Sam Leach - KEEP
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Hi, Oliver my best wishes of succes to your CD and rock career
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hi, Guitar Kat why don´t you listen Alice Cooper " School´s out " lol
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Cesar I remind one Paul's words about one that she drove from Liverpool to London. On the first way he played Pet Sounds on the car-cd and on the way back he played Sgt. Peppers. He thinks that those were the album of the '60s. Paul introduced Brian Wilson to Hall Of Fame and his speech is very clear bout him. He has said the "God Only Knows" thing a lot of times. Even more. In that interview Paul says that he have bought a copy of Pet Sounds to every of his children. Just for learning about life. As an education tool. He commented every song. And he was very admiring to "Wouldn't It Be Nice" and "You Still Believe Me" and the whole album itself. If we forget the Beatles it's Paul fav album.
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Hi Cesar You're absolutely right. The Byrds and the Beatle often compared notes BEFORE they finished albums looking for each other's opinions. Read `Revolution In The Head' for confirmation of that. But I also thought The Beach Boys were fabulous too...especially Brian. ....but not up to The Beatles. No one was !! Goodnight. Sam.
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Sam Leach:
Hi Samcat: I disagree with you on three counts....at least. Firstly Buddy Holly was mixing orchesrtas with Rock well before The Beach Boys...and producing his own stuff. Secondly...The Beatles were doing close harmony vocals in 1961 long before America had even heard of them...or the Beach Boys. Thirdly....When Sergeant Pepper was released Mick Jagger and Roger Daltrey played it endlessly getting drunk as they did so. Mick commented. "We might as well pack in. We can't follow this..no one can." I've been reading all these comments by those trying to lift The Beach Boys and Monkees onto the same plane as The Beatles. Impossible !! If you all want to fully appreciate WHO and WHAT the Beatles were as regards to being trend setters then please read `Revolution In The Head' by the late Ian McDonald. Cheers Sam
Sam, True about Buddy Holly, but not to the extent that was used in the albums discussed. And it was Brian Wilson who did the producing for the Beach Boys. There was no George Martin to consult with, and in many ways he aided the development of the Beatles. I never said that the harmony of the Beatles were like the Beach Boys, they were more like the Everly Brothers, so it was nothing new as they followed that trend. It was Pet Sounds and Good Vibrations that elicited all the meetings between the Brian Epstein and the Beatles about the music and pretty much inspired them to do Pepper. Most of your Rock Historians put Pet Sounds as one of the greatest albums of all time. Many also look at Good Vibrations as one of the key songs in the 1960s. While I can not put the Monkees on the same plane with the Beatles, I certainly can put the Beach Boys on the same plane. We will have to agree to disagree. Cheers! Sam C.
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Sam Leach:
Hi Cesar You're absolutely right. The Byrds and the Beatle often compared notes BEFORE they finished albums looking for each other's opinions. Read `Revolution In The Head' for confirmation of that. But I also thought The Beach Boys were fabulous too...especially Brian. ....but not up to The Beatles. No one was !! Goodnight. Sam.
Hi Sam, And there is nothing wrong with you having that opinion. Just please realize that some of us who love the Beatles' music are going to disagree with that view. I feel in many ways that Brian Wilson was a match for anything the Beatles could do and he did his own producing. The only thing he needed work on was his lyrics. After Holland, the Beach Boys went downhill creatively IMHO. Goodnight to you, Sam C.
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Hi, Sam and Oliver the Byrds are really great I once saw them playing I wanna hold your hand in a folk style ... fantastic !!!
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cbimbi:
Hi, Oliver my best wishes of succes to your CD and rock career
Thank you. Well, not every single great song is by The Beatles... There's a lot of artist who has sometimes doing so great things but not a entire career. Beach Boys had a great 1966. With Good Vibrations and Pet Sounds. But mostly nothing after that. There's only a few artist that really have been "eternal". Always doing great stuff. The Beatles, The Stones, Queen, Elton John, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen and of course John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
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Revolution in the head ? I´ll search for this book in my next trip to London who wrote it ?
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21st Century Paul:
As well as Pet Sound inspired Sgt. Pepper's... Revolver inspired Pet Sounds!
