So... why wasn't SMiLE released in 1967?

[SMiLE Brian]

Didn’t Alan Boyd and Mark Linett say the tape splicing technology in 1967 wasn’t enough to finish SMiLE?

[MyDrKnowsItKeepsMeCalm]

I can appreciate why these discussions get repetitive for some of you long-time fans, but as someone not completely steeped in this stuff I find them fascinating. Some really thoughtful posts here.

Is there a book you guys would recommend on Smile? The Dominic Priore one still worth picking up?

[rab2591]

I can appreciate why these discussions get repetitive for some of you long-time fans, but as someone not completely steeped in this stuff I find them fascinating. Some really thoughtful posts here.

Is there a book you guys would recommend on Smile? The Dominic Priore one still worth picking up?

The Dominic Priore book is worth reading but you have to sift through parts of it and ignore some of the weird theories. But the quotes and most of the book are a great overview of what was happening at the time.

His “Look Listen Vibrate Smile” is absolutely worth picking up ($54 used on Amazon right now). I am hoping it comes back into print at some point because it’s a treasure trove for new fans.

It has been a while since I opened up the book that came with TSS box set. But I remember it being a good overview (nothing extensive though).

Have you read ‘Catch A Wave’ by Peter Carlin? It’s a biography of Brian’s life but the general arc is about Brian’s Smile redemption in 2004. The chapter on Smile is pretty good/informative. ‘Inside the Music of Brian Wilson’ by Philip Lambert has a chapter on Smile - it is more of look at the music itself but I think he delves into a little bit of the band politics at the time. He was also the guy who did amazing musical breakdowns of some of Brian’s songs in the ‘Songwriter’ series.

Would love to hear of any other recommendations too, I may definitely be overlooking a book or two!

[rab2591]

Didn’t Alan Boyd and Mark Linett say the tape splicing technology in 1967 wasn’t enough to finish SMiLE?

I seem to remember this too.

Guitarfool, GREAT post. I never knew he was close to giving the song away…to whom was he going to give it to?

[guitarfool2002]

Didn’t Alan Boyd and Mark Linett say the tape splicing technology in 1967 wasn’t enough to finish SMiLE?

I seem to remember this too.

Guitarfool, GREAT post. I never knew he was close to giving the song away…to whom was he going to give it to?

I can't cite where either one said that, but I'm sure I remember they did especially during the Smile Sessions box time. I know I said it more than a few times through the years, chalking up the lack of available technology in 1966-67 to the project not being completed, and in a few cases I got a STRONG pushback to that opinion. I still think lack of technology at that time was a factor, for time restrictions alone if not the frustration of not being able to easily and quickly "audition" the sequences of various segments, and I'll stand by that notion. There are examples of "test edits" that may or may not have been released (I don't know) where Brian was trying to audition different transitions and segments and a few sound like he was doing a very primitive way of editing existing acetates together doing needle-drops on tape. It's been many years so I cannot cite the exact titles but that's what it sounded like to me.

 To do the kind of editing which is taken for granted in modern studios using digital technology in 1967 would have taken a much longer time and more effort, surely more than it did when they compiled the Smile Sessions box set using DAW's and almost instant crossfades available on any recording tool. So yeah, I'm sure one of those guys mentioned it, and I know I definitely did (if I can dig up any old threads, it goes back to the Smile Shop days.)

Thanks Rab! The one name I've heard mentioned was Danny Hutton, who David Anderle was managing at the time, but there was a point where Brian was frustrated with Good Vibrations enough to tell people he was going to give it to another artist to record instead, he couldn't get what he was looking for with the recordings of the song he had done up to a point. People around him talked him out of it, and he came to his senses and held onto the song. I can't give a date in 1966 as to when this was in the process, but it has been reported at least several times if I recall, one may be in the Preiss book? Maybe it was Anderle or Hutton who mentioned it too? If I find it I'll post it.

[MyDrKnowsItKeepsMeCalm]

I can appreciate why these discussions get repetitive for some of you long-time fans, but as someone not completely steeped in this stuff I find them fascinating. Some really thoughtful posts here.

Is there a book you guys would recommend on Smile? The Dominic Priore one still worth picking up?

The Dominic Priore book is worth reading but you have to sift through parts of it and ignore some of the weird theories. But the quotes and most of the book are a great overview of what was happening at the time.

