I've got a pork butt in the crock pot right now that I'll turn into pulled pork sandwiches for dinner tonight

Maybe, but it was a price to pay to avoid getting a bad duophonic copy from a Amazon seller that didn't know better. But you really scored with that "spring" record! Could you needle drop it for us?

I suppose I could do that. Maybe the early part of next week.

$60 dollars for a 1960s BBs deluxe set of today, summer days, and pet sounds. (Original pressings in mono!)

You did well!

I disagree, I think you overpaid by quite a bit for that. There are currently 7 on sale on Amazon Marketplace, price ranging from $15-30. I paid $20 for mine a few years ago, at a local record store. It's a cool item, but the sound is not particularly good.

The most I've ever spent on a Beach Boys related record was $60 for my NM copy of Spring. I wouldn't normally drop that much on one record, but the condition was too good, and I'm fairly confident I could get more than that out of it if I sold it.

Yours sounds scrumptious, Amanda. Don't be shocked. I get the impression that there are as many recipes for lasagna as there are lasagna cooks. My extended family swears by my lasagna. I'm sure eaters of your lasagna feel the same way. What a dish!

You're in the UK, right? That might be the difference - in America I don't think I've ever seen a lasagna without ricotta. For anyone interested in Italian cooking, pick up Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Italian Cooking. It's not just a cookbook - it does have recipes - but there is a lot of valuable information about techniques and food background. One of the things she covers is how different western countries interpret Italian food, and there is a pretty big difference between American Italian food and English Italian food.

From scratch bread and lasagna? Now you're in my wheelhouse!

I do nearly all my cooking from scratch, including breads and pasta. My whole wheat brioche buns are becoming a weekly thing now, and I've got it consistent and efficient now - for any bread making it just takes a lot of trial and error, getting a feel for the dough, knowing when it's the right amount of wet/sticky. Rise time is a critical part of that, for sure, Undercover. Based on that recipe, I know at least with the humidity in my kitchen, I would need much longer than 90 minutes for the second rise if the dough has been refrigerated. If you have the time and don't need to mi your dough ahead of time, I wouldn't refrigerate it. For my brioche breads, I give them a first rise of about 2 hours some place warm, then shape it into buns, rolls or just in a loaf pan, and let them rise again for just over an hour. Then, egg wash and bake. Another bready recipe I love and that goes over great at parties are garlic knots.

For my lasagna, I make my pasta from a combo of unbleached AP and whole wheat flour. Once you eat fresh lasagna noodles, you'll never go back to the box. I have the pasta roller attachment for my Kitchen Aid and I roll my dough after it's rested as thin as possible and cut it by hand. Then, blanch it, stick it in an ice bath to stop cooking, and rinse it in cold water to wash off the excess starch. It sounds like a lot of work, but it actually goes really fast, plus I think it's fun and rewarding. Then I layer it with my bolognese, and the most important ingredient that I'm shocked isn't in your recipe John K - fresh ricotta. Again, fresh makes a huge difference. I get it hand dipped from a cheese monger, but if you have to get the kind in the tub, do yourself a favor and hang it in a cheese cloth while everything else cook to get the excess moisture out of it. Then, once everything is layered together, it only needs to back for about 15 minutes. So incredibly good.

For all it's warts, it is a "State of Brian" album. Where he was at writing, producing and arranging.

That's a great way to put it, and I've always maintained the same argument. It's a true statement of Brian Wilson the man and the artist as he was in 1976. It's an important document for anyone interested in Brian's body of work.

But I don't really know who this Trump guy is.

I'm not sure if I've ever been more envious of anther person.

here it is folks, the elusive 'summer in paradise' on vinyl.  open up your wallets 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/THE-BEACH-BOYS-Summer-In-Paradise-Vinyl-LP-1993-INSERT-/182075087920?hash=item2a64855c30:g:DWwAAOSw6wRW~kWq

That's actually pretty low compared for what it's sold for in the past few years. I know of 2 sold in the last 3 years for about $400.

Hello, Amanda. Did anyone video this event? would hate to think it just went out.
p.s. liking your new ava' . Who is the girl that drawn you?

I don't think anyone recorded it, unfortunately.

