'Don't Worry Baby' was released today (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt08M-AMIwo). It's amazing how beautiful this song is played in a higher octave (not sure if my musical terminology is correct there) - the melody lines are played lower than the chords (though the bass notes are still very prominent) which creates a really cool dynamic that you don't hear in the original song.

Basically, I'm glad to hear this variation in these covers - it still very much sounds like the original, but it's also different.

I can't wait for next week!

This is the track that has sold me on the project. Raising the pitch of the chords does make it even more beautiful than just foregrounding the melody.

Do any Beach Boys perform on this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KOoQh_ZUW4&ab_channel=Jan%26Dean-Topic

9.18.64 Montgomery, Alabama. Surely segregated?

https://www.beachboysgigs.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/64-918-BBsMontgomeryAd-copy-600x923.jpg

Has this ever been discussed and regret expressed?

Hopefully Trump Junior's incredible callousness will lose his dad more votes among Brian fans in November than this gains him. I assume that any Brian fans who are pro-trophy-hunting are already Trump voters, so it's really independents whose votes might swing here.

The damage to the Beach Boys brand is potentially huge, but the brand itself does not really reflect the ability to remember its members names, given that the NYT got Bruce's name wrong. Those who truly know and love the music will stay on board.

While I appreciate otherwise arguably overly-sympathetic Mike defenders standing up and calling Mike and Bruce out on this gig, I somehow doubt many of them are going to boycott anything going forward, and I say this in a completely neutral fashion. I'm not judging whether they should or not, I just think most of those most sympathetic to Mike who are opposed to this gig will still be attending Mike gigs, and probably not lingering on this event once it has passed.

It would be harsh to expect AGD to do this given that his entire public profile is invested in the work. I would, however, hope that he might no longer give any space to any future concerts by Mike and Bruce's group. That ought to be a fairly obvious thing to boycott.

This is even more Apples v Oranges that most Beatles v BB comparisons. Friends is a very personal album by a genius struggling against an impending breakdown whereas the White Album is a three very ego-driven guys making groundbreaking, extroverted  solo tracks using the others as backing musicians. Friends is rarely a rock album in the way that Sunflower is whereas the WA is the rockiest The Beatles ever became. Friends is perhaps more timeless whereas the WA is a better embodiment of 1968's musical trends and possibilities. The WA is better produced and of course we have a remix; I think Friends is still stuck with a 2001 remaster unless anyone knows differently.

The WA includes all the best tracks The Beatles had available to them given that they didn't include singles and John wasn't happy with the recording of Across The Universe. The Beach Boys had better material lying around but it was unfinished and Brian wasn't well enough to do the work to get it up to scratch, and nobody was helping him AFAIK. Dennis was coming good and his stuff alone blows away many WA tracks, but he's still the George Harrison of the group at this point.

Except when that freedom is expressed on his Facebook page.

To be fair to AGD, he's clearly sincere on this issue and has been very forthright on his own site. I doubt he would go back into the Mike/Bruce fold after the stance he's taken here.

OTOH I'm amazed that anyone who's being paying attention for the last 40+ years would be surprised at Mike and Bruce being hypocrites.

Solo album to be released on November 22:

https://preview.tinyurl.com/y345qd9p

https://preview.tinyurl.com/y426mnws

February 3-10, 2020 - Cayamo 2020 Cruise

WTF?

Olivia's birth year is given incorrectly in most online sources like Wiki. It should be 5.18.47 not 5.18.48.

1) Has anyone except Mike ever confirmed that he contributed lyrical ideas to Back In The USSR?

2) "Pisces Brothers" - supposedly about a painting of Guru Dev that George gave to Mike, according to Mike's autobiography.  Love also claims that John, Paul, George and Donovan sang an arrangement of Happy Birthday for him, "patterned after Fun Fun Fun"

I think the melody owes a lot to "Country Roads" by John Denver, but it drags like a bout of crabs.

Foskett was present on 2/2/2019 so I think he misses some gigs but not others.

For Bruce being all over the place, check out this clip. He has cue cards for some reason:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnzYw7p3qCI

I saw them in Fort Myers last night for the second time (previous visit was the December 2016 Xmas show) and would say:

Positives - I thought Brian Eichenberger was excellent on Don't Worry Baby. I loved the arrangement of In My Room and I think Bruce still does Disney Girls pretty well. The rhythm section is great and John Cowsill really pounds out those beats. Randy Leago plays a mean sax. Nine musicians on stage means you always get plenty of volume, but Totten also brings some subtlety to the arrangements (In My Room being the supreme example).