His “Look Listen Vibrate Smile” is absolutely worth picking up ($54 used on Amazon right now). I am hoping it comes back into print at some point because it’s a treasure trove for new fans.

It has been a while since I opened up the book that came with TSS box set. But I remember it being a good overview (nothing extensive though).

Have you read ‘Catch A Wave’ by Peter Carlin? It’s a biography of Brian’s life but the general arc is about Brian’s Smile redemption in 2004. The chapter on Smile is pretty good/informative. ‘Inside the Music of Brian Wilson’ by Philip Lambert has a chapter on Smile - it is more of look at the music itself but I think he delves into a little bit of the band politics at the time. He was also the guy who did amazing musical breakdowns of some of Brian’s songs in the ‘Songwriter’ series.

Would love to hear of any other recommendations too, I may definitely be overlooking a book or two!

Thanks! I enjoyed Catch a Wave though it's been many years now; it's actually the only BBs book I've read to date. I'll check out the Priore one for sure.

[rab2591]

I hold Carlin's book dear to my heart. It was the first book I ever read about the band as a new fan, and reading it and listening to all the late-60s and 70s music for the first time was such a great trip.

[MyDrKnowsItKeepsMeCalm]

I still think lack of technology at that time was a factor, for time restrictions alone if not the frustration of not being able to easily and quickly "audition" the sequences of various segments, and I'll stand by that notion.

100%, makes total sense.

A slightly different but supporting take on the technology problem: In a different Smile discussion on these boards many months ago, there was a really fascinating long post where the author suggested that Brian's experiments with different Heroes and Villains structures were literally 'cannibalizing' other songs and fragments of songs -- that once edited in, due to technology limitations those songs were basically 'gone' as far as being usable on their own, thus reducing the number of songs or stand-alone concepts available for the album itself. I'm sure I'm oversimplifying but that was the gist of it. (If the author of that post is in this thread, or if this rings a bell with anyone else, please point me to that post as I have no idea where it is but would love to read it again.)

[guitarfool2002]

I said I would add more on the topic, but all I want to add now is to say if there are people who read those quotes posted above from Marilyn and Brian about the struggles between Brian and the band, and then try to parse, twist, and cherrypick them and shoehorn those words into something that they're not...chances are, there is no logical rebuttal to what was specifically said by the two people who were closest to Brian at that time and saw what was happening: Brian and his then-wife. It's the same crap that I said earlier in this discussion has been going on for 20+years during these online discussions, and it's everyone's right I guess to grab a microphone when offered the chance and start blabbering nonsense or illogical statements...but that doesn't make it right, and people will either push back or simply not listen. I just remember years ago, there was a direct quote from Mike Love that was either false, or vindictive, or something...and when it was called out, after the attempted parsing and whatnot, the best rebuttal that could be offered was along the lines of "Mike was misquoted", followed by a history lesson on how people get misquoted.

Yeah, sure...maybe there was no logical point to argue what was said in the first place? It all gets ridiculous when that's the last line of discussion. Oh, wait...there are also the personal attacks in lieu of any logical points to counter. Can't forget those.

So as Dan said, there can't be an honest telling of history coming from either historians or wannabe historians if said historians deliberately cherrypick details and leave out or dismiss key points that are key to the telling of that history. I'd be more upset if we had not seen all of that happen many times before in this fanbase. As Dan said, it is not advancing the telling of the history or the research, it's closer to pushing an agenda at that point.

I'm glad there are still fans out there who are interested in getting the facts about Smile out there, and doing so with logic and fact. Kudos to everyone in that camp, keep up the good work.

[Don Malcolm]

I think it's beyond ironic that some of our "friends" over at "The Nearest Faraway Place" who've contributed their strangulated ideas to that strange thread about SMiLE are the same ones who wept with joy when they were in attendance at BWPS in 2004. But so much bizarre stuff has happened in the world at large over the twenty years from then to now that I suppose it's not all that surprising...   

I'm curious if David Leaf (in his upcoming book on SMiLE) wlll address the alarm, bewilderment, consternation and dissension that ensued in late '66 and how that contributed to SMiLE essentially being neutered into a moving target when Brian was pushed into a corner by all of the swirling events and tried (in vain) to make a version of H&V that could top GV. I still think Brian expected to return to some form of SMiLE on his own after Smiley based on an agreement between him and the rest of the band, but the ultimate "beat down" that GF refers to (the Marilyn quote) actually seems to have come in the fall of '67, when Brian was revisiting "Surf's Up" and working with Redwood--which meant that the band's panic over Smiley's catastrophic reception "justified" them in reneging on such an agreement that (I suspect) was part of the late May-early June "regrouping" discussions.

