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Author Topic: Upcoming BW interview in Village Voice (June 8)  (Read 35202 times)
♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇
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« Reply #125 on: June 09, 2011, 12:47:57 PM »

EVERYONE could eat more fish Wink
Quote
The ending sentence has near Kafka levels of despair....

Quote
His restaurant of choice was the classic Morton’s Steakhouse, where he ordered the Cajun rib-eye.

Oh no....NOT the ribeye!!!!! Sad








LOL Sorry bro...couldn't resist ^_^
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« Reply #126 on: June 09, 2011, 03:02:55 PM »

We've got, at best, a handwritten list which Brian may or may not have dictated, a back cover working proof he may or may not have seen..

Doesn't the fact that the handwritten list was submitted to and received by the Capitol art dept almost certainly means it came from the producer of the LP? I don't see any significance in who physically wrote the track list. No way someone goes behind Brian's back in 1966 and delivers the LP track list to the art dept. I mean who would possibly do that? Diane? Carl? Even if someone did attempt this I can't see the Capitol art people going forward without Brian's approval.

I also don't see much significance in Brian's off hand statement 40 years later that he has never seen the handwritten list or back cover mock up. I love the guy but he isn't exactly known as a reliable source on this sort of thing.
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« Reply #127 on: June 09, 2011, 06:53:15 PM »

We've got, at best, a handwritten list which Brian may or may not have dictated, a back cover working proof he may or may not have seen..

Doesn't the fact that the handwritten list was submitted to and received by the Capitol art dept almost certainly means it came from the producer of the LP? I don't see any significance in who physically wrote the track list. No way someone goes behind Brian's back in 1966 and delivers the LP track list to the art dept. I mean who would possibly do that? Diane? Carl? Even if someone did attempt this I can't see the Capitol art people going forward without Brian's approval.

I also don't see much significance in Brian's off hand statement 40 years later that he has never seen the handwritten list or back cover mock up. I love the guy but he isn't exactly known as a reliable source on this sort of thing.

Agreed completely - even though it's quite possible that Brian didn't put much thought into the list, I still think it's an immensely important artifact that can give us a lot of insight about how Brian viewed the project in December.
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« Reply #128 on: June 09, 2011, 07:44:47 PM »

Just would like to interject on this thread about the approach that folks have forever taken regarding SMiLE & ask them to possibly try another.

First off I'd like to compliment Andrew G. Doe on his "opinion" post. It's an awesome post of the frustration which comes from approaching SMiLE from a logical standpoint.

Cam Mott has been at it for years as have Micha and Moise and the list goes on & on & on. I include myself in the list as well.

But the problem may be that we're not treating SMiLE on a different level & that is a level that is multi-level in nature.

In other words..... we're trying to understand SMiLE on a single level of understanding, and without fail various stuff interferes with our concept du jour. So then we change to another idea of a concept to explain & encompass it all and we fail again. So we try yet another & another only to fail endlessly. The whole idea that the album must be consistent on a logical plane (which is the approach we've all used) doesn't work, period. Andrew's post says it all.

Alan Watts' The Joyous Cosmology is essentially about a guy dropping acid & trying to document his experience in words. During the whole process the author is searching for deep meaning in his understanding of the experience. The meanings he extracts from the experience are on various levels depending upon how things link up for him in his mind.

With this in mind I'd like to ask folks to consider the following terms that are often associated with great art: metaphor, allusion, simile, analogy, poetic image, satire, illusion, allegory, and impersonation. Each of these terms implies something along the lines of a second layer of meaning that is not often obvious to a person consuming the art. Regardless, these terms & the art work that they apply to are very often held in high regard. The idea of "more than meets the eye" often separates the exceptional from common fare.

Does anyone really think that Brian & Van Dyke & Frank Holmes were/are incapable of making art on this level? I doubt it.

So then, maybe we should challenge our approach to the subject matter. Our approach has failed. Let's try another. Let's take this piece of art as something that's not on just one level but possibly on two or more levels at the same time.

That might require that we become little Alan Watts' searching for meaning. Heck, let's try it, maybe we'll find The Joyous Cosmology.

