Mount Vernon & Fairway: A Fairy Tale (1973)

Here's a little oddity; a bonus EP attached to the Holland album, its material primarily composed by Brian Wilson and narrated by band manager Jack Rieley. It's a bizarre little item, a self-proclaimed fairy tale about a prince, his magical transistor radio, and the Pied Piper. A friend of mine has described it as "truly the sound of a man who has lost each and every one of his marbles". I kinda like it... it has its own strange yet charming atmosphere, though Brian's Pied Piper voice is that uncomfortable mix of hilarious and genuinely disconcerting.

If you can't get into the "story", here's a track from the Good Vibrations boxset, called "Fairy Tale Music", featuring Mt. Vernon's musical segments without any of Rieley's narration.

SMiLE (JMZ mix)

For a while I was having trouble finding JMZ's Smile mix, but as luck would have it he recently reposted it on his blog. Go check it out!

Update: For me at least, the blog isn't working right now, so I've uploaded the mix to Mediafire:

Download Flacs
Download mp3s

SMiLE (Anne Wallace mix)

Here's quite an old SMiLE mix, which I believe is from 2004. Got a lot of acclaim though.

Anne Wallace mix

SMiLE (soniclovenoize mix)

See also: Upgraded 1967 & 2004 mixes by soniclovenoize

This one's by soniclovenoize, who apparently specializes in reconstructing lost albums. As it happens, Smile was his first project and he's done two mixes - one based on the track sequencing of BWPS, and the other what he believes the original track sequencing would have been (Brian Wilson himself has admitted the 2004 sequencing is not the same as what the 1967 sequencing would have been). What's more, the 1967 mix is presented in separate stereo and mono versions!

1967 mix

2004 mix

Adult/Child

After the kooky but endearing Love You, Brian began work on a follow-up album called Adult/Child. This album would have had an eccentric quality similar to its predecessor, but since the studio (Reprise Records) did not think the album would sell well, they rejected the idea and instead M.I.U. Album was hastily recorded in September that year.

Here's what could have been put out - a deeply flawed but oddly charming little album that, if cleaned up and fully realised, would have been right up there with Love You. There are definite weak spots ("HELP Is On The Way" is rather alienating and the cover of "On Broadway" is near-lifeless), but for sure more of the tracks easily surpass some of those on Love You - listen for "It's Over Now", "Everybody Wants To Live", and "Still I Dream Of It", three absolute gems in the band's catalog.

Also, there are a bajillion different covers for this album, so I'm not sure which one is the definitive. These two are my personal faves though.

01. Life Is For The Living
02. Hey Little Tomboy
03. Deep Purple
04. HELP Is On The Way
05. It's Over Now
06. Everybody Wants To Live
07. Shortenin' Bread
08. Lines
09. On Broadway
10. Games Two Can Play
11. It's Trying To Say
12. Still I Dream Of It

Download here

Click here for lyrics!

SMiLE: The 3971 Edit

This edit of SMiLE holds a special place in my heart as the first I'd ever heard, and it remains the definitive edit to me. It recreates the 2004 version using as much 60s material as possible, using 2004 material to fill in the gaps. While some might be opposed to the use of 2004 material (maybe because of that freakin' Purple Chick mix), it actually merges the two versions surprisingly well and the whole thing sounds seamless and complete.

You can listen to it all here:

(also posted is an updated version which, er, I helped do)

Here's what the editor, tygerbug, has to say:

Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys - SMiLE

The 3971 Edit

by Tygerbug

This edit attempts to combine the 1967 (ish) and 2004 recordings of Brian Wilson's SMiLE into one complete piece.

1967 + 2004 = 3971.

Do you like both the original Beach Boys SMiLE recordings and Brian's 2004 performance? Do you often find yourself, when listening to one of them, wishing you were listening to the other, just to hear a bit of music or lyric you're missing?

The Beach Boys recordings have a quality that the 2004 performance can't touch. However, the 2004 album contains lyrics and music that don't exist in any 60s form, and shapes the SMiLE album into a surprisingly coherent whole.

A professional release couldn't merge the two; that's musical sacrilege.

But for the purposes of this edit, that's exactly what I've done - switch back and forth from 60s recordings to 2004 ones within the same track, so that nearly every piece of music or lyric you might want to hear is there.

And it's nearly all in stereo!

I tried something very unusual with the "Water" section - Recorded as I Love to Say Da Da, Cool Cool Water, and In Blue Hawaii. I extended this section to quite a length, deciding to use all three songs, plus the unrelated song "Little Pad" from the Smiley Smile album. So this is essentially In Blue Hawaii from the 2004 album, with sections of Cool Cool Water and Little Pad interspersed.

If you think that's dumb, the extensions are their own track and can be removed to leave just In Blue Hawaii.

Also, the bonus track "He Gives Speeches" is now combined with Smiley Smile's "She's Goin' Bald" as one track.

Apart from that, all of the material is from the 2011 Smile sessions boxset or the 2004 Brian Wilson Smile album.

However, I used other people's fanedits for many of the tracks. Soniclovenoize's stereo version of SMiLE was used for many of the 60s tracks, notably his version of Good Vibrations with the original lyrics.

Bruiteur's versions of Barnyard and I'm in Great Shape were used, which cleans up the piano demos for a much clearer vocal - although Barnyard is the stereo take on that by another fan. I also used Bruiteur's "Wonderful," which marries the 60s vocal to the 2004 instruments.

I believe I used adam78's mono edits in places as well. Not sure though, as I tried to avoid mono.

"You're Welcome," "He Gives Speeches" and a few later Beach Boys tracks are thrown on as bonuses.

Enjoy!

Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys - SMiLE
The 3971 Edit
by Tygerbug

Download here

Welcome!

Evening, and welcome to Another Freakin' Beach Boys Blog, where I shall brag about Beach Boys-related things and all that fun stuff. Where I can I'll provide links to downloads, and over time I'll discuss things like albums, fan mixes, and other related artefacts. Happy browsin'!