Priore's Claim that The Beatles heard Smile tapes in early 1967

[Howie Edelson]

Silly.
Do better.
Be smarter.

[harrisonjon]

I don't think Brian abandoned using the Wreckin' Crew because it wasn't cool. He was simply too burned out to record using that method and he could use the home studio to work at a slower pace. Also, look at the pay rates AGD posted above. They were not affordable for a band whose new albums kept bombing commercially.

[Misterlou]

Silly.
Do better.
Be smarter.

Sorry, Howie, no offense intended. I was just trying to insert a little levity into a thread that was becoming a bit heavy. I don't happen to agree with your opinions about Paul and Brian, but that's okay, we can agree to disagree. I should have just made my point straight up. My apologies.

[Ron]

I'll never understand some fans (Priore) of... whatever band (in this case the BB's) insistence on belittling the accomplishments the Beatles achieved. 

The Beatles were a great band, and Sgt. Pepper's was a great album, they were very talented and extremely creative.  None of that diminishes the Beach Boys or Brian Wilson in any way. 

[Andrew G. Doe]

Andrew - Below the belt, man. Ridicule? I put that outtake up for people to hear for themselves if they never have. *I* thought it shared some similarities with a few Smile outtakes I've heard which have similar studio techniques being applied to a basic quarter note piano groove playing chords and trying ideas. As noted, the main difference is the manipulation of the pitch and the comb filtering effect to create what I call relevant to 1967 "The Abbey Road Warble", that had a tape op manually adjusting the tape speed via an oscillator in real time as the track played to generate that comb filter effect. Remember the outtake from Smile where Brian asks about vari-speeding a tape to speed up or slow down to record or play back at a different pitch? The one where the engineer explains the process to Brian after Brian suggests the vari-speed technique to record a part, and that engineer tells him how they do it with an oscillator to control the motor which affects the speed of the machine? I do.

What you actually said was, and I quote exactly, was "...if McCartney had been playing different chords it could have sounded like a Smile outtake minus the ADT-flanging-warbling (which Brian wasn't really doing in the studio)." Or in other words, if he'd been playing something entirely different and it didn't have some processing that Brian wasn't using anyway, it might have sounded like a Smile outtake. That just cracked me up. Bit like saying if I wasn't a fat old Englishman and was the star of Gravity, my name could be Sandra Bullock. Exactly the same reasoning: change all the elements to achieve desired result.  

To return to the original point of this thread: the covert listening to the tapes at Sound Recorders as claimed in Dom's book cannot possibly have happened. I remember someone did a timeline, and the only possible window of opportunity, as I recall, was during the mixing of Pepper. Which was, I'm, sure you'll agree, a tad late for any influence to take place.

Now... let's all sing from our hearts, treble up and most of all, surrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggge. Then we'll have world peace.  

Coda: this isn't f***** up at all. Compared to some of the more recent events and threads, it's a mildly amusing diversion.

[Andrew G. Doe]

I don't think Brian abandoned using the Wreckin' Crew because it wasn't cool. He was simply too burned out to record using that method and he could use the home studio to work at a slower pace. Also, look at the pay rates AGD posted above. They were not affordable for a band whose new albums kept bombing commercially.

Capitol were footing the immediate studio costs, and the revenue stream was of necessity a good few months behind (so the bucks from, say, Party ! would be funding "GV" (poor example but you get the idea), but yes, eventually it would have been extracted from the band one way or another.

Hm...

Interesting thought: did the fear that Capitol might, at any moment, pull the funding from Smile affect Brian's decision making during the later sessions ? Probably utter tosh, but, who knows ? Thoughts ?

[HeyJude]

For those that actually are interested in comparisons and analyses of the Beach Boys vis-à-vis the Beatles, then you probably can’t do better than to listen to Howie Edelson. I myself wasn’t even aware way back that, while he’s an authority on the BB’s, he may just know more about the Beatles. I believe Jon Stebbins posted about this some time back.

I love both bands, follow both bands intensely myself (my name and Beatles fascination though have nothing to do with each other believe it or not), but I’m also pretty firmly in the “why do we need to rate anything about them against each other?” camp. But Howie’s right; I think wherever this Smile/Beatles thing came from, it probably comes from the weird “which band did more progressive, weird stuff first?” debate, which again doesn’t really accomplish a great deal.

Having seen COUNTLESS McCartney interviews, and interviews with all of the Beatles throughout the years, I’ve often noted how little they really ever discussed Brian or the BB’s. McCartney goes on about “Pet Sounds”, and that’s mostly it (and even then, remember the “track by track” Leaf did with McCartney in the PS booklet? It petered out after like three or four songs.)

Even McCartney, the one BB-fanboy of the Beatles, rarely discusses much outside of “Pet Sounds.” I’ve never heard him talk about hearing “Today” or “Summer Days” or “Surf’s Up.” The rest of the guys in the band have rarely even uttered the name “Brian Wilson” or “The Beach Boys.” Ringo mentioned the BB”s in his “Postcards from the Boys” book, but only to point out that he was so wasted at the ’84 Washington DC gig that he literally doesn’t remember doing it and only believes he was there because there are pictures of it. (Which is hilarious, though, especially knowing that Ringo is now sober of course.)

