BAD press, interviews, etc.

[ontor pertawst]

Maybe we’ll do a folk song, but I don’t want to bore the audience. On “Surf’s Up,” there’s a tune called “Lookin’ At Tomorrow (A Welfare Song),” and it actually sounds pretty good, but I think it’s better suited for a club in the Village. Brian will do a couple of things from his solo projects. A beautiful, haunting tune, “Summer’s Gone,” will be the closer. We’ll do “That’s Why God Made the Radio,” and then of course the big hits. I think they still wanna do “Cottonfields,” although I don’t know why. It was never a big hit here. But why not? I think we’ll do “California Saga: California” again. And David Marks will be be singing the Dennis Wilson song called “Little Bird” — it’s a cute song, really charming.

Can't wait to hear Summer's Gone and Little Bird! What a fun interview from Al, I love it when they sound like human beings instead of cliche-spouting machines. Alan "But I Don't Want to Bore the Audience" Jardine, ladies and gentlemen!

[Emdeeh]

Am I the only one here who thinks "Summer's Gone" is a very depressing way to end a concert (not to mention an album)? Yes, it's pretty, but listening to it brings back my sad memories every time. Slow songs (like L&M) don't sit right as concert enders for me (most of the time -- there are a few exceptions). I'd rather see BAD do "Summer's Gone" somewhere earlier in the set list and end with an uptempo song.

 

[ontor pertawst]

I doubt you're the only one. (mimes putting gun to head)

If it's Barbara Ann, I'm beating the traffic and going to my car.

[Micha]

Am I the only one here who thinks "Summer's Gone" is a very depressing way to end a concert (not to mention an album)? Yes, it's pretty, but listening to it brings back my sad memories every time. Slow songs (like L&M) don't sit right as concert enders for me (most of the time -- there are a few exceptions). I'd rather see BAD do "Summer's Gone" somewhere earlier in the set list and end with an uptempo song.

To me it isn't depressive. Contemplative, yes, maybe even a bit melancholic, but not sad. This evening I listened to the TWGMTR album while cleaning up the kitchen, and when Summer's Gone came on I just marveled at how beautiful that song is.

Good they do it anyway. And I even think it's a good thing they are going to close the shows with it, because that does the quality of the song justice - it's just as good as the oldies!

[Emdeeh]

If it's Barbara Ann, I'm beating the traffic and going to my car.

Brian could always end his shows with "Goin' Home" instead.... 

[Gertie J.]

Little Bird & Honkin' down the highway..... Great!!


The whole Love You album....? Does Al read this board? 

nope, matt does.

[ontor pertawst]

That be really interesting, wouldn't it? The full band would give such a great spin to the music. Drag an old analog synth on stage to play with. BAD LOVES YOU.

[the professor]

Go to the beach young man and listen to it with the waves at your feet in redondo, marhattan, anywhere mentioned in the surfin USA for that matter, and tell me that you are not in tears of ecstasy.

Am I the only one here who thinks "Summer's Gone" is a very depressing way to end a concert (not to mention an album)? Yes, it's pretty, but listening to it brings back my sad memories every time. Slow songs (like L&M) don't sit right as concert enders for me (most of the time -- there are a few exceptions). I'd rather see BAD do "Summer's Gone" somewhere earlier in the set list and end with an uptempo song.

 

[Pacific Coast]

I dare you, Brian-Wilson-Band:


The Little Girl I Once Knew
Good to My Baby
Kiss Me Baby
She Knows Me Too Well
In The Back of My Mind
You're So Good to Me
Wouldn't It Be Nice
You Still Believe In Me
That's Not Me
I'm Waiting For the Day
Wild Honey
Aren't You Glad
Time to Get Alone
This Whole World
All I Wanna Do
Our Sweet Love
You Need A Mess of Help to Stand Alone
Let us Go On This way
The Night Was So Young
Marcella
Wonderful
Cabinessence
Surf's Up
Isn't It Time
Nothing But Love
Good Kind of Love
Goin' Home


Encore:
The Girls on the Beach
Surf City

[Nicko1234]

I dare you, Brian-Wilson-Band:


