SMiLE! SMiLE! SMiLE!

[Gentle Giant]

I am one happy mofo. Just ordered a ticket to see Brian Wilson perform SMiLE at the Orpheum Theatre in Boston on October 14. I know there are those who think he shouldn't have done this, and that he hasn't got the vocal chops to cut it anymore, but this cat's my all-time #1 musical hero, and he never fails to move me. And so long as this sole surivior is alive, I'll be supporting him.

Brian Wilson to Perform His Lost Masterpiece "SMiLE" in the United States for the First Time on National Tour
Following the ecstatic reviews, ticket frenzy and extraordinary audience response that accompanied the historic first-ever performances of the ‘lost’ masterpiece, SMiLE in the U.K. and in Europe earlier this year, Brian Wilson will unveil his much anticipated work in the United States during a month-long nationwide concert tour. The only legitimate complete studio recording of SMiLE will be released on September 28 by Nonesuch Records to coincide with the United States concert tour.

The legendary writer, producer, arranger and performer of some of the most unforgettable and inspirational music in rock history, Wilson will perform with his extraordinary ten-piece band backed by a Swedish strings and brass octet.

Brian Wilson’s European debut performances of SMiLE resulted in rave reviews:

“Groundbreaking complexity and sophistication…[the concert] made it seem like the grandest of American symphonies and Wilson the national heir to Charles Ives.” - Michael Hann The Guardian (London)

“Nothing could prepare us…the music echoed everything from Philip Glass to Kurt Weill to Chuck Berry…Leonard Bernstein said Brian Wilson was one of the greatest composers of the 20th century. He was not wrong.” – Joe Muggs Daily Telegraph (London)

“Wilson immediately transports listeners onto a transcendent plane…the premiere of SMiLE clearly transformed the vast majority of the nearly 3,000 fans on hand who gave Wilson a five-minute ovation at the end.” - Randy Lewis Los Angeles Times

9/30/04 Orpheum Theatre Minneapolis, MN
10/01/04 Overture Hall Madison, WI
10/02/04 Auditorium Theatre Chicago, IL
10/04/04 Michigan Theatre Ann Arbor, MI
10/06/04 Massey Hall Toronto, ONT
10/07/04 Music Hall Cleveland, OH
10/08/04 Keswick Theatre Philadelphia, PA
10/10/04 Warner Theatare Washington, DC
10/12/04 Carnegie Hall New York, NY
10/13/04 Carnegie Hall New York, NY
10/14/04 The Orpheum Theatre Boston, MA
10/16/04 Chastain Park Ampitheatre Atlanta, GA
10/18/04 Knight Center for the Performing Arts Melbourne, FL
10/20/04 Mizner Amphitheatre Boca Raton, FL
10/21/04 Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center Tampa, FL
10/23/04 Verizon Wireless Theatre Houston, TX
10/24/04 The Backyard Austin, TX
10/25/04 Nokia Theatre at Grand Prairie Dallas, TX
10/27/04 Paramount Theatre Denver, CO
10/29/04 Pala Events Center Pala, CA
11/03/04 Walt Disney Concert Hall Los Angeles, CA
All dates are subject to change. Additional dates to be announced.


Brian Wilson Readies All-New Recording Of Legendary "SMiLE"
Long-awaited Masterpiece to be Released by Nonesuch Records on September 28
Thirty-seven years after its anticipated release, an all-new studio recording of SMiLE - often referred to as the most famous unreleased album in history - will be made available worldwide by Nonesuch Records on September 28, 2004. SMiLE will be produced by Brian Wilson and will feature the ten-member band that has supported him on tour over the past five years, augmented by The Stockholm Strings and Horns.

Wilson and lyricist Van Dyke Parks, who collaborated on the original SMiLE session in 1966-67, listened together to the 37-year old tapes in November 2003, following Brian's announcement of his intention to complete and perform SMiLE in a series of concerts in London. Acting as Brian and Van Dyke’s musical secretary, Darian Sahanaja, of Wilson's touring band, began preparing the music for performance. This led to Wilson and Parks creating new material to make the concerts possible.

