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I think with Pet Sounds Brian's goal was "an album of all good stuff" and that was it--Im gonna put 13 single-worthy tracks on one LP. It's a concept album in the sense they're all about young angst, but that wasn't an explicit goal, just where Brian's head was at. With SMiLE it became more "but what else can you put on an album beyond good songs--can you put chanting, can you put subliminal messaging? What if the album was a unified piece of art that communicated a deep spiritual message?" It was intended as a concept album from the beginning, about making the listener a better person for having heard it, getting important lessons in their head with the effectiveness of a good melodic hook or earworm jingle. That's the evolution of the artist there, Brian was thinking beyond songs and was becoming an "album artist" in the truest sense of the word. (He'd never really think in terms of albums again in my estimation, though obviously some great LPs still came from his music, like Love You.)

I think Brian intended Pet Sounds to have a certain unity of tone or theme. Not a concept album, but very much the album as a single coherent work of art. But I agree totally with what you say about Smile, here. I guess I think it may have been something like: Okay, if an album can function as a single coherent expression... what can you do with that? What possibilities does that open up? I do agree that Brian never really tried to think in terms of albums in that sense again.

What elevates SMiLE above its chief immediate competition (Revolver and Pepper) is that same thematic mission--enlightenment etched in vinyl, weaving non-musical audio into songs that straddle the line between pop/rock and classical/baroque, using Koestler's method of embedding complex lessons into the beholder's subconscious mind through careful use of humor and bisociation. Ultimately it was too much to juggle at once for one troubled young man whose vision had borderline outpaced what audio-editing tech was even capable of, and maybe a lot of this is just high-minded hippie bullshit. (The SMiLE naysayers think so, and even VDP and Asher seem to have thought a lot of Brian's neo-spiritual ideas were "dopey.") But so help me God, I think that sounds fucking awesome, I've heard roughly contemporary albums* that show something at least like it was possible and I can only say for myself SMiLE brought me back from atheism. (Now Im a pseudo-pantheistic Daoist-Gnostic you might say.) Like Anderle and Vosse, I believe in what Brian was trying to do. I feel strongly that this album could've made the world a better place had it been exposed to the wider public all at once in '67 rather than a small group of elite disciples slowly over decades. The world was primed and willing to hear that message in '67, with the Summer of Love & LSD right around the corner, while in '03 the moment had passed and the only listeners were the already-converted.  

Completely agree (except that I think Brian was working well within the limits of the tech he had available). I absolutely think the spiritual / humor aspect of Smile you point to was not a lark or hippy bullshit but a serious objective - and very much within reach.

It's almost like SMiLE was always supposed to be more than just another collection of 12 distinct, banded tracks but it was trying to evolve the formula in several directions at once, so the resulting "animal" had too much fat, or some awkward expendable limbs let's say. In order to survive as a viable entity then, it needed to shed at least one of the concepts that were pulling it apart, but its creators disagreed on what to amputate (and changed their mind over time). As I alluded to previously, you can have a funny album with offbeat "talking/laughing between cuts" or you can have music about the tragedy of American expansionism, but you can't have both simultaneously unless you want a mess. BWPS preserved the recorded musical pieces over the integrity of Brian's original concept, where Smiley did the opposite. I think part of what separates the "BWPS is SMiLE" vs the "Smiley is SMiLE" (& "'66 SMiLE was a separate beast") camps is in what they prioritize. Personally, I'm in that last group, where I seek to preserve that initial inventive spirit, dumb humor and all, but still use the somber/serious music too even if it's a bit disjointed conceptually. (Hey, Revolver & Pepper are messy too if you take off the rose-tinted glasses for a second--the Beatles were the first to admit it.) I think the people arguing against any kind of structural inventiveness in SMiLE are using faulty logic ("nobody had really done that before" > Brian innovated so much else in his career up to that point, why not this?) or not putting two and two together ("Brian never tried anything like that before or after" > Because he didn't think of it before '66 and after SMiLE he got scared from trying again).

