smoe.org mailing lists
ivan@stellysee.de
| From | "Chris Coyle" <ccoyle@sacoriver.net> |
| Subject | Van Dyke Parks announces his participation in preparing SMILE for Brian |
| Date | Sun, 11 Jan 2004 17:17:03 -0500 |
[Part 1 text/plain iso-8859-1 (4.5 kilobytes)]
(View Text in a separate window)
http://www.songcycler.de/newsflash.html
2003, 7th January
VDP announces his participation in preparing SMILE for Brian
Wilson's Tour
Van Dyke Parks has officially announced his participation in
assembling the material for Brian Wilson's SMILE tour. 27 years
after the project was abandoned back in 1967, Wilson and his
band will tour Europe with the legendary work. Below you find an
essay by Parks about his involvement with bringing Smile on the
road.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
"Smile" sat there, like the bride's cake on Miss Havisham's table---
a memento from another age, an age of "Great Expectations"!
I thought that cake had collapsed. It had been such a beautiful
thing, some 40 years ago, when it was hot out of the oven. It had
laid there, in the shadows all this time. I avoided the mention of it.
What kind of fare for the light of day, I wondered.
I waited for Brian to see if and how he related it to his formidable
body of work. Too true, I've autographed uncountable copies of
"Smile", all bootleg, from "appreciative fans" of Brian. Each time I
did, an impish banker on my left shoulder, dressed in red, said:
"Another Pirate!"
But I always have signed this work, without mention of my own
debts.
Now I must take the opportunity to thank Brian in-public for tearing
open those old curtains and letting the sun shine once again on
this inspired, serio-comic work.
In summer '03, I read in the press that "Smile" would be Brian's
next tour. I wondered for two months longer what form that music
would take. Did Brian imagine I wasn't interested? Finally, he
asked me up to listen.
Invited up to the Wilson house in the Hollywood Hills. Like a deer
in the head-lights, I lugged my 60 year-old frame to his
music-room and heard the collection for the first time in 37 years. I
had dreaded that moment so, not knowing what the results could
be after such a time of dashed expectations. Would it simply be a
veteran's repetition of some youthful glory or folly?
In sitting with Brian and his musical director Darian, I immediately
felt a wash of great relief come over me at first listening. "Smile"
strikes me as a wondrous achievement from a 24 year old
musician and a 22 year old lyricist. It's robust and athletic, with all
the promise talented youth suggests. It's kind on the ears.
Perhaps now, people may remember that "Surf's Up"" was cited by
composer Leonard Bernstein as "a significant contribution to
American Popular Music of the 20th Century..." I agree with Lenny.
Brian has made a lasting contribution in this work. In performing
"Smile", he opens his heart to a possibly vulgar public gaze. What
has he got that I ain't got? Courage!
Only at one point during the playback of Smile in that recent time in
his music room did I lose an immediate recall. I just couldn't place
the music. It slowly dawned on me; the section I was hearing
came from the inferno of "The Elements" ("Fire").
I'd sat out that so-called "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" session in 1966; I
felt an emerging irrelevance. With no lyrics, yet. The writing was on
the wall. So when "The Elements" (the only piece of "The
Elements" I worked on was "Vege-Tables") were all brought
together by Brian for this performance, I heard in this troubling
section (as will you) a suspended E chord that hangs on forever in
a miasma of some new breed of transcendental mock-Asiatic
chant. Half-Hopi....half- Himalayan. Definitely new-age stuff. On the
old tapes, the meditative chant of Mike Love came through as the
dominant consolation. This chant, I'm told, was recorded in the
spring of 1967, long after I'd departed the scene for "Palm Desert"
and my just desserts.
Still Mike's voice somehow consoled me now in the present tense.
And the "Fire" section typified the events that surrounded Brian in
that turbulent time. Retrospection brings greater clarity to those
events, with a wide pallet of emotional force.
I'm thrilled Brian asked me to include some thoughts on this.
Brian's staging "Smile" feels like a validation. And, I feel my own
work has been validated by his so doing. Hell, I almost feel
relevant...although I still can't tell you what I meant by the words:
"Over and over the crow cries uncover the cornfield".
It does test "poetic license."
"Smile" has snap, crackle, and pop. Its audio imagery (Brian), its
insouciant visuals (Frank Holmes), and its skewed lyrics all give
anecdote to the great American dream. Don't waken me.
With a salute to Brian,
Van Dyke Parks
Los Angeles
Dec. 24, 2003
For assistance, please contact
the smoe.org administrators.