Jumping on here for a sec because I am so overwhelmed.  This is an amazing set.  So much to say, but i will limit it to two things:

1) Smiley Smile sessions are the peak.  Man, Little Pad was excellent.

2) Even if you got tired or bored of the Wally Heider/Hawaii rehearsals, you are in for a treat -- Brian's mono mixes make the Lei'd album WORK.  It's night and day and worth the entire price of admission.

Oh, and those saying this will rewrite Beach Boys history are right.  Brian is in complete control on all of these tracks.  The Wild Honey sessions make this conclusively clear.

I cannot resist dropping in to say that this is the most exciting BB news since the Smile box, and I am so incredibly stoked to get this.

Returning to lurk mode.   

Plastics.

I haven't got much of a chance to go through it, but I've already seen some great photos.  I was surprised, for some reason, that it is a hardcover book.  I was expecting something like the Badman thing.  Speaking of which, all somebody needs to do now is put out a studio version of this book and we can throw away our Badmans, eh?

Greatly amused by the section in many years where they list "Shows that did not happen" and most of those cases it is to contradict the Badman book.  In one case they quote a show listed in Badman at a certain high school and indicate that the high school never existed.  And yes, all copies seem to be hardcover.  No dust jacket.  Pretty good binding.

OK, here's how detailed this is -- they figured out which shows yielded which tracks on which nights for the 1973 In Concert album.  I would love to know how they figured that out.

That is how it should be -- far more interested in the history and events than a repetitious list of sets.  I thought you set a perfect balance there.

I know I don't really come here anymore, and it's been years since I was an active member, but I had to stop by for this one because I know that the authors will see this.  My copy of this book arrived today and holy crap, is this definitive and amazing.  The photos (you always wish you had more, but you get a lot) are mostly unseen to this point, along with some great coups (several of Glen Campbell as a member, even one with Toni Tenille onstage).  It appears that up to about 1984 the details are nearly exhaustive.  No focus on setlists, the book seems far more interested in the spirit of what happened.  Looks like lots of interaction with reviews of the day, who played when, etc.  I sincerely wished for a book like this at the peak of my BB fandom around 2000, and I would have been in Nirvana in those days.  Even now when the spark has cooled, I have major respect in every way for what these guys have accomplished.  This is one of the best BB books if not the best I have ever seen, and I only have spent an hour so far with it.  Great, great job guys.

Well, just responding to some gripes made here about comments made on the Record Room board. 

Forget about that a second -- do you really think that the direction that this argument is going makes any sense whatsoever?  Or that it's accomplishing anything?  Is this the type of discussion you like?

Not if the Record Room people don't think so.

Never mind.

 

Well, just responding to some gripes made here about comments made on the Record Room board. 

Forget about that a second -- do you really think that the direction that this argument is going makes any sense whatsoever?  Or that it's accomplishing anything?  Is this the type of discussion you like?

*Sigh* This is getting really ugly...

This is the sort of thing that causes the people on the Record Room to say what they say about this board.  Of course it isn't all that, there's cool people and discussion here,  but this is getting pretty silly.

BTW one comment on this -- I believe that Peter Reum has discussed Brian's stay in an institution in the late 60's and getting put on Thorazine, and that people say his behavior changed radically after the Thorazine was administered (which is a known issue with that med).  Definitely think that the treatment could have made the problem worse, especially given that and the battery of meds Landy gave him.  Treatment could have made a not-quite-so-bad problem into a huge one.  Maybe.  We'll never know.

Not even close.

There's a big difference between bias and/or embellishment versus flat out character assassination.

Mike Love might argue that Beautiful Dreamer was character assassination.  Just as Brian Wilson might argue that the ABC miniseries was as well.  Neither side is looking innocent in this little exchange.

Whoa, Jeff Mason.  What a delight to see that name again.

Aw, thanks, Josh...

Not even close.

There's a big difference between bias and/or embellishment versus flat out character assassination.

Mike Love might argue that Beautiful Dreamer was character assassination.  Just as Brian Wilson might argue that the ABC miniseries was as well.  Neither side is looking innocent in this little exchange.

meh, it got boring after spaceman was banned

Eh? I was never banned.

I'll definitely give every chance to say maybe you have forgotten over time as it was 6-7 years ago, but this statement isn't true.

Maybe I was timed out for one or two days, but not banned. I mean, geez, I was a moderator on this board for a while even.

Ian, if you go back onto what is left of the board meltdown on this board, Jon makes reference to you getting banned.  Might have only been for a day as a timeout, but that's what they are talking about.  Someone went back and read the accounts and is saying that the part after you were banned is boring.