This is really helpful for me in terms of my own thinking, because I've always struggled a little to explain what I believe Smile would have been. Personally, (and this is sort of just my own instincts, I guess, based on years of reading and listening), I believe that Smile would have been 12 distinct songs following the track list printed on the jackets, many of which (but probably not all) would have had fades. But I *also* think it would have had spoken exclamations, jokes, unlisted hidden songs (some silly and some serious!) and even linking tracks! But that none of that implies it would have had *movements* or been like a rock opera type of thing (other than in the sense, maybe, of thematically connected songs being clustered together, but that's not really the same thing!)

However, I think I disagree with this statement: "As I alluded to previously, you can have a funny album with offbeat "talking/laughing between cuts" or you can have music about the tragedy of American expansionism, but you can't have both simultaneously unless you want a mess."

I believe enough of the album Brian was recording in 1966-7 was finished to make sense of what he was doing, and I've never believed that the music contains the seeds of the albums demise in this way. Of course it wouldn't have been a unified statement, but it was an album that was *conceived from the beginning* to be both an Americana trip about the history of the West, a coming of age story, and a paen to, for lack of a better term, hippie spirituality (I don't mean to be disparaging by calling it that!). But the humor and the seriousness runs through all of it, and neither was ever segregated out into one part of the project. Barnyard and Heroes and Villains are silly, Cabinessence is somehow extremely silly (boing, boing boing!), very ominous, and not particularly poignant. Bicycle Rider is ominous, the Hawaiian chants are light, and the versus and title of Do You Like Worms are funny. Wonderful is beautiful but also very light. The tonal range within 75% of the songs worked on in 1966 is wider than the tonal range on all of Pet Sounds! That was a huge part of the point. (Also Song Cycle is not exactly a somber record, it's very light in its way, and full of musical humor from Vine Street on, something Van Dyke Parks very much appreciated in his work and Brian's, in my opinion, whatever frustrations he might have had with Brian's working methods at the time Smile was being recorded).

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I wish I had the time this week to respond to your comments at more length, because I always have all kinds of thoughts when I read them! But I want to jump in here to say: I really think the idea that greater complexity is a hallmark of development is really a huge misunderstanding of how art and music work. *Ambition*, I think, is a hallmark of a lot of great art. But complexity for complexities sake tends to go with the territory of mediocrity, if anything. That said, I think asking whether Smile or Pet Sounds is more "advanced" is kind of silly... Smile represents the next step in Brian's evolution as an artist. Just as Smiley Smile represents a further step, and then Wild Honey, and then Friends. (Artists can only go one direction, just like all the rest of us. Try to live your life from three years ago tomorrow and see how that goes for you!) Brian's greatest magic trick was always to make the dizzingly complex sound simple. Just pointing out the complexity of Wouldn't it Be Nice to casual fans makes a fun parlor game (The fact that the song is entirely driven by accordions and yet no one ever notices them really sums things up).

But all that said, this does sort of fit with a longtime pet theory of mine, which I've said before, I'm sure, which is that Pet Sounds evolved out of Today, but Smile evolved out of Summer Days. It wasn't a neat line forward, but rather an album that was more intimate, personal, and orchestral, followed by an album that was brighter, with arrangements that sound simpler but actually aren't, conceptual lyrics (Salt Lake City!), less unified but with greater range. Then another album of personal, intimate, orchestral music. And then another album of conceptual lyrics paired with brighter, bouncier arrangements, simpler in one sense, but more complex in another, again with less cohesion and more range.

I think with Pet Sounds Brian's goal was "an album of all good stuff" and that was it--Im gonna put 13 single-worthy tracks on one LP. It's a concept album in the sense they're all about young angst, but that wasn't an explicit goal, just where Brian's head was at. With SMiLE it became more "but what else can you put on vinyl beyond good songs--can you put chanting, can you put subliminal messaging? What if the album was a unified piece of art that communicated a deep spiritual message?" It was intended as a concept LP from the beginning, about making the listener a better person for having heard it, getting important lessons in their head with the effectiveness of a good melodic hook or earworm jingle. That's the evolution of the artist there, Brian was thinking beyond songs and was becoming an "album artist" in the truest sense of the word. (He'd never really think in terms of albums again in my estimation, though obviously some great LPs still came from his music, like Love You.)

