Yes, it was a crass generalization in what you said. The tambourine is an easy instrument to get sound out of, for sure, but to actually PLAY it is another story. You don't have to tune it or pluck it, etc, but a percussionist that is off rhythm is much more noticeable then even an out of tune vocalist, in my opinion.

Here is my video.

Keep A Knockin/Surf's Up/The Right Time intro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejl50mNvBIo&feature=youtu.be

The show at Spirit Mountain was great last night! Have a video of You Keep a Knockin I'll post later. Best part of the night for me was Brian's monologue in between songs that had the audience cracking up. Describing Surfs Up :"I mean, the lyrics on this song are so poetic, like, you know, you can't even hear them they are so poetic".

Great show! Brian was loose, talkative and funny. Scott sang lead on Knockin I believe. I liked the Wall of Sound arrangement of Barbara Ann, with Scott and Brian doing a boogie woogie piano thing together on Brian's piano.

Seeing three Beach Boys on stage together with this band, the real deal! Al does a better Mike than Mike on Shut Down/Coupe. Bummed that they skipped Busy Doing Nothing. They did Sail Away, which was great. Blondie nailed it. Adding Runaway Dancer and cutting the two Friends songs, not a good idea.

I missed the Smile tour so seeing Brian do the greatest song of the rock era, in my opinion, Surf's Up, was a thrill!

When Al started singing SD I did a triple take. His voice sounded so amazing that for a split second I thought it was a recording from the early 60's. Made up for the fact that he totally spaced on the lyrics for Then I Kissed Her. The people behind me got a good chuckle out of him singing "then I asked her to be my bride" for all 3 verses.

The show at Spirit Mountain was great last night! Have a video of You Keep a Knockin I'll post later. Best part of the night for me was Brian's monologue in between songs that had the audience cracking up. Describing Surfs Up :"I mean, the lyrics on this song are so poetic, like, you know, you can't even hear them they are so poetic".

Anybody, besides me, going to the July 25th show?

My girlfriend and I will be there!!! So excited. Bummed all the rooms are sold out at the casino though. Not looking forward to driving back to Portland after the show.

Question for those who have heard the full album: remember that bit of music that was in the Doin' It Again special, it was mostly piano, guitar and backing vocals, sounded like something that might have been part of the Life Suite, but wasn't used in the TWGMTR album? Has that song resurfaced in NPP? Thanks

I don't believe so.

Thanks from the professor as well. Many of you are intimating or stating outright that Radio, by contrast, seems Fosquetticized. I fear that when I listen to Radio I try not to hear Jeff, which is a bad situation. No danger of that here it appears. It is too absurd to long for a BB album with Matt instead of Jeff? A remastering of Radio without him singing 10 parts all over the place?

Some lament that there should b emore Dave on the album. I hope he gets to play more on the rock album. But I am pleased that he is on 2 songs with Al and Brian. How is his part on Whatever happened?
The professor will weigh in when he receives his copy Monday. His sense so far is that this is a landmark album.

Lowbacca and Rab:  Thanks so much for your reviews of NPP.  I'm actually saving them, they were so evocative and well-written.  It'll be fascinating to re-read them after I get the product and have my own experience.

There are a few different guitar parts weaving in and out throughout, so it is hard to tell what part Dave is playing (maybe all of them)? They are all great though. Landmark album for sure.

I am digging the mix on this. If anything, the best MIXED Brian solo record. I am noticing at the very end of several cuts, you can hear amplifier buzz/chairs moving/general studio movements. I really like how this wasn't removed. It's really apparent on Saturday Night, Sail Away, and One Kind of Love.

This seriously sounds more like a BB record than TWGMTR. Al is all over this. So impressed.

Wow. Better than TWGMTR hands down. Trying to wrap my head around this. The album flows better than I could have expected. NPP NEEDS to be taken as a whole, not single tracks. I am completely blown away.

Last Song gave me goosebumps. Brian sounds amazing on this. Wow.

Just listened 3 more times on my way home from work. Beautiful west coast eve, windows down. The song totally hit me a different way under this environment. SO CATCHY. I hear a lot more Brian then i did initially. Lots of cool chord changes in the chorus. So good. It's a real grower.

This longer clip gives me a more favorable impression of the song than the 30 second clip. It seems to go back and forth from Disco to Reggae. Wierd. Strange choice to make it the first full song on the album. I wish Itunes would post some previews for the rest of the tracks.

You can purchase the full track on itunes

*only hear Brian on FIRST verse/chorus. Sorry, on my phone

It doesn't sound like anything he has done before. Very modern. Sounds like a Capital Cities song, which makes sense because his guest on it is in that band. It's hard to imagine Brian would listen or even like a song that sounds like this. Very catchy, but, to my ears, sounds like he is trying to win over a new audience. Lots of sax, finger snaps, techno dance beat throughout. Only listened once, I'm at work, but only heard Brian on verse verse/chorus, the rast sounds like Sebu. I need to let it digest. My first impression was "NOOOOO", but I'll give it a few more spins tonight.

