Monday, April 3, 2017

Good Vibrations- Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys in Critical Perspective by Peter Reum

Good Vibrations: Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys in Critical Perspective
Philip Lambert, Ed.
 by Peter Reum



Introduction

With the growing presence of American Popular Music as a research topic, and as the topic of a graduate or undergraduate course in many United States colleges and universities, it is a thrill for me to see serious musical analysis and history books by researchers in Music, 20th Century Culture, and also Music History. There are many music scholars and popular music authors working in these areas of research and scholarly music history.

They are writing about  a certain musical style (e.g. Blues), biographical articles and books about prominent musicians and record industry pioneers (e,g, Sam Phillips), or regions of North America, Europe, and other locations that have been hotbeds in the development of unique musical styles such as  (San Francisco Psychedelia), and so forth.
Certain universities have used their academic presses to underwrite more esoteric areas of music research or to bring awareness to readers of significant forces, musicians, musical styles, and regions. The University of Michigan Press has sponsored a topic that is neither esoteric or trivial with respect to popular music. They have published a group of books that treat popular music as seriously as jazz, blues, motion picture music, and Broadway plays and shows. As late as twenty years ago, probably less than 200 books had been devoted to pop music. Good Vibrations: Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys in Critical Perspective carries on a trend of seriously researched books that are footnoted, with proper credit given to the authors whose work is being used in music history and biography. In the Tracking Pop series, in addition to Good Vibrations, subjects of origins of hip hop, German Metal and Dance Music, and several more are available.


Good Vibrations: Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys In Critical Perspective
Philip Lambert - Editor
Published 2016



Inside the Music of Brian Wilson by Philip Lambert
Published 2007

Part One

The first three chapters that comprise formal musical topics are together under a large umbrella, yet would easily selected for a music scholarly journals focus upon different aspects of the structure of Beach Boys music. For example, how would a person who listens to music might intellectually internalize Brian Wilson's compositions. Then there is the process of how listeners emotionally connect with Brian's music, arrangements, and lyrics, and why Brian's life outside of music might be important in the subjective aspect of how his music transformed listeners. The third essay in this opening section of the book is written by Mr. Lambert himself. I found Mr. Lambert's opening essay to be a key to musical growth that Brian Wilson experienced through learning the possible juxtaposition of various chords, both major and minor. I especially appreciated Mr. Lambert including the lyrics to the section of whatever song he was addressing which enabled people like myself who know Brian's melodies well, but know the song being discussed through memorization of the melodic changes and lyrical content from literally thousands of plays of records, tapes, and cds.

Daniel Harrison's analysis of various sounds and spaces in numerous Brian Wilson songs is the second of the three essays in this first section of the book. Daniel enumerates and shows how even short stops (no pun intended) of a 16th of a note change the flavor and the commercial value of a given tune. The obvious sounds and stops are presented, but there are numerous breaks in Brian's songs. The most obvious of these which nearly everyone would know are numerous instrument and vocal stops in the single The Little Girl I Once Knew, the dogs and train passing at the end of Pet Sounds, and the chirping guitar birdlike sounds in Diamond Head. I found Mr. Harrison's insight into a subtle form of record production and songwriting an illuminating.

Kirk Curnett presents a personal history of how his view of Brian Wilson changed through the years. He documents the forces that may have shaped the lyrical aspect of his songs, then cogently analyzes the slow evolution of the public Brian Wilson in various books, articles, and television coverage of Brian from roughly the Capitol promotion magazines (1964-67), through the Jules Siegel's Cheetah magazine article which created the Smile fervor, through the video of Brian singing a section of Surfs Up in the 1967 David Oppenheim tv special. Next came Paul Williams and Crawdaddy trying to figure out why Smile was shelved which then moves into the influence of Rolling Stone from 1967 to 1971, especially Tom Nolan's extensive two part article in 1971. David Leaf is mentioned as a strong influence on public perception of Brian over against the other Beach Boys, especially Mike Love. Three elements of this article I found astute and insightful....first the interactions of Eugene Landy in Brian's life, and second, Garry Trudeau's masterful chronicle of Andy, sick with AIDS, living long enough to hear Pet Sounds in stereo, and finally David Leaf's interview with Paul McCartney, who cites Pet Sounds as a major influence on Sgt. Pepper, and says it is one of the most important albums ever record in Rock Music.

