The end of Smile- Some big questions, any takers??

[Alex]

Ok, I'm gonna go ahead and serve my head up for assasination and say....... I might be the only one who's happy we have Smiley Smile, Friends, Wild Honey, 20/20, Sunflower, Surf's Up, CATP, Holland, Love You, instead of Smile.... I beyond adore these albums and fear we'd never have gotten them in a million years if Smile has been released as planned.... I love The Beach Boys as a group and feel that Smile was too influenced by interloping factors; drugs, Van Dyke Parks (who I love! but just not as a lyricist for the Beach Boys) near total reliance on session musicians, ect... Although the Smile tracks are wonderful, they just don't touch the soul like even a lot of later 'bad" Beach Boys stuff does. And Smile as a whole is missing alot of the elements that make me love The Beach Boys.

I'm not going to assassinate you. We're all entitled to our opinions. I disagree with you on SMiLE. I think it could've opened the Beach Boys to an all new audience, it could've kicked Sgt. Pepper square in the ass and people would've seen it for the good but quite overrated record it really is, and maybe people
would have a different image of the Beach Boys had it come out. As great as their early 70s albums are, I'd give them up for a finished 1967 SMiLE, and history being set on the right path.

[Alex]

But wasn't the May 6th announcement authorized by Mike Love and not Brian? Maybe I've been reading too much Dom Priore.

Haha, Dom does seem to have a Mike Vendetta, but his cultural analysis of the 60s is great, I was just reading his Smile book and despite the outright false information, I like how he takes the zoom back from Brian a little and talks about the whole scene.

I share that Mike vendetta, but just because Priore doesn't like the guy doesn't mean that he should say Mike was the one who authorized the Derek Taylor article. If he's speculating, he should've made it a lot clearer that it was indeed speculation and not meant to be implied as fact.

[Mark H.]

Ok, I'm gonna go ahead and serve my head up for assasination and say....... I might be the only one who's happy we have Smiley Smile, Friends, Wild Honey, 20/20, Sunflower, Surf's Up, CATP, Holland, Love You, instead of Smile.... I beyond adore these albums and fear we'd never have gotten them in a million years if Smile has been released as planned.... I love The Beach Boys as a group and feel that Smile was too influenced by interloping factors; drugs, Van Dyke Parks (who I love! but just not as a lyricist for the Beach Boys) near total reliance on session musicians, ect... Although the Smile tracks are wonderful, they just don't touch the soul like even a lot of later 'bad" Beach Boys stuff does. And Smile as a whole is missing alot of the elements that make me love The Beach Boys.

I'm not going to assassinate you. We're all entitled to our opinions. I disagree with you on SMiLE. I think it could've opened the Beach Boys to an all new audience, it could've kicked Sgt. Pepper square in the ass and people would've seen it for the good but quite overrated record it really is, and maybe people
would have a different image of the Beach Boys had it come out. As great as their early 70s albums are, I'd give them up for a finished 1967 SMiLE, and history being set on the right path.

Brian Wilson was heading down the path of mental illness.  That's a biological fact - I suspect that even if Smile in it's original form (or lack thereof) was released there would have been little difference in Brian's musical direction or level of contribution.

All the opinion that Smile's demise killed Brian as an artist is baloney IMO.  The guy was an untreated bipolar....he needed treatment he didn't and wasn't going to get.  Wild Honey would have likely been the followup and so on.

In addition, Smile's failure to be released was a legend Brian and the band were able to "milk" for years.  They got more attention for not releasing it!

I doubt the music buying public would have shunned Pepper in favor of Smile.  To make an impact Smile needed to come out late summer/fall 66....once winter set it it wasn't going to happen...Brian was way too far in the throws of psychologic decline.

[brianc]

**So instead of the image of Brian in his room in 1967 refusing to open the door (which Mike still carts out in interviews-Ex: Endless Harmony)- we have a picture of Brian hanging out with friends, eating dinner, AROUND or at sessions, but showing less and less interest in helping. **

I think Brian was much more of an emotional wreck than this statement indicates.

