Tag Archives: The Beach Boys

Pet Sounds ► Monday Musical Appreciation

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Previously on Not Now Silly:

Brian Wilson ► Happy Birthday, Genius ► A Musical Appreciation

On this date 50 years ago one of the greatest LPs of the Rock era was released: The Beach Boys 11th studio album, Pet Sounds. It was not an immediate hit, only rising as far as #20 on the Billboard album chart, far below their previous LPs.

Yet, Pet Sounds rises to the top of all critics’ greatest lists. Rolling Stone pegged Pet Sounds as the #2 Greatest Album of All Time, right behind Sgt. Pepper. That’s ironic because Beatles producer George Martin said that without Pet Sounds, Sgt. Pepper would never have happened. No less a musical authority than Sir Paul McCartney has rated Pet Sounds as his favourite LP. In fact, he’s been widely quoted as saying:

[I]t was Pet Sounds that blew me out of the
water. First of all, it was Brian’s writing. I love the album so much.
I’ve just bought my kids each a copy of it for their education in
life—I figure no one is educated musically ’til they’ve heard that
album. I was into the writing and the songs. 

Double irony: Brian Wilson, for his part, was spurred on to write Pet Sounds by The Beatles’  Rubber Soul. From the WikiWackyWoo:

Wilson recalls that Asher played him the Beatles‘ newest album, Rubber Soul (1965),[19] it being the alternate US version that was configured by Capitol Records to have a cohesive folk rock sound.[25][nb 6] Wilson was immediately enamored with the album, given the impression that it had no filler tracks, a feature that was mostly unheard of at a time when 45 rpm singles were considered more noteworthy than full-length LPs.[26][27][nb 7] Inspired, he rushed to his wife and proclaimed, “Marilyn, I’m gonna make the greatest album! The greatest rock album ever made!”[29] He would say of his reaction to Rubber Soul:
“I liked the way it all went together, the way it was all one thing. It
was a challenge to me … It didn’t make me want to copy them but to be
as good as them. I didn’t want to do the same kind of music, but on the
same level.”[30] Later, he clarified: “The Beatles inspired me. They didn’t influence me.”[31][nb 8]

Which makes it a triple irony: Wilson loved that it had “no filler tracks” and “the way it all went together, the way it was all one thing,” but it wasn’t that at all. It was a record cobbled together for the U.S. market by his own record company, different from the canonical Rubber Soul that The Beatles released in Great Britain.

FURTHER READING

 PET SOUNDS: THE ONLINE STORY
•
15 Facts About ‘Pet Sounds’
•
At 50, Pet Sounds remains The Beach
Boys’ most puzzling, influential album
•
Five amazing albums that wouldn’t exist
without The Beach Boys’ ‘Pet Sounds’
•
Why Does the Beach Boys’ ‘Pet
Sounds’ Still Have Its Hold on Us?

The rest of The Beach Boys were not so enamored of Pet Sounds. Here’s the quick backstory:

After Brian Wilson had a panic attack on an airplane while on tour with the band, he retired from live performing. This gave him the time to produce the more complicated songs he had begun writing. When the rest of the band returned from a tour of Japan and Hawaii, they were presented with an almost completed album, with tracks laid down by The Wrecking Crew, a group of studio musicians who had played on hundreds of songs for everyone from Frank Sinatra to Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound productions. All that was needed to complete the tracks were the Beach Boys’ harmonies. However, they weren’t convinced.

One of the issues was the album’s complexity and how the touring Beach Boys would be able to perform its music live.[54] Wilson said that the band “didn’t like the idea of growing musically … They wanted to keep making car songs and I said ‘No, we’ve gotta grow, guys’.”[55] Marilyn said: “When Brian was writing Pet Sounds,
it was difficult for the guys to understand what he was going through
emotionally and what he wanted to create. … they didn’t feel what he
was going through and what direction he was trying to go in.”[56] Tony Asher remembered: “All those guys in the band, certainly Al, Dennis,
and Mike, were constantly saying, ‘What the fuck do these words mean?’
or ‘This isn’t our kind of shit!’ Brian had comebacks, though. He’d say,
‘Oh, you guys can’t hack this.’ … But I remember thinking that those
were tense sessions.”[57]
Wilson believed the band were worried about him separating from the
group, elaborating that “it was generally considered that the Beach Boys
were the main thing … with Pet Sounds, there was a resistance
in that I was doing most of the artistic work on it vocally”. The
conflicts were resolved, accordingly, “[when] they figured that it was a
showcase for Brian Wilson, but it’s still the Beach Boys. In other
words, they gave in. They let me have my little stint.”[58]

