Brian Wilson Songwriter DVD

[jeffcdo]

Found this link on the blue/black board, has this been discussed here?  Thoughts?

http://mvdb2b.com/b2b/s/BrianWilsonSongwriter19621969/SIDVD561

[The Heartical Don]

Never seen it before, cheers for posting. I think hope messrs. Doe and Ames Carlin will chime in with their boundless knowledge.

[The Heartical Don]

Amazon lists its release date as Nov 23, 2010.

Yummy.

[Rocker]

That sounds fascinating ! Hope we'll get more infos soon !

[Surfing Moose]

A "must have", can't wait, Xmas is saved 

[The Shift]

I see it's labelled "SEXY INTELLECTUAL" ... well count me in!

[Chris Brown]

Looks very cool indeed...it's about time I added another Beach Boys DVD to my colllection!

[rab2591]

What a great time to be a Beach Boys fan! Can't wait to see it!

[XY]

Is this an 'official' product with new interviews or just another cheap 2 DVD set?
Sounds really good. Can't wait if it's worth something.

[punkinhead]

anyone wonder why the title stops at 69? I'm sure there won't another volume to cover early 70s or mid 70s. Is it just perhaps the Capitol Years? If it's one of the typical dvds, I'm surprised they didn't use 62-67 (ending right after Good Vibrations).

It will certainly be entertaining for a documentary that might spend more than  5 minutes discussing Smiley-Wild Honey-Friends-20/20-Breakaway.

Any speculation of the 'rare' concert footage? prolly just same old stuff on other dvds, I'd be shocked if there were new stuff. Maybe a video of Good Vibrations (live in Hawaii in 67) with audio from 'live in London'?    It would be cool to have complete footage of the Boys performing on various tv shows (68/69) but then again, it'd be minus Brian, and it is about his songwriting.

[Andrew G. Doe]

I've checked out the MVD homepage, then looked at some amazon user reviews of their rock/pop product. Um... it all somewhat reminds me of something I got involved with a few years ago (The Beach Boys - Music In Review, which was a rubbish 2DVD set, although the booklet giving the once-over of their albums 1962-1973 was pretty damn good...  ), so I'm not doing backflips down the hallway. Would love to be proven wrong, mind.

[Paulos]

I've got that DVD set you mentioned, it is indeed rubbish but it was a Beach Boys product so I had to buy it. What was your involvement in the project, you allude to the booklet but it doesn't seem like your writing style? Oh, and just who the hell is Graham McTavish?!

[ukulelejesus]

the trick is just to obsess over the bridge to be My baby until every perfect permutation of it comes to you.

[Andrew G. Doe]

I've got that DVD set you mentioned, it is indeed rubbish but it was a Beach Boys product so I had to buy it. What was your involvement in the project, you allude to the booklet but it doesn't seem like your writing style? Oh, and just who the hell is Graham McTavish?!

To clarify - I did the booklet for the reissue, in the style of the ComGuide, so chances are you've got the original, entirely crap, version. 

[Paulos]

The version I have has the booklet only covering the Capitol era and is by a guy called Steven Rosen who seems to think that Surfin USA still warrants a 'C Berry' only songwriting credit! Also, just noticed that the front cover of the DVD states that 1961-1973 is covered, but as mentioned only 1962-1969 are covered, god know what version I've ended up with!

[brother john]

Why stop at 1969? Brian didn't. Many of his greatest moments occurred after 1969, though admittedly they were spread thinly.

[Andrew G. Doe]

The version I have has the booklet only covering the Capitol era and is by a guy called Steven Rosen who seems to think that Surfin USA still warrants a 'C Berry' only songwriting credit! Also, just noticed that the front cover of the DVD states that 1961-1973 is covered, but as mentioned only 1962-1969 are covered, god know what version I've ended up with!

I'll dig out my revised (= entirely re-written) booklet and zap it your way. Have to be a Word.doc, sorry.

As a taster, here's the Sunflower entry (please bear in mind this was written a few years ago):

Sunflower
Released August 1970 - #151

Once the Capitol contract was over, it took the band some time to find another home. The problem was twofold: in late 1969, The Beach Boys were viewed as either terminally unhip, commercially washed up, or both, while Brian Wilson was regarded by the music industry as a potential liability. It took then-manager Nick Grillo many months to close a deal with Reprise, the Warner Brothers subsidiary (a pact which included the reactivation of Brother Records), and even then, there was a proviso – Brian Wilson would be actively involved in the new album.

In the event, Brian did contribute significantly to an album that was, if anything, more of a collection of odd tracks than 20/20. As released, Sunflower was the second attempt at delivering an album Reprise found acceptable (the initial offering, Add Some Music, was rejected for the perceived lack of a strong single) and comprised tracks recorded as long ago as January 1969, plus another Smile cameo. This said, Sunflower is widely held to be the best “group” album of the band’s career, with all members contributing towards the final, and impressive, result. The material and performances alike are strong, and The Beach Boys never sounded better, thanks to Steve Desper’s warm yet detailed production (utilising for the first time a 16-track machine installed at Brian Wilson’s home studio). The one thing the album wasn’t was successful: for whatever reason the public turned their back on it and it failed to crack the Top 150 of the US LP chart, easily the worst chart placing for a Beach Boys studio album to date.

