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680601 Posts in 27601 Topics by 4068 Members - Latest Member: Dae Lims March 29, 2024, 06:59:39 AM
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101  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Awesome New Mike Love Article!! on: February 25, 2016, 01:37:07 AM
I do agree that filledeplage is trolling, and I second the recommendation that those of you who use the ignore script should add her  to your block lists (instructions on how to add users can be found at the link in my sig. -- it's a bit of a difficult process right now, but I hope to make it easier Real Soon Now...). I've done so myself and it's made this thread a lot easier to read.

No, it won't stop her posting -- but it will stop people getting annoyed, and responding to her posts, and things escalating. I've noticed that since people started using the script to block a few other posters, those posters have actually become a lot more reasonable -- the people who were wound up by them haven't responded, so they've tended to be a lot more on-topic and moderate.

And filledeplage, if by some small chance you're not actually trolling, please understand something:
Andrew Doe is annoyed at your posts. He's one of the bigger defenders of Mike on here -- so much so that people have accused him of being on Mike's payroll.
I'm annoyed at your posts. I don't defend Mike as much as AGD does, but I think it's pretty clear that I'm far from being a reflexive hater of Mike either.
Your posts, apparently designed to defend Mike, *are not helping him*. You're actually making people dislike Mike -- someone you like and admire -- far more than they already did.
102  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Awesome New Mike Love Article!! on: February 24, 2016, 02:31:10 AM
Cam, we've been trying to reach Mike, but he doesn't return our calls.  Razz

What a clown show.

Try Facebook.  Razz

We agree, what a clown show.

Who is 'we'?   Do you have multiple personalities (but all with the same devotion to Mike)  Smiley? Are you collaborating with or working on instruction from someone else - in which case I know I'd like to know who that is?  I could guess but don't want to prejudge anything or we'll go around the block on another little detour.

In order to stop this turning into another long digression on posters' grammar -- it seems pretty clear to me that when Cam says "we agree" he means "we -- that is you (Doo Dah) and I (Cam) -- agree".
103  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Awesome New Mike Love Article!! on: February 23, 2016, 02:46:35 PM
Also just some extra context from a 2000 LA Times article concerning "An American Family":

Sahanaja remembers a rehearsal last summer when Wilson's wife and comanager, Melinda, was on the phone with a copy of the script in front of her, yelling at one of Love's representatives over certain questionable content. Brian was so upset that he asked for the keys to the car and sat in the parking lot until the incident was over. "It was so sad," says Sahanaja, "because Brian's happier now, trying to move on -- and yet this stuff from the past keeps popping up to haunt him. My theory is that Brian and Melinda were most disturbed, apart from all the Mike Love propaganda at Brian's expense, by a scene that depicted Dennis Wilson screaming, 'You never supported me as an artist,' at his older brother. From everything I've read and everyone I've ever talked to, Dennis was the one guy -- perhaps the only guy -- who always stood by Brian."
OT, but I didn't know Sahanaja was working with them that early - or at least I would've thought their relationship was too new for this sort of intimacy. When did they start working together?

Darian became part of Brian's band in 1999, and musical director soon after that. The Wondermints had done the odd thing with Brian earlier than that, though, in around 1995.
104  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Mike and Bruce Tour 2016 on: February 22, 2016, 01:26:22 PM
We in Maryland were pretty lucky last week. 

The most recent setlist in setlist.fm from Charlotte on Saturday night is only 36 songs. 

Yep -- although we're all pretty lucky that we like a band where when they play 36 songs we talk about them "only" doing that many...
105  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Mike and Bruce Tour 2016 on: February 22, 2016, 01:22:24 PM
I think the current "flow" of the setlist is fantastic considering (as has been mentioned) there seldom was any when you look at years past. It really makes it feel like a complete "package" ya know? However, they could certainly move some of the sections. For example, why not try opening the show with a re-worked "hot rod" medley and move the surfin' songs to the close of the first set?

