Seems a bit odd that Probyn would do an interview that people then try to shut down. I mean, once something is on the internet, it's on the internet. According to the tumblr post it's being hunted down by Brian's management. I wonder why, seems a bit odd.

Holy god. I had heard the more well known songs from this album, but I just listened to We Three Kings for the first time and wow..... Brian's harmony is just mind blowing on this. Best rendition of that song ever!

and they could hire one of their wives to take over Bruce's clapping/mic adjusting duties. Now that I'd pay to see.

Haha. Sorry but I just sprayed wine everywhere while reading that! It's so true... how often does Bruce adjust that damned mic... at least once every five seconds. Hahaha.

“Christian sounds like Carl Wilson, who passed away 14 years ago. When you close your eyes, it sounds like 1965,” Love said.

Is this actually true? I haven't heard him, but I find it really hard to believe, haha.

Well, it's interesting.  I can't prove definitively that Dennis did a full pass of the full lead vocal, but I can prove that he tried to sing at least parts of it.  Nevertheless, I'm convinced he tried the whole thing at one point.

As far as being out of his range, it's not, really.  Consider ITBOMM, "It'll always be" at the end goes up to high A.  The "But they Ain't doin' me no good" line in IJWMFTT goes up only one more semi tone to Bb.  Dennis could certainly get up there.  I haven't examined the Tessituras of the two songs to see if IJWMFTT lies higher in general, but in terms of the extremes of the range, Dennis could do it.

That's a good point. Perhaps the song really was within his range, then. But perhaps the melody was a little too active for him at least? It is definitely more appropriate that Brian sang it in any case.

4

Miracle album. It's 2012 and we have a new Brian Wilson produced Beach Boys album, and it's surprisingly good. I mean, who the heck would have thought that much possible. Obviously it's not going to top Pet Sounds or anything, but that's a pretty tall order and quite honestly how many albums by anyone have ever approached Pet Sounds greatness? No, this is a perfectly fine release when you consider exactly how awful it could be. This album, arguably has no business being anything like as good as it actually is.

There are some downright tasteless song writing choices in and among some real gems. That said.... we live in a world where people like Justin Bieber and Nicki Minaj actually exist as real people selling music; so maybe it's fair to view the songs on this LP in that context? Yeah, obviously Beaches in Mind as well as Shelter, Daybreak Over The Ocean and The Private Life of Bill and Sue don't do this album any favours, despite having their moments and the harmonies being just as strong. But the fact is that the rest of the album is pretty damned good, especially the final three tunes.

That final suite... oh my god. I love it! Al sounds incredible on From There To Back Again, which is just brilliant with it's stop-start rhythms and lilting woodwinds. It's all so wonderfully Brian, and yet he gave the vocal to Al, which is brilliant (in keeping with the long history of brilliant leads Brian has given to Al). Pacific Coast Highway is a wonderful extension of what began in the previous track, fabulous use of rhyhtm and you really feel the emotion in the harmony with that final 'gooooodbyeeee...' Then we get the fantastic Summer's Gone, which could have leapt right out of Pet Sounds, with it's gentle tack piano and percussion building up to that amazing finale and ultimate sense of surrendering oneself to the tide of time, just brilliant. The way it fades out to that rain really cements the Pet Sounds connection for me, too, but it works well in it's own context and is totally justified.

This final segment alone is worth the price of admission. It's a miracle, in my opinion, having the 70 year old Beach Boys coming out with that! I'll take it, even if it means there are some very dubious moments elsewhere on the album. As a whole this LP is a very decent addition to the catalogue and I'm sure it will continue to be looked upon favourably into the future when you consider the other work the group has done since the 70s.

I love this record! How wonderful of Brian to pay tribute to arguably his biggest musical hero like this. It's a fantastic feast for the ears.

I don't understand the complaints about it sounding too modern... it's a modern album! Yeah it would sound different if it were recorded in the Pet Sounds era, but it wasn't. I love Brian's 60s work dearly, but I also love the fact that he's producing work even now all these decades later. His modern work sounds modern? Erm... well yeah. Also, I think this has a much more organic and natural sound to it than Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE. To me the sound is faithful to the jazz that is at the heart of Gershwin and Brian's music.

The album has a wonderful flow to it, shifting effortlessly between the cool jazz beats, slow ballads and the upbeat shuffle music, delivering many satisfying surprises along the way. There's the occasional gorgeous Brian key change here, a marvellous Gershwin string break there. The way all this is tied up in that great Pet Sounds esque percussion, those great BW bass lines and splendid harmonies is a real treat. The arrangements really do feel like a perfect marriage of the two composers music.

Finally I am grateful to Brian for continuing to produce quality work. It'd be really easy for him to just sit back and collect royalties, but he continues to produce and play live because he obviously still has a huge passion for what he does.

Love Cabin Essence. On the subject of the hiss etc, I have to say that I personally love that it's there. Things like that, to me at least, add a certain charm and honesty to the collection; because ultimately SMiLE is the great lost work. What we are listening to in TSS is a fractured approximation of what might have been, warts and all, which makes it all the more heart achingly beautiful in my opinion. This is something I've long thought about SMiLE... the fact that it was always something that 'might have been,' a lost master-work, simply heightens and enriches it all the more.

One of my favourite moments from TSS. It's hard to pick a favourite song, because there's just so much to love, but this is definitely in the top three (along with Heroes and Villains and Wonderful).

On the subject of the simplicity of part two, I really like the bleakness. It gives a nice contrast to part one and really accentuates the layers that suddenly wash over everything at the end after 'a children's song.' I love that beautiful ending coming in after that brief moment of loneliness. That bass part is from another planet, the harmonies are just incredible and Brian soaring over everything just blows my mind every time.

