Maybe he sounds defensive because so much criticism has been directed towards him.  He has a right to set the record straight every now and then.  Personally, I think all the members of the band should forget about 2012 and move one, it's pointless to rehash their falling out.

The whole article has the appearance that the author was the one who was stuck on the issue of the album press release somehow placing blame on Mike (even though it didn’t), and then the interview comes across as if Mike was baited into slinging mud about the reunion and Brian’s new album.

Mike is going to continually be asked questions about Brian's album for the foreseeable future. "Have you heard it?"... "What do you think of it?"... etc. etc.

IMHO... I think he wants NPP to not be great, because the better it is, the worse it makes him look/feel. The better the album actually is, and the better it is reviewed/received by the public and critics, the more it drives home the idea that he is most insecure about - that BDW can write/create a well-received album with multiple BB members, without the help/contributions WHATSOEVER of Mike himself.  Especially, especially in the wake of the public kerfuffle known as the demise of the C50.

So, as a result, we're gonna get negativity. The sour way that a post-C50 Mike slagged TWGMTR for "only" hitting #3... well, believe me, if NPP hits (for example) #15, Mike will likely find a way to spin TWGMTR (featuring Mike) having beaten out NPP's chart position. Suddenly, it will be praise for TWGMTR. It's childish, but everything is being used as a chess piece in some sick ego game at this point.

If NPP should win some awards, or a Grammy no less, well I don't imagine Mike would be honestly, truthfully happy about that. It would just be more sour grapes. I cannot fathom Mike will ever respond to a reviewer asking a question about NPP, and the response actually being a positive, not-laced-with-subtle-digs, review. Sadly, it will have to be put down in some way, shape, or form. It's about ego, as it has been for all these decades.

Of course, the easiest, most passive-aggressive way of dealing with it, would be to say that he simply hasn't listened to the album. Right.  Like the way he didn't show up at the (very important, legacy-related) 2005 Hawthorne monument induction, because he was too "busy" touring, which of course was a non-issue when the ELLA award was for Mike alone.

While I doubt I will be, I will say that I sincerely wish to be proven wrong.

Mike is the king of straw grabs. There's more straw-grabbing going on here than at the root beer stand from Chug A Lug.

Umm... it's kind of a drag to visit a BB message board, and repeatedly see a thread with Hitler in the title at the top of the list of threads. Just sayin'...

Remember (Walking in the Sand)

Those odd pitch-shifted (?) "remember" lyrics are so awful. So, so, so annoyingly bad. Are they supposed to remind the listener of anything but The Chipmunks?

Always preferred the album version of Be True to Your School by far. To me, the single version sounds a bit like a novelty song.

+1

The single version is way overrated! Album version all the way.

The myth that anyone fired, or could fire, anyone else... which as almost everyone here, being well versed in BRI 101, already knows is not possible. That some here actually do still believe this happened is, well... pitiful, really. As I've said, mental midgets.

I don't think I've ever seen a single person here contend that Mike Love is legally Brian Wilson's employer and severed his employment in September, 2012. Essentially, the partnership formed to do C50 simply dissolved at the end of it.

The issue is whether what occurred amounted to the same thing. As Wirestone has said in a previous post, many feel that while not legally/technically the same thing, the idea of letting a contract expire and not continuing on with a willing and able Brian Wilson, and then going back to one's exclusive license to use the same name, is not *terribly* different from firing Brian.

To reiterate, I don't think anybody apart from an occasional lazy "journalist", has contended Mike fired Brian. To continually cite "Mike didn't fire Brian" makes no sense to me. It's answering a question that nobody asked. Even Mike has used this as a response in some interviews, citing "there were erroneous reports that I fired Brian", rather than actually discussing why he didn't choose, while under no legal obligation to do so, to continue the reunion.

The "no more shows for Brian" e-mail is also irrelevant. As Wirestone mentioned, we don't know what precipitated that e-mail. But even if it was a completely out of the blue message from Brian, we know that at some point after that, before the tour was over, Brian changed his mind. Folks including David Marks have said that the plan was *always* for Mike to go back to his own tour. It also seems quite possible if not likely that Mike was already booking his own shows while the reunion tour was still happening. Those facts, coupled with the fact that Mike has never, apart from one quick mention in an interview, even mentioned the "no more shows" e-mail. This includes not mentioning the e-mail in that long letter to the LA Times. Why hasn't he mentioned that e-mail more often? I would guess because it's irrelevant. He has other reasons for not continuing. But I don't think anybody believes that Mike would have continued the reunion were it not solely for a mid-tour e-mail from Brian.