Next month Capitol Records is releasing a giant 5-CD 50th Anniversary Edition of the iconic LP. According to Ultimate Classic Rock: 

Pet Sounds (50th Anniversary Collectors Edition) will include four CDs of various mixes, outtakes and alternate versions of the album as well as a Blu-ray audio disc featuring a 5.1 surround sound mix of the 1966 classic, often heralded as one of the greatest records ever made. The set will be released on June 10, about a month after the record celebrates 50 years.

Like 1997’s celebrated four-disc The Pet Sounds Sessions, Pet Sounds (50th Anniversary Collectors Edition) will include snippets from the studio as Brian Wilson pieced together his masterpiece. Backing tracks, alternate mixes and different versions (including some songs where Wilson or Mike Love sang lead on numbers that were released with other members singing) round out the collection.

As Not Now Silly is fond of saying, it’s all in the grooves. Listen to Pet Sounds.

Crank it up and  D A N C E ! ! !

The 45 Is Introduced ► Monday Musical Appreciation

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Hey Jude clocked in at 7:11, one of the longest singles to reach #1

It was 67 years ago today — in 1949 — that RCA Records introduced the 45, also known as The Single.  It was designed to replace the 78, which was made of shellac, as opposed to vinyl, and far less durable.

The 45 measured 7 inches and revolved at 45 Revolutions Per Minute (RPM), hence the name. The 45 also improved upon the sound quality of the 78. It became important to the spread of Rock and Roll, mostly because it was within the budget of most teenagers during the ’50 and ’60s. Adults tended to buy albums instead.

According to History’s Dumpster, the first 45 introduced to the public for sale was Eddy Arnold’s “Texarcana Baby.”

The History of The 45 RPM Record goes on to say:

The RCA 7″ inch 45 RPM record was cute, VERY small, and RCA’s very
colourful vinyl (each genre of music had it’s own colour of vinyl!) made
it an instant hit with younger people. Popular releases were on
standard black vinyl. Country releases were on green vinyl, Children’s
records were on yellow vinyl, Classical releases were on red vinyl,
“Race” (or R&B and Gospel) records were on orange vinyl, Blue
vinyl/blue label was used for semi-classical instrumental music and blue
vinyl/black label for international recordings 

In the beginning the 45 could only hold just over 3 minutes of music. As the WikiWackyWoo tells us:

The 3-minute single remained the standard into the 1960s, when the
availability of microgroove recording and improved mastering techniques
enabled recording artists to increase the duration of their recorded
songs. The breakthrough came with Bob Dylan‘s “Like a Rolling Stone“. Although CBS
tried to make the record more “radio friendly” by cutting the
performance in half and spreading it over both sides of the vinyl, both
Dylan and his fans demanded that the full six-minute take be placed on
one side and that radio stations play the song in its entirety.[2]
The subsequent success of “Like a Rolling Stone” played a big part in
changing the music business convention that single-song recordings had
to be under three minutes in length.

While we called the 45 a single, it would be a misnomer to believe that they were the only singles. Again, the Wiki knows all:

Singles have been issued in various formats, including 7-inch (18 cm), 10-inch (25 cm), and 12-inch (30 cm) vinyl discs (usually playing at 45 rpm); 10-inch (25-cm) shellac discs (playing at 78 rpm); cassette, 8 and 12 cm (3- and 5-inch) CD singles and 7-inch (18 cm) plastic flexi discs. Other, less common, formats include singles on digital compact cassette, DVD, and LD, as well as many non-standard sizes of vinyl disc (5-inch/12 cm, 8-inch/20 cm, etc.).

The first single I ever bought with my own money was The Beach Boys’ “I Get Around.” It cost 49 cents at Kresge’s, which was all the money I had left over after buying The Lovin’ Spoonful’s Greatest Hits.

