Nice review. Got the memories flowing ..62-66 in San Francisco ; Beatles, Stones or Beach Boys? Beatles on a date, Stones with the guys drinking beer .Headed for the sun in a convertible Corvair , only the Beach boys. Thanks Steve.
I grew up in SoCal, b. 1954, the middle of the Boom. LOVED The Beach Boys… my first albums were theirs: Surfin USA, Surfing Safari, Shut Down vol 1… . Hated the Beatles cuz they took the spotlight from much better musicians, songwriters & harmonizes - all because they were foreigners with weird hair. . Oh, well. So sad what Brian did to himself. And what Dennis did to himself… Good review. Thanks for sharing it now.
The only time I saw The Beach Boys was at a free Fourth of July concert in ‘83 or ‘84. My tastes ran more to the Jam and the Clash back then, but even my performatively jaded self couldn’t help but acknowledge how good they were. One doesn’t know what one has ‘til it’s gone.
I saw'em once in Atlanta. My date's first name was April. We sat three rows back from the stage. Glenn Campbell was playing bass. It was o.k. but I missed seeing Brian. So did April.
I saw them in 2007 I think. Brian Wilson kind of clapped and sang through it all with an extremely tight backing band watching him carefully to keep in sync.
I’m glad I saw him and glad he made some money in his later years.
In DC? I was there on the Washington Mall as a young teen. They seemed to me to be one thousand years old / music for my parents. The first live show to which I bought tickets at around that age was General Public, English New Wave. Pop music moved much faster then.
It's funny to think now that when I saw The Beach Boys and thought of them as benevolent dinosaurs they were only about 15 years or 20 years off the height of their fame and influence.
Pop music ca. 2005-2010 hardly seems different from pop music ca. 2025. I don't think this is just me being a curmudgeonly 54, fashion is the same: hugely different 60s to 80s, slightly different 20 years ago to now.
In the Reagan administration, wacky Int. Sec. James Watt didn't want a rock band attracting the wrong element for the 4th of July in '83, so he got Wayne Newton. The BB had played in '80 and '81, so it caused a big flap.
No, it was Philadelphia. They were supposed to play on the Art Museum steps, but thunderstorms forced them to play at the Mann music center. They did seem like an act from another age, as I suppose they were. Music for the Happy Days set. But we all knew every song and there was a great, happy energy there that day.
I was front row for General Public at the Tower Theater during their first tour. I have a few years on you, but you know what’s up!
I just could never understand the appeal of the Beach Boys.
Maybe it’s because I’m not a Californian.
Or maybe because the mid-60s Spector/Beach Boys sound just never gave birth to anything else.
There have been occasional echoes of the Beach Boys down the years - the Wondermints, Divine Comedy - but after 1967 rock turned permanently harder along the lines of McCartney’s Helter Skelter or Lennon’s Don’t Let Me Down. Pop music ever since too has the driving beat that the Beach Boys lacked.
I was 3 years old in 1966. By the time I became a teenager and discovered rock & roll I was way too wired and obsessed with sex and death to appreciate the Beach Boys. I remember being surprised when l learned they were a 60s band not a 50s band. Sloop John B was my favorite song of theirs. Their other hits are beautiful and well crafted Americana, but again no way they could compete with the high-T Rolling Stones, The Who and Led Zep.
The older I get the more I appreciate The Beatles. Their range, poetry, craftsmanship, and emotional depth are astounding. I'm speaking.
as someone who was way more into the Stones, Led Zep, Black Sabbath, The Who, Hendrix at the time.
Norwegian Wood is just silly whimsy: acoustic, light lyrics, a sedate andante, and the chord progression just ROCKS.
Ringo's percussion on the Yellow Submarine album is a master class of minimalism and timely application of forte. Speaking of, my favorite Ringo quote: "Charlie Watts is the only drummer who leaves out more than I do."
Yesterday makes me tear up just playing it in my head. It's like a Rudyard Kipling poem.
There's an interview of Paul McCartney somewhere out there talking about Hey Jude. He tells the interviewer he's at the piano running through the lyrics and gets to the, "The movement you need is on your shoulder" part, and he's turning around and waving his hand at John and saying don't worry I'm going to clean that up. (John of course always accusing Paul of being superficial.) And John puts his hand on his arm and says emphatically, "No, it's perfect!" Paul tears up while relating this which I found touching.
All this, and I don't even read music or play an instrument.
I loved the early Beach Boys. I had the Endless Summer double album courtesy of the Columbia Record club in sixth grade. It was a wonder catchy intro to rock. I'm not great with genres but I don't think it was a musical dead end. The Ramones cribbed from the Beach Boys, didn't they, just played faster.
