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Author Topic: Do 'Older' Beach Boys Fans Appreciate Their Music Differently?  (Read 9132 times)
JK
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« Reply #25 on: July 19, 2016, 10:58:33 AM »

Stephen, I've read this "rant" of yours before, possibly on Smiley. I sympathize. Progress, they call it...
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« Reply #26 on: July 19, 2016, 03:10:34 PM »

Ah yes thanks Stephen...I do remember now that you told a similar story previously...to have attended a concert that you mixed would have been a treat for sure.
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« Reply #27 on: July 19, 2016, 05:37:19 PM »

Anybody yelling for Little Deuce Coupe while Carl Wilson is singing Caroline No should be escorted out of the concert.. LOL..

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« Reply #28 on: July 21, 2016, 10:06:47 AM »

When I first started reading Beach Boy album reviews back in the 90s, or even books about the band, it seemed there is as little respect for Smiley Smile, Friends and Love You. It seems the appreciation for these 3 albums have significantly improved in the last 20 years. Has anyone else noticed this or is it just me?
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"Over the years, I've been accused of not supporting our new music from this era (67-73) and just wanting to play our hits. That's complete b.s......I was also, as the front man, the one promoting these songs onstage and have the scars to show for it."
Mike Love autobiography (pg 242-243)
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« Reply #29 on: July 25, 2016, 06:24:26 AM »

When I first started reading Beach Boy album reviews back in the 90s, or even books about the band, it seemed there is as little respect for Smiley Smile, Friends and Love You. It seems the appreciation for these 3 albums have significantly improved in the last 20 years. Has anyone else noticed this or is it just me?
COMMENT to Magic:  FYI check out the re-mastering of Friends at http://swdstudyvideos.com. I think you will be quite pleased at the rendition. ~swd
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« Reply #30 on: July 25, 2016, 11:24:41 AM »

When I first started reading Beach Boy album reviews back in the 90s, or even books about the band, it seemed there is as little respect for Smiley Smile, Friends and Love You. It seems the appreciation for these 3 albums have significantly improved in the last 20 years. Has anyone else noticed this or is it just me?
COMMENT to Magic:  FYI check out the re-mastering of Friends at http://swdstudyvideos.com. I think you will be quite pleased at the rendition. ~swd

Thanks Stephen. I have always loved these albums. But love to hear different mixes and remastering so.
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"Over the years, I've been accused of not supporting our new music from this era (67-73) and just wanting to play our hits. That's complete b.s......I was also, as the front man, the one promoting these songs onstage and have the scars to show for it."
Mike Love autobiography (pg 242-243)
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« Reply #31 on: July 25, 2016, 06:52:35 PM »

deleted - see msg below.
« Last Edit: July 25, 2016, 07:24:45 PM by Debbie KL » Logged
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« Reply #32 on: July 25, 2016, 06:56:05 PM »

Stephen - how about the younger fans among us that have seen the music performed in concert.
The 2012 reunion was thrill to be sure (despite the absence of C and D).
Is the modern concert experience also less real because, presumably, the shows are all mixed through a digital console these days?

COMMENT to Sam:   Funny you should ask about that.  I wrote a rather long rant to Professor Conner after he and myself attended the last Mike & Bruce Beach Boy concert here where I live. Couldn’t find the email to quote, but here is the basics of what I wrote.

We had good seats, but about one-third way into the show I turned to Conner and said I didn’t like the sound. I told him I could not put my finger on what was wrong, but I thought the sound was off. The more I sat there listening, the worse it seemed to get. Again I turned to him saying, this is not right – it’s not them – this is not how Bruce or Mike sounded when I mixed them. It’s off base; it sounded artificial to me. Mike Conner, being much younger then myself thought it all sounded OK to him. Finally at half time I decided to vacate my seat (as I wasn’t enjoying the concert anyway) and go back to the console to see if I could figure out what was causing this weird sound.