This isn’t to denigrate the BB’s. If the Beatles never cared one iota about “Please Let Me Wonder” or “Kiss Me Baby” or whatever, then they were missing out in my opinion. But Howie’s right; the Beatles, and mostly McCartney, recognized the weight of what Brian was doing and accorded him a pretty rare “true peer” status, but didn’t then fixate or obsess over what Brian was doing.

[guitarfool2002]

For those that actually are interested in comparisons and analyses of the Beach Boys vis-à-vis the Beatles, then you probably can’t do better than to listen to Howie Edelson. I myself wasn’t even aware way back that, while he’s an authority on the BB’s, he may just know more about the Beatles. I believe Jon Stebbins posted about this some time back.

I love both bands, follow both bands intensely myself (my name and Beatles fascination though have nothing to do with each other believe it or not), but I’m also pretty firmly in the “why do we need to rate anything about them against each other?” camp. But Howie’s right; I think wherever this Smile/Beatles thing came from, it probably comes from the weird “which band did more progressive, weird stuff first?” debate, which again doesn’t really accomplish a great deal.

Having seen COUNTLESS McCartney interviews, and interviews with all of the Beatles throughout the years, I’ve often noted how little they really ever discussed Brian or the BB’s. McCartney goes on about “Pet Sounds”, and that’s mostly it (and even then, remember the “track by track” Leaf did with McCartney in the PS booklet? It petered out after like three or four songs.)

Even McCartney, the one BB-fanboy of the Beatles, rarely discusses much outside of “Pet Sounds.” I’ve never heard him talk about hearing “Today” or “Summer Days” or “Surf’s Up.” The rest of the guys in the band have rarely even uttered the name “Brian Wilson” or “The Beach Boys.” Ringo mentioned the BB”s in his “Postcards from the Boys” book, but only to point out that he was so wasted at the ’84 Washington DC gig that he literally doesn’t remember doing it and only believes he was there because there are pictures of it. (Which is hilarious, though, especially knowing that Ringo is now sober of course.)

This isn’t to denigrate the BB’s. If the Beatles never cared one iota about “Please Let Me Wonder” or “Kiss Me Baby” or whatever, then they were missing out in my opinion. But Howie’s right; the Beatles, and mostly McCartney, recognized the weight of what Brian was doing and accorded him a pretty rare “true peer” status, but didn’t then fixate or obsess over what Brian was doing.

You're wrong, factually, on several points. For one, to start, who is saying any of the Beatles were 'fixating' on what Brian or anyone was doing? I don't recall that coming up at all. I don't recall anyone suggesting a fixation on much of anything by the Beatles except maybe Lennon as a kid hearing skiffle and Elvis, maybe George as a kid with Carl Perkins to the point where he called himself Carl for a time, maybe McCartney with Little Richard...who has ever suggested a fixation on Brian and The Beach Boys? No one. That's a non-issue, why bring it up...they were musical peers who liked each others music AND were influenced by each other back and forth. FACT.

Also, "rarely even uttered the name Brian Wilson or The Beach Boys"...how the heck do you or anyone know? Based on published interviews that make up perhaps less than 1% of a person's life? Ringo being drunk in 84 was the only time Ringo mentioned the BB's, eh? Then explain reports from those traveling with them in 1964-65 who said the band members would talk about the Beach Boys, and the music, on the planes as they toured. Larry Kane, the reporter from Philly, has his book about touring with them. He said ***Ringo*** was the "ultimate Beach Boys fan among the Beatles" who told Larry it was "a thrill" to meet some of the BB's in Portland when they were touring the US and had a chance to meet up on the road. Early Beach Boys, 1964...well, make that twice ol' Ritchie mentioned them based on the standard applied to suggest they rarely mentioned the group. Or search for the reality of this stuff beyond the surface everyone points to conveniently.

But is Larry Kane wrong? He was only on tour with them for months and had conversations with them that no one recorded or reported, in other words the real day-to-day life of people that doesn't get posted into timelines or books. The people who were on those early tours like Kane, amidst the cutthroat Monopoly game marathons headed by Lennon and the near constant flow of booze and cigarettes, reported hearing the Beatles talking about...wait for it...Brian and The Beach Boys! Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle...how bout that! Oh, but don't take their word, they were only there. (Cue someone asking "who is they?". Right.).

McCartney is on the record time and time again with what he thought of the Beach Boys and Brian. Lennon soaked everything in, musically, that caught his ear. Ever see that PBS show "John Lennon's Jukebox"? Well golly gee, Lennon never talked about certain artists in interviews either but you can't logically conclude he wasn't a fan because he never talked about them.

Brian was just on one of those "Breakfast With The Beatles" shows where he again cited "Rubber Soul" as a favorite, and as an influence, as he's done before. He's often cited "Long And Winding Road" as a favorite to this day. "Girl Don't Tell Me" was an overt and obvious attempt to write and record a song that sounded like a Beatles single. When the Beatles owned the US charts, Brian recorded a handful of acoustic covers of their songs for Beach Boys Party...so tell me there was no influence or admiration on that side. Dennis in 66 would feature a Beatles cover as one of his vocal spotlight songs during the tours. Then there's the attempt to cover "With A Little Help...", was he a fan? Yes, he was. It goes on and on.

