Well, it's been a few weeks now, and "The SMiLE Sessions" hasn't been cancelled! Don't laugh -- for a project that has been announced, and cancelled, in 1966, 1967, 1972, 1988 and 1995, this is indeed a victory of sorts. While we wait for more substantial news (a release date, a track list), I think now might be the best time to revisit the SMiLE that already HAS been released -- namely, 2004's Brian Wilson Presents Smile (BWPS).
I really hope that the release of "The SMiLE Sessions" doesn't convince scores of SMiLE fans that they never need to listen to BWPS ever again. Brian's reimagining of the project (I hesitate to assert that he "finished" or "solved" it) will still be a remarkable achievement, and without the catharsis achieved by completing BWPS, I don't believe he ever would have authorized the project we're looking forward to now. In 2004, USA Today asked him about releasing the original Beach Boys SMiLE tapes, and he said "Never. Those are gone forever. I don't want those made public because they bring up bad memories. I don't think about the old days anymore. I never do." I think he needed to make peace with SMiLE via BWPS and then let it sit for a few years before "The SMiLE Sessions" would ever have been even remotely possible.
So let's step back for a second and appreciate what we HAVE before we resume fantasizing about what we MIGHT get in the new box. Songwriting for Brian Wilson Presents Smile was undertaken, after a 36 year pause, in late 2003 by Brian and SMiLE's original lyricist, Van Dyke Parks. Darian Sahanaja, one of Brian's band members and long-time SMiLE geek, put together a bunch of vintage bootlegs for Brian to listen to, and together they stitched together a program -- not the original 1966/67 SMiLE, but rather a setlist of SMiLE music suitable for live performance. Tossing aside the restrictions of a 1960s LP, they came up with a three-movement song cycle that incorporated all the well-known SMiLE pieces and flowed like a real album.
After touring BWPS to rapturous audiences in early 2004, Brian and the band ventured into Sunset Sound in Hollywood -- the site of some of the original "Good Vibrations" and "Heroes And Villains" sessions -- to record the "album" version. Just as he did during the original SMiLE sessions -- and just as NO ONE does today -- Brian recorded the instrumental tracks in "modular" parts, with the entire band playing live in the same room. Some fans have mentioned the lack of "darkness" in the BWPS tracks, and while I don't disagree, I don't think it means that the new recordings are "softer" or "lighter." Several instrumental versions were released with BWPS, between the LP's 4th side and several CDs, and when I listen to those (without the distractions of Brian's modern voice and the not-the-Beach Boys backing vocals) I'm just as stunned as when I listen to the 1966 tracks. For those who want to track them all down, the available instrumental BWPS tracks are:
Heroes And Villains (LP side 4)
Cabinessence (LP side 4)
On A Holiday (LP side 4)
Wind Chimes (LP side 4)
Roll Plymouth Rock (giveaway CD from fanzine Endless Summer Quarterly [ESQ])
Mrs. O'Leary's Cow (ESQ giveaway) [same as album, but clean intro/outro]
In Blue Hawaii ("Good Vibrations" CD single b-side)
Surf's Up (Beautiful Dreamer Bonus CD)
Anyway, I think the reason we're sensing this lack of "darkness" is relatively simple -- and it's not because Brian necessarily tried to make it to sound "happier." In 1966, the Wrecking Crew (et al.) had to CREATE this music under the watch of an intensely inspired Brian Wilson, and they were expected to nail their parts quickly so they could move on and not waste studio time. The Wondermints (et al.) only had to learn to PERFORM the music, and they had all the 1966 tapes to refer to, and as much time as they needed to learn it, and they probably didn't have Brian hanging over them every minute.
Not only that, but the BWPS album was recorded AFTER they completed the SMiLE tour -- meaning they had not only rehearsed the songs extensively, they were completely comfortable playing them by the time they approached the album in the studio. I think this is why we feel they are "lighter" or "happier" or that "something" is missing -- but when you listen to the instrumental tracks, the musicianship is still there, and the magic of the compositions still glows.
Which brings me to one other thing I've been thinking about lately: Let's not be too cavalier about the "darkness" that Brian Wilson has had to live with for most of his life. It's easy to chatter about Brian's failure to finish SMiLE in 1967 and how great it is that it's going to get "finished" now, with or without him, but I wouldn't take his authorization of this project as a signal that all his demons have been slain. He may be happier than he's been in decades, and he may be getting the best medical and psychological care of his entire life, but I think most of us suspect that Brian is still an incredibly fragile person, much more than he or his camp would ever let on. He himself hints at his continuous battles, and I was surprised to re-read some of the things he said in 2004 while promoting BWPS.