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« Reply #129 on: June 09, 2011, 08:10:32 PM »

EVERYONE could eat more fish Wink
Quote
The ending sentence has near Kafka levels of despair....

Quote
His restaurant of choice was the classic Morton’s Steakhouse, where he ordered the Cajun rib-eye.

Oh no....NOT the ribeye!!!!! Sad








LOL Sorry bro...couldn't resist ^_^

 LOL
Poor fella, tho. He wants to talk to Brian about Love You and the intricacies of waltztime and instead all he can sign off with is Brian's choice of steak....
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« Reply #130 on: June 10, 2011, 12:41:44 AM »

Bill, you've entirely missed the point of my long post: frustration had nothing to do with it. Read again.
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« Reply #131 on: June 10, 2011, 01:32:42 AM »

For what it´s worth i do not think Brian was trying to convey zen riddles and metaphores and stuff like that with SMiLE. What he did try to do and still tries to do is convey the simple message of a song in a sofisticated musical way. Considerd insane by his peers at the time when he wanted stuff to sound like jewels or winds he was simply trying to enhance the feeling of the song by imitating real life. And that was his big discovery during the smile era that made his mind boogle with possibilities. For example how to make voices sound like water, how to make a steamengine sound through a song, how to imitate fire with violins.

He sent out people with wollensack recorders to get water sounds, he directed a symphony of silverware at a dinner, made people talk through trombones.

Insane? well not really when put into context. How do you best present a crow flying over a cornfield with chinese worker sweating under the sun at the same time driving in spikes in the railroad?

You can arrange it by

Circular harmonies representing the crow flying in circles.
The plaing of glasses bellow represents the spikes going into the railroad.
A slight detuned slide guitar represents the chinese music

So does it sound insane when you put it into context? not really. Does it makes the mind boggle with possibilites and open doors for discovering new sounds? certainly!

If Brian discovered anything on acid i think it was these possibilities, and making an album this way is very very hard work and requires alot of thinking. Not to mention the fact that people around you have no clue what you are actually trying to do. Imagine the retakes on the harmonies of "the crow cries", guys i want more breath! make it sound like alot of air and that you are flying, and the guys shaking their heads thinking he has lost his mind.
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« Reply #132 on: June 10, 2011, 01:51:12 AM »

Lets take another song like til i die as a good example of how convey feelings and moods by giving some thought on musical arrangement.

Slipping into depression - Vibes with lots of reverb
Im going to die - Funeral organ
Feels like drowning - Vibes
I am never going to get better - Repeat of end phrase endlessly

I cant begin to describe how he thought chord wise but my guess is pretty similar.
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« Reply #133 on: June 10, 2011, 01:58:43 AM »

EVERYONE could eat more fish Wink
Quote
The ending sentence has near Kafka levels of despair....

Quote
His restaurant of choice was the classic Morton’s Steakhouse, where he ordered the Cajun rib-eye.

Oh no....NOT the ribeye!!!!! Sad


I like a nice T-bone myself but Morton's is just OK to me. I like local places better.





LOL Sorry bro...couldn't resist ^_^
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« Reply #134 on: June 10, 2011, 05:54:06 AM »

Brian records "feels" and those are translated into chords, sounds, and arrangements. It is how he expresses humor,love, tragedy, and happiness, and so much more in his music. There it is, in the sounds.
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« Reply #135 on: June 10, 2011, 06:59:54 AM »

Lets take another song like til i die as a good example of how convey feelings and moods by giving some thought on musical arrangement.

Slipping into depression - Vibes with lots of reverb
Im going to die - Funeral organ
Feels like drowning - Vibes
I am never going to get better - Repeat of end phrase endlessly

I cant begin to describe how he thought chord wise but my guess is pretty similar.

Great post, very well said. Not to get us off of too big a tangent, but to me the chords in 'Til I Die represent the instability he feels, the tides/rocks/wind pushing and pulling him this way and that, never allowing him to just "be."  That's why there is no real "home" chord/key until the end, where he finally resigns himself to the way things are and will always be until he's gone. 
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« Reply #136 on: June 10, 2011, 12:32:39 PM »

He put a lot of work in the H&V single and the alleged Vt single and they got done.