Seriously, this is almost off the charts ridiculous. Talking about the influence between bands is NOT saying what some are trying to argue and debate here as a competition between the two groups. It's like other issues, let's push aside the topic on the table and start arguing what's not even being suggested. And take a few subliminal shots in the process. Yep, I said that.

[guitarfool2002]

Andrew - Below the belt, man. Ridicule? I put that outtake up for people to hear for themselves if they never have. *I* thought it shared some similarities with a few Smile outtakes I've heard which have similar studio techniques being applied to a basic quarter note piano groove playing chords and trying ideas. As noted, the main difference is the manipulation of the pitch and the comb filtering effect to create what I call relevant to 1967 "The Abbey Road Warble", that had a tape op manually adjusting the tape speed via an oscillator in real time as the track played to generate that comb filter effect. Remember the outtake from Smile where Brian asks about vari-speeding a tape to speed up or slow down to record or play back at a different pitch? The one where the engineer explains the process to Brian after Brian suggests the vari-speed technique to record a part, and that engineer tells him how they do it with an oscillator to control the motor which affects the speed of the machine? I do.

What you actually said was, and I quote exactly, was "...if McCartney had been playing different chords it could have sounded like a Smile outtake minus the ADT-flanging-warbling (which Brian wasn't really doing in the studio)." Or in other words, if he'd been playing something entirely different and it didn't have some processing that Brian wasn't using anyway, it might have sounded like a Smile outtake. That just cracked me up. Bit like saying if I wasn't a fat old Englishman and was the star of Gravity, my name could be Sandra Bullock. Exactly the same reasoning: change all the elements to achieve desired result.  

To return to the original point of this thread: the covert listening to the tapes at Sound Recorders as claimed in Dom's book cannot possibly have happened. I remember someone did a timeline, and the only possible window of opportunity, as I recall, was during the mixing of Pepper. Which was, I'm, sure you'll agree, a tad late for any influence to take place.

Now... let's all sing from our hearts, treble up and most of all, surrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggge. Then we'll have world peace.  

Coda: this isn't f***** up at all. Compared to some of the more recent events and threads, it's a mildly amusing diversion.

If you take a tape of that Penny Lane session, and play it next to more than a few Smile sessions with Brian playing piano where effects were added, they're similar, they sound similar, whether one of them is playing a Cmajor7th and the other an F#major7th. Should I go through musically, production-wise, etc all of the similarities?

Hell, I remember someone suggested a song from No Pier Pressure sounded like Kokomo! Despite the chords being different, despite the melody not following the same arc or phrasing, despite there being not much actual similarity except in someone's opinion which was THEN argued they had every right to express and it should be respected...then it got into an "anti-Kokomo bias" kind of thing and got ridiculous as usual.

Did that one crack you up too? I know I had a good laugh myself over that one, but don't remember if you had any thoughts on that case of similarity.  

As far as the book, and Sound Recorders, that was never in my mind, never once thought of in my post, nor mentioned. I had no thought of that theory of that book, and still do not because I've neither read nor even seen the book. What I *did* say is here you have a guy in Derek Taylor who knew music, whose life was hanging around and writing for and about musicians, and who was working for both the BB's and The Beatles at a crucial time. He was there for Smile, he was writing about it weekly in the music mags and 'zines, he was also still maintaining personal relationships with The Beatles throughout '67.

Do you think, in the course of a normal day at some point in 1966 into 67 as all of this was going on, that a possibility would have existed for someone to ask Derek Taylor what Brian Wilson was up to with the new music? Someone, perhaps, connected to The Beatles? And Derek might say "oh, you should hear this new track he's been doing, it's piano with tape echo and chanting on top! I'm gobsmacked!" Or whatever, you get the point.

If we take what has only been recorded or written in books or historical accounts or timelines as the be-all and end-all of what got discussed, we'll miss perhaps 99% of what someone's daily life consisted of, including a random phone call to have a 10 minute chat where one musician might ask what another is up to, asked of someone who had a foot in both camps at that time.

So you can't write things off, even the most casual throwaway conversation might have inspired one of the two to try a new sound or to add a new effect to a track, or something else. Lennon could get a song idea from hearing an advertisement for cereal on TV or a line a news presenter delivered on the radio, things most people might dismiss as background noise.

I'm just saying, it's not about that book and Sunset Sound, it's about entertaining the 'what if?' possibilities that may have existed.

[KDS]

GF,

Just to clarify, though I wasn't the one who made the comment, it was pointed out that Kokomo and On the Island were somewhat similar in regards to lyrics and content (ie.  "Tropical drink melting in my hand" vs "On the island with a drink in my hand" or "We'll get there fast then we'll take it slow" vs "We'll be taking it slow").   

Musically, the songs aren't very similar since Kokomo has an 80s Jimmy Buffett feel to it, and On the Island is a bossa nova style number.  But, in terms of content, there are some similarities. 

This is also why I pointed out a few times that had Mike Love written On the Island, I think people would've trashed it. 

Personally, I like both Kokomo and On the Island. 

