['Second Nature']

A few years ago I posted about the first full-lenght album by the Beach Boys-obsessed band I'm a member of, Surf School Dropouts. It was called 'Summer is a State of Mind' and came out on vinyl in 2013.

Since then we've been hard a work recording a follow-up and it's finally online. 'Second Nature', available on Bandcamp, itunes and Amazon as of today. It should be up on Spotify and other stream-services shortly.

https://surfschooldropouts.bandcamp.com/album/second-nature

I hope some of you guys will check it out and let me know what you think. The album is shock-full of harmonies and original songs with a heavy Beach Boys slant or a nod towards other types of classic pop. We've branched out a bit compared to the debut so there's an attempt at a Motown song (Wonderful Ride), a bit of exotica (Lanikai), beatleseque Power Pop (Should Have Known Better) etc.

Looking back, it's cool to have recorded two albums now with some of my best friends. We basically just started out harmonizing on Beach Boys classics for the fun of it so it's satisfying to see that this initial inspiration led us towards coming up with and releasing our own stuff....


 

LOVE the Turtles. And LOVE the Flo & Eddie stuff just as much!!! Fantastic singers...

Has anyone here read Howard Kaylan's autobiography 'Shell Shocked' from a few years back?
http://www.amazon.com/Shell-Shocked-Turtles-Eddie-Frank/dp/1617808466

I picked it up with great anticipation but was a bit dissapointed. I guess I'd expected it to be funnier and quirkier than what I found was the case. Oddly enough, he doesn't really write that in-depth about Mark Volman. For someone that Howard's hung out with & sung professionally with since his teens you'd think this 'companion for life' would feature more prominently in his book! 

Jerry Riopelle was certainly capable of recording extremely convincing Wall of Sound productions.

For those interested, here's more info regarding all this from my Spector / Wall of Sound blog

Jerry Riopelle & Spector
https://cuecastanets.wordpress.com/2014/11/22/would-be-spectors-2-jerry-riopelle/

Brian & Spector
https://cuecastanets.wordpress.com/2015/01/06/would-be-spectors-4-brian-wilson/

And a bit more on Brian & Spector; a guest post courtesy of guitarfool from this board.
https://cuecastanets.wordpress.com/2015/01/11/guest-post-phil-spector-and-brian-wilson/

SST are good...happy with you girl is my favorite track by them. I recommend others to check them out as well!

Yeah, that's a favorite as well. Forget to include it in my post. I'll bet that song, with it's prominent ba-ba-baah sunshine pop backing vocals, is what made you think of and post about the Follow Me songs. Same kind of 'ba ba baah' type vocals on 'Thru' Rose colored Glasses'. That's a cool soundtrack by the way but that song really outshines all others on there in my opinion. I tend to fall for every song that has that type of nonsense ba ba bah vocal.

Here's another great example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtbkma8hycI

and speaking of 'ba ba baahs', - whenever I'm getting a new car, I'll go see these Guys!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8rAh72jRDo

OK, back with a recommendation for this thread; Soft Soul Transition. A pretty cool soft-pop trio that released one album in 1969. Their sound is pretty interesting, almost jazzy at times with a very laid-back feel, not to heavy-handed with the harmonies.



Well worth checking out and there's been a CD reissue with bonus tracks a few years back.

Here are a few favorites:

Gotte Move Along
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q8DDnMwI_M

She Came Back
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D30UbO6cmxU

Cinderella
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXCbW-0-Gyc

Soft Soul Transition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdv3OOP8RbE

Dreamweaver
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9I-uUX_Guo

Hi, I left a comment on your blog but just wanted to say thanks again in case you missed it. Your interview with Paley was really enlightening.

Thank you for the comment, Jason. Both here and on the blog. I'm glad that you found this second interview interesting.

I sure hope we'll somehow get to hear those Brian & Andy songs the way they were envisioned and properly mixed as Paley himself points out in the interview.

[UPDATE]

UPDATE: Since starting this thread I've had the chance to ask Andy some more questions. It has now been turned into a new interview for my blog. There's some more info about his collaboration with Brian.

https://cuecastanets.wordpress.com/2015/02/15/andy-paley-interview-part-ii/

Re "Sandy" - do you know of the album of the same title by Sandy Salisbury? How good is that? Is it inferior to Ronny & the Daytonas'? Question to all.

Meanwhile, I liked the song of his called "All I Really Have Is a Memory": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwqu3xxWtJU

I think it's not listed in the album above.

Personally, I prefer the Ronny & Daytonas album but the two are difficult to compare as they have different approaches. I feel the Ronny & the Daytonas album is more in line with mid 60s 'Today' era Beach Boys stuff than what people would think of in terms of soft pop / sunshine pop.

