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Imho Smiley is not better or worse than SMiLE... just... different. The uncanniest thing about Smiley is just that it manages to be SO different. It's like a shadow projected by SMiLE.

The 2nd verse Al added to Ding Dang has a country flavour to it, as you would expect from him!

Has anyone here heard Smiley AFTER SMiLE, be-it a really good bootleg, BWPS, TSS or a fanmix? I'm curious if that made their intro to Smiley better or worse.

For some reason I opted to listen to Smiley after getting obsessed with Pet Sounds and Pepper as a 16 year old around 2008. Even though BWPS was around by then I was put off by the lack of Beach Boys and Brians old voice once i got thru Heroes so I said "nah, I dont want my intro to this music to be a pseudo cover band, Ill take the closest we have to the real thing from the Beach Boys." I knew Smiley was a scaled down version but I thought "well so it wont have as many overdubs or whatever, who cares?" Thinking itd be like a Today to SMiLE's Pet Sounds, or even just a lateral move from PS instead of topping it. Needless to say I was shocked and disappointed. So much so that I lost all  interest in SMiLE for almost two full years. Then i saw the Beautiful Dreamer documentary, found bootlegs uploaded to YouTube (first track I heard besides GV and H&V was Odeon CIFOTM) and the rest is history.

EDIT: before anyone gets cross, the quote about BWPS as a pseudocover band reflects my thoughts at the time not necessarily now

My introduction to Smile (and I can't have been alone in this) was disc 3 of the Good Vibrations boxed set. Not sure exactly how old I was but I think around 6th or 7th grade. I was already obsessed with Pet Sounds and the Today/Summer Days twofer. The Smile music in that form totally blew me away. At some point around that time I downloaded some additional bootlegs on Napster (I guess that dates this moment! How long was Napster a thing for?) and acquired a copy of Look, Listen, Vibrate, Smile. Shortly thereafter I got the Smiley/Wild Honey twofer, for Christmas I think. I don't remember my first impression of Smiley that precisely. But I think I had been primed by everything I had read and heard about it for it to be basically just a worse version of the Smile music I knew, and to my ears at the time, that's exactly what I got. But I fell in love with Wild Honey, and because they were on the same CD, I kept sort of accidentally listening to Smiley, and at some point it clicked that this was its own weird, interesting thing.

Practically the whole Phoenix gig:

https://youtu.be/TazvpW2NKyg?feature=shared

https://youtu.be/357x0VFsKQU?feature=shared

https://youtu.be/jv-A7dhjkzc?feature=shared

https://youtu.be/juZYCpobpVo?feature=shared

https://youtu.be/YMwahcyWdIc?feature=shared

And very good videos they are!

THIRTY-THREE minutes of Love You live, courtesy of Sheriff John Stone from the Beach Boys Today forum:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x456URSDZYc

Who would ever have dared hoping for that?

P.S.
Debbie on "Johnny Carson"... 

Tears of unbridled joy hearing these songs live!
Someone should get them the footage of Brian going hog-wild on the bass when the BBs played "Roller Skating Child" as an intro to the "Love You" portion of the set...
A running set of clips with Brian would be a great ongoing motif for the entire show. 

Has anyone here heard Smiley AFTER SMiLE, be-it a really good bootleg, BWPS, TSS or a fanmix? I'm curious if that made their intro to Smiley better or worse.

For some reason I opted to listen to Smiley after getting obsessed with Pet Sounds and Pepper as a 16 year old around 2008. Even though BWPS was around by then I was put off by the lack of Beach Boys and Brians old voice once i got thru Heroes so I said "nah, I dont want my intro to this music to be a pseudo cover band, Ill take the closest we have to the real thing from the Beach Boys." I knew Smiley was a scaled down version but I thought "well so it wont have as many overdubs or whatever, who cares?" Thinking itd be like a Today to SMiLE's Pet Sounds, or even just a lateral move from PS instead of topping it. Needless to say I was shocked and disappointed. So much so that I lost all  interest in SMiLE for almost two full years. Then i saw the Beautiful Dreamer documentary, found bootlegs uploaded to YouTube (first track I heard besides GV and H&V was Odeon CIFOTM) and the rest is history.

EDIT: before anyone gets cross, the quote about BWPS as a pseudocover band reflects my thoughts at the time not necessarily now

Added two more September dates to the top post schedule.

 
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
[posthumous knighthood?:]
BRi, "SiR"!   BRiANiSTA~HATS iN AiR:  BRi /"SiR B*"«

NOW, w/ BRiANiSMS "iN AiR/+":    BW  WON !«

By Douglas Fink/PapaLaPap (in the "Sad, Sad Summer" 2025):
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    "SL00P"s  SECRET  "€~METER"  =  CESSP00LS !«
__________________________________________________________
"BRIAN DOUGLAS WILSON" + anagram epitaph:
"SAIL~BOARDing SUN: LOW"
__________________________________________________________

(BW~epitaph freely after JULIA's SMiLE Jigsaw Puzzle:)
   JULIA...   HAIL U, "J" !«

BRiAN WILSON = "DUMB ANGEL"/"Pied Piper"/"SANDALPHON"FunFun !?

   "WILSON/SCHMILSON"?     NO !  "WILSON/SMiLEson"!  

BRiAN WILSON WAS  "T*H*E  P*O*E*T  L*A*U*R*E*A*T*E  O*F  S*U*M*M*E*R"  !
Can anyone think of a finer Brian epitaph?
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The Beach Boys/"Beach Men"(?) = 9 MEN:  Brian (rip), Dennis (rip), Carl (rip), Mike, Al, David, Bruce, Ricky & Blondie !   By  Dmitri A. Borgmann/PapaLaPap (2025:)
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   DO  NiNE  MEN  iNTERPRET  "NiNE  MEN" !?             i  NOD ! «    

Douglas Fink/PapaLaPap version (2025:)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"NiNE MEN" iNSiDE ME MEMED: "iS NiNE~MEN  iN?"«
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
 
SHAKESPEARimental palindromic hymn dediicated to the late Brian WILSON & his distant cousin: WILL S*. By Anthony Etherin/PapaLaPap (in "Sad Sad Summer" of 2025)
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'N AiR~BURST,  €£/M*:  A HYMNIST !?

CALL A ROMEO~PLAY !

OR A ROYAL POEM  

OR ALL ACTS iN MY HAMLET's  "R  U  BRiAN?"««««

A question: does anybody know who the percussionist/singer is? Thanks!

He is Jim Laspesa. By his looks, I knew he should surely have Italian ancestry! He has a very good voice, too.

Now I have the complete roster:

Al Jardine: vocals, guitar
Matt Jardine: vocals, percussion
Bob Lizik: bass guitar
Darian Sahanaja: vocals, keys
Debbie Shair: keys, Moog, choreography on "Jimmy Carson"
Emeen Zarookian: guitar
Gary Griffin: vocals, keys
Jim Laspesa: vocals, percussion
Mike D'Amico: drums
Paul Von Mertens: saxes, flute, harmonica
Rob Bonfiglio: vocals, guitar

What was your first impression of Smiley, Billy? Maybe it was not so surprising just after listening to Rio Grande.