I guess it's the same argument as to whether or not GV should be on any SMiLE mixes, since that was just label strongarming which got the song on there. And that has even LESS thematically in common with the rest of the album. But I think musically it fits on that album, and the same is true with Sloop on Pet Sounds. When Brian arranged that song, he had already climbed up to that next plateau where he would conceive the rest of Pet Sounds. To my mind, "Little Girl I Once Knew" fits on Today! but would feel too...I don't know, juvenile being on Pet Sounds. Having a song about how a girl has changed, with the conclusion being "hot damn, you look hot now!" alongside a song about how time has changed a girl into a shadow of her former self, it just wouldn't sit well. Plus it's not as musically sophisticated as anything on Pet Sounds. I'm all in favor of Sloop being where it is, and of GV being on SMiLE.

Pretty much every album after that, well, that's another matter. Those are all primed for a nice resequencing.

It's good, sort of all in the spirit of inclusion. Besides, can you really see Mike Love turning down the opportunity to stand next to this woman?

I tried to look at these for the Boys, but between Taylor and (presumably) your wife (?), I didn't actually notice if the Beach Boys were in any of these...

Elvis Costello's show Spectacle is precisely this, two artists discussing the craft and then performing together. And if anyone knows the craft, it's Costello.

And Ronnie Wood is the man. Frankly, even cooler than his time with the Stones for me is his time in the Faces. What a great band they were.

We do it for the same reason we do every holiday. As an excuse to eat.

Besides, with modular recording, with different parts of the song being recorded at different studios, I'm sure there are instances where the person playing each instrument could change between the chorus and the bridge, for instance.

Isn't it awful? This is part of what makes me sad for Carl, that his last few projects with his band were so...well, not anything that's going to end up in their career highlights.

OK. I'll take this conversation off-line, so to speak, so we don't clog this thread.

Another approach might be to narrow it down to a select few years rather than try to show Brian's entire life. I think of Backbeat, for instance, which viewed John Lennon exclusively through his friendship with Stu Sutcliffe, covering only the time the band spend in Hamburg before they got their EMI contract. When you do a film that tries to cram someone's entire life into two hours, and it needs to hit all of the particular moments for which that person is famous, you end up with a highlight reel instead of a story with any real depth to it. If they made a film about, say, 1965-1967 or something, that could allow them to dive more deeply into Brian's psyche without needing to reserve 30 minutes of screen time for Jeff Goldblum as Landy or something.

Start with this question. PC or Mac?

Well, unless the angle was "Brian Wilson, the genius at work with his army of talent" or something. Certainly people knew he was back at the studio recording while the Boys were on the road, cause he'd been doing it that way for some time before GV was released. So if they emphasized "watch the maestro's mad sonic experiments" instead of focusing on the contributions of the other Boys, that might've flown to some degree.

I think the album could have been a success on one condition: if the band had managed to tour it right then and there. If they had staged it as some kind of a happening, something visual to accompany the music. Treat it as an event. If you tell people something is a masterpiece often enough, they WILL think of it that way. We have enough examples of that in popular culture to know that to be generally true. You look at what bands like The Who or Pink Floyd did with their concept albums only a few years later (Tommy was '69), that would be the model which would've worked, if you ask me. Trying to break it down into singles or something wouldn't have worked. People would need to think of it like a classical piece of music, as a whole.

Thing is, no one in the band other than Brian (maybe Carl, depending on his mood) could have bought into the pretentiousness of doing it that way. There's just no way those six guys could've gone out on the road with that bear of an album and convincingly do interviews where they dissect it or talk about its spiritual component or any of that sort of stuff that Pete Townshend could do in his sleep and without a hint of irony.

So since that's an impossible alternate history, I think if the album had come out, it would've gotten a lot of attention and sparked a lot of talk among people who analyze music. And I think the general public would've gone, "Hm. Well, that's interesting, but it doesn't have any actual SONGS, does it." And it'd still build up a cult following a la The Clash's Sandanista or something like that, but I don't think it would've been a commercial smash at all. I think it would've done something a little less than Pet Sounds did. And that its failure to connect with the public would have led to basically the same trajectory for Brian. It still would've been the project of his which broke him and left the band forever playing catch up. He almost certainly would have gone with something stripped down like Wild Honey was as his next project, because that's common in that era. Abbey Road followed by stark stuff like Plastic Ono Band and McCartney. Paul Simon's self-titled after the orchestral scope of Bridge Over Troubled Water.

