Author Mark Dillon (Fifty Sides of The Beach Boys), in discussion with the Pray for Surf blog's Phil Miglioratti, plays the favorite game of the group's fans: reconstructing the 1967 SMiLE album.
Like many, Dillon believes that, if finished, the record would have been the band's pinnacle. Yes, Brian Wilson recorded a splendid version of SMiLE in 2004, but this was a revisionist take on what the original would have been.
Dillon has come up with a fresh theory regarding the track selection and sequencing for the 1967 release, taking into account the time restrictions of LPs and subtle sonic and verbal linking clues. And he proposes answers to those nagging questions: where would “Good Vibrations” have fit in and what track would have actually closed this thing?
{ Rare Beach Boys videos @ www.YouTube.com/BB45s }
Really enjoyed this -- thanks, Mark & Phil, for doing it!
ReplyDeleteHere are my thoughts, which I jotted down while listening.
-Placing Worms and Cabin next to each other does indeed make sense. The Jules Siegel article (p. 86 of Look Listen Vibrate Smile) describes Brian playing some acetates to guests at a dinner party (circa October '66) in this order: Worms verse, Bicycle Rider, Cabin Essence tag, Cabin Essence chorus, Barnyard, Bicycle Rider. This might explain why Barnyard was put between Worms and Cabin on Brian Wilson Presents Smile.
-Mark, Do you think Mrs. O'Leary's Cow should use the "organ waltz" intro? That piece was apparently supposed to be an intro to Heroes when it was recorded, and I've heard it suggested that using it as the intro to Fire was a latter-day idea.
-Any thoughts on I Wanna Be Around/Friday Night? I think it would work either between Shape and Vega-Tables, as on BWPS, or following Mrs. O'Leary's Cow, as per Carol Kaye's comments about "rebuilding after the fire."
By the way, does anyone have a link to David Beard's playlist from last year? I tried searching Facebook but couldn't find it.
https://vimeo.com/291674398
ReplyDeleteMaybe you're right about lenght.
But one of the reason smile failed was for its being out of time. For technical editing and assembling and maybe (i said) lenght.
"What smile would have been" means talking about something that don't exist in the form music was thought at the time.
So if we play the game to build something that didn't exist we can say that there was also a new lenght experiment. The gap for brian was this.
In my version i worked on fluid flowing into the other. In musical feelings. And the mesning of words.
This is my version
:)
How could he not remember what that 7 minute of HV sounded like, surely he can remember what sequence the sections were ??
ReplyDelete