Original SMiLE.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

Maybe the success of Good Vibrations made Brian complacent. Maybe he got lazy, just like Murray said he would. He hung out with his stoner friends and wasted time on nonsense like the Jasper tracks and silly conversations and skits.

Sure, he cut a lot of material but where did it get him? His behavior during Smile would continue for the rest of his career. He’d always needed Carl to finish for him. Maybe his mental illness is to blame. Maybe it’s the drugs. Regardless, I don’t feel the Boys were to blame for the demise of Smile. Mike is right. to be angry that he's being blamed. He’s been labeled the scapegoat. Sure, maybe he didn’t like the words, but he sang ‘em. They’re right there on the record. H&V and Cabin Essence. He did his job. He might have complained, but he certainly sang those words and sang them well.

When did they know Brian was done? As early as December when Carl wrote a list of tracks for Smile and sent them to Capitol? That’s hard to swallow, but it may very well be true. Smiley Smile was the Beach Boys taking over. I don’t think Brian was or still is capable of finishing anything. So they took producers credit and got an album out pronto, since Brian was incapable. Smile was a mess. All they had was a bunch of unfinished fragments. They didn't  know what to do with them. They were Brian's. The songs that were “complete” and had vocals from the Smile era are the only ones that turned up on Smiley. H&V, Vegetables, Wonderful, Wind Chimes. They were the only ones finished. So those are the ones they used. Makes sense to me. The Boys were familiar with them since they had worked on the vocals and the tracks had been completed. The rest of the tapes were all over the place. Cabin Essence turned out to be finishable, once Carl got to it. Child probably never even had lyrics written for it. Van and Brian too busy goofing off with silly nonsense. There was no completed track for SU. OMP was a piece of crap. So those cuts were disgarded. It was clear Brian lost it. It was over.

So Brian played his new organ and they knocked out some songs in a week and got Smiley on the shelves. We badmouth the Boys for dismissing Brian as a liability. Well, maybe he is. We love him, but they wanted to look like a professional band, and Brian couldn’t get with the program and by the late 70's he couldn’t even sing on key any more. He can still write masterpieces, but it took Carl and the gang to bring the majority of his works post-Smile to fruition. It’s sad, but it’s true. Who can say for sure why. Drugs, laziness, hostility. Whatever.

I know we are hesitant to give the Boys their due, but we should. We should applaud the Boys for keeping the summer alive at all, because Brian didn't seem to be able to. Brian's demise was not their fault.

[Cam Mott]

Exactly!  See Cam, we can agree on something.  Mike realized this Brother label thing was just a communist conspiracy hatched by the Vosse Posse while on drugs and wanted to sabotage it and get back to Capitol Records.

Dead on, and the whole Brian/genius thing was a shill.  Mike was the genius and Brian was a front so Mike could squeeze royalities out of Murry for the music because he knew Murry would beat the crap out of any non-family members [with a 2x4 upside the ear onto a dinnerplate], when he wasn't busy stomping new-born kittens around the neighborhood, instead of paying royalties for music to a non-family member. Mike actually double-dipped when he sued Brian, which was really him, in'90 over non-payment of royalties and Mike never paid himself for the back royalties he had already collected. Pretty crafty.