What elevates SMiLE above its chief immediate competition (Revolver and Pepper) is that same thematic mission--enlightenment etched in vinyl, weaving non-musical audio into songs which straddle the line between pop/rock and classical/baroque, using Koestler's method of embedding complex lessons into the beholder's subconscious mind through careful use of humor and bisociation. Ultimately it was too much to juggle for one troubled young man whose vision pushed analog editing tech to its limits, and is maybe just a lot of high-minded hippie bullshit anyway. (The SMiLE naysayers think so; even VDP and Asher seem to have thought a lot of Brian's neo-spiritual ideas were "dopey.") But so help me God, I think that sounds fucking awesome, I've heard roughly contemporary albums* that prove something at least of similar ambition was possible and I can only say for myself SMiLE brought me back from atheism. (Now Im a pseudo-pantheist, trending Daoist-Gnostic.) Like Anderle and Vosse, I believe in what Brian was trying to do. I feel strongly that this album could've made the world a better place had it been exposed to the wider public all at once in '67 rather than a small group of elite disciples slowly over decades. The world was primed and willing to hear that message in '67, when the Beach Boys were popular enough to be heard by all and the Summer of Love was right around the corner. By '03, much less '11, the moment had long-since passed, people are more divided and cynical than they were in the Free Love Era, plus the only Beach Boy listeners left are comparatively few and already-converted.  

Anyway, I also think it's significant that all three "successor" albums to SMiLE* followed the "experimental song cycle" formula, VDP with Song Cycle and Brian's two attempts to adapt the music, Smiley and BWPS. With SC and SS especially, I believe both artists made the album they wanted the original SMiLE to be: VDP with the American Gothic journey and "more sophisticated" arrangements (Anderle says in Crawdaddy that a big sticking point between them was VDP wanting "more sophisticated" arrangements and Brian wanting to simplify). Meanwhile, Brian added more overt humor, chanting, plus audio verite like the cork popping, "Good!" and water pouring. SS was Brian giving up on modular editing, the burden of using professional studios with their schedules and union rules and VDP's manifest destiny framing device. But he stayed true to the original conception of the project: a lighthearted humor album (eeriness aside, I think that's just his depression and bitterness seeping in) with non-musical flourishes. It's just a much less grandiose, almost intentionally half-assed execution of it, done in a pinch with less precision and no Wrecking Crew. Smiley may also still be considered "bisociative" by trying to incorporate a "happier," more unified group effort vibe into the art. ("If we're having fun on tape, it will rub off on the audience!") Then BWPS/TSS abandoned the fades, bisociative programming, audio verite, modular studio editing, overt humor (minus the then-iconic "you're under arrest" and the baked-in silliness of VT) as well as any sense of pacing or momentum, but they got those songs to flow together in a "three movement" rock opera.

I say SMiLE was always supposed to be more than just another collection of 12 banded tracks, but it was evolving the formula in too many incompatible directions at once, so the resulting "animal" had too much fat, or some awkward third arm that made it unviable. In order to keep the project alive something had to give, but its creators disagreed on what was expendable or essential, until BWPS, when the priority shifted from "artistic vision" to "just get this material out to the fans already." As I alluded to previously, you can have a funny album with offbeat "talking/laughing between cuts" or you can have music about the tragedy of American expansionism, but you can't have both simultaneously unless you want a mess. BWPS preserved the recorded musical pieces over the integrity of Brian's original concept, where Smiley did the opposite. I think part of what separates the "BWPS is SMiLE" vs the "Smiley is SMiLE" camps is in what they prioritize--the music/tracks or the message/album. Either way, what's undeniable is they're both conceptually innovative song cycles in their own right. I think the conservatives arguing against any kind of structural inventiveness in SMiLE are using faulty logic ("nobody had really done a medley in rock 'n' roll before" > Brian innovated so much else in his career up to that point, why not this?) or not putting two and two together ("Brian never tried a flowing concept album before or after" > Because he didn't think of it before '66 and after SMiLE failed, he was scared of ever trying again--except the two times he "completed" that particular album, then when he finally felt he could move beyond it, w/ TLOS).

