billboard: new article about LP with Jeff Beck [October 14, 2013]

[Lowbacca]

Album is two-thirds done; Beck says, "There's a style about the melody and the chords that I think he wants to recapture some of the 'Pet Sounds' flavor"

Brian Wilson is well aware of all those rumors about three different albums he's working on. But, Wilson cautions, he's taking one thing at a time.

"We just know the one we're doing now," Wilson tells Billboard, referring to a straightforward song album that he says he's "about two-thirds of the way through. We have eight or nine songs done, and we need three or four more songs. Most of it is very mellow kind of stuff, mellow harmony, not very much rock 'n' roll yet. It' a pretty unique album. It's very different than anything I've ever done."

Wilson is working on the as-yet-untitled set with longtime cohort Joe Thomas, with Jeff Beck and former Beach Boys mates Al Jardine, David Marks and Blondie Chaplin -- who Wilson is touring with through Oct. 30 -- all contributing to the sessions. Wilson, who's also reported to be working on an album of instrumental material and a full-blown suite -- says he chose Beck after hearing the guitarist's rendition of "Surf's Up" during the 2005 MusiCares Person of the Year gala.

"He really blew my mind, so we thought we'd have him join us on our album," Wilson explains. "He plays the most goshdarn greatest guitar you've ever heard. He really brings quality notes, more notes per bar than you can imagine."

Beck says he's played on several tracks for the project, including the traditional "Danny Boy," which is closing shows on the tour, and a suite-like piece he's been told Wilson composed with the guitarist in mind.

"There's a style about the melody and the chords that I think he wants to recapture some of the 'Pet Sounds' flavor," Beck reports. "They let me take the melody wherever I wanted the flavor of them to go, but the fact is when you've got the backing of Brian's chords you automatically play West Coast-style guitar. It's just inbuilt into the essence of what he writes. You can't do anything far from it, so it's hard to wedge my style in there, but I've tried to do it as best I can."

Jardine says the material he's worked on "really feels like the old-style Beach Boys music that people grew up with. They're very refreshing songs. We haven't gotten all of it fleshed out yet, so I'm not sure what the rest is going to sound like, but I think people who like Brian and the Beach Boys will like it." Jardine says Wilson tapped Marks to play guitar on "Run James Run," which he describes as "a suped-up 'Little Deuce Coupe' kind of thing. It's just cute as hell."

The tour, meanwhile, has been a musical adventure for all concerned, with Beck and his band performing their own set, Wilson, Jardine and Marks (and occasionally Chaplin) doing theirs and joint performances of "Our Prayer," "Child is Father to the Man," "Surf's Up," the Regents' "Barbara Ann," "Surfin' U.S.A." and "Danny Boy."

"We groove pretty good together," Jardine says. "The combination of the two forces of music give it a certain breadth and depth that I think neither of us have experienced before. Jeff has a very melodic sense and is keenly aware of where the chord progressions are going, and it helps us to marry our voices to his progressions. We're doing some really innovative things."

Beck acknowledges that the tour roster "is an odd combination, no doubt about it. Whether it works or not, people have to decide. But if it was me walking down the road and I could see Brian Wilson and someone else on guitar doing two disparate kinds of music, I wouldn't think that was weird at all. I would think it's like two concerts in one, really, with a little paper clip in the middle."

Wilson is hoping to finish the next album "some time early next year, maybe." Meanwhile, filming has also wrapped on the biopic "Love and Mercy," which Wilson co-produced, directed by Bill Pohland and starring Paul Dano and John Cusack as Wilson at different ages and Paul Giamatti as the controversial Dr. Eugene Landy.

"It's quite a thrill to have a movie made of my life," Wilson says. "I'm very sentimental about it, and it's very, very good. It was a trip to see. The actors and actresses portrayed everybody really well."

The film is expected to be released during the fourth quarter of 2014.

