Your first SMiLE experience..

[JohnMill]

Just a random observation: Kind of interesting how many of you were first exposed to this music via the PC reconstruction of BWPS.

I honestly don't know if I would've become such a fan if that was my first taste of SMiLE, meaning I enjoy BWPS but I guess I'm glad I discovered the music more or less in not such a sequential order.  I don't know if that makes any sense but that is my feeling on it anyway.

[Mikie]

1973 – Read the entire 1971 Tom Nolan 2-part Rolling Stone article called “A California Saga” included in a music book called “Beach Boys Complete". A year or two later ran down the original copies of Rolling Stone.
1975 or 1976 – Smile was mentioned in a couple of magazine articles – I think Rolling Stone, Crawdaddy, New Musical Express, Bomp, Phonograph, or one of those….
1978 - The Beach Boys & the California Myth (Leaf) book, soft cover.
1979 - The Beach Boys (Preiss) book, soft cover.
1978/’79 – My first SMiLE bootleg, cassette tape, that circulated amongst collectors. Source was either Priess, Reum, or Elliott.
1983 – My first SMiLE bootleg, vinyl.
1987 – My first SMiLE bootleg, CD.
1988 – Mark Linett SMiLE mixes.
1990 – Smile - Japanese T-2580-2 CD.
1990 – Look, Listen, Vibrate, Smile – First of 4 Priore books, soft covers.
1990 - Smiley Smile 2-fer (bonus tracks - Cantina!) Priore played the tape of Heroes a few years before at a Beach Boys fan convention in Oakland, California.
1993 – Good Vibrations box set (bonus tracks).
1993 - SMiLE - Vigotone 110/111 2-CD boot.
1995 – Dave Prokopy SMiLE 3 tape set.
1999 - Sea Of Tunes Vol. 15 - Good Vibrations Sessions 3-CD boot. First heard alternate Good Vibrations (Asher lyrics) in 1976.
1999 – Sea Of Tunes Vol. 16, 17. Best quality SMiLE tracks to date.
2001 – Archeology.
2001 - Project SMiLE.
2004 - Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE (including instrumental tracks not included on original release).
2004 - Secret SMiLE.
2005 - SMiLE – Purple Chick Reconstruction.

And pretty much every SMiLE bootleg in between from 1978 to the present.
Fan mixes up the ying yang – Ann Wallace, Mok, Fast Eddie, Smile Shop, Dick Licker, etc. etc.

Copies of front and rear SMiLE cover slick artwork – early 1980’s.
Copies of SMiLE album booklet – late 1970’s.

Frank Holmes SMiLE front cover artwork (lithograph, framed behind glass - signed by Frank in 2003).

[Mooger Fooger]

Mikie, are you sure the Priore playing of H&V wasn't at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach? There is a story to that tape which will make you laugh or cry depending on your mood.

[Iron Horse-Apples]

Mikie, are you sure the Priore playing of H&V wasn't at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach? There is a story to that tape which will make you laugh or cry depending on your mood.

Let's hear it then..........

[Mikie]

I'd like to hear more about your story, Mr. Fooger!

No, this was definitely at a Les Chan hosted Beach Boys convention in Oakland in the 80's, well before it came out as the Heroes & Villains Smile Smile 2-fer bonus track in 1990. Dominic Priore was one of the guests that day - acted like a real hot dog. He was toting a cassette around like a purse and I remember asking him personally if I could have a copy and he declined with a F.U. look on his face. Later, he played it on the P.A. system for the audience and my jaw hung open for a few seconds.

[Mooger Fooger]

Check your PMs

[robertgotshall]

Purple Chick for me, too. After hearing Smiley Smile, I never thought I would actually enjoy the song "Vega-Tables", but I was proven oh-so-wrong once I heard the SMiLE version. Now I can't get me enough o' them vega-tables. 

[SloopJohnB]

My first encounter with Smile was with the "Made In USA" compilation (H&V and GV), that I used to listen as a kid.

