The Smiley Smile Message Board

Hey everyone. Lots of excitement these days, doncha think? I've been spinning the new record, and it's been spinning me around a bit, too. Here's my review of "That's Why God. . ." (http://www.peteramescarlin.com/node/204), just in time for the Billboard charts to tell us exactly how big a hit it's going to be -- word on the street predicts top 5, possibly higher.

Best written review for the new album that I've read. Good job, man- you got dem mad writin' skillz.

This must to be the first record review ever that made me think of my own mortality and make my eyes grow wet. That last bit, about Summer's Gone... Damn.

Very well written, and I agree wholeheartedly in terms of praise and criticism.

Very, very nicely done.

Great review! Enjoyed reading it.

Great piece that really captures the spirit of the album (as well as your opinions of it).

Great writing, Peter. I wish all music criticism were like this.

Terrfific review. Agreed with an awful lot of it. Love the book as well, one of the best.

Having wasted half my day at work reading the old PAC honored guest thread, I would be really interested to hear PAC's thoughts about the reunion in general (although the review was very interesting in and of itself and appreciate him alerting us to it!).

Peter Ames Carlin....you've brought tears to my eyes again, man.  Wonderful words.  Thanks.

Yes, I thank Mr. Carlin for sharing the review.  I am not a fan of profane language in scholarly work; I find it neither kitsch nor useful.  When the essay gives itself over to the music, despite its self-inflicted resistant critical imperatives, it succeeds best.  I can only assert again, as I did in my Amazon review (likely the only one that refers to Cicero, so you can find it if you wish), that "skipping" songs because they appear (superficially) to be superficial, misses the complex, evolving integrity of the "album."  Mr. Carlin, like so many reviewers, falls into the Manichean trap of “summer fun” (Mike) vs. “sundown death” (Brian).  This long day, this long summer we call the Beach Boys celebrates and laments both modes and moments.
.
But I am a fan of Catch a Wave and respect Mr. Carlin's work; I hope (and suspect) he enjoys the academic debate and engagement. And yes, I too have testified to the emotional forse of that final moment in the album; as Carlin writes, "He's got that dreamy tone in his voice again, his cousin steps up with his reassuring baritone,  the music fades and all that remains is the rain on the beach. The forces of nature, the voice of God. On the radio, and everywhere else, too."

Moving and true, especially about Mike supporting his cousin; but we would never get there without Mike having tested our hearts and urgently longed for us to return, recapture, and eternally possess that which we cannot hold on to forever..
Finally, BonJovi's contribution should surprise no one; like me, he is from New Jersey; we know much of beaches and summer there, and unlike here in LA, we know much of of "summers gone."

Nice review Peter and it's good to see you back, hope you aren't chased away like last time.

Manichean, you say?! Harumph. Pistols at dawn! Mine will have a white handle, so yours has to be black. And while I'll be standing with a backdrop of a church behind me, you'll have to stand near the cemetery at the other end of the street. Bring your seconds!

Amazingly.  I agree completely.  I even understood it, lol.  

you must be the worst person to hang out with in real life


Thanks for the review, Peter. Really enjoyed it.

Oh, Ivy, you don't mean that. . .

I added a paragraph to my post, by the way, to share my sense of awe about Mr. Carlin's last, lovely paragraph.

:lol

Me too

Thumbs up Professor - I agree with every word in this paragraph. I always enjoy reading your posts!

While I appreciate Mr. Carlin's review, I must also thank the professor for such an insightful comment, and for putting into words what I -and others- feel about the album.

Thanks for posting! I appreciate what you wrote about the last few songs...exactly how I view them.  But for the record, the song title is "From There To Back Again", not "There And Back Again"...

I dunno about manichean, but those aeolian cadences, man, that's what got me.

Great review, fairly similar to my take on the album -- three cheers for informed profanity and redemption through melancholic suites!

It's great to see a review that actually addresses the music instead of rehashing regurgitated backstory obtained after a half-hearted google search... you kids have fun with that duel!