[37!ws]

So the point is, January 1967 - Listen to that Penny Lane tape and consider if McCartney had been playing different chords it could have sounded like a Smile outtake minus the ADT-flanging-warbling (which Brian wasn't really doing in the studio). Yes, of course McCartney and Brian could have been listening to some of the same electronic composers who had been working with tape loops and manipulating sound via tape machines and effects, but doesn't it sound at least similar to a Smile outtake to hear McCartney at work in early '67? Where else in the Beatles history previous to this was there such a sound being attempted, and at this point Brian had already done work like this months prior.

McCartney said he was trying to get a "Beach Boys-y" sound on that song. If you listen to just the backing track, it just SCREAMS "Wouldn't It Be Nice."

[guitarfool2002]

GF,

Just to clarify, though I wasn't the one who made the comment, it was pointed out that Kokomo and On the Island were somewhat similar in regards to lyrics and content (ie.  "Tropical drink melting in my hand" vs "On the island with a drink in my hand" or "We'll get there fast then we'll take it slow" vs "We'll be taking it slow").   

Musically, the songs aren't very similar since Kokomo has an 80s Jimmy Buffett feel to it, and On the Island is a bossa nova style number.  But, in terms of content, there are some similarities. 

This is also why I pointed out a few times that had Mike Love written On the Island, I think people would've trashed it. 

Personally, I like both Kokomo and On the Island. 

Of course, but the point you made that the songs aren't very similar is the issue. If you played Kokomo and Island back to back for people who have no interest in the Beach Boys, they'd most likely say they sound not much like each other. "Sound" being one of the key factors to form that impression. You can get deeper into the chords, phrasing, groove, etc, but on the surface impression I'd say many hearing them back to back wouldn't hear a similarity in the musical elements. If you took a clip of that Penny Lane outtake with McCartney playing piano washed in tape echo and reverb, then played a few Smile outtakes I'm thinking of which have Brian playing piano washed in tape echo and reverb, then let the tapes play further where there are conversations being treated with the effects and other experiments with sonic/production touches like effects, the listeners might say they sound similar. That was the point. It's not an absurd concept to suggest if Brian were playing the Penny Lane chord changes and McCartney were playing the "Child Is Father" or "Worms" or "All Day"  chord changes that they wouldn't sound almost identical because the grooves/rhythms are the same, and the effects on these tapes create a similar texture and sound. Nothing beyond that, and as simple as that.  

[guitarfool2002]

So the point is, January 1967 - Listen to that Penny Lane tape and consider if McCartney had been playing different chords it could have sounded like a Smile outtake minus the ADT-flanging-warbling (which Brian wasn't really doing in the studio). Yes, of course McCartney and Brian could have been listening to some of the same electronic composers who had been working with tape loops and manipulating sound via tape machines and effects, but doesn't it sound at least similar to a Smile outtake to hear McCartney at work in early '67? Where else in the Beatles history previous to this was there such a sound being attempted, and at this point Brian had already done work like this months prior.

McCartney said he was trying to get a "Beach Boys-y" sound on that song. If you listen to just the backing track, it just SCREAMS "Wouldn't It Be Nice."

YES! Exactly! Anyone can hear it, and anyone who cannot feel free to ask and some of us would be more than happy (thrilled, perhaps) to point out some specifics to listen for. But it's all there in the grooves, as I already laid out and as is laid out above confirmed by Paul's own thoughts on the topic. Penny Lane is the influence McCartney got from Wouldn't It Be Nice being worn on its sleeve, end of story. As that pasta sauce commercial used to say, "It's In There", just listen for it.

[HeyJude]

For those that actually are interested in comparisons and analyses of the Beach Boys vis-à-vis the Beatles, then you probably can’t do better than to listen to Howie Edelson. I myself wasn’t even aware way back that, while he’s an authority on the BB’s, he may just know more about the Beatles. I believe Jon Stebbins posted about this some time back.

I love both bands, follow both bands intensely myself (my name and Beatles fascination though have nothing to do with each other believe it or not), but I’m also pretty firmly in the “why do we need to rate anything about them against each other?” camp. But Howie’s right; I think wherever this Smile/Beatles thing came from, it probably comes from the weird “which band did more progressive, weird stuff first?” debate, which again doesn’t really accomplish a great deal.

Having seen COUNTLESS McCartney interviews, and interviews with all of the Beatles throughout the years, I’ve often noted how little they really ever discussed Brian or the BB’s. McCartney goes on about “Pet Sounds”, and that’s mostly it (and even then, remember the “track by track” Leaf did with McCartney in the PS booklet? It petered out after like three or four songs.)

Even McCartney, the one BB-fanboy of the Beatles, rarely discusses much outside of “Pet Sounds.” I’ve never heard him talk about hearing “Today” or “Summer Days” or “Surf’s Up.” The rest of the guys in the band have rarely even uttered the name “Brian Wilson” or “The Beach Boys.” Ringo mentioned the BB”s in his “Postcards from the Boys” book, but only to point out that he was so wasted at the ’84 Washington DC gig that he literally doesn’t remember doing it and only believes he was there because there are pictures of it. (Which is hilarious, though, especially knowing that Ringo is now sober of course.)

