Just for fun, folks...

Take the last piano chord of "Love To Say Da Da" and position it next to the opening chord of "Surf's Up" and listen to what happens.

Then tell me if you think that might make a more wonderful end to SMiLE than "Good Vibrations"...

It doesn't sound right to me, but I'm glad you like it; that's what these fan mixes are for. Anyhoo, I think Smile should end with You Were My Sunshine just like the Capitol tracklist says. On the Sessions box set Brian even calls part 2 of YWMS "the big finale". It works as an album closer for me.

On that Brian and I sure have a disagreement.  Oh well...

Just for fun, folks...

Take the last piano chord of "Love To Say Da Da" and position it next to the opening chord of "Surf's Up" and listen to what happens.

Then tell me if you think that might make a more wonderful end to SMiLE than "Good Vibrations"...

...For me the TSS "Vega-Tables" is the version I've waited over 30 years to hear.

That might just sum up my feelings as well.  The more I hear this version, the more I love it.  I certainly don't feel like it's in any way an insult to Brian.  And apparently, Brian didn't think so either.  After all, these new masters all had to pass his approval.

The song is about society breaking down, so the song slipping from complexity to simplicity makes total sense.

Wow.  That's a really great point.  And it makes me think, this song is SO relevant.

At some point, the site didn't seem to recognize my password, and just wouldn't let me on.  Oddly enough, when I showed up out of curiosity to see some TSS discussion, I suddenly saw the "Welcome Reverend Rock" message at the top of the page and thought, well, what if I try to post something?  And much to my surprise, everything went smoothly.  So, really, I don't know what the problem might have been before.

Time to cook up a new fan mix myself, I suppose...

They're addicting, aren't they?  I've been revising a couple of mine lately.

Jeff sounds fine to me.  Sometimes I think people want anyone Brian sings with to sound like re-incarnations of Carl and Dennis, and the Beach Boys blend of old.  Well, you know, nothing can ever duplicate that, so we simply have to play the hand we're dealt.  I'm content to do that.  I've always thought that Brian has surrounded himself with a good group of supportive musicians and singers who are devoted to him and his music.  That devotion covers a multitude of imperfections for me.

For some reason, I couldn't get logged into this site for a couple of years.  Now, all of a sudden, I can post again, so I'm very happy to be back.  I wonder if anyone even remembers me!  Well, if not, let me introduce myself as a huge Brian Wilson/Beach Boys fan who especially loves the progressive side of the Beach Boys and has a special fondness for the SMiLE sessions (hence my most recent and successful attempt to log in).  Looking forward to taking part in current discussions.

Peace,
"Reverend Rock"

I am so looking forward to getting the box set in December (when I have some year-end bonus money to blow).  Everything I'm reading about it sounds so very good.  And anyway, I'd just about have to buy it for a properly presented "Bag Of Tricks" if for nothing else in the world.

I've always figured that was Brian's design.  

You don't mean that it was Brian's design to cut to a demo of himself, do you?

No, I mean that the abrupt shift to "Dove nested towers..." was always his intent.  It's done that way on absolutely every version of Surf's Up that we've ever heard.  There's no reason to think he didn't intend it to be abrupt.  Even on BWPS it's done that way.  And he had his chance to "correct" it there. I guess we could say that by adding strings, he did correct the "demo" bit, but I've always liked the piano-and-vocal approach so much that it actually took me a while to get used to the strings on BWPS' "Surf's Up", and I'm not sure they sound right to me even today, though I've become more accustomed to them.  I love what happens in the second section on the '71 version and all the SMiLE era recordings.  It jars me in a good way.

[blew my mind]

If it were released officially in 1967, we wouldn't have a 19 song album. As much as I love mono, I really think that the 2cd version at least shold have been as much stereo as possible. The stereo mixes on side 4 literally blew my mind. Mono can do justice to a beautiful production work (I'm thinking about Spector's River Deep, Montain High), but I don't really think it's the case here.

Doesn't matter. Was never going to happen.

And for 1967, it wouldn't have been 19 tracks, but I can bet you the lot that it would have been 19 tracks before it was true stereo.

That's one of many reasons that I end up being rather grateful it wasn't finished until 2004.  There was too much great material for a single LP, not quite enough for a double, and anyway, Capitol would have never swung for a double before the White Album.  I always felt that BWPS was the "just right" solution to the SMiLE puzzle, and to see the sessions released according to that as a template is just perfect.