For example, in the audio interview with David Leaf (on the same CD as the instrumental "Surf's Up"), Leaf asks Brian to clarify the story about how he believed that his song "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" (aka "Fire") had caused actual fires around Los Angeles. Brian confirms that he DID really believe that, but admits (paraphrasing), "That's silly, because there's no way that me recording a song about fire could cause a fire somewhere else." I thought, OK, sounds a little like he's reciting what a therapist told him, but fine -- he got over it. But then Brian added, "I got over that a couple of years ago," and I was taken aback. A couple of YEARS ago! Meaning that as late as 2002, Brian Wilson still feared that he caused fires in Los Angeles because he recorded "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow."
In the USA Today interview, Brian reminds us that his mental breakdowns didn't end in the 1960s, or the "bed years" of the 1970s, or the coke years of the 1980s, or the post-Landy years of the 1990s. He told Edna Gundersen that "I had a pretty good nervous breakdown a few years ago [i.e., in or around the early 2000s], where I felt emotionally broken down, and I've slowly been repaired from it. I still have moments where I think I have it, but it goes away. Music's been part of my salvation." Far from the general public perception that Brian was "unhealthy" a long time ago, and is "recovered" now, the truth is that every day is a probably struggle for him -- at least compared to those of us who don't have similar problems.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm ecstatic about "The Smile Sessions" too, but I think we should all reflect on what an epic struggle this project was for Brian, and still is. The press release may say he's "thrilled" about it, but even if he is, it's a relatively recent change of opinion. The Orange County Register asked him in 1999 if he would ever allow a Smile box similar to the Pet Sounds box, and he flatly rejected the idea. When asked why, he said, "Because I hate that [expletive] album." Personally, I hope that all the praise "The Smile Sessions" will undoubtedly receive will help Brian finally put SMiLE to rest -- but I also fear that it would break his heart if his fans tossed BWPS aside because of the "real thing" being released.
Brian Wilson Presents Smile will stand the test of time, in my opinion, simply because it contains music and lyrics that don't exist on the 1966 tapes. While I don't love all the new lyrics in BWPS, and I don't think the "three movement" structure has any basis in history, the album still holds up for me, as I play it along with all my vintage SMiLE stuff (officially released and ... otherwise). It may or may not be historical, but the BWPS transition from "Wonderful" to "Song For Children" to "Child Is Father" to "Surf's Up" is still spine-tingling. The way "On A Holiday" uses the "whispering winds" chant (as found on the Smiley Smile album) to link to "Wind Chimes" is brilliant. The music is expertly played and the sound is crystal clear in a way that the original tapes simply will never be.
"The Smile Sessions" producers Mark Linett and Alan Boyd have indicated that they will use BWPS as the "template" for their version of the Beach Boys SMiLE "album." They may think they're honoring it by doing so, but I think the effect would be the opposite. If they succeed TOO well, then many fans will decide that they simply never need to listen to Brian's version again, because all the stuff they liked can now be heard using the "real" tapes and Beach Boys harmonies. I hope they try to piece together the best possible "1967 version" of SMiLE -- 12 to 14 tracks, probably not linked or segued together, with no additional recordings AT ALL, and sequenced like a two-sided LP. This will allow BWPS to retain its status as a unique and compelling version of SMiLE.
Coming soon: An appreciation of Brian Wilson's "wilderness years" (1967-1977)
Showing posts with label Smile. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Smile. Show all posts
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Look! Listen! Vibrate! COMPiLE! Last Call For SMiLE Nerds!
Well, the unthinkable is being thought, the unspeakable is being spoken, and the unimaginable is being imagined -- The Beach Boys' legendary SMiLE album is finally being released, 44 years after being shelved by damaged mastermind Brian Wilson in 1967. The news was first leaked by a loose-lipped Al Jardine, who, in an amazing coincidence unprecedented in the annals of public relations, was trying to drum up interest in his solo album. After the inevitable Internet firestorm (heh, "Fire"...), Al tried to throw some cold water on it, but it surprised almost no one when the news became official on March 11th:
Read the announcement made on Billboard's website and the accompanying interview with Beach Boys engineer and compiler extraordinaire Mark Linett.
Three days later, the news became even more official, with a press release posted to Brian Wilson's website. If you're a SMiLE fan, or a Beach Boys fan, or a fan of 1960s pop in general, go to those links and read up on "The Smile Sessions," which has the potential to be a genuine "holy grail" release for a sizeable cadre of fanatics. But this post isn't about that.
I'm here to talk about how this affects ME -- namely, the possibility that the "finished" version of SMiLE that I labored over for a year or more might become obsolete. I'm not alone in this fear-slash-joy -- making your own SMiLE is a rite of passage for SMiLE fans, and hundreds (if not thousands) of them have done the same, stitching together the pieces (either officially released or from bootlegs) into something they consider a "complete" SMiLE. Friendly debates raged on message boards -- whether "Surf's Up" should have been the final track, whether there was ever really going to be an "Elements" suite of songs, whether each album side would be a continuous collage of music or traditionally banded individual tracks, whether "Good Vibrations" belonged on it at all, etc. Scans of hand-written notes and tape boxes and record company memorandums were kept at the ready as evidence.