The Little Girl I Once Knew
Good to My Baby
Kiss Me Baby
She Knows Me Too Well
In The Back of My Mind
You're So Good to Me
Wouldn't It Be Nice
You Still Believe In Me
That's Not Me
I'm Waiting For the Day
Wild Honey
Aren't You Glad
Time to Get Alone
This Whole World
All I Wanna Do
Our Sweet Love
You Need A Mess of Help to Stand Alone
Let us Go On This way
The Night Was So Young
Marcella
Wonderful
Cabinessence
Surf's Up
Isn't It Time
Nothing But Love
Good Kind of Love
Goin' Home


Encore:
The Girls on the Beach
Surf City

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/AxMyFe81FUg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

You want Al to stay at home I guess...

[Pacific Coast]

I dare you, Brian-Wilson-Band:


The Little Girl I Once Knew
Good to My Baby
Kiss Me Baby
She Knows Me Too Well
In The Back of My Mind
You're So Good to Me
Wouldn't It Be Nice
You Still Believe In Me
That's Not Me
I'm Waiting For the Day
Wild Honey
Aren't You Glad
Time to Get Alone
This Whole World
All I Wanna Do
Our Sweet Love
You Need A Mess of Help to Stand Alone
Let us Go On This way
The Night Was So Young
Marcella
Wonderful
Cabinessence
Surf's Up
Isn't It Time
Nothing But Love
Good Kind of Love
Goin' Home


Encore:
The Girls on the Beach
Surf City

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/AxMyFe81FUg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

You want Al to stay at home I guess...

Lots of opportunity there for him to sing.

[Doo Dah]

Great interview with Paul Von Mertens. Sheds some new light on past/future Jeff Beck sessions.

http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/music/21404311-421/brian-wilson-trusts-a-chicagoan-to-shape-his-songs.html

This is the kind of news which heartens me - beyond the whole tour business. Brian in the studio. As it should be.

[Nicko1234]

Very interesting. I haven`t really seen him specifically described as ` the producer` before.

[Doo Dah]

From the Sun Times blogs - a very interesting interview with both Al and Paul.

http://voices.suntimes.com/arts-entertainment/music/boys-will-be-beach-boys/

By David Hoekstra | Get In Touch: @cstdhoekstra@twitter | dhoekstra@suntimes.com Music, None, Scratch Crib - July 22, 2013 5:43 pm   
Boys Will Be Beach Boys

I don’t know what it is like to be a member of a fractured 51-year-old rock n’ roll band.

I do know what it like to break up with someone you love.

That’s the feeling I get when talking to Al Jardine, a founding member of the Beach Boys.

You can’t stop talking about it. One of the greatest Beach Boy songs begins with “I may not always love you,” (from Brian Wilson and Peter Asher’s “God Only Knows”).

Beach Boy fans knew the band’s “50th Anniversary Tour” in the summer of 2012 was headed for an unhappy ending. Sure enough, founding member Mike Love dissolved the tour after a stop in London. Now Love and original Beach Boy Bruce Johnston tour as the Beach Boys as they did before the anniversary tour.

In March, 2008 Jardine settled a suit brought against him by Love and the estate of Carl Wilson in the use of the Beach Boys name. When Brian Wilson makes his Ravinia debut July 26, the show is billed as “Brian Wilson Co-Founder of the Beach Boys” with special guests Al Jardine and David Marks (who played on the first four Beach Boy albums.)

“The anniversary tour was beautiful and it clicked,” Jardine said Monday as his tour bus rolled out of Pittsburgh, Pa. “Yeah, it was great…It had completeness built into it, which is nice. And conflict. Of course you have all that, too, because there’s so many different players. We like to call this an extension of the anniversary tour. We may not be the Beach Boys, but we’re the heart and soul of the Beach Boys. We usually get a standing o on that one.”

“Unfortunately it starts to get to be about the messenger. And that’s just a product of the way we developed as a group. There’s one lead singer and the rest of us are a support team behind that particular arrangement. Now we have so much music we don’t have to go there anymore. It’s a more complete message now. We love Mike and we wish he was with us, we really do. He has the best baritone in the business and that’s what I miss about not having Mike on stage.