The Sandy Salisbury album however is a curious mix of Curt Boettcher / Millennium whimsy, bubblegum and a bit of country-pop. I would highly recommend it - there's some awesome stuff on there. And the different collections of some of his less elaborate demos from the 60s are great as well.

So Kwan_dk I've sat with your pinterest page for a couple of weeks now. I discovered fantastic tracks I never knew existed. Some of my favorites are Autumn (Thomas Group) Everyday (Main Attraction) Sit Down I Think I Love You (Mojo Men) <<<Can't stop listening to that one!  When Summer Comes (The Freshman) <<What a sunshine pop tune there! and finally I Couldn't Think About Living Without You (The Fairchilds) <<Fantastic Brian Wilson middle break there

So how often do you update your pinterest page? Its a fantastic medium/forum to spread the gospel of Sunshine Pop!

Thanks!

Thank you for the kind words, Mark! It's great to know that someone out there enjoyed the board and the song picks. I don't update it regularly, only if I stumble upon a nice image or have a few minutes to spare for song selections. And naturally, I tend to do this more actively during the summer where I'm especially in the mood for Sunshine Pop! 

You should check out EVERYTHING by the Thomas Group! They recorded some fantastic stuff written for them by P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri. Some kind soul has cleaned up all the old singles and put them up on Soundcloud. These are probably the cleanest version I've heard yet. In my book, songs like 'Penny Arcade' and 'Autumn' are among the very best examples of how to write a delicious, dizzying pop ditty of the highest order.

https://soundcloud.com/thomas-group

I personally don't think it's 80/20, maybe more like 55/45. There's songs on those sessions that scream Andy Paley ("Slightly American Music", "Chain Reaction of Love", "Elbow '64") and others like "Gettin' in Over My Head" and "Saturday Morning in the City" that are very Brian.

Recall reading somewhere that "Soul Searchin'" was Paley's song and Brian added the middle eight. I might be misremembering, but I'll see if I can find the link for where I saw that.

Maybe this is the interview you remember, Jason?
http://www.rockcellarmagazine.com/2013/09/04/beach-boys-collaborators-stephen-kalinich-andy-paley-interview/#sthash.u1qFRZcc.dpbs

According to Andy here, Soul Searching was mostly his but Brian contributed heavily with lyrics - pretty unusual. It normally seems to be the other way around with Brian. Andy also calls 'You're Still a Mystery' a 50/50 effort.

Someone really should conduct an in-depth interview with Andy about all this. I merely touched upon the subject in passing in my interview (see original post) because the main focus was on Andy's own music and his experience working with Spector. I was actually surprised that Andy elaborated a bit on his and Brian's collaboration since it seems to be clouded in mystery and, it appears, a bit of controversy.

Oh, and Andrew - you're right. I should have been more specific in my original post. I didn't mean to give the impression that there may be as much as a hundred songs recorded - I don't believe that at all - but like others in this thread have stated, I think it's very likely that there's a great deal more than what has been bootlegged. I was just surprised to learn that Andy considered the amount of co-written songs big enough to merit using the number 'hundred' to emphasize their productivity. Some of those songs must have been turned into demos.

I guess Brian and his management would still own the rights to these recordings, right? Or could they somehow belong to Andy legally?

[UPDATE]

I know there's been a ton of threads about the Paley sessions but I felt like starting a new one since I've gotten some new info directly from Andy.

I have a blog that deals with the Spector sound / the Wall of Sound and recently did an e-mail interview with Andy about his music & the time when he and his brother cut a song with Spector in 1978.

Having access to him, I couldn't help asking him about the sessions with Brian. Maybe it's just me who hasn't been paying attention, but Andy's claim that they recorded heaps of stuff, maybe as much as a hundred songs, was new to me. Up untill now I had just imagined that the widely bootlegged stuff was all there is. Here are some quotes from the interview:

"There are many other recordings that haven’t seen the light of day as far as I know." (...) I will tell you that Brian knows how good the stuff is. We were having lots of fun writing and recording back then. We may’ve written a hundred songs. It was a real creative explosion. (...) in general, the stuff we wrote has never been mixed and released. Maybe someday it will all come out. I hope so."

For the full interview, go here:
https://cuecastanets.wordpress.com/2015/02/05/andy-paley-interview/

Whatever it is that has kept these songs from being mixed and released, it doesn't seem to be because of any unwillingness from Andy. In this fairly recent Popdose interview he notes that he still talks to Brian once in a while.
http://popdose.com/the-popdose-interview-the-paley-brothers/

So just out of curiosity, does anyone here know more about his claim that there's way more material gathering dust somewhere? I personally really like a lot of those songs. It's such a shame that they haven't come out mixed and in proper sound.

