RIP Brian Wilson

We've talked about this here but let's give the man his proper due.

My favorite songwriter in the history of pop music.

def deserves his own RIP thread

via mh on bsky

"Shortenin' Bread" was recorded by the American rock band the Beach Boys numerous times. Only one version has seen official release, as the final track on their 1979 album L.A. (Light Album). The band's principal songwriter Brian Wilson was reportedly obsessed with the song, having recorded more than a dozen versions of the tune.[29] Beach Boy Al Jardine speculated that Wilson's obsession with the song may have begun after co-writing the song "Ding Dang" with the Byrds' Roger McGuinn in the early 1970s.[30] Numerous anecdotes have been reported about Wilson's obsession with the song:

Alex Chilton, the former lead singer of Big Star, recalled receiving middle-of-the-night phone calls from Wilson asking him to sing on a recording of "Shortenin' Bread"' ("He was telling me I have the perfect voice for it").[31]

The Monkees' Micky Dolenz said that when he tripped on LSD with Wilson, John Lennon, and Harry Nilsson, Wilson played "Shortenin' Bread" on piano "over and over again".[29]

Biographer Peter Ames Carlin wrote that Elton John and Iggy Pop were bemused by an extended, contumacious Wilson-led singalong of "Shortenin' Bread", leading Pop to flee the room proclaiming, "I gotta get out of here, man. This guy is nuts!"[32]

Musician Alice Cooper recalled that Wilson considered "Shortenin' Bread" to be the greatest song ever written. According to Cooper, when he asked why, Wilson responded "I don't know, it's just the best song ever written."[33]

A number of Wilson-produced "Shortenin' Bread" and "Ding Dang" variations remain unreleased. Titles include "Clangin'" (recorded with Nilsson), "Brian's Jam",[29] and "Rolling Up to Heaven".[34] A version that was developed from a 1973 session, featuring American Spring as guest vocalists, was completed for the unreleased album Adult/Child in 1977.[35][36]

Such a sad week for losing music heroes. Rest In Peace.

what a week jfc

I salute his instincts:

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:tw77ipw5w2xwv3hzc6mrljsf/bafkreihxjbiqbvjbgeag3gktpqhlhsdvlwvcny3m7eukvyjvlfbyfrbhc4@jpeg

such a creative, idiosyncratic guy

oh dear

My internet radio station of choice has been playing the BBs nonstop for an hour

https://la2.indexcom.com/player/big8radiom/

the Beach Boys copyright extension collections that have come out over the past decade or so are so fun, just endless little corners to get lost in.

well, yeah

That radio station is breaking my heart, MVB. Beautiful. Good night.

"Surf's Up" is my favorite song of all time. completely heartbroken - RIP to an absolute legend.

When I was first getting into music, Brian Wilson was an enormous presence because 1) my gateway to music in general was the Beatles, and you can't truly love the Beatles without appreciating how much Brian Wilson inspired them, 2) he had moved to St. Charles, Illinois of all places and it was a head trip that someone of his stature could be in another suburb in our state and 3) I think the late '90s and the '00s was when the influence of his work really peaked, because it felt like everything, from the indie bands to the pop stars, showed its DNA.

It's really sad Sly and Wilson are gone within days of each other, at a time when a hateful fascist sack of shit is coming down on their home state and doing the polar opposite of everything their music stood for. I figured this was coming given his retirement from touring, but it's still heartbreaking.

Hopefully this thread has made the overarching arc of [Sly's] career clear, even if it's a cliche at this point: a series of undeniable and monumental achievements, marred by a depressing capacity for self-sabotage that lasted for almost 50 years. Unlike Brian Wilson - whose own life and career is in many ways an inverted, white-bread, mirror image of Sly's (Sly loves dualisms but who knows if he would appreciate or acknowledge this one) - there hasn't really been any late-period redemption. Wilson, while still eternally haunted and damaged, got his shit together and appears to have achieved some measure of functionality and peace; the core of his musical talent has never left him, he still loves music, he needs it and believes in it and works at it. By contrast, when Sly attempted a similar comeback in the 2000s it was hampered by his all-too familiar problems and habits. In many ways it's just too late. The Summer of Soul doc and forthcoming QuestLove doc are a historical corrective, rightly emphasizing his massive talent and impact. Based on advance press and published excerpts, Sly's autobiography (which comes out tomorrow), will no doubt shed some light on the details of Sly's life and his perspective on it, but it seems unlikely to contain much in the way of critical self-examination. For an artist who claimed to write his songs while looking in the mirror, he seems to have spent much of his life running away from his own reflection.