Mentally, I thought Brian Wilson died about 1980. He was under the influence of some guru, an ugly crater-faced dude. The Beach Boys were easy listening, surf music being popular until the Beatles and the British Invasion toppled the American music scene. The Beach boys rebounded well after the British Invasion unlike acts like Frankie Valli, the Kingston Trio, Bobby Vinton, Paul Anka, the Everly Brothers, Connie Francis, Lesley Gore, the Shangri-Las and Bobby Darin. The Wrecking Crew did most of the studio work for the Beach Boys; the Beach Boys did the singing. Wilson made it to 82, pretty good for a man with a whole bunch of problems, physical and mental.
Frankie Valli did have longevity, I'll grant you, even though I didn't like any of the songs you mentioned. One I very much liked, partly due to the film "The Deer Hunter", was "I Can't Take My Eyes Off You." It fit very well into that film.
"The Deer Hunter" is a great film and probably the roulette scene is the most famous. The most important part of the film is the marriage scene at the beginning. It shows the viewers how much the three Clairton boys lost by fighting in Vietnam. The world of 1966 may not have been perfect but it was a pretty decent world.
According to Wikipedia it's 1968, not that that invalidates your point. As for me, I always thought of it as being a 70s movie rather than a 60s movie, although it was released before my time.
I believe "The Deer Hunter" came out in 1978. It was the first big roles for Meryl Streep and Christopher Walken. It would be the last film for John Cazale, Meryl Streep's boyfriend, who died before the film was released. Cazale was dying of cancer and his parts were filmed first.
Geez, what's with this semi-black big afro headed boy as the romantic male lead in these videos--pushing more miscegenation. Yuck. What is this woke Beach Boys 2020?
A big part of the appeal of the Beach Boys is the whole bushy blond hairdo wholesome Californian (American) normality. This is annoyingly and obtrusively not that.
I so hate modern videos they make out of old songs. "God Only Knows" doesn't need a video for Christ's sake, it's such a great song, gives me reverential pause every time I hear it and I'm an atheist. Including the half-breed ginger as an example of the All-American teen is just another way for the modern, younger set to piss all over everything that was once good.
Just read some NYT piece decrying all these evil racists in Northern Ireland who don't appreciate gypsies molesting their daughters.
Apparently the one obvious solution here--British elites actually doing what their citizens want and *not* flooding their communities with foreigners--is just too outrageous to even consider. An offense against "Our Democracy". Bad Vibrations.
Brian often seemed unable to articulate his creative process, but I found this quote interesting, from the book "The Beach Boys By The Beach Boys."
Brian Wilson:"I learned by watching engineers and watching people produce, but I think I learned the most from listening to Phil Spector’s records. … From listening, I learned how to conceive of the framework of a song, to think in terms of production rather than just songwriting. I also learned to use echo properly on the instruments to make them ‘swim’—it’s called the swim and echo, and that’s called the Wall of Sound. I was unable to really think as a producer until I got familiar with Spector’s work, then I started to see the point of making records. You’re in the business to create a record. So you design the experience to be a record rather than just a song. It’s great to take a good song and work with it, but it’s that record that counts. It’s the record that people listen to.”
A friend told me you can judge an innovator by how soon his innovation or discovery came after all the necessary pieces were in place. I don't know if this idea was original to him but it makes a lot of sense to me. Studio equipment grew rapidly in sophistication after the introduction outside Nazi Germany) of magnetic tape in the 1950s. As they added more tracks it was only natural that engineers and producers would mess with them, build on them. I concede the that Beach Boys and Beatles had innovation studio albums that were influential and led to further innovation.
I just can't think of them as anywhere near alone as proponents of "studio as instrument". In fact, I'd say (and have) that the main common feature of that era (which I do not agree peaked at 1967) was studio production. Most of the music was not technically rock and roll. All those different genres and influences mixed together? The only common thread was that the studio recordings were art unto themselves. Many groups struggled to reproduce the studio magic on stage.
others could love them as if the song had been written for them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPJO_9a01ps
lorrie morgan
This piece is definitely one to include in your upcoming volume 'Reviewing' !
Movie reviews bring out Mr. Sailer's best literary efforts, in my opinion.
Nice review. Got the memories flowing ..62-66 in San Francisco ; Beatles, Stones or Beach Boys? Beatles on a date, Stones with the guys drinking beer .Headed for the sun in a convertible Corvair , only the Beach boys. Thanks Steve.
"...every now and then we hear our song, we've been havin' fun all summer long..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbibCxf1OAM It's my fave Beach Boys album: All Summer Long. Adios bro Brian. C-U when I get there. Rock on.
