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“The album became a legend. Songs and beautiful musical fragments would emerge over the years, but Smile was to have been a whole musical direction, and the individual songs, taken from their natural surroundings, were deprived of what could have been a stunning collective emotional effort. The work had started with “Good Vibrations” and it had expanded with the help of a friend (Van Dyke Parks) Brian met on Cielo Drive. Now, a year later (1967), Smile was still a dream. Too much pressure. Too many drugs. Too much anticipation. Too little support. It was the end of an era.” - Byron Preiss (“The Beach Boys”/1979)

I was wrong. These four Frankenstein monsters created by Capitol in 1964 out of parts stripped from various UK originals sound fantastic and yes, revisiting them after decades of neglect and dismissal opened a floodgate of intense memories-for me my freshman year at Cornell- of my roommate at University Halls #3, of a dorm band fronted by a kid names Ozzie Ahlers, and their big hit “Master the Bate,” and especially where and when I bought each of these albums, and how I reacted upon hearing them. When I heard the fake stereo version of “I Feel Fine” for the first time in 3 plus decades I flashed on the first time I ever heard the song: on WKBW, Buffalo, which was a clear channel we could pick up on the AM radio at night in Ithaca. I remember who I was with when the song aired, what he was wearing and even how the dorm air smelled. Hearing these songs strung together in this order creates a totally different vibe than the one you get listening to the UK originals: more muscular, and justd plain more American. That's both the problem and the pleasure, however.

Neil Young and Crazy Horse is either one of your life's great musical pleasures, or you just can't take the slop. Me? Beginning with Everybody Knows This is Nowhere I have eaten it up. If you haven't liked the combo before, this sprawling, loose-fitting “concept” album isn't likely to pull the trigger for you. Critical reaction was decidedly mixed, but who cares what critics think? Myself included.

This interview was conducted by New York Musician Magazine's Bill Taylor, and originally run there. We reprint it thanks to
the kindness or Mr. Taylor and his publication. Thanks also to Don Grossinger for gettting it for Musicangle.com.

BT: What was your participation on the project?

DG: I did all of the vinyl mastering and some of the QC work to make sure the test pressings were up to par.

BT: How did you get the project? I was recommended by Bob Ludwig who had mastered the CD for the project and Joe Gastwirt who had worked on many Beach Boys projects with Mark Linett. Bob didn't do it himself because he no longer has a lathe. This is the second project he's sent to me. He sent the Rolling Stones' remastering for vinyl work, the new SACD masters, to me as well.

BT: Did you do the whole Brian Wilson album or just a few selected cuts?

DG: It was more than the whole album, actually. The whole CD consists of three suites which are 47 minutes long in total. Each of the sections took one side of the album. The fourth side, which I EQ'd and mastered from scratch, consisted of bonus tracks. These were 4 instrumentals of some of the songs that were on the album as vocals. These tracks will only be on the vinyl release, not the CD.