The Beach Boys Smile Album To Finally Be Released As "The Smile Sessions"

THE BEACH BOYS’ LEGENDARY ‘SMiLE’ ALBUM SESSIONS TO BE RELEASED THIS YEAR BY CAPITOL/EMI

Never-Before-Released Original 1966-’67 Album Sessions Compiled for 2CD and Digital Packages and Deluxe, Limited Edition Box Set

Hollywood, California - March 14, 2011 – Between the summer of 1966 and early 1967, The Beach Boys recorded, in several sessions, a bounty of songs and drafts for an album, SMiLE, that was intended to follow the band’s 1966 masterpiece, Pet Sounds. The sessions were ultimately shelved, and The Beach Boys’ SMiLE has never been released. With the full participation of original Beach Boys Al Jardine, Mike Love, and Brian Wilson, Capitol/EMI has collected and compiled the definitive collection, ‘The SMiLE Sessions,’ for worldwide release this year in multiple physical and digital configurations.

The SMiLE Sessions presents an in-depth overview of The Beach Boys' recording sessions for the enigmatic album, which has achieved legendary, mythical status for music fans around the world. The SMiLE Sessions will be released in 2CD and digital album packages and a deluxe, limited edition box set.

Co-produced by Mark Linett and Alan Boyd, all of The SMiLE Sessions’ physical and digital configurations will include an assembled album of core tracks, while the box set delves much deeper into the sessions, adding early song drafts, alternate takes, instrumental and vocals-only mixes, and studio chatter. The SMiLE Sessions invites the listener into the studio to experience the album's creation, with producer, singer and bassist Brian Wilson's vision leading the way as he guides his fellow Beach Boys, singer Mike Love, drummer Dennis Wilson, lead guitarist Carl Wilson, rhythm guitarist Al Jardine, and newest member Bruce Johnston (who'd replaced Brian Wilson in the touring group during 1965), through the legendary sessions.

"I'm thrilled that The Beach Boys' original studio sessions
for SMiLE will be released for the first time, after all these years,” says Brian Wilson. “I'm looking forward to this collection of the original recordings and having fans hear the beautiful angelic voices of the boys in a proper studio release.”

“One of my favorite songs from the SMiLE sessions is ‘Wonderful’,” says Mike Love. “The song truly lives up to its title, as do many of the tracks on SMiLE. Cousin Brian was at his creative peak during those sessions. I’m unaware of anything that comes close in pop music.”



“I recently played some of my personal acetates from the SMiLE sessions and they held up really well,” says Al Jardine. “We would come home from touring and go straight into the studio to record. Brian couldn't wait to show us his latest ideas. We were recording SMiLE and Pet Sounds material simultaneously, so the tracks and vocals all have the same great quality. Most of the vocals were done at Columbia Studios in Hollywood, across the street from Western Studios, where most of the tracking was done.”

“For me, it's always been about the way Brian Wilson brilliantly composed and 'voiced' his amazing chord progressions and melodies,” says Bruce Johnston. “SMiLE really made me smile!”

“Personally, I loved it,” the late Carl Wilson said in 1994 of the SMiLE sessions (from the Don Was-directed documentary, Brian Wilson: I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times).

“In my opinion it makes Pet Sounds stink - that's how good it is,” the late Dennis Wilson told a journalist in 1966 of the planned SMiLE album.

What Brian Wilson brought to the table, in his effort to maintain The Beach Boys' position among the top rock 'n' roll bands of the day, was beyond what anyone could have expected. Beginning with “Good Vibrations,” then into SMiLE, Wilson had begun to construct songs in a modular form, crafting individual sections that would later be edited together to form a coherent whole. In several intense bursts of creative energy, Wilson, drawing on the talents of the finest studio musicians in Los Angeles and utilizing the best studio facilities available on any given day, laid down dozens and dozens of musical fragments, all designed to fit together in any number of possible combinations. No one had done this in pop music, and Wilson had just created “Good Vibrations,” The Beach Boys’ best-selling record in a long string of hits, by using this method. His next endeavor would be an album-length version of this unique and luxurious songwriting parlance: SMiLE.