I grew up in SoCal, b. 1954, the middle of the Boom. LOVED The Beach Boys… my first albums were theirs: Surfin USA, Surfing Safari, Shut Down vol 1… . Hated the Beatles cuz they took the spotlight from much better musicians, songwriters & harmonizes - all because they were foreigners with weird hair. . Oh, well. So sad what Brian did to himself. And what Dennis did to himself… Good review. Thanks for sharing it now.
The only time I saw The Beach Boys was at a free Fourth of July concert in ‘83 or ‘84. My tastes ran more to the Jam and the Clash back then, but even my performatively jaded self couldn’t help but acknowledge how good they were. One doesn’t know what one has ‘til it’s gone.
I saw'em once in Atlanta. My date's first name was April. We sat three rows back from the stage. Glenn Campbell was playing bass. It was o.k. but I missed seeing Brian. So did April.
I saw them in 2007 I think. Brian Wilson kind of clapped and sang through it all with an extremely tight backing band watching him carefully to keep in sync.
I’m glad I saw him and glad he made some money in his later years.
In DC? I was there on the Washington Mall as a young teen. They seemed to me to be one thousand years old / music for my parents. The first live show to which I bought tickets at around that age was General Public, English New Wave. Pop music moved much faster then.
It's funny to think now that when I saw The Beach Boys and thought of them as benevolent dinosaurs they were only about 15 years or 20 years off the height of their fame and influence.
Pop music ca. 2005-2010 hardly seems different from pop music ca. 2025. I don't think this is just me being a curmudgeonly 54, fashion is the same: hugely different 60s to 80s, slightly different 20 years ago to now.
In the Reagan administration, wacky Int. Sec. James Watt didn't want a rock band attracting the wrong element for the 4th of July in '83, so he got Wayne Newton. The BB had played in '80 and '81, so it caused a big flap.
https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/entertainment/music/how-rock-music-was-banned-then-brought-back-to-the-national-mall-the-beach-boys-james-watt-ronald-reagan/77-439ad6a5-1266-4529-8915-e15f6910ee7a
No, it was Philadelphia. They were supposed to play on the Art Museum steps, but thunderstorms forced them to play at the Mann music center. They did seem like an act from another age, as I suppose they were. Music for the Happy Days set. But we all knew every song and there was a great, happy energy there that day.
I was front row for General Public at the Tower Theater during their first tour. I have a few years on you, but you know what’s up!
I just could never understand the appeal of the Beach Boys.
Maybe it’s because I’m not a Californian.
Or maybe because the mid-60s Spector/Beach Boys sound just never gave birth to anything else.
There have been occasional echoes of the Beach Boys down the years - the Wondermints, Divine Comedy - but after 1967 rock turned permanently harder along the lines of McCartney’s Helter Skelter or Lennon’s Don’t Let Me Down. Pop music ever since too has the driving beat that the Beach Boys lacked.
I feel the same way about the Beatles. I've decided that there's something there that I just don't get.
Same here. I've never grokked them. Paul McCartney is a good singer, but John Lennon's voice irritates me tremendously.
I get the Beach Boys, though -- amazing stuff.
I was 3 years old in 1966. By the time I became a teenager and discovered rock & roll I was way too wired and obsessed with sex and death to appreciate the Beach Boys. I remember being surprised when l learned they were a 60s band not a 50s band. Sloop John B was my favorite song of theirs. Their other hits are beautiful and well crafted Americana, but again no way they could compete with the high-T Rolling Stones, The Who and Led Zep.
The older I get the more I appreciate The Beatles. Their range, poetry, craftsmanship, and emotional depth are astounding. I'm speaking.
as someone who was way more into the Stones, Led Zep, Black Sabbath, The Who, Hendrix at the time.
Norwegian Wood is just silly whimsy: acoustic, light lyrics, a sedate andante, and the chord progression just ROCKS.
Ringo's percussion on the Yellow Submarine album is a master class of minimalism and timely application of forte. Speaking of, my favorite Ringo quote: "Charlie Watts is the only drummer who leaves out more than I do."
Yesterday makes me tear up just playing it in my head. It's like a Rudyard Kipling poem.
There's an interview of Paul McCartney somewhere out there talking about Hey Jude. He tells the interviewer he's at the piano running through the lyrics and gets to the, "The movement you need is on your shoulder" part, and he's turning around and waving his hand at John and saying don't worry I'm going to clean that up. (John of course always accusing Paul of being superficial.) And John puts his hand on his arm and says emphatically, "No, it's perfect!" Paul tears up while relating this which I found touching.
All this, and I don't even read music or play an instrument.
