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Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Hey, Mike Love!
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on: June 21, 2012, 08:18:46 PM
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I'm no Mike Love apologist; most of the time he gets on my nerves.
But that said, his lyrics have always been full of energy and pretty memorable, at least until "Kokomo" happened and he suddenly believed he had to EXCLUSIVELY write in that style. As a lead man for their live show, he's indispensable. Carl had the charisma to carry the whole band on his shoulders, but Mike just plain has the appropriately-sized ego to be an effective lead man (and I mean that in a good way). His voice is definitely part of what made their early hits stand out from, say, Jan and Dean songs with a similar style. And whatever role he may have played over the years in keeping the band from disappearing altogether, he deserves credit for that, even if the product they were putting out wasn't necessarily up to snuff all the time.
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Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Why Were Carl & Dennis So Easy To \
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on: June 21, 2012, 02:02:21 PM
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I think their repertoire would be wider if Carl were there. Darlin', for example, would be a regular.
I think the reason a lot of Carl's songs aren't well-represented live since he passed away are because no one in the current incarnation does that sort of white-boy-soul thing the way Carl did. In the pre-SMiLE era he was mostly aping Brian vocally, and it's frequently difficult to distinguish between the two of them on lead vocals in that period. Wild Honey was when he started singing like Carl, with a sound totally unique in the band, and some of the songs started leaning more in that direction to take advantage of it. I can't imagine anyone else in the band singing "You Need a Mess of Help to Stand Alone" or the chorus in "The Night Was So Young" and being nearly as funky. Just little things like tending to pronounce the word "I" as "ah", like he was from the deep south or something. Al sometimes comes close, cause he's got sort of a rock 'n' roll voice, without rounded edges, so to speak. But he doesn't have Carl's soul or groove. As far as replacing Dennis's voice, I'm gonna be honest. If he were still alive now, I'm not sure his voice could have ever been put back together again. It's taken Brian this long to get some semblance of his tone back since he blew it to hell in the mid-70s, but Dennis's voice was even farther gone in the same period, so who knows what his voice would add at this point, had he lived.
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Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Brian's piano playing on 2012
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on: June 21, 2012, 11:28:19 AM
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Plenty of performers do the sort of thing Bruce does lately. Think of Paul Simon touring with his crack band, which is usually very large. He always has his acoustic guitar in hand, but doesn't contribute a ton to the overall sound. Just what would he do if he just had the microphone in front of him, you know?
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Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Help!!!
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on: June 21, 2012, 11:04:30 AM
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Sorry for anybody who misunderstood my DONE TALKING gag...I was just parodying Bruce from his unhappy backstage behavior recently.
I picked up on it and laughed quite a bit! Yup, awesome. I pretty much end every conversation I have that way now. Good old Bruce.
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Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: New group interview at Studio Q (Canada)
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on: June 21, 2012, 10:56:24 AM
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What about the comment from some douche' bag on the link..
Clearly the guy does not understand the dynamics of the band and is probably under the impression that Mike is Brian (since at no point does Brian claim he's a great writer/producer/performer). When you understand that the band praising the material or arrangements is intended as a compliment to Brian, the comments appear a lot less arrogant than if the guys were talking about their own accomplishments. Now, of course, Mike is going to talk up his stuff too, but that goes with the territory. I wonder though if Brian is comfortable with all this praise from the boys or if he'd rather be handled just like a regular buddy. I've wondered that myself, but since so much of what motivates Brian seems to be approval from his fans and especially his peers, it probably doesn't hurt.
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Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Luau 2012
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on: June 14, 2012, 05:26:00 AM
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Then I want to also hear "At the Drive-In", cause Mike trips over the "extra large Coke" even on the record. One of those goofy early novelty songs would blow my mind completely. I'd be like a kid on his birthday if I heard "Chug-a-Lug", for instance.
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Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Luau 2012
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on: June 13, 2012, 09:43:28 PM
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*haha* It's possible the Beach boys underestimate their core fan base. If I was at the show and they suddenly launched into Luau, I would simply fall over with amazement and awe. (While we're at it, could we have a vote for adding 'Custom Machine' to the list ?) Ok, I'm dreamin' again. But Jeez, who doesn't love THAT song ?) Maybe not the whole song, but if we could just get the "step on the gas, she goes WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH" that'd be amazing.