Hi, and thanks for reading, and for all the nice comments here. But when it comes to profanity, y'know, I could have done a better job of it, I suppose. Maybe it's beneath my dignity, or something. But that said, I don't have a lot of dignity, and I also think a well placed cussword, especially the one that begins with an 'f',' that is perhaps the most flexible word in the English language -- It's a verb! It's an adjective! It's an audible pause! -- is far more expressive and meaningful than a lot of other words I encounter on a daily basis. Like 'mimetics.' Ran up against that one today. I get it, it's one of those words you get issued in graduate school, the better to deconstruct and analyze in terms that only a small segment of other readers will be able to understand. (I'd imitate that kind of thinking/writing, but I just don't know a good word to describe/analyze my decision to do so. Oh wait, maybe I do. . .it's on the tip of my tongue. . .)

The smartest, coolest people I know curse. Some of them a lot. They're not profane people. They just understand the power of language, which does not always reside in the houses of propriety.

Is my frickin' opinion, anyway.

nice piece, but i've never seen such disdain for a simple modulation! guess i'm just a sucker for a key change.

most of the songs are nostalgic and about trying to recapture yesterday in one way or another, even the good ones.


I've been wondering... is it just a coincidence that the title "From There To Back Again" is so similar to this:
(http://991.com/newGallery/Beach-Boys-Songs-From-Here--536627.jpg)

It's a quote from the subtitle to "The Hobbit."

Really. And I'll bet you anything it's intentional. Brian was apparently into that book in the '60s.

I think a healthy use of the F word is an accepted convention of rock journalism. To complain about it so un-Rock 'N Roll. Again, nice job on the review. Good to see somebody else notice the Burt Bacharach-ness of the From There To Back Again tag.

oh yeah... it sure is. but "From There To Back Again" is a little different than "There and Back Again"
not much though.

Yeah, it's not enough alike to get sued.  ;D But given that the Hobbit has, I believe, come up in reference to Brian's 60s reading, I find it hard to believe the two aren't connected, y'know?

Hiya Peter –
great review, great comment. You are spot on about the profanity issue, inasmuch that tough words do have their place in the scheme of things, perhaps more so than posh words. The lovely paradox is that the use of the strong stuff (fit for spontaneous expression) has to be very carefully considered and measured, and that in turn are acts that require observation and rationality – one might call it: meta-cognition (haha, very posh, this one).

And I think the Professor has a point, re: the skipping of certain songs on the album (either factually or attention-wise). But your and Prof’s opinion are not mutually exclusive to me. I can accept that there may be days that I listen with a little distance, and thus get the whole picture; the Boys were this, and that too, and the CD tells the whole story. And there may be days that I need to have the ‘deeper stuff’ very close to me.

Cheers for posting.

I think you were perfectly right in swearing Peter. Whenever this issue is brought up I have to bring up this Stephen Fry interview for he manages to articulate my feelings exactly http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_osQvkeNRM

I was going to complain about the profanity too, but then decided "ah, fu*k-it", why bother. ;) I enjoyed the album review, well done.

I've noticed you and many other reviewers have criticised the use of steel drums on Bill and Sue, however I can't hear them. I hear drums, timpani drums and vibraphones but no steel drums. Does anyone agree or have my ears packed in?

I get the complaints about BIll and Sue, but is it just me or are the bgv's amazing on this song? I particularly love the acapella break, I play that small section on repeat.

Thank you, Don. The friendly debate draws attention, provocatively, to the entire narrative arc of the album.  Peter's injunction makes the various songs to be skipped like forbidden fruit. I don't doubt he intended less to dismiss than to provoke, a worthy function of criticism at the present time.

No further comment on the issue of profanity, which is not substantive to the analysis of the album.

I choose to enjoy that fact that we are so engaged with our beloved BB that we fight over the aesthetic status of one song or another. As I continue to listen,even the songs I don't like I now love.  Even when not listening, I hear the songs all night in my head--even Shelter, SW, and TPLOBAS, each of which have their hypnotic, lulling charms. No failure nor clunkers for me at all.

For those resisting on ideological grounds, give BIM and Daybreak an objective listen. We never head to the beach during the day to hear the strains of "Summer's Gone," though we hear it every night as we head home.  And on that point, to update Oscar Wilde, there were no sunsets in California until the Beach Boys invented them.

Please note a now-fixed typo in my posting above "usefully" now corrected to "useful."

Assigned reading for this thread:  Pope's "Essay on Criticism" and Hume's "On the Standard of Taste."