I loved the early Beach Boys. I had the Endless Summer double album courtesy of the Columbia Record club in sixth grade. It was a wonder catchy intro to rock. I'm not great with genres but I don't think it was a musical dead end. The Ramones cribbed from the Beach Boys, didn't they, just played faster.
Mentally, I thought Brian Wilson died about 1980. He was under the influence of some guru, an ugly crater-faced dude. The Beach Boys were easy listening, surf music being popular until the Beatles and the British Invasion toppled the American music scene. The Beach boys rebounded well after the British Invasion unlike acts like Frankie Valli, the Kingston Trio, Bobby Vinton, Paul Anka, the Everly Brothers, Connie Francis, Lesley Gore, the Shangri-Las and Bobby Darin. The Wrecking Crew did most of the studio work for the Beach Boys; the Beach Boys did the singing. Wilson made it to 82, pretty good for a man with a whole bunch of problems, physical and mental.
Frankie Valli? No. You have forgotten: My Eyes Adored You (1974), Swearin' to God (1975), Grease (1978).
Frankie Valli did have longevity, I'll grant you, even though I didn't like any of the songs you mentioned. One I very much liked, partly due to the film "The Deer Hunter", was "I Can't Take My Eyes Off You." It fit very well into that film.
Yes, that's probably the best scene in the movie, if not the most memorable.
As a Jersey Guy, Valli resonates with me much more than the Beach Boys ever did; I always considered the latter to be meh
"The Deer Hunter" is a great film and probably the roulette scene is the most famous. The most important part of the film is the marriage scene at the beginning. It shows the viewers how much the three Clairton boys lost by fighting in Vietnam. The world of 1966 may not have been perfect but it was a pretty decent world.
According to Wikipedia it's 1968, not that that invalidates your point. As for me, I always thought of it as being a 70s movie rather than a 60s movie, although it was released before my time.
I believe "The Deer Hunter" came out in 1978. It was the first big roles for Meryl Streep and Christopher Walken. It would be the last film for John Cazale, Meryl Streep's boyfriend, who died before the film was released. Cazale was dying of cancer and his parts were filmed first.
Ashes to ashes, sand to sand.
Remember o Man that thou art dust, and to dust thou shall return.
Geez, what's with this semi-black big afro headed boy as the romantic male lead in these videos--pushing more miscegenation. Yuck. What is this woke Beach Boys 2020?
A big part of the appeal of the Beach Boys is the whole bushy blond hairdo wholesome Californian (American) normality. This is annoyingly and obtrusively not that.
I so hate modern videos they make out of old songs. "God Only Knows" doesn't need a video for Christ's sake, it's such a great song, gives me reverential pause every time I hear it and I'm an atheist. Including the half-breed ginger as an example of the All-American teen is just another way for the modern, younger set to piss all over everything that was once good.
> But then I don’t like Brown’s “every instrument a drum” <
Including Tammi Terrel.
Just read some NYT piece decrying all these evil racists in Northern Ireland who don't appreciate gypsies molesting their daughters.
Apparently the one obvious solution here--British elites actually doing what their citizens want and *not* flooding their communities with foreigners--is just too outrageous to even consider. An offense against "Our Democracy". Bad Vibrations.
Another studio rat who went nuts is Kanye "The Phil Spector of Rap"
Brian often seemed unable to articulate his creative process, but I found this quote interesting, from the book "The Beach Boys By The Beach Boys."
Brian Wilson:"I learned by watching engineers and watching people produce, but I think I learned the most from listening to Phil Spector’s records. … From listening, I learned how to conceive of the framework of a song, to think in terms of production rather than just songwriting. I also learned to use echo properly on the instruments to make them ‘swim’—it’s called the swim and echo, and that’s called the Wall of Sound. I was unable to really think as a producer until I got familiar with Spector’s work, then I started to see the point of making records. You’re in the business to create a record. So you design the experience to be a record rather than just a song. It’s great to take a good song and work with it, but it’s that record that counts. It’s the record that people listen to.”
A friend told me you can judge an innovator by how soon his innovation or discovery came after all the necessary pieces were in place. I don't know if this idea was original to him but it makes a lot of sense to me. Studio equipment grew rapidly in sophistication after the introduction outside Nazi Germany) of magnetic tape in the 1950s. As they added more tracks it was only natural that engineers and producers would mess with them, build on them. I concede the that Beach Boys and Beatles had innovation studio albums that were influential and led to further innovation.
I just can't think of them as anywhere near alone as proponents of "studio as instrument". In fact, I'd say (and have) that the main common feature of that era (which I do not agree peaked at 1967) was studio production. Most of the music was not technically rock and roll. All those different genres and influences mixed together? The only common thread was that the studio recordings were art unto themselves. Many groups struggled to reproduce the studio magic on stage.