― One Child, Monday, 16 October 2023 14:47 (one year ago)

Mourners who are short of time can get two-for-one with the Beach Boys' version of "Hot Fun in the Summertime" (which doesn't feature Brian, sorry)

“This person changed the world” sometimes gets thrown around a bit too casually but in the case of Brian Wilson it barely scratches the surface. RIP

― Davey D, Wednesday, 11 June 2025

Mourners who are short of time can get two-for-one with the Beach Boys' version of "Hot Fun in the Summertime" (which doesn't feature Brian, sorry)

― Halfway there but for you

honestly i feel more regret over the fact that the beach boys' version of "hot fun in the summertime" exists

Hopefully this thread has made the overarching arc of [Sly's] career clear, even if it's a cliche at this point: a series of undeniable and monumental achievements, marred by a depressing capacity for self-sabotage that lasted for almost 50 years. Unlike Brian Wilson - whose own life and career is in many ways an inverted, white-bread, mirror image of Sly's (Sly loves dualisms but who knows if he would appreciate or acknowledge this one) - there hasn't really been any late-period redemption. Wilson, while still eternally haunted and damaged, got his shit together and appears to have achieved some measure of functionality and peace; the core of his musical talent has never left him, he still loves music, he needs it and believes in it and works at it. By contrast, when Sly attempted a similar comeback in the 2000s it was hampered by his all-too familiar problems and habits. In many ways it's just too late. The Summer of Soul doc and forthcoming QuestLove doc are a historical corrective, rightly emphasizing his massive talent and impact. Based on advance press and published excerpts, Sly's autobiography (which comes out tomorrow), will no doubt shed some light on the details of Sly's life and his perspective on it, but it seems unlikely to contain much in the way of critical self-examination. For an artist who claimed to write his songs while looking in the mirror, he seems to have spent much of his life running away from his own reflection.

― One Child, Monday, 16 October 2023 14:47 (one year ago)

sly and brian both lived long lives and both suffered a lot. with brian, there's definitely something to mourn and... it's like when david lynch died. i knew it was coming. he had a long life, experienced a lot, left a mark on the world. he left a mark on me. of course i mourn, but death is inevitable. the beach boys' version of "hot fun in the summertime" wasn't.

i finally got around to watching _long promised road_, which i'd been meaning to do for a while. there's actually in there a little discussion about sly and the family stone (brian liked "hot fun in the summertime" - well, i mean, who the fuck _wouldn't_?)

idk. one of my problems is that i have a lot of trouble feeling my own emotions. seeing other people experiencing feels, that helps me feel my own feels about myself, which is really hard for me otherwise.

the idea of "redemption" is a difficult one for me. a lot of it is privilege. this doesn't invalidate what brian wilson did or make it any less... i mean i did tear up hearing elton john say "you gotta be tough to survive what he's been through", on the page that looks trite, but the way he said it, it meant something. it's really good to see that he's recognized and valued for the work he's put in.

the tragedy, for me, of sly stone is that he wrote "you can make it if you try", and he meant it, and he did try, and did he make it? i don't know. the world isn't fair or just. and yes, he did also run away. our lives aren't one or the other. i don't place any blame or value judgement on either of them, sly for not getting a "redemption arc" or brian for having the privilege he did.

what i focused on most when i saw long promised road was landy. i hadn't seen brian under landy's care before. it was scary. he _seems_ so well together, and at the same time... he's saying what he's expected to say. i've been in situations... where there was someone who was doing great things for me, like landy did great things for brian, and it was still fucked up and not good, because there's this element of control, and no matter how well brian did, the level of control he had over brian wasn't right. with melinda it seemed to be different. it seemed more like she supported him and encouraged him and didn't control him. i'd like, one day, to have someone in my life who can kind of support me like that.

i personally, i do find that i "need a mess of help to stand alone", so it makes sense to me, that song, and that brian was like that. brian's always was someone who's needed a lot of support, a lot of external validation to do things. and people have been skeptical of him because of that. i don't know who it was that said... if it was on ilx or somewhere else... but there was a quote, something someone said to the effect that "smile is only about 5% brian, but 5% of brian is all that's left". writing that out it seems an exceptionally cruel thing to say, but more than that, i don't think it's right.