And while I seem to have some readers' attention, can anyone analyze what Dave is playing on the album, song by song? I want to celebrate his work in detail without conflating or confusing it with Baxter's.  And as to the omission of a credit for Dave as vocalist, I now think this must have been some odd omission based on some arcane contractual glitch.  I can see myself, for example, composing an introduction for a translation of, say, Dante, while, un-credited, helping with the translation itself, which would then betray my distinctive mark (without the publisher acknowledging it).  That is a shame in Dave's case, and I hope they reveal the truth soon and properly credit him. All I want is for the BB to be satisfied artistically and, however measured, commercially, which looks inevitable as of tomorrow.

best wishes to all,

I'm with you. No steel drums.


I really only hear Brian and Jeff there -- ditto for the Strange World break.

Keep me posted as to when the worth of various functions of criticism change, it is so very hard to keep up. Does what you said there actually mean anything relevant or is it a meaningless appendage to the sentence in an effort to sound deep? Does the worth of the functions of criticism change in the future? Has it changed from the past? Was provocation not a worthy function in the past? I don't quite understand why you added "at the present time" other than reasons of linguistic flatulence...


Well, then you probably shouldn't have said it to begin with... or claimed a blog posting was somehow a scholarly work.  Not enough footnotes, for one.

ASSIGNED READING: Mencken and more Mencken after that.

It seems a perfectly valid response to the album to see it form a grand narrative arc (what with fragments from it wrenched from a longform piece that DID form a grand narrative arc!) that doesn't include a track or two that your personal taste disagrees with. I've tried with Daybreak, I have! I swear, Mike! Don't hit me! Sticks out like a sore thumb and plods. I'm glad some people curl up in a pleasurable cocoon as that plays and gurgle contently, tho!

ontor, you gave it a chance, which is all that matters; taste is not universal, so I will never try to convince you; thank you for your posting.  I ought to have glossed the phrase "at the present time," but our British colleagues will get the reference to the work of their most famous inspector of schools and Victorian critic.

best to you and to all,

Yeah, they're really good.  REALLY good, imho. 

YEAH!  This is what i've been thinking for years.  I guess to each his own, but I never understood why people don't see that. 

I really only hear Brian and Jeff there -- ditto for the Strange World break.
[/quote]

Agreed. Sounds like Brian's solo albums to me. Sounds great, but not like the Beach Boys. I can hear Mike's fairly buried bass part on the B&S break, though.
The vocals on the whole album are so processed, it makes the Boys individual voices, so discernible on the 60's tracks, difficult to delineate. I've been listening to it for weeks since I found it streaming, but won't get the disc until Father's Day. Are there non-Jeff/BB's vocal credits? I'm not sure if I'm hearing other voices or BB's voices that have been processed out of recognition.

My ears believe that there's a ton of processing happening with the vocals all over the album. Though I'm also impressed with the amount of feeling in Brian's voice, which I don't believe you can create with a computer. For all that I feel out of sync with Joe Thomas's more MOR sensibilities -- the generic lead guitar riffage, the cheap dramatic moves, e.g. the key change in the title track, which doesn't flow from the melody as per 99 percent of Brian's modulations, but just happens on its own in order to signal to listeners that THIS is the climax of the song, so please get excited now. But he also seems to have some connection to Brian that helps him relax and really put himself into his vocals. "Imagination" is a very similar album in both respects (the schlocky sounds and the great sounding vocals). It's also worth noting that a bunch of these songs were either started or set aside during the 'Imagination' sessions in the late '90s. What I'm waiting for is for 'Imagination,' and maybe this album, to be remixed by someone who can strip out the fairy floss (e.g., the nylon-string guitars that plague 'Imagination' like a horde of zombies) and deliver clean versions of "Lay Down Burden," "Cry" and etc. That said, I give props to Joe for helping Brian invest himself in his performances.

Oh, when it comes to my skipping over some songs on the new record in my website review, let me clarify: I'm not implying anything beyond the need to keep the review a bit shorter than longer, and that I didn't have a lot/anything to say about them. I encourage anyone who feels more strongly about them to love the hell out of them. Art, and consuming it, are hugely subjective. If something speaks to you, for whatever reason, that's beautiful. I don't have an intellectual argument constructed to defend or explain my love for, say, Lisa Loeb's "Stay." It just rings a chime in my head, for whatever reason. I listen to it all the time. With headphones.