It's all in good fun, but for better or worse the fun will end -- or, rather, CHANGE -- when "The Smile Sessions" is released (hopefully) sometime this year. Part of the beauty of SMiLE is that it WAS unfinished -- so we could mold it in our own images, as it were. Homemade SMiLEs were like snowflakes -- no two were alike, and I think we liked it that way. It made SMiLE into something organic and alive, ever-evolving. Disc One of "The Smile Sessions" will attempt to end the debate, and present the most complete version of the 1966/67 SMiLE possible with the tapes they have been able to recover from the project. (Several reels are known to be lost, but who knows what has turned up in the last few years.) Mark Linett hints that they will probably try to use Brian Wilson's own "homemade" SMiLE -- Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE (BWPS) -- as a template, which will not be a popular decision for a lot of hardcore SMiLE scholars. Historical evidence suggests that in 1966/67 SMiLE would have been a traditional 10-12 song album, not a three-movement double-LP. There will be a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth if Linett decides to mimic the BWPS model TOO closely, with digitally-manipulated segues and (god-forbid) modern-day vocals adding the new lyrics.
The way I see it, though, Brian and the Beach Boys aren't going to stamp out the "DIY SMiLE" community -- they're just jumping into the sandbox to play along. Brian's 2004 version was crafted specifically to be performed on stage, and tracks were edited and arranged with that in mind. "The Smile Sessions" will hopefully try to re-create what MIGHT have been a Beach Boys album released in 1967, but even if they get a little too jiggy with it, discs 2-4 of the deluxe set will give us extensive session outtakes (in stereo) and un-futzed-with versions of what appears on disc one. The more the merrier, I say, and I'm sure I'm not speaking for only myself when I predict that most of us who buy the deluxe boxed set of "The Smile Sessions" will be diving into those bonus discs and re-compiling -- or even re-thinking altogether -- our own personal SMiLE comps.
With that in mind, I would like to present my own version of SMiLE, which I worked on for a little over a year, from Winter 1999 until I finished it (or gave up, take your pick) in January 2001. I imagined it as a CD reissue of the original album, meaning that it would be an LP-length "album" with bonus tracks. I wasn't strictly beholden to historical evidence, though, and used link tracks, demos and other things that some purists frown upon. My main objective was to put my absolute favorite bits of SMiLE onto ONE CD, rather than spread out on more than 20 official releases and bootlegs. And so, the tracklist:
SIDE ONE
01. Our Prayer (1:06)
02. Heroes and Villains (4:44)
03. Wind Chimes (2:57)
04. Do You Like Worms (4:20)
05. The Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine (1:07)
06. Link: How I Love My Girl (1:33)
07. Wonderful (2:01)
08. Link: Heroes and Villains (1:14)
09. Cabinessence* (3:32)
SIDE TWO
10. Look* (2:50)
11. He Gives Speeches (0:58)
12. I’m In Great Shape (demo) (0:25)
13. Vegetables (2:40)
14. The Elements** (7:34)
15. Surf’s Up (4:10)
16. You’re Welcome (1:36)
BONUS TRACKS:
17. Good Vibrations (alternate mix) (3:39)
18. Heroes and Villains** (alternate) (4:20)
19. Barnyard (demo) (0:56)
20. Wind Chimes* (early version) (2:52)
21. Wonderful* (early version) (1:45)
22. Vegetables (early version) (2:37)
23. Child Is Father to the Man (0:47)
24. Fire* (take 2) (1:50)
25. The Old Master Painter* (sessions) (2:24)
26. Surf’s Up* (instrumental track) (1:37)
27. Surf’s Up* (Brian’s demo) (3:38)
*Stereo **Mono/stereo
Unfortunately, I can't post PDFs to my blog, or I would upload the booklet that I made for the CD, complete with nerd-tastically detailed liner notes that explain the sweat that went into this. Consider yourselves spared -- but here are a few notes: All of the edits used were my own, except for the so-called "Anne Wallace mix" of "Surf's Up" which expertly combined Brian's 1966 demo of the song with the unfinished 1966 instrumental backing track -- a trick that Mark Linett himself has already completed for "The Smile Sessions." Some of my edits followed other fan edits, but I tried to refine and improve the editing as well as the pieces used in the edits. "Do You Like Worms" for example used 9 different segments for a four-minute song. My stab at "The Elements" was comprised of "I Want To Be Around/Friday Night/Woodshop" (for "Earth"), an instrumental portion of "Wind Chimes" (for "Air"), "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" (for "Fire," the only known-for-a-fact portion of Brian's original "Elements" plan), and "Water Chant"/"I Love To Say Da Da" for "Water." As a wink to Sgt. Pepper's "endless chord" at the end of "A Day In The Life," I ended my SMiLE with an endless fade-in of "You're Welcome." "Good Vibrations" is relegated to the bonus tracks section -- just a personal choice; I know that it probably would have been on the LP in 1966 or 1967.
