@Dan:

Thanks for the kind words! Who knows, maybe I'll work up some courage one day and send VDP a link.

For what it’s worth, I tend to think it sometimes works that way: if the allusions/references are present in your mind, they can work their way into what you’re writing, even if you’re not consciously summoning them. If memory serves, there’s a later essay that touches on that point.

More posts on the song allusions to come – the "prework," sort of, with the critical essays to follow.

Best,

C&N

@Don:

Hi Don,

Thank you for the comments.

I come from a literary-criticism background, so my writing leanas that way. Definitely not the joyless, stodgy kind of criticism, though (at least I hope not). I learned from reading the modern critics: the folks writing about Pound, Eliot and Williams. Their work – the best of it, anyway – was always alive to the cultural, historical and spiritual stuff that was layered in with the nouns and verbs. To be clear, I wouldn’t dream of putting myself in that same class…just acknowledging influences, that’s all.

For me, there’s no necessary connection between regarding something as high art, on the one hand, and approaching it with a rigid pedantic mindset, on the other. In fact, I’d argue that reading great literature like that (or listening to great music, or viewing great art) is a marvelously efficient way to kill everything that’s worthwhile in it – and there you are, with your nicely wrapped mummy.

I certainly don’t think of SMiLE that way. If anything, it’s the opposite. It’s too vital and exciting and moving for that kind of treatment. To my mind, the job of criticism is to find connections, ask questions, discover meanings, illuminate a corner or two…not to build a museum exhibit. SMiLE is a living work, and it deserves living discussion. Intellectual inquiry? Absolutely. SMiLE merits (and repays) that kind of attention…as long as you bring your curiosity and wonder and humor along as well. Otherwise, I’d argue, you’re missing the spirit of the thing altogether.

To put it another way: I take SMiLE seriously, meaning that I respect it as an artistic accomplishment, but I do my best not to get overly serious about it. In the good old days of SMiLE conversation, online and otherwise, there was peace in the valley – for the most part – and all these threads coexisted happily. That’s how I remember it, anyway. It was fun.

Sorry for the rambling. I hope you find something interesting and/or entertaining at the site!

Best,

C&N

Well, that's horrible.

Thank you for taking the time and trouble to post. I'm looking into the issue, but so far I can't match the phenomenon to any of the known Wix text issues. I've reset test blocks of text to the default, but there's no visible change: it's all black, #000000, before and after. For what it's worth, I'm on Firefox as well.

Profound apologies for the problem. I will continue to investigate.

Best,

C&N

Hi GF,

Thanks for the kind words. Yes, it’s hard, sometimes, to process the fact that that two decades have gone by. We waited for SMiLE for 37 years, and it’s now more than half that span since it was released.

I suppose it’s natural for orthodox narratives to form over time; some people would say that most of history has been created that way. I tend to resist narratives of all sorts, out of sheer cussedness, I guess. I don't like being lectured to, and I'm too old to put up with finger-wagging. I prefer the open atmosphere we enjoyed all those years ago. I don’t think I realized, at the time, how lucky we were to be part of that ongoing conversation.

As for the Wix site, I will definitely look into the readability concern. I can tell you that I didn’t (and never would) choose a light-gray text color; everything is the default black, and it all reads as black on my devices. Is everything hard to read, or is it just certain sections or pages? I don’t have a lot of font choices, but I’m happy to see what I can do there. I apologize, and I appreciate your bringing the issue to my attention.

Best,

C&N

Hi All,

What do you know, my login still works.

It’s been a long time since my last post (a masterpiece of understatement). But I still check in on the site every so often, and when I happened to see a recent thread – and read the comments there (Hiya, GF!) about the sort of conversations that used to go on here, back in the good old days – well, that helped to bring into focus an idea I’ve been toying with for a few months.

As some longtime members may recall, one of the distinguished luminaries of the Beach Boys world* had the notion, back in 2004, of putting together a book of SMiLE-focused essays. He graciously and generously invited me to contribute a piece or two, and I was honored (and humbled) to accept. A fair amount of work was done on the project, but there was never a complete manuscript.

