New Brian music this Friday ?

[juggler]

The location in the photo is The Ebell of Los Angeles, a women's club off Wilshire Blvd in L.A.  The venue is used for a lot of weddings and similar events.

[Rocker]

REVIEW and Q&A: Brian Wilson – At My Piano

https://esquarterly.com/2021/10/19/review-and-qa-brian-wilson-at-my-piano/?fbclid=IwAR2ggYkfAtLLLDj4kiqgWH9EyAnCtoZ53kaSmNQYeJb1sKP9A7Pv6OAizLg

[MyDrKnowsItKeepsMeCalm]

REVIEW and Q&A: Brian Wilson – At My Piano

https://esquarterly.com/2021/10/19/review-and-qa-brian-wilson-at-my-piano/?fbclid=IwAR2ggYkfAtLLLDj4kiqgWH9EyAnCtoZ53kaSmNQYeJb1sKP9A7Pv6OAizLg

Great article and interview! Thanks!


ESQ: Did you find that you needed to revisit any piano charts, or did you record the album by memory?

Brian: I went strictly by memory and did not need to see charts or anything else. These are my songs. They are in my brain forever.

[mtaber]

Thanks for posting that, Rocker!

[send me a picture and i'll tell you]

Here’s something I thought of when GOK came out last month, thinking about why this album might be happening right now.

Brian was pretty good at supporting himself on the piano in one-off performances through the late 80s and early to mid 90s. Here’s when the problem started: I remember a performance of your imagination on David Letterman in 1998 in which Brian started playing during the first verse, got kind of locked up on the first chord, and either his mike was faded down quickly or he stopped playing for the rest of the song. (In 94 or 95 on the same show, he did a great job with Do It Again.)

Next: 1999. He pounded the same chord on the piano in his very first solo concerts for the entire show without moving his hands (I mean this literally: footage shows his hands locked on A major for 2 hours) and was of course not plugged in or was turned completely down. After that he stopped playing altogether during shows. A couple of years later, I think, he started playing Surfer Girl audibly. By 2010 he was noodling on the keyboard through at least half of the show. I think he has may have tapered off again in the last couple of years, but still plays much more than he used to.

Related: we know that his voice went through several stages since the late 60s, getting to its weirdest sound in the early 90s. By 1998 he was suddenly singing pretty but sounded kind of tired. He sounded slurry for a few years (sometimes attributed to changes in his meds), but made a huge improvement which started after SMiLE got out of his system. Lucky Old Sun was much better than prior albums vocally. I think the Disney album was his very strongest album vocally. He was 100% free of anything that had ever made his voice sound weird by then. Since then he’s done some weird speak-singing during the Pet Sounds shows, but other than Run, James, Run (which was pretty good, although it sounded like he was singing gently), we don’t really know how he sounds in the studio now.

So why this recording, and why now? I think Brian is probably keenly aware that people see his limitations at the keyboard, and he has seldom if ever played very exposed and intricate parts on his albums in quite a long time. I feel like he’s trying to prove himself as a keyboardist by putting himself out there as a soloist, however much editing/overdubbing is involved. I think this is therapeutic for him, and perhaps when he wraps up his career he wants to leave no unresolved issues.

[Emdeeh]

URL for the ESQ review without Facebook's tracking garbage:

https://esquarterly.com/2021/10/19/review-and-qa-brian-wilson-at-my-piano/

[RiC]

Here’s something I thought of when GOK came out last month, thinking about why this album might be happening right now.

Brian was pretty good at supporting himself on the piano in one-off performances through the late 80s and early to mid 90s. Here’s when the problem started: I remember a performance of your imagination on David Letterman in 1998 in which Brian started playing during the first verse, got kind of locked up on the first chord, and either his mike was faded down quickly or he stopped playing for the rest of the song. (In 94 or 95 on the same show, he did a great job with Do It Again.)

