[my page]

Hello friends,

As some may know, I am winding down on the recording and mixing of my first full length album, to be entitled Star Map. Stylistically, it is somewhere between Pet Sounds and The Basement Tapes. Much like my debut EP, Looking For Diamonds, it was recorded almost entirely on vintage analog equipment.

Being entirely self financed, it hasn't been easy to cover all the costs this time around (full length albums cost more to produce than 5 song EPs). In order to avoid cutting corners where it really counts, I am reaching out to you for some help.

If you wish to help out, please visit my page over at Feed The Muse. There you will be able to see all the donation options. Any amount helps and your generosity will not go unrewarded.
For instance, the lowest option, $5.00 gets you a free download of the entire album a week before its street date while the highest option, $300, gets you autographed copies of both my CDs, collectable merchandise, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER CREDIT, and a very special EXCLUSIVE CONCERT from yours truly.

Thank you very much for reading. Looking forward to hearing back from you.
Jared

20/20 was the weakest album they did since All Summer Long.

Funny. I think All Summer Long is one of their stronger albums, at least in terms of the cars, surf and girls era. If you ask me, 20/20 has strong contributions from Brian and the rest of the group in addition to a catchy hit single. I'd say 20/20 is just as good as the Surf's Up album, though it's more of a grower.

Been really digging on this album as the Spring weather had begun showing it's face around these parts.
Really a great album for taking a drive to get lost.

The music is very old time movie-esque, which is no surprise coming from Van Dyke Parks. Some of those synths make it sound like The Lion King (TRIVIA: Carmen Twillie who sang 'The Circle of Life' in the movie also contributes back up vocals to OCA), but there's no denying the charm of the music itself.

The stand out tracks for me are:
Orange Crate Art
Sail Away
Hold Back Time
Movies Is Magic
Wings of A Dove

The beautiful orchestration of "Lullaby" takes you somewhere else. Van Dyke clearly hadn't lost his touch.
Brian's vocal arrangements provide the perfect compliment to the music even if his vocal performance tended to be on the rough side. It was a good break at a tough time for him.

All in all, I give it 4 stars. Definitely something that grows on you.

Leon Russell played every instrument on Pet Sounds. He sang most of the vocals too. 

I appreciate that this has seemed to have veered off topic, but at the same time, it could be quite a relevant discussion to the Beach Boys if we can keep it less abstract and more concrete.

"fire bad" - Frankenstein's monster

New year... new mix

Our Prayer
Good Vibrations/Gee
Heroes & Villains
You're Welcome
Do You Like Worms?
Barnyard
The Old Master Painter
You Are My Sunshine
Cabinessence
Holidays
Windchimes
Mrs. O Leary's Cow
I Love To Say Dada
I Wanna Be Around/Friday Night
Vegetables
Wonderful
Surf's Up

It's him in the 80s when the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical CATS first hit Broadway.

But I do prefer history be told without a personal bias, and unfortunately that's a tall order and has been for some time. Every author has his or her own style, and in Domenic's case from what I read and heard he likes to inject opinions into the history, and it's not a personal criticism but I prefer my history be told in raw facts rather than through a filter of any kind. Not that I don't enjoy most everything the man has written, but it's just a personal preference not to have those "strong and sometimes radical" opinions, to use the highlighted phrase, injected into the story. Just my two cents. I'm looking forward to what he has to say on this project.

Without bothering to present any examples, isn't all history presented in someone's viewppoint? For almost any accounting of anything there are usually at least a couple of variations on what Actually happened.  

True. That's why it's probably best to present all existing viewpoints instead of just one.

I really like the Dixie Chicks. They are of a dying breed in country/folk music, unfortunately. Their last couple of albums have been really good, far surpassing Nashville's usual standards of 2 big singles and a bunch of filler. The three of them are multi-instrumentalists and their harmonies are quite pretty. Their songwriting skills are not too shabby, either so I don't know why they chose to cover "God Only Knows" though I'm not displeased with their cover version.

Natalie Maines did a great collaboration with Neil Diamond called "Another Day That Time Forgot" which is worth seeking out.

[The only version with a CW vocal is the BB version: can you say "licensing" ?]

Another question that I can't remember the answer to is why Baby Blue Eyes isn't on Bambu? And if you made a fan mix of Bambu cuts, where would you put Baby Blue Eyes?

The only version with a CW vocal is the BB version: can you say "licensing" ?

I feel like there's a huge difference in sound on Wild Situation...I'm not gonna go into is at the moment. And why was the tasteless line deleted?   ("She's got it hard now it's a big erection")

'Cause it's missing on the original multi-track. Dennis erased it.

Well what about Love Surrounds me? Aren't some of the BB on that track? (Does it matter if it was on L.A. or not?)

Bambu "LSM" came first - I've heard it disputed, but what's on LA sounds awfully like a sweetened version of the original to me.

I believe even the liner notes to the recent POB deluxe edition state that The Beach Boys version is a 'sweetening' of Dennis' version.

