I have watched L&M it this afternoon as part of the Buenos Aires Movie Fest.

First of all, for a fan it's impossible to approach it as a movie buff (even if you are the two things, as in my case) because we know too much. That said, I enjoyed it a lot. I think it could have been better but, then again, thank God it's not Summer Dreams. There's the intention of making an arty movie, even if that doesn't always succed. (there's a scene with Dano/Cusack/a child actor which is kind of the last scene  from 2001)

You'll find yourself crying several times. I mean, I cried when I watched the guys who portayed the guitar players play the 12-string arpeggios on You still believe in me! The recreation of the Pet Sounds (and to a less degree) Smile sessions is pretty uncanny. The script replicates the dialogue from the PS box set, so there's a high degree of accuracy (that also goes for the instruments and every design, from interiors to clothing). And Mark Linnet playing Chuck Birtz is a wonderful twist.

It's the typical movie where at the end there's text explaining "what happened after", because, in a sense, it's a movie without ending. The ping pong between (loosely) 65-67 and 85-91 doesn't always work in terms of storytelling.

The thing I liked less is that L&M kind of perpetuates the myth that Brian was a spent force after the Smile debacle and did nothing worthy until his solo career. It shows us the darkest sides of the Landy years but not the greatness of the 88 album. (Did Brian really showed the Love and Mercy secquence to Melinda on the piano or is it an artistic licence?)

There's shot-by-shots remakes of known videos, impressive (Inside Pop Surf's up) but sometimes pointless (Sloop John B).

About the casting: There's to ways of playing a real and known person. Either you mimic or you build a plausible character. The actors who played Brian exemplifies this two approachs. The resemblance between Paul Dano  and Brian is scary. I think Cusack is a great actor and I like is BW, but  he took some liberties in his portayal and, alternating with Dano mimicing Brian, is too contrasting. And his forehead is bigger. He's too old now, but 15 years ago, Tim Robbins would have been better. He did a great BW on SNL circa 89 or 90.

No one better than Paul Giamatti to play Landy. Elizabeth Banks is gorgeous, but I can't help but think that whoever casted her was flattering Melinda. Even if Mike Love (unsurprinsgly) is portayed as a kind of villain, he too got a handsome actor to portay him. There's a great VDP, too.

About the accuracy: some details I think were unnecesary
-Brian quits touring to work on Pet Sounds.
-Murry sells Sea of Tunes two years earlier.
-Smiley Smile is made by the rest of the Boys, without Brian.

And maybe I'm lacking some information, but, isn't Melinda's role on freeing Brian from Landy a bit overrated at instance of his blood family? (I didn't know that Gloria Ramos was Brian's housekeeper during the Landy years, though)

About the music: very interesting original soundtrack which reuses lots of snippets (mainly vocals, all dissected in the credits) in an approach similar to The Beatles' Love but much more ambient. Kudos to Atticus Roos. And to Darian for his coaching of Paul Dano. (The God Only Knows piano voicins are spot on)

Overall, you will come out of the theatre, even if you already knew it, impressed by how Brian is still alive and making music afer all the sh*t he had to endure.

What I love about his piano demos is how you can appreciate even more the way he voices the chords (i.e. the Don't talk demo. Sheer beauty)

Currently on the last tracks of 1st time listening. At the least, better than the preview tracks anticipated.

Kind of a LA/late 70s vibe at some points. "Half moon bay" is one of the most Bacharachian (?) tracks of Brian's entire ouvre.

Shame there's no track-by-tracks credits (of course, they can always be innacurate, a la TWGMTR)

Dear Brian,

Besides your vocal arrangements, did you feel influenced in the way you build your chords on the piano by other songwriters who also compose on keyboards? People who, like you, use a lot of inversions on the left hand: Burt Bacharach, Carole King, Jimmy Webb, Stevie Wonder, etc.