I still find the transition to the 'dovenested towers" section too abrupt but I'm not sure that problem can be overcome.

I've always figured that was Brian's design.  And the more I listen to this new version, the more I think it is the new "definitive".  At first, I was put off by the fly-ins (other than the coda from '71, which is the only way of doing it that ever sounds right to me), but on repeated listenings, they feel more and more natural, and more and more like an appropriate way of paying tribute to Carl.

And I have to agree with the emerging consensus on what an awe-inspiring revelation "Surf's Up 1967" is.  Wow, what a mind-blower.

this is my first time hearing the mix of this track

if one of todays "super producers" like Timbaland came out with something like this, he'd be heralded as cutting edge, or leading the way.

BW was doing this back in 67 - AMAZING

Virtually everything I've heard in the last 10 years that has been hailed as "cutting edge" is, in fact, SMiLE influenced.  And yes, I'd say this is the best ding-dang-ding-dang-a-ding-dong "Vega-Tables" I've ever heard.  Great editing job.

"Full Sail" is one of my favorite Beach Boys songs, actually.

I can't stand the original "Here Comes The Night", but I love the disco remake.

Go figure.  (That was the selling point of the album for me, actually.)

Everything on Wild Honey felt so underproduced (with the exception of the title track and "Darlin'"), that "Here Comes The Night" on L.A. is, to my ears, a marked improvement over the original.  I don't mind the "disco" arrangement, because it's done well, and the song itself lends itself surprisingly well to such an arrangement.  I had never heard the Wild Honey album when I first heard this on the radio, and I thought it was a new BB song (newly written, I mean), and was actually quite impressed.  When I learned that it was a late-60s song reworked, I was honestly even more impressed.

I like the L.A. album for what it is, a late 70s easy listening/adult contemporary album.  It works well for what it was.

Hmmmm...it's not that easy. 

Philosophically, they mean so many different things.  Everything from "In My Room" to "Surf's Up"...I mean, that covers a lot of ground.  Not to mention that sometimes, even at the ripe ol' age of 52 (for me), I still completely concur with the sentiment of being bugged going up and down the same old strip and wanting to find a new place where the kids (or adults) are hip (or at least have the courage of their convictions, and some convictions worth having).

Philosophically, they mean harmony.  They didn't have much harmony in real life, but in what they shared with the world--their music, and the sentiments of their lyrics, there was a lot of harmony--not just musical (of which there was so very much, of course), but spiritual, cosmic, whatever you want to call it.  There is a very beautiful sense of wholeness and well-ness in those harmonies, and in the vast majority of their work, the lyrics being carried by those harmonies as well.

"Good Vibrations" really does, in fact, sum it up. 

 

I almost gave it a 4, but decided to go with a 3.  I really like the album over all, but when one looks at each song individually, it loses it's shine.  But Carl's stuff and Brian's stuff are indispensible. 

The thing about "Student Demonstration Time" is, it hasn't aged well; but when the album was current, the song got a good deal of airplay on FM "underground" stations (I know I heard it more than once).  In the very early 70s, rock was actually a form of counter-cultural journalism.  If Surf's Up were a liberal arts college newspaper, then SDT and "Looking At Tomorrow" and "A Day In The Life Of A Tree" were the editorial page.  In the cultural context of the times, it definitely worked.

The moment when he sings "All these people, they make me feel so alone", the second time, and the beautiful paradox of the background vocals, from "Midnight's Another Day".  That's as genius as genius gets.

Quirky?  Oh gosh, where to begin...let's just say the entire Love You album and let it go at that.

Heck, if it's another good collection of John/Taupin compositions, they can have whomever they want on board, far as I'm concerned.

To Song of the Grange--

I like a lot of your ideas as well, such as putting "I Wanna Be Around/Workshop" at the end of "Elements" and closing with a reprise of "Prayer".  I'm tempted to try them, but really, I think I'm through "smiling around" for awhile at this point.  I am finding this LP-length mix I've done a total joy to listen to, actually.

I think it's interesting that people have tracking problems with SMiLE 2004.  In my readings of SMiLE lore over the years, the one thing that seems to be consistant is that Brian could never settle on the song order because the material presented so many possibilities that were equally appealing.  Having produced a number of custom albums myself over the years, I know exactly how that can be.

