From: Facherty@SpamAwayBTInternet.com   
      
   The old geezer   wrote:   
   >> if Mike thought the   
   >> Smile Lp was weird, how could he have given his O.K. to the Smiley   
   >> Smile dysfunctional disaster/debacle.  Did he *really* think that it   
   >> was an improvement over the original Smile????   
      
   Ted wrote:   
   > I've never believed that Mike killed Smile...   
   > If Brian could have decided what Smile actually was and set out   
   > straight-forwardly recording it, the guys would have been on board.   
      
   I strongly agree with the point here, and this release provides very simple   
   evidence that Brian increasingly didn't  know exactly where he was going:   
      
   1. the naming of sections and takes appears virtually random. Typically Brian   
   says, 'Let's go' and an engineer asks, 'What do you want to call this?' Brian   
   appears annoyed and says something like, 'Er... Coda to Part 2 Chorus, third   
   section'. This should have been clear to all involved in the first place -   
   musicians, engineer and producer   
      
   2. the directions to the musicians get increasingly vague - for example,   
   'Just come out less tightly on bars 35 and 36. No, fade gradually, but all at   
   different times'. This isn't the activity of a master producer with fully   
   articulated idea in his head and just with the job of getting it on tape.   
   This is just using musicians to compose...   
      
   3. for all the bootleg, Brian Wilson and Beach Boy versions of 'Smile', it's   
   still not a 'concept album' - great music at times, yes, but not with a unity   
   of purpose, a single cohesion or an underlying driver. Certainly we can dump   
   the word 'Smile' itself - I would trust Brian to write a stand-up comedy   
   routine for me about as much as... I would trust Brian to help me with my   
   diet. The attempts at humour on this release are just cringingly bad - stick   
   in a microphone, anyone?   
      
   I love Brian, and the music we find on this album, more than a sane man   
   should admit. But this doesn't translate to hatred of Mike as the assassin of   
   the project - it might increase my intolerance for the users of recreational   
   drugs, though.   
      
   The credit for the brilliance, along with the blame for the breakdown, must   
   rest with Brian. Fortunately the former significantly outweighs the latter.   
      
   Andrew   
   (The guy who would buy a 5-disc box set of Sunflower sessions, with or   
   without a booklet and poster. Oh, and the 50+ year old who put his Smile   
   poster up at the office...)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)