[BWPS]

"When Darian worked with Brian Wilson to sequence 'SMiLE' for 2004," he said, "Wilson placed its heaviest song, 'Surf's Up,' back in the proper order of that sequence.

It could be reasonably argued that, as the 3rd section of BWPS is entirely a 21st century construct, "Surf's Up" did indeed close Smile and hadn't changed position at all. That's the argument: the fact is, no-one knows. To say things were fluid in those days is a huge understatement.

I'm eagerly awaiting Dom's new essay: currently re-reading his Sunset Strip book and the sense of time, place and context is outstanding.

I always enjoy reading Priore's books. Though sometimes I think he has a tendency to interject his own (often strong and sometimes radical) musical opinions into the story, the backstory and mood settings really give you a further appreciation of the music. Rather than the typical 'it was the mid-1960s and JFK was shot to death' scenarios that have become cliche' to say the least, he lets you in on what was happening on the streets and the whole lingo that was uprising amongst youth. I hadn't realized how seemingly obsessed Brian Wilson was with "modern" sounds until Priore pointed it out in his recent Smile book.

I respect that point of view but it just drives me batty when somebody cites Brian Wilson's "autobiography" as their source for information, particularly on the subject of Smile.

I'm gonna be a real puss and say: however they do it, I will be pleased. Unless there are new vocals referring to Kokomo or something.

One upon the sandwich isles, the California Girls steamed upon Kokomo

Robbie Robertson

Just one more thing -- other alternate mixes notwithstanding, the dropping of the "ahhhhs" on "Melt Away" is so egregious -- how could that have been missed?  I noticed immediately and like others was extremely disappointed as that was what put this wonderful track over the top for me.

Who was getting paid to drop that big of a ball?

Recall it being explained at the time that there wasn't a single, banded master for the whole album, so the songs had to be pulled individually from the racks, and in a couple of instances, the wrong one was used. It happens, even with complete album masters, as per the Sony reissues of 1991.

Did the producers of the reissue not have a copy of the original album on CD or vinyl to compare to the tapes they had?

One of the local mags decided to do a feature on my music for their March 2011 issue. If interested, it can be read here.

-Jared

[S M i L E]

Sometimes it takes a little while...

...but the way it turns out will make you S M i L E

 

Of course, those of us who bought the album when it was originally issued have no such problems. 

Except that ours is not re-mastered, as Roger points out. Fairly significant.

Bernie Grundman mastered the original. He's certainly one of the top mastering engineers in the music world, whom also happens to run one of the top mastering facilities.

Frankie has/had a strong falsetto but it's not quite as versatile as Brian's was. He could wail those high notes but when it came to being sweet and soft, he didn't have the control that Brian had. Brian's falsetto is more jazz inspired as well while Frankie's most certainly had its roots in doo-wap.

I wish I knew what the producers of the Good Vibrations box set were smoking when they assumed Brian was singing lead on the alternate mix of "God Only Knows" when it CLEARLY is Carl, albeit an alternate take differing from the album/single master.

Never heard of this site but it claims SMiLE will come out in June:
http://www.60sgaragebands.com/newsnuggets/2011releasedates.html

Also, what is "Classic Albums?" (In March.)

Most likely EMI's bargain bin venture of two of the CEMA special products versions of the original albums (some with certain tracks omitted) packaged together haphazardly.

Budget line, most likely.

Neither does Phil Spector.

Shh. Don't tell Brian...

I don't know about that.

God, imagine having to exchange 45s every 3 minutes during a 5 hr trip... more dangerous than using a non-handsfree cellphone...

Not to mention having to watch out for those potholes and bumps in the road to avoid the needle jumping.

Thanks for that, Have to say it works well. And I was under the impression that a number of Videos was made around this time (66/67) like the "Fire" video, Guess I was wrong?

The 'Fire' video was actually for 'Good Vibrations'.  Although it matches up much better with 'Mrs. O'Leary's Cow', for obvious reasons. Unless you're talking about the home movie of the Boys in the studio wearing the Fire hats-which, now that I think about it, you probably are!
Also, I recall watching a movie a few months back on YouTube. It was somebody's mix of 'DYLW' with 'Little Pad' thrown in, and it had clips from different BB things of that era, like Brian in the studio wearing a fire hat, the Boys outside on a beach somewhere, someone with a movie camera (I think it's Paul McCartney), and a part where Carl (I think) rides his bike down a bunch of hilly streets. I can't find it anymore, and I think it was made by a poster here on the board.

Curious then, that Mike at one point puts his fingers to his mouth like he's holding an imaginary joint and rolls his eyes, suggesting that the music was drugged out, leading me to believe he knew it was for Mrs. O'leary.  Hard to imagine Mike not being a fan of GV.

I just saw it as "Mike Love being Mike Love" and pretending to yawn like he was bored. It's possible Brian was going over one section of GV constantly to get it right and Mike was getting impatient.