In 1965, Brian Wilson had met an up-and-coming session keyboard player and songwriter, Van Dyke Parks. Noticing Parks' conversational eloquence, Wilsonfelt that he could help to volley The Beach Boys’ songwriting into the wave of broader-messaged and socially-conscious rock 'n' roll that would come to define the '60s. They were soon collaborating on keynote songs for SMiLE, including “Heroes and Villains,” the band’s follow-up single to “Good Vibrations.” Wilson and Parks would also co-write “Surf's Up,” “Vegetables,” “Cabin Essence,” “Do You Like Worms,” “Wonderful,” “Wind Chimes,” and other bits and pieces of theSMiLE tapestry. Parks also introduced Beat-Pop artist Frank Holmes to create album
sleeve art and a booklet interpreting the album’s James Joyce-mode lyrics.

The reason SMiLE did not see a release in early 1967 had more to do with back room business that obscured the creative side of the program than anything else. In late 1966, The Beach Boys formed Brother Records, initially to produce outside artists. Soon, however, The Beach Boys would become embroiled in a court action with Capitol Records with the goal to become the top-selling artists on their self-owned, independent label. The group withheld “Heroes and Villains” and announced they would instead release “Vegetables” – recorded with the band’s own money in April of '67 – on Brother Records. By July of 1967, Capitol Records and The Beach Boys had come to terms, with Capitol agreeing to distribute the band’s Brother Records, and it was agreed that SMiLE was no longer to be the band’s next album.

The SMiLE Sessions’ global release date, complete track lists, and artwork will be unveiled soon.

“Surf's up, aboard a tidal wave, come about hard and join the young and often spring you gave. I heard the word, wonderful thing... a children's song... ”

- from “Surf's Up” (Brian Wilson/Van Dyke Parks)

It Was (Just About) Twenty Years Ago Today...XTC: Oranges & Lemons

Cliched and overused as it may sound, I seriously cannot believe that it's been twenty-years since the release of XTC's tenth album Oranges & Lemons. I became a fan of XTC in a pretty random way and almost as an afterthought. I had in fact unwittingly half-knew nearly a half-dozen of XTC's songs but never really knew anything beyond the choruses for "Sgt. Rock Is Going To Help Me" and "Senses Working Overtime".

Overlong back-story begins in exactly...

Sometime in early 1988 I was browsing through a book by Danny Quatrochi entitled The Police Confidential - a photo diary on the de facto Beatles of the New Wave. In the book there are several photos of Police founder Stewart Copeland and book author/Sting's bass tech Danny Quatrochi in which they sport several different Drums & Wires tour T-Shirts. Being all of almost twelve years-old and for one reason or another taken with the interesting T-Shirt design - I investigated just what was XT something or other? What does it say? XTC?

Upon further investigation, it just so happened that my older brother not only owned the Virgin International vinyl version* of Go 2, but the Epic Records vinyl editions of both Drums & Wires & Black Sea as well. These three albums made a tremendous impression on me and in short XTC became my favorite band. Being a fan of a critically-acclaimed fringe band at a young age is pretty frustrating. There's no name-recognition among your peers which can be a bit alienating and you're too young to fully indulge in being a holier-than-thou hipster.

XTC's then-most recent albums were Skylarking (with the controversial then-hit "Dear God") and Psonic Psunspot (the latter under their Dukes Of Stratosphear pseudonym). I went to Tower Records that Summer and bought the Geffen cassettes of everything from White Music to Psonic Psunspot and whatever used vinyl or UK import CDs I could find (aside from English Settlement & Skylarking - XTC CDs weren't available domestically until early 1991 as Geffen were desperately slow on the uptake). It was pretty much all about XTC (for the most part) for sometime.