the thing about brian that i can relate to is that sometimes he says weird, fucked-up stuff that's Not Normal. i mean yeah his obsession with shortnin' bread was not normal. "hey little tomboy" was... i mean that song is super fucked up. some of my friends... just yesterday, i had to say to one of my friends, girl, don't fucking SAY that, that's not OKAY. and i said it in the most polite manner possible. it was fucked up, though, and she clearly wasn't aware how fucked up it was.

i think... at least while melinda was there, while she was there brian was 100% there. it's just, like... i mean he was been open about the fact that there was all kinds of fucked up shit going through his head, and that sometimes he's not sure what's real and what isn't. i mean if you've read any interviews with brian, he contradicts himself a lot, he kinda listens for what he thinks the interviewer wants him to say and says it. for a while any time anybody told him what their favorite beach boys song was, brian would say "that's my favorite beach boys song too!" to me, that wasn't him being disingenuous or lying or anything like that. i understand on some level. he was a people-pleaser. if someone tells me their favorite song, and i know and like that song, _at that moment_ that song is also my favorite song. and you can call that, like, mental illness or whatever, but the idea of a _fixed favorite song_ is just nonsensical to me in the first place. i mean right now i can tell you my favorite song is "starless" by king crimson and five minutes from now it'll be something different.

that's what i loved so much about the film, the way the interviewer (i didn't get his name) knew how to _communicate_ with brian. with all that brian went through, he didn't necessarily communicate the way most people, at least in the anglosphere, are expected to. there was so much that he couldn't put into words. "put on long promised road." and then a minute later "stop. turn it off. put on 'it's OK' from 15 Big Ones." he didn't communicate feelings in words. and he still was able to communicate feelings pretty clearly to the people who knew him.

it was really cool and, like... not in an "inspiration porn" sense, but it gives me hope for my own life that brian was able to accomplish what he did even with all the problems he had. and at the same time i don't judge brian as a "success" and sly as a "failure". they were both people. that's all.

I lit a candle and spent my evening listening to Surf's Up on my record player and watching YouTube interviews.

I don't usually get too down about famous people dying. It's sad, but I never knew them personally.

This is an exception though. This feels personal. His music got me through my adult life. There is never a situation that can't be improved by the music of Brian and the Beach Boys.

:-(

Soundtrack to the food pantry this afternoon has been all Beach Boys and Sly.

Ugh. That's how I (sort of) found out Bowie died...hearing only his songs while shopping for food that morning. I didn't think anything was wrong until I got a text.

A little levity:

https://thehardtimes.net/blog/mike-love-posts-touching-tribute-to-mike-love/

He (I'm sorry, I mean "The Beach Boys") will be at Town Hall later this year....still have no urge to go.

Only 82, I thought he was older. RIP legend.

What did everyone listen to? I went In
My Room - Little Deuce Coupe - Don't Worry Baby - The Warmth of the Sun - A Day in the Life of a Tree - Til' I Die - Surf's Up. Love you, Brian.

So far, “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”.

This is going to take me at least a few days to process. Suspect I’m not the only one.

Xp Brian Wilson presents SMiLE. Such a personal victory for him. I remember listening to a recording of his first live show of it in London (?) while I was at the office one afternoon. After Good Vibrations finished, it was so celebratory, damn. Tears of happiness that he not only completed it but that it was just as great as the legend had suggested for so many years. People at work probably thought I was nuts but it didn't matter to me.

I felt the same way. Seeing him in Washington DC on that tour was def. a personal highlight for me.

it was just as great as the legend had suggested for so many years.

Yup. I would never have believed it, but I was floored how everything fell into place. I went from being "it was probably for the best" to "holy shit, this really was a lost masterpiece."

Yeah, I know there are naysayers (probably members on that nutty audiophile forum) who will say "but he never would've made a three-suite album!" or some shit, I don't fucking care. When art works, it works, it doesn't need to follow any arbitrary rules that have nothing to do with what it's trying to do or say.

I only saw him on the 50th anniversary tour of Pet Sounds and I'm so glad I did. I knew he wasn't going to be perfect, but it really was wonderful to see him perform that from end-to-end, and with Al Jardine and even Blondie Chaplin, neither of which I knew would be there.

