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- Latest Member: Dae Lims
| March 28, 2024, 01:11:56 PM |
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Non Smiley Smile Stuff / Smiley Smilers Who Make Music / Re: The Majik Rain Orchestra - cosmic Frequency
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on: August 11, 2020, 04:37:44 PM
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I know this is easier to suggest than to do it (and no, I'm not postulating mysfelf for the task), but, If you need other voices than yours, you should go the extra mile to find them, to do justice to your work. I've been listening on Spotify to The Pen Pal Club, a Japanese band with a havy Sixties fixation (I learnt of them because they did "Melt Away"). The albums are very well done, with a heavy ratio of covers. But them beign of the "Stack-on/twofer" mentalilty, they like to feature both mono and stereo mixes of every album, as well as backing and vocals-only tracks. And I was very dissapointed when I heard the notorious autotuning on the vocal arrangements. Bottom line: they should have find better singers. Sorry if I'm rambling (most certainly I am) but don't sacrifice the melodies or the vocal timbres: your work is very promising for that to happen.
Anyway, keep up the great work.
PS. but going back to my original question: Do you start tracking a keyboard part along with a metronome, even if that keyboard may end up erased after the other instruments are stacked?
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Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Request: BW Album Reissues with Bonus Discs of Demos and Alternate Takes
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on: July 20, 2020, 04:08:02 PM
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I don't want to be harsh, but this is the kind of stuff that will be a little part of the bread and butter for Brian's children. There's no market for such a thing today, even as digital-only. At Spotify, Brian has only 158000 monthly listiners versus almost 10500000 for The Beach Boys. And we've come a long way from the days of the BW 88 reissue. It seems that I'm in a minority here but I'm curious about outtakes and demos for GIOMH. For example, Mark Linett said that they demoed more songs co-written by Stephen Kalinich. Not that I think there's a lost masterpiece there, but I'm curious.
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Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: First recording songs of different studios
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on: March 31, 2020, 08:50:00 AM
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Speaking of Western - I think it's really interesting, and telling, that Brian seems to have purposely avoided using Western from right after the collapse of SMiLE in '67 until just before the 15 Big Ones era, a good 7 or 8 years later. It's as if he couldn't take being at the site of his former glories, yet he was willing to work at other commercial studios - for instance, he used Wally Heider Studio 3 extensively, in spite of (or maybe because of) it being an exact replica of Western 3. I just ran the addresses of Western, Gold Star, Heider's, Valentine, and even Brother in Santa Monica, against 10452 Bellagio Rd through mapquest.com.directions, and I see that they were ALL roughly the same distance from Brian's home at the time (Valentine and Brother being no more than an extra 2 or 3 miles away, depending on if one is driving via West Sunset Blvd or the 405).
Brian's final work at Western for many years appears to have been the June 5-7, 1967 sessions for "With Me Tonight" (logged as part of "Vegetables"). Four days later, the studio at Bellagio was up and running. Bruce returned to Western on September 29th of that year to record the basic tracks for "Bluebirds Over The Mountain", Dennis returned there on November 28th to record "Tune L", and Al (with Carl and Bruce) returned there in March of '69 to begin production of "Loop-de-Loop". But Brian did not record there again until 1974 at the earliest. I'm sure I read a quote somewhere - I believe it was either Chuck or Marilyn - in which that person suspected as much.
Speaking of Western and former glories, Peter Amis Carlin's book states that the 1979 Western sessions with members of the Wrecking Crew were filmed (due to -uh- the believe that they could be Brian's last sessions). Is there any footage of that circulating amongst collectors?
