Brian and the 1960s Avant-garde and Experimental music scene

[The Song Of The Grange]

Every once in awhile I read something about Brian's modular recording phase being influenced by Musique Concrète, or Avant-garde composers like John Cage or Karlheinz Stockhausen or Arnold Schoenberg.  I wonder just how much exposure Brian had to these influences, and how much of Brian's work was based on his own independent innovations that happen to parallel those of the experimental and avant-garde movements.  I think Brian's work in 1966-67 rivals or even out shines the work of the above mentioned artists because he was able to make experimental music that was actually commercial too.  So I am wondering how much of the tape splicing and modular song construction was indebted to these experimental musics, and how much is just his own, independent break-throughs?  Any thoughts?

[Alex]

I've never read or heard anything about Brian even listening to Cage, or any of those other composers, but you never know...

[The Song Of The Grange]

Yeah, I think it is safe to say that Brian wasn't very influenced by these avant-garde guys.  I think most of his 1966-67 innovations were made independent of the more formal experiments being done by avant-garde classical composers and experimental music makers.  To me this make's Brian's work in this period all the more impressive.  He was an American original, coming up with some amazing things without the academic influences.  And the trump card Brian holds in his legacy is that he made some of these techniques work in pop music.  Could Stockhausen or Schoenberg or John Cage or Pierre Schaeffer (Musique Concrète) sell a million records and top the American pop charts?  Not a chance in hell!

[Jason]

I think comparing Brian's work with the 1960s avant-garde and experimental music scenes, in and out of classical music, is like apples and oranges. As much as Mr. Leaf tries to tell us Brian was shying away from the ol' 45 RPM format, I don't think he had a true "symphonic piece" in him. He also had nowhere near the patience nor dedication required to see his ideas through. Sure, he revised and re-revised Good Vibrations and Smile and then got cold feet and abandoned Smile. A true trailblazer in avant-garde and experimental music wouldn't give a damn - it was THEIR creation and f*** everyone else who didn't get it. Brian didn't have that kind of "f*** off and die if you don't get it" attitude - at least not until Smile collapsed and he still felt he commanded respect from his peers. Four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence has made more of an impact than anything Brian could ever hope to achieve as an "experimental" or "avant-garde a clue" composer. Let's also not forget that Brian makes pop music. Not avant-garde, not experimental. POP MUSIC. As much as we heap praise on the Smile album and as much as we shout "uncommercial! No one gets it", Smile is nowhere near as demanding mentally, emotionally, or psychologically as any avant-garde or experimental work.

Let's take stock and compare a true "uncommercial" Brian thing to a trailblazer in 20th century avant-garde/musique concrete/experimental music. Take for instance, the recording from 1966 known as "Bob Gordon".

"Folks, this is Bob Gordon's real trip!"

Ok, then we get five mnutes of noise.

Then compare this to any of John Cage's works for his invention, the prepared piano. Noise it may be to the uninitiated or those who are just plain ignorant, but there is a METHOD TO THE MADNESS. Brian had none of that. He had madness and no real method with these kinds of pieces.

[Mr. Cohen]

Let's take stock and compare a true "uncommercial" Brian thing to a trailblazer in 20th century avant-garde/musique concrete/experimental music. Take for instance, the recording from 1966 known as "Bob Gordon".

"Folks, this is Bob Gordon's real trip!"

Ok, then we get five mnutes of noise.

Then compare this to any of John Cage's works for his invention, the prepared piano. Noise it may be to the uninitiated or those who are just plain ignorant, but there is a METHOD TO THE MADNESS. Brian had none of that. He had madness and no real method with these kinds of pieces.

You're right, Brian Wilson was no Karlheinz Stockhausen, more like a Baron Münchhausen (sorry, I just wanted to make that joke)! Anyway, Brian did do some avant-garde stuff with merit. For example, all of those vegetable and underwater chants are very, very similar to what Stockhausen did a few years later with a piece called Stimmung, which has six singers chanting the names of various deities and other esoteric incantations, whose personality they then try to embody for a short time in their singing. In fact, the Beach Boys "Water Chant" has a vibe very similar to Stimmung.

You're right that Brian didn't develop his ideas as fully, precisely because he was scared off by their lack of mainstream commercial merit. However, had Smile been finished, I believe that Brian would've sneaked in a few of those avant-garde concepts into the album, giving the mainstream public a titillating taste of experimental music that otherwise would have never entered their musical palette (sorry for all of the bad plays on words, I'm just in that kind of mood).

[Dancing Bear]

Then compare this to any of John Cage's works for his invention, the prepared piano. Noise it may be to the uninitiated or those who are just plain ignorant, but there is a METHOD TO THE MADNESS. Brian had none of that. He had madness and no real method with these kinds of pieces.

True words. Comparing Brian Wilson to Cage or Stockhausen is like comparing George Harrison to Ravi Shankar or Vilayat Khan. Apples and oranges. Brian is one of the greatest pop music songwriters, what's wrong with that? It's as respectable as anything in the music field IMO.

[Smilin Ed H]

"Then compare this to any of John Cage's works for his invention, the prepared piano. Noise it may be to the uninitiated or those who are just plain ignorant, but there is a METHOD TO THE MADNESS. Brian had none of that. He had madness and no real method with these kinds of pieces."

'Cause Brian's more naturalistic, improvisation comes from the soul...

No.  I agree with Dancing Bear.  More than that I worry when people try to claim respectatbility for pop/rock/jazz with comparisons to classical or avant garde, whatever you may think of it.  Or worse, when the artists themselves slavishly try to move their particularly genre into another and then look down on everyone else.  What's wrong with Bacharach, Bob, The Beatles or the Beach Boys?  At their peak, they were turning out stuff that's as good as it gets; songs that touched or created the right emotions, that were complex within their own right but recognisably within the admittedly broad framework of the pop/rock genre - not unlike the waygreat movie directors like Hitchcock, Ford, Welles or Truffaut worked.

[TdHabib]

It's important to remember that most of the population did not think of GV as avant-garde or anything like that. They were just singing along to the hook and the backing vocals...

[The Song Of The Grange]

I guess I should have specified that I don't think Brian's work in 66 and 67 is, in itself, avant-garde (though Mrs. O'Leary's Cow may come close).  What I mean to point out is that Brian was using techniques that composers in the avant-garde and experimental movement were using, and he was using them to much more enjoyable effect. 

Sure, no one at the time (or presently) considered Good Vibrations an avant-garde piece, but that doesn't change the fact that the song used tape splicing as a compositional device, much like Stockhausen or Schoenberg or John Cage or Pierre Schaeffer with the Musique Concrète movement.  What I am trying to establish is that Brian WASN'T influenced (very much or at all) by these composers who were working in the late 50's up to the Smile era and beyond.  It is my gut feeling that Brian didn't hear much of this stuff and wasn't too interested, and that his innovations are pretty unique to himself.  I would love to be corrected one way or the other on the subject.  (He did, however, refer to GV as "avant-garde R&B," but that is beside the point.)

Bottom line is Brian wasn't intentionally making avant-garde music, he was making pop music.  He was trying to make the best pop music he could. But his methods of production and composition during the Smile era are very unusual for pop music at the time, and when demonstrated in all their glory (such as in the masterpiece GV) I would argue that he uses the tape splicing and collage technique to much greater effect than the composers listed above.