So that's what I've been enjoying as "SMiLE" for a decade now. I'm looking forward to having my decisions and opinions challenged by "The Smile Sessions," and I'm looking forward to the sonic upgrades for several tracks I omitted simply because I didn't like the sound quality of the bootleg versions ("Barnyard," "Child Is Father To The Man," "Holidays," etc.) I've been on a Beach Boys/Brian Wilson/Smile bender this month because of the news -- like, an epic, Charlie Sheen-level bender -- and it's going to be hard to think about anything else until we at least get a release date. I hope everything progresses smoothly, and I hope Brian is happy with the results. My next post will be about Brian and his own 2004 version of SMiLE, and why I don't think it should be forgotten in the wake of "The Smile Sessions." Stay tuned!
Read the announcement made on Billboard's website and the accompanying interview with Beach Boys engineer and compiler extraordinaire Mark Linett.
Three days later, the news became even more official, with a press release posted to Brian Wilson's website. If you're a SMiLE fan, or a Beach Boys fan, or a fan of 1960s pop in general, go to those links and read up on "The Smile Sessions," which has the potential to be a genuine "holy grail" release for a sizeable cadre of fanatics. But this post isn't about that.
 |
| The front cover of my SMiLE CD |
I'm here to talk about how this affects ME -- namely, the possibility that the "finished" version of SMiLE that I labored over for a year or more might become obsolete. I'm not alone in this fear-slash-joy -- making your own SMiLE is a rite of passage for SMiLE fans, and hundreds (if not thousands) of them have done the same, stitching together the pieces (either officially released or from bootlegs) into something they consider a "complete" SMiLE. Friendly debates raged on message boards -- whether "Surf's Up" should have been the final track, whether there was ever really going to be an "Elements" suite of songs, whether each album side would be a continuous collage of music or traditionally banded individual tracks, whether "Good Vibrations" belonged on it at all, etc. Scans of hand-written notes and tape boxes and record company memorandums were kept at the ready as evidence.
It's all in good fun, but for better or worse the fun will end -- or, rather, CHANGE -- when "The Smile Sessions" is released (hopefully) sometime this year. Part of the beauty of SMiLE is that it WAS unfinished -- so we could mold it in our own images, as it were. Homemade SMiLEs were like snowflakes -- no two were alike, and I think we liked it that way. It made SMiLE into something organic and alive, ever-evolving. Disc One of "The Smile Sessions" will attempt to end the debate, and present the most complete version of the 1966/67 SMiLE possible with the tapes they have been able to recover from the project. (Several reels are known to be lost, but who knows what has turned up in the last few years.) Mark Linett hints that they will probably try to use Brian Wilson's own "homemade" SMiLE -- Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE (BWPS) -- as a template, which will not be a popular decision for a lot of hardcore SMiLE scholars. Historical evidence suggests that in 1966/67 SMiLE would have been a traditional 10-12 song album, not a three-movement double-LP. There will be a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth if Linett decides to mimic the BWPS model TOO closely, with digitally-manipulated segues and (god-forbid) modern-day vocals adding the new lyrics.
The way I see it, though, Brian and the Beach Boys aren't going to stamp out the "DIY SMiLE" community -- they're just jumping into the sandbox to play along. Brian's 2004 version was crafted specifically to be performed on stage, and tracks were edited and arranged with that in mind. "The Smile Sessions" will hopefully try to re-create what MIGHT have been a Beach Boys album released in 1967, but even if they get a little too jiggy with it, discs 2-4 of the deluxe set will give us extensive session outtakes (in stereo) and un-futzed-with versions of what appears on disc one. The more the merrier, I say, and I'm sure I'm not speaking for only myself when I predict that most of us who buy the deluxe boxed set of "The Smile Sessions" will be diving into those bonus discs and re-compiling -- or even re-thinking altogether -- our own personal SMiLE comps.
