Jack Rieley Speaks, Part Two
Here are the rest of the PSML (Pet Sounds Mailing List) messages from Jack Rieley that I have a record of (the previous ones were in part one):
Follow up:
RE: SURF:S UP
From: Jack Rieley
To: 'pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com' (pet -sounds@lists.primenet.com)
Reply-To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Date: Oct 17 1996 - 12:19pm
correct.
- jack
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From: SMILEY SMILER
Sent: Thursday, October 17, 1996 7:07 AM
To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Subject: Re: SURF:S UPOn Thu, 17 Oct 1996, David Prokopy wrote:
> a children's song, ????
> their song is love, and the children ????I believe it's a children's song, have you listened as they played? their song is love, and the children know the way.
RE: SURF:S UP
From: Jack Rieley
To: 'pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com' (pet -sounds@lists.primenet.com)
Reply-To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Date: Oct 17 1996 - 12:22pm
The couplet was written during the recording of the moving backgrounds for the Surfs Up album.
- Jack
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From: dave prokopy
Sent: Thursday, October 17, 1996 12:22 PM
To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Subject: Re: SURF:S UP>I believe it's
>a children's song, have you listened as they played?
>their song is love, and the children know the way.that basically what i thought, too, but i've heard different interpretations. at any rate, then my NEXT question is, who wrote this? are these parks' words from 1966, or someone else's words from 1971? certainly, neither of the two vocal performances of the song that still exist from 1966 (i.e., the two solo performances brian did for CBS) contain this couplet, but possibly just because brian was too busy singing the "ahhhh" part at the end.
RE: SURF:S UP
From: Jack Rieley
To: 'pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com' (pet -sounds@lists.primenet.com)
Reply-To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Date: Oct 17 1996 - 1:47pm
Dave,
There's no writer's credit officially given, so I am somewhat reticent about this question. How about this.... it was not Brian, Carl, Jardine, Love, Johnston, Van Dyke Parks, Dennis or Steve Desper.
Perhaps you will excuse this admittedly chicken-shit way around your question. The couplet's authorship should of course have been credited. It was not.
- Jack
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From: dave prokopy
Sent: Thursday, October 17, 1996 1:39 PM
To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Subject: RE: SURF:S UP>The couplet was written during the recording of the moving backgrounds for
>the Surfs Up album.by whom? you? brian? carl? al? van dyke?
(sorry to pester you about this - as many people on this list know, i'm a HUGE _smile_ fanatic, so these little tidbits are indespensible to me!)
RE: To Jack Rieley -- Another Quick Question
From: Jack Rieley
To: 'pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com' (pet -sounds@lists.primenet.com)
Reply-To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Date: Oct 17 1996 - 6:44pm
The decision was made by Brian. He stated clearly that it was his intent all along for Child to be the tag for Surfs Up.
- Jack
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From: DANIEL LEGA
Sent: Thursday, October 17, 1996 5:30 PM
To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Subject: To Jack Rieley -- Another Quick QuestionHi Jack,
In case you haven't figured it out yet, I wanted to warn you that there are lots of people, like myself, on this list who are just absolute freaks where "SMiLE" is concerned. (I was even driven to write a 19 page double-spaced paper about it that was subsequently printed in the Beach Boys Australia fan magazine, after picking up the first few CD bootlegs in the early '90's.)
So just to continue on the thread that's been going on, here's another quick question: The bootleg, 1966, version of "Child Is Father Of The Man" is a different melody from that now attached to the "Surf's Up" ending. Now you just sorted stated that you wrote the couplets about the "Children's song . . ." My question is whose idea was it to sing the "Child Is Father Of The Man" line itself at that spot, and when was this decided -- 1966 or in the 70's when "Surf's Up" was being put back together?
Thanks, Dan Lega
manager
From: Jack Rieley
To: 'Beach Boys list' (pet -sounds@lists.primenet.com)
Reply-To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Date: Oct 17 1996 - 8:09pm
Page,
Several persons on this list refer to me as having been the "manager" of the Beach Boys. It is a title that I consistently refused, both within the group and without. When forced by circumstance to take a title back then, I elected "career direction."
