Customer Reviews

Look! Listen! Vibrate! Smile!

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For the time being this book stands as the difinitive book on the famous "Smile" abandoned album project, but it does so by default. As far as I know it is the only book on the subject. I do hope that eventually someone will sit down and write a coherent and better one. A lot of what Priore gives us is primary source material, articles and clippings and recording charts from the 1966-67 period. Some of these articles, especially "Goodbye Surfing, Hello God" and a few attempts to reconstruct a proper list of what was recorded for the project are of value. A lot of the newspaper clippings are repetitive and meaningless, and some of the photographs are marred by the author's writing his own unfunny voice bubbles on them. Indeed, Priore's own writing is poor (especially his ridiculous reliance on the word "bitchin'"), though it does convey a lot of enthusiasm. This is the personal scrapbook of an obsessive fan. There are nuggets of good information in this mess, but you will need to sift. It's a shame that a more coherent and scholarly digestion of this material hasn't yet been written, and I eagerly await the day. Meanwhile, curious fans should all be listening to the "Smile" era recordings that are provided, with excellent sound quality, on the box set "Good Vibrations - 30 Years of the Beach Boys."

In late 1966, the Beach Boys and their leader/creative mastermind, Brian Wilson, were on top of the music world with the million-selling "Good Vibrations", and having been voted the #1 rock group (over The Beatles) in the world in England's prestigious NME music poll. The Beach Boys album "Pet Sounds" had been issued that May and had astounded many with its innovative beauty and emotional depth. At this time, Brian set out to write an even more ambitious album masterwork, originally titled "Dumb Angel", but eventually known as "Smile". For many reasons, this album never came out, and The Beach Boys went from being on top of the music world to being outcasts by the end of 1967.

Domenic Priore masterfully blends period articles, personal accounts from group members, Brian Wilson, Van Dyke Parks, David Anderle, Jules Siegel, David Leaf, etc., interviews, artifacts from the era, and his own lucid, no-holds-barred writing to describe the beautiful music that would've made up "Smile"; and all the tragic events that derailed Brian Wilson in his search for the musical holy grail. Ultimately, it is a fascinating music business soap opera pitting an extremely gifted and innovative artist fighting to be creative against great pressures operating both within and without himself. Domenic Priore deserves credit for taking a very complex subject, and making some sense for the reader out of the chaotic events of this crucial period in rock music history. A must-have for Brian Wilson/Beach Boys fans, as well as fans of mid-late '60's rock music.

"Look, Listen, Vibrate, Smile" is the definitive work on Brian Wilson's aborted SMiLE album. This endearing, lovingly crafted scrapbook has been instrumental in turning many people on to the beauty of the music and has earned a spot in Beach Boys' history. Everyone that is into SMiLE respects Domenic Priore and this book.

That said, Priore jumps to a lot of conclusions (and he does so with amusing forecefulness and candor) that are not based in historical fact. Some of the information about the music itself (theories, dates, titles, etc.) has since been disproved. Worst of all, Priore actually edited some of the essays contained in the book without the authors' permission.

One of the strong points of the book is that, by using a scrapbook format, it puts SMiLE in context, giving a good sense of time and place. But Priore often fails to clearly document sources and dates, and some pages are downright confusing to the reader.

If you want to get into SMiLE, I would recommend three things. First, buy the Good Vibrations box set (on amazon.com of course). Listen to Disc 2 repeatedly and learn it by heart. Second, buy this book. Read it from cover to cover and experience it. Third, empty your head of all "facts" and visit the Smile Sho... Browse through the entire site, read all the essays, print out the session logs for your files, then go to its message board. Live there silently for a month or two, and start connecting all the dots. Then join the rest of us in waiting for a new SMiLE book to be published that will pick up where Priore left off.

The Beach Boys in 1966 were about to experience the height of thier popularity. Pet Sounds (released May 66) didn't fare to well with the stateside record buyers, but garnered positive reception with the overseas press-particulary the London underground. When "good Vibrations" was released in October, shot to #1 by December-it was clear that Brian Wilson was headed into a new direction. What he accomplished by producing Pet Sounds, he wanted to expand with Smile. But, between his hungry chemical diet, record company mumble-jumble and the Beach Boys themselves, the album, slated for a December release, was put off, and off-and eventually shelved by May of 1967. By then completed songs and musical fragments existed-but noone heard. Brain Wilson-however, became a Legend. Wilson often declined to accept the media calling him a genius-all he wanted was to be accepted by the underground the same way the Beatles and Dylan were.