This isn’t to denigrate the BB’s. If the Beatles never cared one iota about “Please Let Me Wonder” or “Kiss Me Baby” or whatever, then they were missing out in my opinion. But Howie’s right; the Beatles, and mostly McCartney, recognized the weight of what Brian was doing and accorded him a pretty rare “true peer” status, but didn’t then fixate or obsess over what Brian was doing.

You're wrong, factually, on several points. For one, to start, who is saying any of the Beatles were 'fixating' on what Brian or anyone was doing? I don't recall that coming up at all. I don't recall anyone suggesting a fixation on much of anything by the Beatles except maybe Lennon as a kid hearing skiffle and Elvis, maybe George as a kid with Carl Perkins to the point where he called himself Carl for a time, maybe McCartney with Little Richard...who has ever suggested a fixation on Brian and The Beach Boys? No one. That's a non-issue, why bring it up...they were musical peers who liked each others music AND were influenced by each other back and forth. FACT.

Also, "rarely even uttered the name Brian Wilson or The Beach Boys"...how the heck do you or anyone know? Based on published interviews that make up perhaps less than 1% of a person's life? Ringo being drunk in 84 was the only time Ringo mentioned the BB's, eh? Then explain reports from those traveling with them in 1964-65 who said the band members would talk about the Beach Boys, and the music, on the planes as they toured. Larry Kane, the reporter from Philly, has his book about touring with them. He said ***Ringo*** was the "ultimate Beach Boys fan among the Beatles" who told Larry it was "a thrill" to meet some of the BB's in Portland when they were touring the US and had a chance to meet up on the road. Early Beach Boys, 1964...well, make that twice ol' Ritchie mentioned them based on the standard applied to suggest they rarely mentioned the group. Or search for the reality of this stuff beyond the surface everyone points to conveniently.

But is Larry Kane wrong? He was only on tour with them for months and had conversations with them that no one recorded or reported, in other words the real day-to-day life of people that doesn't get posted into timelines or books. The people who were on those early tours like Kane, amidst the cutthroat Monopoly game marathons headed by Lennon and the near constant flow of booze and cigarettes, reported hearing the Beatles talking about...wait for it...Brian and The Beach Boys! Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle...how bout that! Oh, but don't take their word, they were only there. (Cue someone asking "who is they?". Right.).

McCartney is on the record time and time again with what he thought of the Beach Boys and Brian. Lennon soaked everything in, musically, that caught his ear. Ever see that PBS show "John Lennon's Jukebox"? Well golly gee, Lennon never talked about certain artists in interviews either but you can't logically conclude he wasn't a fan because he never talked about them.

Brian was just on one of those "Breakfast With The Beatles" shows where he again cited "Rubber Soul" as a favorite, and as an influence, as he's done before. He's often cited "Long And Winding Road" as a favorite to this day. "Girl Don't Tell Me" was an overt and obvious attempt to write and record a song that sounded like a Beatles single. When the Beatles owned the US charts, Brian recorded a handful of acoustic covers of their songs for Beach Boys Party...so tell me there was no influence or admiration on that side. Dennis in 66 would feature a Beatles cover as one of his vocal spotlight songs during the tours. Then there's the attempt to cover "With A Little Help...", was he a fan? Yes, he was. It goes on and on.

Seriously, this is almost off the charts ridiculous. Talking about the influence between bands is NOT saying what some are trying to argue and debate here as a competition between the two groups. It's like other issues, let's push aside the topic on the table and start arguing what's not even being suggested. And take a few subliminal shots in the process. Yep, I said that.

My post is “off the charts ridiculous?” Not sure what you’re reading. Just offered some commentary, mostly in relation to the original post’s theory and what Howie Edelson had discussed.

I don’t think either of us are really speaking to each others’ thoughts/posts. You’re talking about a bunch of stuff that I wasn’t speaking to. Difference is, I didn’t respond to or quote any of your posts (truth be told, and I apologize for this, I honestly haven’t read your posts in this thread up until now).

I’ve followed both of these bands quite intently. I have no reason to doubt that the Beach Boys came up in conversations with radio DJs in the 1964-66 timeframe, when both bands were in the charts. But I’ve seen no evidence that any of the Beatles gave Brian or the BB’s a HUGE amount of thought outside of “Pet Sounds.”

And yes, of course we can only go off of what they’ve said publicly. If the standard of evidence is what they liked “in life”, then for all we know Paul and Ringo’s true musical inspiration was The Archies. The evidence from HOURS and HOURS of interviews from the 60s up to the present with all of the Beatles, and especially from any post-1970 interviews, where they were all often asked about musical influences and their contemporaries, doesn’t even suggest a strong *interest* in Brian or the BB’s outside of Paul.