- Jack
You wrote:
For this reader, this was Jack's most revealing post to date. It speaks volumes... about the thankless work of managers and the short memory spans of many, many artists. This is absolutely amazing. Page
Brian's withdrawal
From: Jack Rieley
To: 'pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com' (pet -sounds@lists.primenet.com)
Reply-To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Date: Oct 18 1996 - 4:27am
Steven,
Until joining them I also thought Brian Wilson had gone recluse because he hadn't completed Smile. That was, after all, the line which the press had taken. It turned out that Derek Taylor, one time mastermind of press for the Beatles, invented that version in an attempt to create a Beach Boys mythos.
Reality would have been a more compelling tale.
Brian blirted it out one evening at Bellagio, and later spoke about it several times in agonizing detail. He had expected that Heroes would be greeted by Capitol as the work which put the Beach Boys on a creative par with the Beatles. All the adoration and promotional backup Capitol was giving the Beatles would also flow to his music because of Heroes, he thought. And the public? It would greet Heroes with the same level of overwhelming enthusiasm that the Beatles got with record after record. As it was, Capitol execs were divided about Heroes. Some loved it but others castigated the track, longing instead for still more surfing/cars songs. The public bought the record in respectable but surely not wowy zowy numbers. For Brian, this was the ultimate failure. His surfing/car songs were the ones they loved the most. His musical growth, unlike that of Messrs. Lennon and McCartney, did not translate into commercial ascendancy or public glory.
- Jack
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From: Steven Dunn
Sent: Friday, October 18, 1996 6:27 AM
To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Subject: Brian's withdrawalFirst of all, Jack you are a star for being active in this group. Your insight is compelling and your comments are so well expressed from someone who clearly REALLY appreciates the music. I now look forward to reading your emails with unheralded enthusiasm. Add my name to the many, who are keen to hear more on Smile.
Now excuse me questioning your comments but in an earlier mail you wrote:
'In short, Brian Wilson lived in terror of public failure. A lot has been = made of his drug use/abuse, which may indeed have had searing effects = upon him. But it was the public failure of Heroes to to wow Capitol and = thus wow the world that caused him to withdraw.'
I had always thought that it was the failure to complete Smile that caused his withdrawal. H&Vs wasn't released until mid 67 after Smile was ditched (and after his withdrawal had started?), and then it reached top5 in the UK and top10(?) in the US, which wasn't a total failure. Can you please elaborate/put me right ?
While on the subject, I've found the final sequence on the bikes in Hawaii (from American Band) where Brian looks back the camera so very poignant. I can almost hear him saying 'I'm so very sad and tired and I've had enough'.
regards
Steven
RE: pet-sounds-digest V1 #472
From: Jack Rieley
To: 'pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com' (pet -sounds@lists.primenet.com)
Reply-To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Date: Oct 19 1996 - 7:24pm
Rob,
I will be blunt.
The Beatles were focused, strategic, professional and well led during the years of their mounting ascendancy in critical and commercial acclaim. John Lennon and Paul McCartney, the creators, spoke the same "line" as did George Harrison and Ringo Starr. There was true career direction, which the group followed carefully.
During that same period The Beach Boys were divided, unprofessional and horrendously led. Brian Wilson, the creator, had the respect of his brothers but not of the others in his band nor of their manager. The brothers spoke one "line" while Love, Jardine, an emerging Johnston and Murry Wilson spouted another. There was no career direction to speak of and chaos reigned.
Tragically, the same parameters held true during most but not all of the group's career. An exception, I contend, was during the period in which I guided their career direction.
To sum it up, they blew it, they blew it consistently, they continue to blow it, it is tragic and this pathological problem caused The Beach Boys' greatest music to be so underrated by the general public.