And for everyone else, I think Ian means that "banning" is more permanent than a day or two.  Like how Sebastian got banned from the Record Room.

The reason for the reappearance was described well elsewhere by Jon, I think, but I can't remember if it was here or on the Record Room, so to summarize, it was an act of good faith, an attempt to see if anything can be salvaged among relationships once forged.  Jon posted about the discussion on the Record Room, so I got curious and came over to read.  First time I have been here in many months, and posted in many years.  I saw your discussion and I took up Jon's side because I agree with him, and thought it might be interesting to post.  Nothing more.  If you prefer we not post here, I will gladly make this the last post.

As for everything else, your opinion is totally valid, but you must remember that you are not the only potential audience for this album and that there are other types of fans people interact with.  Perhaps Jon actually KNOWS some of the "artsy Pet Sounds" fans, perhaps the web site which accepted his review is full of them.  Point is that right or wrong, there are going to be fans who add baggage to the album.  And another reason why the McCartney analogy doesn't work is that this is the first new Beach Boys album in 20 years, and the first Beach Boys album to have a genuine Brian Wilson production credit (as opposed to a credit given because of contractual reasons) since 1977.  McCartney puts out new albums every year or two, so people are used to what they get from him.  Think about this -- this is the first time since Love You that Brian Wilson has actively produced on a Beach Boys album.  You don't think that some hipsters aren't going to make expectations on that?  You don't think that some expectation leveling for some fans isn't needed?  If you personally can approach the album objectively then fine, but if the new album is closer in style to the post-Love You albums, then I think Jon is right to set expectations for fans who might otherwise attach more to the moment than the album can support.  Jon tells you exactly what type of music to expect and reviews it on that level, while still talking about his personal attachment to the music.  Works for me.

So my question is this -- what are you talking about?  Jon's review had nothing to do with asterisks, so what is your point?  Jon was saying that music snobs who like the BB because of Pet Sounds can't be bothered more than likely with something that sounds like MIU or BB85.  A large part of the problem is that Brian is at heart a square and corny guy who makes square and corny music, and someone listening to the new album looking for Pet Sounds 2012 is going to hate it.  Where in there do you see asterisks?  Your point that Brian made "hip" music from 63-66 is noted, but at heart I am not sure he was making music for himself during those years, but rather music as competition.  No one is saying that the album is "lesser" than any other album (if anything the review makes me hopeful that I agree with Mr. Doe who says this is the best BB album not counting Love You since Holland).  We are just saying that some music fans don't just listen to the music and react to how they feel about it but add baggage in terms of their ideology, and the problem is particularly acute for Brian's music.  To prove that, play someone "Johnny Carson" and see what happens.  You say that we don't explain away McCartney's music like that and reference the most recent album.  To which I say, heck yes they did, look at London Town.  Help me understand what you are trying to say.  I am honestly trying to understand you, but if you brush me off with a two word reply to my request for clarification, you lead me to believe that you don't care whether I get what you are saying or not.  You say I am putting words in your mouth, but you aren't showing me from your words where I am doing this.  I am reacting to things like this:  

"Did we go around telling people who liked Sgt. Pepper and the White Album similar things when his latest album of love ballads and songs came out? Maybe we did and I missed it"

And I am saying people did go around and say that when albums like London Town came out.

"Did he embrace the sappy, corny balladeer image after running from it for a few decades? Did he do it with a wink and a nod? Or was it just the album he wanted to make?"

He's been seen as the sappy, corny balladeer for decades.  Why do you think that Silly Love Songs was written?  What about the reviews for Red Rose Speedway when it came out?  To me the latest album isn't a case of McCartney embracing something he ran from as much as just taking it to the logical conclusion.

"I think with Brian and the Beach Boys in general, there is a double-edged sword when they're labeled a certain way. They're called hip, you play a record like "Ballad Of Ole Betsy" for someone who you've told about their being hip, and the reaction may be "What?" Or it may be "Damn, that's great!". Then get someone who had their girlfriend dancing on their shoulders at an outdoor BB concert to "Fun Fun Fun" and play them an album cut like "You Still Believe In Me", and they might say "What?" or "Damn, that's great!""