Track Listing:
1. Our Prayer / Gee
2. Heroes and Villains
3. Roll Plymouth Rock
4. Barnyard
5. Old Master Painter / You Are My Sunshine
6. Cabin Essence

7. Wonderful
8. Song For Children
9. Child Is Father of the Man
10. Surf's Up

11. I'm In Great Shape / I Wanna Be Around / Workshop
12. Vega-Tables
13. On a Holiday
14. Wind Chimes
15. Mrs. O'Leary's Cow
16. In Blue Hawaii
17. Good Vibrations

Limited Edition Single for SMiLE coming to the UK
A limited edition 7" and download single from the SMiLE, 'Wonderful' b/w 'Wind Chimes', will be released*in the UK on September 20 through Must Destroy/Nonesuch Records.*The 7" vinyl will be released in 3 different colour variations and will be limited to just 5000 copies for the whole world.*The catalogue numbers are MDA001X (green), MDA001XX (blue), and MDA001XXX (yellow).*This single is only available through UK retailers but fans outside the UK can pre-order a copy now through *www.amazon.co.uk**or *www.hmv.co.uk.*

Showtime to Air Brian Wilson Smile Special October 5th
Showtime announced the premier of "Beautiful Dreamer: Brian Wilson and The Story of Smile, a feature length documentary chronicling the most famous unreleased album in music history. The film, directed by David Leaf, will air on Showtime, October 5th at 9PM (ET).

The documentary features exclusive interviews with the album's key participants, including Wilson, Van Dyke Parks, studio musicians Carol Kaye and Hal Blaine, Brian's songwriting peers Burt Bacharach and Jimmy Webb and rock music legends Sir George Martin and Roger Daltrey.*Other interviews feature commentary from Elvis Costello, Jeff Bridges, Rob Reiner and many more.

The film will also contain rare archival material including footage from Wilson's legendary performance of "Surf's Up" on Leonard Bernstein's 1967 American television special and the only known color photos from the Smile sessions.

Brian and Melinda Wilson Interview with Larry King to air August 20 on CNN
Brian and Melinda Wilson will the sole guests on the Larry King show on Friday, August 20. Perhaps the most extensive interview of his career, transcripts of the show will also be made available online for those unable to access CNN.


Forgive the exuberance, but this is lifetime stuff for me. This is nearly three decades of being a major Beach Boys nut coming to a head. All those years being teased for liking their music when they were so unhip. Now all the hot young bands profess their devotion to Brian. My fidelity has paid off. And...I...am...psyched!

[Root Doctor]

You should check out the southwest Louisiana-influenced take of "Heroes and Villains" on Geraint Watkins' new Yep Roc CD, "Dial "W" for Watkins." Outstanding!

[jazzy mary]

Wow, thabnks for posting that, GG. I think I'll try to get a ticket for one of the Carnegie Hall dates.

[Gentle Giant]

Personal email query from me to Al Kooper, an avowed Brian Wilson fan who had the honor of hearing tapes of Pet Sounds in Wilson's home before the album was released:

"I'd be interested in your take on the Smile tracks, and what the buzz was back in the day about them."

His reply:
"It was an outrageously ambitous masterpiece only marred by paranoia and the lack of cooperation from fellow BBs. It would have shut the Fabs up - I'll tell ya that...."

[Gentle Giant]

CAROL KAYE SMiLES
by John Lane

The following interview was conducted on June 25, 1999. Carol Kaye, famous session musician who played with The Wrecking Crew on many Beach Boys albums, was kind enough to answer some questions about SMiLE.

JOHN: Given the 30-plus years that have lapsed since Brian set to work on & abandoned SMILE, do you feel that the mythology surrounding the album has grown to a ridiculous extent? Or is it justified?

CAROL: It's justified...it was great music, and people now recognize that and have for some time. It was better than the Pet Sounds lp, Brian had just grown very fast in his talents.

JOHN: When you were made aware that SMILE was not going to come out, were you surprised by the outcome or did it seem like an inevitable result?

CAROL: Studio musicians were recording around the clock for 100s of artists...none of us had time (nor the inclination) to check to see what was happening with the music we recorded for Brian. We assumed it would be edited and put out like the other recordings were. I knew this was something very special but while recording 12-16 or more hours a day back then, there simply wasn't any time to even think, let along check to see what was happening. I had a family to raise also.

JOHN: For a long time, certain people have grabbed hold of the stories of the "Fire" sessions as being somewhat symbolic of the whole disintegration of SMILE, what with the tales of burning firewood in a bucket & firehats being worn. Given what we know to be true (that Brian was indeed very professional), was there actually a 'wild' session like this or has the myth eclipsed the truth?

CAROL: Well Lyle Ritz was the only one of us "wild enough" to wear the fire hat. Yes, he had fire-hats on session at Gold Star. It didn't make sense, we just recorded as we usually did.