My guess is that Mike saw C50 as the anomaly to his usual routine. Given the likelihood that post-reunion shows were booked before or during the C50 tour, it probably was wishful thinking, maybe some naivety, for Brian and Al to think the amazing reviews and additional offers would convince Mike to continue the reunion (either in place of, or after, whatever shows he had already booked). Mike didn't break any contracts, he didn't go back on any word. He simply made a decision to not do something. That's fine. But he has to own that decision. Frankly, Mike is owning that decision somewhat more than a few of his defenders are. At least Mike has stuck to some more concrete (if disagreeable to some fans) factors that he didn't like, such as the size of the touring band, not being able to play small towns and small venues, not being able to write with Brian. I think there's probably much more to the story than that, and it's not surprising that power and money aren't addressed in any of these interviews on either side. I don't agree with the circular logic/wording that has even been used by David Marks, that Mike had these other shows that he *had* to do, as if some other entity was deciding where and when Mike should play and forcing him to play the gigs, or that they couldn't replace those already-booked shows with C50 shows. Mike decides to make the bookings. But in any event, Mike has owned it a bit more than some of the defenders.

I've heard a few other theories as to alternate/additional reasons for the demise of C50, and they all sort of make sense while simultaneously not making any sense given the evidence. There are surely more unknowns in this situation than most of us are aware of. But of the knowns, Mike's own words have not placed the blame on any other band member so much as simply passively saying the situation essentially settled back into what it used to be in 2011.

The only band member who would have had the balls to state that the actions amounted to a desperate power grab would have been Dennis. He wouldn't have shied away to have told it like it was/is.  Brian and Al don't strike me as vindictive enough to put it like that publicly, but I would be very surprised if they *didn't* feel that way. For Mike to have publicly have had to endure the endless (and what will likely continue to be in perpetuity) media/fan backlash which came along with his actions, Mike must have really, really, really, so, so, so badly wanted to retain that power. Like really, achingly bad. No cost was too great, was it? IMO, after liquor/drugs, this addiction to power/control is sadly the 2nd most toxic affliction in the band's history. I know these are hard words to swallow, but it's the truth.

We should ask about SIP 180 gram vinyl.

Honest question... no joking... how many copies do you all think that would sell?

The myth that anyone fired, or could fire, anyone else... which as almost everyone here, being well versed in BRI 101, already knows is not possible. That some here actually do still believe this happened is, well... pitiful, really. As I've said, mental midgets.

Whether or not Mike's actions actually, unequivocally, unarguably equated to "firing" his bandmates, it seems that the end result was essentially the same thing, and they felt they'd been fired (despite the BRI voting setup, which is no secret). When Brian Wilson and Al Jardine feel as though they'd been fired, that has to mean something. Nobody dared wanted to rock the boat enough to try and legally challenge Mike's actions, which would surely been a huge drain of financial and emotional resources, and without a doubt the specter of that has to have been a major factor (besides not wanting to cut off the money supply to Carl's estate). Mike's vindictive legal actions since Carl's passing have loudly and clearly stated "f with me and there will be huge trouble". Brian and Al would be crazy to willingly endure that grief at age 72+.

But as far as I can see it, the actions are about as close to "firing" as one could get to the term without specifically doing so. With the current BRI setup, can you tell me a way that Mike could have acted that was closer to firing than what actually transpired? The terminology is splitting hairs, but it's not a particularly dissimilar situation from actual firing, and it really doesn't strike me as particularly outrageous to infer that it's in the same ballpark... and I think you must admit that the term"myth" is too strong a term in the other direction.

Powers that be: Please make this tour happen!

There is no email, its all BS from Mike Love.

I have a hunch that what Mike is holding back from wanting to say, is for him to somehow point the finger at Melinda. I would think that it would have been (and would surely remain) mighty hard for him to say something negative about a BB bandmember's wife in a public interview without coming off in a very poor and unsympathetic (for his "cause") light. I still think whatever excuses we get in the book will just be a way of shifting blame away from himself and ego-based concerns, but I'm as curious as anyone else to hear what gets spun as the supposed "smoking gun" besides all we already publicly know. Maybe after consulting with a consortium of PR people and noted scholars + experts, he can find new and improved ways to blame others.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned "Problem Child" but I suppose we'd all like to forget that "Problem Child" ever existed.

Problem Child is a totally guilty pleasure for me. But the "na na na" stuff is SUPER annoying. I wonder whose idea it was to put those on there.