To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the SMiLE premiere (and album release), I thought it might make sense to revisit my chapters, to see if there was anything worth salvaging. I don’t pretend to know the answer to that question, but I do know that once I dug them up, it didn’t feel right to rebury them. So I’ve put together a (very) rudimentary Wix site in order to share them. The essays will appear as blog posts, but that’s strictly an organizational convention; this isn’t a true ongoing blog, and when the essays are used up, that will be the end of it. Some of the essays are on the long side, so I'll be chopping those up into installments.

I’ve done a bit of editing, adding lines here, subtracting others there. Mostly I’ve struggled with the citations and references, dealing with lost reference books and dead links (thank you, Wayback Machine). I haven’t been able to locate everything – and the citations definitely aren’t in proper academic format! – but there came a point when I had to give it up and declare victory.

The URL is:

https://chalknnumbers.wixsite.com/the-smile-shop-attic

If you decide to visit, I hope you’ll find something interesting there. I don't expect that I'll be logging in here too often, but you never know.

Thanks,

C&N

* I haven’t been able to contact the owner of the book project to seek his blessing, so his name won’t be appearing anywhere. Some of you old-timers will probably know who I’m talking about.

Hey PapaNez,

Still kicking around, although I’m more lurker than poster nowadays.

Thanks so much for the kind words; it’s awfully nice to be remembered. I often think about those good old days, and I realize, now, just how good they were. Looking back, I understand that the sustained high level of conversation was even more remarkable than it seemed at the time.

I have vivid memories of hitting “refresh” to read the updates coming from the London premiere. Like live bulletins from some world-changing event: “ribbon of concrete heard at 7 minutes,” and so on. That’s the one and only time I ever felt truly connected, in real time, to a global online community. What an amazing experience!

Anyway, it’s wonderful to renew an old friendship. We really did share something special. Hope all’s well with you and yours!

I suppose if it were actually promotional materials rather than a casting call in Backstage you'd have a fair point. Seems a bit of a reach in this case, but stretch away if it's more entertaining than the thought of this bunch of guys doing Pacific Coast Highway live.

Hmmm...well, just to be extra, extra clear - I was simply inquiring about what I took to be an infelicitous turn of phrase. No hidden agenda and no bias (well, I suppose if I do have a bias, it would fall on the Brian-centric side of things, as the board is currently constituted). For my part, I wish I were able to attend the show; I'm terribly excited that these folks are making live music together; and I eagerly look forward to the reviews (and the setlist).

Back to lurking status for me. Oh, for the good old days of the Smile Shop.

It means there will be members from those bands appearing onstage (Nate Reuss, Alan Jardine, etc)

I am sure that is what it means, but it doesn't say that.  If I knew nothing about the special or Brian's new album and saw that, I would assume it meant those bands in full.

Just to be clear, I didn't actually think Mike & Bruce would be opening for Cousin Brian. It just seemed like an odd, sloppy form of shorthand - especially in the context of recent conversations about inaccuracies in promotional materials.

OK, delurking just long enough to ask (with apologies if this has been answered elsewhere): what's with "The Beach Boys" being listed as one of Brian's supporting "friends" acts?

Great info, great detective work. Fascinating stuff!

Just a quick side note: as you're probably aware, Guercio also penned an original (and very good) song for Chad & Jeremy's Of Cabbages & Kings LP: "I'll Get Around to It When and If I Can." So that's another dimension of his relationship with C&J.

Oops, sorry...I knew I could count on somebody catching my embarrassing errors. Yes, "Help Me Rhonda" was in the set (original post edited). Thank you!

I can add just a few random thoughts.

ToneBender's account of the Mike Love remarks is accurate. As I heard it, the comments came up in the context of Al dedicating the next song ("Come Go with Me"?) to Carl. Someone in the audience asked "How about Mike?" To which Al replied either "Let's not talk about him" or "Let's leave him out of it." That would have ended the exchange, but Al went on to say something like "No, no, Mike's at home, recuperating from his strenuous tours impersonating the Beach Boys." The comments drew a fair amount of laughter from the crowd.

Other points:

Someone in the crowd did indeed request "Cottonfields." Al replied along the lines of: "Yeah, I'd really like to play 'Cottonfields,' but there isn't time." At that point, Matt piped up, saying something like "If you really want to hear something that'll knock you out, how about "Looking at Tomorrow"? Scattered applause. Al really seemed to consider going off-setlist at that point; he turned to Billy and asked "Do you know the chords to that?" Billy shrugged in a positive way (as if to say 'sure, I can fake it'), and played a few chords that sounded like they might be the right ones. But that was as far as it went.