Some of that speculation, and a whole lot more about the band dynamics in the transition from SMiLE to Smiley, can be found in this thread, with many heavy hitters weighing in there...

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,28152.0.html

I'm swamped with an ongoing project, so I haven't looked at it again--thus I don't recall if Zenobi was in that thread, but either way I think it's worth a look to add more detail to this discussion.

It's clear that some folks over at the Nearest Faraway Place have a weird ongoing agenda to minimize SMiLE in the history of the band, and whitewash Mike Love to the greatest extent possible.

What's also clear is that if Brian really "hated" VDP's lyrics, he'd have never decided to undertake BWPS. He could have left it as a locked-away mystery. That suggests that he'd always wanted to find some way to resurrect it, even when he put it aside in the interest of his bandmates. The same folks who wept and cheered when he finally did resurrect it now apparently want to tear it down again...let's give Jim Morrison the last word here: "People are strange..." 

[Wirestone]

A topic about which much can be — and has been, and will be — written.

One point: The average age of onset for bipolar disorder is 25. How old was Brian in the heat of the Smile sessions? 25.

His most accurate diagnosis has, to my knowledge, been bipolar with some schizoaffective features (the auditory hallucinations).

Regardless of who said what to him or what he himself believed, regardless of the work being done, it all happened at an absolute crisis point in his mental health. Yes, he continued to function well for several years afterward. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t struggling or competent to deal with what was happening in his own mind.

[MyDrKnowsItKeepsMeCalm]

Some of that speculation, and a whole lot more about the band dynamics in the transition from SMiLE to Smiley, can be found in this thread, with many heavy hitters weighing in there...

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,28152.0.html

Thank you! That's exactly the thread I was looking for. (I thought it was 'a few months back'... looks like two years ago, yikes.) Lots of fascinating Smile discussion in there.


This is the post I was thinking of re Heroes and Villains, from poster sloopjohnb1972 :

"... Things [on Smile] were sort of beginning to fall apart by Christmas, but there was still an album that could easily have been finished at any given moment, had the Beach Boys been given one week to complete the LP. Those 12 songs could have been finished in a rush if they needed to be.

But the big switch was David Anderle informing Brian that he needed a unique A and B side single to launch Brother Records. Brian was seemingly satisfied with Good Vibrations as the sole single for the project, until his decision to launch a record label for the Boys (which had been in the plans for about a year now) sort of snuck up behind him. There's sufficient evidence in the way that this story has been told for us to believe that Heroes had already been conceived, and maybe even recorded as a song for Smile when Brian got this news. Every session up until October 20 had not produced a piece of a song, but an entire backing track that was in need only of vocal overdubbing. So far, the process was no different than Pet Sounds, beside the fact that the tracks were not performed beginning-to-end live by the ensemble, as Brian used editing to highlight big dynamic and metric contrasts between verses and choruses that couldn't be achieved as well via a continuous performance. There's no reason to believe Heroes was an exception. On October 20, Heroes had only 2 long parts - the verse (which was originally much longer, and is cut down even on The Smile Sessions disc 2), and the Barnyard section, a fadeout which, like all of Brian's Smile fades, adds in new melodies and instruments with each round, rather than starting full steam ahead. With Brian and Van Dyke's 3 verses telling a cohesive love story set in the old west, without the "side quests" that later versions of the song will include, this works perfectly as a concise 2-part album track.

But when Brian was told he needed a single, he chose to rework this song as something both commercial and exciting, and that's when it began to consume parts of other songs. First I'm in Great Shape, then Do You Like Worms, then Cabin Essence, then My Only Sunshine... songs became unusable for the next project, as they were physically disassembled, and the focus shifted entirely toward the new single. It didn't help that for the first time for The Beach Boys (this had been the case for other artists, pseudonyms, studio bands, etc), Brian needed TWO new songs. Previously, he'd relied on material from released albums to fill out the B-side, but on a new record label, he couldn't just take something off Pet Sounds, for example. The entirety of the next 5-6 months is spent trying to get a single. That's not a sign of a stable and healthy mind, it isn't productive to constantly rework one song rather than 12 at once, and it is not going to produce both a single and an album without some big changes being made."