If these topics strike you as esoteric with respect to subject selection, I would caution you as reader to keep an open mind

Part Two

The second of three sections of this book addresses history regarding Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys. In the first of four essays in this section, Kier Knightley addresses some sociological aspects of the early career of The Beach Boys. The second essay by Ms. Jadey O' Regan discusses the early history of The Beach Boys, and attempts to construct a  model  of musical development that lays out the artistic periods the Beach Boys experienced in the Sixties. The third essay, by Dale Carter, is entitled The Undergrounding of Brian Wilson 1964-67. This piece addresses the growing musicianship of Brian Wilson as he makes contact with a number of people who were considered to be the cream of Los Angeles hipsters. The fourth essay, Good Reverberations, is Philip Lambert's second essay in this book.  He uses the song Good Vibrations to explore how this composition evolved through the process of adaptation of the song for live performance or was altered lyrically for inclusion on several occasions. An example of how this happens is the process of using a version that was recorded earlier that the edit that was used for release as a single. It follows the life of Good Vibrations, arguably Brian's most famous and successful composition, from its early development during Pet Sounds through the adaptation of the song for live performance by The Beach Boys, into its iconic status as a song in the Library of Congress's Register of American Recordings. Mr. Lambert also discusses several covers of Good Vibrations by various artists through the last fifty years.

Mr. Knightley's essay, entitled Summer of '64, places the fulcrum point of the evolution of Brian's songwriting and producing on The All Summer Long album. He takes the position that  there was no Rock Music Culture as of 1964, that its developments came later. Brian's essay on the back cover of All Summer Long mentions developing a feeling of sociological superiority, which Mr. Knightley deconstructs and interprets as the beginning of a Rock Music sensibility which is superior to ordinary "pop music." Mr. Knightley cites theory developed by David Riesman in 1950 which posits two types of music listeners. The first is the majority listener, and the second is the minority listener. The latter sits at the edge of new trends in popular music, with a somewhat hostile attitude toward common popular music. Mr. Knightley quotes Paul Williams in an essay defending the quality of music recorded by The Beach Boys after the Smile Sessions. Brian's music in 1964 "toed the nose" through the various elements of Southern California youth culture and was an incredible musical and lyrical snapshot of all the affluent and not so affluent youth of the Southland. Brian's unprecedented success, at least in Los Angeles Recording Studios, essentially moved the center of American Music Recording Culture from New York City to L.A. Not only was Brian's music popular in the United States, but all over the developed world.

Mr. Knightley seems to feel that the cover design of the All Summer Long album had subtle elements of Piet Mondrian's art. Personally, I think it was just another excremental Capitol album cover. The photos on the cover do show the group having fun "all summer long." Mr. Knightley goes on to address Brian and The Beach Boy's artistic expansion to movies and television. He mentions Karen from a television program that stiffed in 1964 and a tune entitled Things We Did Last Summer which was a prominent movie tune in a teenage film of the era. Having lived through those days of network tv and teen movies, I would say that Karen was a career appendix of a tune that did nothing for the career exposure of the Beach Boys, and Things We  Did Last Summer was in the vault and remained unreleased until The Beach Boys' 1993 Good Vibrations Boxed Set. I personally remember the incredible number of tv appearances they made on the most popular programs of that time, such as Red Skelton, Steve Allen, Ed Sullivan, Jack Benny (with Bob Hope), Kraft Music Hall, and most importantly Shindig. These were the shows that allowed exposure of the group to millions of households. The All Summer Long lp is mentioned by Mr. Knightley as having "no filler." Personally, there is no doubt in my mind that Carl's Big Chance was a filler track designed to get Carl some song royalties. Our Favorite Recording Sessions was clever, but again a track quickly cooked up to finish an album. Mr. Knightley's summary of Brian's place in the pantheon of musicians who changed American Music is well stated, and his essay is easily one of the more thought provoking pieces of writing about Brian and The Beach Boys in recent years.