- Jack
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From: Noble Surfer
Sent: Saturday, October 19, 1996 5:53 PM
To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Subject: Re: pet-sounds-digest V1 #472Jack,
this is something that has ALWAYS pissed me off about the Beach Boys. It;s almost as if Karma predetermined that The Beatles would be expected to change and grow while the Beach Boys were expected to remain in striped shirts, woodies and Pendletones for the rest of their lives. Maybe you could answer why the public and trhe record biz weasels had such a short sighted view of Brian and his music. It saddens me greatly that SGT PEPPER abd the WHITE ALBUM (not meant as a slam at those records because I am also a Beatles fan) are praied and wprshipped by th general public while PET SOUNDS, SMILE, FRIENDS, ect languish in obscurity at the same time that the Beach Boys score a fluke hit with a stupid Carribean novelty song. Maybe Brian really wasn't made for these times? Maybe Mike Love really was right? Maybe SMILE really would have changed their fate? I don't know. So many questions. I just wish that the public's last image of the BB isn't one of overweight grandfathers in Hawaiian shirts and bermuda shorts and dumb oldie medleys just like I wish the lingering public image of Elvis isn't one of a fat, drug addict in a white jumpsuit singing "Make The World Go Away" or other Las Vegas "standards".
Regards,
Rob "Noble Surfer" McCabe
RE: BW music
From: Jack Rieley
To: 'pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com' (pet -sounds@lists.primenet.com)
Reply-To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Date: Oct 24 1996 - 8:06pm
Leonard,
My sincere compliments on a keen analysis that is right on target. Without getting too much into detail in this note, I can confirm that the longer Brian Wilson worked on Smile's tracks, the more they degenerated. Early versions were brilliant -- brisk, melodic, innovative and, yes, even funky at times. Songs and fragments alike were outstanding. But Brian had no collaborators, no peers, no one to encourage him and point the way. There were the in-group and in-group-circle and in-house-Capitol detractors and backbiters and naggers. But no one was there to insert continuity to the fragments or to declare a track ready when it was ready. In the absence of approval, Brian labored on long after certain tracks were done, trying to improve on music that needed no improvement. Indeed, the process led to an extraordinary degradation.
Reconstructing events was easy because there were all those tapes, complete with carefully dated boxes, track sheets et all. Brian Wilson did present the original Heroes to Capitol and the group, but neither reacted with enthusiasm. Carl and Dennis were alone in wild praise for the track. So, as you correctly presumed, he labored on to "improve" it, and lost so much in the process. Of course you are right as well in observing that the lyrics, as much as we may love their poetry, also contributed toward making Heroes a hard sell.
Again, congratulations on your very kewl analysis.
- Jack
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From: Leonard Hyde
Sent: Thursday, October 24, 1996 6:38 PM
To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Subject: BW musicRe Brian's music during the Pet Sounds/Smile era: on Pet Sounds, he was still writing whole songs. Beginning with Good Vibrations, something seemed to change. Brian became obsessed with 'pocket symphonies.' Both GV and Heroes feature Brian getting hooked on little melodic lines, and trying to build huge productions out of them. In GV, it was the opening bit "dum - de dum dummm de dum dum," etc. In Heroes, it was the "Heroes and Villains, come see what you've done" part. When I listen to the Good Vibrations "birth pangs" (as I call them,) you can hear the song grow and grow. When Brian came up with the final product, it was far and away the culmination of the effort in every manner.
However, listening to early segments of "Heroes," it seemed the more Brian worked on the record, the more it lost. The "Smile" segments are fascinating exercises in musical expression, whether Brian ever intended to use all of them or not. The 'cantina' version was far better than the version Brian eventualy released. Hal Blaine said in David Leaf's book that Heroes was at one time a hell of a song, way better than GV. Brian just kept tinkering and tinkering and polishing and polishing until there wasn't much left.
One reason for the record's failure (#13 on Billboard isn't what most artists would regard as a failure) was it's inaccessibility. What the hell is it about, anyway? There are visions of the Southwest and old Mexico, but how much did that mean to teenage record buyers? It meant nothing at all to me, I can tell you. Conversely, I had no problem figuring out what GV was about. So, it must be debated if the record in ANY form would have been the hit Brian expected it to be.
At any rate, Brian sure set himself up for a fall, with all the hype, planning the release date by astrology, hand delivering the record to KFWB by limousine at midnight, etc. Jack Rieley has verified that Heroes' failure was the last straw to Brian at that point. Wasn't there anyone around him to tell him the record wasn't that good? Or, was everyone else so caught up in the Brian mystique by then that they all actually believed it was a great record? Jack, can you shed any light on this?
