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Post by filledeplage on Jan 14, 2019 11:49:47 GMT -5
When I started getting a little more deeply into music around freshman year/8th grade, I noticed that a good deal of musicians/bands I was looking into had cited The Beach Boys/Brian Wilson as an influence. I remember listening to Pet Sounds and Smile around that time and really enjoying them but I didn't go much deeper than that. For most of high school, I'd once and a while listen to pet sounds or something but that was it. Then, around 2 years ago in the summer was really when it all blew up. I had a terrible depression that summer, and I was working a crummy job and I was having all sorts of issues. One night alone in my room I was feeling more down than I had been in a long time, and something inside me just told me to throw on pet sounds. I did. I cried my eyes out by the end. That listening session of pet sounds truly did change my life, I felt brians music touch me extremely deep in my soul and it was really profound. I basically had a spiritual experience and The Beach Boys has been in my tippy top of favorite bands and brian wilson in tippy top favorite composers/artists. And here i am! That is the power of Pet Sounds...it has the ability to speak to people...in a safe, non-invasive way. I think it is the great humanity and universality of PS that has reached so many people and defined the music as greater than fun-in-the-sun, racing cars and being an eternal teenager. It is a great gift.
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Post by g00dvibrations on Jan 27, 2019 17:16:48 GMT -5
I think the initial step is from BioShock Infinite. For those unfamiliar, you are walking along in this shiny new world at the start of the game and stumble across a barbershop quartet singing the song, and I just stopped and listened and thought "I like that song" and googled it and found it was The Beach Boys. This would have been May 2014 I think.
So the next time I saw a best of in a charity shop, I picked it up (Summer Dreams - the 28 track one covering the 60s and California Dreamin'). And I listened to that a bit and that was that. At some point in the next year and a half I picked up the Smiley Smile/Wild Honey twofer (again, charity shop) - I liked Wild Honey but Smiley Smile was a very WTF first Beach Boys album to hear. Picked up Pet Sounds at some point and Brian Wilson Presents Smile. Neither of which grabbed me very much to be honest.
Then it would have been about this time three years ago, end of January exams in my third year of university, and I was just sitting around playing the xbox and somehow ended up with Pet Sounds Live on Youtube. And I was like what this is amazing, how did I never notice this before. And then I followed the link through to Smile live and ditto. So I listened to them daily for the rest of the week (except for the day when I had to go to an interview somewhere, but I remember listening to the studio version of that while waiting for a train in London and suddenly feeling like I understood it more now I'd heard the live one).
Anyway, from there I started buying more albums, went and saw Brian and Al at the Palladium (it was year 1 of the last Pet Sounds shows), etc.
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kirkk
Dude/Dudette
Posts: 74
Likes: 84
Favorite Album: Pet Sounds, SMiLE, Sunflower... but I could go on and on...
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Post by kirkk on Jan 28, 2019 7:38:08 GMT -5
This seemed like a good place to make a first post to the board!
I was born in 1983, The Beach Boys’ music was around but, as a young kid, I wasn’t much of a fan, really despising the likes of “Barbara Ann”. At 10 I discovered the Beatles and that was my real musical awakening. I harbored a bit of a grudge against The Beach Boys, just feeling like the early stuff was corny and silly.
But when the Beatles Anthology came out, or around that time, I kept hearing from Paul McCartney about Pet Sounds. It seemed like every time I turned around I was reading or hearing a reference to it. My mom had 20 Good Vibrations, so I decided to give it a try. None of it did much for me until I hit the material from 1966 - “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”, “God Only Knows”, and “Good Vibrations.” Those three songs were so good that I decided to pick up Pet Sounds (from BMG music service, if anyone remembers that mail order system!)
I was 13, an 8th grader, a bit shy, and not great with girls. It was kind of a perfect storm. I’d sit on the bus, day after day, listening to Pet Sounds. Each day one song or another would jump out at me. After a few weeks, I was hooked. Realizing how much I liked the 1966 material, I decided to see what else came out around that time, which lead to me to the legend of SMiLE.
At that time, I think it would’ve been Anne Wallace’s mix I stumbled onto first(I at least remember her mix of Surf’s Up), in those early dial-up internet days. I was a freshman in high school by this point, so around 1997? I was hooked all over again. I got Look Listen Vibrate SMiLE and began tracking down bootlegs. The music lived up to the hype. I became active in the early fan communities like SMiLE Research Labs and The SMiLE Shop, and spent part of my first summer job as a web designer making a CD booklet for my homemade copy of SMiLE, so I could use the company’s color laser printer.
At that point, I also decided to get the 30 Years of Good Vibrations boxed set, figuring it’d have everything I needed Beach Boys-wise. I thought I’d enjoy the first two discs, then it’d be downhill from there. From what I’d been lead to believe, Brian was the driving force, so surely once he stepped away, there’d be nothing of note. Hilarious, right?