A few years later: I was searching for BB music on... KaZaA.  Most of the available songs were hits, or at least songs that I knew... Except for that one song that only one person was sharing, and that had a strange name... "Cabinessence". When I finally got it I started listening to it over and over again, not really knowing whether I liked it, not knowing why I was playing it so much, but knowing I had never heard anything like it before. And then it hit me: the song was simply fantastic, kinda in the same vein as H&V and GV, and I needed to get more of this. The Beach Boys did that?

So I went on the Internet, typed "Cabinessence" in Google, and found out about Smile. Over the following months, I grabbed all the information I could about the album, along with the few tracks scattered on old abandoned websites. The next step was the GV boxset, then the "Project Smile" CD, then BWPS, and then all the bootlegs and many fan mixes. And, in a few days, the Smile boxset, of course.


There's a lesson for record companies behind all this. I illegally downloaded one track, and ended up buying the entire BB discography. 

[Andrew G. Doe]

If I may refine my original statement:

summer 1975 - the Nick Kent 3-parter for NME (first experience, period)

late 1970s - the Preiss tape (first experience of the unreleased music)

[runnersdialzero]

There's a lesson for record companies behind all this. I illegally downloaded one track, and ended up buying the entire BB discography. 

Can't tell you how many times this has happened to me. I'll even own up to buying Metallica's entire discography in 1999 and 2000 due to illegally downloading some of their stuff on Napster prior to the court case. WHAT NAOW, LARS?

(I don't listen to Metallica much anymore. I was young, forgive me.)

[Iron Horse-Apples]

There's a lesson for record companies behind all this. I illegally downloaded one track, and ended up buying the entire BB discography. 

Can't tell you how many times this has happened to me. I'll even own up to buying Metallica's entire discography in 1999 and 2000 due to illegally downloading some of their stuff on Napster prior to the court case. WHAT NAOW, LARS?

(I don't listen to Metallica much anymore. I was young, forgive me.)

There;s no excuse

Once  a metal head

Always a metal head

Get off this board

[runnersdialzero]

There;s no excuse

Once  a metal head

Always a metal head

Get off this board

;(

[metal flake paint]

July 1989 - cassette tape, followed closely by,

August 1989 - LLVS.

[oldsurferdude]

1967 when I bought "Smiley" Smile and it wasn't the Smile that I had read about prior. Felt like I was totally f*cked and somewhat cheated.

[MaroonMike]

I saw some BB movie with actors in the Fall of 2000.  Soon thereafter I was doing some research on the "smile album" and began downloading some tracks off Napster.  After hearing Surf's Up and Cabin, I purchased the 1993 Box set.  At that point, I was floored...and hooked.

Sometime in early 2001 I found SOT 16 & 17, Vigotone and Odeon boots.  I also purchased LLVS that year.  I made and distributed my first full SMiLE mix is 2003.

Within minutes of receiving the press release of the BWPS concert in London, I purchased tickets, then called my wife....yes, my first trip to Europe was based on the SMiLE concert.  Being there on 2/20/2004 was just unreal.  It was an amazing trip.

Can't wait for Nov 1.

[onkster]

Was (and still am) a big Beatles fan, and read mention of SMiLE in the Sgt. Pepper section of some book. Got curious. A friend from work played me Cabinessence, though he didn't tell me it was from SMiLE--still, it stuck in my head.

Heard stories about the Fire track. Then saw a $10 copy of Smile #2 (the vinyl) around...what, 1984 or so? Bought it on impulse, mainly to hear the Fire track. Then: Cabinessence! Got hooked on that track, since I'd already heard it (the vocals were slaying me), then...Worms...Wonderful...Bicycle Rider (presented just as a fragment)...and most of all, Surf's Up (also presented as a fragment). Everything about it then clicked in my head. I was hooked. Bought Pet Sounds. Bought everything legit I could find on Smile. Made my first tape comp, not knowing thousands of other people were doing the same. Kept telling people about it: you gotta hear this! Yes, it's the Beach Boys, but this is *different*!

