The Warmth of the Sum- Sum- Summertime

A new Beach Boys compilation? It must be summer!

This is one of those things I started writing several times, and alluded to the last time I did manage a post here, two weeks ago. (Two weeks!?) My initial reaction to the new Beach Boys comp, The Warmth of the Sun, was cynical (as evidenced by my tag line, in italics up there).

But it seems like it was just the other day that I bought the previous one hits comp, (Sounds of Summer), and that was followed, like, a week later by the hits as selected by Brian Wilson. Of course, they weren't that recent, nor in that order; the BW classics selection was released in 2002, the "very best" the next year. But that was only three years after two volumes of hits.

As someone commented to me, elsewhere, when I made this same point, what matter is whether or not the new CD is any good on its own merits. And it is. It's similar to some BB mixes I've made, myself. And it's wonderful to see them back on the charts. I only wish it were for something new, and not something many of us have, many times over.

The following review of the CD appeared, in somewhat different form, on Blogcritics [blogcritics.org].

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In all that's been said and written about this year's fortieth anniversary of 1967's Summer of Love, not much of it has mentioned the Beach Boys. Perennial bridesmaids to Capitol Record's top act, "America's Band" seemed poised in '67 to take their rightful place alongside the Beatles in being embraced as the most innovative and influential acts in pop music.

Then, in all-too-typical Beach Boys' tradition, they were scuttled by a series of bad decisions and unfortunate circumstances. The band backed out of the headlining spot at the Monterey Pop Festival that June — fearing they'd been seen as "too square" by the hip, new youth culture — and they failed to complete and release Smile, meant to be the band's ultimate artistic expression. As many superior records as they made subsequently, what the Beach Boys accomplished after the summer of 1967, compared to their potential, has been something like what Smiley Smile was, compared to what Smile could have been.

(The completed Smile released by Brian Wilson a couple years ago is fantastic, not to mention, miraculous. It's not the same record as the original would've been, however, and we'll never know how its completion and release in 1967 might have changed things for the band.)

The twin setbacks of '67 have also been compounded by one of the most confusing catalogs in rock and roll, especially since the advent of CDs. A simple suggestion that Good Vibrations is a good starting point* in an essential Beach Boys collection begs the question of where to start. Well, do you mean the box set, greatest hits volume one, or volume two? Given that the Beach Boys are artists who coined a signature catch phrase, Capitol has been unable to slap it on a ridiculous number of products through the years.

So it was refreshing to see this summer's new Beach Boys compilation, The Warmth of the Sun, with title and content that seem to signal a welcome new approach to the band's Capitol recordings. Intended as a companion to the 2003 greatest hits CD, The Sounds of Summer, Warmth is a 27-track sampler of singles and album tracks that provide ample evidence of the band's versatility.

Some of their most breath-taking melodies and harmonies were heard in songs that never saw radio play; including "Kiss Me Baby" and the original version of "Forever." Both tracks are included here, and should bring them new respect. Cherry-picking the best tracks from the uneven Surf's Up album — representing some of the finest songwriting by Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson, and Bruce Johnston — may help place "Til I Die," "Feel Flows," and "Disney Girls" among the Beach Boys' finest moments. Even the more-familiar tracks, such as "All Summer Long" and "Wendy," are spruced up with new stereo mixes that make them sound fresh.

The hook for this collection is that the band members themselves selected the tracks; the only possible explanation for the order of them on the CD is that they sequenced it, too. Some of the transitions — from a hardly-essential cover of "Why Do Fools Fall In Love" to the sublime "Surf's Up," for instance — are as startling as a plunge into the ocean in winter.

There is also the question of who this eclectic batch of songs was intended to appeal to. Longtime fans will already have every track (albeit with a few getting upgraded mixes here), while casual listeners won't see many smash hits to reel them in. Warmth of the Sun is essential only to supplement the previous hits disc or to partially replace some of the old collections.

And so, while this is a splendid CD on its own merits, unless it is a step toward upgrading and simplifying the Beach Boys catalog, it can become just another random repackaging of songs that have been compiled to death. Hopefully, Warmth of the Sun is a sign that Capitol is finally giving the Beach Boys the treatment they deserve.

[The whole Warmth of the Sun experience is even more enjoyable alongside a terrific podcast series posted on beachboyswarmth.blogspot.com, featuring interviews with all the surviving Beach Boys, minus David Marks. Brian Wilson sounds animated, lucid, and more expansive than seems possible; Mike Love is surprisingly gracious and honest; and Bruce Johnson's impression of his boss is hysterical. A wonderful companion to the CD.]

* Addendumb: Recently I had occasion to return to the Good Vibrations box set, while putting together a Beach Boys/Brian Wilson "indoctrination kit" for a friend. It had been years since I'd played the box set versions of that music, and boy, do those discs sound atrocious. Like, shockingly bad. Flat, dull, muffled-- any of the labels for lousy CDs apply here.