[guitarfool2002]

I think it's beyond ironic that some of our "friends" over at "The Nearest Faraway Place" who've contributed their strangulated ideas to that strange thread about SMiLE are the same ones who wept with joy when they were in attendance at BWPS in 2004. But so much bizarre stuff has happened in the world at large over the twenty years from then to now that I suppose it's not all that surprising...   

I'm curious if David Leaf (in his upcoming book on SMiLE) wlll address the alarm, bewilderment, consternation and dissension that ensued in late '66 and how that contributed to SMiLE essentially being neutered into a moving target when Brian was pushed into a corner by all of the swirling events and tried (in vain) to make a version of H&V that could top GV. I still think Brian expected to return to some form of SMiLE on his own after Smiley based on an agreement between him and the rest of the band, but the ultimate "beat down" that GF refers to (the Marilyn quote) actually seems to have come in the fall of '67, when Brian was revisiting "Surf's Up" and working with Redwood--which meant that the band's panic over Smiley's catastrophic reception "justified" them in reneging on such an agreement that (I suspect) was part of the late May-early June "regrouping" discussions.

Some of that speculation, and a whole lot more about the band dynamics in the transition from SMiLE to Smiley, can be found in this thread, with many heavy hitters weighing in there...

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,28152.0.html

I'm swamped with an ongoing project, so I haven't looked at it again--thus I don't recall if Zenobi was in that thread, but either way I think it's worth a look to add more detail to this discussion.

It's clear that some folks over at the Nearest Faraway Place have a weird ongoing agenda to minimize SMiLE in the history of the band, and whitewash Mike Love to the greatest extent possible.

What's also clear is that if Brian really "hated" VDP's lyrics, he'd have never decided to undertake BWPS. He could have left it as a locked-away mystery. That suggests that he'd always wanted to find some way to resurrect it, even when he put it aside in the interest of his bandmates. The same folks who wept and cheered when he finally did resurrect it now apparently want to tear it down again...let's give Jim Morrison the last word here: "People are strange..." 

Just a few quick replies:

I cannot understand why "fans" would want to "tear down" Smile, it just makes no sense to me. Smile has inspired so many musicians alone, let alone non-musician fans and listeners, to think outside the box, to dig deeper into the creation and history of pop music from the 60's, to get into finding and collecting unreleased material, to go beyond the surface level and dig for more information outside the mainstream outlets, to create friendships centered around ***MUSIC*** and the enjoyment of listening and discovering new music, and above all it has made how many people actually smile and feel inspired. And it also brought a new kind of attention to and a new base of listeners to the music of The Beach Boys. I remember the early 90's so well because it's what got me obsessed with Smile. You'd open up a music magazine or a 'zine or read an interview, and Smile was being name-checked by a variety of alternative musicians and even classic rockers on a semi-regular basis, which meant those unfamiliar would probably ask "so what is this Smile project?" and start seeking it out on their own. I remember buying Priore's Look Listen Vibrate Smile at Tower Records and reading it nearly every day, then re-reading it over and over. I remember getting a copy of Tower's "Pulse" in house magazine and finding a column written by Priore where he laid out a fan mix sequence fans could make to come close to Smile's original order. I remember so well Philly DJ Ed Sciaky playing about 40 minutes of Smile one night on his show, I had my tape deck recording it, and then closing that set with a very poignant reading of the Derek Taylor press release stating that the music was scrapped. I played that cassette for nearly every musician I could, I took it into one of my Berklee advanced arranging classes and played it for the class, and one student from Europe just stood there in stunned silence, he had never heard music like that and was enthralled. I remember when the GV box set came out, and the 5-star Rolling Stone review of the set said it was hard to get past disc 2, after hearing what could have been with the chunk of Smile tracks they included. I took several subway trips on the T's Green and Red lines to Cambridge after a friend told me there were shops out there selling various Smile discs...and I saved up 50 bucks to buy one of them, and that was not cheap 30 years ago to buy a CD.

Anyway I could go on, but it's obvious others had similar experiences and took on similar obsessions which eventually led to Hunt and Lane creating The Smile Shop, and the Lil Smiley Cabin on Yahoo, and the MyPlay lockers where people would drop random unreleased fragments...The point being this was some of the most inspirational music I've ever experienced, and the inspiration went into several areas besides only the listening experience.