I didn't realize Joe came up with the key change in the title track, I heard it was Brian. 

Aww, I love the professor's posts and intellectual insight. I found the "assigned reading" bit quite funny, to tell you the truth.  No need to attack him with bitterness and sarcasm simply because his language may be more sophisticated than you would expect from Beacg Boys message board users.

By the way, I enjoy your comments as well. Maybe I misinterpreted your tone, anyway.

Thanks for this and your review Peter, it sums up how I feel about the album, too. I've been hard on the album, but it's not like I hate it or anything, it's just that a lot of things going on with the instrumentation and production feel disingenuous. The key change thing you pointed out above from the title track is a good example. Joe Thomas clearly has a talent for working with vocalists, but his overall production choices seem to out-dated and uninspired. If, somehow, we get another Beach Boys album, I hope they give the final say on mixing and production to someone else.

I'm still holding out hope for the vinyl mix, though. Am being too optimistic in hoping part of the delay in its release is because they are taking their time putting together a separate mix?

Strangely enough, I (thought I) posted this earlier, but it does not seem to be here. However, this is an even better place to post, given the discussion above.
The Professor is an excellent example of someone whose opinions I nearly wholeheartedly disagree with but whose contributions I, nevertheless, respect and appreciate. That is quite rare on an anonymous message board.

Peter: If you haven't already, it's worth it to take a look at the otherwise unpublished in-depth interview with Joe by the Newsweek writer. It rather changed my perspective on the record.

http://andrewromano.tumblr.com/joethomasbeachboys

At least according to Joe (and Brian's interviews over the past couple of years back up some of this), Think About the Days, Isn't It Time, Bill and Sue, Shelter, and From There to Back Again are all newly written. In the case of Isn't it Time, written in February-March of this year, even.

I think the account given is that Brian came up with the song's general chord changes -- Peter is speaking specifically about the 80's style key change that kicks things up a notch at the end of the bridge. It's known more generally as the truck driver's gear change.

http://www.gearchange.org/

Brian's idea... right?

Thanks Wirestone! Fascinating details. Most of all, it just left me with the impression that JT is a good guy.

I'm biting my tongue so hard right now I think it may come off.

Duplicate deleted.

Just read it. That's kind of a weird interview, to me. For one thing, I can't understand how Joe would think that "Lay Down Burden" and "Spring Break" (or whatever the other song is) were related, or that the upbeat fun-n-sun sounding song could possibly have been intended for the sentiments in 'LDB.' Similarly, I'm having a hard time figuring out how these all-but-written songs ended up requiring two or three other co-writers to polish off a few lines. What exactly was Jim 'Eye of the Tiger' Peterik's role? I wish the guy had asked more follow-up questions along those lines.

The whole thing's kind of mysterious to me. Maybe it's better this way. Sometimes you really don't want to know how they make the sausage.

Don't bite it on my account, AGH. Give us the dirt!

/deleted

That website http://www.gearchange.org/ got me thinking & doing a little research


Beach Boys modulations (update)


modulation after the bridge:
Barbie 1961?
Surfer Girl 1961
A Young Man Is Gone / Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring 1963
I Get Around 1964
Girls On The Beach 1964 (modulates in the 2nd line of last verse, after the bridge)
Dance Dance Dance 1965 (alt version without modulating exists)
Bluebirds Over The Mountain 1968 (modulates in the middle of the guitar solo)
The Nearest Faraway Place 1968
Deirdre 1970
Disney Girls 1971
Susie Cincinati 1976
That's Why God Made the Radio 2012

Modulation between chorus and verse or vice versa:
Tears In The Morning 1970
Lady Lynda 1979
School Day (Ring Ring Goes The Bell) 1980
California Calling 1985
I Do Love You 1985
Lay Down Burden 1998

Modulation before the tag:
Be True To Your School 1963 single version (lp version has no modulation)
No-Go Showboat 1963
Pom-Pom Play Girl 1964
Keep An Eye On Summer 1964
Little Old Lady From Pasadena 1964 live
Santa Claus is Comin' To Town 1964 (last verse)
When I Grow Up (To Be A Man) 1965
Getcha Back 1985
Your Imagination 1998
Don't Let Her Know She's An Angel 2004 (during the tag)

The original "Lay Down Burden" he described was an upbeat gospel number meant for Carl to sing.  After Carl died, they used the phrase as the title for a completely different song with very different sentiments!


