While goofing off around Nashville today, I was in a Borders, and saw the newest copy of Mojo magazine with a "SMiLE" era picture of Brian Wilson gracing the cover. And folks, you're not going to believe this...a dream-come-true for Brian Wilson fans!

Here's the scoop...a few months ago Brian went back to the tape vaults and listened to the Smile tapes, then called up Van Dyke Parks and, wonder of wonders, they finished it!!! I'm not kidding. That's what the cover article in Mojo declares. Brian will be performing the completed work in the UK with the Wondermints (his backing band) "this month"!!! (that is, March of '04, according to the article)

...And yes, there are negotiations going on currently for an album release!!!!

This is about as unbelievable as it gets...dare we hope that sometime in the near future, we'll hear SMiLE just as Brian and Van Dyke intended it?...stay tuned...the suspence is already killing me...

SURF'S Up!!!!

IT'S GETTING BETTER ALL THE TIME!!!! Here's a review of the February debut concert at the Royal Festival Hall in London!!!!...WHOOOOO!!!!!!...(from the "Smile" page of Brian's web site)...


So how good, finally, is Smile, the great lost song cycle that Brian Wilson kept the world waiting 37 years to hear? The only possible answer, after Friday night's world premiere in London, is that it is better than anyone dared hope. Multiple spontaneous ovations were the reward for the former Beach Boy and his musicians, whose pristine performance breathed life into a 45-minute work previously known only through various shattered and dispersed fragments.

Everything about the evening was remarkable, from the moment a small, grey-haired man in a bowtie and a sleeveless cardigan received a standing ovation merely for taking his seat in the stalls. That was Van Dyke Parks, whose oblique, allusive lyrics for Smile provoked the internecine warfare that led to the abandonment of the project.

The concert began with a wonderfully unexpected gesture, the musicians clustering round Wilson to re-create the mood of the Beach Boys' Party album in lovely versions of In My Room, Please Let Me Wonder and Good Timin', accompanied by acoustic guitars and bongos. The more elaborate treatments of California Girls, Dance Dance Dance, Don't Worry Baby, Wouldn't It Be Nice, God Only Knows and many others completed the first half.

Smile occupied the whole of the second half, in a version reconstructed by Darian Sahanaja, with the assistance of Wilson and Parks. A member of the Wondermints, a Los Angeles band who provide the nucleus of Wilson's current 18-strong ensemble, Sahanaja approached the task with a thoroughness and sensitivity that ensured all its many themes were slotted together with a seamless perfection. Even the familiar sections - including Heroes and Villains, Surf's Up and Cabin Essence - sounded utterly refreshed.

Our Prayer provided a lustrous a cappella prelude, but it was the astonishing variety of instrumental texture that constantly took the ear. Banjos, calliopes, Swanee whistles, tack pianos, fruity trombones, a cackling trumpet and a Polynesian ukelele made it seem like the grandest of American symphonies, with Wilson the natural heir to Charles Ives.

The composer sat impassively as his playful humour came to the fore, notably when the musicians made barnyard noises and forsook their instruments for toys before great waves of glorious harmonies or a sudden burst of Palm Court strings would send the music charging off in another direction. The string and horn players donned toy firemen's hats for Fire, just as Wilson had invited their predecessors to do in 1967, and the whole piece ended in triumph with the churning chorale, juddering cellos and whooshing theremin of Good Vibrations, which can never, in all its long life, have been engulfed in a more ecstatic reception.

YET ANOTHER RAVE REVIEW (with song-order details...wow)!!!!!


Brian Wilson, Royal Festival Hall London: There's plenty to smile about

By Keith Shadwick

In early 1967, when Jimi Hendrix was in London laying down the blueprint for rock's future on Are You Experienced?, the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson was in LA rapidly losing his grip on Smile, the epic follow-up album to his acknowledged masterpiece, 1966's Pet Sounds. When Hendrix sang in "Third Stone from the Sun", "May you never hear surf music again", he was not to know how quickly his wish would be granted. By the end of 1967, The Beach Boys were virtually forgotten a year after the triumphant innovations of Good Vibrations. What happened?

