Hmm, not sure. I listened within that webpage (didn't download at all).

Olivia Tremor Control (plus side-bands)

Even identifying all the side bands with OTC personnel is a full-time job, much less finding and buying them all.

I'm not selling him short. I'm saying that an intelligent, musical man working with a lot of deliberately interchangeable parts was bound to play around with the possibilities, that's all.

Because it's a nice word for the pick-up beat?

Are we really to believe that 1966-67 Brian had a longstanding plan for anything regarding Smile's sequence?

I strongly believe the answer is no. I doubt he ever had an overriding plan, but more likely went through numerous options as moods or whims struck him. That's why I always disregard most of the "this is how he intended it" talk: I don't believe he had any single intent for it.

Less complicated than Big Sur? I don't know about that. Not that it's complicated, but isn't Big Sur just walking down (and up) a C chord? Without listening at the moment, I'm guessing it's just C, G/B, Am, G/B, etc. Also, to Amy's point (sorry it's not a new paragraph here, but you'd be surprised at what merlot does to a laptop's keyboard functionality), I don't think Scott sang the WLCD demo. I dont' recall who did, but I thought I recalled it being some name I didn't know, that it was just some hired singer.

Upcoming Hold Steady.

[surprisingly]

Glad it will be on vinyl. You know this is the first album of entirely new Brian Wilson songs for 31 years. If you discount Good Time and Ding Dang.

Parts of TLOS date back to 1967/68 ("BWTL"), 1975/6 (the "mow-mama-yama-glory-halleluja" riff from "Clangin'"), 1985 ("California Role/Wondering What You're Up To Now"), "Southern California" is a solo Scotty composition and of course a substantial proportion was back-engineered from the summer 2006 Wilson/Bennet sessions. How much was written specifically for the South Bank Center commission ?  Surprisingly little.

I don't know about surprisingly little, considering the man's penchant for hanging on to old material only to release it years (decades) later. But either way, I don't care. I like TLOS, and that's all that matters to me. Glad to hear it's going to be out, and relatively soon.

While I think he's hilarious, I also love him as a musician and think he's underrated as such. He writes beautiful music in a pre-rock vein (such as on Alice, and others) and is just really creative and interesting. If i were offered either the past 30 years' worth of Waits' catalogue or BBs related catalogue, it wouldn't even be close. All Waits.

Fun.

I wish, but he's not coming anywhere near Minneapolis. I've never seen him, his last Mpls show being LITERALLY the day I bought my first Waits album.

I'd guess there's less of it around, considering how different the recording process had become by 1988. That is, unless someone set mics up just for that purpose.

i'd guess along with many here that the main announcement will be relating to a new contract for TLOS and possibly other releases, and since it was reported that a film crew was in for the recent recording sessions, I would imagine they'll be around on Monday also...........)

Yeah, wouldn't be surprised to see an accompanying DVD called TLOS: Goin' Home, or TLOS: Been Way Too Long, or ..... Just so they don't include a lot of those Brian fake-producing scenes. "Sounds great" "Could I hear that again" "That's f---ing great"

Or any more staged pep talks. "Now remember, guys, we're not trying to make an album of smile here, just to play the songs." [Group nodding thoughtfully...]

Just watch, it's going to be something like that Brian and Capitol are teaming to open a chain of steakhouses in malls across the globe, or a line of clothing--something stupid like that. (Obviously I hope not.)

Your best-to-worst ranking is almost the exact opposite of mine, if I were to make one. Well, more sort of inside-out, as I'd probably start near your middle, then end, then top. But yeah, your favorites are my least favorite.

Brian has been resigned to Capitol, who will release TLOS, and we'll get a release date on Monday.

How about, taking a page out of the Radiohead/Raconteurs book but one-upping them (competitive spirit and all), we get a release date OF Monday?

Hmmm. First of all, what's a "global announcement"? But second of all, I hope it's either some gigantic project of releasing previously unreleased material or (as I am guessing) TLOS and an American tour...although that's not really global.

I would recommend the Crenshaw District, and especially, Leimert Park. For the best in Free-Jazz and Spiritual Jazz, can't beat the World Stage.