UPDATE: Since starting this thread I've had the chance to ask Andy some more questions. It has now been turned into a new interview for my blog. There's some more info about his collaboration with Brian.

https://cuecastanets.wordpress.com/2015/02/15/andy-paley-interview-part-ii/



 

Very interesting! Will definately pick this up.

Don't know that earlier book either (Surf Beat) - anyone here who has read that one or other books by Crowley? If so, what is your impression of him as a writer?

I wonder how often Macca and Ringo get their copies on the table when the family's gathered....

I have a feeling that most people checking out a thread about Sunshine Pop already have probably checked out the Twinn Connexion album from 1968.They walked a fine line between Baroque Pop and Sunshine Pop. But just in case, here's a link to a track to a truly groovy track by them:
Twinn Connexion- Young & Free            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omZ3ErVF0Xs

And kwan_dk, if you haven't discovered this group yet, I think you'll like this quite a bit. The whole album is excellent:
THe Carnival- Hope          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCSttWjD2pg

No, I haven't gotten to the Carnival yet. Thanks for the heads-up. Reminds me a lot of Triste Janeiro which I really dig. Must investigate further.

As for Twin Connexion, for some reason they don't appeal that much to me. Usually though, I'm all ears when something is decribed as 'walking a fine line between Baroque Pop and Sunshine Pop!' 

Speaking of which, I can't resist shamelessly pointing toward my own band. We have a song called 'Follow the Sun' which fits that description nicely, heavy use of harpsichord and all. 'Baby I Long to Be Yours' and 'Stone Cold Crazy' off our debut album should also have some appeal to Sunshine Pop fans. You can hear all three songs here:

https://surfschooldropouts.bandcamp.com/album/summer-is-a-state-of-mind

Oh wow that Deep Six song is amazing. Reminds me of Sandy by Ronny and The Daytonas...same type of vibe.  I also agree with Peter concerning The Turtles and Harpers Bizarre.

Oh man, don't get me started on 'Sandy' or the whole Sandy album!   That's one of my all-time favorites.

I've often thought about what could have been had John 'Bucky' Wilkin recorded a third Daytonas album. It could have been his 'Pet Sounds.' His two later solo albums are in a folk/country-pop vein and only so-and-so. But under the Ronny & Daytonas moniker he did issue a couple of singles during the mid to late 60s that showed great promise had a third album happened.

Here's 'Walk with the Sun'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1FWOUdxeiw

And 'The Girls and the Boys'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTszgjY08Gg

See this thread is working already! Just discovered "What Is Happy Baby?" by The Californians. Great tune. Never heard it before. Great Pinterest page kwan dk. Love it and that whole California vibe.

Thanks. Glad you liked it. That song is actually a cover version of the Cowsills hit. But I think the Californians version is much superior. That group issued some great singles but never got around to recording a Whole album. And I have yet to see a reissue gathering all their singles.

Another recommendation - the Deep Six. Folk Rock / Soft Rock with a Mamas & Papas slant, though a bit more sugarcoated. Check out their dreamy 'Winds of Morning' bossa nova. A fantastic song!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF65RDhCJHo

I discovered this fantastic artist artist Brent Cash a couple of years ago. He has two albums out which you can hear on Spotify. Great songs and production in the sunshine pop and soft-rock vein.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUSOBdY9-yg

Yeah, Brent knows where it's at. I dig both his albums. The cover artwork alone just oozes an early 70s A&M breezy pop sensibility.

There are definately some cool acts out there wearing that influence on their sleeve. Another example could be the latest couple of albums from Swing Out Sister. I love this one for instance:

'Let the Stars Shine'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPvCa7t5JT4

I can also highly recommend Crayon Fields from Australia. Their first album from the mid-00s had a very nice whimsy, and at times even eerie, take on the sound.



Check out 'Choir of Tiny Boys'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=379-a1Jaf6I

I love 'Living so Well' as well. Disregard the crap video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-Lk-Hblh0M

Another recommendation would be the two albums New York pop songwriters Pete Anders and Vini Poncia issued in 66 and 67 as the Tradewinds and the Innocense.

They honed their craft writing a bunch of Brill Building pop, including collaborating with Phil Spector on some great Ronettes / Darlene Love songs. When they struck out on their own after their time with Spector they really came into their own. Those two albums are really top notch! Pete Anders was one hell of a singer.

Here's a pseudo-psychadelic song from the first of the two:

Mind Excursion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFCMhe-0uzA

And then there's 'Small Town Bringdown, - possibly my favorite song of theirs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBnw3YByV8c

I like them, too. I'd recommend this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ANDERS-PONCIA-Masterworks-2CD-Set-64-Tracks-/280421096027

Also, while not exclusively Sunshine Pop, I think you would enjoy the Lost Jukebox series. 200+ volumes of pop obscurities from 1964-1972. You can find more information with a simple google search.