For myself, over the years, I had decided (as if my opinion mattered) that certain SMiLE tracks were indispensible, and found it very frustrating that those tracks simply couldn't fit together on a conventional mid 60s LP format.   When I read that Brian had completed a performing version of SMiLE (no one knew for sure that there'd be a recording just yet), I was very apprehensive about the track order.  But once I learned how it was done, I was delighted.  Everything I considered indispensible was there, with only the exception of "He Gives Speeches" (which, since it exists on Smiley Smile as "She's Goin' Bald", really didn't bother me with its absence).  

Since Brian never was able to resolve the tracking delimma in the 60s, I've always felt that we can accept the 2004 tracking order as definitive.  For me, this is doubly true seeing that Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson both "own" that tracking order.   You really can't get more authoritative than that, in my opinion.  

So my search for a passable "SMiLE '67" is not born out of any sense of disappointment with SMiLE 2004.  I am just about as happy as I could be with it.  I love it immensely.

By the way, I've revised my above notes a good bit, and you might find some of my additional commentary interesting.

OK SMiLE mixers...I'm back to report on my latest project.

I decided, after reading in another thread about some master-tape discoveries, that I would finally attempt an LP length SMiLE fan mix.  I established a few criteria to begin with, and after thinking about it a few days, these were the parameters I set for myself.

1.  "Heroes And Villains" must include "I'm In Great Shape", "Barnyard", "The Old Master Painter", and "You Are My Sunshine".

2.  "Good Vibrations" must be a part of the playlist (as I'm sure Capitol Records would have absolutely demanded of any finished '67 version of SMiLE).

3.  The playlist must include every title listed on the back of the SMiLE sleeves that were printed up in '67.

4.  While some tracks would certainly include "modular" segues connecting sections (and some of those tracks would most likely be "medleys" of two or more titles), nevertheless each actual track must be set apart to itself with a band of silence, in keeping with both Van Dyke Parks' and Brian Wilson's known recollections of how the album was planned in '66-'67.  

5.  Most importantly, it all must "flow" well as an album, and clock in at under 40 minutes, with each side coming in at no more than 20 minutes max (all of these timings would be acceptible--if just a little on the  long side--in 1967).

So, here's what I came up with.  I call it:

REVEREND ROCK'S LP-LENGTH VERSION OF "SMiLE '67"

"Side One"

1.  Prayer (or "Intro")

2.  Heroes And Villains (Feb. 67 mix)/I'm In Great Shape/Barnyard/The Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine
(with "Heroes And Villains Intro" at the beginning as well as a "reprise" of H&V utilizing the slow vocal tag and "False Barnyard"--included but not listed)

3. Do You Like Worms

4. Cabinessence
(These opening four selections more-or-less constitute an "Americana" suite, if one wants to hear it that way.)

5. He Gives Speeches/Wonderful
(I've always heard these as companion pieces.  "Wonderful" is the Good Vibrations box set version, with a faded ending.  Did a pitch correction on "Speeches" so that the two songs are now in the same key--the melodic/thematic/lyrical connections between these two pieces are astounding.)

"Side Two"

1.  Good Vibrations
(The single--no tricks)

2. Vege-Tables/Child Is Father Of The Man
(I base this "medley" on the fact that takes of both "Vege-Tables" and "Child..." included the "bop bop bop bop, du-du du du-du du" section, so it's conceivable that Brian envisioned them as two parts of the same piece at some point, and I happen to like them together quite a bit.)

3. Windchimes (Air)
(A version from the 60s sessions that includes the instrumental part made famous in BWPS--courtesy of "ragmajesty's SMiLE" fan mix.)

4. The Elements (Water/Earth/Fire)
["Windchimes" has already been snuck into the proceedings to take care of "Air".  The remaining elements are represented as follows:  Water by "Water Chant" (with water sounds added), Earth by "Bag of Tricks" (with farm animal sounds added), and Fire by "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" (with the sound of crackling flames added)--all of the sound effects courtesy of "ragmajesty's SMiLE" fan mix, yet again.]

5. Surf's Up
(A special version I've concocted using a couple of boot sources and the "Child..." coda from the '71 recording)

It all clocks in at around 38 minutes, and each "side" is of an acceptible length as well.  All in all, it totally passes my test for an enjoyable listening experience that I think would have certainly blown some minds had it been released in '67.

Regrets?  Plenty!  No "Look".  No "Holidays".  No "Da Da".  Not enough "Heroes And Villains Sessions"...but lots of stuff would have to have been sacrificed to make a SMiLE album that could have been released in '67, so I took a true "no mercy" approach.  In spite of everything, this came out really nice, I think.