The VT single actually did not get done. One or two sections were used on the SS version, the rest was scrapped.

The concepts for the non-single tracks don't seem to have changed much. The singles' concepts did change it appears, a progressive improving I take it, just like GV.

At least for CIFOTM I recall a section that is called "verse" during the recording, but wasn't used in Brian's test assembly.

And I don't know if the continued recording improved the songs. The omission of the cantina section was to me a loss, and I'm not really fond of the "HV chorus" either. There's several quotes of people who thought earlier incarnations of HV were better. I wonder if transforming the BR theme into HV chorus meant that DYLW was scrapped.

So then what was THE original vision?

Sgt. Pepper is more seguey to you maybe? 

No, there's only two segues, right? That's not much. Not movementy, not very seguey.
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« Reply #137 on: June 10, 2011, 12:37:01 PM »

Specifically, I believe it was common for preachers, salesmen, etc. to stand on a box (I assume ones used to ship soap) on a public street so they could be seen above the heads of any crowds that may gather. The slang "to get on a soapbox" means you are going to give a speech to try and convince others you are right.

Thanks, Roger, I think I got it now. Smiley

Hey, had they used a soapbox back in the 60s, Carl wouldn't have had to constantly bend over when he was singing background live with Al.  Grin
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« Reply #138 on: June 10, 2011, 12:38:21 PM »

Hey, is "Linear A" common knowledge?  Azn

If you're a Minoan scholar, sure.

So you're a Minoan scholar?

Well, trying to figure out SMiLE is like archaeology in a way, isn't it?
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« Reply #139 on: June 10, 2011, 01:34:39 PM »

He put a lot of work in the H&V single and the alleged Vt single and they got done.

The VT single actually did not get done. One or two sections were used on the SS version, the rest was scrapped.

The concepts for the non-single tracks don't seem to have changed much. The singles' concepts did change it appears, a progressive improving I take it, just like GV.

At least for CIFOTM I recall a section that is called "verse" during the recording, but wasn't used in Brian's test assembly.

And I don't know if the continued recording improved the songs. The omission of the cantina section was to me a loss, and I'm not really fond of the "HV chorus" either. There's several quotes of people who thought earlier incarnations of HV were better. I wonder if transforming the BR theme into HV chorus meant that DYLW was scrapped.

So then what was THE original vision?



Besides Good Vibrations and Vegetables and Heroes, other songs that "changed" or were rerecorded or sections rerecorded:

Child
Wind chimes
wonderful (Like Heroes, subsequent recordings never bettered the first)
possibly Surf's Up

and of course The Elements seems to have been a track that was either never planned out or Brian couldn't make up his mind what to do with the sections in the suite.

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« Reply #140 on: June 10, 2011, 05:52:35 PM »

Andrew G. Doe said:
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Bill, you've entirely missed the point of my long post: frustration had nothing to do with it. Read again.

Noted. I expressed it poorly.

Your post STILL is an awesome example of how SMiLE is logistically frustrating.
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« Reply #141 on: June 10, 2011, 06:41:14 PM »

Smokeythebear said:

Quote
he wanted stuff to sound like jewels

What do you think Brian Wilson wanted to represent by this?

Brian had just had the "ultimate religious experience" and was on a "spiritual music" kick. He had experienced the moment of clear light (only once).

Brian told Andrew Oldham that people someday would pray to this music.

So what do you think the jewel-like sounds were to represent?

If it's something along the lines of the ultimate religious experience---then maybe there is another layer of meaning present in this SMILE thing.
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« Reply #142 on: June 10, 2011, 09:51:11 PM »

Smokeythebear said:

Quote
he wanted stuff to sound like jewels

What do you think Brian Wilson wanted to represent by this?

Brian had just had the "ultimate religious experience" and was on a "spiritual music" kick. He had experienced the moment of clear light (only once).

Brian told Andrew Oldham that people someday would pray to this music.

So what do you think the jewel-like sounds were to represent?

If it's something along the lines of the ultimate religious experience---then maybe there is another layer of meaning present in this SMILE thing.