With that in mind, I would like to present my own version of SMiLE, which I worked on for a little over a year, from Winter 1999 until I finished it (or gave up, take your pick) in January 2001. I imagined it as a CD reissue of the original album, meaning that it would be an LP-length "album" with bonus tracks. I wasn't strictly beholden to historical evidence, though, and used link tracks, demos and other things that some purists frown upon. My main objective was to put my absolute favorite bits of SMiLE onto ONE CD, rather than spread out on more than 20 official releases and bootlegs. And so, the tracklist:
SIDE ONE
01. Our Prayer (1:06)
02. Heroes and Villains (4:44)
03. Wind Chimes (2:57)
04. Do You Like Worms (4:20)
05. The Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine (1:07)
06. Link: How I Love My Girl (1:33)
07. Wonderful (2:01)
08. Link: Heroes and Villains (1:14)
09. Cabinessence* (3:32)
SIDE TWO
10. Look* (2:50)
11. He Gives Speeches (0:58)
12. I’m In Great Shape (demo) (0:25)
13. Vegetables (2:40)
14. The Elements** (7:34)
15. Surf’s Up (4:10)
16. You’re Welcome (1:36)
BONUS TRACKS:
17. Good Vibrations (alternate mix) (3:39)
18. Heroes and Villains** (alternate) (4:20)
19. Barnyard (demo) (0:56)
20. Wind Chimes* (early version) (2:52)
21. Wonderful* (early version) (1:45)
22. Vegetables (early version) (2:37)
23. Child Is Father to the Man (0:47)
24. Fire* (take 2) (1:50)
25. The Old Master Painter* (sessions) (2:24)
26. Surf’s Up* (instrumental track) (1:37)
27. Surf’s Up* (Brian’s demo) (3:38)
*Stereo **Mono/stereo
Unfortunately, I can't post PDFs to my blog, or I would upload the booklet that I made for the CD, complete with nerd-tastically detailed liner notes that explain the sweat that went into this. Consider yourselves spared -- but here are a few notes: All of the edits used were my own, except for the so-called "Anne Wallace mix" of "Surf's Up" which expertly combined Brian's 1966 demo of the song with the unfinished 1966 instrumental backing track -- a trick that Mark Linett himself has already completed for "The Smile Sessions." Some of my edits followed other fan edits, but I tried to refine and improve the editing as well as the pieces used in the edits. "Do You Like Worms" for example used 9 different segments for a four-minute song. My stab at "The Elements" was comprised of "I Want To Be Around/Friday Night/Woodshop" (for "Earth"), an instrumental portion of "Wind Chimes" (for "Air"), "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" (for "Fire," the only known-for-a-fact portion of Brian's original "Elements" plan), and "Water Chant"/"I Love To Say Da Da" for "Water." As a wink to Sgt. Pepper's "endless chord" at the end of "A Day In The Life," I ended my SMiLE with an endless fade-in of "You're Welcome." "Good Vibrations" is relegated to the bonus tracks section -- just a personal choice; I know that it probably would have been on the LP in 1966 or 1967.
 |
| The tray insert for my SMiLE CD |
So that's what I've been enjoying as "SMiLE" for a decade now. I'm looking forward to having my decisions and opinions challenged by "The Smile Sessions," and I'm looking forward to the sonic upgrades for several tracks I omitted simply because I didn't like the sound quality of the bootleg versions ("Barnyard," "Child Is Father To The Man," "Holidays," etc.) I've been on a Beach Boys/Brian Wilson/Smile bender this month because of the news -- like, an epic, Charlie Sheen-level bender -- and it's going to be hard to think about anything else until we at least get a release date. I hope everything progresses smoothly, and I hope Brian is happy with the results. My next post will be about Brian and his own 2004 version of SMiLE, and why I don't think it should be forgotten in the wake of "The Smile Sessions." Stay tuned!
Saturday, February 19, 2011
SMiLE: The Biggest Rock-Tease In Pop History Strikes Again
A couple of weeks ago, erstwhile Beach Boy and former thorn in Mike Love's side Al Jardine casually dropped a bomb that blew the minds of Beach Boys nerds everywhere:
"Capitol Records plans to issue a Beach Boys version of Smile sometime this summer to begin the celebration of The Beach Boys' anniversary. Smile is the Holy Grail for Beach Boys' fans, so it will be good."
Setting aside the fact that it was suspicious for a low-ranking Beach Boy -- an exiled one at that -- to make such a stunning announcement, Al further raised our hopes by invoking Smile's master painter himself, Brian Wilson:
"I don't have many details on it, although we didn't do any new recording. I'm happy to see it finally come out. Brian's changed his mind about releasing the material, but it was inevitable, wasn't it?" (Al chuckles)
The matter-of-fact nature of the statement, along with the naming of the only two parties who could guarantee such an event (Capitol Records and Brian Wilson), set off a firestorm of speculation and "now my life will be complete" testimonies among the internet Brianistas. Alas, because nothing good in Beach Boys fandom comes without pain and suffering -- the Beach Boys are kinda like the Mets to the Beatles' New York Yankees -- the powers that be allowed the rumor to simmer for a week or so, before (presumably) frog-marching Al back out to back-pedal: "I don't know if we even have enough parts to put it together or not. May have to record some more."