Next: 1999. He pounded the same chord on the piano in his very first solo concerts for the entire show without moving his hands (I mean this literally: footage shows his hands locked on A major for 2 hours) and was of course not plugged in or was turned completely down. After that he stopped playing altogether during shows. A couple of years later, I think, he started playing Surfer Girl audibly. By 2010 he was noodling on the keyboard through at least half of the show. I think he has may have tapered off again in the last couple of years, but still plays much more than he used to.

Related: we know that his voice went through several stages since the late 60s, getting to its weirdest sound in the early 90s. By 1998 he was suddenly singing pretty but sounded kind of tired. He sounded slurry for a few years (sometimes attributed to changes in his meds), but made a huge improvement which started after SMiLE got out of his system. Lucky Old Sun was much better than prior albums vocally. I think the Disney album was his very strongest album vocally. He was 100% free of anything that had ever made his voice sound weird by then. Since then he’s done some weird speak-singing during the Pet Sounds shows, but other than Run, James, Run (which was pretty good, although it sounded like he was singing gently), we don’t really know how he sounds in the studio now.

So why this recording, and why now? I think Brian is probably keenly aware that people see his limitations at the keyboard, and he has seldom if ever played very exposed and intricate parts on his albums in quite a long time. I feel like he’s trying to prove himself as a keyboardist by putting himself out there as a soloist, however much editing/overdubbing is involved. I think this is therapeutic for him, and perhaps when he wraps up his career he wants to leave no unresolved issues.

Great post, I agree. I think his limited playing in the late 90's was propably attached to his stage fright quite strongly. I've been lately watching live clips of Brian's shows during the last 4 years or so, and it seems that when he is in good mood he always plays with the piano during the breaks between songs, and sometimes even forgets to sing his parts when he concentrates on the keys.

[HeyJude]

Amazon is now showing a December 10th release for the CD, which was previously due November 19. Not sure if this is just Amazon changing dates back and forth, which happens sometimes, or if this means the album has been delayed to December.

I know other physical media releases (among tons of products) are seeing distribution/shipping problems in terms of making it to retail on time, or in large enough numbers.

Amazon still shows the digital release for this as November 19.

I guess we'll probably find out soon if any or all iterations are going to see any delay.

[juggler]

The other "volume" music retailers in the U.S., Barnes & Noble and Target, are also showing 12/10 as the release date of the CD.

[MyDrKnowsItKeepsMeCalm]

Perhaps they are trying to time it as a holiday release?

[rab2591]

Odd that they keep releasing singles for it then if they're pushing the date back further.

Good Vibrations was released today. I am hoping they will release a more obscure song (like You Still Believe In Me, or Friends) in the coming weeks - something that isn't a classic/hit. Those are the songs I'm looking forward to the most.

Good Vibrations was a very pleasant listen, though. I am a big fan of Mike Godette's Beach Boys guitar covers, and these remind me a bit of those - very sparse mostly straight forward covers, but they are very relaxing and satisfying to listen to.

[Rocker]

BrianWilson At My Piano: "Good Vibrations"


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOyr3HRaqac

[HeyJude]

Perhaps they are trying to time it as a holiday release?

Due to all sorts of shipping/distribution/fulfillment delays all around the globe on all sorts of goods, from essential goods to the most non-essential, a number of physical media releases have either been pushed back later, or are essentially getting "soft" releases where small amounts are getting distributed but people are having trouble getting copies. That sort of soft release is okay for releasing something like a 4K disc reissue of an old movie or something. But with music releases, they always want to push for a solid first-week, so I would imagine that's what might be happening with the Brian album.

These days, November 19th is more than close enough to the holiday season, so there wouldn't be a need to push it even later other than logistical/distribution type issues I would imagine.

[HeyJude]

Brian's social media mentioned in passing an hour ago that the release date is November 19th, so who knows at this stage.

[juggler]

BrianWilson At My Piano: "Good Vibrations"


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOyr3HRaqac

Brilliant.  Love this rendition.

I get the feeling that I'll be playing this collection in my car for a long, long time.

[Emdeeh]

If there is a delay, it would most likely be for pressing the vinyl.