The drawing is by Athena Lee. She draws the performers at the Art and Culture Club every week and you can see them here: https://www.facebook.com/CollabFlatIronArtsCultureClub/?pnref=story

They invited me back to perform this week and I'll be doing an essay on novelty songs.

I also wouldn't assume the person who did the transfer "didn't take good care" of the vinyl. Sometimes the pressing quality is a bit noisy. I'm not prepared to criticize possibly the first person to get off their rump and put this on YouTube. This is awesome.

I have the white vinyl, and it's noisy like this - I agree it's just the pressing quality and nothing the uploader did.

you know Amanda last night I was especially fine w/ Wes Perry's rendition of (IG)IJWM4TT, angry young man delivery though with good dimension (he even made an attempt to insert a background vocal line I noticed).  You yourself worked w/o script in hand (insert applause emoticon here) and had a good insightful point or 2 about BB Love You album.  Thanks, glad I came

Thank you so much for coming! I'm glad you enjoyed it, I had a lot of fun. Wes was fantastic, he has a weekly show on the same stage on Saturday nights where he does the same kind of storytelling/musical performance. I really liked Eric Simon's bit too. For those who missed it - he did a composite character of the group if they were 20-somethings today, with a monologue about having an Uber rating of 4.9. It was funny and he incorporated enough song titles Mike Love could have written it himself.

Because I'm too stubborn to ever speak with notes, I actually left out two points that I wanted to make. I wanted to add the story Brian telling an interviewer that I Want To Pick You Up was about shrinking down a woman to add to my "he's just messing with us" part and I wanted to talk more about how the synth bass lines relate back to his older song writing. People still seemed to enjoy what I did and seemed into it. The guy running tech told me added the catalog to his Spotify playlist after my speech - so at least I got through to someone.

A girl goes to all of these Arts and Culture Club shows and sketches the performers, so that's my new avatar. She even through in the Smile cover over my shoulder.

I for one plan on being there tonight, quite a missed opportunity if I didn't

I'll see you there! Here's a link to the Facebook event for anyone who needs more info: https://www.facebook.com/events/1675258269428799/

The show is on the Salon stage, on the third floor. You have to wind around a little bit to get to it, but there are signs.

I've got my 10 minutes all mapped out and will be bringing some tour posters and other memorabilia to display.

This is coming up next week, and we had our musical act drop out. Anyone with here a Chicago area musician, solo or part of a band? Could perform Beach Boys covers or original music inspired by them, you'll get 3-4 songs. Message me if you're interested or know anyone who is.

Collaboraction Theater, in the Flat Iron Arts building at Milwaukee, North and Damen in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood, is having a Beach Boys night on Thursday, March 10 at 7:30 pm. It's part of their Collaboraction Arts and Culture Club, where they build a variety show that examines a topic and it's influence on society, with discussion at the end. 

I've been asked to do 10 minutes on a topic "outside the box" and lead the discussion. I'm currently leaning toward Love You, since it's obscure and will hopefully spur a discussion of mental illness in the arts. I'll also bring a lot of memorabilia and collectibles to decorate the space. I'm not sure of everyone on the bill at this point, but my friend, essayist and Second City instructor, Mike Gifford will be reading something and these shows usually involve some of the bigger names in the improv and musical improv scene. Admission is any donation to the theater.

This should be a great night, and I'd love to have an audience full of hardcore fans to keep the discussion interesting.

Edited for date change There was a conflict at the theater, so it's getting pushed back three weeks. More time for me to get my ten minuets as tight as possible

More feedback, on this matter, from the Smile readers would be much appreciated!

I'm not into the third person perspective in this case. I've never seen a memoir written that way, likely for a reason. It comes off a little disingenuous. Otherwise it seems like the writing is fine and the material is interesting; hopefully it leads to more stories we haven't heard and insight on Brian during a period where there isn't a lot of information available.

Zoom in on the blue panels - they're the wings; the longer green vertical panels are the bodies, facing down the way … they even have eyes if you look close enough.

Maybe it's the difference between seeing it in person versus pictures, but the dragonflies are the thing that stand out the most to me. That's what I got instead of a bee. It fits the color scheme and shape of the lamp better. The wing detail is painted on sauder. The wings are light blue, bodies green and yes, John's right, little red eyes.