Anybody remember Evan Landy (or someone claiming to be him) posting on the old Wheeler board saying he would slap us with a libel suit if we kept 'spreading lies ' about his dad?

Was that during Gene Landy's lifetime? Pre 2006? Can one even slander a deceased man?

 
My stance, is to support The Beach Boys.  All of them.  Not because I have to, or that I am beholden to them.  It's because I owe them a debt of thanks for changing my life with their music.  I just LOVE the music.

Please know: despite my gripes, I get that, and I respect that intention of yours.

If Brian's intentions were to have nobody ever think of Mike Love, or his role (or lack thereof) in this project, and all the history behind it, he wouldn't have entitled his album No Pier Pressure. It's a statement on *some* level. C'mon. To say it's NOT a statement is like saying that "I'm Bugged at My Old Man" is in no way, shape or form, remotely referencing Murry.

Much like in that instance, Brian is humorously laughing off someone who has been a thorn in his side. Some people may want to be ostriches and put their heads in the sand, but it's pretty clear to me. IMHO. For the article's author to suggest that actual history can somehow be removed from the subject when analyzing the record and thinking about its place in BB history, well... I think that's just plain ridiculous.

And also, the article suggests we must think about the past... in selective ways. Like saying, well be thankful for Mike Love because if not for him, Brian wouldn't have gotten famous (nor would the band), and you wouldn't be getting these wonderful BW gifts today. Which is true on some level. 

But at the same time, it's saying "specifically think about this historical series of events", and also specifically saying "don't think/talk/reference these other historical series of events". I get the idea that the author wants people to just be positive and not get caught up in negatives, but IMHO again, it's going about that good intention in the wrong way. You can't selectively ignore portions of the big picture. Some people in the story are simply going to reap what they've sewn.

Even the name of the album could be taken as a dig at Mike. 

I don't think it's even a remote matter of "could"...

This article is more about defending M&B than BW's new song.

+1

I taped the 11/7/71 show at Georgetown University.  We had a cheapo battery powered cassette recorder with a meter we had to watch all night long because it overloaded at times.  We were very open about it.  No one paid us any mind.

That's awesome. Hats off to you for doing it! You made a difference for history.

Out of curiosity, were you a taper of other bands as well? Or just specifically the Beach Boys? Did you get the recorder specifically to tape this band/show? I wonder if the BBs had their own (much smaller) group of tapers like The Dead did.

I got to wondering about how live BB shows were bootlegged back in the 60s and 70s... How much of a hassle was it? Was there a stealth aspect to taping back then, where people were afraid of getting caught? Or was taping in its infancy then, and therefore not on the radar of venue security?

For example, the Seattle live show from 1970 which has Brian playing… Do you think the taper knew in advance that  Brian would be in attendance, and that's why it was taped? Or was it just a fortunate coincidence that the taper happened to tape a show which the taper had no prior knowledge that Brian would be a participant of?

If he did, surely he'd have taken a better quality recorder. 

I used to do recordings of live shows myself… Both audio and video. All stealth, long before the days of iPhones and such. It was an immense pain in the rear to sneak in a video camera into shows, but I took the risk! Would be fascinating to hear what the stories are for old-school tapers of Beach Boys shows. We're lucky for what we have from the early years, which isn't much.

I got to wondering about how live BB shows were bootlegged back in the 60s and 70s... How much of a hassle was it? Was there a stealth aspect to taping back then, where people were afraid of getting caught? Or was taping in its infancy then, and therefore not on the radar of venue security?

For example, the Seattle live show from 1970 which has Brian playing… Do you think the taper knew in advance that  Brian would be in attendance, and that's why it was taped? Or was it just a fortunate coincidence that the taper happened to tape a show which the taper had no prior knowledge that Brian would be a participant of?

yes, Carrie made clear that Dave is playing the intro and the outro; I asked further if he is playing the call and response guitar parts that serve as the "solo" section as well, but no response as yet.  You all should know never to believe your lying eyes when it comes to these contrived videos.  Dave is assuredly playing those two masterful sections on guitar in what for me is a major artistic contribution to the song.

I wonder as well about the billing: who wrote this song, and who are the official artists legally?  That is, if it won an award, whose names would be nominated: BW? BW AJ and DM as a trio?  The term "featuring" always confuses me. To me the video is deeply disappointing in that it , evidently, misleads people to think DM is not on the record. My urgent posts are not likely to remedy that except within the sound of my own voice.

