SMiLE Sessions box set!

[Dunderhead]

So I've listened to everything now. All I can say right now is, it's fucking weird.

[Ron]

Yeah; i'm not disagreeing with it... I just think it's utterly fascinating. I don't know what to think.  Brian says that so matter of factly, but it's like he's trying to tell me the sky is green.  Maybe he's right though, maybe it just wasn't meant to be and now the time is right, and it's finally it's time for the album to be released.  

This week, has been almost SURREAL.

Things like this always trip me out though, the expanse of time and how things change, but still are exactly the same.  That album is 45 years old, and it's like it's from another dimension or something.  I didnt' like back then.  At the same time, though, while my mind is thinking that the album's from another place, we have people like Brian, Van Dyke, Mike, Al, hell even Carol Kaye still around telling us that it's very much a real thing.  

It's hard to explain.  Things that are at once dated and at the same time timeless always trip me out.  I feel the same way when I go to places I visited or lived at as a child, or whatever.  Watching old music videos, or whatever... everything seems so different, but yet it's still the same in a lot of ways too.  Brian's still very much what he was when he was 20, but he's also different enough that the whole thing just seems Surreal to me.  

[Dunderhead]

It also seems like the evolution to smiley smile began during the smile sessions.

[18thofMay]

It also seems like the evolution to smiley smile began during the smile sessions.

What are some examples of this?

[Dunderhead]

The evolution of Wind Chimes and Wonderful

[JohnMill]

Yeah; i'm not disagreeing with it... I just think it's utterly fascinating. I don't know what to think.  Brian says that so matter of factly, but it's like he's trying to tell me the sky is green.  Maybe he's right though, maybe it just wasn't meant to be and now the time is right, and it's finally it's time for the album to be released.  

I don't know.  I admire and respect the heck out of Brian but I'm not sure if that explanation fits where he was headed in 1966.  I keep thinking back to a comment he made to MOJO back in 2004 where he mentioned that his mood at the time was of being "young and energetic".  Now that is more in line with the Brian that we know from all the session tapes and all the articles and recollections written about the time period in which SMiLE was created.  

At the risk of   I'll always stand by the explanation that the project got out of control from the standpoint of being able to cull a finished product from it and like a massive jigsaw Brian eventually lost all bearings as to how to assemble the scores of sections into cohesive songs.  Yes I know that from one standpoint a lot of the instrumental tracks were completed but the way that SMiLE seemed to evolve and devolve in his mind on seemingly a daily basis who knows what those pieces of music meant to him in terms of being viable interpretations of his music by the time late spring of 1967 rolled around.

[Awesoman]

Ordered mine from Amazon. Probably will be a few days when I get it. Still waiting on the damn Disney album from them.

My box set arrived in the mail today.  Somehow it made it here before the Disney album (which I am still waiting on).  I'm just listening to bits and pieces of it.  Little bummed at the lack of stereo representation but there is still quite a bit to absorb. 

[Ron]

John, that's a good point..... but!  If part of the reason the album fell apart was because it was nearly impossible to assemble... then that leads creedence to Brian's off-hand assertion that now's the time, because with Pro-tools even the fans could piece the album together.  So in a way, now IS the time for the album to be able to be done.

Brian's always saying people weren't ready for it, though... I can't really get behind that, but he also in many interviews (even this one!) talks about monetary things.  When he says people weren't READY for it, he could mean people weren't ready to BUY it.  lol.  And now they are.  

Like I said, it's just fascinating to read, in particular, HIS comments about all this.  I realize you can't even take half of them at face value, but he's a human being and he's the same guy who made the album.  So the truth is in there somewhere.  Any comment he makes on it is fascinating to me.  

[Wirestone]

It also seems like the evolution to smiley smile began during the smile sessions.

Fishmonk, this has been one of my real revelations too!

I said somewhere else -- not sure what thread -- that maybe our vocabulary about Smile has been incorrect. We use words -- heck, Brian uses words -- like "collapse," "abandon," "shelve." But really the end of the project just seems like a shift and an evolution. Brian keeps working on the same songs. He remakes some of them, sure, but he'd been recutting tracks throughout the Smile sessions. He already had shifted to exceptionally simple backing tracks before the SS sessions -- listen to some of the sparse Vega-Tables tracks, for instance.

I had always thought of Smiley Smile as being incredibly separate -- the "bunt" and all that. But it really seems as though it's actually the finished album! Or at least, that Brian at the time considered it so. At the very least, it seems part of the same continuum of work that continued, in some form, at least through the Friends album.

[theCOD]

I had always thought of Smiley Smile as being incredibly separate -- the "bunt" and all that. But it really seems as though it's actually the finished album! Or at least, that Brian at the time considered it so. At the very least, it seems part of the same continuum of work that continued, in some form, at least through the Friends album.

That reminds me of this quote from Brian.