Actually musicians don't compete but learn from each other. Lennon and McCartney are the greatest example. I think that the only band that I can compare with The Beatles is Queen. According to musical talent. But they didn't have the "conceptual" impact of the Beatles. While Beatles set the standard that every band copied, Queen went with the flow.
Actually Revolver came out about the same time as Pet Sounds, so that was not the album that inspired Pet Sounds. Revolver was released in August of 1966 and I believe Pet Sounds was already in the charts, then the song Good Vibrations came out in October which put the Beach Boys in the vanguard of the pop world at the time. The Beach Boys received no support from Capital to promote Pet Sounds, which was a crying shame. I often wonder what would have happened if Capital had embraced the new sound just how the Beach Boys would have gone. Very sad indeed. For the record, my favourite LP of the Beatles is Abbey Road.
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21st Century Paul:
cbimbi:
Hi, Oliver my best wishes of succes to your CD and rock career
Thank you. Well, not every single great song is by The Beatles... There's a lot of artist who has sometimes doing so great things but not a entire career. Beach Boys had a great 1966. With Good Vibrations and Pet Sounds. But mostly nothing after that. There's only a few artist that really have been "eternal". Always doing great stuff. The Beatles, The Stones, Queen, Elton John, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen and of course John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
Commercially, the Beach Boys went downhill, because everyone looked at them as a surfing band, and they had changed their sound. Friends is a light go through the hoops album, 20/20 is interesting, Wildflower brings it back, Surfs Up is full of songs that would have been set for the late 60s, So Tough is awesome, and Holland is the last good album for the Beach Boys.....then it was back to the old kind of tunes after that.... Take a listen to some of those albums, especially So Tough, you will not recognize the sound. Best, Sam C.
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Sam C -- found this article thought you'd might like Grin and bear it When Brian Wilson had his nervous breakdown in the 1960s, he was working on a concept album called Smile. His fellow Beach Boys dismissed it as 'a whole album of Brian's madness', and for years Wilson would not even talk about it. Yet now he is taking the album on the road. Sylvie Simmons visits him in his Beverly Hills home Friday January 23, 2004 The Guardian The home that Brian Wilson shares with his second wife Melinda, their two young daughters and a handful of assorted dogs is modest as Beverly Hills mansions go. The neighbouring houses are all oddly quiet, as if their famous occupants - Tom Jones, Robbie Williams, basketball player Shaquille O'Neal - had been spirited away, leaving just a team of silent housekeepers, nannies and gardeners to keep up appearances until their return. There's no music playing in the former Beach Boy's house, no studio in the basement, no records on the shelves or gold albums on the wall. Instead, there are Toby mugs, Victorian dolls and paintings - of their daughters, dogs and kittens - and framed photos of the family. His new family mostly, though there's one black-and-white of Brian blowing out birthday candles, flanked by younger brothers and fellow Beach Boys Dennis and Carl, both of them now dead (Dennis by drowning in 1983; Carl from cancer in 199
. The house is spotlessly clean and tidy, with barely a sign that there might be a pop star in residence - least of all one hailed by luminaries from Elton John to Bob Dylan, Neil Young to Beatles producer George Martin, as pop's greatest living genius. And who has just appeared at the bedroom door? A pale, gaunt but oddly sturdy-looking man, with a thick thatch of salt-and-pepper hair and well-ironed casual clothes. "I'm ready," he says, without saying hello, padding off to the room where he keeps his grand piano. Brian Wilson is not big on small talk. Any talk for that matter. Shy and reserved, he still looks fragile, despite the enormous progress made since his breakdown in the mid-1960s, which confined him first to his bed for two years and then, for even longer, to the controversial care of Eugene Landy (the psychiatric doctor whose relationship with Wilson was finally severed by the courts). "He needs a real comfort level," explains Melinda, who married Wilson nine years ago. She seems to have done more for her husband's mental health than anyone, except perhaps his current band. "If Brian's in a comfortable situation, with friends, he's really funny, he loves to make people laugh. Real corny jokes - he got that from his mother. I don't think people get that about him. They think he's just this withdrawn, shy man, which he is. "But one thing with Brian and Dennis