What Was Each Beach Boy Doing When He First Heard Sgt Pepper?

[harrisonjon]

I assume that the boys heard Pepper for the first time at some point between the ditching of Smile and the start of Smiley Smile. Is there any evidence as to how they reacted?

[hypehat]

iirc Carl got off his tits on PCP and pistolwhipped a nun

[oldsurferdude]

Myke was attempting a comb over when it came over his magic transistor radio. Lyrics to SGB?

[SurfRiderHawaii]

Myke was attempting a comb over when it came over his magic transistor radio. Lyrics to SGB?

Funny! 

A great E-book would be a collection of these hilarious jokes and posts from this board "attempting a comb over".
Some very quick, brainy wits on the board!

[ghost]

When Bruce first saw the Pepper album cover his first thought was "Oh my GOSH I love Paul's mustache I wonder if I can grow one too..."

[ghost]

do we even know if the rest of the group thought Smile was viable material to rival Pepper? Apparently Dennis & Carl were huge Beatles fans, and there is that With A Little Help cover they all did...

maybe they thought Pepper reached a similar aesthetic in an aspartame way, for the common listeners more than anyone else. anyone can get into Pepper for at least a couple of listens, before they realize how boring it is as a record. and how half of it feels as soulless as a lot of radio teen sex pop music around today.

syd barrett was in the studio over reaching a similar aesthetic but for real - i think john lennon just sat around overhearing the floyd piper sessions. piper/pepper - get it?

piper was first, syd barrett was first. john lennon and paul tried to copy, and get the same tripped out cool sound in whimsical songs. but syd's are timeless, the beatles feel manufactured and slick.

matilda mother vs lucy in the sky with diamons
fight to the fucking death

matilda mother wins every day
O WO MOTHER  TELL ME MORE
TELL   MEEE   MOREE

come on, that's pure Brian Wilson songwriting.

PLANETS ARE SPINNING AROUND
planets are spinning around.

[pixletwin]

syd barrett was in the studio over reaching a similar aesthetic but for real -

piper was first, syd barrett was first. john lennon and paul tried to copy, and get the same tripped out cool sound in whimsical songs. but syd's are timeless, the beatles feel manufactured and slick.

As much as I love The Beatles, I have to agree. Piper kicks Peppers butt on every listen... except for A Day in the Life. 

[The Madcap]

syd barrett was in the studio over reaching a similar aesthetic but for real -

piper was first, syd barrett was first. john lennon and paul tried to copy, and get the same tripped out cool sound in whimsical songs. but syd's are timeless, the beatles feel manufactured and slick.

As much as I love The Beatles, I have to agree. Piper kicks Peppers butt on every listen... except for A Day in the Life. 

I also have to agree. As most of you can probably tell, I'm a huge Syd Barrett fan.

[pixletwin]

syd barrett was in the studio over reaching a similar aesthetic but for real -

piper was first, syd barrett was first. john lennon and paul tried to copy, and get the same tripped out cool sound in whimsical songs. but syd's are timeless, the beatles feel manufactured and slick.

As much as I love The Beatles, I have to agree. Piper kicks Peppers butt on every listen... except for A Day in the Life.  

I also have to agree. As most of you can probably tell, I'm a huge Syd Barrett fan.

It was an NPR report which referred to Brian as the "American  Syd Barrett" that opened my mind to listening to the BB.  

[ghost]

anyway, when carl first heard sgt pepper he was first hearing sgt pepper, when al first heard sgt pepper he was first hearing sgt pepper, when mike first heard sgt pepper he was first hearing sgt pepper, when dennis first heard sgt pepper he was first hearing sgt pepper, and when bruce first heard sgt pepper he was first hearing sgt pepper.

[Pretty Funky]

.....Brian was hearing voices. (and still is)

[send me a picture and i'll tell you]

Al was knocked clean off his stepstool, and Brian had to finish his vocal lines for I Know There's an Answer.

[ghost]

Sgt Pepper was on the turntable but no one was home in Al Jardine's head. He was lost in a dental reverie, mountains of perfect teeth glistening in his mind's eye like precious jewels. God, said Al Jardine in 1967, is the Great Dentist of the Cosmos, dig it man...