The second essay in Section 2 is by Ms. Jadey O'Regan. In her chapter, she suggests a conceptual theme by identifying Surfin"Safari and the Surfin"USA Albums in the craftman category which include Surfer Girl, Little Deuce Coupe, Shut Down Volume 2, and All Summer Long. The Artist category includes Today, Summer Days, and Pet Sounds. Ms. O'Regan then provides what could be seen as a songwriting model which she uses to display the frequency of the types of song which are prevalent on each of the nine albums in the study. The chart in which she displays her results is a good analysis of the various song structures identified in her article.

Ms. O'Regan goes next to an interesting section which displays the use of songwriting structures that appear on each of the nine albums in this article. Finally, the lyrical content of each of the nine albums in this study is analyzed based upon the apprentice-craftsman-artist model introduced earlier in this article. A frequency analysis using a display called "wordle" is employed on three themes heard in Beach Boys albums from 1962-66. Quite candidly, the word frequency display results for songs in the surfing period are in the apprentice category. These results would be intuitively expected based upon the lyrical content upon reading the lyrics for Surfin' Safari and Surfin' USA. After exploring other lyrical themes (e.g. cars, girls, reflective songs) in the Craftsman and Artist levels, the article moves into the three levels for vocal performance. With regard to the use of falsetto vocals,  Ms. O'Regan seems to equate them with vocal sophistication. A chart shows that excluding the Surfin' Safari album, Brian's use of falsetto vocals was fairly constant through albums up to and including Pet Sounds, if a scatter plot were to be used to illustrate the high and emotional sounds of his falsetto. An informative appendix helps the reader answer any questions that might arise from reading the chapter.

The third article by Dale Carter is a very well researched narrative which is concerned with the period leading up to and including the period of time in which Brian and a group of friends of Van Dyke Parks introduced Brian to the underground scene in West LA and Santa Monica. High school friends of Brian's tried to keep in touch with Brian for the first five years after graduation. In interviews with three of them, the high school pals of Brian said all made the observation that Brian was different personality wise after he dropped acid and used marijuana. What was never discussed was Brian's growing use of a form of amphetamine called "cross tops" in order to maintain a schedule where his time was in demand nearly every day week after week, month after month.

Brian has told friends of mine that he was in a creative frenzy which he has indicated to mutual friends made him overtired and more susceptible to the nasty voice hallucinations which he feared. The sheer fatigue he felt was somewhat relieved by cannabis, but the creativity he had felt using cross tops turned into an inability to sleep and a form of paranoia that ensued which caused him to have a form of hypersensitivity, which caused friends to think that might be trying to sabotage his music.

As the article by Mr. Carter points out, Brian studied a number of new forms of spirituality that he or his new friends experimented with. As a friend of Brian from high school said, "the drive from West LA to Hawthorne might as well been one thousand miles."

This essay by Mr. Carter in twenty pages is tightly written and is the most succintly written summary of Smile and how the events surrounding its history came to pass that I have read for a long time.

The last article in this second part of this book is again by Philip Lambert. The original Good Vibrations single is one of the most amazing examples of using the studio as an instrument itself of that era. Of special note is the discussion of a plethora of cover versions by over 100 different artists.
There is a wonderful appendix to this article which lists over one hundred versions with dates listed. This is invaluable.