*[ASIDE:] This is NOT viable evidence, but I also can't help but find additional "assurance" in the fact that the other artist-producers whom I consider to be on Brian's level at this time were going in a similar direction, almost like "great minds think alike" and every composer worth their salt was taking the album to its creative limit: 1) Frank Zappa's WOIIFTM represents the very extreme of the concepts Brian was toying with. Would SMiLE have been so "involved" as this, probably not, but the interconnected themes/melodies between tracks, audio verite and spoken word comedy ingredients were there in the SMiLE a year prior and that's impressive. 2) Joseph Byrd of the USA would also take the same modular editing technique, copy+pasted sections repeating in different tracks and repurposing old standards in a psychedelic context like SMiLE in the group's self-titled masterpiece. 3) The Beatles, first with Pepper, intended to make a full-fledged concept album where each song would flow into the next as the titular track does to WALHFMF, carrying on the "fake band playing a live concert" framing device until that got too obnoxious and they abandoned it. (Even Paul admits "it worked [the concept] because we said it did.") With the White Album they kind of did an anti-concept album where the tracks flow into each other despite having no thematic or musical connection. Then they finally perfected the execution with the second half of Abbey Road.[/ASIDE]

Ive been lurking in the forbidden zone lately to see how the SMiLE conversation has developed over there and one talking point I've been seeing more of is this need to knock SMiLE down a peg by telling people that Pet Sounds was actually far more advanced in its arrangements and chord progressions. Im not a trained musician so I can't comment on that, but I recall it being a thesis of the "Smiley Smile IS Smile" essay that was floating around 10-15 odd years ago as well, that the sessions were gradually getting simpler anyway rather than a clean, dramatic break. I say if this is true, and I have no reason to doubt it or care (doesn't change my high opinion of the music) perhaps Brian realized Pet Sounds was the peak of Wall of Sound and the next step in innovation was the modular editing and possible Zappa-esque "sound collage" idea. So the "wow, he went to the next level" factor here isn't "he used more instruments" so much as "he took all these disparate pieces of totally different songs, audio verite recordings, spoken word snippets and tied them together in a way that lifts them all above the sum of their parts." I think that was the goal, that's what was supposed to make SMiLE groundbreaking even if the individual pieces arent any more complex than "God Only Knows" and "Good Vibrations." Honestly, that the arrangements are supposedly sparser yet few people noticed without being told implies Brian was after-all still developing as a producer, learning how to get more out of less. (That's far more impressive than, say BW88, where he throws a cacophony's worth of instrumental layers at each track just to prove he can.)

One of my favorite comments I saw there was to the effect of "Pet Sounds is the same idea told 13 different ways, it all fits together implicitly. SMiLE isn't a step up from that so much as a right turn. It's more far reaching in subject matter and so picturesque in execution you can practically smell the lamp oil in CE and feel the train thundering by. Its priority isn't in its deeply layered sound but rather how each instrument is carefully chosen to evoke a sound and its resultant visual association." (I'm highly paraphrasing but then they went on to quote the same bits of studio chatter I often do, where Brian wanted an instrument to sound like something else: jewelry, a fire engine siren, vocals imitating a banjo twang in CE, actual veggie crunching in VT, or a baby crying for example. I've also always felt Wonderful Version 1's backing track sounds just like a music box & at least some versions of Bicycle Rider sound like spokes of a bike wheel turning, but I don't know if I've ever mentioned that before.) Where Pet Sounds songs' arrangements are mostly interchangeable in their "sound texture" (part of what makes them all work together so perfectly), SMiLE was pushing boundaries by even attempting to put VT, GV, CIFOTM and Workshop together on the same LP, these wildly different tracks with their own unique sonic identity.

I wish I had the time this week to respond to your comments at more length, because I always have all kinds of thoughts when I read them! But I want to jump in here to say: I really think the idea that greater complexity is a hallmark of development is really a huge misunderstanding of how art and music work. *Ambition*, I think, is a hallmark of a lot of great art. But complexity for complexities sake tends to go with the territory of mediocrity, if anything. That said, I think asking whether Smile or Pet Sounds is more "advanced" is kind of silly... Smile represents the next step in Brian's evolution as an artist. Just as Smiley Smile represents a further step, and then Wild Honey, and then Friends. (Artists can only go one direction, just like all the rest of us. Try to live your life from three years ago tomorrow and see how that goes for you!) Brian's greatest magic trick was always to make the dizzingly complex sound simple. Just pointing out the complexity of Wouldn't it Be Nice to casual fans makes a fun parlor game (The fact that the song is entirely driven by accordions and yet no one ever notices them really sums things up).