To my ears, the band sounded a little ragged and under-rehearsed on the opener, "California Girls." They hit their stride quickly, but there were a few hiccups later on. "Good Vibrations" was a mess: Matt (singing lead) totally blew the "blossom world" verse lyrics, and whatever they were using to fill in for the Tannerin didn't do the job.

Matt took a lot of leads. He sounded very good on "Don't Worry Baby" and "I Can Hear Music."

Not at all sure why Al felt compelled to play "Kokomo," but he did. He introduced it with an allusion to its number one stature all over the world, and then went on to praise John Phillips for writing it - adding a reference to Mike doing a good job of adding some material (a reminder that Mike didn't write the entire song?). Billy took the lead on that one, and while my ears could have been playing tricks on me, I almost had the sense that he was giving the vocal a close-to-parody bar-band treatment.

For me, the high point was "Sail On Sailor," with Billy and Bobby sharing the lead, trading off verses. That one had a very chunky, rocking feel - sort of a throwback to a 70s sound.

Members of the Rip Chords were in the audience, right up front. Al talked to them throughout the show, and at one point the band noodled around with a line or two of "Hey Little Cobra." The Rip Chords folks were invited up for the encores, and that made for a messy finish to the show…but encores are often messy.

I want to add my own praise for Mac MacAnally. I wasn't familiar with his work before the show, and I was very impressed. He's a superb player and a fine singer, and he was unfailingly genial, warm and charming - polished without being slick. Plenty of people in the audience seemed to be familiar with his songs, and were enthusiastic in their applause. He was very gracious to Al, telling the crowd, just before the end of his set, that they were about to experience some of the "finest harmonies" they would ever hear. Just a class act all around.

My best effort at a setlist - not in order, and almost certainly not complete (hopefully some kind soul will be able to rectify any omissions):

California Girls
Do It Again
Come Go with Me
Little Deuce Coupe
Sail On, Sailor
God Only Knows (a second dedication to Carl)
Wouldn't It Be Nice
Sloop John B.
Surfin' USA
Help Me, Rhonda (thanks for the correction!)
I Can Hear Music
Kokomo
I Get Around
Fun, Fun, Fun (encore #1)
Barbara Ann (encore #2)

Acknowledging that this was very much a time-limited casino show, I do wish Al had chosen to play one or two less obvious songs…songs more closely associated with him, either as a Beach Boy or as a solo artist. I'm confident that no-one would have objected to "Looking at Tomorrow" or "Cottonfields" replacing "Come Go with Me," and I have the impression, based on audience reaction, that "Kokomo" could have been skipped as well. Make no mistake: this was a very good show (it was a treat to see Billy and Bobby). But I wish that Al, being in total control of the setlist, had opted to mess with the formula…just a little. Having Matt tease the crowd with "Looking at Tomorrow" didn't help.

Delurking to offer a few random comments on the AC show. I haven't seen these specific points made elsewhere; apologies if I'm inadvertently duplicating other posts.

Overall, it was a terrific show. Things got the tiniest bit ragged, I thought, during the first half of the second set: it sounded as if the mix might not have been quite right, and it seemed that some first-show roughness might have been detectable. I'm confident that will smooth out quickly.

Brian, as others have remarked, was having a "stoic" night. He didn't smile much (some big smiles during Darian's performance of "Darlin'"), and he simply missed a bunch of lines - just didn't sing them. That said, once he started singing, he was in pretty good voice; and there were points in the show when he was much more animated and engaged with the audience.

"Summer's Gone" was really interesting. After "Fun, Fun, Fun" (Brian returned to the keyboard for that one, after his brief encore stint on bass), Jeff looked over at him inquiringly, as if asking: "Are you done? Do you want to leave?" Brian signaled that he wanted to continue, and Jeff gave a deferential little half-bow, as if to say "As you wish." (I had the sense that Jeff was surprised that Brian wanted to go on.) Brian then introduced the song as follows (not verbatim, but close): "Now that we've got the rock 'n' roll stuff out of the way, we'd like to do a little song called 'Summer's Gone.' In terms of audience reaction to the song: everybody was already standing after the other encore numbers, and so they remained standing - but everything went very quiet: not terribly different from the respectful silences during the SMiLE tour.