Mr. Lambert goes into detail in his description of Brian Wilson's mixdown of various segments of Good Vibrations into the classic single we all know. The results of over 50 hours of tape recorded in five separate studios are boiled down to a single 45 rpm 'A' side. Mr. Lambert goes on to outline how various versions by Brian evolved over time and were modified to meet the purpose needed. He goes on to show how his daughters changed the tune to sound plausible when sung from a female perspective in the group Wilson Philips.

In my years of collecting I came across dozens of covers of Good Vibrations from the sublime to the ridiculous. But....Mr. Lambert wins the gold medal for identifying over 100+ versions. Some of them are close versions, e.g. Todd. Rundgren. Some are in a foreign language, such as the Quebecois group Les Eccentrique. There are numerous imitations by other imitation or tribute groups, such as Papa Doo Run Run. Then there are the quasi symphonic versions, versions sung by chorale type groups and so forth. Some are just plain hilarious, such as Little Joe Shaver and the Devil Dog Band.

Mr. Lambert's work here is encyclopedic and instructive. For lifelong Brian Wilson/Beach Boys fans, this article takes us to a place where we decided to spring for a Good Vibrations cover version....only to find out what we had bought was a miserable piece of sh*t! And so it goes...and so it goes, and where it ends no one knows.

Part Three

The last section of this book centers around Brian Wilson's Smile Project. Andrew Flory's contribution, entitled Fandom and Ontology in Smile, centers around the impact of unofficial people and events which kept Smile alive for 37 years until Brian Wilson felt safe enough to take a look at his most imaginative and mysterious music.

The final chapter is by Larry Starr, and is a survey of Brian Wilson/Beach Boys music done after the shelving of Smile in 1967. Entitled A Listener's Smile, the essay asks many of the same questions that have been posed by Beach Boys fans, record companies, and curious fellow musicians over the 37 year span between shelving and revival of Smile.

A personal note--As some Brian Wilson and Beach Boys fans know, I have personal history with Smile going back decades. I need to mention this because early on in my Brian and Beach Boys history, I ceased being a person outside Smile, and became part of the story.

Beach Boys fans were quite insular when this story began. Brian was the recipient of a Derek Taylor publicity campaign when the Smile album was in development in 1966. Excitement grew on both sides of the Atlantic as various articles ran in music media. As Brian grew more involved in the entire Beach Boys scene, his attention was diverted from Smile. Already stressed from the praise of the Pet Sounds lp across the world, he tried to top Pet Sounds with Smile.....a difficult task at best. Good Vibrations was a great start and showed the world how his modular style of production could succeed, but Brian is one of those people who needs unqualified positive feedback around him, from which he catapults to the next level of amazing music.

When things began to unravel was when David Anderle told Brian that Capitol needed a single in December 1966. Work on Smile stopped cold, and Brian went to work on the single Brother Records planned to be the lead single, Heroes and Villains. Brian had numerous sessions through January and February 1967, and kept working on Heroes to the point of exhaustion. Recording, which had always been a positive experience and a tension reliever for Brian became onerous. Brian had no activity to replace making records as a positive compulsion. Soon, the Heroes and Villains single had to be set aside to deal with the Capitol Records lawsuit Brother Records had filed. Heroes, which Brian contemplated as a dazzling tour de force, became another unfinished task as February 1967 ended.

March 1967 was when Brian first set aside Smile. He had some film projects in mind he was planning, oversaw the lawsuit against Capitol, and as time passed, he became more and more rattled by some of the people in his Smile entourage. Van Dyke Parks, whose lyrics so eloquently complemented Brian's Smile music, was frustrated with some of the Beach Boys complaining about his lyrics and asking what they meant. He left in February, only to return in April to help with the newest planned single, Vegetables. In early May 1967, Brian recorded some music related to water, presumably for Smile's Elements Suite. Van Dyke Parks left again in late April, and signed a deal with Warner Records for solo albums. Without Van Dyke's able presence and willingness to help Brian defend Smile as a concept and Van's lyrics as being necessary for the project, Brian, finding that he had given his all for people who carped about his musical intuition, threw in the towel on Smile and had a breakdown of sorts that sidelined him.