The domination of the 45 continued until the album started to take over:

Perhaps the golden age of the single was on 45s in the 1950s to early 1960s in the early years of rock music.[3]
Starting in the mid-sixties, albums became a greater focus and more
important as artists created albums of uniformly high quality and
coherent themes, a trend which reached its apex in the development of
the concept album.
Over the 1990s and early 2000s, the single generally received less and
less attention in the United States as albums, which on compact disc
had virtually identical production and distribution costs but could be
sold at a higher price, became most retailers’ primary method of selling
music. Singles continued to be produced in the UK and Australia,
surviving the transition from compact disc to digital download.

Now that vinyl is making a comeback, so are 45s. All hail the single!!!

Final Note From The Road

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After a good night’s sleep following my whirlwind trip, here are some final observations from the road — all 2,991 miles of it. Because, if there’s one thing one can do during 46 hours of driving, that’s think:

• I did something on The Sunrise To Canton Road Trip For Research that I’ve always wanted to do, but the innertubes made it so easy. I couch surfed from home to Canton, visiting cyber-friends along the way. These are people I’ve known for years in the space of cyber, but whom I had never met;

• All the people I know who lent me a couch, bed, or just stoked me up with coffee for my next leg of the road, were all more wonderful than I had imagined from just the communication on the innertubes;

• Every family has their own shit to deal with. While it was not the topic of discussion with any of my couch-suppliers, every one of them alluded to trouble in their family that led to a current sitch-eee-ay-shun of family psycho-drama;

• TO BE FAIR: I participated in my own family drama when I saw some of my relatives this weekend between trips to Canton, Michigan;

• One gets no sense of topography from maps, which are as flat as South Florida. It was nice to be reminded that there are places not at sea level which won’t flood during the upcoming Great Glacier Melt™;

A panoramic example of topography from Morgantown, West Virginia. Note the cemetery in the far background.

 • Professional truckers still understand the courtesies of the road. I’d signal my brights at them to let them know it was safe to merge. They never failed to signal back as a “thank you;”

• Civilian drivers tend to be rude fucks who only seem to be concerned with getting there first;

• No matter where I drive I always do the speed limit, unless conditions require a slower, safer speed. I am always the slowest car on the road. In fact, there are times I feel like an impediment to the flow of traffic by hewing to the speed limit;

• The invention of car turn signals was a total waste of time;

• I had no idea Canton was so large. Because it’s an unincorporated township, as opposed to town or city, I thought it would be so much smaller. I guess at one time it was, but now it’s pretty much suburban sprawl from one end to another. Traversing Canton always took longer than I expected it would;

• No one has led a 100% exemplary life;

• Be good to your neighbours because you never know when a journalist will come sniffing around for information;

• A solution to a problem I was having in my novel jumped out at me from out of nowhere and I almost hit it with the car. I wasn’t even thinking of the book when it happened;

• One meets a lot of nice people along the road, provided one takes the time to talk to them;

• I was once able to get a much better sleep on the back seat of a car;

• I kept seeing signs that said “Trucks over 3 axles use right two lanes.” You mean straddling the line? Wouldn’t it be simpler to say “Trucks over 3 axles prohibited in left lane?”

• I had the misfortune to hit morning rush hour traffic in Jax while on the southbound I-95;

• The last 100 miles I could see the smoke of several brush fires rising into the air on both the east and west side of I-95. Yet I turned on the news and searched online and could find no reference to it;

• With approximately 10,000 tunes on my music machine playing on random shuffle, here were the Top Five Played Artists [in descending order]: The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Beatles Bootlegs [a separate category to any die-hard Beatles fan], Willie Nelson, Alberta Hunter. Oddly enough the first 4 have multiple albums on the music machine. Alberta Hunter only has 1 album on there, plus a few selected tunes from her early days singing with Eubie Blake. More proof, if any is needed, that random shuffle is quite random;

• I never thought I’d say this, but that was entirely too much Wliie Nelson. I’ll have to winnow it down a bit;

As I tell people: I love to drive, provided I have tunes. This may have been a long drive, but I enjoyed every minute of it. I would also like to thank the friends I met along the road. You were all so terrific and any time you’re in the neighbourhood, don’t hesitate to call.

Further Reading on Not Now Silly

Notes From The Road
More Notes From The Road
And Still More Notes From The Road

Musical Appreciation ► Brian Wilson is A.L.i.V.E. ► Rich Aucoin

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Before Mike Love stabbed his cousins in the back and fired Brian Wilson and Al Jardine from The Beach Boys, it was gratifying for this long-time fan to know they were back on the road making music. On the same day I read that Mike Love fired his band mates of 50 years, I discovered this wonderful tribute to Brian Wilson. I not only loved the song, but dug the whole video production, which touches upon some of the highlights and lowlights of Brian Wilson’s life.