And it was an unreleased album that had not yet been finished! I don't think there is a similar project to compare in rock history...Sure, there are "legendary" unreleased albums but I don't think any of them had the devotion which Smile garnered through the decades.

And people now want to take a sh*t on it? Rewrite the history? Parse and cherrypick historical facts and comments? And to what end is this being done? To spin a narrative, to absolve certain people of certain things, to knock Brian Wilson and his legacy down a few pegs?

It's all so fucking sad. People trying to knock down Smile when so many more people enjoy it to their core as music fans, it makes no sense unless the "new" narrative or agenda is that much more important than remembering how much joy and inspiration the music has brought to people.

Brian did not hate the lyrics. If the guy called Van Dyke Parks his favorite lyricist and collaborator multiple times through the years, you cannot parse that kind of statement. End of story.

[guitarfool2002]

A topic about which much can be — and has been, and will be — written.

One point: The average age of onset for bipolar disorder is 25. How old was Brian in the heat of the Smile sessions? 25.

His most accurate diagnosis has, to my knowledge, been bipolar with some schizoaffective features (the auditory hallucinations).

Regardless of who said what to him or what he himself believed, regardless of the work being done, it all happened at an absolute crisis point in his mental health. Yes, he continued to function well for several years afterward. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t struggling or competent to deal with what was happening in his own mind.

Indeed, a very interesting point to consider and weigh. And I'll also add that if what you're suggesting is the case, and it was a crisis point, consider what else Brian had on his plate in the span of - let's round it off - 6 months circa 1967. Besides the pressures on him musically to get a new album done and get a follow-up single to Good Vibrations, he was in the middle of a lawsuit with his label after finding out they had ripped him off, his younger brother Carl got drafted and could potentially have to leave the band either for Vietnam or federal prison for evasion, he was selling his house and moving into a new one, there were tensions within the band and his family over the direction of the music and the band, his touring band was catching criticism that they didn't sound like the records at the live shows, he was starting a new label that would include music, film, and other projects, he was featured playing solo on national TV - nary a Beach Boys in sight - and had nothing ready to sell to listeners from and after that appearance, his main collaborator and lyricist had left to pursue his own solo album, it was harder for him to book the studios he preferred to record new ideas, The Beatles who had been silent for months even with rumors they had broken up re-emerged with a powerhouse double-A-side single Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields the latter which Brian thought the Beatles had beaten him to it with that production, and the list could go on.

Put all those items on anyone's plate, and it's a lot of stress. Put them on a guy in his mid-20's, it's amplified even more. Then if the bi-polar diagnosis was correct, and it was a crisis point at this time, imagine how much more that would have exasperated an already stress-filled period and situation in someone's life.

Amazingly, apart from the one session he cancelled because the vibes weren't right, barely any of this comes through on tape when we hear Brian in the studio recording the music for Smile and interacting with the musicians and studio staff during this time. I'd say in the studio, he was still operating at an extremely high level as a musician, arranger, and producer if the session chat ocaught on tape is an indicator. In fact some of it, like "Sweeping Strings", is mindblowing to hear even today, and a little-heard comp tape of Brian on the talkback directing a Heroes fade session shows a musician in full control of a large ensemble playing a difficult piece of music, there is not a hint of doubt or not knowing what he wanted (or even an erratic streak)  to be heard across that tape.

[Don Malcolm]

A topic about which much can be — and has been, and will be — written.

One point: The average age of onset for bipolar disorder is 25. How old was Brian in the heat of the Smile sessions? 25.

His most accurate diagnosis has, to my knowledge, been bipolar with some schizoaffective features (the auditory hallucinations).

Regardless of who said what to him or what he himself believed, regardless of the work being done, it all happened at an absolute crisis point in his mental health. Yes, he continued to function well for several years afterward. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t struggling or competent to deal with what was happening in his own mind.