Peterik's credited on two songs -- TWGMTR, which Thomas said came out of him, Wilson, Peterik, and Millas working out and recording a demo together after a Cubs game back in about '99; and "Isn't It Time", where apparently the bass-and-ukulele groove is something Peterik and Millas worked out.

Cheers,
Jon Blum

Speaking of, I really wish they'd bring this back in the live show. That's probably my favorite moment in an early Beach Boys record.

I'm genuinely interested in what you wish to say.

Brian was so freakin' ingenious that he gearchanged for the choruses of Don't Back Down and then came back for the verses in the most unexpected yet elegant manner.

I'm a big fan of gearchange myself.

I don't think any of it is that complicated. Quick answers:

1.) The Lay Down Burden thing was explained much better here: http://www.vcstar.com/news/2012/may/24/the-beach-boys-are-making-radio-waves/

Joe on Spring Vacation: "It had several different names to it. At one time it was called 'Lay Down Your Burden,' the title of which we ended up stealing from ourselves and turning into a ballad called 'Lay Down Burden' on Brian's solo record. But the original piece was kind of an up-tempo, gospel-y kind of thing that finally ended up on the new album as 'Spring Vacation.' "

2.) As for the Peterik and Millas credits, they're only on two songs. That VCStar article has accounts of the origins of each of the tunes:

TWGMTR: "Wilson had dreamed up the title at dinner one night in Chicago in the late '90s after attending a White Sox game with Thomas, Survivor rocker Jim Peterik and recording engineer Larry Millas. After the meal, the foursome raced over to Peterik's home studio and, with Wilson pounding out a little boogie-woogie rhythm on the piano, they laid down a rough demo."

Isn't It Time: "Peterik and Millas hit upon the song's foot-stomp rhythm and Love came up with a bass line underneath it. Then Love wrote the verses, Wilson penned the chorus and it all came together in the studio."

Translation (to me): In the first case, the guys basically wrote the song around Brian's title and a few of his chord changes. In the second, they came up with the song's four-chord riff (which is basically repeated throughout the entire tune), and Mike and Brian wrote their sections on top of it.

Edit: I notice that Jon Blum beat me to all of this. Apologies!

I am beginning to sound deranged so won't of of you conjurers please put the ear to'the guitar work and tell us what's Daves?

I am ever impressed with the precision of this type of close analysis of modulation, as well, so thank you.

Yeah, but you did it better.  I'm always a sucker for properly cited sources!

Cheers,
Jon Blum

I think people aren't answering because there's no sensible way to tell who played what as far as guitar parts go. The lead parts on the songs where Skunk Baxter is credited are almost certainly him, because they sound like him, but as for the rest, most of us have only really heard David playing in one style -- surf -- which isn't really in evidence on the album. On top of that, the parts are the kind of part that could literally be played by anyone and would sound identical. The guitarists are playing written parts -- usually very simple ones -- with little or no room for personal stylistic expression.

David could be playing almost every guitar part, or he could not actually be in the finished mixes at all, and there's no way to tell just by listening, without recourse to session recordings or the like.

Interesting to note that Mike came up with his own bass vocal part on Isn't It Time. That's actually my favourite thing on the entire album...

Sing the words "lay down burden" to the chorus of SV. Sounds great!

thanks, Andrew. I fear you are correct. We'll have to have Dave or perhaps one day Dave's historian, sit down and chart each lick.  Based on live shows, Dave plays the picking guitar part in that 3-time (theme from a summer place) style right from the top of the title track.  He may play that understated bluesy solo in BIM, followed by some rigorous Carl-style strumming to energize the chorus.  Whatever he played--and he did say in that AL/Dave radio interview that he had freedom to lay down what he wished--I hope is brought him and the band satisfaction. I certainly hope it is he who plays those gentle, lulling, contemplative parts between the tragic vocal of Summer's Gone.  If they did not reserve that spot for the Lost Beach Boy, then they have no sense of history.

I very much doubt it's him playing the solo on Beaches In Mind. One thing we do know about David's playing is that he never uses any pedals, just goes straight into the amplifier (or, one presumes, DI into the board for some of this), and that isn't a clean enough sound. I think that's Baxter playing.

I do agree with the rest of what you say, though.