The beautiful Smile music and lyrics were shelved. Brian, in a fragile state of mind took part of May to just rest and recover. When he met with the Beach Boys later in May, he told them that he could no longer produce the group by himself, and that if he were to record with them that the project replacing Smile would have to be low key and fun. Heroes and Villains was simplified, still clocking in at roughly 3 and a half minutes in length. In Tom Nolan's 1971 Rolling Stone article Terry Melcher said that Brian took the Heroes single to an LA radio station to give them the exclusive chance to premier the single, and the dj told Brian he couldn't play singles not on the approved for broadcast list. By the time the station manager screamed "put it on, you idiot!" the damage was done. It was the last excrement sandwich Brian had to swallow in a year of nothing but them being served.

Smiley Smile was completed in July 1967, and is still the first album recorded and completed using modular recording techniques. Pieces of Smile were used by The Beach Boys against Brian's wishes to help complete albums due at Capitol. The second half of 1967 and all of 1968 and 1969 were devoted to completing the Capitol Records contract. That was accomplished and the Beach Boys won their Capitol Records lawsuit, only to have their entire catalog deleted in 1971. 1972 brought a possible bonus of $50,000 from Reprise Records to The Beach Boys if Smile was presented completed. Carl Wilson and an engineer went through the shelved Smile tapes, and discovered that they had no way to finish it without Brian, who was struggling with voices in his head and trying to silence them with anything that altered his mind.

Fast forward to 1982, and while working with some authors on a book project that a Beach Boys discographer and I assisted, some folks inside the Beach Boys extended family proposed a tape trade by exchanging some unreleased songs for roughly 25 minutes of Smile music. The discographer sent me the cassette, which I listened to without bathing for a week (just kidding). It was in good but not great sound quality.  Some folks I thought I could trust were given a copy of the tape, and just to make things interesting, I put several different Smile soundalike tunes on their tapes. One schmoo was sent a copy of the tape with Here Come De Honeyman from Miles Davis and Bill Evans Porgy and Bess album labelled air "Air" from the Elements. In the interim, about 30 more minutes of Smile had been found by other Beach Boys collectors and sent to myself and a few other Beach Boys wingnuts deserving copies. We NEVER intended to have this material put on a bootleg and went to great lengths to prevent that eventuality. The schmoo who got the Porgy and Bess "Air" track pressed vinyl copies of about 35 minutes of Smile and was vilified in the tape community for his greed and stupidity.

As time went by, more and more Smile surfaced from crazy places, and the little cassette community had more Smile to listen to. Little did we know that a person working on a Beach Boys documentary had dubbed every bit of unreleased Beach Boys music he could find, and somehow gave that material to some Europeans who did a bootleg series called Sea of Tunes. Perfect quality recordings of all kinds of Beach Boys material surfaced, and diehard Beach Boys fans heard this stuff for the first time. Because the Smile material had surfaced originally in piecemeal fashion, each person with the various cassettes before Sea of Tunes emerged could put together their own track lineup in excellent quality sound. There was also a Japanese bootleg that offered a few tracks not otherwise available.

The reaction in the musician community was nothing short of spectacular. Bands listened to the Smile material and were thrilled and awed by the imaginative and no holds barred manner Brian Wilson gave his muse full freedom and recorded the most imaginative and original music ever recorded. There are too many to name...but a friend of mine who knew Fleet Foxes well said that Smile inspired them to cut their own revolutionary music.

My friend David was doing the notes for the Capitol 2fers in the early Nineties and asked me to contribute some facts for the booklets accompanying them. Later, he did the amazing notes for the Good Vibrations 1993 Capitol boxed set. The set included some 30+ minutes of Smile music, and was heralded as one of the best boxed sets ever done.

