"Made in California" Box Set

[Heysaboda]

I think people need to stop with that "Family Band" sh*t.

The Boys have a connection to Manson, Mike Love has a connection to thousands of women, and Al is able to wear a shirt basically telling everyone "Hey, almost everyone here is high right now"

where can I get such a shirt?

Teh Internets?   

[tansen]

I think it depends on who is on the receiving end. A heart surgeon is probably better placed to appreciate the intricacies of the human heart. That doesn't negate anyone else's appreciation but it does give the surgeon's appreciation a bit more weight.

With heart surgery, yes ... heart surgery is not a matter of opinion; there are explicit, measurable results. Musical validity is always a matter of opinion.

Quite right. But my point is that someone with a higher education in music is better equipped to appreciate why something is "good". I'm not saying anyone's opinions are more or less valid than anyone else.

Exactly. That is what I was trying to say too. You could exchange the word 'education' with 'understanding', but those words might very well be correlated. Whether it's better or worse being musically educated and to have a higher understanding of music is debatable, but I think it's a valid assessment. And yeah, music is subjective, but there is a reason why certain albums reach number one in the Top 100/10/X polls every time.

[EgoHanger1966]

Al is able to wear a shirt basically telling everyone "Hey, almost everyone here is high right now"

wait, wat?

I don't have the slightest clue as to what that means, but I love it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIVGkPKlhbs&feature=youtu.be

I still don't get it.

[DonnyL]

I think it depends on who is on the receiving end. A heart surgeon is probably better placed to appreciate the intricacies of the human heart. That doesn't negate anyone else's appreciation but it does give the surgeon's appreciation a bit more weight.

With heart surgery, yes ... heart surgery is not a matter of opinion; there are explicit, measurable results. Musical validity is always a matter of opinion.

Quite right. But my point is that someone with a higher education in music is better equipped to appreciate why something is "good". I'm not saying anyone's opinions are more or less valid than anyone else.

Exactly. That is what I was trying to say too. You could exchange the word 'education' with 'understanding', but those words might very well be correlated. Whether it's better or worse being musically educated and to have a higher understanding of music is debatable, but I think it's a valid assessment. And yeah, music is subjective, but there is a reason why certain albums reach number one in the Top 100/10/X polls every time.

The difficulty comes in qualifying those who 'understand' vs. those who don't.

And the main reason any album appears on any poll or list is mostly related to what you might call 'popular critical opinion'. There are certain albums that have not yet made any general rock top 200 list (something like Pearls Before Swine's "These Things Too" or Del Shannon's "Further Adventures of Charles Westover" are good examples of records every bit as good as any inflated Rolling Stone-deemed 'masterpiece') because they were simply not popular enough. Which is why you will never see Nick Drake listed on any major rock critic 'Best Of' list that was made prior to the appearance of one of his songs on a VW commercial. Why is it that 'Forever Changes' was ignored for so long, and now occasionally tops these lists? Did the record become better over time? Did people become more educated? Or did popular critical opinion simply change?

[EgoHanger1966]

Anyone wanna hazard some guesses as to what rarities could be potentially on this thing (besides the obvious one...)? I wonder what the over and under on things like "I'm A Man" and "Where Is She?" are. There are so many titles that have never even come close to circulating, but apparently do exist. Makes the mind boggle.

[Camus]

Some of the unreleased stuff I'd like to see on it are:

Mony Mony (and the other 15 big one out takes like Sea Cruise etc..)
Everyone Wants to Live
Lines
Life is for the Living
Baseball
Stevie
My Solution (original version, not the remake)
Back Home (original and sunflower version)
You've Lost That Loving Feeling
California Feelin' (74 demo and 78 Beach Boys recording)
Big Sur (4/4 original)
WIBNTLA
Soul Searchin' (full Carl lead with BB backing)
You're Still A Mystery
Airplane (if a decent live recording exists)
Love You demos

[seltaeb1012002]

Anyone wanna hazard some guesses as to what rarities could be potentially on this thing (besides the obvious one...)? I wonder what the over and under on things like "I'm A Man" and "Where Is She?" are. There are so many titles that have never even come close to circulating, but apparently do exist. Makes the mind boggle.