I was knocked out by one thing tho'....the music Brian wrote made the cellos sound like real fire-engines, amazing! And Brian paid us doubles for pounding wood, Lyle Ritz had a jack-hammer, I was holding a board for Gene Estes to hammer, etc....we sort of enjoyed that, a very different kind of recording session. That's as "wild" as we got.

Sorry, studio musicians are not "wild" as some people sort of want to believe, we're all a bunch of squares, loaded on COFFEE.

JOHN: Given your insight into Brian's personality, what do you perceive as his dominating feeling about SMILE? e.g. Regret? Fear? Sadness?

CAROL: NO WAY! He had fun with recording AT ALL TIMES! He was masterful, totally at ease being a producer, knew exactly what he was doing and totally enjoyed it. A view totally IGNORED on the recent A&E documentary....which did NOT catch that great side of Brian at all.

Brian has a great sense of humor too, will put people "on" at the drop of a hat. And btw, I NEVER EVER saw Brian being a "wimp" at all, just the opposite.

JOHN: What is your heartfelt opinion about the SMILE music with 30+ years history behind it?

CAROL: It's great. But in pieces. I think Brian should go back and put it together but it's his life, and whatever he decides, that's really up to him isn't it? It's his life in music and others would love to be a "part" of that special thing between Brian and his music, and thank God he's up and going for the past few years again.

I do hope that other people will not make another dark thing about his life......that's so far from the person that Brian really is and was.
They should capture the joy that is Brian, the joy he has when producing in the studios.

[Gentle Giant]

!

[Ennis Snavely]

Originally Posted by Gentle Giant

!

A happy guy...

[Root Doctor]

Jason, did you catch Brian Wilson on Larry King's show a couple of weeks ago? Brian seemed a hell of a lot sharper than King, which is setting the bar pretty low, I realize, but still...

[Mingus]

Has got to be better than the Beach Boys this week at the Champlain Valley Fair!

(again, setting the bar fairly low........)

[Chris D]

He's bringing the show here. Hell if I'm paying 50 semolians to sit in the back of the balcony.

[Alastair]

75 bucks for row RR?

I paid less than that in total to see three main shows and four "outside" shows at AMPLIFY: addition.

[Gentle Giant]

Originally Posted by Root Doctor

Jason, did you catch Brian Wilson on Larry King's show a couple of weeks ago? Brian seemed a hell of a lot sharper than King, which is setting the bar pretty low, I realize, but still...

I read a transcript of the show. King's a fucking idiot. If he'd done 30 minutes of research before the show, he'd only have had two questions to ask. He couldn't have had less of a clue if he was interviewing Brotzmann.

OTOH, I though Melinda acquitted herself well. As a lifelong Brian fan, I find it hard to trust that anyone close to Brian truly has his best interests in mind. And while it's great to have Brian touring so much, she obviously benefits from it as well. But she seems not only supportive but knowledgeable about his condition, and able to advocate for him (and gently correct him) pretty effectively. I fell better about her, anyway.

[Gentle Giant]

Originally Posted by Alastair

75 bucks for row RR?

I paid less than that in total to see three main shows and four "outside" shows at AMPLIFY: addition.

In this venue, RR is a damn fine seat. Also, you have to consider that he's got a 10-piece band plus a string section in tow.

Plus, he's Brian-frickin'-Wilson.

[Gentle Giant]

Too long to post, but a very comprehensive and interesting article on Brian and Smile at, of all places, the American Heritage website.

[Gentle Giant]

First of all, I want to make it clear that it bothers me not a whit if I'm the only one posting here. This is historic shit and a momentous event in my life as a music fan, so I'm going to talk about it.

There's a website for the album, where you can currently hear six complete tracks, comprising one of the three movements of which Smile is composed. To hear them, you have to register, but all you have to give is your email address, no other personal information.

The six tracks are:

Our Prayer/Gee
Heroes and Villains
Roll Plymouth Rock
Barnyard
Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine
Cabin Essence


For many people, the only tune here that's familiar is H&V, although as anyone who owns the BB boxed set or is hip to the Smile saga knows, the officially released version of H&V back in 1967 was an abridgement of various sections and versions that were being developed. The recording on the current Smile is apparently what was intended and it's marvelous.

The kicker is, the more people who register at the website to hear these tracks, the more tracks will be released. So if you're curious and can't wait for the album release date of 9/28, or aren't sure if you plan to buy it all, I recommend you partake of the free tasting.