Yeah, I have that collection as well. It's great. There's cool stuff to be found in all their phases. From Doo wop over Wall of Sound pastiches and psych / sunshine pop to bubblegum.

And you're right. The Lost Jukebox series is epic! I generally find that there are atleast 5 to 10 good Sunshine Pop / Soft Pop tunes on each volume though I must confess I haven't gone through all of them. I think I only lasted through to no 120 or so! 

Another recommendation would be the two albums New York pop songwriters Pete Anders and Vini Poncia issued in 66 and 67 as the Tradewinds and the Innocense.

They honed their craft writing a bunch of Brill Building pop, including collaborating with Phil Spector on some great Ronettes / Darlene Love songs. When they struck out on their own after their time with Spector they really came into their own. Those two albums are really top notch! Pete Anders was one hell of a singer.

Here's a pseudo-psychadelic song from the first of the two:

Mind Excursion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFCMhe-0uzA

And then there's 'Small Town Bringdown, - possibly my favorite song of theirs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBnw3YByV8c

If I recall correctly, there's a cool story in the End of the Century reissue liner notes about how Brian and Rodney Bingenheimer took Spector to see the Ramones at the Whiskey and convinced him to produce them.

Is that true? Somehow I find it hard to picture MIU-era Brian 1.) being into the Ramones, and 2.) hanging around with Spector.

I doubt that. Barney Kessel's sons, David and Dan Kessel who sort of became Phil's drinking buddies / bodyguards during the 70s, are usually credited with introducing him to them. And speaking of which, in case you haven't seen this hilarious clip about the trials and tribulations of the Spector sessions, you really should:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU2A62fem5k

I love Dee Dee's quote: "He wasn't the most friendly guy I've ever met. He tried to be friends but then he'd have the guns on him and he wouldn't let me out of his house for a couple of days. And then if he said if you'd wanna play his pinball machine he'd let you play it for a minute and then he'd say 'Ok, everybody to another room.'" 

A few of us have written about the great, lone album by the Yellow Balloon in another thread and someone mentioned that we ought to make a thread where we could recommend our favorite Sunshine Pop / Soft pop recordings to each other?

I'd love that as I'm a sucker for a hefty dose of sunshine,... and the Beach Boys orignally led me towards digging this particular type of music. To my ears, songs like 'Wouldn't it be Nice' or 'The Little Girl I Once Knew' are like the archtypical Sunshine Pop anthems.

To get us in the mood, let me point Fellow obsessives towards this mood board I've compiled on Pinterest - 'California Montage'. It also features some of my all-time favorite songs that fit the genre. Much to peruse on there.

http://www.pinterest.com/kwandk/california-montage/

In the Yellow Balloon thread some of us already praised Mark Eric's 'A Midsummer's Day Dream' album. One of my all-time favorites.

Another one could be Del Shannon's Andrew Loog Oldham-produced Home & Away project which I dig way more than his psychedelic 'Further Adventues of Charles Westover' album.

Here's a few samples:

It's my Feeling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NDMmCS-r_w

My Love Has Gone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1ntZYBCeHk

Please chime in here with any recommendations!  

Hey Brian

Looking forward to No Pier Pressure!

Some of us recently discussed the influence of Phil Spector's Wall of Sound on your own music. Besides Be my Baby, could you list some of your all-time favorite Spector productions?




Ps: if you ever play Denmark again Surf School Dropouts will gladly open for you!  

Another gem! Beautiful. 

Is this recorded in the Nordic Church as well? Damn, now I really wish we'd made the most of our stay there. (see above)

My band is currently wrapping up our second album, to be released this spring. Only one more song to record before we're set to go.

Here is one of the most recent ones, a dreamy piece of Hawaiana-chill-out called 'Lanikai' set to old video clips from Hawaii.

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

Hope you'll give it a listen.

My favorite of the obscure BW wannbes from the 60s is that album by Mark Eric 'A Midsummer's Daydream'. That one really hits the mark. I don't know anything about him but he sounds a lot like Brian, and wrote some good melodies for that album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfojCdi8s7k

I have this album aswell. It certainly has a melancholy vibe about it - like a lonely Californian sunset over the ocean.

Very good in parts though with 'Dont Cry Over Me' being my fav. 'Sad Is The Way That I Feel' is also a good track

That album is a stonecold Classic. Not a bad track on there. Just beautiful. Though, of course, completely out of time when it came it out in, when was it?, 69 or so?

For those interested I can wholeheartedly recommend the Now Sounds reissue from about 2010 or 2011. It was the second CD reissue and it had a bunch of unissued tracks for a proposed follow-up album. The vibe is even more mellow with a cool jazz & bossa vibe.