(source)

[guitarfool2002]

Thank you for posting this! This is a good article and build-up for the new album.

I also hope it serves as an answer to those who are still asking why Brian and Jeff Beck are working together, both performing and recording new music. All those questions "why?", I hope some of this puts it to rest.

If you are a songwriter and musician, if writing songs is your life's work and you may even have developed a specific sound or unique style over years of success, it's a choice of either sticking to the game plan or trying something new. In this case, and it's hinted at by Beck in the article, how many guitarists do you think Brian has watched play what they thought was a guitar style and sound that would "fit" his previous legacy and sound? I'd suggest he may have seen a steady of stream of guitarists play the kinds of parts like we saw in that online "Goin To The Beach" guitar-slinger contest, where they all fit into a certain niche with similar phrases and sounds.

It could get a bit repetitive, even a bit boring, if every time someone sits in they sound like 1965. In it's place, that could work brilliantly...but isn't there a desire to hear something more original and see in what musical direction that originality might take your own musicianship?

Jeff Beck is a true original, specifically in his guitar technique. No one plays like him, among guitarists he's instantly identifiable. If he covers a song, hell even if he plays a standard 12-bar blues in E, he stands out. He's a "guitarist's guitarist", as Roots guitarist Captain Kirk said on the Fallon show last week.

Brian heard him do Surf's Up at that benefit in 2005 - we already knew that. Brian was floored by the way Beck interpreted his song, it gave it a different twist, a new sound, that perhaps other guitarists equally as skilled technically but less original than Jeff Beck would have done. I don't believe Brian had up to that point been in direct contact with this kind of guitarist, who has such a unique skill and sound which literally no one else has, and few can copy.

So Brian, then, when the opportunity presented itself, might have wanted to add that kind of originality and unique guitar playing to a collaboration. That's exactly what he did, and is doing now. A unique musician getting a shot of creative juice from a similarly unique musician...let's see where my writing and your playing can take both of our creative energies, and vice versa.

Thus, it's 2013. The question "why?" has an answer.

[Sam_BFC]

a suite-like piece he's been told Wilson composed with the guitarist in mind.

They are not referring to the 'life suite' here surely?

[The Heartical Don]

I think it's wonderful that Brian still is willing and able to travel new roads at age 71 (and beyond, in all probability). How many of the great guys of pop can say that? Most resort to dire standards albums.

[The Shift]

I think it's wonderful that Brian still is willing and able to travel new roads at age 71 (and beyond, in all probability). How many of the great guys of pop can say that? Most resort to dire standards albums.

Careful what you say, I've heard Rod Stewart lurks here…

[The Heartical Don]

I think it's wonderful that Brian still is willing and able to travel new roads at age 71 (and beyond, in all probability). How many of the great guys of pop can say that? Most resort to dire standards albums.

Careful what you say, I've heard Rod Stewart lurks here…

 

...probably to spy into what his old semi-pal Beck is up to now.

[Roger Ryan]

Jardine says Wilson tapped Marks to play guitar on "Run James Run," which he describes as "a suped-up 'Little Deuce Coupe' kind of thing. It's just cute as hell."

So is Al talking about Marks performing the title track from PET SOUNDS ("Run James Run" being a working title for that track back in '65) as he did last year during the Beach Boys reunion tour...or is this a new song that happens to use the old working title? One assumes it must be a new track, but you never know...

[ontor pertawst]

New song using the old title, innit?

[Lowbacca]

New song using the old title, innit?

I think so, too. Track title is probably just 'fan service' / inside joke. (But who knows. It's Brian Wilson. He's crazy.)


((( )))

[chrs_mrgn]

I forgot about Love & Mercy.

When is that supposed to hit theaters?

[Micha]

I forgot about Love & Mercy.

When is that supposed to hit theaters?

Read closely, the answer is already on this thread...

I must say I'm not looking forward to this Brian/Beck album but will buy it anyway. On vinyl if available.