Lastly, re GV: there is a version floating around that has been tabbed as 'the record Brian almost released." Dick Clark played it once, and I heard it once on a satellite oldies station, believe it or not. It's similar, but different. It has the electric bass in the middle, and (I think) the "om de om oh dee oh" middle bridge. Where can this cut be found?
Favorite album side: 'Today' side 2: Please Let Me Wonder; I'm So Young; Kiss Me Baby; She Knows Me Too Well; In The Back Of My Mind
RE: BW music
From: Jack Rieley
To: 'pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com' (pet -sounds@lists.primenet.com)
Reply-To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Date: Oct 24 1996 - 8:10pm
Daniel,
Don't cast aspersions on the lyrical assessment. Remember the key difference: the Beatles were a unified group with coordinated career direction telling one clear story, while the Beach Boys were wracked by disunity, lack of support for the musical heart, and a total absence of career direction. Since perception was, as it remains, 90% of reality, it made Strawberry Fields (and other tracks) a much easier sell than was Heroes.
- Jack
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From: Daniel Lindeberg
Sent: Thursday, October 24, 1996 9:33 PM
To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Subject: Re: BW music>Lastly, re GV: there is a version floating around that has been tabbed as
>'the record Brian almost released." Dick Clark played it once, and I heard
>it once on a satellite oldies station, believe it or not. It's similar, but
>different. It has the electric bass in the middle, and (I think) the "om de
>om oh dee oh" middle bridge. Where can this cut be found?It's on just about all of the SMiLE boots plus the SS/WH 2fer and the GV box. BTW; How would you describe the difference in ability to (with the lyrics, since that for some strange reason is what you don't like about H&V) communicate with record buying teenagers between Strawberry Fields Forever (classic?) and Heroes And Villains (trash?) ?
Daniel
RE: Why won't Jack Reiley address these questions?
From: Jack Rieley
To: 'pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com' (pet -sounds@lists.primenet.com)
Reply-To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Date: Oct 25 1996 - 7:22am
Zev,
Oh we doooo get rather dramatic around here, don't we?
Your message header "Why won't Jack Reiley address these questions?" reads like the puss spewn across American television airwaves by Geraldo Rivera and Rush Limbaugh. Obnoxious in its implication, your tone really turns me off, dewd.
It would take me several days of recollection and another few days of research to answer yours and other questions fairly, even if my responses were to be very very bief.
I haven't found such time yet.
- Jack
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From: Zev Bacon
Sent: Friday, October 25, 1996 12:16 AM
To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Subject: Why won't Jack Reiley address these questions?Jack,
Reading your posts has been most informative and simply a pleasure. It's really cool that you take the time to answer the many questions about your involvement with the Beach Boys. It's interesting to hear the many tales of the ups and down of the Beach Boys during the early 1970's from someone who was actually present during that time. I, like many others who have read your posts, have been intrigued by your subtle mentions of the Smile album. On several occasions in the many posts that you have submitted, you refer to the Smile album and state how these Smile tapes which have been made available to the public by many different sources are not completely genuine. I have got to ask you, since you obviously have had access to the genuine Smile tapes through your involvement, how much of Smile was actually finished and in your opinion will we, the public, ever get the chance to hear more of the greatness which is embodied on them? There are also a few tracks from the album which clearly lack lead vocal tracks on them. For example, Child is the Father to the Man, Barnyard, and Love to Say Da Da, just to mention a few, seem to be missing a lead vocal track on them. It was consistent throughout this period that Brian would record guide vocals for the Boys so that they could learn how to sing the parts as Brian wanted them to be sung. Knowing that the Boys themselves did not record their vocal parts for a significant portion of the album, my question is, did Brian record guide vocals for the Smile tracks, and if he did, did they still exist at the time you were involved? Did you actually hear them? Also, which portions of the tapes available to the public through various bootlegs are not genuine, and which are? Was there ever any effort to "finish" the tapes in the early 1970's? I understand that there are many questions in my posting here. I thank you in advance for taking the time to answer!!!Zev
The grave digger
From: Jack Rieley
To: 'Beach Boys list' (pet -sounds@lists.primenet.com)
Reply-To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Date: Oct 26 1996 - 7:48pm
With Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson cheering me on, I had just gone into hock for much too much in order to acquire a classic 1954 Bentley R type, previously owned by the British charges d'affaires in L.A. The wooden picnic tables, the foot pedal which greased the car and its solid ride thrilled me, even if the right-hand drive was difficult to cope with.
