Wow - that's some in-depth listening you've done. Many thanks for posting the link.

Many thanks, Paul2010. Will listen with interest. Been a while since I heard a new Smile mix.

Absolutely gorgeous. You have a beautiful soulful way about you. Many thanks.

Hey Syd,

Just want to say again how much I love your presentation of the Smile material - it's a fresh approach. You take quite a few risks but the result, to my ears, is a coherent piece of work keeping the humour but keeping the right side of goofy.

A couple of questions though: I have the tracks in mp3 and wav and in both formats each track ends with about 10 seconds of silence. Is this deliberate or is this some quirk of my downloads? I realize 2-3 seconds silence between banded album tracks is normal, but 10 seconds seems too much and breaks the flow. I have thought about using Audacity to clip the length of the silences but I thought I would ask 1) Is this length of silence intentional on your part? (And if so why) and 2) Do you have the tracks without these 10 second breaks? (If not I guess I'll be cracking open Audacity).

Just like to say again: I really really like your mixes. They're up there with Smile A.D. and soniclovenoize in my book.

JC

Hey Syd,

Many many thanks for this. I'm a month late and glad the link is still up.

A real gift to the faithful...

JC

Agreed - not the same mix as on the album: the album mix is even better: fuller & got more energy. Just love the instrumental backing to the "threw away all my grits" part - got some extra trombone or something in there. It's a beautiful arrangement.

Also agreed that "Fun, Fun, Fun" is one of the less interesting tracks here, but I guess those responsible for marketing the album to the general public felt compelled to lead with one of the best known and most accessible songs. I'm guessing most people wouldn't know what a sloop was.

"Here Today" is an interesting one. It's really a despairing song about the fragility of love, but the orchestral arrangement gives it a driving beat and the instrumental break just takes off somewhere else entirely. It's a strange juxtaposition of sad lyric and energetic track, but I really enjoy it anyway.

I'm a little late to this thread but I've been listening to this album since Sunday (a UK Father's Day present) and have got to say I really like it. The arrangements which work best to my ears are God Only Knows, Sloop John B, Heroes and Villains and Here Today: these have a real energy to them and try to do something different to the original arrangement. I can also appreciate why some like Disney Girls and can honestly say that I dislike none of the tracks. It's a fun listen (even Kokomo).

My only gripe is with the mix of California Girls - there's a stray percussion hit (high hat?) in the "orchestral prelude" at 0.10. It's audible in the original mix of the track (at the same 0.10 mark) but somewhat muffled due to the nature of mono. In the stereo remix on the 2012 Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) reissue the stray percussion is still audible but quieter. The mistake is accidently highlighted in the new mix.

The album is definitely worth more than the 2/5 it received on the All Music Guide site. It's a worthy experiment - I'd give it a solid 4.

Thanks for the collection shangaijoe - I've really enjoyed it: a nice album - mellow and quirky in the best BB tradition. Don't be discouraged...

Also that SMiLE A.D. mono mix of "Rollin' Up to Heaven" smokes! - thank you seltaeb!

Really digging your new version of Child Is Father. I wasn't sure about the Fly-Ins at first - especially the Water Chant vocals - but now I love it! Really fleshes out the track. I also love the bonus track - Row Your Boat. Excellent work. Really in keeping with the spirit of the sessions.

Hey Syd many many thanks for sharing this. The download worked fine for me (quickly got past the slightly annoying ads). It will take me a while to familiarize myself with your work but first impressions are great - I really enjoy these experimental though "disciplined" reimaginings of Smile.

I think your edition could join those of Odeon, soniclovenoize, SMiLE A.D., and Jacob Borshard in the inner courts of my own Temple of music (the hypothetical BW-finished 1967 version sitting before the Holy of Holies of course).

Despite the official releases of 2011 (7 years ago - sheesh!), Smile is the gift which keeps on giving!