I'd suspect we'll get some more Adult Child stuff. Out In The Country would be an obvious choice, that's a really cool snippet. I'm actually interested in seeing what they dig up from the early years. It seems like they keep finding new demos / outtakes every time an archival release comes out (Little Deuce Coupe demo, Surfin USA demo, etc).

[over and over]

I don't want Brian's 1975 demo of "In The Back Of My Mind"...............................................I NEED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[EgoHanger1966]

Anyone wanna hazard some guesses as to what rarities could be potentially on this thing (besides the obvious one...)? I wonder what the over and under on things like "I'm A Man" and "Where Is She?" are. There are so many titles that have never even come close to circulating, but apparently do exist. Makes the mind boggle.

I'd suspect we'll get some more Adult Child stuff. Out In The Country would be an obvious choice, that's a really cool snippet. I'm actually interested in seeing what they dig up from the early years. It seems like they keep finding new demos / outtakes every time an archival release comes out (Little Deuce Coupe demo, Surfin USA demo, etc).

It would be cool to hear circulating things in better quality, for sure. I'm pining for things that have never made the rounds!

[Jim V.]

I could really go for a tracklisting. The wait would be much more bearable if they announce the official release date and what's on it. If it is coming out in January, as I suspect it will, I'd think probably either later this month or next month we should hear something. I seriously can't wait until the day where I scan the tracklist and see titles of songs that I've waited so long to hear.

[The Heartical Don]

In defense of Cabinessenceking -

he makes a statement about the appreciation of art, and I do not have the slightest fear that he meant to belittle a class of listeners in the process. I will try to explain my own view on things, and then you're free to flame away at your heart's content:

it is a trivial fact that someone without any training in the arts may appreciate both a polka and Beethoven's Fifth. No need to dispute this. So it is also a trivial fact that another, similar person can enjoy 'This Car Of Mine' and 'I Just Wasn't Made For These Times'. Especially in the case of Brian Wilson; his music speaks always on the level of direct feelings, no matter the level of complexity of the music at hand.

Thing is: one can learn to listen, to get more out of music. For me that's the crucial point. In all probability, I would never have entered the field of classical music, had I not encountered a broadcast on Dutch public TV, some twenty years ago, of Leonard Bernstein's educational programme series, in nice b/w, with the famous director smoking to his heart's content and freely talking about Beethoven as well as the Beatles - and conversely, I am certain that one can get more out of the Fab Four's work after having read Ian McDonald's fine book on their stuff.

Analogy: had I not had friends in the fields of the art of painting, I would still think: what do all those skulls do, for heaven's sake, on those mediaeval still life paintings? After hearing that they were meant as a metaphor, standing for vanitas, vanity, and were referring to the fact that all things must pass, including we ourselves, they made eminent sense. Fresh fruit, a bottle of wine, and a skull: wonderful stuff, although making one melancholy at the same time.

Returning to music: Bernstein explained, for instance, the importance of the diabolus in musica, a certain interval that once was prohibited by the Church (it appears in the famous ‘Maria’, from West Side Story). Once you know these things, new worlds open themselves.

I take Cabinessenceking to have meant: one can absolutely enjoy Pet Sounds and Smile without any formal education, and without much listening experience at all. But there is extra value to be gotten from the latter two, when one has formed a habit of paying attention to detail, to the way Brian expresses difficult, often ambivalent emotions through compositional skills. The book of Philip Lambert is hugely instructive here.

It’s a bit like literature: one can get much out of Moby-Dick, without too much reading experience. But the thing is: a lot of the treasures therein will remain hidden, and the upshot is that it’ll be more like seeing the famous movie after that book, with Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab.

