Ok gonna throw in another band now.. The Bee Gees

Agreed. The Three B's it is for me, so close together in any record store bin. So few people truly get what a great a run of superb lp's they had from "The Bee Gees First" to "Mr. Natural", before the ubiquitous disco era (which I now adore, but didn't back then). One gorgeous, indelible melody after another, eccentric lyrics, and a beautiful blend that only shared DNA can make possible (Louvins, Everlys, Wilsons, etc). First, Horizontal, Idea, , Odessa(!) (and they had Stigwood for orchestral accompaniment) , Cucumber Castle, Trafalgar, 2 Years On, To Whom It May Concern, Life in a Tin Can...love em all. (Especially Odessa). Barry's "a (melodic) genius too..."

Wondering if you happened upon Holland in the record store bins back in early '73 and then turned the cover over to see that B&W photo of long haired Brian staring right at you, in a car, looking back...in anger? paranoia?

I will never forget the instant - shock - of it...like catching up with the whole story, all in one image. Couldn't take my eyes off it, trying to read that expression. Unlike any photo of him, before or since.

Recollections?

I also watched the show and I live only a few miles from Caribou in Boulder, so I was fascinated by the Caribou footage and the Guercio/Wilson(s) connection. The doc was a very touching tribute by Ms. Kath in search of her father - and the ending was better than fiction. I note that there's a new book coming out by Ken Sharp about the making of POB, so hopefully there will be detailed info on the sessions there.

Definitely a revitalized sound and energy, feels like the first day of summer...

Thought it was a fresh take, worthy of being pursued further (re: "Brian's Song" and the state of longing for either the past and the present as the romantic condition; the beach as an eroding border between being "here today" and the "lonely sea", etc.

Pick up some best of doo-wop collections, then work back into the vocal group R&B records Alan Freed was spinning in the early and mid 50's on his radio show, then go back even further to The Mills Brothers and other vocal groups from the 40's, and also listen to Arthur Smith's 1945 record "Guitar Boogie" - There is a rich legacy of that kind of bass line used to drive many records before Surfin' and Jan Berry, and you'll find a lot of classic tunes in the process! The Surfin vocal bass line is just one in a long string of those bass patterns.

Reaching the apotheosis of the "Bassman" ethos the next year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZr8iReEqMQ

And we must also account for the Bomp from the year before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXmsLe8t_gg

JL:

"Man, I was listening to Surfin' the other night.

How did Mike love think of the "Bom bom dit di dit dip" bass part? So creative. Really carries the tune, actually."

This predecessor came to mind (among countless other doo wop bass variations)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq2XyiuarTw

His bottom, so to speak, is virtually flawless in the harmony stack (or paired in duets, like "Devoted to You") throughout their career.

Uncanny, really...(pun intended)

Huh.  I always thought that SNL appearance was pretty cool.

You know, I went back and listened to it for the first time since '76...and I have to agree with you. Thanks for helping me revisit and reconsider a bad memory...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZQSUTCafD0

And this didn't help matters any...

SNL, 11/27/76.

The most painful evening of my lifelong love for the music and legacy of Brian Wilson. A mix of cringe, embarrassment, and sorrow. I always dreamed of hearing Brian Wilson at the piano doing a live solo version of "Good Vibrations," but not like this. Knowing what we know now, it's hard to imagine what this moment was like back then for die hards like us.

First impressions over morning coffee.

By giving us a very subtle "exploded view" of the Wild Honey tracks and vocals, we can now really see just how ingenious Brian's "orchestration" for this deceptively "back to basics" approach really was - you hear all of these little vocal snippets (highlighted with the "Made to Love Her" vocal inserts track) heretofore buried in the mono mix are now fully articulated in the stereo field, however minimal and subtle they are - little guitar riffs and vocal riffs flit in and out, all anchored by the now very deep bass (which goes right to my gut when augmented by a little sub in my stereo setup) and that particular tuning and sound of Brian's WH and SS piano. The new stereo mix and remastering lets these tracks breathe and arise out of the condensed and flattened squeezebox they were in and we can hear the details in a kind of 2 1/2- D. There is so much more palpable PLEASURE in the listening rather than imagining what I could be hearing if this album was mixed with modern ears and equipment (and by someone who could hear and delight in the details of a stereo mix)