That would definitely be a good opener, but then you have the problem of Don't Worry Baby, which is a good lead from the mid-60s mellow ballady stuff into the car material. You could swap it with Surfer Girl and get the same effect, but then you lose the advantages you get from having Surfer Girl early in the set -- it allows them to drop the tempo right down after the medley (while Don't Worry Baby is still pretty fast) and show off the harmonies for an extended period early on. And also, if you moved the surf medley *and* Surfer Girl, then you'd be going to a Beach Boys show and not hearing anything at all about surfing or the beach for a good forty minutes, which might confuse the casual fans. Going on and doing five, six, eight (or however many depending on length) songs about surfing all in a row sends the message "this is the Beach Boys, and you're definitely getting a beach party type show".

You could definitely make it work well, but I'm not sure it would work *as* well, and it would require quite a bit of work in juggling stuff around.
106  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Awesome New Mike Love Article!! on: February 22, 2016, 09:52:50 AM
Well - Bold and italic is available here.   w00t!

And, as HeyJude has pointed out, they are difficult to use when on a smartphone. Using them also, for those of us who have spent decades online already, interrupts the flow of typing in a way that using asterisks doesn't.

But you know that. You're just doing everything you can to derail the conversation, for what reason I'm unsure.
I think I may have to edit my own copy of the ignore script...
107  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Awesome New Mike Love Article!! on: February 22, 2016, 08:50:43 AM
The 2005 suit does not belong in a General Music Discussion section.  It belongs in The Sandbox.  
Nonsense. This isn't the General Music Discussion board anyway, it's the General *On Topic* Discussion board. And while I personally found much of the discussion of the 2005 suit tedious, it *absolutely* belongs on this board -- especially in the context of an article that discussed it (among other things).

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 *who* - since when have asterisks replaced more appropriate punctuation?      

The use of asterisks to emphasise text has a history going back decades, and is a standard means of doing so online. And given your own... idiosyncratic... approach to punctuation and sentence structure, I wouldn't be too keen to attack HeyJude's.
108  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Hoffman Board - Thread about Hite Morgan Sessions Kickstarter - Deleted! on: February 22, 2016, 08:33:00 AM
Interesting that Elliot was still directly involved. Also interesting that $40,000 is pretty much the sum that he embezzled  from the backers of First Wave back in the late 90s...

I'm frankly amazed he's shown his face -- even by email -- to anyone at all, given his reputation these days. I think one of the only things you'll be able to get consensus on among Beach Boys fandom is that Brad Elliot is an untrustworthy thief...
109  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Awesome New Mike Love Article!! on: February 22, 2016, 06:42:48 AM
Mike is at war with the brand and the history.   He needs serious assistance to pull his 'stuff' off.  THESE days he's getting it.  There was a time though....way back when...when the group sounded so awful that Carl left to do his solo stint.  The current unit has really picked up its 'game since spending some time with Brian and Al and THAT crew.

It's true that the live Beach Boys -- and especially Mike's touring band -- have at times sounded horrible. But the real improvement in the touring band happened before the reunion tour. Replacing Adrian Baker with Randell Kirsch in 2004, and adding in a lot of rarer songs, was the first step, but the real big change was in 2007 when Cowsill moved to drums and Scott Totten became musical director. There've been lineup changes since then too of course (Christian replaced by Jeff, and then Randell replaced by Brian Eichenberger), and Jeff replacing Christian was definitely an improvement (there's not much in it either way between Randell and Brian E), but certainly since 2008 (the first time I saw the band after that change) they've been utterly superb.

It's not so much that touring with Brian and his band has made Mike's band up their game, but that the competition from Brian's band in the early 2000s made Mike finally get a band together whose core members *could* tour with Brian's band and not be hopelessly outclassed. If they'd tried to integrate Adrian Baker and Mike Kowalski with Brian's great band, it would have been pitiful or risible depending on one's point of view. But Scott and John slotted in perfectly, because by that time Mike's band were already strikingly good.
110  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Mike and Bruce Tour 2016 on: February 22, 2016, 06:32:20 AM
Having been to two M&B shows in the last seven months, I think it's a great show, and welcome the deeper tracks.