So, by way of resumé: Cabinessenceking’s statement, and the criticisms levelled at him, are not mutually exclusive, and therefore we are dealing with a false contradiction, IMHO.

I just want to say that in my own experience, by way of learning about art (which often is painstaking, and requires a certain investment of time), one can ‘dig a bit deeper’ – but the first and most primal enjoyment is always open to everyone.

(Final note: I am not very egalitarian, and I mean by that: I don’t think any dime store novel can compare with the works of your country’s greatest in my view: Melville, Twain, Hawthorne, and Poe.)

Thank you for reading, sorry for rambling, and I am open to any type of criticism.

[tansen]

I think it depends on who is on the receiving end. A heart surgeon is probably better placed to appreciate the intricacies of the human heart. That doesn't negate anyone else's appreciation but it does give the surgeon's appreciation a bit more weight.

With heart surgery, yes ... heart surgery is not a matter of opinion; there are explicit, measurable results. Musical validity is always a matter of opinion.

Quite right. But my point is that someone with a higher education in music is better equipped to appreciate why something is "good". I'm not saying anyone's opinions are more or less valid than anyone else.

Exactly. That is what I was trying to say too. You could exchange the word 'education' with 'understanding', but those words might very well be correlated. Whether it's better or worse being musically educated and to have a higher understanding of music is debatable, but I think it's a valid assessment. And yeah, music is subjective, but there is a reason why certain albums reach number one in the Top 100/10/X polls every time.

The difficulty comes in qualifying those who 'understand' vs. those who don't.

And the main reason any album appears on any poll or list is mostly related to what you might call 'popular critical opinion'. There are certain albums that have not yet made any general rock top 200 list (something like Pearls Before Swine's "These Things Too" or Del Shannon's "Further Adventures of Charles Westover" are good examples of records every bit as good as any inflated Rolling Stone-deemed 'masterpiece') because they were simply not popular enough. Which is why you will never see Nick Drake listed on any major rock critic 'Best Of' list that was made prior to the appearance of one of his songs on a VW commercial. Why is it that 'Forever Changes' was ignored for so long, and now occasionally tops these lists? Did the record become better over time? Did people become more educated? Or did popular critical opinion simply change?

You've absolutely have got good points regarding the 'Best of' lists (I miss a whole deal of albums there myself), but what I am trying to convey is that while music will always inevitably be subjective, there will always be some kind of objectiveness when analyzing it (or at the very least it should be IMO).

Very nice post, Don. I agree wholeheartedly.

[Too Much Sugar]

In defense of Cabinessenceking -

he makes a statement about the appreciation of art, and I do not have the slightest fear that he meant to belittle a class of listeners in the process. I will try to explain my own view on things, and then you're free to flame away at your heart's content:

it is a trivial fact that someone without any training in the arts may appreciate both a polka and Beethoven's Fifth. No need to dispute this. So it is also a trivial fact that another, similar person can enjoy 'This Car Of Mine' and 'I Just Wasn't Made For These Times'. Especially in the case of Brian Wilson; his music speaks always on the level of direct feelings, no matter the level of complexity of the music at hand.

Thing is: one can learn to listen, to get more out of music. For me that's the crucial point. In all probability, I would never have entered the field of classical music, had I not encountered a broadcast on Dutch public TV, some twenty years ago, of Leonard Bernstein's educational programme series, in nice b/w, with the famous director smoking to his heart's content and freely talking about Beethoven as well as the Beatles - and conversely, I am certain that one can get more out of the Fab Four's work after having read Ian McDonald's fine book on their stuff.

Analogy: had I not had friends in the fields of the art of painting, I would still think: what do all those skulls do, for heaven's sake, on those mediaeval still life paintings? After hearing that they were meant as a metaphor, standing for vanitas, vanity, and were referring to the fact that all things must pass, including we ourselves, they made eminent sense. Fresh fruit, a bottle of wine, and a skull: wonderful stuff, although making one melancholy at the same time.