In roughly twelve years, we had gone from 25 minutes of Smile music to 6 unofficial hours in excellent sound quality AND more importantly, the first official release of Smile music done with Brian Wilson's approval. The respect and adulation the Good Vibrations set's Smile music received showed Brian that his most personal and creative music DID receive a tremendously positive response, despite Brian's fears that Smile would be rejected.

In 1995, Van Dyke Parks asked Brian to sing on a song called Orange Crate Art that he had written with Brian doing vocals in mind. After that studio date went well, Van Dyke asked Brian to sing lead vocals on ten additional tunes for the album, also entitled Orange Crate Art.  As the album was generally well received, some pain from the Smile album sessions was relieved.

As time went on, the young musicians who loved Smile would come up to Brian and tell him how much they loved Smile, and tell him that he should put it together. After Carl Wilson's sad demise in 1997, Brian began to consider playing live himself. He played a longer type of set with his newly assembled touring band. He released a live double cd set, and played the entire Pet Sounds album live to rapturous acclaim. His reception at Royal Festival Hall in London moved him deeply. He vowed to come back at "the right time."

In 2003, Brian announced dramatically that he and his band would premiere Smile in London's Royal Festival Hall in February 2004. With the performance a year away, Brian, with Darian Sahanaja identified crucial Smile segments. I spoke via email with Van Dyke Parks and asked after his health. He assured me that he was in good health. I inquired if Brian had gotten in touch with him about Smile. He indicated that he hadn't. Not wanting to. appear nosy, I left it there. About a week later, word came through some friends that Brian had called and asked Van Dyke to work with him.

As time marched on, I was asked to assist with research on a film being shot concerning Smile. I eventually flew to London with my friend Dave. We helped where we could, and attended all of the shows. The film was excellent.

In 2005 I drove to Eugene, Oregon to see Smile one last time. My dear friend of 30 years, Bob Hanes, and his wife and I drove to Portland and got there early enough to catch a short show with Brian and a few band members for a Portland radio station. Brian said hello to both of us. We were happy that he remembered us. The show that evening was incredible.

Things settled down for several years. In early 2011, I made original Smile artwork available to Capitol. It turned out that they showed it to Brian and his wife to prove the art they had in their own files dated to 1966. I was asked to provide photos for the Capitol Smile boxed set slated for release that year. I was also asked to write an essay for the deluxe boxed set book. My long 45 year association with Smile ended with the Smile boxed set. It was Brian's triumph. The deluxe 5 cd box won the Grammy for best historical release of 2011.....and Smile and the wonderful work Brian did was vindicated.  The second article in the last section of Good Vibrations by Larry Starr. He traces the history of the Smile tapes from the early work on Good Vibrations through the cannibal type use of the Smile material by The Beach Boys from 1967 through the Surfs Up album in 1971. Each of these uses of the Smile tapes to fill out various albums bothered Brian. Brian considered the Smile tapes to be some of his best work. To have the group use the Smile material after some members of the group dissed it when it was being recorded felt like the ultimate betrayal. Brian eventually vindicated himself and his instincts with Brian Wilson Presents Smile, voted by several publications as the album of the year for 2005. The video presentation of the performance in Los Angeles showed a happy Brian who loved the way his band performed with him as a tight unit.

The Beautiful Dreamer documentary fearlessly followed Brian through the months he spent wrestling with the idea of exposing himself and his highly personal music to public opinion. The rapidly moving emotions Brian felt were there for all to see. The adulation was there on film as well. In the end, Smile was a performance piece in three movements...not a Beach Boys album. Mr. Starr's observations echo many of my personal feelings regarding Smile. Now it belongs to the future as generations newly discover the dazzling beauty of Brian Wilson's most personal work....the music the angels gave him, as a close friend of Brian's learned from Brian himself.

Copyright 2017 by Peter Reum -- All Rights Reserved












































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