But all that said, this does sort of fit with a longtime pet theory of mine, which I've said before, I'm sure, which is that Pet Sounds evolved out of Today, but Smile evolved out of Summer Days. It wasn't a neat line forward, but rather an album that was more intimate, personal, and orchestral, followed by an album that was brighter, with arrangements that sound simpler but actually aren't, conceptual lyrics (Salt Lake City!), less unified but with greater range. Then another album of personal, intimate, orchestral music. And then another album of conceptual lyrics paired with brighter, bouncier arrangements, simpler in one sense, but more complex in another, again with less cohesion and more range.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx_WKwfNtzI

Love this one.

[1. My Plans to Get All the SMiLE Out of My System]

This is me checking in with an update on my longterm plans for the thread/my second "SMiLE Thesis."

1. My Plans to Get All the SMiLE Out of My System

In the near-ish future I want to reread LLVS, Priore's 2005 book, the new David Leaf book as well as the 2011 booklet and relevant sections of the Byron Preiss book. Then, unless anyone can fill me in on anything substantial I'm missing, I can say I've read all the major sources covering this topic and my fandom level will be over 9000. I might even try to make a "Gospel Harmony" of the story pieced from these sources, giving priority to the details that show up most frequently or something, but this isn't a top priority for me. I'd also like to maybe assemble a "SMiLE BiBLE" of the best 66-67 contemporary articles/accounts, the best Smile Shop essays, etc along with the best comprehensive secondary sources and/or my "Harmonized narrative" to make an unofficial reference book for people in the future. This would be that "Deaf Genius/Dumb Angel" thing I mentioned in a previous post. We'll see how far I get.

In addition to the Dumb Angel, Sandalphon & Dumb Angel, Metatron mix outlines I've mentioned earlier, last night I got another cool idea idea for at least part of a new sequence. Has anybody every done a version of SMiLE where Fire ends Side 1 and Side 2 begins with Workshop? That just struck me as such an awesome idea but I'm not sure what other new sequence ideas I like enough to justify a third simultaneous crack at it. Maybe this could be the "everything is H&V" framework I've always wanted to try but never got inspiration for, and we could call it "Smile/Frown" in the tradition of opposites like H&V itself or Adult/Child. We'll see...

2. Fourth Axis of Fan Classification

It occurred to me upon further reflection that there is one other axis of "SMiLE theory" I overlooked. I mentioned Grand Plan/Disjointed Burnout, BWPS/"Original Vision," and "Oral Tradition"/"Hard Evidence." I think also, you might group us into the "regular banded album" camp who sees a 66-67 SMiLE as more similar to Pet Sounds and Sgt Pepper, with straightforward, separate tracks versus the "experimental song cycle" camp who gives more credence to quotes like "talking between cuts and verses" and thinks it would've been more similar to Smiley Smile & We're Only In It For The Money. (Less definitive breaks between tracks, audio collages, spoken word humor bits, "mistakes" or jarring cuts left it, things like that.) I personally think SMiLE started off more as the former but gradually became more of the latter, hence its final form being Smiley. I think come October or even September that's what Brian's ambition wanted to do, but he just couldn't get there for all the reasons we already know. I think, where Pet Sounds abandoned the spoken word "filler" of previous albums, SMiLE was an attempt to integrate it into the good stuff, make it an inseparable part of the message rather than something you skip like in Today!.