“Little Deuce Coupe”, my goodness

really feeling this one, like i can almost feel the dotted line around that space in our universe where he used to be, yknow?

saw him in 2014 at the Bridge School Benefit & have never experienced anything like the joy that was in that amphitheatre that night. it makes me teary to think about

and a stray memory from that night was my friend’s (now and soon to be then) ex girlfriend, a psycho cokehead full of extremely bad takes HATED the show hated that Brian was performing, sitting there sulking the whole time that Brian “should be in a home”
not AT home
IN a home

anyway RIP to the only person besides maybe Macca who‘s passing could completely buckle my legs out from under me :(

what a sad day

relistening to the Jokermen podcast’s David Leaf interview re Smile to try to heal myself a little (it’s v good)

_it was just as great as the legend had suggested for so many years._

Yup. I would never have believed it, but I was floored how everything fell into place. I went from being "it was probably for the best" to "holy shit, this really was a lost masterpiece."

Yeah, I know there are naysayers (probably members on that nutty audiophile forum) who will say "but he never would've made a three-suite album!" or some shit, I don't fucking care. When art works, it works, it doesn't need to follow any arbitrary rules that have nothing to do with what it's trying to do or say.

& have never experienced anything like the joy that was in that amphitheatre that night

I saw him in 2002, we had amazing seats up the front and I remember looking back at the theatre during Good Vibrations and seeing such joy, everybody up and dancing and it wasn’t corny or cringe, just this big outpouring of love and positivity (and I think also gratitude to the guy who crafted these little miracles)

Still kind've amazed that I got to see him, Sydney 2005, Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE. The show was fantastic, Wondermints and Beach Boy alums meshed so well, the music was alive and brilliant, Brian seeming in a kindly daze centre stage contributing his parts and enjoying everyone else's. Then "Surf's Up" hit and as it spiralled into the ether, I choked up and started crying freely, looking at this man whose life had been so blighted, living to see his greatest dream realised and feeling the love it created. An all time lifetime moment for me.

yes exactly!

Twenty years on, it’s clear that the SMiLE project was a labor of love. Not for Brian, but for the musicians who helped him finish it because they loved him, they loved his music, and—as was very clear in the Beautiful Dreamer documentary about it—they wanted to relieve him of the burden the project represented. It makes the whole thing that much more rare and special.

FWIW, a while back I sold something on eBay to a buyer who turned out to be Darian Sahanaja, so I wrote "SMiLE" (stylized just like that) on the package and drew a heart around it. Pretty much the only thing I did to let on that I listened to his work. Then a few days later, he left feedback where he drew a smile out of typed characters.

Tribute from Sting shared by the Beach Boys account - looks like he also broke the news to some in the German audience.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DKxk2npKRCl/

this is the most i've been affected by a celebrity death.
― Kim Kimberly

I don't usually get too down about famous people dying. It's sad, but I never knew them personally.

This is an exception though.

― DLC Soundsystem (dog latin)

he’s not necessarily my absolute favorite musician who has died, but yeah. i’m not sure why that is.
i wanna talk about it but never have the strength to post more than two sentences anymore.

I had to put this on because I couldn't remember how it went. Funny it would drive anyone crazy, it's just a stomping nursery rhyme.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eToSzhO0WM

Smile is really hitting tonight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojNrJMHZpNo

I read the most touching thing about Brian Wilson lately and I can’t remember where. Basically it was about seeing him in concert, and his hat fell off or something, and there was palatable audience reaction of pure love like everyone just wanted to put the sweet little man’s hat back on. It was much less patronizing sounding than that.

Right, it was from Bob Stanley’s book Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

“One of the most poignant moments of the 2004 Smile shows at the Royal Festival Hall in London wasn’t musical at all. As Brian left the stage to a standing ovation his shirt caught on something; he tried to walk off, his feet kept moving, but he was held back. Everyone wanted to run on stage and help him, wanted to help Brian Wilson. After what seemed like an age he noticed what was wrong, but not before he had appeared, in front of two thousand people, as a lost little boy, Charlie Brown aged sixty-five, bumbling and bemused”

I posted this story on one of the other Beach Boys threads awhile back, but it bears repeating on today of all days:

I was going through my Beach Boys vinyl, which is mostly their '70s albums (have CDs of all the original studio stuff up through L.A. Light Album), plus the '70s twofer of Wild Honey & 20/20. I was listening to the latter when "Cabinessence" comes on, sounding so fucking good (even on my less-than optimal setup), and I was just struck by this absolutely overwhelming sense of awe that a human mind could think up this music, transfer it to paper, explain and teach it to other exceptional minds to bring that sound to life and get it onto tape and then out into the world for us to experience.

hearing “Do You Like Worms” and just….. how does a brain get to that arrangement?! It’s “bohemian rhapsody” but with more changes and in half the time!