Now, this isn't exactly a DENIAL that we could still see a Smile release of some kind in 2011, but it was certainly weird enough to warrant further examination. Perhaps it was like when a hostage in a foreign country deliberately says something odd that would only resonate with his family, to signal that he's lying -- I mean, saying "we don't have enough parts" is ALMOST believable (although I don't believe it: see below), but any notion of new Beach Boys recordings for Smile is laughably absurd. I bet if Al's retraction was televised, he would be blinking something in Morse code, like "I deeply regret speaking out of turn. Smile may still happen but I had no right to reveal that publicly. Please don't send Mike Love's lawyers to my house."
Still, this "news" and the accompanying hubbub really got me thinking about Smile again for the first time in years. I was pretty obsessed with it for awhile about a decade ago; I read the "Smile Bible" -- Domenic Priore's Look, Listen, Vibrate, Smile -- and dutifully made my own "SMiLE" CD that I labored over for months, cutting and pasting the bits together like a z-level Brian Wilson. I spent hours -- days, MONTHS -- religiously reading the Smile Shop message board and searching for clues to the puzzle. When Brian Wilson released his own "finished" version of Smile in 2004, it felt like closure to me, and I've listened to mostly his version since then. It's not perfect, but it's a terrific "what if" and a good listen in its own right. (Thankfully, he also released instrumental versions of several of the tracks, so I can swap out the ones where the new lyrics don't work for me.)
Anyway, Jardine's "nothing to see here, folks" quasi-denial has Smile die-hards giving up any hope for an official release of the original Beach Boys Smile sessions, but I choose to believe. I don't think anyone expects Brian (or anyone else) to go back to the 1966/67 tapes and "finish" Smile -- I think most fans just want a complete set of the finished PARTS so they can listen to them (and re-purpose them, if they are so inclined) in the best possible quality. When I went back to listening to my own SMiLE CD again this week, what struck me about it was how much of the raw material has already been officially released. The list of the absolutely crucial bits that remain unreleased is fairly small -- the "Holiday" backing track, "Barnyard," "The Old Master Painter," "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow," "Look," "Child Is Father Of The Man" and "I Wanna Be Around/Woodshop" and maybe a couple of other scraps are all we need to paint a fairly complete picture of what Brian might have assembled in 1967. (I'm leaving "The Elements" out of it, because I don't think that ever really progressed beyond the initial stages.)
Let's take a look at what HAS been officially released from the Smile sessions, between 1967 and 2001:
Good Vibrations (single) 3:38
Good Vibrations (Early Take) 3:03
Good Vibrations (Alternate Take) 3:34
Good Vibrations (Instrumental) 3:53
Good Vibrations (Sessions) 15:18
Good Vibrations (Various Sessions) 6:56
Good Vibrations (Stereo Track Sections) 3:13
Our Prayer (Smile version) 1:07
Our Prayer (1968 version) 1:10
Heroes And Villains (Demo) 2:28
Heroes And Villains (Intro) 0:35
Heroes And Villains (Track Only) 0:47
Heroes And Villains (Single Version) 3:38
Heroes And Villains (Stereo Single Version) 3:39
Heroes And Villains (Alternate Version) 2:56
Heroes And Villains (Sections) 6:40
Cabinessence 3:35
Cabinessence (Track Only) 3:59
Wind Chimes 2:32
Do You Like Worms 4:00
Wonderful 2:02
Vegetables 3:29
Vegetables Promo (Instrumental Section) 0:55
Vegetables (Stereo Extended Mix) 3:01
I Love To Say Da Da 1:34
Surf's Up (Track Only) 1:40
Surf's Up (Brian solo) 3:38
Surf's Up (BB version) 4:11
You're Welcome 1:10
Granted, there's a ton of repetitive stuff in here -- especially between "Good Vibrations" and "Heroes And Villains" -- but still, that's 10 relatively finished songs -- a LOT of officially released Smile-era music. The problem is, you have to buy TWELVE CDs to get all this -- the Good Vibrations box set (5 discs), the "Good Vibrations" anniversaary CD EP, the Smiley Smile / Wild Honey two-fer CD, the Friends / 20/20 two-fer CD, the Endless Harmony soundtrack, the Hawthorne, CA rarities set (2 discs) and the Sunflower / Surf's Up! two-fer CD. Even a catch-all single disc with all those 10 finished songs and the unreleased "essential" tracks listed above -- what I would call a "lazy" Smile release -- would be pretty awesome.
So when people say stuff like "never happen" and "pipe dream" I just don't buy it. Smile is the last valuable arrow in the Beach Boys quiver -- how many more greatest-hits sets can they release? They must know this, and they also have to know that the CD era will be over sooner rather than later -- like Bob Dylan with his mono box set (inspired by the stunning success of "The Beatles In Mono"), rockers pay attention to their peers, they see what they're making money off of, and they copy it. The Beach Boys copied the Beatles with their Anthology-like Endless Harmony and Hawthorne sets, so why not copy Dylan, who had one of the biggest hits of his recent career with Tell Tale Signs: Bootleg Series Volume 8? Remember when it seemed impossible -- unthinkable! -- that Bob would ever authorize the release of the Time Out Of Mind outtakes of "Mississippi" or "Red River Shore"? Well, they've been on my shelf for two years now. Remember when the Beatles swore they would NEVER authorize a CD release of the "butchered" Capitol U.S. LPs? Well, Volumes One and Two were released in 2004 and 2006, respectively.