and Carl is they were brought up in this same dysfunctional family for all these years and all really, really loved each other but had a hard time communicating. That wasn't a skill taught in that family. Brian understands now, having a second chance, that communication is extremely important and he's getting much, much better at it. He communicates with our daughters - he loves to take them out to dinner and to the movies - and he communicates with his band." The Wondermints, the young group Wilson first heard play in an LA club in 1995, have been moonlighting as his backing band ever since Melinda persuaded him to go on tour in 1999. "It's so different now," says Melinda. "This band really supports Brian. They love his music and they love him . He always needed to be told, 'this is incredible', 'this is great', and in the past he didn't get that from [the Beach Boys] or anybody. But now he's got what he needs around him to be able to courageously attack this new project." Actually, it's a very old project. Not to mention a near-mythical one Smile. The record that rock critics call the greatest lost album of all time, and the one that, famously, led to the troubled genius's withdrawal from the world. Thirty-eight years ago, aged 24 and at his creative peak with the album Pet Sounds, Wilson approached a then-unknown, free-thinking 22-year-old named Van Dyke Parks to write lyrics for the complex, experimental album he was working on while the Beach Boys were on the road. A kaleidoscopic, fractured concept album, it was an attempt to encapsulate American music and history in its entirety, from Dixieland to Disney, Phil Spector to Westerns, comedy to spirituals, George Gershwin to the Great Fire of Chicago. "Teenage symphonies to God," Brian called it. The Beach Boys, when they got back, called it "freaked out" and "fucked up". Mike Love, Wilson's cousin and most vocal critic in the band, scoffed that it was "a whole album of Brian's madness". Already reeling from a distressing battle with the group's record company, Wilson was overwhelmed. And when Parks was forced out by the band, there was no one to fight his corner. He was "brain-fried", as he put it, and suffering spiralling paranoia - believing that Spector was monitoring his brain and that a track on Smile had caused an outbreak of serious fires in Los Angeles. The final straw was the sudden appearance at the top of the charts by another far-reaching concept album Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, by arch-rivals the Beatles. Wilson put the Smile tapes on the shelf, went home, got into bed and closed the door. And for decades, while some of his Smile songs were rejigged for subsequent Beach Boys albums or slipped out on bootlegs or the internet, he refused even to mention the project. Until last October, when he went back to the album and finished it. He was aided by the now-sexagenarian Parks and - half his age - Wondermints keyboardist Darian Sahanaja. Sahanaja located what was left of the tapes in the Capitol records vaults and "loaded all the complete to nearly complete pieces of music on to my laptop and played through them with Brian". Wilson was nervous at first. So was Sahanaja, "because it was well known that this was the music that began Brian's withdrawal and subsequent spiral. It had to be done in small steps. Fortunately, we had already been performing some of the cornerstone pieces such as Heroes and Villains, Surf's Up and Good Vibrations, all serving as a good points to rally around." Then Wilson "started getting into it. He was genuinely turned on by the sounds he was hearing and asking me how we would pull certain things off live." It was Melinda's idea for him to play the album in its entirety, on stage and worry about details like releasing a recording later. It was, she believed, the only way he could top 2002's Pet Sounds tour. The British reaction to earlier shows convinced him to bring Smile over here. "The people in England appreciate my music more," Wilson says. He's still glowing from his last visit, for the Queen's golden jubilee concert. "A good time. My big moment was meeting the Queen. We got to see the palace. It was beautiful. I can't remember the details, to tell you the truth." Parks, who met up with him soon after his return, can. "I said, 'Brian, did you meet the Queen?' and he said, 'Yes.' I said, 'What did she say?' He said, 'Who are you?' And I said, 'Well, what did you say to her?' He said, 'Hi, I'm Brian.' And she said, 'That's nice, very good' and I said, 'What did you say?' and he said, 'Well, quite frankly I couldn't say anything - Paul McCartney kept cutting in.' I said, 'Brian, he didn't!' and he said 'Yes, and he'd been drinking too much too and it ruined my trip.'" Parks laughs heartily. "Brian says what's on his mind. He has a personal candour that is wonderful and it took him 60 years," he chuckles, "to learn how to answer to Paul McCartney." McCartney, in fact, participated in the original Smile sessions. "We were doing a song called Vege-Tables, Wilson explains, "and I had carrots and celery there on the console and Paul came in. I said, 'Have a carrot'. And he ate the carrot on the record. I knew Paul more personally than the other Beatles. I never met John. I knew Ringo and George, but only by 'Hello, how are you?'