Thanks again,

JCarson / Simon (UK)

Hello,

I've been checking on Mr Jeremy Dylan's podcasts since the one he did with Van Dyke Parks re Randy Newman - helpfully advertised here by rn57 back in June this year. Jeremy is a music producer based in Australia and seems to know a lot of musicians both mainstream and alternative. In this podcast he is chatting with a friendly guy called Matt Farley (an American musician) who has some insightful things to say about 70s era Beach Boys. A nice background chat while you're wrapping the pressies or whatever! It's number 175 (the latest as I type) on the list. Check out the Paul McCartney Ram podcast for more BB asides from the same duo.

http://mrjeremydylan.com/tagged/podcast

Hope the hyperlink works

Happy Christmas 

Hey thanks - that's a great link.

That library of podcasts is worth a browse and includes some weird and wonderful albums among the usual suspects. Truly, the Randy Newman debut is up there among the all time greats - not a wholly dissimilar vibe to mid-60s Brian Wilson, such exquisite melancholy: witness especially the intro to Living Without You - man, that's beautiful (and I thought Nilsson's cover version was good).

"After another show some time later, he came back to my place and rifled through my vinyl collection. He pulled out Love You by the Beach Boys, and wanted to know why I even owned that piece of crap. I said "screw you Chilton - it's a great record". He then put it on my Phillips turntable, picked up my acoustic and played along with every song - perfectly. When he had played both sides, he informed me it was his favorite Beach Boys album. " - http://myvinylreview.blogspot.de/2010/04/special-feature-remembering-alex.html

What a great story - thanks for sharing! I was shocked to hear Alex disrespecting Love You and was totally wrong-footed by the twist at the end.

In regard to Big Star I think Alex Chilton is often portrayed as a Lennon in comparison to Chris Bell's McCartney*. But Alex wrote some stunningly beautiful songs (Thirteen stands out) even while apparently embracing the ugliness of dirty rock and roll, and I think he had a very special voice, capable of great expressiveness - one of my favourites in fact. I can see why he loved Brian Wilson - another tormented soul in search of (or in flight from) lost innocence.

Alex Chilton R.I.P.

(*And of course the Lennon/McCartney contrast is exaggerated anyway!)

Doh! All the cool kids are hanging out at the Stephen Desper thread!

Have listened to the Cabinessence and Vega-tables videos - beautiful stuff, revelatory even. The Heroes and Villains link did not seem to work. Will listen to more when I have a moment.

Thanks for all the hard work, Stephen.

Anyone else listening???

Sorry, I know NOTHING about mid-eighties Beach Boys and don't know if this is against Smiley Smile etiquette to jump in with a new question when the last one hasn't been answered... but here goes...

A question which has bugged me a lot since the release of the Smile Sessions box concerns Wind Chimes. In the  Mike Vosse article from Fusion magazine (dating from within a few years of the original sessions), Vosse mentions a song which sounds like the Wind Chimes we know but which had a comedy breakdown in the middle - just before the full-on vocal section.  Brian Wilson had the voices stopping and starting as he counted and re-counted them in. What is driving me mad is that I heard this version somewhere and thought the goofy Brian Wilson [trademark] humour pretty cool. I've since lost this track under the avalanche of bootlegs, fan mixes, and official releases of the last few years.

So... the questions (more than one - sorry)
1. Have I imagined this 'comedy Wind Chimes'? If not, is it an original Brian mix or some kind of out-fake? And, further, where can it be found?
2. If it is 'out there' and authentic, why wasn't it included on the Smile Sessions? (Is my memory deluding me? Is it actually a rotten pile of Californian cheese?)

Any help greatly appreciated.

I don't post much (well, hardly at all) but I visit often. It would be just my luck if these questions have been extensively examined and answered in some other thread. If so, apologies all round... and let normal service resume...

Many, many thanks for this - and for the other albums on your blog. I downloaded your SMiLE reconstructions a couple of years ago and never realized how extensive your catalogue of work had grown in the meantime.

Apologies if you've already answered this but your blog notes say that this is the third of four Beach Boys uploads. What is the fourth going to be? Adult/Child or some solo BB collection?

Keep up the good work!

Apologies for ignorance (been gone too long), but this is new Smile work yes? Different to Smile A.D. 3.0 ?

Any thoughts on revisiting Holidays? Either with 'Plymouth rock' vocal removed or lifted from BWPS? It's the only part of the 3.0 mix that doesn't seem right  by my ears. All the rest is GENIUS (twice over!).

By all means ignore this post!!! 