Brian came out to my place in Topanga Canyon and insisted upon acting as my driver for an afternoon. He even brought and wore a chauffeur's cap. We visited all the spots -- a Piggly Wiggly, some smorgasbord place in the Valley, the dry cleaner and a wine shop where I picked up an expensive Medoc. My driver was in a particularly happy mood -- we spent the day laughing a lot.
Late the following afternoon my phone rang. Marilyn was hysterical. "Come quick! ... It's awful!! .... Please hurry!" There were no explanations, not that I sought any: Brian was in big trouble.
The Bentley performed more than adequately, getting me from Topanga to Bel Air in no-time-flat. When I pressed the button next to the gates at Bellagio, Marilyn shrieked with worry. "At last! Please, drive thru! Hurry!" The gates swung open, I drove the final bit and rushed into an open front door.
Mar was in the kitchen, looking through the big window that overlooked their enormous Belair pool and garden. Her tears would not stop flowing. "He's there," she managed, pointing to a spot far back in the yard.
I looked, could not believe what I saw, then thought carefully how to deal with the situation as I walked slowly out to the spot where Brian Wilson stood. He was gripping a big shovel and he was concentrating mightily on digging a hole. It was more than 6 feet long, a couple of feet wide and it was getting deep. Was Brian aware that I had walked out to him and was indeed but a few feet away? I believe he was but shall never know for certain. In any event, he continued digging away.
Shuffling methods of dealing with the crisis in my mind, I said nothing for a long moment, and he did not acknowlege my presence.
Finally I mustered a cheery "Hi Brian! How ya doin?"
He turned to me, smiled fleetingly as one does upon seeing a friend, then -- with a good deal of drama -- he threw that shovel to the ground. "I'm pissed off!" he declared. Silence. And then: "I've been diggin this grave for hours, tryin to get it just right. But you know what? Fuckin Mar refuses to cover me up with dirt when I get in!" His tone was angry.
I stared at him, began to open my mouth, but words did not come to me.
Our eyes now met, my dumb stare meeting his frustrated, angry glare.
After a few seconds Brian Wilson suddenly broke into peals of loud guffawing laughter. He continued to laugh, eventually I joined in with him. The joke was over. The prank was complete. The comedian's bit had reached its punch line.
He came up to me, still reeling with his own loud laughter, put a hand on my shoulder, and we walked back toward the house. Soon Marilyn, who had apparently watched it all through her kitchen window, came outside and joined us, she now laughing too with that fog-horn laugh of hers that I loved to imitate.
We never spoke of the incident again. Never. Today, nearly 25 years later, I still haven't got a clue whether Brian Wilson was on this side or that side of the line on the afternoon he dug his own grave.
- Jack
RE: Question for Jack Rieley
From: Jack Rieley
To: 'pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com' (pet -sounds@lists.primenet.com)
Reply-To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Date: Oct 30 1996 - 1:54pm
Steve,
I used to have a wonderful dog whose name was Bingo The Magic Dog, and he was well know for being loving, friendly, fun-filled and capable of speaking/howling the word "hello." Incredible but really true. Bingo was almost always in a great mood, unless I left him at home alone, when he would show his distaste for my neglect by finding and chewing on recording tapes. Good friends loved Bingo as I did. Brian Wilson, Dennis Wilson and Carl Wilson adored him, as did Audree and Mar and Annie and others. The dog seemed to be happy, but a couple of times -- when I drove out to the country with Bingo to give him a real run -- I wondered about his self-esteem. He'd run free and run some more and keep on running until he found some cow dung. Inevitably he began rolling in it. Ecchhh.
Somehow that's the metaphor which always comes to mind when I think of Brian's involvement with Spring.
Brian was definitely rolling in the Spring project, but he seemed not to care much about it. They got the "B" and "C" songs, he dutifully did his shtick and on rare occasion we actually had fun with it. Like on Down Home.