Fast forward to all but a few months later in January of 1989. I'm watching MTV - when they were still a viable source for new music and not a reality television channel - and lo and behold I catch the world premiere video a few seconds in (just after the band/song/album/label credits) of "The Mayor Of Simpleton" and by the bridge I'm thinking that this is my new favorite band. The song is a concise Beatlesque tour de force with cyclical Beach Boys vocals and jangle Byrds guitars and a bass line that is absolutely sick. Of course, it turns out to be XTC. That day I march to local record store Sounds Alive Music and happily plunk down one dollar for the one-song promo CD single. Followed by the 7", 12" and import 3" CD singles.*

A month later Oranges & Lemons is released and I'm very seriously overjoyed. It's better than I think it would be - and even the lesser tracks ("Poor Skeleton Steps Out"...) are only lesser comparatively. It gets four-star reviews everywhere and gets significant exposure on MTV and lots of airplay on the local "new music" radio station WDRE-FM & local cool college radio station WBAU-FM. It was the first time in my life that I was able to enjoy (or simply witness) an album by my favorite band and actively enjoy the whole release & promote the singles/album process. And in XTC's case it was slightly unconventional. They stopped touring in 1982 but actually did tour for Oranges & Lemons. Only in XTC's case they went to radio stations & MTV and played acoustic mini-sets of a few songs and a few medleys. They even played the second single from the album ("King For A Day") on Late Night With David Letterman in late June. I actually got to meet them that year (very briefly) at an in-store signing at Record World in Garden City, NY - the day before their appearance on Late Night. "King For A Day" got lots of airplay as did the ill-conceived remixes that were (unbeknownst to the band) commissioned by Geffen.

"Chalkhills and Children", "Hold Me My Daddy", "The Loving" (the third and final single from O&L), "The Garden of Earthly Delights", "King For A Day", "Here Comes President Kill Again", "Miniature Sun", "Merely a Man" and "The Mayor Of Simpleton" - all from Oranges & Lemons - remain some of my very favorite XTC songs (you know, out of about a hundred or so). And in addition to a few exclusive others XTC are still my favorite band. The album is slightly dated - not horribly so - but ever so slightly. It's an incredible collection of songs and is still every bit now as good as it was then.

* Forgive such expressions of vinyl record geekdom but there's no turning back at this point.

Single Rereviews: The Monkees: Porpoise Song

The Monkees
Porpoise Song b/w As We Go Along
Colgems Records 1031
October 5, 1968

Okay, so I'm something of a small-scale vinyl junkie. I've been this way for some time now. It probably dates back to when I was only about three or four years old and getting second-hand Kiss records from various relatives. Kiss were no longer deemed "cool" by most teenage standards (New Wave and Punk Rock was) so I got them. Kiss looked like a bunch of life-sized cartoon characters. They kind of were/are. Well, throughout the 1980's my tastes changed towards new wave and punk rock ("college rock" or "modern rock" as it was known as then). But along the way I became something of a fan of The Monkees television show - which was rerun in syndication - and, subsequently, The Monkees' music. As a teenager I discovered the prefab-four's more psychedelic material (Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd., The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees, Head and Instant Replay). I then basically became a full-fledged fan.

From their Head album - The Monkees' "Porpoise Song" b/w "As We Go Along" single may be one of their very best. The Micky Dolenz-sung, Hammond organ-heavy "Porpoise Song [Theme From Head]" is something of a lost-classic Gerry Goffin/Carole King song. It's also the complete (single) version of the song (4:12 as opposed to the albums' 2:56) with a great swirling-coda. This version also appears on Rhino's 1995 Greatest Hits collection. It also made an appearance in the 2001 film Vanilla Sky. "As We Go Along" (Carole King/Toni Stern) is again sung by Dolenz. It too is something of a lost-classic. It's warm acoustic guitar/flute arrangement make it a quintessential late 60's light-Psych piece of Sunshine Pop. The accompanying virtual would-be music video clips for these songs that are featured in the film HEAD are near-perfect visual representations of these songs (IMHO).

The single charted at an unfortunate #62, and like many Monkees B-sides "As We Go Along" earned it's own chart-placing (at a better-than-nothing #106). I guess commerce and art have always been at war. Along with lots of other near-steals - I recently picked-up this single for a measly one-dollar.

Hence this entire rereview.