Brian also told Steve Desper that he wanted something (vocal, instrument, whole track) to sound like the taste of a chocolate malt, or leaves after the rain. All it means is that Brian wants to invoke non-musical sensations via music. It's not something unique to Smile. "The diamond necklace played the pawn" - it's an audio-musical pun. John Lennon: "those of you in the cheap seats can applaud, the rest of you can rattle your jewellery".
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« Reply #143 on: June 10, 2011, 10:07:24 PM »

"The diamond necklace played the pawn" - it's an audio-musical pun. John Lennon: "those of you in the cheap seats can applaud, the rest of you can rattle your jewellery".

Wait, what??
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« Reply #144 on: June 10, 2011, 10:18:59 PM »

"The diamond necklace played the pawn" - it's an audio-musical pun. John Lennon: "those of you in the cheap seats can applaud, the rest of you can rattle your jewellery".

Wait, what??
I just had one of those "...oh!" moments.  Grin That's the cool thing about a guy like Van Dyke. You can hear or read a lyric hundreds of times, but not get it until somebody points it out.
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« Reply #145 on: June 10, 2011, 10:23:29 PM »

Still don't quite get it...
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« Reply #146 on: June 10, 2011, 11:50:41 PM »

Just pointing out that, using Bill's everything's-connected-to-everything-else dictum, it's obvious to me that John's RVS quip from 1963 influenced both the music and lyrics of "Surf's Up": it was doubtless reported in the US, and VDP would have been well aware of it.

Complete tosh, of course (but huge fun): I've always seen this as a pretty direct influence on said lyric:

The Conqueror Worm
 
Lo! 'tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years.
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre to see
A play of hopes and fears
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly;
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their condor wings
Invisible Woe.

That motley drama--oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot;
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude:
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes--it writhes!--with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.

Out--out are the lights--out all!
And over each quivering form
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, ``Man,''
And the hero, the Conqueror Worm.

Edgar Allan Poe
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« Reply #147 on: June 11, 2011, 08:37:17 AM »

Arthur Koestler:
Quote
"...I have spoken at length of the close relatedness between the scientist seeing an analogy where nobody saw one before, and the poet's discovery of an original metaphor or simile. Both rely on the mediation of unconscious process to provide the analogy."

Frank Holmes:

Quote
"The (SMILE Shop) drawing is a surrealistic idea; a visual that is not accessible in conscious reality..."

As you can see in the above quotes, the unconscious process is needed to connect the connections.

Andrew G. Doe:

Quote
"...Bill's everything's-connected-to-everything-else dictum..."

Well Andrew, you're correct. I do connect & connect & connect. On the micro level you can always find possible fault with each and every little conclusion drawn but on the macro level all of the connections made point in the same direction and lead to the same conclusion, and this direction & conclusion corresponds to Brian Wilson's stated direction for the project, explain the styles employed for the project, explain the events surrounding the project, and his abandonment of the project.

Lately I've left Brian's bio out of the discussion because of your staunch dismissal of it. However, if one is to simply consider the 'unconscious' accounts in the book---the 3 LSD trips & the bookstore acid flashback---then the connection process explodes & a whole other layer of meaning is totally brought to life. SMiLE is transformed.

And this transformation is, once again, completely harmonious with all the other connections that have been connected.

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« Reply #148 on: June 11, 2011, 08:43:23 AM »

Smokeythebear said:

Quote
he wanted stuff to sound like jewels

What do you think Brian Wilson wanted to represent by this?

compositional subtleties that the listener could detect only through lsd/hypnotically induced synesthesia
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« Reply #149 on: June 13, 2011, 01:56:34 AM »

My point being sometimes a cigar is just a cigar sort of speak. I dont buy the Zen riddles and stuff like that. But i do know that he used music to underline the lyrics. In wind chimes its almost as if the notes are totally random in places, just like real wind chimes. Some songs are mixes of inspirations like H&V.

Spector bass drum.
Beat clearly from river deep mountain high.
Scatting vocals that sounds like bullets
Gerschwin inspired chorus theme
A little bit of bach on the harpsichord
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