Personally, I don't agree with Priore stating the album was virtually complete; if that was the case, a mixdown would have been available. The general public and today's rock theoticians aare now discovering the Smile-era music; but if it WERE released back in December of 1966, would it have the same profound impact that Sgt. Pepper had in that summer of love 1967? Priore definetly wetts the appetite of the Beach Boys enthusiast; the same way David Leaf did with his 1976 classic biography "the Beach Boys and the California Myth", (now unavialble).

The Smile album (orginally Dumb-Angel)was to be a grand display complete with gatefold cover and a illustrated booklet with lyrics to some of the tracks. The music,if anyone was privileged enough to hear it, was to say the least-bizzare. Mike Love, being the most apprehensive to the "new" music constantly fought Wilson in the studio; the other Beach Boys (sans Dennis and Bruce Johnson) agreed. Brian wanted to be an artist; The Beach Boys wanted fame, money and hordes of girls. In the end, Wilson said screw it, and began the retreat that would leave him a mental cripple to this day. The Beach Boys? They could have been Rock Legends with "Cabin-Essence", "Surf's Up","The Elemental Suite" "My Vega-Tables", etc. Now, though Brian Wilson will still have Pet Sounds as his crowning acheivement, the Beach Boys have been relagated to the land of oldies radio station with thier "surfand hot-rod" hedonism.

Those 10 months from July 1966 through May 1967; Wilson thought he was finally able to create his watershed effort, his "teenage symphony to God", and he wound up with paranoia, dissension and pain

I truly, really like this book. It collects hundreds of pieces of news items, press releases, magazine articles, reviews, interviews, and much more, all pertaining to the Beach Boys never-released legendary and apocryphal "Smile". If one has never heard "Smile" one might wonder what it is/was, and what's all the hoopla for in the first place?

The BEST intro to the Smile Sessions is the fan-produced "Smile Store" Interactive CDR. Once you've played the hundreds of outtakes, and gone through the day-by-day recording chronology, THEN this book will become worth it's weight in gold. Either the Vigotone or Sea of Smiles Bootleg CDs will also serve as a worthy introduction. THEN buy this book. You'll never hear Good Vibrations the same way again! :-)

Exhaustive reasearch done on the ill-fated Smile album. Essential for Beach Boys fans or fans of Pet Sounds. Note: a lot of the Smile music is now on the Beach Boys CD box set!

This is a scrapbook of Domenic Priore's obsessive collection of clippings about the "Smile" project from the sixties, most of which sheds little light on anything, but some of which does. Priore himself writes poorly, and his inside jokes fall flat, but he manages to include some essays by others which are genuinely perceptive in their attempts to reconstruct what "Smile" was to be like, and what went wrong. Also included is the famous "Goodbye Surfing, Hello God" article, which remains the first and last word on the subject.

Don't despair H.E.L.P. is on the way. The MUST have chronical/scrapbook on the innner-ill fated saga from them good ol vibration/acid/hash/Smile days. 23 year old Brian Wilson on the brink of changing the musicial history of this whole world.One year ahead of The Beatle's Pepper and to put simply,if it hadnt imploded whould have changed alot-a things around here, Even you and me today. Domenic (he also knows his hot rods)pulls it all together between these pages and serves up a big helping of a little something I like to call ..PROOF.. Very hard to find this book 10 years ago and now here it is new and improverd...Buy it..

The review below is incorrect in stating that Smile was only about 75% finished. The Smile tapes are readily available as bootlegs, and they clearly show an album that was pretty much finished. The song bits had not yet been sequenced, and the Beach Boys' vocals were not completed on every song. However, the album was very near completion, and almost everything that's out in the current Smile was already in the original. In fact, it took Brian only 2 weeks to complete Smile for performance and release in 2004 -- that's how close to finished Smile was.

This book should be required reading for any SMiLE enthusiast. Granted, it is not really a book, it is more of a scrapbook of magazine articles, newspaper articles, AFM Sheets, Music sheets, lyrics, pictures, essays, and cartoons. Also included is the famous Jules Siegel piece "Goodbye Surfing, Hello God". This is one of my favorite books to pick up and glance at for hours at a time. Also, it is a fairly big book, covering nearly 300 pages and it is chock full of information. Priore did a ridiculously good job of compiling all of these articles and clippings....this has to be the greatest album-related scrapbook of all time.

This is mid-March 2011 and SMiLE has just been confirmed to be soon released sometime later this year. In light of this information, I implore anyone even remotely interested to buy a copy (used or new) of this book.

5/5