Bummer Dave wasn't in the video due to the camera guy snafu with Brian being sick one day. I'm glad we at least know why. Sounds like the baffling modern day equivalent of the integral member Al being missing from the Summer Days photoshoot due to illness... and I'll bet that comparison must have occurred to some of the parties in this instance.

But I simply fundamentally disagree that copious use of pitch correction plug-ins can be equated to mic placement and the like.

I'm not saying this to be disrespectful to anyone, but that kind of thinking is what separates professional audio engineers from everyone else, including audiophiles. There are certain things that are learned, practiced, and perfected in the studio that go into creating the sounds of the end result, down to the basics of putting a mic in front of an acoustic guitar and choosing which mic to use, and those that are not or have not been in the business of recording and mixing professionally or even semi-professionally cannot fully appreciate the process until they actually do it hands-on and hear how much these seemingly tiny variables like mic placement and mic selection can alter and change the sound.

If you were to change the angle of a microphone on, say, an acoustic guitar even a slight bit off the soundhole and point it more toward the fretboard, it could have as much of an audible and consequential effect on the sound of that guitar in a mix as adding Autotune to pitch up some trailing notes on a sustained vocal note.

"Copious use" suggests the deliberate overuse of the effect, or of any effect, to the point where it is obviously audible in the mix. For this specific topic, and this specific track, do you specifically hear such a copious use of AutoTune on Al Jardine's lead vocal track? If not, I'm wondering why a detailed discussion of AutoTune is relevant to discussing this particular song in this thread.

Let me be clear. As I previously mentioned, I buy that autotune is not present on “The Right Time.” The discussion has indeed moved from a specific citation of autotune on that track to a more general discussion of autotune, and of how listeners who might hear it or discuss it are being portrayed. In addition, we’ve been touching on whether autotune is present on some or any recent BB/Brian recordings.

I’ve been discussing a more sort of semantic point about autotune in general; specifically that I disagree with the dismissal of a listener “hearing” autotune as an opinion of either ignorance or an opinion of no consequence (e.g. “mic placement can or does impact a final, finished, mastered recording as much as autotune, therefore why discuss it?). Both my own knowledge on these topics, in addition to my own ability to analyze various forms of rhetoric, suggest to me that, to generalize, “you don’t work in a studio, so you don’t know” is not *always* an answer I trust.

“Copious” use does not imply a deliberate overuse. Rather, it simply means something in abundance or quantity. There is a copious amount of autotune or other pitch-correction on items including the C50 live album and some of the TWGMTR album. I’m happy to absorb any studio professional’s knowledge on this and any related topics, and I’m happy to entertain analyses of specific recordings and why other studio techniques were at play instead of autotune. But I haven’t yet found someone who can produce compelling evidence that pitch correction hasn’t been used on some recent BB releases. If one acknowledges that it *has* been used, then it’s much more difficult to dismiss subsequent theories that it has been used on later recordings. It doesn’t mean that every theory or accusation is correct. But again, I simply don’t agree with the “microphones, mic placement, mixing, autotune, who knows?” angle, especially when it seems to imply, I guess, that anything or everything we’ve been hearing as potentially “autotune” on recent BB-related recordings isn’t autotune.

Implicit in any dissection of recordings is the fact that, with few exceptions, we weren’t there. We never know anything for sure. But I know I’m going to listen to an industry professional who says Recording A doesn’t have autotune if they also acknowledge that it has been used in other cases. If the discussion starts with an assertion or implication that we don’t know if it has *ever* been used (or an assertion that we’re not professionals, so we shouldn’t even wonder), I have trouble heavily weighing that opinion.  

Do most people hear compressors in use on recordings? Limiters? Aural Exciters or Sonic Maximizers depending on the brand? How about EQ, can most people tell that a track was sent through an expensive Pultec versus a 80 dollar Behringer? How about Eventides, they were even more of a rage at some points in the 80's than the gated snare sounds, can anyone spot them on a record?

When you listen to broadcast radio, can you tell what kind of compressor is on the host's voice?

Perhaps only if and when those devices and "effects" are deliberately overused to the point where they are noticeable, because above all these effects were designed primarily to be transparent. Which is how Autotune was designed too, and how I join Century Deprived in preferring it be used transparently to the point of not noticing it at all when I did use it.  

I feel safe in saying that the Gershwin album is the very best use in the BW/BB catalog of Autotune being used transparently. While I know some people have been able to point out a few instances if they really listen closely, there's nothing that jumps out blatantly as sloppy Autotune work. Whoever was responsible for production/mixing vocals on that record did a really swell job.