I’m sure Paul talked the other guys’ ears off about PS and Brian back in the mid-60’s. Unless John was totally close-minded musically (and of course we know all of the guys were exactly the opposite of that), I have no reason to doubt he would have or did respect Brian and the BB’s. How much Brian or the BB’s directly influenced or informed the work of the Beatles is obviously HUGELY subjective. I don’t recall Lennon going on and on in Playboy in 1980 about how much “Pet Sounds” influenced him, but I could be wrong. Doesn’t mean it didn’t. But my sense is he gave PS and the BB’s far less thought than McCartney did. And frankly, with some specific exceptions in later Beatles and solo material (“Dear Boy”, “Vintage Clothes” off of “Memory Almost Full”, etc.), I don’t think even McCartney actually used the BB’s as a huge influence after about 1970 or so (and how much he used them as an influence even then is debatable). Even McCartney has often struck me much more as a *fan* of Brian and the BB’s and “Pet Sounds” as opposed to having an overt musical influence, with the exceptions of specific things he has spoken to mostly relating to the “Pepper” era (as explained in the “Making of Sgt. Pepper” documentary, etc.)

I’m factually wrong about what I *think* are the motivations of fans looking for a Beach Boys-Beatles connection? Yes, my comments did assume a motive or thought process behind looking for a connection. But I was talking about fans trying to invent some scenario where the Beatles were tucked away somewhere listening to unreleased “Smile” tapes and having their minds blown. There are no doubt some fans of both bands that just dig wondering about who influenced whom and in what ways. I just get the feeling that some folks (and I truly don’t even necessarily mean anybody on this board) may have hyped up this “Beatles listened to the Smile tapes” story with some weird motives.

As far as influence going the *other* way, I never even spoke to that in my post! The BB’s and Brian not only obviously covered the Beatles on “Party”, but closely aped a specific Beatles song in at least once case (“Girl Don’t Tell Me”), and Brian has spoken at length about “Rubber Soul” and its influence. He has also mentioned other songs from McCartney’s catalog. While I think the Beatles influenced Brian more than the other way around (and the Beatles directly and indirectly influenced most bands at that time), I’d also say Brian has often fallen much more in “fan” territory than being hugely, overtly influenced by the Beatles.

And thank f**k for that to be honest, that these two amazing bands didn’t spend the mid 60’s ripping each other off.  I’m glad that “Surf’s Up” sounds nothing like anything the Beatles would have cut. Same thing with “Heroes and Villains”, and so on.

[Howie Edelson]

1. Yes -- McCartney is a Brian fan. Pet Sounds and Sunflower made a definite mark on him.

2. The Beatles never heard/stole Smile.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

I’ve followed both of these bands quite intently. I have no reason to doubt that the Beach Boys came up in conversations with radio DJs in the 1964-66 timeframe, when both bands were in the charts. But I’ve seen no evidence that any of the Beatles gave Brian or the BB’s a HUGE amount of thought outside of “Pet Sounds.”

There's no doubt that Pet Sounds was, at least, Paul's big Beach Boys infatuation. As someone else here noted, he preferred that album to the Good Vibrations single. That being said, on The Beatles Anthology, when the three were talking about Paperback Writer, George said that they were emulating a Beach Boys sound and then did a little Beach Boys vocal which sounds quite a lot like the background vocals on You're So Good To Me. And according to this list, The Beatles did cover You're So Good To Me during the Get Back sessions:

http://www.beatlesbible.com/features/get-back-let-it-be-sessions-complete-song-list/

Now my thoughts on this is that The Beatles were big on the 45s and probably had the Sloop John B./You're So Good To Me single.

Another thing: This past year I have been very much investing in researching and tracking down the music that The Beatles were listening to from Heartbreak Hotel to the official breakup in 1970. One of the things I found was an audio interview in 1968 with McCartney during the White Album sessions. When asked for his favourite artists he names three: Nilsson, Beach Boys, and Lovin' Spoonful. One would think that if McCartney is still counting The Beach Boys amongst his favourite contemporary artists in 1968 that he must have at least heard Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, and depending on when exactly the interview was, Friends.

That being said, I think there is also often too much made of the Beatles/Beach Boys connection. Yes, The Beatles liked The Beach Boys. But even at the height of the Pet Sounds-era, they were also very big on The Byrds, The Lovin' Spoonful, the Mamas and Papas, Bob Dylan, Donovan, and singles like Rescue Me and 123, etc.

[HeyJude]

I’ve followed both of these bands quite intently. I have no reason to doubt that the Beach Boys came up in conversations with radio DJs in the 1964-66 timeframe, when both bands were in the charts. But I’ve seen no evidence that any of the Beatles gave Brian or the BB’s a HUGE amount of thought outside of “Pet Sounds.”

There's no doubt that Pet Sounds was, at least, Paul's big Beach Boys infatuation. As someone else here noted, he preferred that album to the Good Vibrations single. That being said, on The Beatles Anthology, when the three were talking about Paperback Writer, George said that they were emulating a Beach Boys sound and then did a little Beach Boys vocal which sounds quite a lot like the background vocals on You're So Good To Me. And according to this list, The Beatles did cover You're So Good To Me during the Get Back sessions:

http://www.beatlesbible.com/features/get-back-let-it-be-sessions-complete-song-list/

Now my thoughts on this is that The Beatles were big on the 45s and probably had the Sloop John B./You're So Good To Me single.