I don't know if Capitol WILL release a Smile CD this year, but it's not SUCH a leap to believe that they COULD. The cat is already out of the bag -- most of the essential songs have been out for a decade or more. A multi-CD box set, with "completed" versions of songs and "Stack-O-Tracks" and "Stack-O-Vocals" and session highlights would be the ultimate, of course, and that's more of a stretch. That would take considerable work, and Brian would have to approve everything that was done to his songs. I could still see that happening too, someday -- after all, big lavish expensive box sets seems to be the one area where CDs are making money -- but if Capitol wanted to get something on the shelves this year, a single CD of Smile Sessions is totally do-able.
In the absence of a physical CD release, I think it would be amazing if Capitol and Brian just acknowledged the "Make Your Own Smile" community and put out a DVD full of WAV files and said "Have at it, kids." That would take all the pressure off Brian, his people, and Capitol to "finish" Smile and would allow it to live and grow indefinitely, in a really organic and beautiful way. Compiling your personal "SMiLE" is kind of a rite of passage for Smile nuts; it goes back to the days of cassette and stretches right into the present, with new versions "released" on CD and online all the time. I love listening to them, comparing them with my own, and debating who made the "best" or most creative choices and edits. All we really need from Brian is the "missing pieces" in great quality, and we'll take it from there. Let's hope something really special makes us smile in 2011.
"Capitol Records plans to issue a Beach Boys version of Smile sometime this summer to begin the celebration of The Beach Boys' anniversary. Smile is the Holy Grail for Beach Boys' fans, so it will be good."
Setting aside the fact that it was suspicious for a low-ranking Beach Boy -- an exiled one at that -- to make such a stunning announcement, Al further raised our hopes by invoking Smile's master painter himself, Brian Wilson:
"I don't have many details on it, although we didn't do any new recording. I'm happy to see it finally come out. Brian's changed his mind about releasing the material, but it was inevitable, wasn't it?" (Al chuckles)
The matter-of-fact nature of the statement, along with the naming of the only two parties who could guarantee such an event (Capitol Records and Brian Wilson), set off a firestorm of speculation and "now my life will be complete" testimonies among the internet Brianistas. Alas, because nothing good in Beach Boys fandom comes without pain and suffering -- the Beach Boys are kinda like the Mets to the Beatles' New York Yankees -- the powers that be allowed the rumor to simmer for a week or so, before (presumably) frog-marching Al back out to back-pedal: "I don't know if we even have enough parts to put it together or not. May have to record some more."
Now, this isn't exactly a DENIAL that we could still see a Smile release of some kind in 2011, but it was certainly weird enough to warrant further examination. Perhaps it was like when a hostage in a foreign country deliberately says something odd that would only resonate with his family, to signal that he's lying -- I mean, saying "we don't have enough parts" is ALMOST believable (although I don't believe it: see below), but any notion of new Beach Boys recordings for Smile is laughably absurd. I bet if Al's retraction was televised, he would be blinking something in Morse code, like "I deeply regret speaking out of turn. Smile may still happen but I had no right to reveal that publicly. Please don't send Mike Love's lawyers to my house."
Still, this "news" and the accompanying hubbub really got me thinking about Smile again for the first time in years. I was pretty obsessed with it for awhile about a decade ago; I read the "Smile Bible" -- Domenic Priore's Look, Listen, Vibrate, Smile -- and dutifully made my own "SMiLE" CD that I labored over for months, cutting and pasting the bits together like a z-level Brian Wilson. I spent hours -- days, MONTHS -- religiously reading the Smile Shop message board and searching for clues to the puzzle. When Brian Wilson released his own "finished" version of Smile in 2004, it felt like closure to me, and I've listened to mostly his version since then. It's not perfect, but it's a terrific "what if" and a good listen in its own right. (Thankfully, he also released instrumental versions of several of the tracks, so I can swap out the ones where the new lyrics don't work for me.)
Anyway, Jardine's "nothing to see here, folks" quasi-denial has Smile die-hards giving up any hope for an official release of the original Beach Boys Smile sessions, but I choose to believe. I don't think anyone expects Brian (or anyone else) to go back to the 1966/67 tapes and "finish" Smile -- I think most fans just want a complete set of the finished PARTS so they can listen to them (and re-purpose them, if they are so inclined) in the best possible quality. When I went back to listening to my own SMiLE CD again this week, what struck me about it was how much of the raw material has already been officially released. The list of the absolutely crucial bits that remain unreleased is fairly small -- the "Holiday" backing track, "Barnyard," "The Old Master Painter," "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow," "Look," "Child Is Father Of The Man" and "I Wanna Be Around/Woodshop" and maybe a couple of other scraps are all we need to paint a fairly complete picture of what Brian might have assembled in 1967. (I'm leaving "The Elements" out of it, because I don't think that ever really progressed beyond the initial stages.)