It didn’t take me long to realize the entire console was digital. Not only was I hearing a computer representation of a live performance, the house engineer was missing cues as his head was buried in a maze of digital plug-in’s, tweaking one little thing after another, with this graph and that readout displayed on the computer screen. For all I know, there was pitch correction going on too, but for certain it was really over EQed and processed.

I stood behind the console for the rest of the show, watching cue after cue being late. The engineer hardly ever looked at the stage-action, but kept playing with the controls. It was all about the technology, not the music. And, of course it was. It was digital.  

When I mixed shows, of course it was all analog. What the audience heard was an amplified version of the actual energy being produced by the voices and instruments on stage. I used very little EQ, no limiting, and I watched the performers. Mixing was in real-time, no presets. The sound was real. There was a direct connection between the artist and the observer; organic, not synthetic. However, if you have grown up only hearing digital sound in reproduction and now so-called live performance, you have no idea what real sound is. This entire discussion will be theoretical. Most younger folks will have no idea what I’m talking about with no direct experience to fall back on.

If I had bought my tickets (they were comp from Bruce) I would have demanded a refund. When I go to a concert it is to hear the performers, not a computer recreation of the performers. I can play a CD at home to hear that. I remember discussing this in another thread where we said that in the future, holograms of The Beach Boys with computer generated sounds will be how our children will see these guys in concert. With one foot already in computer re-generation (sound) it’s only a matter of time before the visual aspect is computer re-generated. It’s already happening with Michael Jackson. I guess you must die before you become a performance hologram.

So to answer your question, it is LESS real. I doubt I’ll attend any more of these computer contrivances called concerts. It’s much more convenient to play a CD and it’s much more real to play a record.
 ~swd


Edited to include the post I was referencing - sorry.

Stephen.  One of my thrills in life was to watch you working the board in the studio and live.  We heard real, beautiful voices.  This is truly sad.
« Last Edit: July 25, 2016, 06:56:47 PM by Debbie KL » Logged
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« Reply #33 on: July 27, 2016, 08:16:04 PM »

I guess i can be considered a young fan too, being born in 2002. I agree with everything you said, pretty much everyone around me hates the album experience. They only like the hits. I always get slightly ticked off when an album cut is skipped.
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Jon G.
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« Reply #34 on: July 28, 2016, 07:20:38 AM »

I guess i can be considered a young fan too, being born in 2002. I agree with everything you said, pretty much everyone around me hates the album experience. They only like the hits. I always get slightly ticked off when an album cut is skipped.

It could also be an age thing. That younger fans like the hits and as we get older we start to appreciate deeper cuts. But it's cool that you are already listening to the game the songs at 13 or 14!
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"Over the years, I've been accused of not supporting our new music from this era (67-73) and just wanting to play our hits. That's complete b.s......I was also, as the front man, the one promoting these songs onstage and have the scars to show for it."
Mike Love autobiography (pg 242-243)
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« Reply #35 on: July 28, 2016, 07:51:06 AM »

I think all "new" listeners have a different experience simply because all of the music already exists. I can only imagine what it was like to go from Surfin' Safari to Surfer Girl to All Summer Long...Today...Pet Sounds...the anticipation of Smile...Friends...and on and on.  The anticipation of the next great leap forward.

I'm 39. I got into the group through an interest in Brian Wilson and my first love was his "golden period" where he was fully in control and creating these magical pop gems. Once I wade in, however, I began to explore their other periods and each album was a revelation the first time I heard it.