Returning to music: Bernstein explained, for instance, the importance of the diabolus in musica, a certain interval that once was prohibited by the Church (it appears in the famous ‘Maria’, from West Side Story). Once you know these things, new worlds open themselves.

I take Cabinessenceking to have meant: one can absolutely enjoy Pet Sounds and Smile without any formal education, and without much listening experience at all. But there is extra value to be gotten from the latter two, when one has formed a habit of paying attention to detail, to the way Brian expresses difficult, often ambivalent emotions through compositional skills. The book of Philip Lambert is hugely instructive here.

It’s a bit like literature: one can get much out of Moby-Dick, without too much reading experience. But the thing is: a lot of the treasures therein will remain hidden, and the upshot is that it’ll be more like seeing the famous movie after that book, with Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab.

So, by way of resumé: Cabinessenceking’s statement, and the criticisms levelled at him, are not mutually exclusive, and therefore we are dealing with a false contradiction, IMHO.

I just want to say that in my own experience, by way of learning about art (which often is painstaking, and requires a certain investment of time), one can ‘dig a bit deeper’ – but the first and most primal enjoyment is always open to everyone.

(Final note: I am not very egalitarian, and I mean by that: I don’t think any dime store novel can compare with the works of your country’s greatest in my vies: Melville, Twain, Hawthorne, and Poe.)

Thank you for reading, sorry for rambling, and I am open to any type of criticism.

Well said, Don!

[Too Much Sugar]

Some of the unreleased stuff I'd like to see on it are:

Mony Mony (and the other 15 big one out takes like Sea Cruise etc..)
Everyone Wants to Live
Lines
Life is for the Living
Baseball
Stevie
My Solution (original version, not the remake)
Back Home (original and sunflower version)
You've Lost That Loving Feeling
California Feelin' (74 demo and 78 Beach Boys recording)
Big Sur (4/4 original)
WIBNTLA
Soul Searchin' (full Carl lead with BB backing)
You're Still A Mystery
Airplane (if a decent live recording exists)
Love You demos

All great picks.  The one track I'd KILL to see on there, and I notice it's no longer to be found on YouTube, is Brian's "Thank Him".  I doubt that'd make it, but it's one of the most beautiful things I think he's written.  It would be incredible to hear that in the best sound quality possible.

[hypehat]

The Don is right, as I have come to expect.


But claiming some music is better than other purely because it's more sophisticated is juvenile. Does that automatically make The Ramones shitter than Yes because they used basic chords and didn't write suites? Is La Monte Young crap because he uses drones? I guess The Beatles weren't talented because they couldn't read music. Porgy & Bess is Gershwin's greatest work purely for the fact it's an opera and not 'pop music'. You could make the greatest music of all time by that logic by playing as many notes without rhyme or reason on a piano and make the most catastrophic chord, but it's got all these notes in it. Etc.

The heart surgery analogy is crappy. As DonnyL says, it's a clear and physical thing with obvious outcomes. You change the rules, you have a dead person. You change the rules in music, you make new music. Don is right that knowing how music works gives you a different appreciation, but to jump from that to saying that more is more is false.  

RE: the average listener - DonnyL is also right. Just because you think pop music is dumb (and you'd be wrong, if you actually attempted to listen to it) does not make the people who listen to it dumb.

TL;DR - get dumb.

[GuyOnTheBeach]

The BB85 track for either (or both, please) "Oh, Lord" and "And I Always Will" would be very much appreciated.

[Aegir]

And I Always Will is from the BB85 sessions? God, is there one new song on Postcard?

[The Heartical Don]

The Don is right, as I have come to expect.