Ive been lurking in the forbidden zone lately to see how the SMiLE conversation has developed over there and one talking point I've been seeing more of is this need to knock SMiLE down a peg by telling people that Pet Sounds was actually far more advanced in its arrangements and chord progressions. Im not a trained musician so I can't comment on that, but I recall it being a thesis of the "Smiley Smile IS Smile" essay that was floating around 10-15 odd years ago as well, that the sessions were gradually getting simpler anyway rather than a clean, dramatic break. I say if this is true, and I have no reason to doubt it or care (doesn't change my high opinion of the music) perhaps Brian realized Pet Sounds was the peak of Wall of Sound and the next step in innovation was the modular editing and possible Zappa-esque "sound collage" idea. So the "wow, he went to the next level" factor here isn't "he used more instruments" so much as "he took all these disparate pieces of totally different songs, audio verite recordings, spoken word snippets and tied them together in a way that lifts them all above the sum of their parts." I think that was the goal, that's what was supposed to make SMiLE groundbreaking even if the individual pieces arent any more complex than "God Only Knows" and "Good Vibrations." Honestly, that the arrangements are supposedly sparser yet few people noticed without being told implies Brian was after-all still developing as a producer, learning how to get more out of less. (That's far more impressive than, say BW88, where he throws a cacophony's worth of instrumental layers at each track just to prove he can.)

One of my favorite comments I saw there was to the effect of "Pet Sounds is the same idea told 13 different ways, it all fits together implicitly. SMiLE isn't a step up from that so much as a right turn. It's more far reaching in subject matter and so picturesque in execution you can practically smell the lamp oil in CE and feel the train thundering by. Its priority isn't in its deeply layered sound but rather how each instrument is carefully chosen to evoke a sound and its resultant visual association." (I'm highly paraphrasing but then they went on to quote the same bits of studio chatter I often do, where Brian wanted an instrument to sound like something else: jewelry, a fire engine siren, vocals imitating a banjo twang in CE, actual veggie crunching in VT, or a baby crying for example. I've also always felt Wonderful Version 1's backing track sounds just like a music box & at least some versions of Bicycle Rider sound like spokes of a bike wheel turning, but I don't know if I've ever mentioned that before.) Where Pet Sounds songs' arrangements are mostly interchangeable in their "sound texture" (part of what makes them all work together so perfectly), SMiLE was pushing boundaries by even attempting to put VT, GV, CIFOTM and Workshop together on the same LP, these wildly different tracks with their own unique sonic identity.

This coincides with Koestler's The Art of Creation and its influence on Brian's creative process. Specifically, the theory of pictorial thinking as a more accessible thought process as well as the use "bisociation:" how Brian might've been matching subconscious scenes in his mind with conscious instrumentation choices. SMiLE's strength was supposed to be its ability to take you to so many different places and do it seamlessly, just with some short fragments of music as well as non-literal puns and references. The humor and impressionist style was meant to open the listener's subconscious mind, while the modular pieces (accentuated by VDP's non-linear lyrics and Frank Holmes' jigsaw puzzle style of illustration) walked us towards enlightenment, one small step at a time. Of course, this defense of SMiLE's would-be grandiosity is undercut by the fact that Brian couldn't ultimately finish it, but I'm saying I think that was his magnificent intent, that's what was supposed to be impressive about it, if the chords aren't as unexpected. (And even if the endeavor failed, like Gatsby, the beautiful dream and its naive pursuit against impossible odds is worth admiration in its own right.)

3. How Much of the '66-'67 Material was BWPS-Era Brian Exposed To?

Interesting to see the phrase "in the pink" in the story, as that was later used in BWPS's "Blue Hawaii" lyrics.

I've often wondered if Darian and the others showed Brian any of the ancillary SMiLE material during the planning stages for the '03 shows. Was he re-exposed to this, Psychedelic Sounds, old interviews/articles or the same book sources I've been reading? Did they comb through what was in the vaults or just stick to Darian's collection of boots and the GV boxset?

I'd always assumed it was Danny Hutton and some of the Vosse posse that were doing the acid and/or the hash joints, with Brian as the only Beach Boy who was high.

Seems more plausible than the rest of the guys doing it, especially in the studio. Is there any evidence that Mike, Bruce, Al or Carl ever did it at all? I dont think so but Im still learning new things everyday

If Brian's stoner posse were brazen enough to be passing out drugs in the studio during expensive recording time it definitely paints Mike's hostility in a much more understandable light, which is why Im doubtful because I think hed use every instance possible to justify his actions in interviews and his bio. ("Hell yes I was skeptical of SMiLE and the hipsters--they distracted Brian with acid right there in the studio in the middle of a session!  We had to get a master done within the hour and these guys are tripping balls! What if someone walked in? We all couldve gotten arrested!")