I think everyone agrees with that -- but Jon was addressing a specific audience, with a specific mindset.  You are trying to generalize, I think.  And while that's fine, that doesn't remove the need for Jon's point.  There is a group of people who only like the artsy music that the BB put out, that think that an album like Keeping the Summer Alive is pretty worthless crap because of what it stands for.  Jon is saying that if you approach the music like that, you will hate the new album.  And you probably hate a lot of Brian's music because so much of it is corny.  After Pet Sounds, think about what he did -- Smiley Smile, "Busy Doin' Nothin", "I Went to Sleep", Love You, "Shortnin' Bread", the list goes on.  And let's face it -- with its references to exotica, tiki, Americana, Smile itself is full of "square" elements too.  The square elements may be seen as "hip" by someone in how they are crafted, but still the parts come from Brian's love of things like the Four Freshman.

Craig, you are aware that McCartney is usually the least cool of the Beatles to like, and there's a whole slew of fans who think McCartney is now and always was pap?

"...You know.  Morons."
      -- Gene Wilder, "Blazing Saddles"

You're at least two reappraisals of Macca's hipness behind, I'd say.  I think the last of the cognoscenti gave up on the Paul-can't-rock bit somewhere between Glastonbury and "Nothing Too Much Just Out Of Sight"...

Cheers,
Jon Blum

Context, please, context.  The point was that Craig was saying that no one would question McCartney as cornball, or apologize for a current release by the one who did Sgt. Pepper.  First off, the latter is not as sacred as he seems to think.  Second off, apologies happened a lot for his work.  What the current opinion is doesn't matter to my argument -- though I don't think McCartney is as rehabilitated as you do.

Time out. First, that was not my point. Please reread my posts and replies, they're pretty clear on their intent and the opinions being expressed.

Second, please refrain from making a point for me publicly and to another poster using something I never said or even suggested, especially if and when that wasn't my point to begin with.

If I need to clarify something I wrote or make a specific point, I'll do it myself, and if there is a misunderstanding of those words please ask and I'll try to clarify.

But I don't need or care to see someone else *assuming or claiming to assume* what I was saying then stating it as fact, especially when they missed the point(s) and misrepresented what was written three or four pages ago. The original posts and sentiments are still there to be read for the sake of accuracy.

Thank you. 

Obviously they aren't as clear as you think that they are, because that is exactly how I was taking your words.  It sounded to me like all the world like you were using McCartney as an example of how people should not criticize Brian Wilson as being uphip, because no one ever criticized Paul for that or worried about that since he made Sgt. Pepper or the White Album.  If that wasn't your point, I don't understand what you were trying to say at all.

Craig, you are aware that McCartney is usually the least cool of the Beatles to like, and there's a whole slew of fans who think McCartney is now and always was pap?

"...You know.  Morons."
      -- Gene Wilder, "Blazing Saddles"

You're at least two reappraisals of Macca's hipness behind, I'd say.  I think the last of the cognoscenti gave up on the Paul-can't-rock bit somewhere between Glastonbury and "Nothing Too Much Just Out Of Sight"...

Cheers,
Jon Blum

Context, please, context.  The point was that Craig was saying that no one would question McCartney as cornball, or apologize for a current release by the one who did Sgt. Pepper.  First off, the latter is not as sacred as he seems to think.  Second off, apologies happened a lot for his work.  What the current opinion is doesn't matter to my argument -- though I don't think McCartney is as rehabilitated as you do.

It feels like the responses are less about what I actually wrote and more about trying to address things that are already accepted knowledge. Of course this band out of any others has the artistic versus the commercial issue raging constantly no matter what they do or release. I do think listeners and fans usually find what they like or respond to and that gut reaction or connection is more of an issue than any explanations or backstories attached to the music, no matter how good or bad it may be.

To my McCartney reference: Did we go around telling people who liked Sgt. Pepper and the White Album similar things when his latest album of love ballads and songs came out? Maybe we did and I missed it, but I don't think trying to ease a listener into something is as good as just letting the music play, and if someone likes it or connects with it after hearing it, what difference does it make where it came from? Or how the artist has a corny versus hip side, or a rocker versus balladeer side, or a jazzer versus country side, or whatever else. The music really shouldn't have an asterisk next to it, no matter who the artist is.

All this may just play out where McCartney's Ram is now being deluxe re-released akin to The Smile Sessions, and we'll have the ability to see the experimental post-Beatles garage-rocker McCartney in contrast to his other musical incarnations of recent years. Do we place the asterisk on the Ram box set and say "This is the same guy that did Sgt Pepper" or "This is the same guy who did the album of sappy love songs a year ago"?  

Artists from the 60's still making music today exist in a much larger (and more inclusive) stylistic tent than even Perry Como, Sinatra, et al. Stylistically the tent is probably as big as it will ever be even for the next few generations of music fans, so the music becomes the ultimate basis for someone's opinion of it.