But claiming some music is better than other purely because it's more sophisticated is juvenile. Does that automatically make The Ramones sh*tter than Yes because they used basic chords and didn't write suites? Is La Monte Young crap because he uses drones? I guess The Beatles weren't talented because they couldn't read music. Porgy & Bess is Gershwin's greatest work purely for the fact it's an opera and not 'pop music'. You could make the greatest music of all time by that logic by playing as many notes without rhyme or reason on a piano and make the most catastrophic chord, but it's got all these notes in it. Etc.

The heart surgery analogy is crappy. As DonnyL says, it's a clear and physical thing with obvious outcomes. You change the rules, you have a dead person. You change the rules in music, you make new music. Don is right that knowing how music works gives you a different appreciation, but to jump from that to saying that more is more is false.  

RE: the average listener - DonnyL is also right. Just because you think pop music is dumb (and you'd be wrong, if you actually attempted to listen to it) does not make the people who listen to it dumb.

TL;DR - get dumb.

You raise a good point: sophistication/complexity does not equal quality in art. A most welcome addition to my post, cheers for that.

[BergenWhitesMoustache]

Some of the unreleased stuff I'd like to see on it are:

Mony Mony (and the other 15 big one out takes like Sea Cruise etc..)
Everyone Wants to Live
Lines
Life is for the Living
Baseball
Stevie
My Solution (original version, not the remake)
Back Home (original and sunflower version)
You've Lost That Loving Feeling
California Feelin' (74 demo and 78 Beach Boys recording)
Big Sur (4/4 original)
WIBNTLA
Soul Searchin' (full Carl lead with BB backing)
You're Still A Mystery
Airplane (if a decent live recording exists)
Love You demos

Big cosine on 15 Big Ones leftovers...I love all that stuff. You've lost that loving feeling is amazing. I'd so buy a rhino handmade type box with every single note of those sessions on it. Also I'd add carry me home and i'm going your way to your list.

Not fussed about 'Back Home' or 'California Feeling'...the former is just a crap song, and I've never heard a version of the latter that wasn't too boring/tasteful to love.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Some of the unreleased stuff I'd like to see on it are:

Mony Mony (and the other 15 big one out takes like Sea Cruise etc..)

Think you'll find "Sea Cruise" was released over 30 years ago. 

[The Shift]

Some of the unreleased stuff I'd like to see on it are:

Mony Mony (and the other 15 big one out takes like Sea Cruise etc..)

Think you'll find "Sea Cruise" was released over 30 years ago. 

Cripes, I remember opting for sax lessons when I was at school cos I was so inspired by the wall of sax in Sea Cruise (I got about as far as Mike Love did with his sax!). I left school 30 years ago so…

[tansen]

Some of the unreleased stuff I'd like to see on it are:

Mony Mony (and the other 15 big one out takes like Sea Cruise etc..)
Everyone Wants to Live
Lines
Life is for the Living
Baseball
Stevie
My Solution (original version, not the remake)
Back Home (original and sunflower version)
You've Lost That Loving Feeling
California Feelin' (74 demo and 78 Beach Boys recording)
Big Sur (4/4 original)
WIBNTLA
Soul Searchin' (full Carl lead with BB backing)
You're Still A Mystery
Airplane (if a decent live recording exists)
Love You demos

Not fussed about 'Back Home' or 'California Feeling'...the former is just a crap song, and I've never heard a version of the latter that wasn't too boring/tasteful to love.

Lol, what? You must be high! (or not high enough)

[tansen]

Some of the unreleased stuff I'd like to see on it are:

Mony Mony (and the other 15 big one out takes like Sea Cruise etc..)

Think you'll find "Sea Cruise" was released over 30 years ago. 

Over 50 years ago, really

[Andrew G. Doe]

Really ? The BB version was only recorded in 1976 - that's some trick !

[BergenWhitesMoustache]

Lol, what? You must be high! (or not high enough)

Hahah...It's weird- most of the time when people slate Beach Boys songs up to LA Light, I'm like NOOO- Love em all. 'TM Song', Sumahama but those two genuinely leave me cold. Back Home is easily the worst track on 15 Big Ones imo.