." His relationship with the Beatles, he says, was "friendly competition". Wilson had written Pet Sounds in response to hearing Rubber Soul, while the Beatles' Revolver was said to be in part their reply to Pet Sounds. McCartney would often come by the studio when he was in LA, just as Wilson would sometimes drop in on sessions by visiting British bands. "I went to a Rolling Stones session [in LA] one time and I remember they were recording some really good music. Really good music." Wilson got so stoned, he remembers, that he couldn't find the door. During the mid-1960s there was no end of US/UK cultural swapping going on. For every British group (like the Stones) who adored American music, there were as many (Love, for instance, or the Byrds) who played at being English. "We had this terrible competition with the Brits," says Parks, "so when Brian and I started work on Smile we decided - in spite of the Beatles, in spite of 'Nam, in spite of everything - to make it singularly American." Wilson agrees "The theme is Americana, but I wanted to create a love vibe for the people. I just wanted to make it good. It was a search for musical perfection. And it came real fast - it was easy, because I was young and creative." He gives a small laugh. "I had a lot of love in my heart and I was, like, burning - my love was just burning - and when I saw a thing," he clicks his fingers, "I could just get it like that." He vividly remembers the
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2nd part of the article He vividly remembers the sandbox he had installed in his living room for "inspiration". "It was real big, about nine by nine, and the piano was in it. I thought it would recreate the feeling of being at the beach and the ocean. When Parks came to my house he goes, 'What is this?' I said, 'It's a sandbox'. 'What for?' 'We're at the beach, we're at the beach!' It was just for writing and it created a mood that was magic Heroes and Villains, Surf's Up, Wonderful and Cabinessence, those four were written in the sandbox." It also became an unofficial litter tray for the Wilsons' dogs, and Brian's first wife, Marilyn, finally banned it. Likewise the dope tent erected for "inspiration" in another room. "I thought it would be a creative idea. We smoked marijuana in it and took LSD. I smoked a lot, every day. It got me deeper into the music. But it scared me too." His first acid trip, he says, was a very religious experience. "I think my music is spiritual." What impact did LSD have on Smile? "None," he insists. And the idea of recording at the bottom of an empty swimming pool? "We used the empty swimming pool for one of the songs on Smile, I don't remember which one, just to get that sound. We used a whole lot of stuff for different sounds - bottles, cans, wires, saws and lumber." When it came to recording Mother O'Leary's Cow, the "fire" part of an Elements suite, Brian lit a fire in a studio bucket and had the orchestra wear toy firemen's helmets because "I just wanted to get the musicians into the mood to play it". When the song was played back and a fire broke out across the road, "I thought we caused the fire. I couldn't believe it. I said, 'There's a fire down the street!' But I don't think we caused the fire. I don't think so. I did at the time but now I know it wasn't." Was that why he canned the album? Or was it the Beatles beating him to it? "We didn't want it to come out. Because we thought that it was too weird. Too weird. We thought that it was a weird album." Such a pity, I say. If it had come out before Sgt Pepper, it might have changed the course of music history - or certainly the way people viewed the Beach Boys. His face clouds. "No", he says. "Can we finish?" He jumps out of the chair, shakes my hand, thanks me and leaves. We do get to speak again a little later, this time on lighter topics. He tells how he met Melinda - at a Cadillac showroom, where she was selling cars - and fell in love with her "very quick. She has changed my life." And he says how much he's enjoying fatherhood the second time around (the first time, he was "really engrossed in the Beach Boys and taking drugs"). They moved up here because he wanted a warmer house and he likes the "nice view" - Los Angeles on one side, the sprawling San Fernando Valley on the other. He doesn't miss the beach. "I'd had enough of the ocean." His favourite restaurant is minutes away, as is the park where he walks most days. "What I do is get up in the morning, I have breakfast, then I go to the park, then I come back and watch a little television, go back again to the park. I