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Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: TRAINWRECKORDS: Summer In Paradise
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on: March 26, 2020, 05:09:39 PM
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No, Hey Jude, I wasn't the one you discussed this issue. Last year I was very lucky to do a very long interview with Van Dyke (I'm a huge admirer, I felt like talking to Mark Twain) , and I was just checking my transcription, and yes, he told me he did all the vocal arrangements for the album, dictating every part to Brian, line by line. Don't forget Van Dyke was a choirboy, even singing at Carnegie Hall, but that wasn't really necesary for him to do the arrangements: he's a master at that, so to him is the same writing for vocals or strings or horns. But I guess he didn't have to sing every part to Brian, much less make him read sheet music: Van Dyke could have played each part on the piano. He told me that on the OCA song it took Brian three hours to record a doubled five voices. That recollection matches the memories of one of the engineers for the album on an audio forum (can't find the quote now), who said there were a lot of composites (that is, splicing different takes) and time spent on getting Brian's vocals right. As for the bonus, I've heard a backing track for Hold Back Time, and he told me there will be different mixes, but he's not sure if there's a version of Our Love is Here To Stay, as it has been reported. Anyway, the published interview is in Spanish, but I suppose you could get a reasonably decent translation with Chrome. It's very long, covering all his career and his great album with Gaby Moreno, but there's some interesting things about Smile, including his idea for an animated feature (!), the Cabinessence argument with Mike Love and the state of his relationship with Brian. https://laagenda.buenosaires.gob.ar/post/190392418770/m%C3%BAsica-el-amigo-americano
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Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: TRAINWRECKORDS: Summer In Paradise
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on: March 26, 2020, 01:26:53 PM
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So, a Brian Wilson capable of singing and arranging *all* the vocals on something like the "Orange Crate Art" album, coupled with a huge bag of songs, a solid facilitator in Andy Paley, a then pretty hot producer in the form of Don Was, and a group with nothing else to do, all suggested that a Beach Boys album with that material had little chance of being a disaster if the band members had put any weight behind it.
Not to be picky about it, but OCA's vocals arrangements were written by Van Dyke himself, at last that was the case with the title song. BTW, Van Dyke is working with Omnivore Records on a reissue of OCA with bonus tracks, but not alternate takes by Brian, AFIK.
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Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Brian postponing tour the day before it starts.
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on: June 06, 2019, 01:12:21 PM
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I'm sad and frightened. I love the man and I wish him the best and more. When it comes to back problems, I can't help but remember Prince and Tom Petty, and how dangerous these meds can be, specially if they happen to have interaction with Brian's meds for his mental illness. On the other side, I´m pretty sure that Brian is in a more controlled environment than them. But what worries me more is that dreared D-word, I remember Peter Falk slipped into it after going through some dental procedures (that's the kind of cases HeyJude was referring to) Anyway, I'm hoping/wishing/praying for a temporary state brought by the aftermath of his last surgery.
BTW, anybody knows when Brian did have his last back surgery?
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Smiley Smile Stuff / The Beach Boys Media / Blondie Chaplin - Mojo
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on: March 01, 2019, 06:45:50 AM
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Blondie Chaplin appears on the Hello/Goodbye feature of the latest Mojo (Keith Richards on the cover)
Blondie Chaplin &The Beach Boys
They called as he was taking tea with his mum. But after a scuffle with the manager at Madison Square Garden, he was gone.