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Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Why didn't we get a new BBs album in 1974/early 1975?
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on: June 13, 2012, 09:40:39 PM
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I don't see what's so GREAT about Good Timin'.
"Good Timin" isn't a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but it comes the closest to sounding like their early material, a lot of which was featured on Endless Summer. Following up the compilation with any album which had "Good Timin" as a lead single, basically a late-70s update of "Surfer Girl" (musically, if not lyrically), might have worked.
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Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Brianism's Appreciation Thread
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on: June 09, 2012, 11:06:00 PM
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Rolling Stone June 2012 Brian and Mike are at some restaurant in Florida, on their night off: Brian asks, "Isn't Kokomo around here, Mike? Somewhere down around the Florida keys, right? We should go there." Yup. The article says something like "He says this completely deadpan, so it's impossible to tell if he's joking or not". Amazing - completely deadpan too, I'd guess.
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Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Songs that feel forced
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on: June 09, 2012, 11:03:24 PM
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I for one actually quite love "That Same Song". I know I'm in the minority on that one.
Does it count if an arrangement feels forced? If so, for me, although I love the Gershwin and Disney albums, I always felt it was a little on-the-nose to crib Pet Sounds and SMiLE-style arrangements so explicitly. I'm thinking about the instrumental "I Got Plenty o Nuttin", for instance, basically lifting the WIBN set-up almost wholesale. Or the SOS "Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" or the "Vege-tables" opening to "Heigh Ho". Instances like that could make you think he's got no ideas left, and is just going to regurgitate the same thing over and over.
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Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Heroes and Villains and Good Vibrations on the tour
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on: June 09, 2012, 08:50:40 PM
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That list is heavily skewed toward Pet Sounds because it's an indie/hipster favorite and because last.fm is primarily used by young people. Then why is Kokomo so high up? That's how the song was finished in 1967 and yes, that's the version most people are familiar with. The 2011 edit is not the "original". Look at it this way: there are two kinds of people. 1. People who listen to The Beach Boys on the radio. 2. People who listen to The Beach Boys through their real albums. Firstly, I assure you there's an in between category there: people who own SOME of their albums, a greatest hits collection or two (which feature the original 60s edits of the songs in question), and listen to them on the radio. Secondly, SMiLE is not a "real" Beach Boys album. We have a Brian Wilson album and we have a box set of outtakes. There is no SMiLE album by the Beach Boys and there never will be. There is, however, a Smiley Smile album, with no Cantina. Nor is there a Cantina in the versions on Live in Concert, 20 Golden Greats, Made in USA, Greatest Hits Vol. 2, The Very Best of the Beach Boys, Classics Selected by Brian Wilson, the Knebworth concert, nor Sounds of Summer. The Cantina section was only added in the first disc of The SMiLE Sessions because they were aping BWPS. Otherwise they wouldn't have stopped there, they'd have edited the thing to be ten minutes long and include "Barnyard" and "I'm in Great Shape" and the "threescore and five" verse and who knows what else.
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Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Do You Think The Beach Boys Can/Will Ever Perform...
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on: June 09, 2012, 07:04:42 PM
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In one of the pre-tour interviews, I remember Brian being asked if they would play SMiLE because of the success of the recent box set, and he said no way, he wouldn't want to do that. Then Mike said something like, "well, we should at least do 'Heroes and Villains', Brian", and Brian clarified that he wouldn't want to play the whole album. As for Pet Sounds, frankly they'd need to reassign the songs, or you'd end up with Brian singing, what, seven of the songs, at least. More, if he did all of Carl's parts, with Al doing WIBN, part of "I Know There's an Answer", and Mike doing maybe a verse here and there and then "Here Today"? And what would the Boys be doing during the two instrumentals? I don't think Brian would even want to ATTEMPT "Don't Talk" given how much of the higher notes he's delegated to Jeff over the last five years. If he doesn't want to try singing WIBN live anymore, I doubt he'd try "Don't Talk". So I think the real reason why not to do that album straight through would be how little of the rest of the band would be on there.
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Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Beach Boys in studio - New video !
