

Here are the links if anyone is interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlHuEGzthy0&t=143s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDkeJncZkos

Haven't seen these kind of ideas elsewhere other than my old tired website.

Think this is likely my last SMiLE page ever. 34 years in the making.
https://www.goodhumorsmile.com/page27.htm

Thanks, Bill--a great deal of inventive, imaginative points of connection there. Many will dispute and nitpick, but there are many, many kernels that ring true and lead to a broader understanding of just what the impetus for Dumb Angel/SMiLE was and why it was so "morphable." We're all better off for your efforts to track the strands of that epic, tragic, lyric experiment that was lost and found where it still remained and was brought to us in a plausible facsimile of what would have been--your work will give others clues to continue with such explorations, and make versions of the "lost" SMiLE that will access a more complete set of possibilities for doing so...