Brian's relation to Diane, who he seemed seldom to notice for months at a time, warmed during Spring. And when Murry died, by the way. But he never exuded pride at all about the project. Never in my presence.
Sorry about all the still unanswered posts. I am really busy 16 hours per day these days. Will try to real some and answer them soon.
- Jack
----------
From: Steve M.
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 1996 12:13 PM
To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Subject: Question for Jack Rieley>Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 10:13:57 -0500
>To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
>From: "Steve M.">Subject: Question for Jack Rieley > >Hello Jack, > >I have really loved your posts to this list. The list was really drying up. Talk had gotten so bad that people were discussing who smoked a cigarette on an album cover. I have been a long long time fan. From the begining..a true old fart you might say. My favorite time to be a beach boy/brian wilson fan was the time of '69-'74. Right in the middle of your tenure with the group. I really liked "Sunflower" when it came out. But I was blown away by "Surf's Up". To me the group owes its exsistence to that Lp and the turnaround it created in the public's mind. The Rollong Stone 2 issue/cover story, the "Surf's Up" lp review, the Sept C. Hall shows in Ny, and the live shows. God I loved the shows back then. What entertainment! I want to thank you for all of that. And thanks again for your posts. It brings back a lot of great memories. > >My question is this..... what was Brian like during the recording of "Spring". Did he really produce or was his name just listed to try to help "sell" the lp. What was the recording of the Lp like? Under what environment was it recorded? By the way.... I like your vocal tag on "Down Home" (down home is just a memory.. :) ). > >Thank you. People own you a lot of thanks for your work and caring about the Beach Boys and their music. More than most will ever know. > >Steve Mayo >
ugh
From: Jack Rieley
To: 'Beach Boys list' (pet -sounds@lists.primenet.com)
Reply-To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Date: Nov 2 1996 - 1:50pm
Carl & The Passions -- So Tough
They were getting recognition once again, this time for the superb music of Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson and Dennis Wilson. Surfs Up was receiving great notices and the group was playing exciting, impressive two-hour concerts instead of forty-five minute string-o-hits shows. A pair of bright entrepreneurs booked Carnegie Hall for the grand return to New York and the event was a triumph. Rolling Stone and Melody Maker, the western world's musical tastemakers-extraordinaire, declared them valid, vital and highly worthy. College students, who had disdained them only a year earlier, now flocked to see and hear and scream and cheer them. The Beach Boys were back.
We had to prepare a new album for Warner Bros., which by then was very supportive of the immense progress made.
I disliked going to their office on Ivar Street in Hollywood, preferring to work from my little rustic house in Topanga Canyon. Creativity was better in Topanga, but my absence from the office provided both space and opportunity for the losers to plot.
As I moved to shift the power balance from Love, Jardine and Johnston to Brian Wilson, Dennis Wilson and Carl Wilson, sparks flew. The non-Wilsons first aligned themselves with Nick Grillo and his trusted assistant Steve Love, both of whom did little to mask their contempt for me and the path I had chosen to rekindle the group.
Within a few months, private detectives were hired to follow my car, check up on my friends and dig into my private life. That really got to me. I felt violated. The fun of contributing to their career was disappearing fast. The joy of music was being eclipsed by stench from the swine.
You Need A Mess Of Help To Stand Alone was the first basic track I recall being recorded for the album. Brian was really into composing and recording the song, which he did with Carl's funky voice in mind. I titled it and took quite a while to write the lyric. It's one of the lyrics for the Beach Boys that still makes me feel real good to think about.
About that time Brian began talking in detail about a massage parlour in West Hollywood and one of the girls who worked there. At first he spoke only of going there for massages. Some days later he began going on and on about the masseuse who he said was turning him on. He was hot for Marcella. One day I arrived at Bellagio to find him showing off a dildo. He needed the dildo, he said, to impress Marcella. His dick was too small, he protested, so he needed the dildo to show off. It was not the first nor the last time that Brian devoted hours to discussing his sexual insecurities. The fact that he had given birth to two girls was, he said, proof that Murry was right: Brian wasn't a real man. Murry fathered three boys, Carl had one and another was on the way, Dennis had fathered boys. But he, Brian, could only father girls. The conversations went on for hours at a time. Then there came the day I was in his living room with Carnie and Wendy when Brian strode in, a huge dildo protruding from beneath his jeans. I was repulsed as Brian caused Carnie to come over to him while he talked about the dildo. When I chided Brian, he reacted by telling his daughters, "Carnie, Wendy... I'm not your father." Soon I evacuated the kids to the garden.