Although I'm not too fond of their dabbling in dance music. 

You and everyone else, I think. Touches of it are fine, but when it started to dominate the sound that's where I usually check out.

Quite beautiful Amanda, very Art Deco! Quite an heirloom, I'd be overwhelmed.

Thank you! It is a nice heirloom and I'm glad I got to have a hand in completing it. Plus it gave me something to do on these couple of days of bed rest 

As I got into my late 20s / early 30s, I started to appreciate the lighter side of rock more - The Beach Boys, Billy Joel, Jimmy Buffett, Elton John, etc. 

Getting into the lighter stuff creates a nice light and shade effect when I'm mixing and matching music. 

That's why I love a bank like Queen so much. It's a great balance of mixed and matched styles. Everything I like about music I can find in a Queen album.

I'm gonna me too, my uncle invented canola oil!

Was he the marketing genius that renamed it from rapeseed?

That was a lovely story, fabulous artwork!  My Gran also died of diverticulitis having been in a nursing home.  This story struck a chord with me.

I'm sure any family that's had someone in a place like that can relate to how horrible it is. My grandpa had a brain hemorrhage in 2009 and had been in some kind of facility since, so in a way it was nice that she got to spend her last months sharing a room with him. I'm the only member of that side of the family that lives more than forty miles away, so someone was with them for every meal and as a family we were very involved in their care. I feel awful for the people that don't have family to advocate for them to the staff, because most of the staff at those places are under paid and overworked so there is high turnover and a lot of people who don't care about what they're doing anymore.

I'm bumping this four year old thread because I finally finished my Wild Honey stained glass project! So, here's the story - like I said in my original post my grandma was concerned about the level of detail in the picture and that we needed to blow it up so big to make the pieces a size she was comfortable working with. She decided instead to make me a set of lamps inspired by the cover but her own freestyle pattern instead. Unbeknownst to me at the time, she also decided that the red/yellow colors and the bee weren't my style and changed things a little. A year or so passes, the subject is never brought up and I basically forget about it. Then she gets diverticulitis, goes into a nursing home and dies in September 2013. In September 2015 my grandpa also passed away and we started going through their possessions when I was home for his services.

What do I find in a chest in the dining room? All her stained glass stuff, including two 3/4 of the way finished lamps and my nicest looking copy of Wild Honey. I love the pattern she ended up using, and she was right, these colors are more my style and go better with the stuff in my house. I also like that it's now more of it's own thing that was inspired by the cover design instead of just aping it. I finished the first lamp and hope to finish the second one soon. All that needed done was soldering the pieces together, which is by a wide margin the easiest part. I just took these with my phone, so these pictures aren't terrific, and I am not a craftsy person so I wasn't sure how they'd turn out but I'm overall very happy with this first one.

I love that first The Darkness album, and the new on is very good too.

I was a senior in high school and that was probably my favorite new album at the time. Hard rock was definitely my preference then. There was good stuff to be found, but you had to dig a little bit because most rock radio was full of pretty bland stuff like you mentioned. I think losing interest in what on the radio was probably what started my deeper digging and real interest in older music like The Beach Boys.

Something tells me they just rehash Empire Strikes Back next, with a few minor alterations as they did here

That's the fear, and it seems like it might be a real possibility. I'm hoping the callbacks, etc. are just being used to ease people in to the new episodes and the next one will take a turn toward a more original story, but that may be pretty optimistic.

Mujan - You summed up my husband's feelings exactly, I'll have to share your review with him because all of our friends are beating up on him for "not getting it" 

Personally, I was never that into Star Wars, probably because my first experiences with the actual movies were when I was dragged to see Ep. 2 and 3 in theaters as a teen when I couldn't have cared less. TFA was definitely derivative and did come of as pandering (It's New Hope, but with feelings!), but at the end I found myself really curious about the direction they'll take everything in for the next one. I'm hoping Kylo comes away from this experience really twisted and gives him some layers other than whiny, emotional sith apprentice.

One more thing - why hire Gwendolyn Christie and not have her character involved in any sweet fight choreography?