Let's take a look at what HAS been officially released from the Smile sessions, between 1967 and 2001:
Good Vibrations (single) 3:38
Good Vibrations (Early Take) 3:03
Good Vibrations (Alternate Take) 3:34
Good Vibrations (Instrumental) 3:53
Good Vibrations (Sessions) 15:18
Good Vibrations (Various Sessions) 6:56
Good Vibrations (Stereo Track Sections) 3:13
Our Prayer (Smile version) 1:07
Our Prayer (1968 version) 1:10
Heroes And Villains (Demo) 2:28
Heroes And Villains (Intro) 0:35
Heroes And Villains (Track Only) 0:47
Heroes And Villains (Single Version) 3:38
Heroes And Villains (Stereo Single Version) 3:39
Heroes And Villains (Alternate Version) 2:56
Heroes And Villains (Sections) 6:40
Cabinessence 3:35
Cabinessence (Track Only) 3:59
Wind Chimes 2:32
Do You Like Worms 4:00
Wonderful 2:02
Vegetables 3:29
Vegetables Promo (Instrumental Section) 0:55
Vegetables (Stereo Extended Mix) 3:01
I Love To Say Da Da 1:34
Surf's Up (Track Only) 1:40
Surf's Up (Brian solo) 3:38
Surf's Up (BB version) 4:11
You're Welcome 1:10
Granted, there's a ton of repetitive stuff in here -- especially between "Good Vibrations" and "Heroes And Villains" -- but still, that's 10 relatively finished songs -- a LOT of officially released Smile-era music. The problem is, you have to buy TWELVE CDs to get all this -- the Good Vibrations box set (5 discs), the "Good Vibrations" anniversaary CD EP, the Smiley Smile / Wild Honey two-fer CD, the Friends / 20/20 two-fer CD, the Endless Harmony soundtrack, the Hawthorne, CA rarities set (2 discs) and the Sunflower / Surf's Up! two-fer CD. Even a catch-all single disc with all those 10 finished songs and the unreleased "essential" tracks listed above -- what I would call a "lazy" Smile release -- would be pretty awesome.
So when people say stuff like "never happen" and "pipe dream" I just don't buy it. Smile is the last valuable arrow in the Beach Boys quiver -- how many more greatest-hits sets can they release? They must know this, and they also have to know that the CD era will be over sooner rather than later -- like Bob Dylan with his mono box set (inspired by the stunning success of "The Beatles In Mono"), rockers pay attention to their peers, they see what they're making money off of, and they copy it. The Beach Boys copied the Beatles with their Anthology-like Endless Harmony and Hawthorne sets, so why not copy Dylan, who had one of the biggest hits of his recent career with Tell Tale Signs: Bootleg Series Volume 8? Remember when it seemed impossible -- unthinkable! -- that Bob would ever authorize the release of the Time Out Of Mind outtakes of "Mississippi" or "Red River Shore"? Well, they've been on my shelf for two years now. Remember when the Beatles swore they would NEVER authorize a CD release of the "butchered" Capitol U.S. LPs? Well, Volumes One and Two were released in 2004 and 2006, respectively.
I don't know if Capitol WILL release a Smile CD this year, but it's not SUCH a leap to believe that they COULD. The cat is already out of the bag -- most of the essential songs have been out for a decade or more. A multi-CD box set, with "completed" versions of songs and "Stack-O-Tracks" and "Stack-O-Vocals" and session highlights would be the ultimate, of course, and that's more of a stretch. That would take considerable work, and Brian would have to approve everything that was done to his songs. I could still see that happening too, someday -- after all, big lavish expensive box sets seems to be the one area where CDs are making money -- but if Capitol wanted to get something on the shelves this year, a single CD of Smile Sessions is totally do-able.
In the absence of a physical CD release, I think it would be amazing if Capitol and Brian just acknowledged the "Make Your Own Smile" community and put out a DVD full of WAV files and said "Have at it, kids." That would take all the pressure off Brian, his people, and Capitol to "finish" Smile and would allow it to live and grow indefinitely, in a really organic and beautiful way. Compiling your personal "SMiLE" is kind of a rite of passage for Smile nuts; it goes back to the days of cassette and stretches right into the present, with new versions "released" on CD and online all the time. I love listening to them, comparing them with my own, and debating who made the "best" or most creative choices and edits. All we really need from Brian is the "missing pieces" in great quality, and we'll take it from there. Let's hope something really special makes us smile in 2011.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)