Indeed, a very interesting point to consider and weigh. And I'll also add that if what you're suggesting is the case, and it was a crisis point, consider what else Brian had on his plate in the span of - let's round it off - 6 months circa 1967. Besides the pressures on him musically to get a new album done and get a follow-up single to Good Vibrations, he was in the middle of a lawsuit with his label after finding out they had ripped him off, his younger brother Carl got drafted and could potentially have to leave the band either for Vietnam or federal prison for evasion, he was selling his house and moving into a new one, there were tensions within the band and his family over the direction of the music and the band, his touring band was catching criticism that they didn't sound like the records at the live shows, he was starting a new label that would include music, film, and other projects, he was featured playing solo on national TV - nary a Beach Boys in sight - and had nothing ready to sell to listeners from and after that appearance, his main collaborator and lyricist had left to pursue his own solo album, it was harder for him to book the studios he preferred to record new ideas, The Beatles who had been silent for months even with rumors they had broken up re-emerged with a powerhouse double-A-side single Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields the latter which Brian thought the Beatles had beaten him to it with that production, and the list could go on.

Put all those items on anyone's plate, and it's a lot of stress. Put them on a guy in his mid-20's, it's amplified even more. Then if the bi-polar diagnosis was correct, and it was a crisis point at this time, imagine how much more that would have exasperated an already stress-filled period and situation in someone's life.

Amazingly, apart from the one session he cancelled because the vibes weren't right, barely any of this comes through on tape when we hear Brian in the studio recording the music for Smile and interacting with the musicians and studio staff during this time. I'd say in the studio, he was still operating at an extremely high level as a musician, arranger, and producer if the session chat caught on tape is an indicator. In fact some of it, like "Sweeping Strings", is mindblowing to hear even today, and a little-heard comp tape of Brian on the talkback directing a Heroes fade session shows a musician in full control of a large ensemble playing a difficult piece of music, there is not a hint of doubt or not knowing what he wanted (or even an erratic streak)  to be heard across that tape.

All excellent points--technically, however, Brian was 24 through much of the SMiLE sessions, turning 25 in the middle of Smiley. (Not that bipolar is just waiting for the birthday candles, of course!)

But note that over the next 12 months, Brian steered the band into a 90-degree shift from SMiLE, and was the driving force on two more LPs (Wild Honey & Friends). My read of what happened then is that Friends' chart disaster and the return of doubt/guilt/remorse along with a sense of being trapped within the band must have been a double trigger for depression and the onset of even more encompassing emotional/mental health issues. That timing would seem to dovetail with Marilyn's quotes about Brian just letting go, dropping out, and letting the band take over--which resulted in the song configurations that emerged on the next five LPs.

I also think Chalk & Numbers' observation about how SMiLE has been treated since BWPS is pertinent to some of what we see happening.  Its greatness is more stipulated than celebrated: GV is a track unto itself that doesn't jell with the rest of the material in a way that helps the average listener engage with it as a whole. Ironically, its allure has actually been diminished as a result of it being completed, and the more prevalent view of the band as a treasure trove of great singles (Endless Summer...) has overtaken the "art-rock" side of the band (which was, of course, Brian). That might lead some of those feathered "ex-friends" of ours over at the Nearest Faraway Place to parse SMiLE as a tragic mistake rather than a tragedy with a happy ending. (Even though, as noted earlier, they were celebrating that happy ending just two decades ago...)

It strikes me that those folk have a strange desire to put Mike Love on the same level as Brian Wilson, which is a totally ridiculous position to take. If you can find a way to diminish/argue away/ignore SMiLE, such an effort becomes a little less absurd, but it's still ridiculous--the remaining history of the band completely refutes such a claim.

[Zenobi]

To resume:

1) SMiLE 1967 was, as we all know, a tragic mistake.
2) SMiLE 2004, the so-called BWPS, was another tragic mistake because robbed us all of the allure of incompleteness, and because Brian was old.
3) SMiLE 2011, the Sessions, perfected the catastrophe by showing that it was just a bunch of overrated snippets anyway. No wonder the project was shelved!
4) We should all start a class action against Brian for robbing us of our collective childhood! How dared you, Brian?

This is the revisionist agenda about SMiLE in a nutshell, minus the graduality. I zoomed right to the intended end result. You are welcome, guys there!

P.S.
Of course the revisionist agenda is not limited to SMiLE. Brian is not really a genius, nor really a hard working guy. A certain other guy is both, instead.

P.P.S.
Of course this post is not 100% serious. I may be a Brianista, but not a "standard" Mike-bashing Brianista. I am a fan of Mike's, too. But I agree with Dan Lega that some people SOUND like they have come to "hate" SMiLE. Calling me a troll is not the right way to remove that sensation. Unless a troll is simply one who says uncomfortable things. However, I got the hint and removed the auto-absolving bit from the title of this thread.