Somehow this new collection - in toto - reshapes the Icarus myth of Smile. He took what he learned from the modular songwriting and studio orchestration of combining small parts into a whole stitched backing track that would only be understood in the context of the eventual vocal arrangement - and essentially transcribed it for his small ensemble and home studio setup (btw, the Detroit live versions of the songs are fantastic!). Everything jumps off the surface now - Darlin' practically explodes on that opening fanfare. There is now, for me, a real CONTINUITY between what he was doing in '66 and what he did in '67-'69.

And guess what? Wild Honey is now truly a record you can dance to! That thumpin' James Jamerson inspired deep bass throb and anchor throughout the record (who? Carl? Carol? Brian?) is "the Beach Boys moment that is kicking my ass right now..."

(And the alternative "Love Just Once to See" group vocals!)

Final thought here: By giving us the tracking sessions, Alan and Mark also re-teach us how to listen for the details once the vocals are added. This is a holistic idea of a record album, circa 2017. It's great to be alive. Thank you BRI and A&M.

without access to liner notes, a quick response:

Can't Wait Too Long - Different false solo starts: "This piano...so terrible, I hate it." Then the guitars and drum come in. Then familiar vocal parts are added. But not all the variations we've heard in the past. Distinctly different basic backing tracks (or mix), much more "Wild Honeyish" - not a revelation, but slightly different from the versions I've heard.

Fall Breaks is a beautiful backing and eventually vocal tracks mix, which I think was on the Smiley SOT - the stereo mix helps to make this music rather than just an ambient

Lonely Days - After the familiar first minute, there's another round of just instrumental tracking for an unfinished missing second verse - not much of a revelation here

Surf's Up has about five false starts, as Brian talks to Jim and self-corrects  - then Brian quickly trying out different sections of the song on solo piano before he goes into that beautiful take from 1967 that we already know. So this just adds 3:45 more documentary context at the head of the version we already know from '67 when Brian says "Maybe I should do the whole song over again..." and starts to countdown.

So a lot of the unreleased versions seem to augment previous releases or booted versions that I'm aware of. Just getting into it, this is a fabulous gift - one that induces us to listen deeply and re-evaluate. And take great pleasure in. Amazing.

Surfer Girl is as delicate a cloud of organized sound as is humanly possible. Gorgeous. A beautiful closer.

This is...simply wonderful. So stripped down, that thudding bass/farfisa sound, with an incredibly soulful vocal by Brian - how beautifully strange to hear it like this.

Wednesday I have Friday on my mind.

Nice job! And thank you for the shout out...

Not true at all about many of the Sullivan shows always being "live" - Back in the 60's, they were usually a mix - original pre-recorded backing tracks (with ridiculous "live" fade-outs!) and often a live mic for the lead vocalist. Check out most any Mamas and Papas appearance, Association, Turtles, or to my great surprise, even the more exotic Stones, etc. Often the electric guitars weren't even plugged in and the Stones hardly even fake it...

Beatles gigs, were, of course, completely live until they phoned it in with Hey Jude/Revolution, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJCoybioJ7M

Portrait of Brian Wilson ("Hindsight is 20/20")

10.4.16
Paramount Theater (soundcheck)
Denver, Colorado

In Denver, during the (rather lengthy and untidy because of real house issues with the sound) soundcheck, there was a lovely moment during the down time where Al was trying to figure out the chords to Magic Transistor Radio and Brian came out on stage and immediately showed him and sang a bit of it. He went right into it as if he had it in his back pocket all along. I caught a little on video and will try to upload at some point. Paul M had to do a lot of (uninteresting) Q & A with audience while the techs were working on the sound system.

Question: When did this Brian speak/singing really take hold (as opposed to his being occasionally clipped/short of breath in previous concert phrasing)? Was it a conscious change of style to accommodate issues with wavering pitch on sustained notes in the past (God only knows that Pet Sounds is so difficult for ANYONE to sing)? Indeed, like many have noted here, he sounded so very strong and on pitch for most of the night, but I was a little startled at the self conscious stylistic change toward a conversational style talk/singing for Pet Sounds in particular. Paul Simon does this kind of thing quite frequently in his approach to lyric interpretation, and one wonders if there was some influence here? Has anyone asked Brian about this change in singing style of late?

