SMiLE is out today!

SMiLE coming soon

But perhaps this can be part two.

http://cheese.exo.org.uk/archives/000276.html

Too much more to say now though, it's just...ah, overwhelming. It really is as good as I ever could have hoped, and it's almost completely impossible to believe that this is the same Brian who released that awful album earlier this year. Ah, I love him.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3934970

Will today if I get the chance. i listened to a rip from the SMILE site stream all weekend. I'm very happy this record exists.

;)

Still hashing out the review, should be up soon. Suffice to say, I like it.

K, missed that. With only a few listens thus far, I'm a bit circumspect myself. Regardless, I'm a little blown away by the euphoric response that it's gotten.

VERY VERY GREAT.

this is a "reconstruction" of what the original album MIGHT have been like, with inevitably a bunch of new arrangements mixed with the old. which means that it's a fucking miracle that it's any good (presuming you guys are not all on crack*).

* how safe is this presumption?

I did — and I'm totally with Mike on the added dimension aspect of it coming out 37 years later. It's something I appreciate, but admittedly haven't spent enough time with the record to evaluate properly.

But in approaching it, I guess the questions on my mind are: how rewarding is that added dimension? And how much does it come at the expense of the innocence that embodied the original recordings? For Mike, it seems like it's become something else. But I think it's a relevant question anyway. I mean, at the end of the day, this isn't the same thing it was nearly four decades ago.

Again, these are just some thoughts I'm having. I need more time with it.

what do you mean by innocence exactly?

been to any cathedrals lately?

p.s. it is a dumb phrase

I don't know anything bout classical music so I shouldn't have used the term "chamber." To me, the new Smile sounds like a skilled recital while the old feels like unbridled experimentation.

Btw, "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow", particularly the ending, is a mindblower. It's totally an old man singing psychedelic metal.

Does anyone have any recommendations for the new Smile session compilations? Surely by now someone must have reconstructed the new finished record from the old demos...

for some reason i like the original "cabinessence", "good vibrations" and "our prayer" better than the new one, too. but just about everything else is improved. i am especially tripping tonight on how awesome "in blue hawaii" turned out.

R.I.P. Gene Landy. You co-wrote some shitty songs on Brian's first solo album, and you saved his life by kidnapping his mind and wallet.

I've had this a week now and basically think I'd die a happy man if I ever wrote music 1/10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000th as beautiful as this....thanks to everybody's vivid descriptions in this thread, they were spot on.

how is Wilson's newest solo album? granted I figure it must be a letdown given that it wasn't a completion of a 37 year old composition, but ya know....

That Lucky Old Sun is pretty good

Capitol began production on a lavish gatefold cover with a 12-page booklet. Cover artwork was commissioned from Frank Holmes, a friend of Van Dyke Parks, and colour photographs of the group were taken by Guy Webster. 466,000 covers and 419,000 booklets were printed by early January 1967; promotional materials were sent to record distributors and dealers, and ads were placed in Billboard and teenage magazines including Teen Set.

Are these album covers and booklets around? Or were they all destroyed?

I've seen them for sale in record stores for $20. Neat artifact, but it is an empty record cover worth a $20?

Good timing for a revival, since I played this just last week for the first time in 5 years. (Bought it because of this thread of course.) I've recently made a decision to acquaint myself with '67-71 Beach Boys, about which I know far too little, and figured it to be most convenient starting point

oh dude, Myonga, get *everything* from that time period you described (if yer a vinyl guy, then get the vinyl, but if you are a CD guy, it's super easy to get those 2LPs on 1CD things that Capitol did in the mid-90s, they are such a bargain and the bonus tracks are rad as hell!)

so is Phil2 still on ILX at all? he and I saw the live show of SMiLE together in Chicago. I've lost touch with him :(

He's on twitter - MrStreetPeeper

http://streetpeeper.com/sites/default/files/phil-oh-street-peeper-1.jpg

if you are a CD guy, it's super easy to get those 2LPs on 1CD things that Capitol did in the mid-90s, they are such a bargain and the bonus tracks are rad as hell!

Seconding this recommendation. I actually broke out SMiLE last week along with the Smiley Smile/Wild Honey reissue. Excellent tunes all around.

Did anyone have the 3LP Smile bootleg, back when?

Side 6 was taken up with the Beach Boys (and whoever) in a boat (in the studio), and they had this game where they had to vote somebody out. First up the vote went against Mike Love.

The rest of the track (30 mins) was MLove outside the studio, creating and stomping, and the rest of them still in the boat, laffing.

So, basically, the Beach Boys invented the Big Brother TV prog.

That Lucky Old Sun is damn good, and I'm not sure how that happened after Gettin' in Over My Head and What I Really Want for Christmas.

Van Dyke Parks. Orange Crate Art is also way awesome.

After hearing so much praise for Smiley Smile/Wild Honey, I still think Smile and SMiLE is so much more enjoyable. I like Smiley Smile's stoner mixtape atmosphere tho (and the singles are godlike).

Orange Crate Art was soooo treacly to me. The sentiment just too heavy. I just couldn't roll with it, I really wanted to.

A friend of mine made an edit of the 60s Smile mtrl to exactly replicate the assembly BW performed live in the 00's. It makes a great listen. I gather Purple Chick or one of those types also did the same thing.

Smiley Smile's stoner mixtape atmosphere

Perfect description, and the reason it's my favourite Beach Boys.

i was a Beach Boys obsessive about ten years ago and made my own ultimate Smile out of the best versions I could hunt down online. the real SMiLE was a dream come true but I hardly ever play it because the original is so utterly amazing (the vocals, my God). i also prefer the song order, mostly the same but has Good Vibrations in the middle (beginning of Side 2) and ends with Surf's Up->You're Welcome.