[brianc]

**one - it's entirely possible I may be misremembering, but didn't someone (Cam Mott ?) check out the incidence of LA fires late November/early December 1966 and discover that it wasn't higher than usual at all, nor was there any fire in the vicinity of Gold Star ? Corrections welcomed.**

Andrew, I don't know about city records corresponding to this, as Cam Mott may have indded checked those things out, which would be scientifically an astute thing to do. What I know, having lived in downtown Hollywood myself, is this. Fires in general, in that area, can make one feel very claustraphobic. The traffic from Franklin south to Melrose, and from Fairfax east to Vermont is incredible... little freeway access breaking through. I personally read an article in "The Los Angeles Free Press" from late 1966 about escalating fires in Hollywood, and several journalistic theories about why. Mark London actually has that "Freep" issue, and looking at the article might lend further insight. Also, around that same period, city officials started rummaging through the Houdini estate on Laurel Canyon. Harry Houdini himself threatened to ignite the city in fire if that kind of excavation ever happened. I'm not saying Houdini was spiritually emerging from the grave, but Hollywood has always had its own unique form of voodoo and superstition that is just as strong in the minds of Angelenos as the voodoo dogma of New Orleans. And people were talking about fires in L.A. in the winter of 1966-67. Pot, hash and acid can all induce a considerable amount of paranoia.

[brianc]

**I think Bill was saying that Seconds is what made Brian think that Spector had "mind gangsters", not that it specificially had anything to do with Smile.**

In the olden days of the Smile Shop Message Board, I believe someone once posted evidence that Spector had a hand in the financing of "Seconds."

The scene at the winery was shot in Santa Barbara, along Mountain Drive, the incredible setting of a true West Coast bohemian scene. Bobby Hyde was a contemporary of Upton Sinclair's in L.A., and both wrote books about the oil industry during the '20s -- Sinclair wrote "Oil!" and Hyde wrote "Crude." During the time that "Seconds" was filmed, the group who was involved with shooting the wine stomping sequence was known as the Scragg Family. It would be hard to call them an out and out cult, as I've never heard anything about religious overtones. But they WERE living communally, and no, they were not related by blood. Part of the home was the winery, and part of their outgrowth was the Scragg Family Band, whom, in 1966, were playing at the Ash Grove on Melrose. I have their only record from the era... it sounds a lot like the soundtrack to "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?"

[brianc]

**I share that Mike vendetta, but just because Priore doesn't like the guy doesn't mean that he should say Mike was the one who authorized the Derek Taylor article. If he's speculating, he should've made it a lot clearer that it was indeed speculation and not meant to be implied as fact.**

Domenic's great leap there, I believe, comes from the fact that Derek Taylor was the Beach Boys' head public relations man, at the time. If you plow through the press statements that Taylor was delivering, at that time, to the press, he was largely going through the New Musical Express in England and the World Countown News in the U.S. The latter was an odd choice, but Taylor delivered a lot of Beach Boys material to that paper. There was also some insightful articles served to teen magazines, which were still a prime source for rock 'n' roll information at that time. Rock was not really seen as high art by the press at large quite yet.

That being said, in the spring of 1967, Mike Love seems to have had a more active hand in crafting the PR releases with Derek Taylor, as evidenced by the articles in World Countdown News. Only a handful of those were reprinted in LLVS. There were a zillion more things written weekly about the Beach Boys at the time. I'm only guessing that that might be how Priore came upon his theory. It's presentation as fact is what gets him in trouble, and you all can spell out that better than I.

[Dancing Bear]

(...)it could've kicked Sgt. Pepper square in the ass and people would've seen it for the good but quite overrated record it really is(...)

I suppose Smile would be bashed today as THE overrated record of the sixties, while Sgt Pepper would be the great misunderstood Beatles classic. Be careful what you wish for. 

[Alex]

(...)it could've kicked Sgt. Pepper square in the ass and people would've seen it for the good but quite overrated record it really is(...)

I suppose Smile would be bashed today as THE overrated record of the sixties, while Sgt Pepper would be the great misunderstood Beatles classic. Be careful what you wish for. 

The Beach Boys vocal harmonies alone could've killed Pepper. Beatle harmonies were weak and flaccid compared to the Beach Boys. The Bicycle Rider theme is way trippier than anything on Pepper, save for A Day In The Life and the animal sounds on Good Morning, Good Morning. Cabin Essence and Surf's Up were light years beyond what the Beatles were doing. Pepper may be an equal to Pet Sounds, but it barely touches SMiLE. Then again, I also like Their Satanic Majesties Request, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn,  Odyssey and Oracle, and even Smiley Smile better than Pepper.