Another thing: This past year I have been very much investing in researching and tracking down the music that The Beatles were listening to from Heartbreak Hotel to the official breakup in 1970. One of the things I found was an audio interview in 1968 with McCartney during the White Album sessions. When asked for his favourite artists he names three: Nilsson, Beach Boys, and Lovin' Spoonful. One would think that if McCartney is still counting The Beach Boys amongst his favourite contemporary artists in 1968 that he must have at least heard Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, and depending on when exactly the interview was, Friends.

That being said, I think there is also often too much made of the Beatles/Beach Boys connection. Yes, The Beatles liked The Beach Boys. But even at the height of the Pet Sounds-era, they were also very big on The Byrds, The Lovin' Spoonful, the Mamas and Papas, Bob Dylan, Donovan, and singles like Rescue Me and 123, etc.

Yes, I mentioned some time back in another “Beatles/Beach Boys” thread that George makes that mention of the Beach Boys in the “Beatles Anthology” (I think in that old thread we were wondering whether that’s the only recorded time in an interview that George actually named the Beach Boys specifically). Now, this is just my reading of it and nothing else, he says “we were trying to compete with the Beach Boys” almost as if he’s repeating what *others* have said about it. I’m not trying to negate the possibility that George himself felt that influence. But it came across to me more like “we layered a lot of vocals, and Paul was into the Beach Boys and Pet Sounds, so we must have been going for that.” I don’t sense that George himself felt they needed to “compete” with the Beach Boys. 

[Chocolate Shake Man]

There is something to be said about the fact though that The Beatles were not adverse to incorporating elements of the music that inspired them into their own music. And Your Bird Can Sing on the Beatles Anthology sounds like it might as well be on one of the first two Byrds albums. And indeed, George's If I Needed Someone is merely a re-casting of The Belles of Rhymney. Michelle, meanwhile, incorporates elements of Nina Simone, Drive My Car takes the bass line from Otis Redding's Respect. And while I have no evidence like I do with the others, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Stevie Wonder's Uptight wasn't the central influence on Got To Get You Into My Life. The truth is, The Beatles did quite often try very much to sound like other music, often cribbing from music from 1956-1962, but also from their contemporaries.

[SenorPotatoHead]

I don't see the possibility of some bits of Smile era recordings being played for one or more of the Beatles as completely ridiculous an idea.  An acetate played over a transatlantic phone call or some such perhaps even.   That doesn't go to say though that "Smile was stolen by the Beatles".   That I think, is obviously not so - as the Beatles never did anything actually like Smile.  Sgt Pepper/Penny Lane has some obvious inspirations via the Beach Boys recent (at that time) recorded work, but they aren't Smile, they're definite Beatles stuff.   The medley on Abbey Road might be the closest approximation of a Smile type idea. 
They inspired/challenged one another perhaps, but they responded with their own things - never direct steals/cops.  
As a side note:  I see a fair amount of Beach Boy/Brian influence in The Beatles (The White Album).   Many of the tunes were written in Rishikesh, where they spent time with Love, who may have relayed to them some of the goings on surrounding recent Beach Boys activities (Smile, Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, etc).   Back In The USSR is an obvious, but then there's Wild Honey Pie, and Honey Pie itself - which in my mind is a message to Brian (though in reality it probably isn't, but who knows?), and Martha My Dear seems like a McCartney take on a Brian type thing, but again, this is probably just my interpretation.   Rocky Raccoon perhaps was a bit inspired by the whole Heroes and Villains western shootout thing?  

[LostArt]

GF,

Just to clarify, though I wasn't the one who made the comment, it was pointed out that Kokomo and On the Island were somewhat similar in regards to lyrics and content (ie.  "Tropical drink melting in my hand" vs "On the island with a drink in my hand" or "We'll get there fast then we'll take it slow" vs "We'll be taking it slow").   

Musically, the songs aren't very similar since Kokomo has an 80s Jimmy Buffett feel to it, and On the Island is a bossa nova style number.  But, in terms of content, there are some similarities. 

This is also why I pointed out a few times that had Mike Love written On the Island, I think people would've trashed it. 

Personally, I like both Kokomo and On the Island. 

Not that it matters much, but wasn't Tell Me Why being compared to Kokomo by someone here?  They said that the chords and the melody in the verses were similar.  I can kind of hear the chord changes being similar but the melody is not similar at all.

[Niko]

Kokomo and Tell Me Why have ONE chord change in common at the start of each songs verse

[guitarfool2002]

Kokomo and Tell Me Why have ONE chord change in common at the start of each songs verse

And that was what I was hinting at earlier - Based on that previous discussion, there were responses and debates that suggested all manner of respecting opinions, pointing out the differences turned into having an anti-Kokomo bias, or whatever that was...yet putting that McCartney piano tape I posted above next to similar sounding experiments Brian had recorded at the piano during Smile sessions was somehow that much of a stretch in comparing the similarities of the two to be inviting ridicule? That's what doesn't jive.

[mikeddonn]

Did anyone mention Here There and Everywhere and Paul saying they were trying to sound like/rip off the Beach Boys on the Intro or how they would 'rip off' the Shirelles and others but singing it in a Liverpudlian accent no-one noticed?