"I don't have to do a big scary fire like that," he later said. "I can do a candle and it's still fire. That would have been a really bad vibration to let out on the world, that Chicago fire. The next one is going to be a candle."

[Ron]

What do you guys think about the theory some have floated, that Brian passive-agressively 'sabotaged' the SMiLE songs that made it onto Smiley Smile?  

Mainly, he didn't put Surf's up on it.  He kept it.  He put "Wonderful" and "Wind Chimes" on it, but they're stripped of all their beauty and are even turned a little creepy.  

The theory is he purposefully, passive agressively, went from overproduced to underproduced, and didn't want his babies (Wonderful, Wind chimes) to be put out, so he just made the two sound so different than what he intended that they weren't really the same song.

Plus you've got "With me Tonight" where the music (as best I can hear) is literally 1 note on an organ.   

[egon spengler]

Got my box set today, grabbed a six pack, turned off all the lights (which served a dual purpose, 1--successfully deterring the trick or treaters, and 2--setting the mood for SMiLE), put on my headphones and listened to disc 1 in its entirety.  I must say, even with the fly-ins and missing vocals on a few tracks, I believe this is THE definitive SMiLE.  I've argued on this board and in other places that BWPS was the finished SMiLE, but I am presently rethinking that idea.  I mean, BWPS is great and all that, but THIS is the real deal.  The sequencing and editing just flows, and the clarity of these mixes is almost beyond description.  I am not a big fan of mono, but the mix on this is so balanced, I didn't even give any thought to the lack of stereo separation.  I feel like for the first time ever, I really "get" SMiLE (and I've been listening to the boots and various mixes for years).

Btw, I didn't drink the whole 6-pack, just two beers--one for each "side".  

It will be a glass of Merlot for me.  I'm one of the effete elite!   

Merlot here too - I'm gonna start listening in around an hour or so.  Just got to set the DVR to store some stuff for me tonight which I probably won't get to watching for a few days 

Obvious question time: Why are some of the Holmes drawings in the booklet making reference to BWPS lyrics?  Holmes dated these drawings as being created in 1996 (probably for the scrapped 1996 SMiLE box).  Why then are there allusions to "Milky Way" "Ukelele Lei Day" etc?

that's actually a really interesting point.. the pic you're referring to seems to allude to pirates, being on a holiday, old lazy mr. moon, milky way, ukulele lady, waikiki, a "man juxtaposed with a mystery," and liliuola kalani. either VDP wrote the lyrics in '03 to match the picture, or the lyrics are vintage and FH had copies of them. there's no chance that's a coincidence.

[Runaways]

I had always thought of Smiley Smile as being incredibly separate -- the "bunt" and all that. But it really seems as though it's actually the finished album! Or at least, that Brian at the time considered it so.

i somehow doubt that, even if it sounds nice

[runnersdialzero]

Mainly, he didn't put Surf's up on it.  He kept it.  He put "Wonderful" and "Wind Chimes" on it, but they're stripped of all their beauty and are even turned a little creepy.

Debatable.

Plus you've got "With me Tonight" where the music (as best I can hear) is literally 1 note on an organ.   

The vocal arrangement is brilliance, though. Not one note on organ, either, but still simply - I get what you mean.

[37!ws]

Sorry to chime in a bit late about Pacific Ocean Blue, but I have serious doubts that Brian never heard it:

- Of course, there's the oft-cited "Rollin', rollin', rollin' on" that's in common with both "Rio Grande" and "River Song."

- Isn't there a lyric on side 1 of POB that goes "They couldn't get to heaven in their car"?? Remind me: what's the name of the Brian song that plays over the credits of Police Academy IV: Citizens On Patrol and borrows the verses' melodies from "Water Builds Up"?

[Ron]

Got my box set today, grabbed a six pack, turned off all the lights (which served a dual purpose, 1--successfully deterring the trick or treaters, and 2--setting the mood for SMiLE), put on my headphones and listened to disc 1 in its entirety.  I must say, even with the fly-ins and missing vocals on a few tracks, I believe this is THE definitive SMiLE.  I've argued on this board and in other places that BWPS was the finished SMiLE, but I am presently rethinking that idea.  I mean, BWPS is great and all that, but THIS is the real deal.  The sequencing and editing just flows, and the clarity of these mixes is almost beyond description.  I am not a big fan of mono, but the mix on this is so balanced, I didn't even give any thought to the lack of stereo separation.  I feel like for the first time ever, I really "get" SMiLE (and I've been listening to the boots and various mixes for years).

Btw, I didn't drink the whole 6-pack, just two beers--one for each "side".  

It will be a glass of Merlot for me.  I'm one of the effete elite!   