As it turned out, it was the third disc, covering Wild Honey through Surf’s Up, that I dug the most, but I liked pretty much all of the 4th disc as well. Dennis’s material in particular really grabbed me. That was when I knew the jig was up. I tracked down all the post-20/20 albums on vinyl, as they were easier to find than the CDs (which were long out of print at that point). For the rest of my life, it’d be the Beatles and The Beach Boys at the top of my list (if asked to choose which is better, I always maintain that the Beatles were certainly more consistent, but they didn’t reach the highs that the best of the Boys’ material does). In high school I proselytized for The Beach Boys, recommending Pet Sound and SMiLE to everyone. I remember playing a copy of The Cocaine Sessions with “Oh Lord” while working on the school paper, utterly confusing the staff.
In 2000, my parents drove then-17-year-old me and a friend to Chicago to catch Brian on his first Pet Sounds tour. They dropped us off at the theater at noon. We hung out outside and, being the big nerd I am, I recognized the various band members/entourage as they arrived. I remember Darian complimented me on my SMiLE shirt as he entered the theater. At another point, I looked down the street and saw David Leaf, Jeff Foskett, and Brian. I went up to David Leaf and asked if it’d be okay to talk to Brian. He seemed bemused and said to go ahead. So there we were, a couple of 17 year-olds meeting Brian Wilson. I’d brought a vinyl copy of Love You for him to sign. Brian didn’t say much, but it was a thrill just the same. Even better, we ended up befriending the head security guard at the venue who let us hang out backstage for the soundcheck. Then he found us during the show and took us down to a couple of open seats a few rows from the stage, dead center, which were unoccupied. To top it off, when he show ended, he told us to wait behind and we got to meet the band. David Leaf recognized us after the show (there weren’t a lot of teenagers there I guess!) and asked if we’d enjoyed it. We got pictures with him but were too star-struck (and polite, not wanting to bug anyone too much) to get pictures with Brian or the band. If I hadn’t already been an obsessive, that experience probably would’ve done it. I still have my program from that tour signed by the band, as well as a set list and some other backstage ephemera. Cherished possessions, all!
I sometimes go long periods without listening to The Beach Boys, but every time I return, I’m amazed all over again. The new copyright sets have done that for me. It’s hard to believe one group could make so much amazing music.
Anywho, I wrote WAYYYY too much, sorry folks!
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Departed
Former Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2019 7:49:39 GMT -5
This seemed like a good place to make a first post to the board! Anywho, I wrote WAYYYY too much, sorry folks! Not at all, kk. All the best posts here are long ones. Please be as prolific as you like (I'll overlook that remark about "Barbara Ann" ). And of course, welcome!
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Post by John Manning on Jan 28, 2019 11:39:36 GMT -5
Yes indeed, welcome kirkk!
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Post by The Cap'n on Jan 28, 2019 13:23:25 GMT -5
I'm afraid to tell the story again. After four or five boards' worth of tellings, I'm afraid a) my memories are mutating the story, and b) people are sick to death of hearing it. (Though if the latter were true, maybe the former would be helpful? New every time...)
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Post by catbirdman on Jan 28, 2019 14:36:11 GMT -5
In summer 1994, I had been hanging around with some friends who played in a free jazz band. They had a running gig at a Chicago comedy club, performing during the pre-show period when people were arriving and taking their seats. These were pretty much jazz people, experimental, "out" music type people. One night after their show we were hanging out at Denny's or some equivalent, and the guitarist started talking about how he had been listening to the Beach Boys. The other people gently razzed him about it, but you could tell that they too acknowledged there were some redeeming qualities to the Beach Boys that I hadn't previously been aware of. Apparently they evolved beyond the surf stuff I had always associated them with, and for a brief spell had been recording music that might even be as adventurous as, gasp, the Beatles. That was the rumor anyway.
I was intrigued enough to find out if it could be true, so I checked out the Good Vibrations: 30 Years of the Beach Boys box set from the public library. It was the perfect introduction.
I was mainly listening for innovation in production and sound. I found all of that, immediately and powerfully, in the Smile music on Disc 2 of the box set. I very quickly became obsessed with that period, and it remains my favorite period to this day. But the true breakthrough took place when I worked backwards, and fell utterly in love with the early stuff. Many of the songs I had heard for years, but I never really listened. I allowed them to have full power over me, and completely gave in. The simple, direct joy they conveyed - these songs were so successful in their aim. As an amateur musician, I knew enough to realize that they weren't all as simple as they sounded, especially the vocal arrangements. This has remained one of my favorite attributes of Brian's music: it's more complex than it sounds.