get a lot of exercise. I'm in good shape - I eat well, I eat my vegetables. I go for a run once, maybe twice, a week, about two miles. And I do a lot of mental exercises - transcendental meditation." He was turned on to meditation in 1967 by Mike Love - the man who, as a result of the lawsuit he won in 1998, now owns the sole right to the Beach Boys name. Asked if he thinks this is crazy, Wilson answers brightly. "No. I'm proud of Mike. He's licensed the Beach Boys name, so he's the Beach Boys - and Al Jardine is Al Jardine and I'm Brian Wilson." Do they stay in touch? "No, we don't talk any more. Since Carl died, the whole thing fell apart. We don't call each other up at all." But moments later he says "I tried to call Mike last night but his phone was disconnected. I wanted to break the ice and see how he feels about music and life and everything, but I couldn't get hold of him." Was he interested in what Love might think about Smile? "Yes." Does he ever play any of his old Beach Boys records? "No. I don't wallow in the mire." And if he should accidentally hear one on the radio or TV? "Each one brings back a different kind of memory. Sometimes sadness, but most of the time it brings back a good feeling - sunshine and ocean. The Beach Boys were all about sunshine and ocean." Meanwhile, Wilson has been working on new songs. Every day, usually around six in the evening, he sits at his piano and plays whatever comes into his head. When our interview is over, that's precisely what he does - a piece of music I don't recognise. "I don't recognise it either," says Melinda. "I think it's a new song." The writing block that plagued Wilson for years has started to lift. "I don't know how," he says, "but it's gone. That's good - I thought my well had run dry." He has recorded 11 new songs with the Wondermints and they're planning to play some on the UK tour. He has also recorded a number of duets - with his daughter Wendy, plus a posthumous duet with his brother Carl, and with Eric Clapton, Elton John and old friend and nemesis McCartney. It's tough living up to the term "genius". As Wilson says "You have people watching you and it seems I have to keep doing something great. It's very hard." But "tortured genius" is even harder. Wilson shrugs off the idea that he's a fragile man, broken by his life and art. "I'm just a shy and retreating kind of person. Sometimes I get in a real talkative mood - but not very often. I get off on hearing other people's voices. I like voices they're my favourite things on records. "Life," he smiles sweetly, "is very good." · Brian Wilson plays the Royal Festival Hall, London SE1 (020-7960 4242), February 20-27, then tours.
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cbimbi:
hi, Guitar Kat why don´t you listen Alice Cooper " School´s out "
Being cheeky, arn't we?
I must admit, that's a good song.
Folk musicians RULE!!!!!!
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To Sam and all just checking in to say hello!!
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Hey Paulfan
am doing good today, finally starting to feel a little better!!
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Hello Sam Leach, I've read back through your thread - very interesting! Yes! the Beatles we're doing close harmonies before America and what I love most about the Beatles is their melodies and harmonies. These days you can buy a hi-tech box plug one microphone in, sing and whollah! instant harmonies. The Bealtes used tapes very effectively (no whiz bang digital technology) whereas today's new artist use computer digital technology; easy cut/copy/paste, auto-vocal-pitch-correction, harmonizers, and god knows what else. When you think carefully about it - the Beatles are truely amazing. Oh and... I forgot to mention George Martin - he's a genius! dB
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Hi Starr, Good to see your feeling better - that cold weather can be fffrreezzzing c c c cold. dB
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Hi Sara, I'm glad you are doing fine and feeling better.
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Hi Mike Thanks for taking the time to type out the article on Brian...a real genius. I'll have to make sure I catch his show in England. Funnily enough I always knew his talent and I think his problem was that he hated to be considered brilliant because he didn't want the added pressure of having to be ALWAYS brilliant. We should all just let him do what he wants and not expect it all the time. That way he WILL match up to our expectations. And I note that Pet Sounds came because of Rubber Soul and then Revolver came through Pet Sounds. Similar to the rivalry between John and Paul, each driving the other to greater things. That's the way it should be. I'm really delighted that Brian has found himself again. I wonder if we could get Macca and him to work together.....hhmmmm. Maybe not. I'm off back to bed. Goodnight. Sam.