[guitarfool2002]

If I could add something to the discussion, just consider this interview, this excerpt from the full transcript which can be found here:
http://ugly-things.com/kim-fowley-sins-secrets-of-the-silver-sixties/

Again, just food for thought and something to add to the discourse...it's not making a definitive statement, or finding the Rosetta Stone or the Dead Sea Scrolls to answer the great mysteries, but it does put perspective on this thing about musical influences, "borrowing" ideas for songs, etc. and it's coming from John Lennon. And a few other guys, too.  

Q: One thing you mentioned, if I could backtrack to Toronto for a second, is that you had a conversation backstage with Lennon about the Beatles?


Fowley: It was the next day in the rent-a-house of the owner of Eaton’s department stores and who financed the whole thing. Eric Clapton said, “John, Yoko, Kim’s here!”

And Lennon said, “Fowley” — not Kim Carnes, not Novak, but Fowley. So in the world of Kims there was only one in John Lennon’s life and it was Kim Fowley. Well, I’d met him two other times anyway, once with Pet Sounds (see earlier in story) and I also met him in ’64 with the rest of the Beatles and PJ Proby and I were hanging out at the Adlib Club. So this was the third time I’d ran into him.

“Hey John.”

“Hey Kim. Thank you very much for introducing me last night. I was very…” — not mortified but uncomfortable up there — a word between mortified and uncomfortable that explained the first time he ever been in any other band but the Beatles or a derivative of the Beatles – Johnny & the Moondogs or whatever – and suddenly to go on stage without ‘those guys’ must have been really something. We talked about how that worked, and the matches and cigarette lighters and light illuminating darkness and that took us into religious pageantry and blah-blah-blah.

And then I said, “Let me ask you a question.” Because I had to ask the question. I had asked the same question to Bob Dylan: “What is your secret?” In the ’60s I would ask everybody I met what their gimmick was, because I wanted to know. And I was a guy who had enough records by then that I could ask the question, as opposed to a version of you asking the question. “So, John, what was the secret of the Beatles?”

He said, “Very easy. May I illustrate it with a song? You ever hear ‘Why Don’t We Do It In the Road’ by the Beatles?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard it.”

“That was our message to Canned Heat, because we didn’t think they had enough humor, so it was basically taking the idea of a Canned Heat song and doing it with more humor.” And he said, “The Beatles stopped being a group when we stopped trying to upgrade and rewrite and reinterpret and reinvent our favorite records of the moment.”

What a great answer! That answer was never given in any of all the books I’ve heard about. The wives are blamed, the death of Brian Epstein is blamed, but no one ever says, “All we were ever doing was listening to records and taking them to the next level, and when we stopped listening to music and making it better we stopped being a group.” In so many words, that is what he said. And that was his answer and there was no more discussion, because John Lennon in the three times I met him was as quiet a person as John Entwistle is on stage and in public. This is a quiet guy. Lyrically he was a wild, impassioned guy, but in public he was a John Entwistle non-personality guy. Very quietly spoken.

And the other quiet guy was Bob Dylan, and when I met Bob Dylan and asked, “So what’s the story here?” He said, “I ask questions and tell stories and that’s it.” OK. So the thing about Lennon and Dylan is they had one sentence answers.

I asked Brian Wilson. Back in ’63 he was using Gold Star and I was doing the Murmaids there, and one day he came in the studio. I said, “Hi. Let me ask you a question. What’s your gimmick?”

He said, “Very easy. Twelve months a year. I write about the calendar.”

“What about it?”

“Nine months of school and three months of the beach. (laughs) So you got kids in school nine months and then the rest of the time they’re having fun. That’s it!”

So I said, “OK!” So that’s Brian’s answer.

You got Dylan’s answer, you got Lennon’s answer, and all those other assholes who read your magazine, they bleed for pages and pages and pages and wonder and ponder and do it all wrong. And the guys that they all worship, these guys tell you in one sentence what they were doing. One guy was updating his record collection. One guy was asking questions and telling stories. And one guy was writing about school and the beach. Wow. How come all the idiots who make those horrible seven-inch revival singles no one’s gonna play on record players they don’t own anymore, why don’t they know this answer? Because… none of them were at the beginning when all this was created. It had to be a simple idea. As Danny Hutton said to me when we first heard the Beatles “From Me to You” or “Please Please Me” — one of those Vee Jay singles — in ’63 on the way to the beach: “That’s the Everly Brothers with a third harmony part.” Well said.

[Niko]

Kokomo and Tell Me Why have ONE chord change in common at the start of each songs verse

And that was what I was hinting at earlier - Based on that previous discussion, there were responses and debates that suggested all manner of respecting opinions, pointing out the differences turned into having an anti-Kokomo bias, or whatever that was...yet putting that McCartney piano tape I posted above next to similar sounding experiments Brian had recorded at the piano during Smile sessions was somehow that much of a stretch in comparing the similarities of the two to be inviting ridicule? That's what doesn't jive.

To me it's interesting to see how both artists, growing up in very different cultures and pushing the envelope of modern music, were each working towards something similar to the other, however different the final results were. The point is the similar, unique musical feelings that each of them were able to bring out through simple chords, and not all the fact that the chords themselves were similar to the others music, because that's not the case.

found the clip very cool, and I'm glad you posted it.