I do tend to jump around when listening today...but looking back...maybe I did have something similar to what a fan would have experienced when the music was just released. I just had the luxury of moving from one period to the next and then being able to listen to everything from that period all at once.
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« Reply #36 on: July 29, 2016, 09:44:42 AM »

When I first started reading Beach Boy album reviews back in the 90s, or even books about the band, it seemed there is as little respect for Smiley Smile, Friends and Love You. It seems the appreciation for these 3 albums have significantly improved in the last 20 years. Has anyone else noticed this or is it just me?
I agree. When I first started hearing about the Beach Boys as a serious band beyond the Full House and soundtrack to Sunkist soda commercials, it was always only about Pet Sounds.
I was so happy to discover Smile, then Friends, then Love You.  Funny, later I tracked back to Wild Honey
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« Reply #37 on: July 31, 2016, 08:12:43 AM »

Back in the day, when I bought a Beach Boys album, I would bring it home, claw it open and listen to it nearly non-stop until months later when the next album was released. I had to save my allowance for weeks and then walk to King’s Department Store in Methuen, Massachusetts to buy the albums.

Once I got my license, I was able to drive to Rainbow Records in nearby Salem, New Hampshire and pick up some of the ones that I had missed, along with some rarities. The dude running the shop was a Beach Boys fan and he would order some of the older albums for me, and I would wait patiently for them to arrive.  Of course, during that time I was listening to the latest album repeatedly and anxiously awaiting the next release.

Nowadays, listeners can download the entire Beach Boys catalog and listen to snippets to see if they like a song or not.  That is basically where my question stems.

In the current day and age it is so easy to cherry-pick songs and make your own playlists and such that you can skip past songs that do not care for, and they never have to be listened to again. When I was in my early teens and grabbed the Today! album for example, songs like Please Let Me Wonder, Kiss Me Baby, and In The Back of My Mind did not immediately appeal to me as much as Good To My Baby, Help Me Ronda and Dance, Dance, Dance but since it would be the only Beach Boys album I could get my hands on for months, I listened to both sides again and again.

I found that as I grew older, I came to love the songs that I knew by heart but did not appreciate when I was younger. Sometimes for example, you have to grow into the music and experience heartbreak, then a song will click and feel like it was written to describe your personal experiences. Brian did this like no other song writer. Had I skipped past them, I would have skipped past some beautiful songs with such exquisite harmonies that are my favorite Beach Boys songs today.

The only exception for me is Let Him Run Wild. I never cared for that song no matter how many times I played it. Not sure why but I do not like the instrumental track either. Reminds me of department store music.

Thanks for this post. I read it when you posted but wanted to think about it for awhile and see how others responded. We have a similar experience getting one LP at a time, digesting it whole, not skipping cuts, and being blown away by some odd track, or banter, while wondering what it was all about when taken as-a-whole work.  I would not trade that experience, albeit on a record player and not a big stereo.  Yes, the allowance or the baby-sitting dough.  Guess that small amount of disposable income was spent wisely for vinyl that served to enrich your life.  That small amount of money, could just as easily, have gone towards something different.  

And, I can get the whole download thing.  The first one I ever downloaded was Al's Postcard in the dead of a wicked-bad winter.  Hearing Carl's voice on Don't Fight the Sea still stopped my heart.  Maybe the voice of Carl, more than whether it was analog or digital.  Mr. Desper's words are not lost on me, having seen The Boys in the analog sound era, it was amazing.  Those big speakers with that bass, could almost make your heart pound or even restart your heart, were it to stop.  

It was a more interactive experience, having to get up, after 15 minutes for another 15 or so, to flip that LP over.  I do admit that my zunes, and iPhones are loaded with scrunched-up audio files for the car.  So I guess, you can't play LP's in the car and this is the next best alternative.  Having dealt with both, and having had to learn a new skillset to use a computer to add these files on a portable device, I can see the benefits of both worlds, but even now, just the sight of an LP with the larger-than-life artwork and liner notes, is still a heart-melter.  

Add Some really gets this whole linkage between the voyage and the music. And Emdeeh, thanks for those posts, as well.   Wink

But, ultimately I see the 60's/70's longtime fans are less likely to think of The Beach Boys as anything less than one dynamic.  And I like it that way. Almost like e pluribus unum.  "Out of many - one."  Love
« Last Edit: July 31, 2016, 08:14:48 AM by filledeplage » Logged
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