Merlot here too - I'm gonna start listening in around an hour or so.  Just got to set the DVR to store some stuff for me tonight which I probably won't get to watching for a few days 

Obvious question time: Why are some of the Holmes drawings in the booklet making reference to BWPS lyrics?  Holmes dated these drawings as being created in 1996 (probably for the scrapped 1996 SMiLE box).  Why then are there allusions to "Milky Way" "Ukelele Lei Day" etc?

that's actually a really interesting point.. the pic you're referring to seems to allude to pirates, being on a holiday, old lazy mr. moon, milky way, ukulele lady, waikiki, a "man juxtaposed with a mystery," and liliuola kalani. either VDP wrote the lyrics in '03 to match the picture, or the lyrics are vintage and FH had copies of them. there's no chance that's a coincidence.

Since nobody has brought this up before, though, I'm more inclined to think that it's a new picture. 

[Ron]

Sorry to chime in a bit late about Pacific Ocean Blue, but I have serious doubts that Brian never heard it:

- Of course, there's the oft-cited "Rollin', rollin', rollin' on" that's in common with both "Rio Grande" and "River Song."

- Isn't there a lyric on side 1 of POB that goes "They couldn't get to heaven in their car"??

I'm sure Brian heard the album.  Weren't he and Dennis pretty tight from like '79 to 81 or so?  I always heard all these legends of them holing up in an apartment, getting high on cocaine and recording tons of music during that time.  If even some of that's true, Brian couldn't have helped but heard the album many times.

[egon spengler]

Got my box set today, grabbed a six pack, turned off all the lights (which served a dual purpose, 1--successfully deterring the trick or treaters, and 2--setting the mood for SMiLE), put on my headphones and listened to disc 1 in its entirety.  I must say, even with the fly-ins and missing vocals on a few tracks, I believe this is THE definitive SMiLE.  I've argued on this board and in other places that BWPS was the finished SMiLE, but I am presently rethinking that idea.  I mean, BWPS is great and all that, but THIS is the real deal.  The sequencing and editing just flows, and the clarity of these mixes is almost beyond description.  I am not a big fan of mono, but the mix on this is so balanced, I didn't even give any thought to the lack of stereo separation.  I feel like for the first time ever, I really "get" SMiLE (and I've been listening to the boots and various mixes for years).

Btw, I didn't drink the whole 6-pack, just two beers--one for each "side".  

It will be a glass of Merlot for me.  I'm one of the effete elite!   

Merlot here too - I'm gonna start listening in around an hour or so.  Just got to set the DVR to store some stuff for me tonight which I probably won't get to watching for a few days 

Obvious question time: Why are some of the Holmes drawings in the booklet making reference to BWPS lyrics?  Holmes dated these drawings as being created in 1996 (probably for the scrapped 1996 SMiLE box).  Why then are there allusions to "Milky Way" "Ukelele Lei Day" etc?

that's actually a really interesting point.. the pic you're referring to seems to allude to pirates, being on a holiday, old lazy mr. moon, milky way, ukulele lady, waikiki, a "man juxtaposed with a mystery," and liliuola kalani. either VDP wrote the lyrics in '03 to match the picture, or the lyrics are vintage and FH had copies of them. there's no chance that's a coincidence.

Since nobody has brought this up before, though, I'm more inclined to think that it's a new picture. 

it's no newer than '96 though, so it's still very odd. new thread time?

[anazgnos]

that's actually a really interesting point.. the pic you're referring to seems to allude to pirates, being on a holiday, old lazy mr. moon, milky way, ukulele lady, waikiki, a "man juxtaposed with a mystery," and liliuola kalani. either VDP wrote the lyrics in '03 to match the picture, or the lyrics are vintage and FH had copies of them. there's no chance that's a coincidence.

Since nobody has brought this up before, though, I'm more inclined to think that it's a new picture. 

I remember reading that Frank Holmes was contacted about doing artwork for BWPS, or licensing the original art or the mid-90s art, but he and Brian's management couldn't come to terms.  Possibly he could have done some new work on spec in 2003, and it's just been misdated?

[Ron]

O.K., i'm an idiot.  Somebody go slow with me so I can put two and two together.

How do we know for sure that they're from '96, and that it's not a brand new, done this year, drawing?

[egon spengler]

O.K., i'm an idiot.  Somebody go slow with me so I can put two and two together.

How do we know for sure that they're from '96, and that it's not a brand new, done this year, drawing?

bottom right hand corner: "Frank Holmes 96"

[Dunderhead]

Sync up the worms "vocal" to the track, sounds pretty good

[Dunderhead]

I also remembered some of my other favorite parts of the sessions:

Brian's Visine plug
"22 is a very heavy number in numerology"
"would you put a loud count on it please" - "ok...ONE-TWO!!!!"

[homeontherange]

Hmm.. I wonder if you could increase the volume on the vintage vocal in the Holidays sessions to place it on the backing track. I doubt you'd hear much but it'd be very cool. I'm gonna try that some day.

[homeontherange]

By the way, can someone hear what lyrics he's singing?