SOME NOTES ON TRACKING

I thought very much about a satisfying tracking order, because that to me is the most consistant weakness in the SMiLE mixes I've heard.  I felt like there is enough historical evidence that a true "Americana Suite" was planned, so I tried to come up with that to take up most of "Side One".  It made sense to me to follow SMiLE 2004's pattern by breaking up the "Americana Suite" to introduce the "sexual/life-cycle" theme with "He Gives Speeches/Wonderful".  Ending "Side One" with a tender ballad was something I thought would be really nice as well.  "Good Vibrations" kicking off "Side Two" is something there is very strong historical precedent for (since that's exactly what happens on Smiley Smile), and it also continues the "sexual/life-cycle" theme.

While many would question putting "Vege-Tables" into the middle of all this "sexual/life-cycle" stuff, I still contend that it was something Brian must have strongly considered doing, based on the aforementioned "bop bop" link that might have connected "Vege-Tables" to "Child Is Father Of The Man".  Since food is essential to life, there is also a clear lyrical/thematic connection that can be drawn.

Ending "The Elements" with Fire is something that not everyone would agree with, but to me it is just so very effective to have the Fire music be the last thing one hears before a song which features the phrase "collumnated ruins domino"!

I have always believed that any 1967 release of SMiLE would have ended with "Surf's Up".  It's just too much of a show-stopper to work anywhere else, in my opinion.  The thing that was hardest for me to accept about SMiLE 2004 was having "Surf's Up" in the middle--but I'm fine with it at this point.  

Believe me I have tried over and over to appreciate the thing as a whole but the bad stuff I really just cannot stand. I think I have only physically been able to reach the end of "I Wanna Pick You Up" and "Solar System" about 3 times in my life.

There's still time. There will come a time when you want a dose of Brian Wilson in the 70's (most of Sunflower was recorded in 1969) and you'll turn to Love You. The album will slowly creep up your personal charts, eventually sitting nicely in the Top 5, comfortably resting behind Pet Sounds, SMiLE, Today, and Summer Days....

If not before senility, then certainly by then, you will become a total Love You fan!

Among the many ways I like to put songs together on an 80 minute CD mix is what I like to call "eclectic psychedelia", from several decades and from a diverse range of artists.  Here's one of my favorite mixes of that sort of thing:

1. Your Most Valuable Possession (Ben Folds Five)
2. Saving Grace (Todd Rundgren)
3. All I Wanna Do (Sheryl Crow)
4. Winter's Day (The High Llamas)
5. Shine A Little Love (Electric Light Orchestra)
6. Decatur (Sufjan Stevens)
7. Fixing A Hole (The Beatles)
8. Visionary Road Maps (Stereolab)
9. Life In Technicolor/Cemeteries of London (Coldplay)
10. The Beautiful Letdown (Switchfoot)
11. Killing With Kindness (Tears For Fears)
12. Smile Please (Stevie Wonder)
13. Rainbow Eyes (Brian Wilson)
14. Unforgetful You (Jars Of Clay)
15. Mind Games (John Lennon)
16. Summer Turns To High (R.E.M.)
17. Pony's OG (Akron/Family)
18. When We Was Fab (George Harrison)
19. Dreamachine (Wondermints)
20. Passing By (The Beach Boys)

My favorite Brian voice is his soft midrange voice like in Sail Plane

Lets make a list of other songs that Brian has these type of peaceful vocals

That's my favourite era of Brians voice, the 67 - 72 ish time. 'Busy doin Nothing', 'I'd love just once to see you' etc... his falsetto is great around this time too, quite feminine and 'thinner' but still reall cool.

Brian can still hit those highs. When he chooses to. 

Seriously you think he could still hit those highs? I was listening the "Surf's Up" 04 and I realized that they shouldn't have double or triple tracked him or whatever they did at the end. It should have just been his voice. Would have sounded better IMO.

He does nail the 'Childrens song' bit though, not sure if they fiddled with it but it sounds all Brian to me, no Foskett doubling.

I would put his BWPS performance of "Windchimes" in my own personal top ten "Best Brian Wilson Lead Vocals Ever".

Hmmmm...Yeah, Still Crusin' probably wins hands down.  I wasn't able to bring myself to buy that one...even used...so I'd forgotten about it.

The mention of that brings to mind one that might be even worse...the insane early 70s pairing of Carl and the Passions...So Tough with a reissue of Pet Sounds as a double LP set...totally senseless...