But, I'd love to see Mike really shake things up on the setlist and get away from the surf - mid 60s hits - hot rod - pet sounds - moodier / deep - Carl tribute - George tribute - crowd pleasers formula on the setlist. 

Suggestions:

1.  Open with California Girls or I Get Around to shake things up. 

2.  Mix and match some of the mid 60s material with some of the moodier tracks in the second half.  Might create a better balance. 

Any thoughts? 

For your first suggestion, I'm sure they will open with California Girls again in the future. Remember it's only relatively recently that they *stopped* opening with that in the US (they'd been opening with Do It Again in the UK for years).
I actually talked briefly with Scott about your second suggestion after the opening night of last year's UK tour, because I felt that there had been a run of songs which were similarly paced, and while *I* loved all those songs I could feel the audience getting a little restless. The problem is that given the structure of the shows, there's only a finite number of ways you can shuffle things around.

As for your more general point, though, I think that this structure actually works really well. I don't know for sure, but I think it's one of the things that Scott brought in when he became musical director -- if you compare the setlists for the 2004 and 2008 UK tours, the repertoire is largely the same, but the order for 2004 seems to have been chosen by picking titles out of a hat. And while moving Cowsill to drums and having Scott as MD both made massive positive differences to the performance, I think that the thought that's been put into the structure -- having the show almost tell a story -- has also improved the shows immensely.

And while those of us who go to a lot of shows can predict what those songs are going to be, I don't think most audiences are familiar enough with the setlists to have it pall on them. I think they have a good structure, one that can be expanded or contracted to fill the space, and that allows them now to do a surprising amount of rarities for us hardcore fans but still have the audience go home remembering it as being just one big hit they love after another all the way through.
111  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Awesome New Mike Love Article!! on: February 22, 2016, 05:05:01 AM
It is offensive to blanket-attack Touring Band concerts, or those who attend. Or infer that they have no information either about the era or Smile as a project.

No-one attacked anyone who attends Mike & Bruce shows, or the shows themselves.
But, for example, I think that when they played the county fair at Albert Lea, MN (pop. 18000), a few years back, they weren't playing to a particularly knowledgeable audience. I may of course be wrong, and my in-laws (who attended that show, which is why I use it as an example) may have been the only people there who are farmers in their mid-sixties who sing along to the surf and car songs when they come on the oldies stations but couldn't necessarily tell you which ones were the Beach Boys and which were Jan and Dean.
It's certainly *possible* that everyone else in the audience spent the time before the show discussing whether the vocals for I Believe In Miracles were intended to go over the Child Is Father Of The Man backing track, and that when they did Kokomo it was drowned out by people shouting "do Cabinessence -- but make sure we can hear the Truck Drivin' Man lyrics!", and that my in-laws didn't mention this when they told me about the show. But I think on the balance of probabilities the vast majority were people who wanted to hear 409 and I Get Around and Surfin' USA and Barbara Ann.
And that's only an insult if you think that elderly midwestern farmers don't deserve to be entertained too, or that there's something wrong with wanting to hear 409, or that people should have to pass a test before they're allowed to buy tickets to a show. I know some people have implied things very like that here in the past, but no-one has in this thread.
One of the things I think most admirable about Mike's band, actually, is that they will play to *any* audience, and give any audience a good time. They put on a great show last year doing sixty-plus songs at the Albert Hall with a horn section and doing Til I Die and Surf's Up, but they *also* put on a great show in 2013 when they played a really weird festival bill between The Saturdays and JLS on a "family day" and only had an hour to play the hits. At that show, most of the adults in the audience were complaining at the start that they were on at all, saying "no-one's here to see them, why don't they just bring JLS on?" -- by the end of their set, the audience were so impressed that they were the only act allowed an encore (the Saturdays, who more people were there to see, had to cut a song because the timings were so strict).
Personally, I think it does Mike's band a huge disservice to imagine that their audiences are mostly the kind of people on this board. It's *much harder* to win over a casual audience who don't know all the words to every song than it is to play only to your biggest fans.
The casual fans do make up the bulk of Mike's audiences. But that's not a negative reflection on the band, the show they put on, or the audience members.
112  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Mike and Bruce Tour 2016 on: February 22, 2016, 02:49:39 AM
Agreed on "I Can Hear Music"....however, also agree that Cowsill is greatly underused! Bring back Wild Honey!!!