Then came CDs, and the Internet, and all that followed. My interest spread out to most of the other BBs stuff, but as I've said many times, Smile was my gateway drug, which I've always found odd, as most peoples' entry into the Beach Boys was through their early stuff.

And it's still my favorite, in whatever form.

[Bill Tobelman]

My first SMiLE experience was reading Look!Listen!VIBRATE!SMiLE! by Domenic Priore. His preamble made perfect sense.

I felt I could trust Brian on SMiLE because Pet Sounds showed he was really together upstairs. That's why SMiLE had to make sense on some level.

[SMiLE]

1999 watching 'The Beach Boys & der Satan' on TV with all the SMiLE footage from 'An American Band' ("Fire", "Bicycle Rider", "Surf's Up"). Was impressed that they even did promo films for never released music.

Those were not promo films for those songs. The "Fire" video was actually a promo film for Good Vibrations and "Bicycle Rider" was one of Dennis Wilson's pet film experiments which was shot silent (I think) Besides I don't see what Carl and Dennis demonstrating their amazing  ability to disappear and re-appear and transform into each other has much to do with the oppression brought upon the Natives of this continent by the European settlers.
back on topic
1993-Heard the bits on the Good Vibrations  Box Set but keep in mind, I was very young.
2005-Watched  American  Band then listened to BWPS and saw BWPS live in August 05

[Ram4]

I first heard the SMiLE material on the Good Vibrations Box in 2000.  I never really went after any SMiLE boots because I wasn't that blown away by the material back then and I didn't think to look further.  I did finally get the Purple Chick stuff, but that was only early this year.  Other than that, all the session stuff in the new box is mostly unknown material to me so this is going to be great!

[JohnMill]

I first heard the SMiLE material on the Good Vibrations Box in 2000.  I never really went after any SMiLE boots because I wasn't that blown away by the material back then and I didn't think to look further.  I did finally get the Purple Chick stuff, but that was only early this year.  Other than that, all the session stuff in the new box is mostly unknown material to me so this is going to be great!

Is there an emoticon for "envious"?

[Aegir]

 
one of these maybe?

[Andrew G. Doe]

I first heard the SMiLE material on the Good Vibrations Box in 2000.  I never really went after any SMiLE boots because I wasn't that blown away by the material back then and I didn't think to look further.  I did finally get the Purple Chick stuff, but that was only early this year.  Other than that, all the session stuff in the new box is mostly unknown material to me so this is going to be great!

Best prepare to meet your maker, for truly, you are going to expire on the spot from an excess of sheer, unbridled joy. 

[smile-holland]

Let me think....

1st: June 1990;  hearing Surf's Up on the Superstars of the 70ies Warner Bros comp. ... my first month being a fan, having only heard the hits, and thinking WTF? Didn't like it at all.
2nd: Late 1990; buying the SmileySmile / Wild Honey 2fer and hearing the bonustracks, which I quite liked.
3rd: I think 1992, buying 2 CD-boots (a simple T-2580-2 release + 02-CD3317 "The Early Years") and a SMiLE T-shirt during a fan meeting.
From then on I was hooked, and bought more and more "rare" releases (if I could find them)...

[Jaspy]

1st: June 1990;  hearing Surf's Up on the Superstars of the 70ies Warner Bros comp. ...

Hey, that compilation was in my parent's LP collection (now in mine), it has some kind of rainbow-colored cover, right?
I remember listening to "Surf's Up" on it as kid and thinking "what a boring ballad", I expected a rocker like "Surfin' USA".

[smile-holland]

1st: June 1990;  hearing Surf's Up on the Superstars of the 70ies Warner Bros comp. ...

Hey, that compilation was in my parent's LP collection (now in mine), it has some kind of rainbow-colored cover, right?
I remember listening to "Surf's Up" on it as kid and thinking "what a boring ballad", I expected a rocker like "Surfin' USA".

Yep, exactly my first thought as well. But don't worry, it's one of my favourites these days.