Al's "heart and soul" comment might read as being provocative or mean-spirited when transcribed, but it wasn't like that in person. When he mentioned the "heart and soul of the Beach Boys," he gestured toward Brian, as if to say: "We're the heart and soul of the band because Brian is here." Al was genial and amiable throughout. A very nice presence, I thought. He was funny and self-deprecating, admitting that he needed to keep checking the setlist. (At one point he actually held up the setlist, saying something like "Wow, Brian, you've really got a lot of songs here.") The white suit looked great.

"Our Prayer" was a welcome surprise, and it segued pretty much directly into "Heroes and Villains" - which was the Cantina version, by the way. At the end of "H&V," Brian said something - I couldn't quite catch it - about the preceding songs coming from an album called SMiLE. That line got a fair amount of applause.

David was marvelous: he spoke quite a bit, and played wonderfully. He told a nice Dennis anecdote before "Little Bird." When the song was over, somebody (Jeff?) gestured toward him and said "David Marks!" To which David responded, simply and graciously, "Dennis Wilson" - giving the credit to his former bandmate. "Summertime Blues" was quite good - certainly not a replication of the original Beach Boys version.

The spoken introduction to the "Ol' Man River/Cottonfields" medley was noteworthy. Jeff asked Al if he had anything to say about the next song, and Al, after a moment's thought, replied that it was a medley of two very traditional songs - a water song leading into a song about the earth (mini "Elements"?). Before the song began, Brian played a nice little run on the keyboard: a figure that recalled the descending/ascending figure in what is now the first part of "Mrs. O'Leary" (formerly known as "H&V Intro"?)

There was a non-trivial amount of anti-Mike Love feeling in the room (not spurred on by Al's comments, but starting on its own). Without quoting the specific comments, let me say that the audience members in question expressed themselves with the eloquence and class one might expect of a Jersey Shore contingent. Notwithstanding those unfortunate outbursts, the show was a very happy, positive experience.

Finally: based, admittedly, on a sample of one, I think John Q. Public's inability to enjoy the deeper cuts may be just a bit overstated. There was a charming elderly lady sitting next to me who was obviously not a dedicated fan, although she had attended one of the C50 shows last year. I think it would be fair to call her a casino-show-goer rather than a Beach Boys fan. She was more familiar with the hits, but, judging by her reaction, she really enjoyed songs like "Your Imagination," "Sail On Sailor," "Breakaway" and so forth. She didn't know the words, and couldn't have told you the names, but she obviously appreciated them.

Anyway: just my own personal impressions; I apologize if I've inadvertently described something (or quoted someone) inaccurately. As I said, it was a terrific show.

What a nice thread. Thanks to the OP for inviting us to reminisce.

I haven't posted a SMiLE-related word for years, but Matt's posts have converted me from appreciative reader to poster - this once, anyway.

I'm so very happy to have the chance to thank him again, here on the eve of the release of TSS, for his marvelous premiere-night posts: posts that brought the experience to life even for those of us thousands of miles away, and made us feel, as never before, that we were part of a single community.

Speaking only for myself, I was staring at my monitor that night, incredulously grinning as more and more information emerged. I remember a post (not sure whose) to the effect of "ribbon of concrete lyrics at about 8 minutes!" It was that sort of tiny detail that helped us to grasp the enormity of what was happening...to understand that we were getting much more than an assemblage of already-known bits and pieces. I recall that several skeptics, during the run-up to the premiere, were derisively vocal on that point, maintaining that those of us who were expecting a meaningful, coherent work were in for a profound disappointment. I'm glad they were wrong.

Then again, I was always a SMiLE optimist. I had been waiting for SMiLE since the very beginning, and I firmly believed, in the face of compelling evidence to the contrary, that the final chapter in the story was yet to be written - that there would ultimately be some kind of artistic closure. But candidly, I never expected anything as triumphantly celebratory as the live shows...or the album that followed.

So thank you, Matt, once again, for letting us all share that magical event. Personally, I'm looking forward to more magic (and more surprises) on 11/1/11.

Cheers,

C&N

PS Anybody else remember the day the announcement of the SMiLE premiere first went up on Brian's site? I remember staring at that sun image, thunderstruck, as the "Bicycle Rider" theme played. It was almost like being transported, just for a moment, to some alternate reality.