Nah. I think Brian was just trying to be cool/edgy with a little half-serious offer and the other guys (prob sans Dennis) were rolling their eyes thinking "ok we get it Brian youre the enlightened artist who saw God, can we finish this up now?" But thats just my intuition. I think Brian probably took several opportunities like this to goad the others to trip so theyd be less square and more prone to get where his new music was coming from

I'd always assumed it was Danny Hutton and some of the Vosse posse that were doing the acid and/or the hash joints, with Brian as the only Beach Boy who was high.

Brian Wilson and Dennis Wilson at Rock Awards. Picture: Getty


https://www.smoothradio.com/artists/beach-boys/brian-wilson-sings-daughters-phillips/

[15. Brian's Short Story at KRLA]

15. Brian's Short Story at KRLA

Something really cool I learned from the GHS is that Brian actually wrote a short story during the SMiLE sessions that was published in KRLA Beat, apparently a newspaper aimed at teens, at least mostly about musical acts. I may have tangentially heard of it before, but this is the first time I actually read it, "Vibrations--Brian Wilson Style" with Mike Spinach (nee Vosse), David Carrot (nee Anderle), Brian Gemini (nee Wilson) and "Brian's cousin Barry." Right from the get-go, it reads like a greatest hits of the Psychedelic Sounds, with a goofball stoner wandering through "the vegetable forest," choking breaths inhibiting his ability to enjoy nature and then falling into an object (a tomato instead of an instrument).

Beyond that this story is more interesting for the fact that it actually exists than having any real merit as a story. It reads like some happy stoner guy writing the first things that come to mind when thinking about personified vegetables. You see the confluence of some of Brian's other favorite subjects like astrology (hence his name) and nature (hence the setting), as well as his really goofy, borderline autistic sense of humor. It feels like a mad libs of the Psychedelic Sounds topics, which lends further credence to their importance and possibly offers insight into what kind of "humorous talking" may've been used on SMiLE. (Or, if you insist, perhaps on the "separate" humor album.) It's very unlikely to me that there's any kind of deeper hidden meaning here than that. Also, since random things just sort of happen and then it putters out with an unwritten "Part III," there's nothing to judge as a story. I'm glad I read it though--it's cute and very much of Brian's mind, for better and worse.

Interesting to see the phrase "in the pink" in the story, as that was later used in BWPS's "Blue Hawaii" lyrics.

Genevelyn the astrologer has been mentioned in almost every major source on SMiLE but here she is said to have visited Brian's house "frequently." She strikes me as a pretty weird, almost shady character and I wish more was known about her.

I don't know if you've tried to look up "Genevelyn" and struggled to find anything, but if so, it's because her name was actually spelled "J'Nevelyn".

Her name was J'Nevelyn Terrell (original name seems to be Ara Nevelyn Williamson) and she was a psychic, astrologer and friend of Audree Wilson. That's presumably how Brian connected with her first. I know this because Billy Hinsche's home videos mention and even briefly show her - she was on the trip to Hawaii in 1967 as Audree's travelling companion.

I managed to find a couple of mentions of her in publications related to workshops or things she'd written (see attached).

From what I can see she died in 1989.

Thanks! And here I imagined an ancient Gypsy woman perpetually dressed in beads and sequins, secretly sabotaging Brian under the guise of friendship because he'd angered the God Ihy by being too talented or something. Seeing her as just some boring looking middle aged white lady who was probably a well-meaning quack kinda surprises me

You're welcome! Yeah she's somewhat less mysterious when you realise she was basically just a friend of Brian's mother . I've never heard of her connected to the Beach Boys outside of that period in 1967, so I guess she just happened to be someone close to the family who could advise Brian during the short time he was interested in astrology and fortune-telling etc. I'd also wondered for a while who she was, and then just the other day happened across that Billy Hinsche stuff on YouTube and realised she was actually spotlighted and named pretty clearly.