Six complete SMiLE tracks!!!!!!

Edit: I might add, for those who look at the re-recording of these tracks with a jaundiced eye, that the new version of Cabin Essence, one my of favorite Smile tracks and a highly complex one at that, is simply uncanny. Compare it to the officially released version and it totally stands up.

[Gentle Giant]

For those who don't wish to register, here is the essay accompanying the tracks:


"Our Smile dream has come true."

Those were Brian Wilson's words as he rode the backstage elevator down to the stage door, down from the incredible high we were all riding an hour after the ecstatic standing ovation that had greeted the world premiere of Smile at London's Royal Festival Hall February 20, 2004. Truth is, Brian's words were ones nobody really thought we'd ever hear...

The Smile dream Brian was referring to was born in the summer of 1966, when Brian and his visionary partner, Smile lyricist Van Dyke Parks, first began working together. In response to the musical British Invasion, their desire was to bring forth something very American and in it's humor and wide ranging subject matter, to create something radically different from the music being made by their contemporaries.

In addition to presenting a new way popular music might be written and recorded, they wanted to prove that rock music could be art. By combining Brian's rapidly evolving compositional genius with Parks's vividly evocative if sometimes abstract poetry, they collaborated on a body of work that became the most legendary, unfinished, unreleased album in history.

To remind you of the cultural context of this creation, when Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks wrote the songs for Smile, the then-current Beatles' album was Revolver. Lyndon Johnson was President of the United States, Robert Kennedy was a U.S. Senator, Rev. Martin Luther King was fighting for civil rights and Brian's boyhood hero, Mickey Mantle, was still playing baseball for the New York Yankees. I think it's fair to say that given how much the world has changed since then, Smile is one of the longest-delayed "dreams come true" in history.

In fact, to find a similar moment in American music, we might go back to one of Brian's musical heroes. When George Gershwin combined popular music, ragtime and the concerto, the result was "Rhapsody In Blue." Brian has no formal musical training; he doesn't write in classical forms. But very early on, his ear was drawn to Gershwin's melodic and rhythmically joyous "Rhapsody" and he absorbed the rich harmonic complexities of vocal groups such as the Four Freshmen. Then, Brian took those jazz harmonies and pop stylings, added rock rhythms and instrumentation, and in his early twenties, co-wrote, arranged and produced a slew of classic Beach Boys hits.

In 1966, in a matter of just months, his lightning fast growth and restless ambition took him from the bittersweet beauty of Pet Sounds to the groundbreaking "Good Vibrations" (the Beach Boys' first million-selling number one single) and then to Smile. Taking everything he knew and turning it upside down, this inspired 24-year old invented something that had never been heard before in the rock world. Call it "modular music"-composed, arranged and recorded in such a way as to combine his melodic gifts and his instinctive use of dynamics to inform the music he wrote with an emotional depth that is for the ages.

The idea that Smile was going to be important began to emerge publicly in the fall of 1966, in the wake of Pet Sounds and "Good Vibrations", and it was the product of the classy public relations genius and sheer writing talent of the late Derek Taylor. It was Derek who believed, who began to spread the word from Los Angeles to London that Brian Wilson was back in the studio, creating a new batch of mind-blowing musical experiments.

That same fall, when Brian was filmed performing the Smile song "Surf's Up," solo at the piano, for a Leonard Bernstein-hosted CBS News special ("Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution"), it was high-brow confirmation from the most important American maestro that something of true consequence was happening at Brian Wilson's piano.

For those who were hip enough to be aware of Smile back then, the Smile dream didn't come true. Brian's breathtakingly beautiful original tapes were shelved, and instead, Smiley Smile appeared in its place. That was the "death knell," but it was also the beginning of the Smile legend, which was originally fueled by journalistic mythmakers such as Tom Nolan, Jules Siegel (whose Cheetah magazine article just might be the touchstone story in the creation of the Smile fantasia), and the lengthy David Anderle-Paul Williams Crawdaddy magazine conversations which gave voice to the hopes and frustrations of those who had witnessed Smile, understood its enormous promise and still hoped that Brian might finish it soon.

The world-at-large could hear what the abandonment of Smile had cost when on a late '60s Beach Boys album (20-20), original full-length Smile sessions recordings ("Our Prayer" and "Cabin Essence") were released. The feeling of what had been lost was only enhanced by their indescribable beauty and originality.