The only thing I could think of to quell Brian's fixation was to channel it. Thus it was I who suggested Marcella as the title for a tune Brian had been working on. With my promise to write the Marcella lyric, he jumped into the project with immense enthusiasm. Brian, Carl, Desper and I worked hard on that record. Dennis helped too. The zither was a cool idea but it was mixed poorly. My lyric was minor... efficient at best.
On the night we finished the mix, Love came by to give it a listen. He stood in the corner of the control booth behind the mixing counsel as the tape rolled. Rather than really listening to the music we had created, Love began rehearsing his stage moves. He acted out "One arm over my shoulder" by placing his right arm over his left shoulder. "Sandals dance at my feet" had him pointing the index fingers of both hands to downward. "Eyes that'll knock you right over" found him sailing his hands from the side of his head on a downlward arc. And on "Ooh Marcella so sweet" he cradled his crossed arms and rocked them a bit. I nearly got ill.
More as soon as I have a chance.
fresh....
From: Jack Rieley
To: 'Beach Boys list' (pet -sounds@lists.primenet.com)
Reply-To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Date: Nov 3 1996 - 8:20pm
Just heard Pet Sounds for the first time in soooo much time and it still sounds so fuckin great and exciting. Pure joy.
- Jack
zapped
From: Jack Rieley
To: 'Beach Boys list' (pet -sounds@lists.primenet.com)
Reply-To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Date: Nov 9 1996 - 4:51pm
A thrashed harddisk zapped a bunch of questions from the list.
If there are any that still need answering, please repeat.
- Jack Rieley
Smile
From: Jack Rieley
To: 'Beach Boys list' (pet -sounds@lists.primenet.com)
Reply-To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Date: Nov 11 1996 - 8:15am
Damn, my heart was fluttering when we set-up the multitrack at Carl's place to listen to the Smile tapes. I had read every word that had been published about Smile before starting to work with the Beach Boys. Unlike some, I was and remain a real fan of Smiley Smile. But my whole being was going bananas to hear the real thing.
I listened to all of the tapes at least 100 times... some of them much, much more.
There are frequent moments, phrases, sections and entire passages that excite me more than any released record or CD I have heard. Instrumentation that soars, harmonic structure that tingles the skin, melodic moods that are profound.
For example, Heroes and Villains is absolute genius, even though it is fragmented. The Fire tapes are terrifying, even though parts are missing. Cabin Essence is hypnotic, spectacularly so, even though it is unfinished. Wonderful reached only demo stage on Smile.
As most everyone knows, the album was not completed. Using today's recording techniques, the raw master tapes could be manipulated and blended by wannabe producers and well meaning fans and hucksters/exploiters, much as photos of total strangers can be transformed into apparently seamless family portraits. But there is no album.
If it is ever to be completed, then it must be finished by Brian Wilson and probably supported-assisted-compiled by Carl Wilson.
Umberto Eco wrote about an abomination called the Palace of Living Arts in Los Angeles. It features three dimensional, wax, life-size, full-color reproductions of Leonardo's Mona Lisa, El Greco's Cardinal de Guevara and other great works of art. Those who visit are encouraged to have faith in fakes.
Smile, the album, does not exist. It is a collection of unfinished works, not just a few of which are masterpieces, a couple others mastersnippets, still more just incompleted bits and pieces. Those who would enhance, blend or hawk Smile as a nearly completed album are mere vendors of fakes.
- Jack
Later in the PSML it was said "He (Jack) left the "Surf's Up" list after Carl died, saying that the world of the BB had ceased to exist." Dauber, however, said "Jack Rieley was scared away from this list TWICE."
Dave Prokopy said Aug 19 1998 in alt.music.beach-boys "jack was not "driven away" by any element on the list. he left (or, at least, stopped posting - i believe he lingered on as a subscriber for a short period after he stopped posting) due to a simple lack of time to read and post as much as he would have liked."
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