Van Dyke Parks kept it simple:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DKybKdxupvk/

with melinda it seemed to be different. it seemed more like she supported him and encouraged him and didn't control him.

Three seats away from Melinda on the 2002 Pet Sounds tour, I got to witness that:

Mrs. Wilson is particularly demonstrative and supportive, rising to her feet after every number and extending her outstretched arms to him, willing him on.

https://troubled-diva.com/2002/06/13/brian-wilson-nottingham-royal-centre-friday-june-7th-2002/

Stingo looked genuinely broken up.

...and the Box Tops toured a bit with the BBs in the late '60s. Alex and Dennis were tight (imagine that!), and later on Chilton hoped to place what became the "1970/Free Again" album with Brother Records.

Alex and Carl were close as well, he credits Carl with showing him the ropes on guitar.

Alex said that one day Brian called him out of the blue, telling him that he had a perfect voice for “Shortnin’ Bread.”

Is Rhino Handmade around anymore? Maybe we can get a box set of “Shortnin’ Bread” versions.

It’s some other level of drugs and inebriation which I’ve never experienced that would make me interested in that tune

The last time I checked (a few years ago), looked like all the Rhino Handmades were available as downloads---on Amazon..

It’s some other level of drugs and inebriation which I’ve never experienced that would make me interested in that tune

― calstars

ahhh, i don't really do drugs myself. i think i'm interested in it as someone who's suffered severe, chronic mental illness.

also, the top comment on the "wouldn't it be nice" upload:

@PaulRockWildhoneyfoundation
15 years ago
In Dec, 1994, in Santa Monica, ca, Alex hung out with Brian after playing our Wild Honey Tribute to Brian. Brian and Alex both performed that evening. They hadn't not (sic) seen each other since the 1960's.

That same evening, Brian saw the Wondermints for the first time and later incorporated them into his current band.

finally, putting my "childhood abuse survivor" hat on, co-signing birdistheword's post 100%.

there's this... i've seen a fair number of trans women who get this obsession with smile like i did. and me, personally, it's nothing really to do with gender. i mean if brian wilson wasn't a cisgender man, who the hell is?

lol, just browsing this beach boys shitpost channel and came across this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBXV0qbbdcU

One of Cale's finest evah:
"Mr. Wilson"

No this is it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlOaRmnDZ58

Love this song.

That clip of him hearing Ronnie Spector's recording is sweet, but it's weird that neither he nor the interviewer mentions that he originally intended the song for her. Maybe the setting was just such that it wasn't conducive to bringing it up.

Darian Sahanaja:

https://variety.com/2025/music/news/brian-wilson-darian-sahanaja-salute-solo-band-beach-boys-1236432399/

As a pre-teen, I was ridiculed and even physically abused by my so-called friends for favoring Beach Boys music over the heavier FM rock acts of the mid-’70s they deemed as “cool.” Yet even that amount of peer pressure wasn’t enough to sway my opinion — a testament of how good that music was to me. By the time I got to junior high, I was much better equipped to manage criticism and was able to develop a solid understanding of what I did and didn’t like.

I wanted to thank him for that. I wanted to show him how grateful I was for all the opportunities he gave me. To live out the dreams of every musician. To play Carnegie Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, Sydney Opera House, Royal Albert Hall, Madison Square Garden… to share the stage and mingle with the likes of Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Pete Townshend and even the Queen of England after performing for her at Buckingham Palace.

I mean, how does one possibly show gratitude for all of that? By singing a song by the Ronettes and making him smile.

To add to the Big Star connection, supposedly Alex and Chris actually played the #1 Record tapes for Carl one night when the Beach Boys came through Memphis. Carl was knocked out enough that he got Brian on the phone to listen with them. Terry Manning tells the story here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjsPl9A4Tiw

Maybe we can get a box set of “Shortnin’ Bread” versions.

i'd be surprised if there aren't a bunch of versions on the late 70s box set that's coming later this year

From "Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road," which I've yet to see, but heartbreaking:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJBfsglFGo8

FWIW apparently his social media commemorated Jack's death with a message that was supposedly from Brian. I don't think they'd fake that, but given his dementia (which may have began by the time they filmed the doc), it's very possible he genuinely forgot.