The Beach Boys Vinyl Reissues from Capitol/EMI

In case you haven't been made aware - from Best Buy's entire aisle devoted to it to the amount of articles covering it in every publication from Time to Rolling Stone - vinyl has in fact made a comeback. How big of a comeback has yet to be determined. Although some smaller labels have never stopped selling it, the major labels and the RIAA as well have been made fully aware of the demand for vinyl. New titles such as The Police's Certifiable and Elvis Costello & The Impostors' Momofuku have been issued on vinyl as well as several classic titles from The Beatles, Radiohead, R.E.M. and The Replacements.

Capitol/EMI have been very generous indeed. In addition to classic titles - on 180-Gram Audiophile Quality Vinyl with Original Artwork and Packaging - by The Specials, Plastic Ono Band and Roxy Music their "From The Capitol Vaults" vinyl campaign have issued The Beach Boys landmark Pet Sounds album this past September 2nd as well as the pretty-much-perfect 1974 double-album compilation Endless Summer - which went to Number One on Billboard's Album Charts, spent a whole three years on the charts and introduced the band to a legion of new fans - on October 28th. A release date of June 16th is also in the future for their stellar 1970 album Sunflower and 1971's almost-as-good follow-up Surf's Up. The title track of which may be in fact one of Brian Wilson's finest compositions and another jewel from the legendary unreleased album Smile.

In addition to all these vinyl releases Beach Boys fans have also been treated to a High-Definition Three-LP set of late Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson's solo album Pacific Ocean Blue (which also includes the never released follow-up Bambu) on the Sundazed label. Brian Wilson's fine new solo release That Lucky Old Sun (also on Capitol) was also given a modest, but nice, treatment complete with a gatefold sleeve.

It would be nice to see more classic Beach Boys titles be reissued on vinyl. Perhaps nice quality reissues of the over-looked classics All Summer Long, Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!), Friends and Wild Honey are imminent?

The Decline And Fall Of The Music Chain

I've spent a significant amount of money on buying records. Beautiful vinyl albums, deteriorating cassettes and crystal-clear compact discs. Which also means that I've also spent thousands of hours in record stores as well. Many of which are now long gone. Some of the stores I've shopped at: Record World, Square Circle, Tower Records, Mr. Cheapo CD & Record Exchange, The Wiz, Slipped Disc Records, Memory Lane Records, Twisted Disque Limtied, Virgin Megastore, CD Warehouse, Generation Records, Venus De Milo Records, Subterranean Records, Second-Coming Records, CD Island, Entertainment Warehouse, Revolver Records, FYE, Last Vestige Records, Coconuts, Sam Goody...the list goes on.

I still vividly recall my first-time(s) with two stores in particular. I was eleven years old. Oddly enough, both were on very rainy afternoons in the Spring of 1988. The first was Tower Records in Country Glen Center, Carle Place, NY. I was dumbfounded. They had the deepest selection of records I would ever see from a music-chain. I must have spent an hour or so going through everything. They had a huge budget vinyl section. I settled on a vinyl copy of Sting's double-live album Bring On The Night. It was the start of long relationship. That relationship faded over time with Tower's poor-pricing practices, seemingly less-interesting product and the eventual closing of it's doors in December of 2006. The second was at Mr. Cheapo CD & Record Exchange in Mineola, NY. It was also a dumbfounding experience. They had a tremendously diverse and deep section of used vinyl records (and still do). Domestic and import LP's, 12" singles, 7" singles, cassettes and CDs. I spent about a half hour or so thumbing through the 7" singles and settled on a domestic picture-sleeved "Vive Le Rock" singe by Adam Ant. I still am a regular customer of Mr. Cheapo and have been scouring their dollar bins for over twenty-years.

Music retailers have been in decline for about ten years or so. Many people have their own theories as to why. I believe it's a combination of things. A steady decrease in the promotion of good music, too-much reliance on middle of the road cookie-cutter genres which most people tire of, the increase in CD prices, underestimating the importance of MTV and its' turning into a reality-television channel, the very large and competitively-priced Best-Buy and Amazon.com. These are but a few theories as to why these retail-outlets have all but disappeared.

Any theories?