[Mark H.]

(...)it could've kicked Sgt. Pepper square in the ass and people would've seen it for the good but quite overrated record it really is(...)

I suppose Smile would be bashed today as THE overrated record of the sixties, while Sgt Pepper would be the great misunderstood Beatles classic. Be careful what you wish for. 

The Beach Boys vocal harmonies alone could've killed Pepper. Beatle harmonies were weak and flaccid compared to the Beach Boys. The Bicycle Rider theme is way trippier than anything on Pepper, save for A Day In The Life and the animal sounds on Good Morning, Good Morning. Cabin Essence and Surf's Up were light years beyond what the Beatles were doing. Pepper may be an equal to Pet Sounds, but it barely touches SMiLE. Then again, I also like Their Satanic Majesties Request, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn,  Odyssey and Oracle, and even Smiley Smile better than Pepper.

Obviously you are in a minority.

Since Smile wasn't finished or released...just how do you declare it so much better?

Got a Beatles axe to grind?

I've never heard fab four harmonies described as weak or flacid....interesting

[Alex]

Just my own overly biased opinion. Beatle harmonies weren't bad, but were kind of lacking when compared to Brian's full-sounding and complex vocal arrangements.

And maybe I do have a Beatles ax to grind. Well, maybe not with the Fabs themselves but more with the critics and the public which declared the Beatles as being "the greatest" and catapulted them to immortality while the Beach Boys got unfairly maligned as a cheesy surf-pop group.

[KokoMoses]

Ok, I'm gonna go ahead and serve my head up for assasination and say....... I might be the only one who's happy we have Smiley Smile, Friends, Wild Honey, 20/20, Sunflower, Surf's Up, CATP, Holland, Love You, instead of Smile.... I beyond adore these albums and fear we'd never have gotten them in a million years if Smile has been released as planned.... I love The Beach Boys as a group and feel that Smile was too influenced by interloping factors; drugs, Van Dyke Parks (who I love! but just not as a lyricist for the Beach Boys) near total reliance on session musicians, ect... Although the Smile tracks are wonderful, they just don't touch the soul like even a lot of later 'bad" Beach Boys stuff does. And Smile as a whole is missing alot of the elements that make me love The Beach Boys.

I'm not going to assassinate you. We're all entitled to our opinions. I disagree with you on SMiLE. I think it could've opened the Beach Boys to an all new audience, it could've kicked Sgt. Pepper square in the ass and people would've seen it for the good but quite overrated record it really is, and maybe people
would have a different image of the Beach Boys had it come out. As great as their early 70s albums are, I'd give them up for a finished 1967 SMiLE, and history being set on the right path.

Brian Wilson was heading down the path of mental illness.  That's a biological fact - I suspect that even if Smile in it's original form (or lack thereof) was released there would have been little difference in Brian's musical direction or level of contribution.

All the opinion that Smile's demise killed Brian as an artist is baloney IMO.  The guy was an untreated bipolar....he needed treatment he didn't and wasn't going to get.  Wild Honey would have likely been the followup and so on.

In addition, Smile's failure to be released was a legend Brian and the band were able to "milk" for years.  They got more attention for not releasing it!

I doubt the music buying public would have shunned Pepper in favor of Smile.  To make an impact Smile needed to come out late summer/fall 66....once winter set it it wasn't going to happen...Brian was way too far in the throws of psychologic decline.

Damm straight. I really can't see any way around much of what happened Beach Boys-wise from 67 onward. Brian's problems were never dealt with properly.

[KokoMoses]

**I share that Mike vendetta, but just because Priore doesn't like the guy doesn't mean that he should say Mike was the one who authorized the Derek Taylor article. If he's speculating, he should've made it a lot clearer that it was indeed speculation and not meant to be implied as fact.**

Domenic's great leap there, I believe, comes from the fact that Derek Taylor was the Beach Boys' head public relations man, at the time. If you plow through the press statements that Taylor was delivering, at that time, to the press, he was largely going through the New Musical Express in England and the World Countown News in the U.S. The latter was an odd choice, but Taylor delivered a lot of Beach Boys material to that paper. There was also some insightful articles served to teen magazines, which were still a prime source for rock 'n' roll information at that time. Rock was not really seen as high art by the press at large quite yet.