Author Carl Wilson on Brian Wilson, Sly Stone, and David Thomas
https://substack.com/home/post/p-165770233

man I thought I'd finally pick up Brian Wilson Presents Smile on vinyl as my CD is long gone now and had no idea it was OOP. I'm guessing someone is going to capitalize on this death and get both that and the BB Smile stuff back into print.

could get a bootleg vinyl of it but it might say Brian Wilson - Smize on the jacket

Alex Chilton loved LOVE YOU a lot. This Love You cover done in the style of Big Star is so f'n good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evuWI44bRmU

this is cool too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK8fOnD2yos

xps FWIW, the album was recorded directly to digital in ProTools. They did the final mixdown in analog, but most of the work was done digitally, and even Bob Ludwig the mastering engineer got the final mixdown as a digital file sent via ftp. Not to knock analog, they clearly wanted to color the sound with the analog devices they had, but given the way it was made, I wouldn't pay too much for a vinyl edition - I'd just save your money and get another copy of the CD in the meantime. I picked a VG+ copy (complete with booklet and slipcase) for $2 a couple of years ago, and I regularly see copies in that price range everywhere on Discogs.

For anyone interested in this sort of thing, found this old and detailed article on the engineering aspects just to confirm:

...the recording itself was not made to tape, but to Mark Linett's Pro Tools HD system. But given the nature of the record, Mark thinks this too was only sensible. "Random-access editing has been a part of this from the very conception. Brian was making a record that was tailor-made for something like Pro Tools, but trying to do it 40 years ago! If he had had these tools, who knows what he might have been able to accomplish. Any concerns about the sonic quality — and I don't have any of those now we're recording at high resolutions, with better converters — are more than outweighed by the benefits. At heart, I'm an analogue guy — I still mix in analogue — but I have no problem with the sound of Pro Tools. I don't think recording to tape would have benefited us sonically, and we would have had to transfer into Pro Tools pretty quickly for the editing anyway"...

Mixing began in June and ran into early July, with Brian and Darian present. As is his preference, Mark mixed in the analogue domain, using Your Place Or Mine's custom API 2488 console, and both Pro Tools-based and Flying Fader level automation. Similarly, processing was carried out both by plug-ins such as Waves' Renaissance Compressor and also analogue outboard, including a Fairman TMEQ six-band valve equaliser, and a Universal Audio 175A compressor. Universal Audio also supplied a UAD1 card, which ran several hardware emulations as plug-ins, including a Pultec EQ plug-in. The mix proceeded from Pro Tools via Mark's Apogee D-As, was mixed and laid back to Pro Tools in stereo at 24-bit, 88.2kHz resolution, passing back in via a high-quality DCS 904 stereo A-D converter. Tannoy SGM10s (with Mastering Labs crossovers), handled the monitoring, fed from a DCS 954 D-A attached to the stereo output from Pro Tools.

The mixing nonetheless posed a problem which had not been resolved even after the basic backing tracks had been recorded. On the original SMiLE recordings, Brian recorded most of the songs in sections, but cut them together to make a complete backing track before adding vocals over the top. The exception was 'Heroes And Villains', where vocals were added to sections prior to assembly. But what was the best approach for the 2004 recordings? In the end, a 'Heroes And Villains'-type approach was adopted, whereby vocals were recorded separately on each section, each section was mixed into stereo complete with its vocals, and then the parts were assembled into songs by slightly overlapping them on two sets of stereo pairs in Pro Tools...

Mixing and assembly were complete by mid-July, only just before Brian and the band had to travel to Europe for another round of SMiLE concerts. A few tweaks were deemed necessary before mastering, and Mark sought the approval of Brian and Darian by putting Pro Tools Sessions of the slightly remixed sections up on a secure FTP server so that they could download them and hear them in their London hotel rooms. The same method was used to transfer the final Brian-approved mix to Bob Ludwig of Gateway Mastering on July 16th. By late July, the record was done.

https://www.soundonsound.com/people/resurrection-brian-wilsons-smile

not sure that recorded to digital should really be a factor in whether you buy a vinyl record or not

Slightly paraphrased from the documentary 'Long Promised Road'*

Did you have a room where you would work?

"Yeah it was in a sandbox. I would take my shoes and socks off and I'd write at the piano in the sandbox. I put up an Arabian tent, and eight Tiffany lamps hanging from the ceiling of my living room. It was a trip."

What did you do inside the tent?

"Smoke grass. Ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. You know? Young and rich..."