I will be at the Paramount in Denver tonight for the meet/greet/soundcheck/ and second row seat if any Smilers are also attending and would like to chat. This will likely be my last rock concert (for a host of reasons) after a lifetime of great ones, so it's a great way to bow out gracefully with the music I love most in the world.

Me, in the black shirt 'tween Brian and Mike, at the C50.

Agree with HeyJude's thorough assessment. Favorite moment is when Mark plays one of the unused embedded backing tracks for the "God Only Knows" chorale (familiar to us as an alt version) and tells Brian how much he likes it and Brian looks at him with that Brian face of his and says rather quizzically,  "I didn't use that?"....

And the professor's moment of "There they are...the Beach Boys" brought a tear to me as well in context. The sweetness and innocence of this man who's been through it all and back again.

Biggest surprise for me was all the new extra Firehouse dream footage in the GV bonus at least I've never seen before. Startling to see anything new at this point from that era. Is that Paul Jay Robbins shooting the 8mm camera and rolling down a hill in slo mo at what looks like the Laurel Way area? What do we actually know about that 16mm fire sequence promo footage in terms of assistants, who shot it, who edited, etc.?

Bought it when it was released. Was cruisin' one of the local chains and saw it in the new releases section and was completely floored. I had no info about the album until after it went on sale. I mean, you're in a record shop and there it is! Took it back to my apartment played it, analyzed it, digested it and loved it. It was brand new material from my favorite band! What could be better? It had incredible sound with probably some of the best harmonies they ever did and Dennis' input was incredibly interesting. Perhaps because of the lack of pre album hype, it was more of a genuine unbiased listening experience.

I had a very similar experience at the formative age of 16 when I saw it on display while shopping at E.J. Korvettes in the upstate suburbs of New York. I loved the graphics on the clean, white cover with the family picnic style photograph immediately ("an album offering"), took it home with great anticipation and unwrapped the gatefold (after inhaling the aroma of that new album smell), put the headphones on (straight, mind you) and I was transported - of the great sonic experiences of my life to this day. I worked in a record department in 1969, and it was the stereo single of Breakaway that was really my initial entry into the "alternative" Beach Boy history beyond the radio hits, so the revelations and sheer beauty of the vocals and background vocals of Sunflower arrived right on time for me. Then I began listen closely to everything else that came before, including finally discovering an album called Pet Sounds in its 8-track cartridge format while driving cross country the next summer.

I distinctly remember reading Jim Miller's cheeky but positive review in Rolling Stone a month later ("plastic madmen, rock geniuses"):

By Jim Miller
October 1, 1970


"After a long period of recovery, mediocrity, and general disaster, the Beach Boys have finally produced an album that can stand with Pet Sounds: the old vocal and instrumental complexity has returned and the result largely justifies the absurd faith some of us have had that the Beach Boys were actually still capable of producing a superb rock album — or, more precisely, a suberb rock muzak album. "Add Some Music to Your Day"; hip supermarkets might program this album for contented browsing among the frozen vegetables and canned fruit.

As a reassuring note, most of the lyric impotence of the group remains, though not so prominently displayed as on such colorful recent outings as Friends. In what is mainly a simple collection of love songs, Dennis Wilson has explored some aspects of rhythm and blues while Brian continues to work within his own distinctive framework. Thus on the one hand we have "It's About Time" and "Slip on Through," hints of the soft hard rock that marked "I Get Around," "Help Me Rhonda," etc., transferred to the domain of contemporary Motown. Dennis even pulls off a rib-tickling imitation of Barry Melton imitating James Brown on "Got to Know the Woman." All of these tracks are executed with a certain aplomb that often was lacking in post-"Good Vibrations" Beach Boy music, as if the self-consciousness of such homogenizing enterprise as making a new Beach Boy record has been again overcome. As a result, the naivete of the group is more astounding than ever — I mean, good Christ, it's 1970 and here we have a new, excellent Beach Boys' epic, and isn't that irrelevant?