“The heart and soul of the Beach Boys come into your neighborhood.”

Jardine, 70, said song selection is now easier. “We have more latitude than we had on the 50th,” he said. “For instance, we won’t be so heavy on the medleys. We’ll do a car song here and there but it won’t be a medley. We added ‘Little Deuce Coupe’ last night and it sounds terrific. But it doesn’t have to be in the midst of four other car songs. We’re a team. We should behave like one.

“Okay, that’s the end of that.”

Jardine did say the heart and soul of the Beach Boys added a medley of “Old Man River” and “Cotton Fields.” Jardine has always been the folk sensibility of the Beach Boys and covered “Cotton Fields’ last July when the 50th anniversary tour came to the Chicago Theatre. ‘It’s pretty outside our lexicon of music,” he said. “For some reason it connects. It is a very American thing and has similar value that ‘Heroes and Villains’ trilogy has from ‘Smile.’ You would learn these great American folk songs in school, which is my milieu. I asked Brian why he liked ‘Cotton Fields’ so much. He said it takes him back to his childhood.

“Paul (Von Mertens, the band’s Chicago based musical director) discovered ‘Old Man River,’ and frankly I forgot about it. Brian and I were scratching our heads because it’s been so long since we heard it. We were just goofing around. There’s probably as much unreleased things as released. We were into the Stephen Foster and thinking of old mythology. Van Dyke Parks probably expressed that in his own way with his own lyrics, more contemporary of course. I liken it to the ‘Smile’ project in some ways.”

Von Mertens, 52, was a distant Beach Boys fan growing up in the Chicago area. “I was aware of the hits,” he said in a separate interview. “I remember where I was the first time I heard ‘Good Vibrations.’ I was six years old and there was a turquoise green plastic radio atop the refrigeratorr in our kitchen. I heard that cello and (never before used) Theremin coming out of the radio and I remember  thinking I wasn’t sure it was a song. But it wasn’t until many years later when I was on tour with Poi Dog Pondering and Dag Juhlin gave me a copy of ‘Pet Sounds.’ I said I didn’t know that record that well. He said, ‘WHAT?’ So he sent a copy to my bunk with a Walkman.”

One of Jardine’s all time favorite Beach Boy tracks is “Don’t Worry, Baby,” made in 1964 with Brian Wilson on lead vocals “We did three songs that day,” he said. “We did ‘Little Deuce Coupe’ that day, I can’t remember the other one. We never gave enough credits to the engineers (the late Chuck Britz, who also worked with Jan & Dean in the mid-1960s). Because as you sit down and learn a song it develops, not only in front of the glass but behind the glass where the guys are listening and getting that good sound on the bass, which I played at the time. You can hear the bass and drums develop because of the engineering. We weren’t great players. But somehow it always ended sounding so terrific. It’s amazing what you can do in a professional studio.

“That’s why today a lot of music doesn’t sound so great because so many people have home studios. It lacks a professional touch.”

Von Mertens played clarinet and baritone saxophone on Mavis Staples recent “One True Vine,” recorded at Jeff Tweedy’s the Loft in Chicago. “I’ve toured with Wilco and it is really fun and interesting to  work with Jeff,” Von Mertens said. “He thinks of things that I wouldn’t think of. He has unconventional ideas like mixing instruments together that aren’t ‘normal’ combinations. And even choosing notes. He would see a look on my face and say, ‘Is that a wrong note?’ I’d say, ‘No, I think I’m going to like it the more I hear it.’ And it’s true.”

Recording with Brian Wilson is a completely  different experience.

“Brian gives me a good deal of leeway and I try to write things he will like,” he explained. “I do have an idea of how he writes and how he has written arrangements in the past. So I use that as a guide. A few times I’ve tried to do something a little out of the ordinary and he usually goes,” and Mertens pauses.

And continues, ““No funny notes.”