This video made me curious. Knowing absolutely nothing about Rich Aucoin, I used Der Googalizer. The WikiWackyWoo wasn’t much help, although it told me that this was a good Canadian boy from Nova Scotia. It also informed me:

[H]e also recorded material across Canada with a wide variety of musicians, friends and fans for what would become his debut full-length album, 2011’s We’re All Dying to Live; in total, the album features over 500 guest musicians, including Jay Ferguson of Sloan, Becky Ninkovic of You Say Party and Rae Spoon. The album’s release party, held at the 2011 Halifax Pop Explosion festival, featured over 80 musicians onstage.

Even his Official Web Site had very little actual information, but it did open up a treasure trove of videos. The music and the videos will just have to do the talking for Rich Aucoin.



And, if you have your anaglyph 3D glasses, you’ll get the most out of this video:

It’ll be interesting to see what Rich Aucoin has up his sleeve next time.

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Happy Birthday, Brian Wilson: Genius ► A Musical Appreciation

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There’s no point in writing a Brian Wilson biography; every one knows the high points of his life. What started as a love of the four-part harmonies of The Four Freshmen consumed a lad in Hawthorne, California, who went on to write music that defined several generations. As the leader of The Beach Boys and beyond Brian Wilson has created true art in the form of music. For me it’s sufficient that Brian Wilson’s music is the background to so many of my memories. His music will stand the test of time, but it’s an absolute bonus that he’s come back around to playing music again, both without and with The Beach Boys. Celebrating their 50th Anniversary The Beach Boys are touring again, with Bruce Johnston and David Marks. Too bad Glen Campbell couldn’t join them. They have also released a new album, “That’s Why God Made the Radio,” which will be a fitting capstone to their career, if they decide to wrap it up.

Brian Wilson still has the ability to write an instant classic:

The first 45 I ever bought (kids, ask your parents) was “I Get Around,”
because it was all the money I had left over after buying “The Best of
the Lovin’ Spoonful.” I have been a huge Beach Boys, Brian Wilson fan ever since; collecting bootlegs like I also did with The Beatles. One of the things that I have found thrilling is that 20 years ago, starting with the 4-CD box set of “Good Vibrations; Thirty Years of The Beach Boys,” the band has been releasing alternative takes and works-in-progress in the studio. [Sadly, that box can’t be shared on Spotify.] It was also done with The Pet Sounds Sessions and culminated in the semi-recent massive box for The SMiLE sessions. These give the listener the total Fly on the Wall experience. With SMiLE, we can hear just how close Brian Wilson really was to releasing his Magnum Opus. Collectors of bootlegs have, over the years, put together the fragments based on scant evidence. It’s great to finally hear SMiLE as Brian envisioned. It was worth the wait.

SMiLE took his sanity and some 35 years to finally finish, but Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys are back and, if show biz metrics mean anything, back on the top of the game. This week The Beach Boys broke a record set by The Beatles. As Billboard tells us:

 As their reunion set, “That’s Why God Made the Radio” (their first album of all-new material since 1992), bursts onto the chart at No. 3,
the Beach Boys break a record by expanding their span of Billboard
200 top 10s to 49 years and one week. They first graced the top 10
with “Surfin’ U.S.A.” the week of June 15, 1963.
 The
Beach Boys’ stretch between their first week in the Billboard 200
top 10 to their most recent is now the longest among groups, passing
the Beatles, whose top 10 span covers 47 years, seven months and
three weeks. The Fab Four first entered the top bracket when “Meet
the Beatles” rocketed 92-3 on the Feb. 8, 1964, chart at the
blastoff of Beatlemania. The group most recently appeared in the top
10 with “1” the week of Oct. 1, 2011.

 Now with sell-out concerts and current hits on the radio. Here’s a Brian Wilson Jukebox for your listening pleasure, with some rarities, some well-known songs, and some versions you’ve never heard before:


 As always, CRANK IT UP!!!

A BRIAN WILSON – BEACH BOYS BONUS:

For people who are as certifiably insane as I am, here is every version of Heroes and Villains I could find. Set on crossfade and you will never need another song. Ever!