I am gonna miss this because 1) I’m broke, 2) it is at Jones Beach and I don’t have a car on 3) a weekday, 4) The Big Huerta and little Stevie Crawford have already written terrific reviews of the concert in LA and Dallas, 5) plus Alyson reviewed the tribute gig months ago and 6) did I mention I’m broke? However, if you have a car and are not broke, get to Jones Beach on Tuesday and check out Brian Wilson.
Wilson is a sympathetic figure, even more so do to the recent biopic Love & Mercy, and with his personal tragedies and triumphs, it’s impossible not to root for the man. He was in good spirits on this evening, giving brief song introductions (“This one’s in the key of E,” “Let’s hear the girls yell,” “This one rocks like hell!”) and punching the air for emphasis
Live: I woke up today to 100s of reads of Edward Huerta’s admittedly excellent, Brian Wilson at the Greek review from Sunday. A pleasant surprise but how did that happen, right? How about this: Brian Wilson posted it on his Facebook wall. Considering all the negative being thrown our way it was a pleasant change of pace. Congrats to Edward and I hope we passed the audition!
Set highlights included “This Whole World”, The Little Girl I Once Knew”, “Shut Down”, “Then I Kissed Her”, “Wild Honey” (with Chaplin singing and blistering guitar parts), “She Knows Me Too Well”, “Wake the World” and this is the first time I ever heard him do “Busy Doin’ Nothing” the bossa nova ode from 1968 Friends lp. You mix that in with the hits (California Girls, God Only Knows, In My Room, Lil Deuce Coupe….do I really have to list them???) and it was just a marvel
There is very little I don’t admire about “Love And Mercy” but this is why I love it, this insistence upon the sound in the head becoming real through work. It feels like the truth, it feels like how creation should occur.
Just try holding back the tears when you see the real Brian Wilson singing “Love and Mercy” at the end of this film. Misty would have liked this and she would have made fun of me over lunch for being so emotional. God bless Brian Wilson.
In which the songs catch up with the year, 63 songs, three from Brian Wilson alone, on an album that isn’t as good as its best moments and whose best moments are among the best of the year. And Young Fathers, who are as good as their best moments and who I still expect to crack the US in some form or the other.
Wilson can make music that sounds like the slow yearn of conclusion. It is one of his many strengths that even as a teen surfer sensation there was something else there, there was an awareness of thought and solitude. “Somewhere Quiet” is the ghost of “Please Let Me Wonder”.
It starts in the orange crate-ville of Southern California, home of Capitol Records, where water, sunshine and gorgeous girls means fun, fun, fun! I did not paint these images in any particular order but one can see a Santa Monica Civic era Brian already being carried away by the twister like forces of fame and fortune
When I was ushered in, I showed Brian a pic on my phone of a painting I did of him that he signed in Long Beach. He said he dug it and that he remembered seeing it. Well, that was pretty bitchen’ to say the least. Again, here was my musical hero and I hardly had much to say to him. What do you say to a modern day Mozart or Beethoven? What do you say to a musical genius?
the Beach Boys’ iconic catalog was brushed (in not the right order) by Norah Jones and Gingger Shankar, Heart’s Ann Wilson, The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne and Steve Drozd, Devendra Banhart, Monters of Folk’s M. Ward, Al Jardine, Blondie Chaplin, Boz Scaggs, Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino, Local Natives, Capital Cities’ Sebu Simonian, Wilson Philips, Karen Elson, ex Magnetic Zeros’ Jade Castrinos, Adam Busch and Danny Masterson, Lucius’ Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig, Doyle Bramhall II, Punch Brothers, Civil Wars’ Joy Williams, Kesha….
You won’t know it from the reviews, but if these three songs are anything to go by, this won’t be much of an addition to the canon, in much the same way and for many of the same reasons the last Beach Boys album wasn’t. Like Bruce and Paul, and an army of others, Brian does what he did only not half as well.
I am talking about a period way before the digital age, where information was not available as it is now,… I got the chance to see the Los Angeles premiere of ‘The Wrecking Crew’ at Sonos Studios last Wednesday night, and I got the revelation: Hundreds of hit records of the 60s were recorded using the same collective of Los Angeles musicians
This time it is Brian Wilson’s turn, played by the brilliant Paul Dano. I like this guy so this upcoming movie can’t be a total mess right? ‘Love & Mercy’, directed by Bill Pohlad (‘The Tree of Life’) from a script by Oren Moverman and Michael Alan Lerner, will be released on June 5th in a theater near you. The movie, which narrates the career of the Beach Boys and their rise to the top of the world of rock & roll, has a new trailer
For the first song off the eagerly anticipated new Brian Wilson album No Pier Pressure (best pun ever), Brian hooks up with two Beach Boys for a minor though not unpleasant Wilson circa Imagination type work. It swings like the mid-70s, mostly because of David Marks subte guitar (his solo is lovely and lowkey). Al Jardine adds his voice of the harmonies – B+
I was born about a baseball throw (if you are hyped on steroids, goofballs and PCP) away from the wonderful land that we call Hawthorne, California, home of the Wilson and Jardine Families. If you grew up in Southern California, in that era, you were probably weaned on surf music
Dig, Richman wrote a song called “Ice Cream Man” and Brian posed as a Good Humor ice cream man on the Sunflower LP cover. Pet Sounds is one of the most tender, soul baring LP’s ever made and Jonathan often bared his soul onstage (crawling on all fours) and on entire LP’s and songs like “Affection”, “Back in Your Life”, “That Summer Feeling” etc..
It seems to me, Brian Wilson’s decision to make a new album featuring the likes of Zooey Deschanel, Lana Del Rey, Frank Ocean and Kacey Musgraves is a great one… and except for Zooey all these names excite. Especially Frank Ocean, the only name here with real production chops that might work well in tandem with Wilson.
The entire CMJ Festival, from October 15th – Octoebr 19th, is gonna be fun as always and the line up is dishy with even rumors of a secret Arcade Fire gig in Brooklyn. But for me, the afternoon KEXP radio shows are the keepers. Tell me a betetr way to spend your afternoon than with Au Revoir, Simone or Eleanor Friedberger?