Within the industry, and with a few die-hard fans, Smile remained a phantom, a cruel tease of lost promise.But the Smile dream didn't go away. When the Beach Boys signed a multi-album contract with Warner Brothers Records in 1970, part of the impetus behind the deal was that Warners wanted Smile. So did anybody who'd ever heard it or heard of it. Everybody had a while to wait.

In the fall of 2003, over 37 years from the moment they had first articulated their original vision, Brian and Van Dyke finished Smile. Then, Brian and his remarkable band rehearsed for months, learning Brian's original arrangements in their newly completed sequence. The live presentation of Smile to London audiences (filled with fans who had come from all over the planet) was met by prolonged standing ovations and tremendous critical acclaim. All expectations had been exceeded and watching those shows, the years of pain and disappointment seemed to melt away as the overpowering beauty of Smile washed over us.

Once the tour was over, Brian and the band headed for the studio to record Smile. As engineer Mark Linett explains, "For this album, Brian went back to his original modular approach, recording most of the pieces separately so that each section of a song would have its own unique sound and texture. Just as he did in '66-67, the master tracks were recorded with everyone, including the strings and horns, playing live, in a relatively small studio-in this case, Studio One at Sunset Sound in Hollywood." (Historical note: Studio One, with its original echo chamber intact, was one of the studios Brian used for a number of the original "Good Vibrations" and "Heroes and Villains" sessions).

"Because of the demands of the live shows, there were certain things that just couldn't be played or sung onstage quite the way Brian had originally envisioned them. For the studio version of Smile, Brian and the band eliminated some of the flourishes that were designed just for live performance and substantially re-worked the instrumental arrangements." (Production note: For the vocals, Brian and the band recorded their harmonies using an original 'tube' console identical to the one Brian and the Beach Boys had used at Western Studio 3 throughout the 1960s).

I was fortunate enough to visit the studio for a number of days during the making of this album, and I can't even begin to describe how surreal an experience it was to watch as this legendary music was finally being recorded for all to hear. Standing in the control room, listening as this music was played in a studio setting, I was very aware of the history I was witnessing. Still, even having seen it, it seems impossible to write, "This is Smile."

Does Smile really exist?

For those who have waited for this moment forever, it never seemed possible that Brian would summon the sheer audacity it would take to finish and record this album. For decades, asking him about Smile would evoke stony silence or Brian would say, "It's inappropriate music." And yet, here it is.

The wait is over. So, on behalf of all of us who have been dreaming of this moment, "Thank you, Brian." Thank you for being so brave, for casting aside your demons and confronting the music that has been a giant question mark for all of these years. And thank you for finishing it so brilliantly.

For those who don't know the entire drama, you might rightly ask, "Is this Smile thing really such a big deal?" A fair question and a lengthy re-telling of the history and mystery of the original Smile era might convince you that Smile matters. Or it might not.

Cast all those questions aside; the best thing we can do is listen to this music without the burden of history. Just as Brian did when he composed Smile over thirty-seven years ago, rejoice in the glory of the music itself. And remember, just as it was back in 1966, Brian's goal is simple. This music was created by him not to cause pressure, but to ease it. He believed then and still believes in the spiritual power of laughter. Very simply, Brian wrote this music to make us Smile. Eternally.

-David Leaf

Award winning writer/producer David Leaf is the author of The Beach Boys & the California Myth and the director of the documentary Beautiful Dreamer: The Story of Smile.

[groover]

The Smile Tour is coming to my area on October 8th at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside, PA, but I'm not currently planning to attend. I just got tickets for the Nektar/Caravan show there on September 24th, and personally, I'm more excited about that. I don't think Smile is sold out at the Keswick yet, so I might still go if some of my friends are interested, but otherwise, I'll wait for the DVD. Enjoy, GG!

P.S. "Cabin Essence" is on the Jazz Portrait of Brian Wilson album. Either it was originally written as a very short piece or it's an abbreviated version, but it's enough to get the sense of a very attractive melody.

[Gentle Giant]

Originally Posted by groover

The Smile Tour is coming to my area on October 8th at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside, PA, but I'm not currently planning to attend. I just got tickets for the Nektar/Caravan show there on September 24th, and personally, I'm more excited about that. I don't think Smile is sold out at the Keswick yet, so I might still go if some of my friends are interested, but otherwise, I'll wait for the DVD. Enjoy, GG!

P.S. "Cabin Essence" is on the Jazz Portrait of Brian Wilson album. Either it was originally written as a very short piece or it's an abbreviated version, but it's enough to get the sense of a very attractive melody.