Pretty great being a fan of any classic musician in the age of the internet, where so much is at our fingertips.

We've gone over the "staging" topic before, when bits of this footage appeared on the Beach Boys' "Web-isodes" series of Smile Sessions promo videos on YouTube. I'd suggest searching this board's archives for some more pertinent information on these two films if anyone is interested.

The topic here could be the content of the film itself instead of whether or not it was 'staged'. I'll say this: In 1966, you would not set up a studio, hire a roomful of musicians, and get the whole ball rolling at great expense if you were only there to "stage" a film. What you'd most likely do is have a session booked, and in between the official takes of the song, or even after a keeper of a take was recorded, you'd have the cameras on the floor shooting footage. Or, you'd get the musicians and singers rehearsing the parts before an official take, which in Brian's case could take hours and which seems to be the case here.

So it's not exactly "staged", and this issue came up with several other pieces of film shot in 66-67 featuring other artists in similar situations at the same LA studios. Check my link to the Studio Sessions blog for other examples.


And a big reminder: This is in no way complete. There is more to be seen from these two films, and some of the screenshots can be found in the other thread discussing this. There are some very prominent shots featuring more studio musicians on the floor, great views of both Columbia (vocal) and Western #3 (instrumental) sessions, as well as shots of various guests in the studio those days.

When, pray tell, if ever, will we get the full compliment of this footage, a more complete, unedited roll of this incredible film? This was a neat release, but where is the rest?

Fair point. Probably our use of the word "staged" is a little too broad.  I think sort of the bottom line is that it isn't as if we're seeing the recording of the precise takes used in the record. Doesn't make it any less important, though. What we need is something like The Beatles Anthology documentary, while these guys still make any sense at all recalling the early days and details of all the grim details of their histories.

Google is your friend, brother. You can do some pretty robust things with software that's free or minimally expensive. As far as vocals and backing tracks, the stuff's out there. Quite a lot can be done using just what's on TSS.

This song , once again, has the band splitting the lead vocals between Al and Carl (the bridge).. I think this song would have worked better if Al had sung the whole thing.

IMHO I hated  the bands habit of splitting up the leads in the 80's and 90's 

Well, and the 60s and 70s. Right back in the beginning it was often Mike on verses and Brian on chorus. Pet Sounds certainly has tracks where the lead singer changes every verse or so.

Carl doesn't look like himself in this video, wearing that hat. David Marks wears shades a lot, too, so maybe their fondness for shades is a Beach Boys lead guitarist thing.

Stamos' intention was to make the "Croc Rock" video look as cheesy as possible in a "camp" (deliberately tongue-in-cheek) manner. In that regard, I don't think he quite achieved the "camp" element.

Well, if a key component to something being camp is for the audience to be aware that it's camp...no, I think he didn't. That's a tricky balancing act, though, even with people who have experience directing camp successfully.

During the "bop bops", you mean? Absolutely right.

Did not know Elton's orignal had as many fans. I think it sucks, really.

I'm actually not a fan of Elton's original either. But I still think this version's worse.

Their cover is actually pretty representative of that whole Elton tribute album from which it comes. Even "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" by the Who is pretty tame (although Pete somewhat cleverly interpolates "Take Me to the Pilot" as a bridge, even though they have nothing whatsoever in common thematically). That said, Wilson Phillips' version of "Daniel" comes from that album, and is pretty decent. Ironic that the kids could do it properly while the older family members just seemed like the crazy uncles who want to be hip (which I suppose they were).

Personally it bugs me to see Carl just sort of bopping in the background not contributing a whole lot to the song.

Interesting to note that they have now played 50% of the "Still Cruisin'" album!
Only "Pet Sounds" has been played that much.

You mean once you include the songs on that album which also come from other albums? Fair point.

They did "It's OK" at a few stops, yes.

Sunflower.

Right, this is almost certainly similar to the footage we've seen for the current album: staged shortly after the actual track was recorded. Or, if we use that sentence at the end from Brian about how the cameras can't be in there while they're doing the actual "tapes", it was perhaps while they were rehearsing the vocal parts. Awesome stuff, though.