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Post by Mikie on Jan 28, 2019 14:51:11 GMT -5
I'm afraid to tell the story again. After four or five boards' worth of tellings, I'm afraid a) my memories are mutating the story, and b) people are sick to death of hearing it. (Though if the latter were true, maybe the former would be helpful? New every time...) No No No No! Tell the story again. Please! And embellish the hell out of it if you want. Nobody'll know.
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Post by The Cap'n on Jan 28, 2019 14:51:11 GMT -5
But the true breakthrough took place when I worked backwards, and fell utterly in love with the early stuff. Many of the songs I had heard for years, but I never really listened. I allowed them to have full power over me, and completely gave in. The simple, direct joy they conveyed - these songs were so successful in their aim. I really relate to that. I, too, went from basically Pet Sounds and Smile-era outwards, both forward and backward. And that earlier music that I'd all but written off (and sometimes actively mocked) gradually seemed brilliant. Which apparently the rest of the world had known for 30 years or so at that point.
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Post by Silken on Jan 31, 2019 15:23:09 GMT -5
You might have read part of my story in PSF; here's a revised and extended version: Pre-preface 1992: My dad bought the Wilson Phillips self-titled album. I asked him why he bought an album by unknown people. He said: "because they are the daughters of ? Wilson of the ? and ? Philips of the ?" (For years I've remembered that conversation but I could never remember the names he mentioned!). I had no idea who he was talking about but apparently these girls were as talented as their famous (not to me, of course) fathers. Why my dad didn't buy a BB album or a M's&P's album instead still remains a mistery. I never listened to that album but I did read the CD booklet. I recently was at my dad's house and looked for the CD; I remember having read those words but now I know who the people "Carnie thanks" and "Wendy thanks" are! Preface 2012: I read about Pet Sounds being one of the greatest albums ever made and I was really curious because to me the Beach Boys were a band that did silly songs about the summer (I couldn't even name one of their songs but that was the idea I had in my mind). So when I listened to Pet Sounds I was pleasantly surprised! But I only liked about half of the songs ("Caroline, no" was one of them, I don't remember the others) and after a couple of weeks I stopped listening. However, I kept thinking that I should learn more about the BBs, but I never did. Until three years later. The story 2015: I heard someone on the radio talking about "Love & Mercy". I have a file where I keep book, movie and music recommendations, so I wrote down "Love & Mercy (Brian Wilson biopic)". I don't know why I put that because I don't think I knew who Brian Wilson was. Anyway, I loved the movie (I cried with the scenes where they record Pet Sounds) and after that I wanted to know everything about them. I read every Wikipedia article and then started listening to their music. I found out that they sounded great not only in the studio but also live. I wanted to become their fan but I wasn't sure if it was worth it (?). I kept on listening, mainly to their earlier period, and I was like "c'mon guys, I know you can do better than this"(?). Until I heard "Here comes the night", and I was "Yes!! This is what I've been looking for! I am a fan!" TL;DR I fell in love with them after watching "Love & Mercy".
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Post by geminitactics on Feb 2, 2019 19:10:31 GMT -5
Everyone has such good stories on here so I'm afraid mine won't be too exciting, I'm still a baby fan, considering how recently I delved deep into the Beach Boys' story.
I only knew Beach Boys music from 'oldies' radio and liked the Pet Sounds songs, didn't like the car/surf stuff so much. The most I knew about Brian Wilson was that he lay in bed for years playing Phil Spector's "Be My Baby".
In 2014 I helped a professor friend put together a music appreciation seminar focusing on the Beatles (I had been a big Beatles fan since junior high). In breaking down Sgt. Pepper, I believe we talked about twinning the piano and harpsichord sound in Fixing a Hole. I knew it was a technique Paul McCartney picked up from Pet Sounds, and I did some background research on the different ways Brian Wilson and Paul McCartney were responding to each other's music in the mid 60s. That was the first time I listened extensively to Pet Sounds, and fell in love with it. It really does have that 'quality' of love and compassion that comes through in the music; it's really magical.
Still, I didn't get around to watching "Love and Mercy" until this past autumn. Afterwards, I went back to watch the film of the "Good Vibrations" sessions, and the 1966 clip of Brian playing "Surf's Up". Something about those two videos made things click in my head, and I started listening to the Smile Sessions every day. I saw Brian perform soon after (just coincidentally happened to be playing near me) and though it was very hard to watch for obvious reasons, it was also a very profound experience.
Since then I've been tumbling further and further down the rabbit hole, reading and listening to everything I can get my hands on. I'm currently going through Dennis Wilson's work, and it's blowing my mind as well. It's crazy how much wonderful music there is and how little it's known by the general public. I'm in my forties and have been listening to sixties music all my life and I'd never heard "Heroes and Villains" until this past October. It's been an education.
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