I talked to Scott about this and he said Cowsill has been under the weather recently and hasn't been able to sing "Wild Honey" perhaps that's why he's bein doing so few leads recently as well.

That's a shame. I hope he's feeling better soon.
I know he's not much of a fan of his own voice, but I think Cowsill is a wonderful singer, and I'm glad he had so many leads in the UK shows last year. I think he should actually take Darlin' back as well -- Foskett does OK on it, but Cowsill does it better.
113  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Awesome New Mike Love Article!! on: February 22, 2016, 02:47:15 AM
The biggest damage was done to those fans who had zero knowledge of the BB's who watched that film because it was a rewrite of history from '66 onward, and those fans got ripped off. Or they got lied to thinking this was the real story of how, for example, Good Vibrations came to be and what role Van Dyke Parks played in Smile.

Did anybody - does anybody - accept the history of 1966 onward as shown in "American Family" to be the truth?

I'm guessing probably a good percentage of the typical audience of casual fan attendees of many M&B shows.  
CD - That is a truly offensive remark and does not help anyone's cred to insult others.  What is a "typical casual fan?" You might want to explain that stereotype.  

It's not offensive at all. Most of the people -- not all, but most -- who go to Mike & Bruce shows know very little about the band. At *at least* the last six shows I've been to, I've had someone ask me (because I tend to wear band T-shirts and baseball cap at the gigs, so I'm obviously a non-casual fan) how many original members there are in the band and which ones they are. At Hampton Court, in fact, I had a member of staff ask me that, because so many people -- people with tickets -- had been asking her.
I've also overheard a lot of conversations at those shows where someone (usually a man) shows off his "knowledge" to someone else (usually a woman) and gets everything completely wrong.
In my experience, most of the people who go to Mike & Bruce shows are people who have a hits compilation and maybe (in the case of the ones around my age) a copy of Pet Sounds. If they know anything about the band as people, it's (probably in these words) "Brian Wilson went mad and doesn't tour with them any more, and I think one of them died".
None of that's a judgement on those people. Most of the audience for *anything* even vaguely popular is made up of people who quite like the thing in question but don't know much about it.
114  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: BB Tribute Albums Ranked on: February 18, 2016, 07:30:16 AM
I'll have to check that out. Some of the artist contributions listed make it sound kind of soft-rocky but I'll definitely take a look-see. Dunno if you've listened to these but most of the top few ones in the list are mostly indie-ish/neo-psychedelic-y bands. The Flaming Lips cover of "God Only Knows" and Olivia Tremor Control's "Do You Dig Worms?" are to die-for. As well as everything on Caroline Now!

The All-Star tribute DVD *is* a little soft-rock -- it's very oriented to 70s AOR middlebrow acts, and if you're more into the Elephant 6 style stuff (as I am) you may find it a little bland. That said, it's worth it for Paul Simon's lovely reworking of Surfer Girl, and Brian's band back everyone so it never enters too far into Joe Thomas territory.
115  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Mike and Bruce Tour 2016 on: February 18, 2016, 07:24:49 AM
I'll admit that the images on the screen of George make that audio/visual experience a little emotional (especially since it tends to follow the Carl tribute).  I just wish it were a better song. 

So do I. The scansion's all over the place, which is quite surprising for a lyricist of Mike's ability. It's a poorly-crafted song, though there's a decent melodic idea in there. But the audiences I've been in have seemed to disagree.

