The Smiley Smile Message Board

http://www.brianwilson.com/index.html

Nice look. Already having problems trying to load videos though.

Oh, it's actually very nice.

Wonder how the Blueboarders are gonna react!!  ;D

Yeah I'm having video problems too...and I can't believe they still have the same message board format.  I couldn't deal with that. 

The site does look nice, though.

It's plenty hungrier for bandwidth...but only us dial-up dinosaurs will notice. ???

The new site doesn't look so great on my older computer that can only run IE 5.1 -- lots of nonfunctional image blocks and empty boxes with an "X" in the middle. Still, the message board part seems to work OK, even on that machine.

And now, the $64,000 question.

What shall the message board be known as? The off-white board?

I have never visited this "Blueboard" but I keep seeing references to the people there.  Are they the world's biggest bastards or something?

most people here ARE blueboarders! (despite their protestations ;)  )

There's just a greater degree of sycophancy over there. Many Blueboarders would like to take Brian home, dress him every morning, push him round in a pram and put him to bed every night with a hot cocoa. If he burped after having his bottle it'd be a genius burp.

That said, the upset over the botched on-line sales of TLOS, and the various bonus tracks available at different sources (which ensures completists have to buy the album/DVD several times to get everything), has caused much upset.

It was also on the Blueboard that upset fans caused such a stink after one greatest hits gig that Brian offered to personally refund tickets. Debatable whether they were real Blueboarders or even real fans, but the Blueboard (as was) is rarely without some kind of controversy.

Administration can also be dodgy. Some posts can be deleted for no apparent reason, with no explanation, while postrs' genuine concerns and comments go unheeded. Biased censorship can be rife.

AGD might concur?

All that said, the Blueboard is THE place to hang out if you want to be informed about any BW-related news or activity -  especially if you want to be informed several days or weeks after the fact!

My impression was that the folks there just were not always the most informed. I'm a member, but I have posted there maybe a half-dozen times, at best.

At one time, a few years ago, you had a lot of people who seemed to think the height of Brian's career was Imagination. Now, I like that album, but it's hardly the apex of Brian Wilson's music-making, past and future. It does, however, sound like other music on the radio.

The level of discussion has gotten better, though, and I drop by now and then. I prefer this board (even though I'm active mainly in the times when Brian has something new coming out) simply because most people here have listened to a good chunk of the BB/BW output and can talk knowledgeably about it.

Much better site, particularly the online music player.

Would also say that the selection of tracks on this does kind of illustrate some of the problems with Brian's solo career to date:

Path of Life and Love and Mercy are great, TLOS title track, Heaven, Sailing are OK. But the rest suffer from a MOR feel.

Good thing though: Three of the best on the myspace site. MAD, Morning Beat, Southern California. And I hope this motivates people to buy the album.

it is structurally the same as the old one really. just now with annoying forced flash that interrupts my other music.

I'd go as far as to say this is a downgrade.

Not a big fan of pages that force my browser to resize, and the new site design doesn't use space very efficiently.  Still it's aesthetically pleasing and it's nice to see such a big push for the new album.

I like the new band features at least. About time they acknowledged them !!  :o

Yes. We are.    ::)