Seems that Brian decided to make Smiley on a whim.
This kind of statement: Have you chosen to ignore everything written about the subject, including what I just wrote in this thread?
Check May into June 1967 then check Nick Grillo's comments on what happened, along with other reports I posted here this past year, and tell me it was a "whim" that they changed entirely the recording methods Brian had been using for several years and to great success.
It feels like Mujon came back...
It was just a off-topic comment man. I wasn't prepared to defend my belief in the claim (not sure that I even did). All I want to do is straighten out the With Me Tonight sessions. And yes, I have chosen to ignore everything about the subject simply because I don't care.
You don't care, yet you make definitive statements and comments about other topics like With Me Tonight's place in this song or that, and other definitive statements which the session dates and notes could easily prove or disprove as if they're fact? It reminded me of quite a few posters like Mujon in the past whose well-meaning enthusiasm sometimes came off as arrogant as in saying "THIS is what With Me Tonight would have been" rather than offering an opinion as such...Maybe taking a minute and going to the archives to rehash some of these details is just a recommendation, before commenting along the lines of saying certain pieces of audio were "missing" then coming back later and mentioning that they were released on various boots or whatever.
If you make a statement, that Smiley Smile was Brian deciding on a whim to do things that way, it's ignoring everything that has been debated or discussed about the topic here and elsewhere for years. And if you don't care, then don't make such a statement and expect no one to chime in to offer a rebuttal.
Like this from January:
Take it all into consideration, my two posts above, the one with the May 67 quotes, and you see band members saying they want to give the public a good product on their terms, not be rushed, etc., some answers specific to the Heroes single, maybe implications for the Smile album too even though Bruce is the one most openly enthusiastic about "Smile" in his answers. The band is in Europe on tour, Brian holds sessions in line with "Smile" working methods he had been using. Band returns, does about a week of sessions, one at Sound, others at Western, mostly focused on Vegetables (which was where they left off immediately before the tour in mid April) and also With Me Tonight and Cool Cool Water.
If Taylor's July '67 PR piece is accurate, *something* happened between when the band returned to the US, did the week of "pro studio" sessions, then began recording at Brian's home.
In that exact period of time, possibly (and probably), Taylor's report (July 67) described this:
"In one inspired decision, (Nick) Grillo and the Beach Boys were able to a. Make use of Brian Wilson's new house, b. restructure the attitude and atmosphere at recording sessions and c. remove the problem of availability of commercial studios. They built their own 8-track studio in the Spanish house."
The part in bold, "restructure the attitude and atmosphere at recording sessions", what are the implications there? Whose attitude? What exactly was restructured?
Whatever the case, they did begin recording at Brian's house and the album they recorded there had for the first time the credit "Produced by The Beach Boys". Does that coincide with another circa November 1966 (when they arrived in Britain from Stockholm) Alan Walsh interview (subtitled 'Are the five touring Beach Boys merely puppets of sound genius Brian Wilson') with Carl where he talks about the band's contributions and addresses criticism that the group isn't the same without Brian, and defends against the criticisms being leveled then at the live sound of the touring group versus the records. That criticism got worse in May 67, some of the reviews of certain shows were harsh on the band's sound, similar to the previous year but with even more negativity directed at their shows.
Was there something that broke the dam when the band returned from that May 1967 tour? A case could be made that there was, because within weeks they were recording at Brian's house with a piecemeal rented studio setup, with totally new songs and radically different textures and arrangements, and all of this coming after (if Taylor got it right in July 67) a restructuring of attitude and atmosphere at recording sessions.
Two questions:
1 - Is there an answer for why Brian was still recording as he had been with all previous Smile tracks in mid-May 1967 while the band was on tour and in spite of the band's press agent publicly declaring the album D.O.A.?
2 - Can anyone offer anything factual or published that sheds light on what happened those first two weeks of June within the band?
If the answer is "no" to the second one, it's all speculation. But we know what things were like immediately before, and we know what things were like immediately after, and Taylor in July 67 did shed some light on those changes, specifically the decision to use Brian's house to work on the album. The entire game had changed, including future production credits on the music.