That being said, in the spring of 1967, Mike Love seems to have had a more active hand in crafting the PR releases with Derek Taylor, as evidenced by the articles in World Countdown News. Only a handful of those were reprinted in LLVS. There were a zillion more things written weekly about the Beach Boys at the time. I'm only guessing that that might be how Priore came upon his theory. It's presentation as fact is what gets him in trouble, and you all can spell out that better than I.

Piore's not exactly un-biased when it comes to any and all things Mike. After all, this is the guy who went to great pains to list and minimize all of Mike's contributions to Pet Sounds! As if there was any illusion that Mike was the genius behind that album..... or something. If I was Mike I'd act like an asshole too, having to deal with such crap for nearly 40 years.

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

Yeah, Priore's completely nonsensical assertion that Brian somehow sang, uh, all the backing vocals on Pet Sounds is what gets me the most.  That's not even just Mike, it's the rest of 'em.  It's silly, not to mention technically impossible.

If anything, I would have liked Mike to have been a little MORE assertive around Smile time.  Brian was increasingly not the person you'd want to have carte blanche over your organization and Mike bended to Brian's whims a little too easily sometimes.  But he and the rest of the Boys were still rightfully in awe of Brian's musical abilities, and could see what was happening to Brian.  And then when it was too late, they overcompensated.

[KokoMoses]

Very well put. These were different times too. Rock wasn't yet the huge business it grew to become. The path that a band should follow wasn't yet as clear as it's become thanks to the mistakes by bands like The Beach Boys/Beatles. I can imagine it was quite a challenging position to be put in as essentially kids. Nevermind all the personal stuff. It's amazing they accomplished what they did.

[MBE]

I think one thing that's pointed out in Carlin's book is that Brian was the man behind the Heroes ripping on the Leid tapes. That combined with some of his drunken comments about Van Dyke leads me to think that Brian was the one ultimately most against Smile. Whether he thought the Beach Boys and Van Dyke didn't support him, whether he was paranoid that everyone was out to get him , whether he felt guilt for "pigging the show", whether he simply felt it got too complicated, who knows. Frankly he is the only one to blame for not buckling down and finishing it. Even when it did come out he had to be practically forced into doing it. Now perhaps he can enjoy what he did do then, and take pride that it was well received, but when he ended it he simply didn't trust in the direction he was going in. Mike and Carl should have stepped in and forced him to finish it, maybe they tried. But ultimatelythe feeling I get about Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, and Friends, is that they were a big relief to Brian and everyone else. He was working regular, he was getting along with everyone pretty well, the group was becoming more of a real group again. It was a good period. There wasn't any of the craziness of the Smile sessions.  It's only the people that are against Brian being a part of the group who cannot see the value in those albums. Smile would have solved some image problems and been more complete then Smiley, but I think Wild Honey and Friends were ahead of their time and in their own way just as good as Smile. Remember the comment he made in the Was doc? He basically said that he didn't want to be so competetive but just make nice records. That he did, and if Brian had kept up the health and activety that he had at least most of the time through 1970 I think Smile wouldn't have become the tragedy it did. It's only because he declined so much later that it took on such importance. Frankly if the Beach Boys had managed to be as popular here as they were in England I think the late Capitol/Early Reprise period would rightfully be regarded as the triumph it is.

[KokoMoses]

you're my new best friend!

[brianc]

**Brian was increasingly not the person you'd want to have carte blanche over your organization and Mike bended to Brian's whims a little too easily sometimes.**

[Shudder to think...]

[brianc]

**I think one thing that's pointed out in Carlin's book is that Brian was the man behind the Heroes ripping on the Leid tapes.**

I can hear Brian coaxing Mike on during the playback. How much of that rant was written out, I have no clue. It sounds like Mike Love improv to me. Whether Brian was laughing or encouraging it, I still somehow get the feeling that the sentiment... i.e. the words... were more Mike than Brian. But hey, we're all masocists in one way or another. 

[Alex]

**Brian was increasingly not the person you'd want to have carte blanche over your organization and Mike bended to Brian's whims a little too easily sometimes.**

[Shudder to think...]

Technically, David Anderle and Nick Grillo were the ones running the business aspects of the group.