Neutral - Mike and Bruce deserve to be cut some slack at their age. Their voices are surviving better than Brian's, which was totally shot in Xmas show I saw. Exposing themselves to Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring a capella takes some balls, although Eichenberger carries that song to a large degree.

Negatives - Mike's solo stuff, which nobody wanted to hear, and the very ordinary lead of his son Christian on God Only Knows. Jeff's absence (which Mike didn't even acknowledge) affected some tunes such as 'Surfer Girl'. The setlist was predictably no-risk so we didn't even get Heroes and Villains. Mike is still milking 'Pisces Brother' and Pet Sounds 50th like he was in Dec 16, and I felt there was a subtext to his highlighting that Carl W and George Harrison both died from lung cancer (why mention it?).

Mike's movement - yes, he's down to a shuffle and I can foresee him needing more breaks like the one he takes during Disney Girls. Bruce is not doing much on the keyboards AFAIK (more of a prop these days?).

I thought it was worth the night out but I doubt I will need to see the band again, whereas Brian's band remains essential even if he's mostly just sitting there, provided he still wants to be sitting there.

2 - Blondie's vocal in the live show is much more passionate

Brian doesn't get enough credit for not just doing hits sets even though such sets would be greater crowd pleasers.

I was at Hollywood, FL and agree with the above. I enjoyed the Xmas arrangements very much because they show off aspects of Brian's history that are not covered in regular BW or BB shows. I thought 'We Three Kings' and 'Winter Symphony' were especially awesome and Darian coming back (he wasn't there when I last saw the group) made this a lot more enjoyable than the Pet Sounds show I saw in Atlanta in 2016.

Brian's voice - I was dreading all his vocals to be honest because the voice has completely gone, far more than ten years ago (when it was already difficult to like). I thought he did OK on songs in a lower register but he shouldn't go near Wouldn't It Be Nice, which he just cannot handle at all. He gets through God Only Knows by breaking each line into two and just about gets away with it, although I thought it was out of time with the band, whose arrangement is faster than he takes the lines.

Rob B. was a bit too animated for my taste, too showbizzy, but technically very good, I agree. I missed Matt on the Pet Sounds songs. Al was great on the Xmas tracks, as noted, and I hadn't known that his first ever BB lead was on the Xmas album.

It amazes me how Paul von Mertens and Probyn Gregory are able to create a whole brass section.

Some of the people in the audience were total idiots and I would not allow them to color my perception of the concert.

My one criticism is that I don't think they should have put White Christmas and Auld Lang Syne at the end, after the BB hits. A better structure might have been 1964 album then some Beach Boys then the solo/1977 tracks then finish with Rhonda etc. Also show some adventure by including a BB track not played in any previous tour, such as a track from Friends or 2020 (given that those albums have just been reissued digitally).

Kokomo can fcuk off

Murry still giving him in sh*t in 1968? Poor guy.

I will be at the Sunrise, FL concert on Wednesday and am avoiding spoilers until then. If anyone wants to meet for a chat, drop me a PM.

Queries:

1. Why hadn't the 1966 Track Mix for CIFOTM been released previously? Is it a new discovery?

2. Is it Stephen Desper on the talkback (e.g. Meant For You)?

Libera - Love and Mercy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSSD36XmPcY&list=PLAYzwzHT34KeJ5VS_ZGmN9TmY7vxxvQ2G&index=5

The album's arrangements* and plaintive vocals seem to have similarities to some of Brian's more laidback pieces after 1968. The vocals could be late Dennis or smoke-voice Brian.

*There is also a Smile feel to the harmonica, accordion, organ and strings, but Brian obviously got there first with that, so the influence is two ways, maybe? And I can also see a thread to Orange Crate Art by VDP.

1. Please Let Me Wonder
2. The Lonely Sea
3. She Knows Me Too Well
4. You Still Believe In Me
5. Hushabye
6. God Only Knows
7. In My Room
8. Kiss Me Baby
9. Feel Flows
10.  Our Sweet Love

YSBIM is a disaster. It's been turned into a bright and optimistic song, missing the underlying vulnerability completely. The strings on the whole album are closer to Mantovani than anything truly classical. Brian put better strings on Don't Talk Put Your Head On My Shoulder.

Saying that, something different happens with Heroes & Villains. A person who understood Brian and VDP's intentions seems to have had some input.

In My Room also just about works. Vocals are beautifully mixed and the strings are reasonably restrained, except the Middle 8 which gets too loud.

The piano on Darlin', which I love, seems to have been removed; part of an overall "smoothing" process which misunderstands the reasons the originals are so great.

Seventeen ballads might have worked but not this Greatest Hits pillage. Kokomo, ffs.

The selections do not indicate that much thought went into picking them.