[runnersdialzero]

do we even know if the rest of the group thought Smile was viable material to rival Pepper? Apparently Dennis & Carl were huge Beatles fans, and there is that With A Little Help cover they all did...

maybe they thought Pepper reached a similar aesthetic in an aspartame way, for the common listeners more than anyone else. anyone can get into Pepper for at least a couple of listens, before they realize how boring it is as a record. and how half of it feels as soulless as a lot of radio teen sex pop music around today.

syd barrett was in the studio over reaching a similar aesthetic but for real - i think john lennon just sat around overhearing the floyd piper sessions. piper/pepper - get it?

Not sure if serious, but it never fails to amaze me how much Wilson/Barrett did so much of what the Beatles did, but better, and how much less anyone cares about them. How dated so much of the Beatles later material sounds and how timeless the majority of Brian and Syd's music is, especially once they got really good. But no. The Beach Boys? "Kokomo". Pink Floyd? Bloated, go-nowhere 70s rock.

[pixletwin]

That settles it dammit. I am going to listen to Piper on my way home today from work. 

[P.J.]

How dated so much of the Beatles later material sounds

Really? I always found the Beatles' later music to sound more contemporary and modern than their early stuff.

[runnersdialzero]

How dated so much of the Beatles later material sounds

Really? I always found the Beatles' later music to sound more contemporary and modern than their early stuff.

The studio effects are mostly to blame. imo. Some of it's done well and maybe doesn't sound dated. The rest, o god. Especially in comparison to said folks who did it a lot better than they did and that no one cares about.

RAAAAAGE. imo.

[Mr. Cohen]

There's some bad mojo going on with the production of Sgt. Pepper/Magical Mystery Tour and Abbey Road. That's when they gave stodgy old George Martin too much shine in a bid to sound orchestral/important. He's just a silly, twee British man (albeit talented in his own way), and it sometimes shows in his arrangements and production choices. He did the best he could, but he even knew it wasn't always a good idea to add all his wonkiness. He even tried to convince John to stay closer to the folksy, original version of "Strawberry Fields Forever", over the bloated masterpiece version. Then again, he also refused to produce the Get Back sessions after he learned there were no overdubs for him to do (yeah, he says it's because the band was disorganized... but how were they worse than they were for the White Album?)/

"Strawberry Fields Forever" and "God Only Knows" show the huge difference between the Beatles and the Beach Boys. John, after writing and recording "Strawberry Fields Forever" with the band, tells Martin to add some strings because it would be groovy and stuff. And to make it sound like an orange. Meanwhile, Brian artfully and painstaking designed all of his own arrangements to carry out his original, spiritual vision. 

Don't get me wrong, "Strawberry Fields Forever" is a good tune, especially from a pure songwriting (chords, melody, and lyrics) perspective. But as art it's a bit slapdash.  "Lucy" was cool, though.

That's the Beatles thing, though. They were still writing "swimming pools" and "cars" in 20 minutes while Brian was writing "California Girls". Yeah, he wrote out the initial sketch of the song in an hour or two, but the arrangement and intro took a lot longer. In fact, Brian says he spent days or a week or two or something crazy like that on the intro.

But back to that Beatles sound on Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road. Who can really get into the arrangement and production choices for songs like "Octopus Garden" or "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"? Maybe they're catchy, but the arrangements are so freaking goofy. You can't get emotionally invested in music like that. It's just a bunch of rich guys high out their minds (Silly Rich Rastafarian Paul, who has taking over normal Paul by that time, was a big part of the production/arrangement problem, too). They couldn't give a sh*t. Maybe John could at times, but by the end he needed the rest of the band to really push him away from just doing vanilla rock arrangements or piano ballads. Don't get me wrong, "Imagine" was great, but you can't do a whole album with that sparse of a sound.

[Mr. Cohen]

P.S. Does anyone else think that Ringo's drum fill before the chorus on "Lucy" is almost embarrassing?  Good song, but bad drum fill.