Brian works best in the moment,” he said. “When we did the Gershwin record I tried to prepare the band as much as possible for the songs by writing skeletal arrangements from my meetings with Brian. The band tracks were cut live in the studio. So the band would start playing and get the song up and walking around. Then Brian would start to do his thing. He’d hear what people were doing and say, ‘Can you play that up an octave?’ Bass drop out here…That’s how he works best. Or he has it completely done in his mind. He’s done that too, where he has come to a sound check and goes, ‘Here’s your vocal part, you play this.’ Since the Gershwin music was new material it was helpful to have the song in front of him so he could manipulate and move things around the way he wanted.

“GIve him something to play with and then get out of the way.”

[Jonathan Blum]

Brian works best in the moment,” he said. “When we did the Gershwin record I tried to prepare the band as much as possible for the songs by writing skeletal arrangements from my meetings with Brian. The band tracks were cut live in the studio. So the band would start playing and get the song up and walking around. Then Brian would start to do his thing. He’d hear what people were doing and say, ‘Can you play that up an octave?’ Bass drop out here…That’s how he works best. Or he has it completely done in his mind. He’s done that too, where he has come to a sound check and goes, ‘Here’s your vocal part, you play this.’ Since the Gershwin music was new material it was helpful to have the song in front of him so he could manipulate and move things around the way he wanted.

“GIve him something to play with and then get out of the way.”

...That is one hell of a great quote, and a nice clear image to rebut the idea of Brian as soulless puppet in the studio.

Cheers,
Jon Blum

[Cyncie]

Review from the Zoo:

http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/blogs/217310091.html

Brian Wilson radiates good vibrations at the MN Zoo
Posted by: Jon Bream under Music Updated: July 28, 2013 - 4:10 PM


There are obviously no YouTube videos of Mozart performing. The crazed classical genius didn’t live very long (35 years) but he created a stunning body of work that is still widely known and appreciated today without the visual evidence.
 
If he’d still been performing at age 71, would his concerts have been as remarkably rewarding as the one troubled genius Brian Wilson, the Mozart of pop, gave Saturday night at the Minnesota Zoo?
 
On an unseasonably cool, drizzly, no-Hawaiian shirt July night, next to a man-made lake, you couldn’t stop Brian Wilson, 71, and the sunniest, surfin’-est and giddiest catalog in the history of American popular music. The guiding light of the Beach Boys and a standing-room-only crowd had fun, fun, fun till Wilson walked away after harmonizing on the wistful “Summer’s Gone.”
 
The reunited Beach Boys didn’t perform in the Twin Cities during last year’s 50th anniversary tour. Since then, Wilson’s cousin, Mike Love, decided to resume his own Beach Boys tour (he owns the name), so Wilson is traveling this summer with fellow original Beach Boys Al Jardine and David Marks as well as nine other musicians.
 
In 1971, when the Beach Boys showed up at the Guthrie Theater without Wilson and a new, less radio-friendly sound, who would have thought Brian Wilson would be singing in Minnesota in 2013 and his songs would still resonate with such resounding joy?
 
Abused by his father/manager, he took too much LSD in the 1960s and then underwent controversial therapies for many years. Since launching his comeback solo career in the late 1990s, he has seemed odd in concert, an aloof gentle giant with a damaged soul and nervous system. He never quite seemed “all there” as a singer, conversationalist or performer.
 
Saturday was unquestionably the best of Wilson’s four Twin Cities solo shows for several reasons. He played a generous 38-song program featuring mostly Beach Boys hits and only two of his solo selections. He was noticeably more comfortable onstage, his feet often dancing under the piano, his hands in the air conducting the sounds he heard in his head. Not only was he in good spirits, he was more consistent and confident as a vocalist and just radiated undeniable good vibrations.
 
Wilson’s reading of “God Only Knows,” one of the greatest pop love songs of all time, was so heavenly — complete with bells, French horn and a cascade of choral harmonies — that he received not only a long and loud standing ovation from the 1,500 fans but Jardine remarked twice how deserving that resounding reaction was.
 
Jardine’s presence added much vocally and spiritually. Marks, the long-lost Beach Boy, provided some hot guitar licks that this music had always been missing in concert.
 