[Zenobi]

I think it's beyond ironic that some of our "friends" over at "The Nearest Faraway Place" who've contributed their strangulated ideas to that strange thread about SMiLE are the same ones who wept with joy when they were in attendance at BWPS in 2004. But so much bizarre stuff has happened in the world at large over the twenty years from then to now that I suppose it's not all that surprising...  

I'm curious if David Leaf (in his upcoming book on SMiLE) wlll address the alarm, bewilderment, consternation and dissension that ensued in late '66 and how that contributed to SMiLE essentially being neutered into a moving target when Brian was pushed into a corner by all of the swirling events and tried (in vain) to make a version of H&V that could top GV. I still think Brian expected to return to some form of SMiLE on his own after Smiley based on an agreement between him and the rest of the band, but the ultimate "beat down" that GF refers to (the Marilyn quote) actually seems to have come in the fall of '67, when Brian was revisiting "Surf's Up" and working with Redwood--which meant that the band's panic over Smiley's catastrophic reception "justified" them in reneging on such an agreement that (I suspect) was part of the late May-early June "regrouping" discussions.

Some of that speculation, and a whole lot more about the band dynamics in the transition from SMiLE to Smiley, can be found in this thread, with many heavy hitters weighing in there...

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,28152.0.html

I'm swamped with an ongoing project, so I haven't looked at it again--thus I don't recall if Zenobi was in that thread, but either way I think it's worth a look to add more detail to this discussion.

It's clear that some folks over at the Nearest Faraway Place have a weird ongoing agenda to minimize SMiLE in the history of the band, and whitewash Mike Love to the greatest extent possible.

What's also clear is that if Brian really "hated" VDP's lyrics, he'd have never decided to undertake BWPS. He could have left it as a locked-away mystery. That suggests that he'd always wanted to find some way to resurrect it, even when he put it aside in the interest of his bandmates. The same folks who wept and cheered when he finally did resurrect it now apparently want to tear it down again...let's give Jim Morrison the last word here: "People are strange..."  

Thanks a million for reminding us of that great 2022 thread. A lot of serious analysis by serious experts, there.

[Zenobi]

I think that the main problem about the demise SMiLE in 1967 is that Brian had to contend with SEVERAL showstoppers, starting from his own health.
Any one of them would have been arguably enough to halt the project, and Brian was hit by all of them at the same time.
Really a perfect storm, poor Brian.

[Zenobi]

I see the subject of  "is BWPS really SMiLE?" has been tackled again.
It's always a good question.

My opinion is that it IS. BWPS is SMiLE.
Though, I always found unfortunate that "Brian Wilson Presents" was prefixed to it, as it will allow, until the end of time, to claim that the prefix shows that BWPS is NOT SMiLE. Rather absurd imho, a bit like saying that "a white rabbit is not a rabbit", but it's what it is.

Another objection, in the good times when BWPS was loved by most, used to be that Brian, in any case, had no right to say that BWPS was SMiLE. The reasoning behind this presumed loss of authorship by Brian has been never been clear, but I suspect it has something to do with Brian's mental health.

But probably the main objection was that BWPS, in any case, was not THE SMiLE, the one which was not released in 1967. Actually, this is obviously right. But then there was the conclusion that, on that ground, BWPS was some kind of travesty with no right to be called SMiLE. In other words, imperfect reality (BWPS) should never win over perfect fantasy. Again, it's what it is.

I remember well the heated discussions about the "legitimacy" of BWPS. Nostalgia, now that people often seem to talk of SMiLE like BWPS did not even exist, and the memory of the "happy end" which had grown people cry of joy in 2004 is progressively fading away.

[Robbie Mac]

I see the subject of  "is BWPS really SMiLE?" has been tackled again.
It's always a good question.

My opinion is that it IS. BWPS is SMiLE.
Though, I always found unfortunate that "Brian Wilson Presents" was prefixed to it, as it will allow, until the end of time, to claim that the prefix shows that BWPS is NOT SMiLE. Rather absurd imho, a bit like saying that "a white rabbit is not a rabbit", but it's what it is.

Another objection, in the good times when BWPS was loved by most, used to be that Brian, in any case, had no right to say that BWPS was SMiLE. The reasoning behind this presumed loss of authorship by Brian has been never been clear, but I suspect it has something to do with Brian's mental health.