I'm guessing it wasn't all that great or else it would have been saved. The melody is pretty dynamic, with all it's unusual ups and downs, not to mention the range, and I can't imagine Dennis being able to pull it off. I'd wager his take was pretty bad.

I think if I went to a M&B show after seeing the real deal at Wembly it'd just feel really weird.

I went with Today/Summer Days. Today is a fantastic concept album with it's two sides perfectly summing up the duality of Brian's song writing, and side two is obviously a close relation of Pet Sounds.

Summer Days is a comparatively weak record, true; but it does have some big guns. I mean California Girls, a much improved version of Help Me Rhonda and Then I Kissed Her, which, yes, is a cover, but there's something otherworldly about Brian's backing harmony and Al obviously sounds great on it! I really like Let Him Run Wild as well. The only tracks that really pull it down a lot for me are Amusement Parks USA and You're So Good To Me.

I've never been a big fan of Sunflower. Something about it just doesn't grab me in the same way as Brian's 60s work. Surf's Up does nothing for me, but makes me wonder what the BBs story would have been like if SMiLE had been finished and they hadn't spend the subsequent years slowly regurgitating SMiLE songs over the course of several records. Such a shame... ah well.

Was hoping it would show up on Spotify, but so far it's not there, despite all the other reissued albums being there. I've always tended to listen to the 40th Anniversary Stereo version, as I actually prefer it to the mono (which is odd, as I tend to favour mono versions of the early BB stuff).

I am not very knowledgeable about this, but sometimes I reflect on why modern studio recordings do not have the same presence that 50s and 60s recordings do. Could one of the reasons be that most studios now have carpeting? From (many) pictures I've seen, everything appears to be solid walls, floors etc, which I'm thinking could be a lot of the "room sound" and spaciousness that can be found on 60s records - a lot of The BBs stuff, Lesley Gore, Orbison, tons others. Any thoughts/opinions?

I don't know. By all accounts, particularly at Gold Star, the room was quite small and stuffed full of musicians. When a room is full like that, there's a lot of absorption of sound. I think the main thing that was captured in the room with the performance was the mic bleed crossing between players, rather than any significant room sound. The bulk of 'room sound' on the final record can probably be attributed to the echo chamber. But that's just my guess.

Personally I've always felt that, while the obvious extensive use of delay and huge echo were significant components, it was the fact that all that stuff then got mixed down to mono on analogue tape (probably at a slow speed). There's a very specific warmth that arises from the use of old tape recorders, which feels a lot more organic than any of the standard digital compression done today. The tape adds a ton of the flavour to that stuff and is a major ingredient, in my view.

The fact that, in Spector's case, it's all mono, just makes it all the more dense and ethereal. Everything is layered together in such a way that nothing can be placed easily. Brian, of course, favoured mono, but there are a huge number of stereo mixes of his stuff available, which I guess subliminally makes his work easier to pick apart. However, I do sort of get the impression that while he was trying to emulate Spactor's big sound, he very deliberately underplayed it in an effort to give his blended instruments more room to breathe.

Thanks! I've been out of the loop for a while, but I am currently finishing off the TOYS vocals and finishing up a seasonal Halloween track. I'll update when the stuff is finished.

This was my first time ever seeing the BB's live, and I felt somewhat emotional at various stages throughout the show, particularly as it set in that this was possibly the final time the real BB's will play a concert. I loved the energy and was blown away by how good they all sounded. The harmonies really were very tight (except for seeming a bit off during That's Why God Made The Radio). It was amazing how many songs they packed into those few hours, and they seemed to just keep pumping out more and more songs without any gaps, which was awesome.

As others have said, Al starting off Then I Kissed Here with the second line was quite funny, and I loved how he made up for it at the end of the song. Other high points for me were coming back to my seat after the intermission and then freaking out as I heard the cool rhythm of Pet Sounds break out, with David Marks just nailing the lead. I felt like the second part of the show had the most energy. The first half seemed to lean heavily on the hits, with the second part delving into stuff like Heroes and Villains which felt like an amazing departure from what had been played up to that point (I loved that they played it, as I am a huge SMiLE fan). Good Vibrations was fantastic, too!

All in all it was an amazing night and you could just feel the audience going crazy with appreciation for the group. The audible rumble that came from the clapping and stamping of feet before the encore was fantastic.

I'm just glad I finally got a chance to see them. It seems like it might actually have been the final chance to see the whole line up.

[Update:]

Hi there. As I mentioned in my introduction I make music myself, and I am quite inspired by the avant garde aesthetic that is present throughout The Smile Sessions, but in general I am just really heavenly influenced by great 60s popular music composers/producers, including John Barry, Phil Spector and of course Brian Wilson, among many others. I'm currently working on my first full fledged album, "TOYS," which I hope to complete later this year.

Update: TOYS is now complete and available on Spotify/iTunes and most online music platforms.



Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/2Jf18qZ5bnzsBZOb2ZaZLr
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/toys/id595978467
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/timothy-mcgaw/sets/toys

The album includes thirteen songs/instrumentals in mono. It's probably best described as psychedelic art-rock, along similar lines to Smile. The songs centre on the theme of childhood dreams and memories, articulated through the use of musical toys in the arrangements, as well as through lyrical quotes of nursery rhymes and children's songs.

I hope you'll enjoy the album. Let me know what you think! Cheers!

Thanks for the warm welcome!

Hi there, everyone. New member here just introducing myself. My name is Timothy, I'm from the UK and naturally a huge BBs fan. I love The Smile Sessions! I'm also a composer/musician strongly influenced by the avant garde style of recordings like The Smile Sessions. Nice to meet you!