Wilson didn’t sing as much as he has here in the recent past and his voice was a little colorless at times as he concentrated on hitting the right notes (which he did) instead of the right feeling. But bolstered by his always wonderful backup band, the Wondermints, and old pals Jardine and Marks, Wilson was able to present two hours of intricately layered mini-concertos, choral pieces and pure pop gems that will forever be preserved in our musical memory – and on YouTube.
 
 
Here is what Wilson played Saturday:
 
Set1
California Girls/ Catch a Wave/ Hawaii/ Dance Dance Dance/ Little Deuce Coupe/ Girl Don’t Tell Me/ In My Room/ Surfer Girl/ Please Let Me Wonder/ Then I Kissed Her (Crystals)/ Don’t Worry Baby/ Old Man River > Cottonfields/ Little Bird/ Do It Again/ Summertime Blues (Eddie Cochran)/ Do You Wanna Dance/ Happy birthday to Probyn Gregory, guitarist-banjoist-trumpeter-French horn player/ I Get Around
 
Set 2
Our Prayer (a cappella)/ Heroes and Villains/ Your Imagination (Wilson solo tune)/ Goin’ Home (Wilson solo)/ That’s Why God Made the Radio (2012 Beach Boys tune)/ God Only Knows/ California Saga/ Sail On Sailor/ Marcella/ Darlin’/ Pet Sounds (instrumental)/ Wouldn’t It Be Nice/ Sloop John B/ Good Vibrations/ Surfin USA  ENCORE 1 All Summer Long/ Help Me, Rhonda/ Barbara Ann/ Fun Fun Fun ENCORE 2 Summer’s Gone

[alf wiedersehen]

Thought this was interesting:

http://www.hollywood.com/news/brief/56970119/jeff-beck-opens-up-about-hospital-visit-on-brian-wilson-tour

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

That last bit spoke volumes.

[Jim V.]

Thought this was interesting:

http://www.hollywood.com/news/brief/56970119/jeff-beck-opens-up-about-hospital-visit-on-brian-wilson-tour

Interesting mini-article.

Also interesting that despite looking like he was in much better health than the frail looking Brian, it was Jeff Beck who had a hospital stay. It continues to astound me that through everything, Brian's still pretty robust (at least besides his back).

And even more interesting is what Beck had to say about Brian, saying that their time was "a bit of a nightmare" and that Brian is "clearly in need of attention."

I think basically what this tells me is that the whole Brian and Jeff Beck duo thing was yet another miscalculation. I think maybe it woulda been more sensible that if Brian absolutely had to tour, that his people should have had him go out there with Al, Blondie and Dave, and perhaps just play smaller theaters. To be honest, it probably would have made a whole lot more sense to let Brian maybe spread his time between recording his new album and chilling out after a busy 2012. I think in general 2013 was a bit of a clusterfuck.

[Jim V.]

Gotta admit I'm surprised that nobody besides Billy or I has really responded to the article that Bubbly Waves posted. I mean, it basically has Jeff Beck confirming that the tour with Brian was really shitty and that him and Brian basically had ZERO rapport, despite what Brian's team were trying to make it sound like.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Not being sarcastic here, but I think we all realised it was like that. I understand that off the record Jeff was less positive.

[Micha]

Here is what Wilson played Saturday:
 
Set1
California Girls/ Catch a Wave/ Hawaii/ Dance Dance Dance/ Little Deuce Coupe/ Girl Don’t Tell Me/ In My Room/ Surfer Girl/ Please Let Me Wonder/ Then I Kissed Her (Crystals)/ Don’t Worry Baby/ Old Man River > Cottonfields/ Little Bird/ Do It Again/ Summertime Blues (Eddie Cochran)/ Do You Wanna Dance/ Happy birthday to Probyn Gregory, guitarist-banjoist-trumpeter-French horn player/ I Get Around
 
Set 2
Our Prayer (a cappella)/ Heroes and Villains/ Your Imagination (Wilson solo tune)/ Goin’ Home (Wilson solo)/ That’s Why God Made the Radio (2012 Beach Boys tune)/ God Only Knows/ California Saga/ Sail On Sailor/ Marcella/ Darlin’/ Pet Sounds (instrumental)/ Wouldn’t It Be Nice/ Sloop John B/ Good Vibrations/ Surfin USA  ENCORE 1 All Summer Long/ Help Me, Rhonda/ Barbara Ann/ Fun Fun Fun ENCORE 2 Summer’s Gone

OK, I realize I'm nearly a year late on this, but... no Love And Mercy? Personally I like Summer's Gone better, but I'm still surprised.