But probably the main objection was that BWPS, in any case, was not THE SMiLE, the one which was not released in 1967. Actually, this is obviously right. But then there was the conclusion that, on that ground, BWPS was some kind of travesty with no right to be called SMiLE. In other words, imperfect reality (BWPS) should never win over perfect fantasy. Again, it's what it is.

I remember well the heated discussions about the "legitimacy" of BWPS. Nostalgia, now that people often seem to talk of SMiLE like BWPS did not even exist, and the memory of the "happy end" which had grown people cry of joy in 2004 is progressively fading away.

Which is interesting since David’s book will be focusing a lot of its space on 2004.

I could get behind the idea that BWPS is not SMiLE if Van Dyke not have come back to do the significant work that he did.  It was originally just going to be a concert set list.  But Van coming back and essentially helping Brian re-write a lot of the unreleased stuff changed the nature of what was going to be presented. Was it how Brian had envisioned it in 1966? Probably not. But that doesn’t matter, nor should it. The finished
piece is what matters. And both composers say BWPS is SMiLE, so that should be good enough for everyone.

[Zenobi]

Robbie, I agree of course. What you say it's exactly the reason BWPS is SMiLE. Both authors cooperated on it and then released it as SMiLE.
The rest ("But it is called BWPS ! It is not SMiLE! It is nothing like 1967! It is not as good as I imagined it! Brian and VDP had no right! Brian is too old! Etc etc etc) is just the usual smoke and mirrors.

[juggler]

I suspect that the 20th century's mass popularity of owning music on physical media gave rise to a sort of mentality that each musical work there was some "definitive version."     In other words, for example, the song "Be My Baby" and The Ronettes' 1963 record "Be My Baby" are one and the same, and every other rendition of the song is not "the" song but something other than that (a "cover" or a "live version" or an "alternate take" etc.).   In the world of music, I suspect this mentality was something of an innovation.  Was there some "definitive version" of Beethoven's 5th symphony or Mozart's "Magic Flute" or a Christmas carol like God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen?  Not really. For symphonies, every performance had its own unique elements of arrangement and instrumentation and voices.

Thus, we come at Smile from the perspective of wanting to point at something and say, "This is *the* Smile album."  But I think we must resign ourselves that such a paradigm simply can never apply to this thing Smile.  Brian Wilson Presents Smile is *a* Smile album, just as Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops' 1940 rendition of Pachelbel's Canon in D is *a* Pachelbel Canon in D -- a great one, perhaps-- but not some archetypical "definitive version."

For me one of the great ironies of "The Beach Boys' Smile" is that one of the most finished segments, the Grand Coolie Dam section of Cabin Essence, was allegedly highly controversial within the group due to the lyrics.  And yet in that one section, I hear everything that "The Beach Boys' Smile"  could have been and should have been-- weird, wild, stunning, haunting, brilliant.  If Brian had completed and released a Smile album as fully produced and arranged as that one section, there's no doubt in my mind it would have been the album that he promised that would have been as much of an improvment over Pet Sounds as that was over Summer Days Summer Nights.

[Zenobi]

Really excellent take on the shifts of paradigm!
Yes, it is well possible that the "a music piece is identified by a specific recording of a specific performance, as released by the authors/performers" paradigm is at its end.
Based on this paradigm, BWPS is SMiLE.
But if we should shift praradigm and accept instead that "a music piece is a living project", then, yes, BWPS is the configuration of SMiLE released by its authors, but there are other possible configurations: the Beach Boys' SMiLE released in 2011 based on the BWPS blueprint, and the hypothetical 1967 Beach Boys' SMiLE.
No problem for me, as long as all this is not used to de-legitimate BWPS.

[Zenobi]

Yes, Cabinessence is unbelievably majestic.
For me, there is a moment of even more total, almost supernatural brlliance: the dazzling harmonies at the end of the full version of "Vega-tables". How could ever Brian arrange such a thing, and how they could ever sing that.

[Wirestone]

The other piece, of course, is that popular music itself shifted from ‘67-‘68, from elaborate psychedelia to more stripped down takes. John Wesley Harding, White Album, Beggars Banquet, the emergence of country rock. This was a big part of Paul Williams’ contemporaneous take — Brian couldn’t have gone back to the big sound, because he was still trying at some level to play the game. Smiley was, in a very real sense, him moving with the times. Both it and BWPS, in their own ways, have as much a right to be called Smile — or performances of the same — as the original sessions.