That's a great recommendation.  Close by The Wich Stand,  and the Love's Mt. Vernon and Fairway home.  The World Stage was founded by the late legendaey jazz drummer Billy Higgins.  Higgins played in Ornette Colemans original group and with many other jazz greats over the years such as Dexter Gordon, Joe Henderson, Thelonius Monk, Hervie Hancock, etc.  Shortly before his 2001 death he recorded an album with Charles Lloyd.   He founded the World Stage  to encourage and promote younger jazz musicians. It provides workshops in performance and writing, as well as concerts and recordings.  He was a great guy with an infectous smile and attitude.          

Higgins (and I know I'm getting way off topic) also played with Lee Morgan on the great "Search For the New Land," which had Shorter, Hancock, Grant Green ... great album.

There's another Californian lie that was propagated, too. I don't think the images we get through music ought to be taken to be reality, either the good or the bad. There's both everywhere. By the way, my comment wasn't meant to knock you particularly. It was just a reaction to/agreement with H.

What does racism have to do with fear of visiting South Central? Are you assuming that anyone who is afraid of visiting South Central is a racist? Please elaborate....

It has quite a lot to do with it, but I'm certainly making no such assumptions.  It's just a topic of interest to me.

It does bother me that every time a thread about visiting LA comes up that somebody inevitably mentions how dangerous Hawthorne or Inglewood is.  It's usually from people that haven't spent a lot of time there.  And in my opinion, and "danger" in those areas comes from the reaction to the apartheid that can happen when people are afraid to visit the area.

That's not a dig at anybody in particular, like I said, negatively self-perpetuating anthropological systems are just an interesting topic to me.

Ditto--interesting (and sometimes amusing, if sadly so) to me, too. As someone who often hears from locals about how Prince grew up "in the 'hood," and myself living quite near his old high school (and thus in that 'hood) and having friends who live where his family members to this day live, I can somewhat relate. It's scary because it's not where you live or visit; it's scary because you're not friends or relatives or maybe the same social, ethnic or religious group of the people who live there. But a lot of times, "bad places" are not half so bad as they're made out to be, and the people who most loudly criticize seem never to have set foot there.

I don't think there's any shame in that, either. Something Else is also a brilliant album. Seems a bit like complaining that somebody said Rubber Soul is better than Sgt. Pepper, or Smile material is better than Pet Sounds. As with many great bands, there are probably 3-5 Kinks albums that could easily be ranked atop their catalogue, and Something Else is one of them.

ranking 500 or whatever it is albums doesn't even make sense to my brain.  rolling stone seems to have an endless supply of these books or magazines or websites and they change every few years to include some recent critics' darlings, only to have those titles disappear in the next edition.  Kinks' village green (one of my favorites) is a good example of an album that was all but ignored until "Picture Book" was used in a TV commercial.  I think that pretty much sums it up.

I agree with your main point, but you're wrong about the Kinks' Village Green. It was an indie favorite in the mid-90s when bands such as those in the Elephant 6 sprung up. Kevin Barnes of Of Montreal, for example, always praised the band and that album. But of course the commercial brought it to another new set of ears a decade later.

Before I had the wherewithal to buy my own music, the most important music to me were my dad's vocal-harmony folk and gospel records (Chad Mitchell Trio, Blackwood Brothers, Statler Brothers, Kingston Trio and many others); my dad's early rock 'n' roll records, mostly Buddy Holly; my oldest brother's Beatles cassettes (the red and blue compilation tapes, then later Sgt. Pepper); and some other records that were around the house, including a Monkees album, a Beatles record that basically had what is now known as "Past Masters Vol II," the Beach Boys "Endless Summer," and some of my oldest sister's sh*t, like Eagles' "The Long Run." Then once I began buying my own music, things went to hell. Europe, Dokken, KISS, Poison, etc.

I had watched your video earlier, but am just listening to the myspace tunes. I love "The Girls Upstairs." Your lyrics are funny, and I am enjoying the melodies and production.

Oh, my bad memory strikes again, then. As long as you found something to not like, though...