[ToneBender631]

Gotta admit I'm surprised that nobody besides Billy or I has really responded to the article that Bubbly Waves posted. I mean, it basically has Jeff Beck confirming that the tour with Brian was really shitty and that him and Brian basically had ZERO rapport, despite what Brian's team were trying to make it sound like.

Well the tour itself was fantastic musically so it sounds to me like Jeff just has some sour grapes about his (lack of) personal relationship with Brian. On the other hand, I seem to recall a number of photos of Jeff, Al and David hanging out together on tour, in addition to quite a bit of camaraderie amongst the two bands so I don't think the entire enterprise was as horrible as he makes it out to be.

72 years old and Brian is quiet, reserved and a bit off on tour. Is this shocking to anyone? It's not like Jeff wouldn't know this going into it. I also seem to remember a few occasions where Brian said that he felt intimidated by who Jeff is and what he's accomplished. I'm sure that played into it to an extent. Quite frankly, what's more shocking to me is why Jeff feels the need at nearly 70 to publicly comment on the mental health of someone who has suffered very public mental health problems for the entirety of his adult life. I don't mean that to imply that Brian should be excused for anything, I just don't see the point in publicly commenting on it.

Also, what would you have them do during the tour? Publicly comment that Jeff and Brian aren't getting along while trying to sell tickets?

[Nicko1234]

Well the tour itself was fantastic musically so it sounds to me like Jeff just has some sour grapes about his (lack of) personal relationship with Brian. On the other hand, I seem to recall a number of photos of Jeff, Al and David hanging out together on tour, in addition to quite a bit of camaraderie amongst the two bands so I don't think the entire enterprise was as horrible as he makes it out to be.

72 years old and Brian is quiet, reserved and a bit off on tour. Is this shocking to anyone? It's not like Jeff wouldn't know this going into it. I also seem to remember a number a few occasions where Brian said that he felt intimidated by who Jeff is and what he's accomplished. I'm sure that played into it to an extent. Quite frankly, what's more shocking to me is why Jeff feels the need at nearly 70 to publicly comment on the mental health of someone who has suffered very public mental health problems for the entirety of his adult life. I don't mean that to imply that Brian should be excused for anything, I just don't see the point in publicly commenting on it.

Also, what would you have them do during the tour? Publicly comment that Jeff and Brian aren't getting along while trying to sell tickets?

Yeah, it`s all Jeff Beck`s fault...

[Cyncie]

Well the tour itself was fantastic musically so it sounds to me like Jeff just has some sour grapes about his (lack of) personal relationship with Brian. On the other hand, I seem to recall a number of photos of Jeff, Al and David hanging out together on tour, in addition to quite a bit of camaraderie amongst the two bands so I don't think the entire enterprise was as horrible as he makes it out to be.

72 years old and Brian is quiet, reserved and a bit off on tour. Is this shocking to anyone? It's not like Jeff wouldn't know this going into it. I also seem to remember a number a few occasions where Brian said that he felt intimidated by who Jeff is and what he's accomplished. I'm sure that played into it to an extent. Quite frankly, what's more shocking to me is why Jeff feels the need at nearly 70 to publicly comment on the mental health of someone who has suffered very public mental health problems for the entirety of his adult life. I don't mean that to imply that Brian should be excused for anything, I just don't see the point in publicly commenting on it.

Also, what would you have them do during the tour? Publicly comment that Jeff and Brian aren't getting along while trying to sell tickets?

Yeah, it`s all Jeff Beck`s fault...

The tour happened. It was critically well received. It was a business venture, not a buddy trip. By now, everyone should know that Brian has issues and doesn't tour well. Jeff Beck was disappointed in some aspect of the whole thing…. still not sure what his expectations were. At this stage, though,  it's kind of a non-issue, isn't it?