SMiLE Sessions box set!

[Bill Tobelman]

Sorry folks but I'd like to chime in with a few drug comments.

If one gives a few degrees of credibility to the drug comments in the book Wouldn't It Be Nice then one sees that Brian's move into psychedelia was gradual (and that it likely coincided with his book driven intellectual endeavors).

"Loren was always discoursing on spirituality, religious books, inspiring me to make music that would evoke such feelings." (WIBN pg.131)

You can see that what Loren is encouraging Brian do do is to make psychedelic art.

"From an aesthetic point of view, psychedelic art must be defined as that art which deliberately attempts to re-create, introduce stimulate, or convey the nature or essence of the psychedelic experience."
- Barry Schwartz, "Psychedelic Art" (1968)

When Brian seeks his astrologer's guidance for what would eventually become Pet Sounds he presents his request in the form of a riddle (which is the form for SMILE). The astrologer encourages Brian to look inward and write about the spirituality he felt in his heart. So Pet Sounds became the very personal album we all know.

Brian returned to the riddle form for SMiLE. SMiLE is psychedelic art: in this case--art meant to convey the spiritual essence of the psychedelic experience.

LSD helped create a movement that questioned and challenged the status quo. This is obviously threatening stuff to society's powers that be who are very interested in maintaining their advantage. This may be a contributing factor as to why the use of psychedelics are so vigorously opposed and why we're taught to avoid them like the plague.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Sorry folks but I'd like to chime in with a few drug comments.

If one gives a few degrees of credibility to the drug comments in the book Wouldn't It Be Nice...

Sorry Bill, you blew it right there. 

[Mahalo]

LSD helped create a movement that questioned and challenged the status quo. This is obviously threatening stuff to society's powers that be who are very interested in maintaining their advantage. This may be a contributing factor as to why the use of psychedelics are so vigorously opposed and why we're taught to avoid them like the plague.

There is truth to that, but for some to suggest that these drugs are harmless is asinine.

[Mike's Beard]

Any drug carries a risk factor. End of. Do we really need another 5 pages of this topic?

[The Shift]

I vote we all sack off the box set (whatever that was, I've forgotten the subject matter) and spend the dough on getting high for an hour or two. There's clearly more interest in drugs here than the Beach Lads or whatever they're called.

[Bill Tobelman]

Actually it has been suggested that the lack of these types of drugs or natural variations thereof in our society contributes to the destruction of our planet. The Native Americans knew how to utilize these substances to promote a deeper level of understanding and a reverence for the natural world.

We're currently seeing the total destruction of ecosystems & forms of life on Earth at the highest levels since the dinosaurs died off. Maybe we should define self destructive with a broader brush.

[grillo]

LSD helped create a movement that questioned and challenged the status quo. This is obviously threatening stuff to society's powers that be who are very interested in maintaining their advantage. This may be a contributing factor as to why the use of psychedelics are so vigorously opposed and why we're taught to avoid them like the plague.

Sorry Bill, although I'm no prude and I do think a natural (Mushrooms) psychedelic experience can be beneficial, saying that LSD challenged the status quo when in fact it was developed by and distributed through the military intelligence community to do the exact opposite (confuse and sedate the uppity student protesters) makes you look kinda naive. The whole we-took-drugs-and stopped-a-war meme that survives from the sixties is a proven lie, and I've never understood how musicians on major labels (mainstream media) who made tons of money while there songs played on countless radio stations (also mainstream media) was in any way challenging to the status quo. I mean, even Leary's early experiments at Harvard were funded by the intelligence community, so can we just let this bit of mythmaking go?
Just sayin...

[Chocolate Shake Man]

Sorry Bill, although I'm no prude and I do think a natural (Mushrooms) psychedelic experience can be beneficial, saying that LSD challenged the status quo when in fact it was developed by and distributed through the military intelligence community to do the exact opposite (confuse and sedate the uppity student protesters) makes you look kinda naive.

You're conveniently leaving out a crucial part. There's a reason why LSD went from being legal to illegal. If the only function of LSD was to "confuse and sedate uppity student protesters" and serve the interests of the "intelligence community" then it would have never been made illegal. What happened though is that the "military intelligence community" who were testing the drug for how well it controlled the population discovered that it was doing the opposite - that, in fact, they were losing control of the country and that a very vibrant counterculture was growing because of it, and that this counterculture actually had access to major media outlets.

The whole we-took-drugs-and stopped-a-war meme that survives from the sixties is a proven lie, and I've never understood how musicians on major labels (mainstream media) who made tons of money while there songs played on countless radio stations (also mainstream media) was in any way challenging to the status quo.

Well, it is outright impossible to deny that the "status quo" changed between 1960 and 1970. Something happened. I might agree that drugs didn't change the status quo but something did and I would say that the growing counterculture was part of that.