Quote
I also think that many US fans go to a Beach Boys show to dance and sing Fun Fun Fun, I Get Around, and Barbara Ann. 
So do the British fans for the most part -- although the songs that seem to get the best reaction tend to be I Get Around, Wouldn't It Be Nice and, oddly, You're So Good To Me (when they play that one)...
116  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Mike and Bruce Tour 2016 on: February 18, 2016, 05:55:18 AM
It's great to hear these stories about people having such positive experiences at Mike & Bruce shows, and them doing sets closer to the kind of shows they do in the UK for their American fans.
Odd to hear that Jeff sounded strained on All This Is That -- he's usually *beautiful* on that, it's one of his best vocals normally. Maybe he was having a bad night with his throat or something.
Also odd to hear that Pisces didn't go down well with the crowd. It's not a song I like much, but I've seen casual-fan audience members in tears at that one (it seems to go down better with people who aren't as familiar with the band, for whatever reason). It's surprising that it didn't get much reaction (maybe it's a US/UK difference...)
117  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Beach Boy Songs Never Done Live, but should have been . . . . on: February 18, 2016, 05:50:31 AM
ah ok. I just went to youtube and couldn't even find a version there.
Cheers.

Some versions circulate on audience recordings. We're not allowed to point people to them on here, but if you google for shows from 1976 (and possibly 1977) you'll probably find them fairly easily, though the recordings are pretty rough for the most part.
118  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Beach Boy Songs Never Done Live, but should have been . . . . on: February 18, 2016, 03:32:03 AM
palisades park

They did that fairly regularly in 1976.
119  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Beach Boy Songs Never Done Live, but should have been . . . . on: February 18, 2016, 02:36:40 AM
Good to my baby has been performed numerous times post-1998 by Mike & Bruce, with Randell on lead.

Girl Don't Tell me has been done by Al Jardine Family & Friends.

It would be cool if Brian's band would do Diamond Head live!

Good To My Baby has also been a regular in the set with Foskett singing Brian's part (and Mike obviously singing his own parts) since 2013.
I have a vague memory that Brian may have done Girl Don't Tell Me as well, but couldn't swear to it. Possibly as part of the acoustic sets at the Smile shows?
120  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Awesome New Mike Love Article!! on: February 17, 2016, 12:46:22 PM

There are many factors for a decision on residence..."it is where you intend to return." - He could have spent more time in CA than Nevada.   Some people spend more time at a vacation home than in the home that is judged to be the residence.  Wink

Yes, FdP, but he first listed Nevada as his residence. He then switched it after the court threw it back, with advice of counsel - it was a lie as was much else in this suit.
As Add Some says "Gawd!"
Give it up. There is NO REASONABLE JUSTIFICATION for this action. The judges see that - they were very clear; everyone one this board does; anyone who's ever written about it does. It was Mike Love's low point. It was wrong for him to do. I'm glad he doesn't bring it up and try to justify it and it doesn't make him look better for anyone else to.

Yep. We've all done stupid and malicious things at times, and this is one of Mike's. Doesn't necessarily make him a bad person, just a person who once did a bad thing. Attempts to whitewash it don't actually make Mike seem any better -- any more than the deliberate interpretations of his actions in the worst possible light by some posters on "the other side" (not especially in this thread) make him seem worse.
I think Mike has often been treated unfairly by the press and fans, but I don't think he's *always* been treated unfairly, and going to ridiculous extremes the other way (to the point, as in filledeplage's earlier post, of apparently denying that morality can ever enter into business decisions) won't improve his reputation.
121  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Awesome New Mike Love Article!! on: February 17, 2016, 11:27:53 AM
Hey Jude - at each juncture, there are criticisms of this suit.  Mike had a beneficial ownership interest and had "standing" to bring the suit, whether a message board agrees 10+ years down the road.  Yes, it is related to the right to be heard.  I did not use the term civil rights.  It was more a "business interest" not a civil rights (in terms of discrimination) issue.  And yes,  people don't like the pleadings.  We cannot change that. 