Craig, you are aware that McCartney is usually the least cool of the Beatles to like, and there's a whole slew of fans who think McCartney is now and always was pap?  And that those fans think that Sgt. Pepper is overrated and slag on all of McCartney's work on it?  And that even in 1968 there were nervous voices about much of McCartney's work on the White Album, to the point of his own bandmates questioning McCartney's taste?  You better believe there has been second-guessing the coolness factor of some Beatles music and most of McCartney's solo career as a purveyor of lightweight uncool music.  You are actually more making our case by using him as an example.  When I'm 64 is about as "hip" as an old-time pop song pre-rock era, if you want to get into "hipness", and stuff like Obla-di-Obla-da was getting slagged at the time of release (heck, George even slipped in a derogatory comment on the same fricking album!).

So to return to your point, in 1978 I guarantee you that fans were making apologies for how wussy London Town sounded to them and were trying to ease their friends into listening to it. It's not wussy or bad, not to an open-minded listener anyway (I really like it), but to a fan of rock in the purist sense, songs like I'm Carrying were cringeworthy.  People have been apologizing for new McCartney albums for years because of how uncool they are.  Jon could have been reviewing London Town or Pipes of Peace for all we know, so much of his points can apply towards McCartney.

Craig -- I see exactly what you are saying, but I also believe Jon is accurate as well.  I suspect that the classics of 63-67 have multiple dimensions -- Brian not writing for himself, Brian reacting to what he hears on the radio as opposed to what he loves, maybe Carl and Mike have more influence than we give them credit for (Carl after all was the Chuck Berry nut of the band, and Mike's words spoke most often in these days).  I think there's room to say that Brian had a period where he cared to be "hip" and had the ability to be hip, but that he accomplished this by denying his own voice in his music in some ways.  I think back on the review of the Smile Sessions which said that Smile sounded like a square white boy on acid, and it really does.  If you think about it, that oddness in his music didn't take flower until after acid entered his world; maybe that had an impact too.

I think Jon's more worried about those fans who only came to the Beach Boys because of Pet Sounds and Smile and have no room to consider an album like, say, MIU as something worth listening to.  I think he's saying that it is going to sound more like the latter than the former (and actually, probably more like Imagination if it's going to be "caribbean" and all).  If you are a fan who only likes them because of the "artistic" side of the music, the commerical sheen will be off-putting.  I get that.  You have to be willing to let your love for music that is looked down upon, the Perry Como instead of the Sinatra, to get into the album.

Well, so were songs like What'd I Say or the Rarities stuff.  To me, "withdrawn" is a total subset of "OOP".

What about the live Runaway?

Lots of people asking questions.  I have said my peace.  The details can be gleaned on these two threads.

Start here:

http://therecordroom.informe.com/forum/hey-dt5.html

then my take came in:

http://therecordroom.informe.com/forum/from-jeff-dt29.html

Ironically it was an announcement of that fact (Male Ego) that started the thread that got me and Jason appointed as mods....

I don't want to start anything so I will make this short and sweet:

1) I double-checked the old threads just now to make sure that this is accurate and it is -- there were a lot of people who jumped you for reading PMs.  I wasn't one of them.  In my mind, it is something that an admin has to do. In my case, I was feeling overwhelmed and without resources as a mod with no ability to moderate and needed help.  As long as you don't publicly post specific content (which I never did anywhere quite intentionally) I have no issues with an admin doing that and never had.  I think actually that was AGD's issue IIRC.

2) I know and admit I am seeing this whole thing through heavy emotion right now -- the last four or five days have sucked royally.  And so I know that colors everything I see, and definitely did Monday night with criticism coming from all quarters.  That quote you posted is an attempt to state that.  The chain I refer to was starting off my actions which led to interactions with Jon, so for me and my perspective, that was where my part started.  I think it totally accurate to say in retrospect that Jon was probably halfway to pulling the plug long before he asked me to moderate.

3) I am a bit disappointed by the attitude here, as your last email was conciliatory and encouraging, the first time I can ever remember you being encouraging to me.  It felt nice, like I always hoped you would be as a fellow Christian Beach Boys fan -- there are so few of us.  I liked it.  I am trying to be as positive about things as possible in anything I have said publicly, and I DO resent the questioning of your faith you must endure regardless of how things may appear to you.  That deleting I did came as a direct result of the indignation about what was being said about you; unfortunately in the process of pruning I failed to notice that it basically edited EVERY POST you had made and that probably did look very rude to you.

If this looks like an attempt to be rational and bury the hatchet, take the high road, that's what it is.  I am willing to give it a try if you will.