I'm seeing Nektar tomorrow night! For some reason, Caravan bagged on the Boston date, so it's just Nektar. But I've never seen them live, so I'm definitely pumped up for it.

[Gentle Giant]

Just want to report that the Smile website has just posted four more complete tracks: "Wonderful" (featured in Don Was' great documentary, Brian Wilson: I Just Wasn't Made For These Times), "Song For Children", "Child Is the Father of the Man" (a title used that same year - 1967 - as the title for the first BS&T album; I know for a fact that Al Kooper heard some of Smile at the time, but he's never admitted copping the title), and one of the most brilliant compositions of the rock era, "Surf's Up". Bliss!

www.smilethealbum.com

[moneyp]

I'll try to catch him in L.A.

Does his creepy psychiatrist loom over his shoulder during performances?

[Enforcer]

Drove downtown in the rain
Nine-thirty on a Tuesday night
Just to check out the late-night record shop
Call it impulsive, call it compulsive, call it insane
When I'm surrounded I just can't stop

It's a matter of instinct, It's a matter of conditioning,
It's a matter of fact
You can call me Pavlov's dog
Ring a bell and I'll salivate -- how'd you like that
Dr. Landy tell me you're not just a pedagogue
'Cause right now I'm

Lying in bed just like Brian Wilson did
Well I'm lying in bed just like Brian Wilson did

So I'm lying here
Just staring at the ceiling tiles
And I'm thinking about what to think about
Just listening and relistening to Smiley Smile
And I'm wondering if this is some kind of creative drought
Because I'm

Lying in bed just like Brian Wilson did
Well I'm lying in bed just like Brian Wilson did

And if you want to find me I'll be
Out in the sandbox
Wondering where all the hell all the
Love has gone
Playing my guitar and building castles in the sun
And singing "Fun Fun Fun"

Lying in bed just like Brian Wilson did
Well I'm lying in bed just like Brian Wilson did

I had a dream
That I was three hundred pounds
And though I was very heavy
I floated till I couldn't see the ground
I floated till I couldn't see the ground
Somebody help me, I couldn't see the ground
Somebody help me, I couldn't see the ground
Somebody help me because I'm

Lying in bed just like Brian Wilson did
Well I'm lying in bed just like Brian Wilson did

Drove downtown in the rain
Nine-thirty on a Tuesday night
Just to check out the late-night record shop
Call it impulsive call it compulsive call it insane
When I'm surrounded I just can't stop

[Chris D]

Originally Posted by mone peterson

I'll try to catch him in L.A.

Does his creepy psychiatrist loom over his shoulder during performances?

That guy's been gone for a while.

[Jazzooo]

Giant, I am so excited for you! I'm also bummed because one of those dates (the Pala, CA), is only 20 minutes from my house---but we'll be in Mexico on that date.

I know I wasn't crazy about his new solo album, but I am right there with you in my love and respect for his genius, and everything I've heard from the Smile sessions has been amazing. I can't wait to get the new CD.

[Gentle Giant]

While Landy was indeed creepy and highly unethical, I give him his props for keeping Brian alive when he was probably just one binge shy of becoming a statistic, helping him get physically fit, getting him medicated, and getting back him back to doing what he was put on earth to do.

[Gentle Giant]

With just one week to go until SMiLE is officially released, the Smile website now includes all the tracks, complete for your free listening pleasure.

The new tracks are:

• I'm in Great Shape/I Wanna Be Around (Brian channels Tony Bennett!)/Workshop

• Vega-Tables (the original featured Paul McCartney chompin' on carrots)

• On a Holiday

• Wind Chimes

• Mrs. O'Leary's Cow (this is the infamous "fire" segment that put Brian over the edge when a series of small fires broke out in LA during recording sessions)

• In Blue Hawaii (this includes background vox that showed up on Sunflower's "Cool Cool Water")

• Good Vibrations*

*Good Vibrations may come as something of a shock on first listen, and not just because hearing Brian sing lead in 2004 is quite a far cry from Carl Wilson singing lead in 1966. This version features Van Dyke Parks' original lyrics (the familiar version's lyrics were written by Mike Love). When listening both to Good Vibes and Heroes & Villains - the two most well-known songs - on this release of Smile, it's important to note that the two tunes we've come to know and love were just singles put out while Brian was still tooling with the album as a whole. Those versions were never intended to be definitive (although, of course, by now they are). When Smiley Smile was released from the ashes of Smile's abortion, the only finished mixes were the singles and so those tunes have been enshrined in their simplest and shortest contexts. While the "new" versions of these tunes (and Surf's Up, for that matter) will never replace the originals, they are illustrative of the historical importance and value of this release.

www.smilethealbum.com

[Gentle Giant]

Just one more day!

