Carl looks good here.... 

I am a fan of this song and I love the way Denny sings it. But what was the purpose of calling out the Four Seasons at the end? I can imagine there were some comparisons of Brian and Frankie Valli and their similar sounding falsetto's. Was there ever any real rivalry?

I think the liner notes in the two-fer mention this too, but back then the Four Seasons were one of the biggest rivals of The Beach Boys (in terms of succes), something that one forgets nowadays very easily as the BBs turned out to be bigger after the British Invasion. But I don't think that "Surfers rule" was meant in an evil way.

Erik, I think Robert Johnson's authorship of the songs he recorded is an open question in many cases.  With a lot of blues stuff you just go back to the earliest known recorded version of the song, or printed reference to it, or whatever.  1936 is usually far enough back to take the cake, but who knows where the song was before that?  I think I've seen "Dust My Broom" credited to Elmore James, even though Johnson's version is twenty years older than the James version I have, and I think the Rolling Stones' "Love In Vain" was just listed as a traditional arranged by them at some stage, not sure, and "Crossroads" by Clapton may have been credited as traditional as well.

Yeah, true. Some of Johnson's songs were based on other blues songs.

Rickles is a well known old time insult comedian.  Dangerfield was more self deprecating. Rickles is known for hurling insults at the audience.

Rickles is funny. Check him out at Dean Martin's roasts :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ALHiadIsKo

Cool stuff Lemon ! Thanks! The pictures in the first article look really cool and were new to me

Anyone know if Dean Martin had an opinion about the Beach Boys?

I'm pretty sure he had an opinion, but I'd like too to know more about this.


BTW Can you imagine Carl and Dino singing togetehr? Two of the most beautiful voices of the 20th century....

[Let It Be]

Let It Be: "Across The Universe" had been around, "I've Got A Feeling" was left over- Lennon's part- from earlier.

Don't forget "One after 909" which was one of the earliest things the Beatles did

Sad news....

This begs the question- if he indeed writes songs, what instrument does his use to write them?  Guitar?  Piano? 

I'd imagine it is hard to write a song using a saxophone, so I'd rule that one out.

Maybe he didn't use instruments, just his voice. Joe Meek (legendary British producer) wrote several hit songs and he couldn't play any instrument at all. When he learned a song to a band he just hummed it. So it is possible.

Yes, I believe Mike said in an interview that he hummed the melody to Carl who then looked for the chords on the guitar (or maybe piano)

Regarding "Let the wind blow": I'd really like to know how much Mike did and how much Brian. It's a fantastic song. The words are really great and the music is fitting. But I have a concert recording where Mike introduces this song as "a prayer that Brian put music to". And somewhere else I heard that Brian changed the melody a little, wrote the chords and did the arrangement, wich to me sounds like Mike just had an idea (plus the lyrics) but not much more than that

Anybody ever saw this? It's new to me. Scroll up for the index

http://books.google.de/books?id=Pj3OqpZCQmUC&pg=PA50&lpg=PA50&dq=beach+boys+let+the+wind+blow+chords&source=bl&ots=jvUX_gmoRw&sig=rvrky6E2QmF7pUF7qXpzDUnGFQE&hl=de&ei=_MSJSr_ZJMmK_AbGr-GOAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5#v=onepage&q=&f=false

The film also mentions Buddy producing other artists, which he actually did in real life (some early Waylon Jennings sessions).

Buddy produced this song for Ol' Waylon (who played in Buddy's band after the Crickets) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F238KHpgDBM
The narrator sounds like Kris Kristofferson, am I right?

Thanks !
Two of the most beautiful voices of the last century...

Yet somehow, practically the only thing that ever played was "Rag Mama Rag"! 

That song would've fit nicely on "So tough" imo. Better than Dennis' stuff (which I love) and "All this is that" (which I also love).

"Cherry Cherry Coupe" yeah!

Love that song !
Great review C-man

Just wanted to say that I gave the other members of my band some youtubelinks for possible Beach Boys-covers. I hope we'll decide next week, which one we're gonna do for this fan-cd

I hate these sessions. I think he is singing worse then on OCA,

I think his singing on OCA is the absolute best of his whole solo-carreer. And much better than his Beach Boys-stuff since "'til I die".... 

In the early 70s, Bruce used to talk to the audience a lot, too.

All I ever seem to have heard Bruce saying on stage are the albums on which the particular song is.
Plus "We're going to Kokomo!"


Mike's goofines surely had some charm in the beginning, but as they became older and almost hip, it just was terrible imo. There's at least one review in the Badman-book that mentions this as disturbing, too. Nah, I really don't like most of his stage banter. There are some cool ones, though "Uncomfortable seat" anyone? 

I think Sweet Insanity is a pretty big stinker, some of the songs like Hotter and Do You Have Any Regrets even give me the creeps,

I think "Do you have any regrets" is awesome. Not just one of the better takes from SI but also one of Brian's best from the solo years imo

 MEL On The Move:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJNFGuKdIDk

Cool. What exactly did he say around 4:10 about some PBS-special ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNY-eX4Oq2s

Never saw that interview snippet of Brian before the song. Where is this from? It's not on my Tribute-VHS

It's the sequel to his "Blue ridge rangers"-album. The first single is a cover of a song by the Everly Brothers ("When will I be loved") featuring Bruce Springsteen. You can listen to it here:

http://www.johnfogerty.com/

Almost all of the songs (except maybe "Coda") are recorded using Audacity, with one track for instrumentation and one track for vocals.

Allright, then I would try to make them a little cleaner. Just take your time to make it right.

I like this very much too. Like your voice and the echo you used on it. Don't know what else to say at the moment, but I really think it's good

Haven't listened to everything, but here are some impressions:

"Albany" : The slow parts are quite similar to "Knockin' on heaven's door" .  Since it's not in the best sound quality, I couldn't understand all the words, but I think I like 'em.

"Bad breath" : I think it's a funny song. In fact I don't know a song with this topic.

"Back to winter" : Sounds too similar to the other stuff imho

"Glasses" : There are some heavy "pops" in there.

"Jar of honey" : I kinda like this as a song.

"Coda" : Now that is something that clicks with me, but maybe you should work a little more on the songs. They sound a little unfinished. From what I've heard "Coda" has the most potential imho. Work on this, arrange it a little and give it some structure. You don't need to have more than a guitar to make it sound interesing, but you have to know how to use it.

You should try to use another way of recording. Try multitrack-recording. If you play guitar and sing live (that's how it seems to have been recorded when listening on my boxes) you can't concentrate enough on your playing or singing. It's quite simple nowadays with garageband, etc.
And try to work on your singing or you won't get above Dylan's level. Be sure to get all the notes and concentrate on hitting them.