Wilson, along with his friend, the lyricist Van Dyke Parks, had conceived in Smile a project so vast in scope and ambition that it needed every bit of luck coming its way. And for a few months in late 1966 all was fair sailing: with "Good Vibrations" already in the bag, such pieces as "Heroes & Villains", "Wind Chimes", "Wonderful", "Cabinessence", "Surf's Up" and "Vegetables" were conceived and intensively worked on. But for Wilson, the idea of simply making an album's worth of tunes was inadequate: he wanted to present a unified LP that interwove all its themes and ideas in a continual renewal of idea and melody. Facing personal, professional and artistic difficulties, Wilson faltered, delayed completion, then finally announced Smile's abandonment. Those in the know, as well as long-term Beach Boys fans, have regarded this ever since as an incalculable loss to rock's legacy, and over the years successive isolated snippets and fragments of the original work in sub-sequent Beach Boys albums occasioned critical wailing and gnashing of teeth about what might have been.

Now, however, Brian Wilson decided it was time to confront the past and complete Smile. During this process, in late 2003 he re-engaged with lyricist Van Dyke Parks and set about finishing Smile. The results of this long labour were revealed at the Royal Festival Hall on 20 February 2004 - 37 years on.

Even before the music started, things got off to a good start: Wilson's guests, including Van Dyke Parks himself, were given a standing ovation as they made their way to their seats. The group was revealed standing, camp-fire style, on one side of the stage, circled around a seated Wilson. It was a great way to start the evening, allowing everyone - but most importantly Wilson - to feel their way into things. Wilson sat centre-stage behind a keyboard he hardly touched, reading the autocue for every song as he tried to overcome his natural shyness. Yet all eyes were on him. It was as if we had all become participants in his private vision of how the music worked. And boy, how it worked: each old hit was meticulously reinvoked (down to the smallest tambourine stroke) with huge gusto by the young and frighteningly accomplished group.

This came into play even more in the concert's second half, when Smile was finally revealed to the world. It caught even the most assiduous fan unawares, for Smile was much bigger than the sum of its parts - a collection of songs and fragments fitted together to give a huge musical panorama.

Smile was shaped into three song suites, each with linking material. The first comprised: "Our Prayer", "Heroes & Villains", "Do You Like Worms", "Barnyard, "Old Master Painter"/"You Are My Sunshine" and "Cabinessence". The second comprised: "Wonderful", "Child is Father to the Man", "Surf's Up" and Smile's third and concluding part was the fabled "Elements" suite using transitional passages including "Holiday", followed immediately by "Good Vibrations", which wound up the concert with a new and dramatic staccato rhythmic pattern, voices and instruments in climactic unison. The crowd was instantly on its feet giving a standing ovation replete with ecstatic cheers and whistles. A visibly dazed Wilson eventually stood up from behind his keyboards, bent over to his microphone and said in a distracted whisper: "Good night everybody, drive safely", and made as if to leave. At that, band member Jeff Foscombe, who had substituted for Wilson most of the evening when it came to on-stage patter, walked quickly over to him and spoke in his ear. Wilson once more bent to the microphone, this time asking Van Dyke Parks to join the group onstage. The crowd went nuts, and the diminutive, bow-tied Parks emerged from the wings looking as if he was walking on air. He probably was. Everyone else in the RFH certainly was; we knew we'd witnessed a miracle of sorts.

Readers who want to see Wilson conjure this miracle at the RFH have tonight, tomorrow, and Friday before his show moves out of London. I would hazard a guess that something more will come of all this - perhaps a CD or even a DVD commemorating Smile's latter-day second coming. Only 37 years late. Rock history revisionists are going to have a field day.

AND YET ANOTHER RAVE REVIEW...THIS IS AMAZING!!!!

In the wrong hands at the wrong time, Brian Wilson's decision to exhume his abandoned "life's work" of 1966 and represent it half a lifetime later could have desecrated the memory of one of rock's greatest fables. The "Smile" album has become legendary without ever being heard, at least outside of select Beach Boys alumni and key critics of the day who were invited to hear Wilson's intended masterpiece before it went up in a blaze of paranoia, late deadlines and disapproval from some short-sighted peers.

But that would underestimate the astonishing personal and creative recovery of the damaged genius since, five years ago this week, he assembled the outstanding band of musicians that has revitalized his life. When this writer met Wilson at his Beverly Hills home in 1998, his talk of plans to tour again someday soon seemed the pipedream of a man who was, and remains, nervous of the outside world. That legacy of his famous breakdown of the mid-1960s remains, but Wilson has nevertheless made huge strides towards reintegration in recent years with the help of a caring cabal of family and friends, led by his wife Melinda.

That alone would be reason for private celebration for anyone who listens in awe to his unparalleled body of work. But with a band of players whose attention to detail for the Beach Boys' classic recordings and a good-natured urbanity which has drawn the best out of Wilson, he has become a positive road-hog in recent years by comparison to his former reclusive self.