Read Rolling Stone's 5-star review:

Never mind Pet Sounds. Good record, but a totem. That leaves three great Beach Boys albums. First comes a fun-fun-fun best-of: With the canonical Endless Summer deleted, settle for 2003's longer, less pristine Sounds of Summer. The other two are quickies that fit neatly on one must-own CD: Buy Smiley Smile/Wild Honey while EMI lets you.

Smiley Smile and Wild Honey get respect now, but in 1967 they peeved hard-core Pet Sounds fans, who were waiting gape-mouthed for Smile, described by those in the know as the American Sgt. Pepper -- proof that our Bea-boys belonged in the same league as their Bea-boys. But Brian went bonkers, Mike Love got busy, and we ended up with only "Good Vibrations" and "Heroes and Villains" -- stopgap singles that made it onto the belittlingly titled Smiley Smile -- and dribs and drabs thereafter.

Only you know what happened? Brian Wilson survived his saner brothers and rebuilt his career, which the completely rerecorded SMiLE is supposed to crown. Since much of Wilson's 2004 Gettin' In Over My Head could have been sung from a crypt, this seemed like a terrible idea. Instead, it's a triumph.

SMiLE began as a concert concept for Wilson's expert alt- rock road band, which by 2002 had exhausted Pet Sounds. Never completed, SMile existed only as a jumble of alternate versions, song fragments and ill-cataloged tapes. Sifting through these was a collaborator as crucial as lyricist Van Dyke Parks: keyboard player, harmony vocalist and "musical secretary" Darian Sahanaja. With Sahanaja and Parks jogging his memory, Wilson revised and composed until the best pieces formed a forty-seven-minute whole that started shortly before "Heroes and Villains" and climaxed with "Good Vibrations." While no symphony, it cohered and flowed. The sparer, simpler recorded version follows the pattern of the ecstatically reviewed live performances. Anchored by deft quotes and thematic repetitions, SMiLE is beautiful and funny, goofily grand. It's looser and messier than Sgt. Pepper and, one suspects, always would have been. But its sui generis Americanism counterbalances its paucity of classic pop songs. Not in the same league -- just ready to play a World Series.

Although Parks is a well-traveled arranger who must have left some marks on Wilson's music during their hash-fueled 1966-67 brainstorming sessions, his words do the talking. They're poetic in a manner Wilson has no gift for: now idiomatic, now archaic, now obscure, pervaded by images of fleeting youth and a frontier that stretches to Hawaii. Although stoned confusion and mild pastoral pessimism are endemic, the world they evoke is as benign as a day at the beach - yet less simplistic (and deceptive) than the Beach Boys' fantasies of eternal Southern California teendom. In this the lyrics are of a piece with the jokey songlets of Smiley Smile, where five SmiLE titles first surfaced, and the good-natured rock & roll recidivism of Wild Honey. What elevates them into something approaching a utopian vision is Wilson's orchestrations: brief bridge melodies, youthful harmonies more precise and uplifting now than when executed by actually existing callow people and an enthralling profusion of instrumental colors. Trombone, timpani, theremin and tenor sax brush by and disappear; a banjo shows its head; strings vibe around; woodwinds establish unexpected moods and pipe down.

That the pros who surround Wilson are up to all of this is gratifying but not startling. What the auteur himself had in him was more questionable. And that's the central miracle of this gift of music. Wilson's voice has deepened and coarsened irreparably. Although he hits the notes, he can't convey the innocence SMiLE's content seems to demand. But he can convey commitment and belief -- belief that his young bonkers self composed a work that captured possibilities now nearly lost to history. SMiLE proves that those possibilities are still worth pursuing.

ROBERT CHRISTGAU


See a trailer for the Showtime special, which airs Tuesday, October 5:
http://www.sho.com/site/schedules/pr...799&seriesid=0

[Gentle Giant]

TODAY IS THE DAY!!!!!!!

It's killing me that I don't have it yet, but I'm planning to go downtown during lunch to pick it up, even though the remnants of Jeanne are splashing down outside.