[HeyJude]

If there is a delay, it could be a manufacturing issue. There have been other cases (such as McCartney's album last year) where they hold up all formats to press vinyl.

But there are also shipping/distribution/logistics issues going on for already-manufactured product throughout all industries. And as I mentioned, in some cases they're fine just feeding the product to retailers at a snail's pace, however they can. But new music releases are more sensitive to first week sales numbers, so it would make sense they'd push all releases off until everything can get where it needs to go. This is especially true for music, where they could obviously just drop streaming and digital purchase copies whenever they want. They could release this thing digitally today if they wanted.

[Pablo.]

Which each new single, this project has grown on me. Specially with GV, which was the backdrop of a wreck of a performance by Brian at SNL in 76. But what Brian has done now (and has been doing on the other songs), is a piano reduction of the whole arrangment overdubbing himself (for example, reduction of symphonies usually need two piano players). And having not liked the sound of the piano on GOK (too bright), hearing this now after WIBN I think that Brian has been tinkering with the timbrical qualities of the piano to emulate other keyboards, without resorting to synths or electronic keyboards. If i let my imagination run wild, I associate this approach of Brian with the "prepared piano" of John Cage, but by other means (all done in the miking, recording, mixing stage).

[rab2591]

'Don't Worry Baby' was released today (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt08M-AMIwo). It's amazing how beautiful this song is played in a higher octave (not sure if my musical terminology is correct there) - the melody lines are played lower than the chords (though the bass notes are still very prominent) which creates a really cool dynamic that you don't hear in the original song.

Basically, I'm glad to hear this variation in these covers - it still very much sounds like the original, but it's also different.

I can't wait for next week!

[pixletwin]

I really do love this project from Brian.

So what is the word on how it is being recorded?

Is it Brian playing multiple tracks on the piano? Sounds like more music than 2 hands can handle at once to my ears.

[Wirestone]

Pretty sure they are all at least overdubbed once — one the chords / accompanying figures and the other the “lead voice.”

[juggler]

Yes, everything (or at least everything we've heard) is overdubbed.

From Brian's Q&A about the album with Endless Summer Quarterly:

ESQ: At times, there are piano overdubs. Did Darian record any parts?

Brian: Nobody played piano but me and I layered each piano part in the same way I always make records.

And Brian's point about it being the way he "always makes records"  is pretty much true.  Practically nothing in his oeuvre is "recorded live in a single take"-type stuff.  And, frankly, an all-piano album of Brian trying to play all the vocal and instrumental parts of these songs simultaneously in a single take would likely be unreleasable.   You'd have to have Van Cliburn-like piano skills to play all the parts of, say, Good Vibrations in a single take.

[pixletwin]

That's a cool detail from ESQ. Thank you both for responding.

[rab2591]

I keep listening to 'Don't Worry Baby' - all these covers show that even at their simplest, broken down forms, these songs still have the ability to move you.

[Pablo.]

MOJO review. I expected more from Sylvie Simmons i.e. recognizing overdubs.


Brian Wilson
★★★★
At My Piano
DECCA. CD/DL/LP
A man, a piano and 15 instrumental
versions of his songs.
THIS IS Wilson at his piano – alone,
no backing band, overdubs or even
vocals – playing selections from his
songbook in what sounds like an
empty room. Remarkably intimate
and raw, this must have been how
Tony Asher and Van Dyke Parks
heard songs like God Only Knows
and Surf’s Up before writing those
lyrics. The majority – and those that
work best in this solitary setting
– are bittersweet, melancholy songs.
In My Room and The Warmth Of
The Sun, with their left-hand
arpeggios, sound simultaneously
childlike and sophisticated, while
California Girls sounds a bit
karaoke. There’s a couple of
unexpected tracks, including
Sketches Of Smile. Why did
he make this album?
“Honestly, the piano and
the music I create on it has
probably saved my
life.” One for the
fans delighted he’s
still here and fascinated by how such
classic songs started out.
Sylvie Simmons