Not to nitpick, but as I mentioned earlier: Does anyone doubt that when Al sings "but ne--ver in a very straight line" in "The Right Time" that this is anything but an Autotune glitch (or a glitch in a similar pitch correction program, if in fact it isn't Autotune that is specifically the program being used)? Does anyone think that this hiccup is just the natural way it was sung by Al? I'd like to know if anyone believes that. Maybe it is, but I'm very doubtful.

I almost want to make my own mix and try to edit that hiccup out. I know it amounts to nitpicking, the way people were nitpicking pops that were on The Smile Sessions (which were presumably introduced not by source material, but by an engineer forgetting to put a crossfade on a waveform)... but IMO it's worth talking about because I think it's a glitch that's not supposed to be there.

Just had to revive this old thread to belatedly mention how amazing the fade is for "The Like In I Love You" from BWRG. When I first heard it, I had to replay the tag portion over and over again, and I still feel the same way.

I'm gonna say this is the second best tag/fade of Brian's solo career, bested only by Melt Away (original issue BW88 version).  Anyone else agree?

I agree with him, personally. As for TLOS, I did think it was a great album.

I think it will be more commercial or to be more specific more commercially sounding than TLOS.  TLOS was for Wilson fanatics periods.  NPP is going to be for Wilson fanatics and the general public as much as a BW project in 2015 can be geared towards the general public anyway.  Judging from some of the samples, if this album was released in the eighties Brian would've had a legitimate "Brian Wilson is Back!" hit on his hands.  Much has changed in thirty years in how records are moved and what makes them successful so I think some moderate radio airplay and a successful tour would be a good indicator of commercial success which I think is more than attainable with this particular record.

I too think NPP won't just be for Wilson fanatics, as evidenced by the prominent inclusion of Al on lead vocals on the lead single. It's more than a bit unusual for the lead single on a Brian Wilson record to not be Brian Wilson himself (this doesn't really bother me), but I think it's also geared at a large section of BB fans too. It was a bit odd to have to explain to a couple friends who I played the song for yesterday. I introduced the song as the "new Brian Wilson track off his upcoming album", and they were like "that's not Brian Wilson!"

I wasn't going to listen to the preview, but I couldn't help myself after all the good words in this thread. With a handful of slightly puzzling exceptions (hard to judge from a 15 second clip, of course), I think this album sounds like it's gonna be RAD. Seriously. And it just sounds like the music with exceptional melodies and maturity that an artist the caliber of Brian has wanted to make for a good long while, music that has been bottled up inside of him... that he wasn't held back in any way, shape or form, by any bandmate(s) with an ego-based agenda. Unfortunate, but the truth. I guess maybe that's why it has to be a solo album.  

It sounds like he really took his time making this as good as it could be, and while I disliked the album's title when I first heard it, I now absolutely LOVE it, because it hit me that this sounds to be the work of an artist unencumbered by the BBs name and all the baggage and needless detours such as demands (not requests, but demands) for mythical rooms that would come with recording a latter-day album (sans Carl and Dennis and their influence to hold Mike back from his current power leverage position), with the BB name on it.

No pier pressure, indeed.

Brian will surely have the last laugh here because this is gonna kick ass, and I feel pretty certain in thinking this is a far better piece of art than would have been with the compromises needed for this to have been a 2015 BB album.

The entire point of using autotune is to massage something that's a bit off (not off in a good way), and to have its presence be *invisible and undetectable*. Or virtually so. I've used pitch correction before, and I will only use it if its presence is invisible to my ears in the mix.

That is, unless an artist is manipulating the vocals with autotune intentionally to make weird, noticeable odd sounds (as is the case with some pop artists - see Cher's "Believe" as a primary example) - I find that type of use of autotune to be atrocious.

Or then there's the middle ground of using autotune, where the producer tries to make something have a slightly too-perfect "modern" sheen, which I think may be the case here.

While I admit that it's possible I'm mishearing things that aren't there, I feel pretty certain there are some odd warbly autotune artifacts that I am hearing, which I wish I wasn't hearing. Like near the beginning on the word "never" when Al sings "but ne--ver in a very straight line". Maybe a cigar is just a cigar, and maybe it's just the way he sung it and I'm tripping to think it's autotune. But to my ears, it sounds like an autotune artifact that could have been made much less noticeable.

That said, it's a cool tune that will probably grow more on me in subsequent listens. I like the songwriting a lot, and I love hearing Brian and Al together. I was really, really put off by the autotune on the TWGMTR album upon my initial listens of it, but over time I've come to just accept it as a tolerable nuisance, and I try to appreciate the cool ear candy underneath it.