Wow. Not what I was imagining from the sample. Can't really decide what a song will be like from a sample anyway. This will be stuck in my head all night now

Allmusic has posted their review of NPP, written by Stephen Thomas Erlewine. Not sure if anyone else has seen it, but I haven't seen it posted here yet.

3/5 stars.

http://www.allmusic.com/album/no-pier-pressure-mw0002760473


That's Why God Made the Radio provided a bittersweet coda to the Beach Boys' career but the soothing sounds of the 2012 reunion didn't linger long before they were soured by the internal fighting endemic to the band. Mere weeks afterward, Mike Love announced Brian Wilson wouldn't join the Beach Boys for any dates after the summer 2012 tour, leaving Brian free to capitalize on the good press of That's Why God Made the Radio. He headed into the studio with guitarist Jeff Beck and producer Don Was in 2013 with the intention of cutting a full album but that collaboration quickly fell apart, leaving Wilson to re-team with his longtime collaborator Joe Thomas to turn these abandoned sessions into what turned out to be No Pier Pressure. Caught halfway between a back-to-basics move along the lines of TWGMTR and a star-studded extravaganza, No Pier Pressure certainly doesn't have much to do with the high art that's marked Wilson's new millennium; there's nary an echo of the SMiLE revival or the Van Dyke Parks collaboration That Lucky Old Sun. This is all sand, sun, and Saturday night nostalgia, a sensibility goosed by the addition of Al Jardine, David Marks, and Blondie Chaplin -- the part of the Beach Boys camp that threw in their lot with Brian -- who help give their numbers ("What Ever Happened," "The Right Time," "Sail Away") a bit of the classicist AM pop sheen that made That's Why God Made the Radio so soothing. It's a nice anchor for the record and, frankly, No Pier Pressure needs such a grounding force because it often threatens to drift far away on the surging tides of showbiz schmaltz. When She & Him breeze in to deliver some Caribbean camp on "On the Island," the results are agreeably camp but "Runaway Dancer," a collaboration with Sebu Simonian of Capital Cities that seems determined to revive the arch camp peak of Stock, Aitken & Waterman, feels like a half-imagined Ibizaian hangover. By any measure, "Runaway Dancer" is bizarre but by arriving second on No Pier Pressure, it throws the whole feel of the album out of whack, turning such otherwise nice moments as Kacey Musgraves' "Guess You Had to Be There" cloying. By the time Nate Ruess of Fun. shows up for "Saturday Night," a throwback that seems to belong the early-'80s soft rock glory days of Carole Bayer Sager and not American Graffiti (and is the better for it), No Pier Pressure seems genuinely weird, as it's perilously perched between the best and worst of Wilson's pop talent and Thomas' showbiz instincts.

Brian!!!!! Can't wait for the new album!! Welcome to the place where your most die hard fans hang out!!!! Quite the honor!!

P.S. You are the coolest man on the planet. Just saying.

This song is right up my alley. Holy sh*t.

Awesome, thanks GV33.

Seconded… and thanks also to you!

You're welcome!!

Awesome, thanks GV33.

Annnnnnnnnnnnd looks like the pictures won't post. Great.

Capital record employee I follow on Instagram posted these pictures to his account yesterday. States Brian and Zoey were filming for "On The Island" and "God Only Knows".

That's exactly what dawned on me about my 4th or 5th time listening to this song. I remember being pretty drunk, singing along to every word, when all of a sudden....BOOM...this song is about boning. I wonder if Al ever picked up on it. This IS one of his favorite BW tracks, right?

Which would be a shame. Put them together, add Dave and you have a great band that may get Brian bringing his A game to this concert and TV special. Agree with those already suggesting late 60s early 70s material.

It's completely against everything Brian stands for, though.  He loves the live show to sound exactly like the studio album, and if he's in charge (and he is) then that's how it's going to happen.

Personally, if I had anything to do with it, I'd have Blondie, Ricky, Dave, and Al playing instruments on stage on every song.  Make it rock more than the album, if you have to simplify some of it, do it.  There's plenty of credible musicians in Brian's band to pick up the pieces and make something out of all of it. 

Just get the vocals as strong as possible, give Brian his 8 part harmony he likes and make all that sound as great as Brian wants it... but I'd make the band a little more rough, a little more rocking like the 70's band was.  They kicked ass.  Take it back to that for a tour or two and see what you have. 

Hell yeah!

For a little background...
here are the Pickle Brothers.

I couldn't get through the whole song. Ouch.