Has there been a poll/thread on the best stoner mixtape albums? Like the first Macca, "The Freed Weed", "Stereopathetic Soul Manure"?

The best Smile fan mix will always be Mokomok's. Just go White Album and throw everything in there. Hell if I can choose any of it that should be cut.

Smile 2004 is utterly useless for me. I'll listen to a Wondermints record if I want to hear the Wondermints and the original session material if I want to hear Smile. Brian sounds awful and it's distracting. I'm really really glad I got to see him perform live, but hearing Jeff Foskett sing about ten times louder than him and seeing the twenty people required to put on a so-called "Brian Wilson" concert was sad in the extreme.

Yeah, I've seen that "Smiley/Honey" collection here and there, that'd definitely be the place to start. Awfully generous of Capitol to release most of the BB's catalog as twofers (and throw in bonus tracks besides!)

xxxxxxxxxxpost

oh dude, Myonga, get *everything* from that time period you described (if yer a vinyl guy, then get the vinyl, but if you are a CD guy, it's super easy to get those 2LPs on 1CD things that Capitol did in the mid-90s, they are such a bargain and the bonus tracks are rad as hell!)

^^^OTMx10000

there is a great ILM Beach Boys bootleg thread that contains a lot of great material from this era as well FYI

and yeah I prefer the OG bootlegged Smile versions (usually a combo of released and unreleased/unfinished material) to the 2004 version. I have no use for the Wondermints or Brian's fried voice.

i liked the sequencing of the 2004 smile -- it seemed like a logical way to do it, but was a little bit unpredictable too. But once I found the Purple Chick reconstruction (mentioned upthread) I didn't really have any need for the 2004 version.

I don't know, the moment I heard Brian's old fragile voice singing "I've been in this town so long, so long to the city..." in the acapella part towards the end of "Heroes & Villains" in the new one, I was in!

Smile boots rule though, except there are so many out there, so many isolated vocal takes, alternate sections, etc, the best thing is to get a bunch and just queue them up while you're doing something else. As for listening to the thing straight, yeah I like Purple Chick's but Brian's/Wondermint's is pretty rad. I mean they're no Wrecking Crew, but they can hit those harmonies dead on...

Brian sounds awful and it's distracting.

wtf, he sounded 300 times worse on "Love You"...and he's about 25 years older than he was then! y'all realize that age also impacts vocal cords to a degree too, right? I mean I ain't denying his 'lifestyle' and drugs didn't have an impact, but most agree that the voice begins to deteriorate in one's late 40s ANYWAY.

I don't think he sounded that bad...and he sounds better on That Lucky Old Sun. Not so 'mushmouthed'. Yea yea "studio technology" but whatever....

ut most agree that the voice begins to deteriorate in one's late 40s ANYWAY.

depends what yr style is, I can think of a bunch off the top of my head who's voices still sound like solid gold at 50+ (Willie Nelson, Ralph Stanley, both of the surviving Gibbs brothers, Mavis Staples, etc.)

Certainly, it's still possible to sound 'good' in later years, for sure, depending on how you maintain your voice - and no doubt Brian did plenty to speed up the deterioriation of his own voice. But even former opera and classically trained singers, which they often still sound "good" in their later years, begin to show signs of wear and decline. Decreased range, hoarseness occurs sooner....etc.

I don't have a problem with a change in tone or hoarseness, I have a problem with not even coming close to hitting the notes. Either sing in appropriate keys or just give it up. "Colonnaded ruins domino" during "Surf's Up" is Jeff Foskett, not Brian Wilson, and when he does go for the high stuff solo it's bad -- "TOUGH to cry" etc. Then add the fact that the backing tracks sound so canned and synthy. There's no comparison to in-their-prime Beach Boys vocals and the Wrecking Crew. Thank God they finished the damn thing but I don't know why you'd listen to it over the session material.

cuz it's complete?

I also dnt agree that the backing tracks sound canned or synthy at all....sound pretty authentic especially given that they were done in the 21st century, and I know Brian labored to get it to sound that way.

backing vocals sound fine to me on the 2004 version -- string arrangements are kinda synthy sounding at times though. Are they synths or is that an actual string section?

God damn them for not finding a time machine and finishing it in 1967

I don't listen to this very much despite being a big beach boys fan because....I dunno, although this would have been the best beach boys album,I don't think it contains the group's most interesting music.

I think the quality of the 2004 version is pretty impressive all things considered, though there are a few things that always bug me. they drums in the middle of 'wind chimes' at the 2 minute mark...argh.

Brian Wilson's next gig is a 2xLP about Booty Pop

oh , Bob Six -- thx for the Phil update! i am now a subscriber.

Mark G -- yah, I have that 3LP Smile thing. with the poster, which used to hang in the stairwell in our old house in Kenwood in the 90s. good memories. I never really listened to that last side more than once, I don't think! you make me wanna drag it out again though

I never heard That Lucky Old Sun, but wow I am kinda surprised at some of the Orange Crate Art love here. Believe me, I wanted to love that thing SOOOO bad! And actually, the first track -- title track -- is pretty much perfect. I just wish the rest of the album followed suit. It's kinda all downhill from there. I guess I'm with Jon Lewis on this one. Sold my copy years back, although honestly if I found the CD for a couple bucks I might pick it up again just to have the title track on file...

(totally unrelated but Stormy, I lured phil back to ilx not too long ago with memories of aged salted fatty meats: charcuterie )

If you do, Stormy, mp3 that side 6 ta!