OFF: Buck and Lucky Leif

[Douglas Pearson]

On Wed, 11 Apr 2001 17:26:52 -0400, Eric Siegerman <erics at TELEPRES.COM>
wrote:
>On Wed, Apr 11, 2001 at 04:26:42PM -0400, Douglas Pearson wrote:
>> Theremin solo (near the end of "I Just Wasn't Made For These
>> Times") ... almost simulating an operatic voice
>
>In GV it's singing girls-in-sequinny-dresses backup...

Hahaha!  I can easily picture that one!

>> (and the instrument used on the Beach Boys
>> songs is technically not a Theremin, but it serves the exact same
>> purpose, so that's just splitting hairs).
>
>Split away.  What was it, and what's the difference between them?

It's an "electro-Theremin", or "Tannerin", designed by one Paul Tanner
(who, I believe, actually played it on the BB records).  There's tons of
information here:
http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/4611/PTE-TPage.html

>From the photograph on that site, you can see that it's played with a
little stylus (sort of like a Stylophone) along a track, wheras a true
Theremin is played by waving your hands in the air.  Obviously, the
Tannerin makes it much easier for an untrained musician to play notes in
tune, since they can be marked along the track the stylus runs over - you
can't mark notes in the middle of thin air (well, I'm sure someone on this
list could find a way)!  There's a pretty famous video of "Good Vibrations"
(with the band dressed in white suits) that shows (singer) Mike Love
playing the Tannerin, although until the instrument was identified as such,
I had always assumed it was a Moog Ribbon Controller in the video.

>> However, the unreleased follow-up to 'Pet Sounds', 'SMiLE', would have
>> been a *very* avant-garde album
>
>Hmmm.  If it's unreleased, how could it have been influential?

I don't believe I ever referred to it as "influential", but only as *very*
avant-garde (and I gave other examples of BB spacerock influences).  Don't
forget that "influence" and "range of distribution" are two very unrelated
things (think: Velvet Underground).  However, 'SMiLE' certainly has been
*legendary*.  Remember, this album was to be the follow-up to one of the
biggest hit singles EVER ("Good Vibrations"), so its' progress was reported
on extensively by the music press at the time (unfortunately, this led to
an over-hyping that probably contributed to Brian Wilson's nervous
breakdown and inability to complete the album - but then again,
seeing 'Seconds' also contributed to his nervous breakdown).  Descriptions
of parts of the album were published, and people certainly knew *of* the
album even if they hadn't heard it - that in itself can be influential.

>Or were they giving out copies to their friends?

Yes, a number of people had acetates (this being the pre-cassette era) of
rough mixes.  And Brian Wilson had a lot of interesting and influential
friends at the time.  But those never really made it out of very exclusive
fan/collector circles for many years.

>Or did the
>influence have to wait for the watered-down Smiley Smile version?

It had to wait until the late 80's, when the bootlegs started coming out in
full force, and the Beach Boys 5-CD box set included about 30 minutes of
unreleased 'SMiLE' material.  'Smiley Smile' doesn't begin to hint at
what 'SMiLE' might/could have been.  Nowadays, almost every piece of tape
that was EVER recorded for 'SMiLE' is available on bootleg (although
collector/fanatics can also point out sessions that were documented in
studio logs, for which tapes are missing).  There are AT LEAST 8 CD's worth
of 'SMiLE' sessions (not including "Good Vibrations", which would have been
on the album, and took hundreds of hours of session time to complete) on
bootleg.  There are websites where rabid fans debate the album sequence
(which was never finalized), final mixes/edits of the songs ("Heroes and
Villains", the follow-up single to "Good Vibrations", had *dozens* of
sections, some only a few seconds long, recorded for it, only a fraction of
which were used in the two existing "final" mixes), the album concept (or
concepts), whether or not the pieces would segue together (there are
many "sections" that sound like they could connect two -or more- of the
songs on the album, and there are several recurring musical themes
throughout, too), whether or not it would have been "bigger" or "better"
than 'Sgt. Pepper' (puh-leeeze!), whether or not Brian Wilson was drinking
Egg Nog or Orange Juice at the horns tracking session on October 17, 1966
ETCETERA AD NAUSEUM (you get the idea!).

And, On Wed, 11 Apr 2001 17:17:44 -0400, Eric Siegerman
<erics at TELEPRES.COM> wrote:
>On Wed, Apr 11, 2001 at 05:08:56PM -0400, Ted Jackson wrote:
>> Well, I for one would dig an in-depth anqalysis of Good Vibrations.
>> Post it private if you think the list will object...
>
>I wanna see it too :-)

There's not much to it.  It's an EXTREMELY well-crafted (possibly the best-
crafted ever) pop single about meeting a girl who makes you feel groovy.
That's all; and something most of us (OK, or a guy who makes you feel
groovy) have probably experienced.  There's more to analyze in some of
Brian Wilson's "simpler" songs like "In My Room" or "Warmth of the Sun"
or "Don't Worry Baby".  The list of all the instruments used for the song
is quite impressive, however (but not nearly as impressive as Wilson's
TOTALLY-FREAKED-OUT description of the song in the fantastic
documentary, 'Theremin An Electronic Odyssey').

Now, in-depth analyses of the 'SMiLE' tracks that Wilson's collaborator Van
Dyke Parks wrote the lyrics for ("Heroes and Villains" and "Surf's Up", in
particular) ... well, that could take all week, and would have to encompass
a thorough American History lesson.

    -Doug
     ceres at sirius.com

recommended discography:
'Sunflower' / 'Surf's Up' 2-fer CD
'Smiley Smile' / 'Wild Honey' 2-fer CD (*)
'Friends' / '20/20' 2-fer CD (*)
'Good Vibrations' 5-CD box set

(*) = currently out-of-print in the USA (Canadian imports are available),
but scheduled to be reissued later this year; both the 'Smiley' CD and the
box set contain 'SMiLE' outtakes.