In any case, Brian's new stuff is great, especially "This Whole World" and "All I Wanna Do." Which brings up the engineering and production work on this album: it's flawless, especially in view of the number of overdubs. There is a warmth, a floating quality to the stereo that far surpasses the mixing on, say, Abbey Road. The effects are subtle, except for the outrageous echo on "All I Wanna Do" that makes the song such a mind — wrenching experience. And then there is "Cool, Cool Water," Brian's exquisite ode to water in all its manifestations, which, like "Add Some Music," is encyclopedic in its trivial catalogue of the subject at hand. "Cool, Cool Water" pulls off a Smiley Smile far better than most of the material on that disappointing venture.

The inevitable saccharine ballads are present in abundance. "Deirdre" and particularly Brian's "Our Sweet Love" rejoin the ongoing tradition of "Surfer Girl," although "Our Sweet Love" is most reminiscent of the mood of Pet Sounds. Of course there is some lesser stuff here, like "At My Window." No matter: as a whole, Sunflower is without doubt the best Beach Boys album in recent memory, a stylistically coherent tour de force. It makes one wonder though whether anyone still listens to their music, or could give a sh*t about it. This album will probably have the fate of being taken as a decadent piece of fluff at a time when we could use more Liberation Music Orchestras. It is decadent fluff — but brilliant fluff. The Beach Boys are plastic madmen, rock geniuses. The plastic should not hide from use the geniuses who molded it."

After seeing this photo here from a previous post, Darian once wrote me a kind note of interest, requesting to come over sometime and see it because he used to go up there all the time for inspiration. Unfortunately, I'm in Boulder, not LA...I couldn't think of a better person to hang out with and listen to Brian stories than he.

Worth a retelling of the story of its acquisition?

On my honeymoon, summer of 2000, my wife and I drove from Colorado to SF and LA. On a whim, I drove up to Laurel Way and arrived at 1448.  I get out and start photographing the outside of the place, when the current owner comes out and starts to write down my license plate number. So I tell her about my honeymoon, my lifelong love for Brian Wilson (she actually bought the house from lawyers, but was well aware of the legacy from the occasional stream of visitors). We had a friendly talk, and then she said that she had something that I might be interested in. She was re-modeling the house and the pool in the back, and brought me out to the side of the house. On the ground lay this Grauman Chinese Theatre size slab of cement that she had extricated from the side of the pool (you can see them in the "Sloop John B" promo very clearly) with the inscription “Brian and Marilyn 8-27-66”, carved within a heart and clearly written with two different handwritings. So I finally ended up buying this from her after deliberating with myself for a day (she wanted 1K, I offered 500 cash). But in my excitement to get it into the trunk of my car with her construction worker, I lifted the damn thing up with him and felt something rip…suffice to say that my back went out for about two years. We schlepped the “slab”, as we came to call it, halfway across the country, with me in a back brace and in utter agony (ruining my honeymoon, as you can imagine...). But here it sits in my house, a rarity among rarities, with a little sandbox piano on top of it, 50 years on...

...this was wet cement up at 1448 Laurel Way.

For me, the glory of the SACD format has been in the 5.1 mixes and re-mixes and re-mastering of stereo music that I'm overly familiar with (e.g., Talking Heads, first four Elton Johns, Yes' Close to the Edge and Fragile, early Genesis, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Beck, Bjork, etc.). Steve Wilson's 5.1 re-mixes and Giles Martin's great work on LOVE in particular have refreshed music in ways that are what I imagined I was hearing when i used to get high. I realize that surround sound in the 5.1 format is not to everyone's taste, but when you hear something like Crosby's If I Could Only Remember My Name or Blood on the Tracks come alive into the room, it is genuinely thrilling.

Having said that, when I recall the great moments of aural joys in my life, nothing can compare with putting Sunflower on the turntable and putting on the headphones for the first time after i picked it up without any prior knowledge about it's release at a Korvettes department store in 1970. Who can forget reading Stephen's liner notes with such anticipation of what it would sound like? Still the greatest blend of foreground and background vocals in the history of popular music to these ears.