Love from Argentina,
Pablo

Old news (october 2013), so depressing that I was embarrased to post then.
 Previously, he had proposed me to answer my questions if I let the answers to be cut & pasted onto a "extensive interview" with him and his whole career. I agreed, thinking on the whole picture.
After radio slince from his part, I insisted and he answered saying that he was very busy and had no time for "reminisce with fans of my older work and/or relationships" unless it were for a big project, like a book, interview etc.
I answered him pasting his previous e-mail and saying that an answer (of the same lenght that his refusal) from him would be useful for several BB researchers (and I introduced myself from the start as a journalist -who interviewed people way much bigger than him, btw), but he never replied.
Weird guy.

Relistening now. Another one from this album is Dennis drumming on most tracks

Am I the only one who likes to play the cd twofer starting at track 15 (Just once in my life, where the raspy voices really work) and following it with Love You?

The best of 15 Big ones is the ARP Strings / Moog bass work of Brian (often in tandem with an electric bass), some quirky and still inventive arrangements and most of the originals. The worst: a mix sometimes too slick, some bad singing, a couple of lifeless versions (P. Park/ Talk to me). Anyway, the groundbreaking keyboard work of Brian is much better appreciated on the less compromised and wackier Love You. And the vocal intro to Everyone's in love with you (arranged by Billy Hinsche, IIRC) is an unprofessional steal from A Whiter shade of pale

Considering the kind of work that Dennis/Carl had to offer at the time (That Newsweek '76 article put it very clearly). A hit in the day, but a misfire in the long run. The alt mixes on bootlegs doesn't make it better

Paulo, I thought Paul sang great during the Uraguay concert. He even honored a fan's request from the crowd to play "One After 909" which is kind of a rarity.

that fan was kinda spooky...

I was at that Uruguay gig last saturday and he sounded very good.  His problem at 71 is not one of range or pitch but timbre. That's specially noticeable on his speaking voice. But someone who can do Helter skelter right after Yesterday deserves nothing but praise.

Autotune is used on post production of his live records and dvds since 2002.

Say what you want about the original lyrics, but the Spanish ones suck big time. To make things worse, they pronounce the "c" before an "e" or "i" as they do in Spain, which is annoying as hell everywhere except in that country. As far as I know, this is a rarity even in Spanish-speaking countries.

I always had a hard time understanding what are they singing, and Spanish is my main tongue. Oddly, it sounds like Carl had a different coach than the rest: he's singing like he's coming from Spain.

That's Song In The Key Of Life: a double album plus an ep!

Stevie told me that "I do love you" was a song he had written at 17 influenced by the Beach Boys, and that he felt honored recording it with them.  About "I was made...": he just said they covered it, because the translator asked the question wrong, as if it were another donation. Cool fact about "I do love you", anyway... even if I fail to see the influence. He turned 17 in 1967.

Tomorrow I'll be covering a Stevie Wonder press conference, and I'll have the chance to ask him a question or two. Does anybody remember Stevie talking about the BBs version of IWMTLH or "I do love you"? I always also assumed that Brian's Moog bass lines were influenced by him, even if the BBs were using the Moog at least a year before Stevie

Thanks

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/ex-beach-boy-blondie-chaplin-reunites-with-brian-wilson-after-40-years-20131014

We were doing a lot of college dates. When I watch college basketball now, I say to my wife, "We played there with the Beach Boys."

It was mentioned on a review (NME, I'm pretty sure) of Imagination, (said review is no longer online, I think)

Yes, it has the Holiday bit, the My solution recycling, the ATIT ripoff, a faux 80's Pink Floyd sound effects, a sax solo more MOR than Trascendental meditation, and -depite I actually enjoy the song- it shouldn't be mentioned with the Smile music on the same sentence.

IIRC, Joe Thomas had the nerve to compare "Happy days" to Smile. So I don't think we should take this "trilogy" concept very seriously, although this could be (as in comic books) "retroactive continuity", just like when Brian, on every BWPS interview, talked about "the three movements" of Smile

.