With Wilson happily reported to be working again on new material, the exacting standards of the ambitious young producer that still live inside his 61-year-old self have insisted on yet one greater challenge: to complete and augment the lost album and perform it live.

The results perpetuate the dream-state into which many long-term Beach Boys fans have ascended thanks to this unimaginable culmination of Wilson's personal California saga. The band is now performing "Smile," topped and tailed by a generous helping of hits and other favorites that didn't fit on previous tours, six times at the Royal Festival Hall at the front of a 16-date European tour.

The show was choreographed with a delightful touch from start to finish, playing up Wilson's continuing strengths: his continuingly evocative and generally reliable vocals, and his very aura -- and diluting his timidity with the sheer vibrancy of the performance. To begin with, there was the inspiring sight of the band circling around a few microphones, keeping Wilson comfortable at the core, for a wonderfully informal presentation of such gems as "In My Room," "Keep an Eye On Summer" and "Good Timin'." Then, as everyone assumed their regular places across the stage and Brian sat at a keyboard animatedly moving his hands as he sang, more classics, from "God Only Knows" to "California Girls."

"Smile" would form the first portion of the second half of the show, and was intricate, challenging and yet warmly familiar, full of tempo shifts, snippets of vintage romantic melodies and banks of harmonies and instrumentation that rolled and roared as unpredictably as a mighty wave. "Heroes & Villains," one of the songs from the work that survived to be a hit single, illuminated the journey, as did "Surf's Up" and "Good Vibrations" in all its sonic glory, now with alternative lyrics to the 1966 single.

The show concluded on another irresistible confetti-shower of early, rocking hits such as "Surfin' U.S.A.," "Fun, Fun, Fun" and "Help Me Rhonda," before Brian and some bandmates returned to offer a poignant "Love & Mercy." It may be a late chapter in Wilson's story, but this is far more than a postscript.

Thanks.pal...great news! My brother and I saw Wilson at B.B.King's Blues Club in NYC a couple of years ago and it was amazing. The group of musicians he's assembled sound better live than the Beach Boys in ANY of their incarnations...no kidding. We managed to get crew passes(with the help of some Cuban cigars) and mingled backstage. These guys are all A-list players and deeply committed to presenting this music. His wife,Melinda, is very much responsible for getting him out there and what a gift it is for all of us. I had the opportunity to speak with Brian and wasted it talking about high school football...autumn was in the air and we both played...though,as he said, "I never got to play...I was fourth string!" Yes, I replied,"but you are a first string musical genius."

I don't know how to tell you just what an emotional experience reading about this has been for me tonight...I'm just so very proud of the man for having the courage to do this. And yes, algernon, you're right about the importance of his wife in all this. It was her idea to follow up the Pet Sounds Tour with this blockbuster. And amazingly, Brian went for it...and by the way, the concerts are being taped, I have learned. If I had the money, I'd book a flight for Europe and go see it for myself, but I guess I'll have to wait for a DVD later on (hope, hope)...

The following review (again from the Brian Wilson web site) is particularly touching...

WAVES OF SHEER LOVE FOR BEACH BOY BRIAN

by Tim Lott

Ten young musicians, glowing with pride and happiness, gather round a grey-faced old man in shiny trousers and a high-street casual shirt which follows the outline of a sagging belly. His face - its contours, its expression, its unutterable weariness - speak of anguish barely supportable. The musicans represent a cocoon; at its fragile, exquisite centre stands Brian Wilson, called back from the dead to perform, at the Royal Festival Hall, his lost masterpiece, Smile.

This is not merely a pop concert. It is tragedy mitigated. It is the comeback of King Lear. For the sight of this apparently wrecked, grief-stricken face - Wilson has famously spent much of the last 30 years on the brink of madness, even death - produced an extraordinary response in the audience.

I have probably been to thousands of pop concerts in my life. But I have never felt anything like what I sensed here.

What I felt was love, waves of it, like heat. And though celebratory, this was mixed with something else - desperation. Desperation that Wilson be alright, that he would get through the evening, that he would not hurt himself. The sentiment, I suspect, ran from the lowliest fan to the highest. (For the great - Paul McCartney, Roger Daltrey, George Martin - had gathered to honour the great.)