[the captain]

Well, it is outright impossible to deny that the "status quo" changed between 1960 and 1970. Something happened.

The status quo changes in every 10-year period to some degree, in some area, and increasingly so as mass communication and increasingly distant travel became easier. No doubt a lot changed from '60 to '70, but I think a certain generation (I'm not naming names ... *ahem* BOOMERS) seems to think that was the only time anything happened in world history.

[lance]

Amen.

It's not as if LSD has stopped being used at all. I think if things happened in the sixties and society changed in some profound way, I think that LSD and drug use was really a very small part of it. Not that I'm coming out against drugs. Fight the pow'r.

[Bill Tobelman]

Grillo said;

Sorry Bill, although I'm no prude and I do think a natural (Mushrooms) psychedelic experience can be beneficial, saying that LSD challenged the status quo when in fact it was developed by and distributed through the military intelligence community to do the exact opposite (confuse and sedate the uppity student protesters) makes you look kinda naive. The whole we-took-drugs-and stopped-a-war meme that survives from the sixties is a proven lie, and I've never understood how musicians on major labels (mainstream media) who made tons of money while there songs played on countless radio stations (also mainstream media) was in any way challenging to the status quo. I mean, even Leary's early experiments at Harvard were funded by the intelligence community, so can we just let this bit of mythmaking go?

The alternative communities that sprang up in the late sixties were definitely questioning the status quo of society. The INSIDE POP film that Brian Wilson appears in even asserts that the youth were seeking a different type of societal structure.

In addition, my pointing to the Native American's use of similar substances may indeed show how naive I truly am. Weren't they also funded by the military?

[RCTID]

wait... there's a SMiLE Sessions box set coming out?!

[hypehat]

Never mind that, just put this sugarcube on your tongue.... 

[Shady]

We need more smile news 

[Bill Tobelman]

You guys act as if SMiLE was conceived in a vacuum.

My last post included:

The INSIDE POP film that Brian Wilson appears in even asserts that the youth were seeking a different type of societal structure.

The part of the INSIDE POP film that speaks about the younger set and the new type of society they envision segues directly into Brian playing "Surf's Up" with David Oppenheim (not Leonard Bernstein!) saying "there's a new kind of song....Brian Wilson leader of the famous Beach Boys plays his own Surf's Up." That show aired on NBC in April of 67.

[onkster]

...which is sadly ironic when you consider what Jimmy Webb said about "Surf's Up" in BD: that it felt like a harbinger that not all would be rosy in the fairly near future. I sense he was pretty close on that.

[onkster]

Riddle:
Q: How can you tell that SMiLE was chemically influenced?
A: Because the timeline for it was so drug out.

 

[Bill Tobelman]

Jimmy Webb's "Surf's Up" comments are a misinterpretation of an ego death song.

[The Heartical Don]

Jimmy Webb's "Surf's Up" comments are a misinterpretation of an ego death song.

I find the whole term: 'ego death' horrific, to be fair. What does it mean? The annihilation of one's personality?

...and I always interpreted Jimmy Webb's interpretation as correct (which is to say: I read it here, now, for the very first time, honest. But I myself saw SU precisely this way. From 1975 onwards. Still do. There is a photo of Van Dyke Parks where he's sitting at a restaurant table, all by himself, clad in a tuxedo. There are some half empty glasses of champagne. No one else is there. It's in black and white. He looks grim, or rather: skeptical. To me, that is the essence of SU: the party's over, and let no one claim that he/she did not know beforehand that all parties have an ending.

[hypehat]

Jimmy Webb's "Surf's Up" comments are a misinterpretation of an ego death song.

Cute.

I hate getting suckered back into this lyrics debate, but you guys do infuriate me.

If you want to force all these tired, bullmerda, outdated hippie ideas about ego death, LSD, the nature of human perception, tripping, 'coded references' to drugs, and all this other freshman nonsense onto Smile, then you are missing the friggin' point. I fail to see the attraction of reducing this multi-faceted, complex work, which encompasses so much historical, spiritual and cultural ground, into 'Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream'. I see it as an insult, frankly.

As I said before, it is much more likely Smile is Brians ode to Reddi-whip rather than LSD, if you want to play friggin' Substance Bingo with it.


Sorry to be so blunt and profane, but, well, yeah.

[Wrightfan]

I really can't wait for more info 

[The Heartical Don]

I really can't wait for more info 

Info is our drug.

[bgas]

Gee, my hometown connection to Smile:  Aaron " Bunny" Lapin, the 1948 inventor of Reddi-Whip, hails from St. Louis and took it national the year I was born!  

[smile-holland]

I just added a little poll, just for kicks...   

[Shady]

Beach Boys and Drugs, Relevant