4.5 stars on AMG:

Review by John Bush

The white whale of '60s record-making, the Beach Boys' aborted SMiLE album gradually gained a legend that not only inflated its importance and its complexity, but gave credence to an odd notion — that completing it, then or ever, was impossible. In truth, SMiLE should have been released and forgotten, reissued and reappraised, and finally remastered for the digital era and ushered into the rock canon ever since Brian Wilson halted work on it in May 1967 (after an exhausting 85 recording sessions). Instead, it languished in the vaults and remained the perfect record — perfect, of course, because it had never been finished. Reports that the recording of "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" had caused a nearby building to burn down and whispers of "inappropriate music" gave it the character of a monster, one that cursed all those who approached it and claimed the heart and mind of its closest participant. Wilson's love of "feels" — short passages of cyclical music that could be overdubbed and rearranged countless times — had made 1966's "Good Vibrations" the ultimate pocket symphony, but had also quickly spiralled into the instability that consumed him during its follow-up, "Heroes and Villains," projected to be the centerpiece of SMiLE.

Happily, a new recording of SMiLE by Brian Wilson reveals the record as nothing more or less than a jaunty epic of psychedelic Americana, a rambling and discursive, playful and affectionate series of song cycles. Infectious and hummable, to be sure, and a remarkably unified, irresistible piece of pop music, but no musical watershed on par with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band or Wilson's masterpiece, Pet Sounds. For the first time ever, the program for SMiLE was compiled, after Brian Wilson listened to the original recordings with his musical midwife, Darian Sahanaja of the Wondermints (which has long functioned as Wilson's live backing band), and worked them into a live show, then an album recording.

The work that evolved divides into three sections: SMiLE begins with Americana, which takes the dream of continental expansion from the old Spanish town saga of "Heroes and Villains" to the landing at Plymouth Rock and the end of the frontier at Hawaii; it continues with a Cycle of Life that progresses from the virginal grace of "Wonderful" to the simultaneous peak and decline of the creative life on "Surf's Up"; and ends with an environmental cycle called The Elements, which includes "Vega-Tables," (Earth), "Wind Chimes" (Air), "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" (Fire), and "In Blue Hawaii" (Water).

Since Wilson himself was previously the most opposed to SMiLE appearing in any form, it's a considerable shock that this new recording justifies even half of the promise that fans had attached to it. Everything that Wilson and his band could control sounds nearly perfect. Every instrument, every note, and every intonation is nearly identical to the late-'60s tapes; one has to wonder whether vintage hand tools weren't acquired for "Workshop" and Paul McCartney wasn't flown in to add chewing noises to "Vega-Tables." (The players did, however, book time at one of Brian's old haunts, Sunset Sound, and utilized a '60s tube console to record their vocals.) No, the harmonies here aren't the Beach Boys' harmonies, and Brian's vocals aren't the vocals he was capable of 37 years ago, but they're excellent and (best of all) never distracting. Aside from the technical acumen on display, Wilson has also, amazingly, found a home — the proper home — for all of the brilliant instrumental snippets that lent the greatest part of the mystery to the unreleased SMiLE. Van Dyke Parks' new (or newly heard) lyrics fit into these compositions, and the work as a whole, like hand in glove. (The former instrumentals include "Barnyard"; "Holiday," which is here called "On a Holiday"; "Look," which is now "Song for Children"; and "I Love to Say Da-Da," which is now part of "In Blue Hawaii.")

Most surprisingly, nearly all of this thematic unity was accomplished by merely reworking the original material already on tape, which proves that Wilson was never very far from finishing SMiLE in 1967. (It's very likely that the gulf was psychological; SMiLE had few supporters among Brian's closest friends and family.) Hopefully, Capitol is readying a Smile Sessions box set to release all of the vintage material, but it's clear that nothing they dig up from the vaults will be able to match the unity displayed by this attractive new recording of SMiLE. It's up to the standards of anyone who's ever scoured the bootlegs to create a SMiLE tape, and it beats them all, which is the highest compliment. So, if you've never been burdened with a friend's SMiLE tape before, count yourself lucky that Brian Wilson's is the first you'll hear. And if you have heard a few, prepare to listen to them much less religiously.

[Gentle Giant]

My Life Is Now Complete!

[Chris D]

Originally Posted by Gentle Giant

My Life Is Now Complete!

And it only cost, what, $16.98 to do it?

[Gentle Giant]

Originally Posted by Chris D

And it only cost, what, $16.98 to do it?

With tax, it was $16.79. What can I say, I'm a cheap date.

The packaging is so beautiful I'm almost afraid to touch it.

But I must....