[brianc]

I personally just can't even imagine why this statement would have been a good idea for Brian in 1966:

**If anything, I would have liked Mike to have been a little MORE assertive around Smile time.**

"Smile" inspires me precisely because the Beach Boys were as patriotically wholesome as Captain America or apple pie. Yet, maybe it was the times, or maybe it was Brian’s subtle nature as a human being… maybe he just got swept up in the drastic changing tide of consciousness. I don’t know what compelled him to hang out with guys like Van Dyke Parks, Danny Hutton, David Anderle, Frank Holmes, Jules Siegal, etc. But when it came to writing those songs, it feels like Wilson challenged the very system his band embodied. He could have done it as a solo album, but it was perfect as a Beach Boys album. It was like a guidepost for where America should have kept on going. Mike Love never did and never will have that kind of spiritual compass to guide music of the type Brian was creating in 1966-67.

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

**I think one thing that's pointed out in Carlin's book is that Brian was the man behind the Heroes ripping on the Leid tapes.**

I can hear Brian coaxing Mike on during the playback. How much of that rant was written out, I have no clue. It sounds like Mike Love improv to me. Whether Brian was laughing or encouraging it, I still somehow get the feeling that the sentiment... i.e. the words... were more Mike than Brian. But hey, we're all masocists in one way or another. 

Multiple sources have confirmed that whole thing was written by Brian.

**Brian was increasingly not the person you'd want to have carte blanche over your organization and Mike bended to Brian's whims a little too easily sometimes.**

[Shudder to think...]

Technically, David Anderle and Nick Grillo were the ones running the business aspects of the group.

I'm not speaking of the business aspects.  Musical aspects.

Mike Love never did and never will have that kind of spiritual compass to guide music of the type Brian was creating in 1966-67.

If you're comfortable judging the spiritual compasses of people that you don't know, 40 years after the fact, that's fine.  I'm not.  Am also not comfortable projecting my personal taste onto the spectrum of morality, which most people are all to ready to do.  The person whose music they like the best becomes the best person.  I think that's unfair.  And to me, it's much more interesting--fun even--to explore somebody who I don't necessarily think highly of and find reasons to like them.  And the more people I like, the less dislike I feel, and the less dislike I feel, the better I feel in general.

When I first became a fan of the Beach Boys, I followed the Brianista line of thought, but me being me I kept trying to see things from other people's perspectives, and now I've come to realize that put in the same position, I probably would have acted exactly the same way Mike did.  I might be a little less outwardly "prickly" as Mike certainly can be, but I believe he was mostly in the right.

[brianc]

Then we have a general difference of philosophy, and that's fine.

I DO agree with you, however, that human beings are more flawed and situations more nuanced than we like to project onto our heroes. That's one of the reasons why I think Domenic's theories fall flat. He sees Brian with rose-coloured glasses. Where I do agree with Domenic is, at that point in time, Brian was capable of doing little wrong, artistically. He was just in a groove, and I don't know how to scientifically define that when it happens in sports or art or life in general, but when someone is on, they are just on.

I don't personally dislike Mike for personal reasons. As you said, I don't know the man. I DO dislike his politics and philosophy for commercial art. I agree with those Rieley interviews about Mike. He had his direction, and I'm allowed to not like it. Furthermore, the reason I don't think much of Mike is because I don't think much ABOUT Mike. Outside of his early '60s lyrics, I don't find myself listening to much with his name attached to it. It feels like I'd be wasting precious life away. But then again, I'm nobody... just another opinion... and I'd not deny anyone their obvious pleasure.

[Alex]

Then we have a general difference of philosophy, and that's fine.

I don't personally dislike Mike for personal reasons. As you said, I don't know the man. I DO dislike his politics and philosophy for commercial art. I agree with those Rieley interviews about Mike. He had his direction, and I'm allowed to not like it. Furthermore, the reason I don't think much of Mike is because I don't think much ABOUT Mike. Outside of his early '60s lyrics, I don't find myself listening to much with his name attached to it. It feels like I'd be wasting precious life away. But then again, I'm nobody... just another opinion... and I'd not deny anyone their obvious pleasure.

I pretty much agree with you about Mike. I think the only good thing he ever wrote solo was Big Sur.

[brianc]

**Multiple sources have confirmed that whole thing was written by Brian.**

Those sources please.