I don't mean at all to hijack the thread but I wanted to mention that we are almost sold out of LONG PROMISED ROAD, which is where the only version of this song officially released exists...we're having a sell-out party and "50 Sides of the Beach Boys" show this Friday here in Los Angeles which I have posted about elsewhere on SS.  If someone wants to grab a copy of the album before they are gone, they should e-mail me immediately.  I just five minutes ago took inventory in advance of the show and, minus the copies already sold, we have 13 left, and some of those will probably go on Friday.

So, where's the petition again?  Sign me up!  FWIW, I know that there's a lot of desire within some of the BBs camp to get this song out.  It really is one of the more wonderful unreleased Dennis songs we have yet to hear....

(adam marsland)

Sorry if I'm carrying on the hijack but here goes. I don't post here much but have followed the board since before BWPS. Anyways, just wanted to post my love for WIBNTLA in the only form I know it - on Long Promised Road. However, the song I really love on the CD is The Big Bear. It just rocks! Kinda fits the Beach Boys mid-70s nature mysticism though I know its a Marsland original from much later. Not entirely sure what the song's about but that's okay. It's really poetic. So thank you Mr Marsland and your collaborators. Long may you make music!

(Simon Young, UK)

I'm surprised no one's mentioned "Hey Little Tomboy", either of them!

Okay, so a few people have mentioned Hey Little Tomboy. If by 'worst' you mean most morally repellent then HLT has got to be a front runner. The released version is bad enough - on lyrical terms (the music itself is okay), but the unreleased version is beyond the pale. Just listening to that thing... those hideous ad libs... makes me utterly nauseous. Teenage boys singing their romantic fantasies about teenage girls can be sweet (thus early Beach Boys). Men in their late thirties singing about teenage girls shaving their legs is just sick, sick, sick... and then those snorting noises... agh! It's a glimpse into some kind of hell, and I'm never listening to it again...

Rant over. Normal service resumed.

I love BWPS for many of the reasons already given above, but I hold a faint candle for the 10th (or more likely 20th... please God not 40th) anniversary remaster with decent bass and a collection of demos and alternate takes... like Dom Priore said in his "Lost Masterpiece" book, the bass just aint in the right place!

The Nick Drake - Beach Boys connection (via Ed Carter and Mike Kowalski) fascinates me. To my mind the 'feel' of Nick Drake's music is very close to the 'feel' of Brian Wilson's - though coming out of very different contexts and genres. When I listen to a track like Fly it takes me to the same kind of place as tracks like God Only Knows. There's a fragility, a mournful quality and a spiritual yearning. Much as I love the Beatles, I don't get the same feeling from them (though Eleanor Rigby comes close). People sometimes describe an encompassing genre of Baroque Pop and like to include people like Judee Sill and the Zombies (and Lady Jane era Rolling Stones). I admire many of these artists, but I love Nick Drake and the Beach Boys above all others.

Oh, and now I guess I should read that interview!

Excuse the above, just picking myself off the floor...

O man, this is so good. You and that Jacob Borshard fellow should maybe get together for the ultimate SMiLE recreation (and why not throw in the guy behing SMiLE A.D. also!)

Seriously, this kind of work reminds me (and forgive the pseudo-profundity) that human beings are so remarkable... to work so hard on something without any profit motive, simply for love!

And, also SMiLE's place in the landscape of culture seems, to me, to grow more exceptional. What other collection of music inspires such acts of dedication and imagination?

I still can't quite place my finger on why SMiLE is so special. It might be, in part, because it was generated at a particular turning point in Western history - perhaps when older, more rigid and traditional understandings of the world were giving way to more liberal visions, but at a time when western secular capitalism hadn't quite triumphed. So SMiLE gets a kick from the excitement of living on the verge of a new epoch ("The Age of Aquarius") while retaining an openness to spiritual values, without yet being blighted by the wholesale succumbling of popular culture to sex, money and sentimentality.

I don't know! (N.B. These musings are entirely derived from Ian MacDonalds opening essay in "Revolution in The Head"!)

Whatever the case. Thank you and hope you get Parts 2 and 3 finished.

*

Just burnt this to CD (yes, I'm still living in the 1990s ) - will give you some feedback once I've had a good listen.