[Cliff1000uk]

P.S. Does anyone else think that Ringo's drum fill before the chorus on "Lucy" is almost embarrassing?  Good song, but bad drum fill.

I think most of Ringo's drum fills were quite embarrassing. I mean, Dennis was no Ginger Baker but you knew when the snare had been hit. What did Jon or Ed once say? Dennis was more a thumper than a drummer?
You can see the kit in The Lost Concert almost wincing during Surfin' USA

[MBE]

There's some bad mojo going on with the production of Sgt. Pepper/Magical Mystery Tour and Abbey Road. That's when they gave stodgy old George Martin too much shine in a bid to sound orchestral/important. He's just a silly, twee British man (albeit talented in his own way), and it sometimes shows in his arrangements and production choices. He did the best he could, but he even knew it wasn't always a good idea to add all his wonkiness. He even tried to convince John to stay closer to the folksy, original version of "Strawberry Fields Forever", over the bloated masterpiece version. Then again, he also refused to produce the Get Back sessions after he learned there were no overdubs for him to do (yeah, he says it's because the band was disorganized... but how were they worse than they were for the White Album?)/

"Strawberry Fields Forever" and "God Only Knows" show the huge difference between the Beatles and the Beach Boys. John, after writing and recording "Strawberry Fields Forever" with the band, tells Martin to add some strings because it would be groovy and stuff. And to make it sound like an orange. Meanwhile, Brian artfully and painstaking designed all of his own arrangements to carry out his original, spiritual vision. 

Don't get me wrong, "Strawberry Fields Forever" is a good tune, especially from a pure songwriting (chords, melody, and lyrics) perspective. But as art it's a bit slapdash.  "Lucy" was cool, though.

That's the Beatles thing, though. They were still writing "swimming pools" and "cars" in 20 minutes while Brian was writing "California Girls". Yeah, he wrote out the initial sketch of the song in an hour or two, but the arrangement and intro took a lot longer. In fact, Brian says he spent days or a week or two or something crazy like that on the intro.

But back to that Beatles sound on Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road. Who can really get into the arrangement and production choices for songs like "Octopus Garden" or "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"? Maybe they're catchy, but the arrangements are so freaking goofy. You can't get emotionally invested in music like that. It's just a bunch of rich guys high out their minds (Silly Rich Rastafarian Paul, who has taking over normal Paul by that time, was a big part of the production/arrangement problem, too). They couldn't give a sh*t. Maybe John could at times, but by the end he needed the rest of the band to really push him away from just doing vanilla rock arrangements or piano ballads. Don't get me wrong, "Imagine" was great, but you can't do a whole album with that sparse of a sound.

I think Pepper was their first album to be self indulgent ie Within You (which isn't half as cool as Love You To kind of a rehash) and When I'm 64 which is way too cute. As flawed as a few of the 1962-66 songs are, they can't be faulted for not trying their best as a group. Can you really picutre the whole band being in to those two tracks I mentioned? Pepper is cool, but I never thought it or Abbey Road come close to the more honest Rubber Soul and Revolver. 

[smile-holland]

What did Jon or Ed once say? Dennis was more a thumper than a drummer?

would that be "clubber" ?

[MrRobinsonsFather]

I've always thought rubber soul and revolver were their best albums too. Not saying pepper's not good but some tracks don't seem to fit in with each other, "Within you without you" has nice lyrics but the song itself is a drag.

[ghost]

Within You, Without You is another lame attempt by the Beatles to appropriate India's entire culture musically & thoughtally. When did we appoint George Harrison as world saint here to teach us about how to live amongst one another? Oh, he smokes pot, he plays sitar. Got it. Later came to find out the man screamed Hare Krsna at an intruder in his house before his wife took care of the situation practically and hit the dude with a lamp. Who yells religious mantras at intruders? Silly man, you get a knife and stalk downstairs behind the guy and slit his throat, not try and liberate his thieving soul into Krsna-Consciousness. We were talking.... about how much The Beatles suck... and all the people who think they're great... they're behind a wall... of illusion... never glimpse the truth...the Beach Boys rule...

[Smilin Ed H]

Reading the Steve Hoffman board...