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on: June 08, 2012, 07:05:54 PM
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The footage has to be staged, for one simple reason: the use of pitch correction on this record. You put six guys around a microphone like that, you end up with a single track which you then have to hope is either absolutely perfect from beginning to end, or you just plain aren't going to use it. If five of them were on pitch and the sixth person hit a bum note, you can't use auto-tune or Melodyne or anything like that to fix it, because it would then incorrectly repitch the entire thing, all six voices, which would now make five of them wrong. Since we can clearly hear that some type of pitch correction was used on even Al's whistling (as far as I know we're more or less in agreement about the effect's use on the album, if not in the early tour dates on B-Pain), it's impossible that all six parts were recorded onto a single microphone in one take. This stuff was probably filmed after the album was more or less in the can and the guys were rehearsing the tour. Just bring them from the studio where they're rehearsing to shoot something and lip-sync along with the already completed album, because most people who buy the album won't be digging through the liner notes to see if Dave's name is listed anywhere. Most people don't even realize that Jeff Foskett is an ancillary member, not an "actual" Beach Boy. Same as they don't think about which songs Mike sang versus which ones Carl sang.
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Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Heroes and Villains and Good Vibrations on the tour
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on: June 08, 2012, 06:53:48 PM
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Kokomo is a requirement. It was an enormous hit for them, like it or not (I don't, for the record). And it seems to me that removing it from the setlist would injure Mike's pride in a way that simply wouldn't be worth it. Regardless of its merits or lack thereof, he's rightly proud that he managed to contribute to an honest to goodness blockbuster hit without Cousin Brian. It's a part of their 50 year legacy, their only song released since the late 70s that casual fans have even heard, and it's actually liked by enough of the audience to warrant its inclusion. Certainly it has as many fans as, say, California Saga.
That said, the reason they're playing these versions is because they were the officially released versions. The Smile Sessions was an outtakes collection, not an album. They're playing them that way because those are the versions the majority of the fans know. I'll be honest, if I had my druthers, they'd be doing "Heroes and Villains" the way the band was playing it in the 70s, with a lot more edge to it. I loved the old live version of that song. "Good Vibrations" was the biggest hit of their lives, so you don't go messing with it now. Not on a tour that's supposed to be a summation of their recording legacy.
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Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Congratulations and thanks to Joe Thomas
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on: June 08, 2012, 06:46:40 PM
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I'm gonna definitely +1 this whole thread, cause with the number of BB projects that have fallen apart over the years, it's an absolute miracle that this happened. When it was announced, my status update was elated, but then immediately tempered with "too bad it'll never get finished". I'm astounded that it was finished, that it isn't an album which requires an apology to non-fans, that the number of strong tracks on it is as high as it is. I don't know that we'll ever know how much Joe was involved, and in what role, but the fact is that at worst he didn't make it any harder to complete. If all he did was ease Brian's mind by his presence, so that he wouldn't give up on it or lose interest, that alone is worthy of praise. You put those guys in a room together and you've got a lot of personality. Personality means potential for disaster. So Joe, I may not agree with every production choice on here, but I still like Imagination more than GIOMH, and this record came out better than it ever had any right to be. So I tip my hat to you. And Mike's hat. And Dave's hat.
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Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: The Unending Question: Does He Mean To Be Funny?
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on: June 07, 2012, 11:19:22 AM
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I think it's probably 50/50. It seems like there are certainly times he was half trying to be funny and half just putting it the way he feels it at that precise moment. Sometimes I think he's just speaking and people find it funny because it's unexpected. For instance, any time he just arbitrarily throws an F-bomb into the middle of casual conversation with his bandmates or the audience.
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Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Does Brian still have it?
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on: June 05, 2012, 08:45:22 PM
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Based on what we have of the suite, I would say without hesitation and without qualifiers, yes yes yes. Those tracks stand alongside anything he's done at any point in his entire career, in my opinion. They're just superb. Now, if the rest of the suite was on this level, then holy mother, he would've finally proven that SMiLE was not his final album-length artistic statement. If there's any justice in the world, Brian will find a way to finish the other songs from that suite, even if it's on a solo album, so we can put them together into the configuration they'd have had. Hell, the other tracks could be 75% as good as the pieces of the suite that we did get, and it'd still be a masterpiece. I love TLOS dearly, so I never thought he'd lost it completely. But I never thought it could stand shoulder to shoulder with his classic work. I think these tracks do.
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