No-one -- not one single person -- has argued that Mike didn't have the legal right to sue. He did. What people have been arguing is that he was not *morally* right to do so, and that furthermore it was obvious to any observer that he was going to lose the case before it started, because most of the claims in the lawsuit were incorrect.

Just because you *can* do something doesn't mean you *should* do it.

Andrew - and, they are making a moral judgment, where there was a business interest at issue.  

And? "Business" is not some sort of separate magisterium, divorced from all other human behaviours, in which the normal rules of morality don't apply.
122  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Awesome New Mike Love Article!! on: February 17, 2016, 10:56:36 AM
Hey Jude - at each juncture, there are criticisms of this suit.  Mike had a beneficial ownership interest and had "standing" to bring the suit, whether a message board agrees 10+ years down the road.  Yes, it is related to the right to be heard.  I did not use the term civil rights.  It was more a "business interest" not a civil rights (in terms of discrimination) issue.  And yes,  people don't like the pleadings.  We cannot change that. 

No-one -- not one single person -- has argued that Mike didn't have the legal right to sue. He did. What people have been arguing is that he was not *morally* right to do so, and that furthermore it was obvious to any observer that he was going to lose the case before it started, because most of the claims in the lawsuit were incorrect.

Just because you *can* do something doesn't mean you *should* do it.
123  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Brian Wilson 2016 Tour Thread (Pet Sounds 50th Anniversary Tour) on: February 16, 2016, 09:41:19 AM
Anybody going to the second (a month after the first) show at the Flynn in Burlington on July 6 and have a pre-sale password? The first show sold out without any promotion; it's really great of Brian to return for another. Especially considering that, as far as I know, he's never played a show anywhere in Vermont before, neither as a solo act nor with the Beach Boys.

I have super nice tickets for the first show (june 14) but now I'm wondering if I should buy tickets for the second also. It will be my first time going to a BW show (I've never been to BB's either) and I don't know what to expect except it will be great and I'll get to see Brian "in person". I'm dragging my friend there but she's only a casual fan and she won't go a second time, for sure. Isn't there an app to locate BB fans? There should be.

It was fairly easy to get tickets the first time, so, Sonora, I wouldn't worry. Just be ready at 10 a.m. on friday!

If you can afford to go a second time, I would. You may not have many more chances to see Brian live, and he and his band are extraordinarily good. You'll be kicking yourself coming out of the first show if you haven't bought tickets for the second.
124  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Awesome New Mike Love Article!! on: February 16, 2016, 07:20:19 AM
Mike had "standing" as a beneficial owner to bring the action.  It was not dismissed at the outset, so the trial judge must have considered some evidence advanced, otherwise it would never have gone to trial.  
Plenty of things go to trial which are ridiculous on the face of it. The SCO vs IBM case, for example, which has dragged on for thirteen years but which any unbiased observer would have said, back in 2013, was a clear-cut case. Something not being dismissed at the outset doesn't make it any less blatantly wrong.

Quote
 And his photo/the band was used, albeit allegedly small, was used on the packaging.  So, there was some kind of a tie to support the claim.  
That, and that alone, is the one tiny aspect of Mike's claim that is justifiable. Whoever designed that cover shouldn't have used a photo of the Beach Boys without their permission. That doesn't justify any of the other nonsense in Mike's suit.
125  Smiley Smile Stuff / General On Topic Discussions / Re: Awesome New Mike Love Article!! on: February 16, 2016, 06:22:00 AM
What does Murry Wilson and songwriting credits have to do with Mike trying to shake BW down for money in 2005? That lawsuit was a money grab plain and simple along with slandering BW/AJ.

Yes it was. Both lawsuits, though, were brought up in the original article, so we've been discussing both. The songwriting credits one is, to me at least, much more interesting. The 2005 one was just a straight case of Mike absolutely, and indefensibly, being in the wrong.
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