HELLO LATE 1971 I was playing with a group called The Flame. In 1968, Al Jardine saw us at a club called Blaises in Kensington. The Beach Boys were looking for talent to sign to their label, Brother, so he got Carl Wilson in and one thing led to another and we signed. I didn’t think too much of it, to be honest. It was nice they took an interest in us, but we weren’t from a very Beach Boy-orientated background, we were playing a lot of R&B,Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding kind of stuff, so itwas really just meeting somebody well-known. Musically it wasn’t a connection to anything we’d been close to, back in South Africa. A few years later, The Flame disbanded and we all went back to South Africa. Iwas in Durban, sitting with my mum, having a cup of tea and listening to the radio. I got a call from Jack Rieley, who was managing The Beach Boys at the time, to hook up and come over to Radio Luxembourg, to start working on a live radio broadcast. So I travelled from Durban to Johannesburg, to England and on to Luxembourg. Radio Luxembourg was a big radio station then. The first gig I playedwith them, I played bass. We played Heroes And Villains, and I had to learn the song with Carl in a hotel room. After that they asked me to [join, in February 1972. NB: some sources date the Radio Lux show as May 10.] It was strange coming from South Africa, jumping into this West Coast kind of thing, and getting adjusted to the Californian lifestyle. You’re foreigners, you know, itwas a bit of a shock. And we came from such a different point of view, musically. I wasn’t thinking in terms of that surf stuff. But thenwhenwedid join, the musicwas more experimental, it moved it alongand took a different turn,which [ex-Flames drummer and new BeachBoy] Ricky Fataar and I liked.We worked very well togetherwith Carl, I think, andworkingwithDenniswas easier, andAl at times. And a little bitwith Brian, because he was inadifferentworldat that time, so to speak. The other guys wereOK. To get comfortable in thatmusical situation, and those personalities…like any newband or newadventure you get into, there are always adjustments.
GOODBYE DEC 19, 1973
Ricky and I were included. We had some of the songs on a couple of the albums [1972’s Carl And The Passions – “So Tough” and 1973’s Holland]. I don’t know, you always feel that you can do more. They were in such an established situation, it was a little different for us, coming in. I’m sure there was some frustration, but I can’t say it was an overall frustrating situation. We’d done a long hard tour, quite gruelling, and everybody was a little burned out. We ended up at Madison Square Garden. It was a great show, a very, very good show. That night I got into a scuffle with Mike Love’s brother Steve Love, whowas managing the band, and I was so hurt and annoyed, I just said, “f*** it.” AtMadison Square Garden, that was it forme. Whatwas the scuffle about? I don’t want to get into that, into the details. I’ve already said enough. Except to say it was completely stupid, and not on my part! I spoke to Ricky about it a little bit. We were all disappointed. But there’s no point hanging out with that kind of behaviour. I was like, “I’m not going to go through suppression in an organisation”, it felt like that. Some people were like, “What, you’re leaving?!!” But it was an easy decision for me. I just didn’t show up for the next gig. That was my way of quitting. Immediately afterwards, I started writing some songs and thought about recording and getting some stuff out. It was one of those things. You just keep moving forward. I don’t want to say that everything in the whole thing culminated in a negative, but that’s how my involvement ended. I still work with Brian and Al right now. Brian likes me to sing Sail On Sailor and I don’t mind – it’s a classic, and I do Wild Honey and some other stuff. I have fun and keep going. Holland just turned 46 years old, so I’ve been doing it for close to 50 years now! Ha! It’s a long fucking time.
As told to Ian Harrison
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Smiley Smile Stuff / The Beach Boys Media / New Article on Uncut magazine
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on: August 20, 2018, 02:51:23 PM
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As a (really forced) tie-in with the RPO album, latest Uncut (Hendrix on the cover) has a feature story on the Smiley Smile-to-Surf's Up period of LPs. All the survivors give quotes. Nothing revealing, of course (plus, some typos from the writer: Cabineseence recorded on BW's makeshift studio; The Big Ones 1976 LP)
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Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Songs Inspired by The Beach Boys
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on: February 25, 2018, 12:22:38 PM
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The Explorers Club: The whole 1st album Parts of the 2nd Most of the 3rd (which includes another Darlin' groove)
Elvis Costello: the other side of summer
XTC: Chalkhills and children Books are burning (nothing obvious on the surface, but Andy Partridge came up with the chord progression after dissecting I get around)
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Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Listen to
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on: January 11, 2018, 01:22:25 PM
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My source is not CD or vinyl. But really, compression can't be the cause. It's also on the official BW channel for You Tube (excerpts from the track + Andy + Brian talking). Anyway, I still can't understand what happened.
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