I love his reflection here. I mean, isn't this what EVERYONE would do if they were young and rich? :-)

*strange to call it this considering it was a song entirely played, written and sung by Carl, no?

It's on the soundtrack album recorded by Brian who was playing it on tour around then. Lyrics by Jack Reilly

XP - I rewatched LPR recently and ended up replaying that part when he says 'You know...young and rich' several times, it was such an unusual thing to hear him say, first time I thought I'd misheard him.

it was that line. it tickled me. the matter-of-factness of it all. "You know... That's just what young people do with their money... Eat sandwiches in a sandbox"

BTW, Smile Sessions vinyl is back in print apparently; you can find it on turntable lab currently, limited to 2 per customer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwbd5ADCc6g

The editing is really annoying, but this collects a few of Love's worst sound bites, particularly the last one at 1:33:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgepFKVVKVE

I suspect Mike Love is going to redeem himself with the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame when he delivers his solo career induction speech.

Mike Love hate is so "you know who I hate - Nickleback!" these days

People feeling nostalgic in the wake of Brian’s passing could do a lot worse than listening to the closing suite on That’s Why God Made the Radio. It’s very much post-Wondermints Brian, with orchestral flourishes and more than a little POB-era Dennis in places. But even if very on the nose, its autumnal vibe goes down easy for those mourning the man.

With a similar vibe: "Southern California" from the That Lucky Old Sun album.

Mike Love hate is so "you know who I hate - Nickleback!" these days

― PaulTMA, Monday, June 23, 2025 5:43 AM bookmarkflaglink

he's a conservative homophobe who was nasty to Brian and hated recording anything that would have sounded out of place on their first four albums. hating him might be an easy opinion but it's also the right one. Nickleback hate is just a meme really

(that said, he sounded good on BB tunes so)

'Our Prayer' on a Church Organ, sry FB link only.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1591xpkX8c/

he's a conservative homophobe who was nasty to Brian and hated recording anything that would have sounded out of place on their first four albums. hating him might be an easy opinion but it's also the right one. Nickleback hate is just a meme really

― Neanderthal

yeah i mean mike love is genuinely evil, i think hating him is justified

i don't know that there's any call for hating reggae mike love tho

https://bsky.app/profile/sedricandcharlie.bsky.social/post/3lscaxiyfts2c

"Alright new idea: chiptune cover of 'Smile'. In the spirit of Brian Wilson, every individual unit of the songs, every verse, chorus, bridge and middle eight is separated up and arranged for multiple soundchips with the finished album assembled from the composer's favourite versions of each snippet"

idk i thought maybe PaulTMA was referring to the horrible presentation of the video and all of the awful extremely not funny comments ... the thing is that of course Mike Love is a piece of shit, but he's also kind of darkly funny in a way that really doesn't need or benefit from everyone on reddit formulating their own "joke" about how Mike Love cured cancer and invented bacon

what are the chances of you all NOT shitting up the RIP Brian Wilson thread with endless Mike Love shit talk?

there’s a perfectly utilitarian mike love shittalk thread and a Beach Boys thread. go do it there. for my sanity

i wasn't shittalking Mike Love, i was shittalking the people who make make miserable unfunny jokes about him

i didnt say you specifically i said “you ALL”

but if if you feel targeted then maybe take some time to do a little soul searching

i would like a Chipmunks Smile album

lol

There have been a bunch of Brian tributes on WFMU — my fave was probably the Frow Show last week, https://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/153206. 3rd hour goes into experimental territory, with a Carl Stone deconstruction of "Fun Fun Fun" and a long Reorder Narcotic piece called "Only Dogs Know" which layers and relayers the vocals of "God Only Knows" into a noise cloud.

that carl stone piece belongs on a comp of stuff that predicted animal collective, along with adrian belew’s op zop too wah and olias of sunhillow.
will have to check out ‘only dogs know’

hated recording anything that would have sounded out of place on their first four albums.

i mean he did okay on ‘she’s goin’ bald’ and some other things, it seems he was willing to go along with the more out there shit to a point. i think the thing he really hated was being cut out of the writing process. he said something similar about how joe thomas excluded him from that’s Why God Made the Radio, he'd thought it was supposed to be him and Brian writing together like the old days. well, joe thomas is hardly van dyke parks!!
the rest of that post is otm!!!

a good meditation is to imagine being Mike Love at Rishikesh with the Beatles et al

and then as Brian making the bedroom scene