Onstage, the contrast of youth and age and the apparent juxtaposition of grief and enthusiasm was odd enough. The musical assembly began to josh and banter, in a pre-rehearsed manner evoking those archaic variety shows in which square people like Val Doonican would attempt to be cool with, say, Donovan or Twiggy. Lear attempted a smile that swiftly collapsed. It was as if he were trying to bench-press 200 kilos.

The show started with innocuous songs I didn't recognise. Wilson's voice seemed submerged in the tapestry of voices. I began to think it was a cheat; a tribute band, fronted by an old trouper, a lush they'd picked up in a Kilburn boozer. Then In My Room began, and Wilson took a solo, and something even stranger happened. I started to cry.

It was far from the last tear I would shed. I found it impossible to take my eyes off Wilson. At times he looked barely sentient; his hands worked the air as if to keep balance. Event at 50 yards, his eyes looked haunted, like those of a bereaved parent. But then his eyebrows would rise, his mouth would curve and a song of absolute joy and poignancy would intoxicate the night. When Sloop John B began, the man next to me also began to weep. We were no longer watching music, but experiencing a narrative about the collapse of youthful hope and the aching, poignantly distant possibility of redemption (for we could not be sure Wilson had really made it all the way back).

By the second part of the show, when Wilson had sat himself behind a Yamaha keyboard with two screens that flashed up the words to the songs for him, I was - we all were - in bliss. California Girls and Sail On Sailor produced more tears. Wilson danced like my father would dance to the Sex Pistols. His voice was sometimes flat. But it didn't matter.

We were there not to simply sing, or listen, but to join together to rage against the dying of the light. Then the great moment, the unveiling of the lost 45-minute masterpiece, Smile. It sounded like the soundtrack to a nervous breakdown. I couldn't love it. All I could love was Brian. A rock and roll medley wrapped the evening up: I Get Around, Help Me Rhonda, etc. It was decent, bracing pop - a footnote to the real meaning of the event.

Those of us who watched last night saw, and felt, something remarkable. It was not that Wilson had exactly been resurrected. There was something only half-realised about him, as if he was still pushing at the invisobe world that kept him apart from the rest of us, the impossible alienation of genius.

No - what we saw, and participated in, was a collective act of love and remembrance and, I think, compassion. And perhaps, in the stumbling, rigid Wilson and his still pure voice, the mitigation, if only momentary, of our own inevitable fall into decay.

As an evening of music, it was patchy. As a summoning of hope, it was extraordinary, and I for one will never forget it.

I had heard about the live performances... I am curious to hear what a polished studio version of this (Smile) would sound like... For some reason the live material doesn't get me very excited (not sure why,,, maybe because the original Smile would have been a painstaking fully produced studio effort when finished and the thought of performing it live back then would have been out fo the question,,, probably)...


One other thing I am unclear about... I have seen several interviews and witnessed one live where Brian said ALL the Smile tapes had been destroyed... That he destroyed them years ago... Of course this didn't make complete sense in that some of the songs from those Smile recording sessions did eventually get produced (like "Heroes and Villians")... So, what did he mean by that (the tapes being destroyed)...

And, if the tapes were destroyed, did he have a paper or any type of hard copy with the actual music notation fo the Smile songs to go from. Or is this new Smile just that, new versions of the songs he was working on way back when... I guess it really doesn't matter, but I am curious to know if he and Van Dyke Parks do record this in the studio, will it be from the template of the original material or is it just new music based on the "theme" of the original???

I guess what I want is a finished product of the original song ideas (but I guess it has been so many years that new ideas for these songs would have to be acted on by the artists,,, oh well,,, either way, I would like to hear a produced studio version of Smile)...


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Great post,Rev...thanks! By the way, at B.B.King's he opened with "Brian Wilson" by Bare Naked Ladies...an interesting touch...and at the sound check he almost fell asleep on his stool until Melinda yelled "Brian! I've got your supper waiting!"

And here's the teaser of the new millenium (from yet another review on the Brian Wilson web site):

"...After years of wrestling with depression and drug and alcohol abuse, after half a lifetime of trying to forget his fabled lost masterwork, Wilson can smile again. "This feels so good," he says to a reporter when the session is over. "So good I can't believe it." Tonight, he'll unveil "Smile" at a concert in England, where fans have long accorded him the heroic status that Americans reserved for the Beatles. Paul McCartney is expected to join him on stage during at least one of six sold-out shows at London's Royal Festival Hall. Over the next three weeks, Wilson will give 16 "Smile" concerts in Britain, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and France. He plans a U.S. tour in the fall to coincide with the CD release of the newly recorded work...."

I don't know if I can stand this...