Once again, Dennis Wilson showed his creative star to be still in the ascendant. If the pseudo-funk of ‘Got To Know The Woman’ dipped a toe over the line marked “parody”, the balance was more than redressed by his other three compositions. Although unsuccessful as a single, ‘Slip On Through’ was infinitely more convincing: the instrumental track throbs, Brian Wilson’s falsetto soars and behind one of Dennis’s best lead vocals, the rest of the band weave a complex vocal tapestry. Better still was ‘It’s About Time’, a no-nonsense rocker with younger brother Carl effortlessly finding the groove and never leaving it, but best of all, and very probably Dennis’s crowning moment, was ‘Forever’, an achingly lovely ballad featuring some of the best group vocals on the LP and a truly heartfelt lyric.

Bruce Johnston’s offerings confirmed the musical path indicated by his instrumental on 20/20. Lush, more pop than rock and flawlessly executed, both ‘Deirdre’ and ‘Tears In The Morning’ adhered to the overall sound of the album, yet still managed to seem slightly detached despite sterling backing from the rest of the band. Also sung by Bruce, Alan Jardine’s main offering, ‘At My Window’, borrowed heavily from The Kingston Trio’s ‘Raspberries, Strawberries’ but managed to provide two surprises in Brian Wilson’s stilted spoken French part and a charming choral tag that would be reprised on the following album.

Brian Wilson may not have been too obviously audible on Sunflower, but showed a solid compositional presence on five of the dozen tracks. As with Dennis Wilson, if ‘Our Sweet Love’. Carl Wilson’s sole (co-)composer credit, meandered amiably if to no great intent, at least the journey was a pleasant one, and his remaining contributions ranged from excellent to outstanding. ‘Add Some Music To Your Day’, a precious ode to the universality of music, saw the lead vocal handed from member to member with effortless grace, underpinned with a backing vocals swirl of considerable intricacy. “Nice” wasn’t the word. For Brian Wilson and Mike Love’s ‘All I Wanna Do’, engineer Steve Desper created an amazing aural landscape of time-delayed vocals, outrageous echo and fathomless reverb, thus transforming a simple love song into a near-mystical experience. Factor in one of Love’s better lyrics and vocals, and Brian’s synth washes and slabs, and you’ve got something very special. ‘This Whole World’, a solo Brian Wilson composition, was something else too, a sparkling jewel that took less than two minutes to traverse more key changes than most bands manage in a career, draped with a backing vocal pad of cosmic unity and a crystalline Carl Wilson lead vocal. 118 seconds and not a single one of them wasted or misused.

And then… there’s ‘Cool, Cool Water’, an impressionistic, languid and undeniably evocative mood piece of great charm and quality. Originally recorded during the Wild Honey sessions, the piece owed its genesis to a riff from ‘I Love To Say Da Da’, the water section of “The Elements” from Smile. While the second section was cut just before Sunflower was released, and the first section is very likely the Wild Honey recording, the bridging vocal chant section (sometimes referred to as “the thunderstorm”) is an actual Smile era recording, overlaid with a synthesiser wash. The very mundane nature of the second part’s lyric, replete with synthesised water drops, engages: truly, music that makes you smile.

[Mike's Beard]

Wonderfully written AGD. Definitely not the version I owned which had garbage liner notes.

[punkinhead]

Why stop at 1969? Brian didn't. Many of his greatest moments occurred after 1969, though admittedly they were spread thinly.

I agree, but you know how 'typical' documentaries are, they love mixing up the facts...basically making the 70s his resting time until 76 for the Brian's back tour....An American Band does it (I think) and Endless Harmony kind of hints at it, but sometimes, we just don't have enough time for our fav eras in the BB career.

[the captain]

It's possible that the creators of this DVD 1) are going to go into enough detail that they simply thought it would not work to try to smash a few more decades into a single product; 2) plan a second release with later music (as the "Under Review" or whatever it's called did with Queen and Leonard Cohen); 3) figured the hits more or less stopped in the '60s and for some reason were good enough to give those less-hit-ful (tm) last couple years. Or 4) I don't know.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Got back a couple of responses from people mentioned in the publicity blurb, and I'm feeling somewhat better about it now. Not back flips good, but... better. 

[Mike's Beard]

Can you blag a free copy Andrew, then you can tell us all if it's worth shelling out for! 

[Andrew G. Doe]

That's a damn fine notion. 

[JaredLekites]

The fact that it's centered around Brian rather than The Beach Boys gives me hope that it won't be just a bunch of stock footage of surfers with a nameless collection of talking heads giving their misguided commentary.

[donald]

Will I be able to pop into Borders and buy this on impulse, as I like to do, when I feel like it, any day shortly after release, as is my habit since the 60's?


In other words, is this product old fart user friendly?  Or must one jump through cyber hoops to get it?