I would call Carl's voice more "formative" from 61-66 or so than Denny's. Dennis always sounded great to me on stuff like "Do You Wanna Dance?", "In The Back Of My Mind", "Surfers Rule" etc. Carl, even on "Good Vibrations", still sounds like a guy trying to find his voice, but that's especially true of those first few leads. It's nice, I have no real issues with it, but there's this kind of uncertainty to it or something, like he hadn't found where his voice excelled and how to use that quite yet. To me, he only really found his voice in '67 on Smiley Smile, but especially Wild Honey.

I might have been a little harsh on Dennis. Sure, I like his "Today" leads, but he really didn't found his "character" until his "Friends" songs. On the other side, while I enjoy his "Wild honey" lead, I think that on that one  (or "I was made to love her") Carl still was "trying to find his voice"; he matured faster as a ballader/pop singer ("Darlin") than as a R&B/R&R one.

For me, the question would be: Why so many Mike leads? (and my answer would be: band politics) Really, don't want to start bashing Mike,  has a lot of fine leads, not to mention his work as a bass/baritone singer on the harmonies, but there's a lot of pre 1967 songs that would have work better with a different singer. Even the rock and roll songs would have sound a little less formulaic. Witness the moment on "Do you remember?" when Brian takes over the lead: I think a lot of those RnR songs would have been better served by Brian, even Al's or Carl's voices (as it has been said, Dennis' voice was on a formative period during those years)
Then again, nowadays the question would be: Why so few Al's leads? Since, clearly, he has the best set of pipes today (even "RoboAl" issues considered)

"Mike Love's dressing gown / pimp hat combo is gonna be a big look in 2014, trust me...."

Mike's take on Nilsson Schmilsson.

More like A Little Touch Of Schmilsson In The Night

The Prayer

Looks like Karol Wojtyla aka John Paul II

Yesterday I got in contact with Scott Matthews by email. Next week I'll be having answers to the PS tour questions ("I can't be brief as these specifics are not all yes/no"). He's planning to write about that in his own book.

Turns out Matthews has a (supposedly) personal e-mail account on his web site. I've just written him, hoping he checks it, asking about this.

IIRC, Carl opposed to a Pet Sounds tour in the mid 90s favored by Mike, Al and Bruce, because he thought Brain wasn't able to cut it. That fits with protect his relationship with one of his closest friends, Carl Wilson ... because,  in 1991, Carl and the rest of Brian's family were suing to get Brian removed from Landy, so, it wasn't a good time either for such project.

I'd really like to know about those "original charts"...

This is new to me, although I don't know how credible it is, hence this topic.


I was checking the Wikipedia entry for Scott Matthews (main drummer for KTSA), and, under a "The Beach Boys" entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Mathews#The_Beach_Boys, it says -besides him beign considered as a possible band member, as a replacement for Dennis, something previously hinted- that in 1983 he started champinoning his proposal for a Pet Sounds tour, using Brian's original charts (do they exist? Or existed in 1983?) , but...

The tour never took flight due to one band member having creative difficulties in adjusting to changing the tour formula, even for such a special event and the much needed credibility the band would gain. When an unacceptable offer from the 'swing voter' was finally proposed in 1991, Mathews officially passed on pursuing the Pet Sounds performance project as he preferred to protect his relationship with one of his closest friends, Carl Wilson who had told him at the beginning; "You have to carry this project all on your own - I have my hands full just keeping the band together." In appreciation for Mathews' concept, support and attempt to see it through, the Wilson brothers and The Beach Boys' manager had RIAA white matte gold and platinum records sent to Mathews upon settling their decades long law suit with Capitol Records (who had previously refused to acknowledge the album's sales numbers). Aside from the principle members of the band and management, Mathews is the only person to receive these official awards.

Two things. 1- It's easy to assume that the "swing voter" is Mike 2- Can't see how the 1983 Brian would be fit in any way for a project like this.

Most of the sources for this section are dead links, and anyway I don't think they would say anything more about this.

Anybody knows something else???