So, how 'bout it, Capitol? Isn't it time that, rather than another hits set or arbitrarily-assembled collection, you release a decent-sounding Beach Boys box set?

. . . there's nothing Bright about it . . .

To the disappointment of my vast readership, I won't have time for my usual two-thousand-word drool today. Only for a few hundred.
To my disappointment (and this is essentially saying the same thing as the beginning of that first sentence, sadly), they won't be about my planned topic.

I do have to comment, however, on the accusation by a couple former Rubinoos that Avril Lavigne plagiarized her song, "Girlfriend," from their 1979 one, "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend." Unlike most of these kinds of accusations, I've actually heard of the accusers. And after hearing clips of both songs (via TMZ.com), I say the 'noos have a slam-dunk.

Avril's song isn't similar, or derivative. It IS that other song!

Back in the 1970s, I read that some calculations based on all possible variables indicated then that there were only a few thousand original songs that hadn't yet been written. I guess the key to a semblance of originality nowadays would have to start with avoiding the identical rhythm, progression, and most of the lyrical hook of an existing song.

Now if Avril wants to do something truly edgy and nervy, she'll plagiarize George Harrison's "This Song."

This Ain't the Summer of Love

This Ain't the Summer of Love by Blue Oyster Cult rocks me to my soul, and has never been more appropriate than it is right now.
Just sayin' . . .

Blue Oyster Cult is one of a very few bands I saw in concert, back in The Day (and when I want to feel geologically ancient, I remind myself this was in THE LAST CENTURY!), that I would go see again. Or could, for that matter.
There's been sooooo much written and said about 1967 and that year's music, I couldn't help thinking how much popular music has stagnated since then.
For an idea of how monumental and pivotal 1967 was, in pop music alone, take a look at the Summer of Love issue of Rolling Stone and its list of "40 Essential Albums" from that year.
Debuts from Procol Harum, Moby Grape, and the Doors (who managed two album releases that year). The best studio albums by Cream and the Who; some of the best music produced by Buffalo Springfield, the Kinks, the Moody Blues, and Pink Floyd. The Byrds album from that year is not their finest--they were without Gene Clark, the best singer and songwriter ever in the band. But it's the Byrds! How inferior can it be?
Definitive soul music from James Brown, Otis Redding and Carla Thomas, and the under-appreciated Howard Tate. Six sides--that is, the majority--of the essential Jimi Hendrix studio recordings.
An album by Love that belongs up with the best of the decade. Two U.S. albums from the Stones, a couple (of highly variable quality) from the Beach Boys, two of Jefferson Airplane's best.
And 1967 was the last year the Beatles released more than one album. Just think about Sgt. Pepper's and Magical Mystery Tour both issued, fresh and new, within one year.

The stars have not aligned such since, and likely never will. I realize any comparison of ANY year since, with the unique circumstances of the mid-60s that led to the singular achievements in rock and pop, would be ludicrous.
And it would just sound reverse-ageist for me to try to make a case for that 40-year-old music being better than what's new today, not that those arguments ever convince anyone, anyway.

Not only does new popular music suffer by comparison, as I indicated above, not many acts I'm interested in are touring. Or can.
I don't have to go further that the B's to list a lot of bands I'd love to see (or see again) in concert, for whom reunions are just not gonna happen: Badfinger, The Band, Beach Boys, Beatles, Big Star, Byrds . . .

Well, this started out being some of my "thoughts" about Monterey and the Beach Boys. A few hundred words later, and I've meandered totally off point.
So, moron this later.

What Spinal Tap is to drummers . . .‎

Someone I know was mentioning that he’d miss the July 7 Live Earth “Concerts for a Climate in Crisis” because we’d be playing then, ourselves (although at a significantly lower-profile event). It’s safe to say that this guy is dismissive of—even derisive toward—the notion of “climate in crisis.” Although he was keenly tuned into the Live 8 concerts, I doubt he could tell you what cause they supported. Lacking an act that interests him as Pink Floyd’s reunion did, he was utterly disinterested in Live Earth.

Until, that is, I mentioned to him that Spinal Tap would be playing. So now maybe he’ll TiVo the UK segment so I can see the 21^st century Tap and bask in the metal goodness of their new anthem, “Warmer Than Hell.”

The short film, at http://liveearth.msn.com/le/video, certainly stays true to the Spinal Tap spirit, down to Marty DeBergi’s participation. I’ll be on the edge of my drum throne to see if their bad luck streak with percussionists still holds.

That kind of rotten luck seems almost inevitable when it comes to drummers, (although losing one to spontaneous human combustion seems exceptional). Our band’s gone through them like a hair band runs through Aqua Net. We’re currently on our fifth drummer in the past couple of years. Which helps explain why this weekend will be our first gig since last December.

Acquiring and keeping a decent drummer is such a frustrating enterprise, it’s enough to make me understand what led to the development of the drum machine. What they lack in personality, they more than make up in reliability. There’s no question that you’ll find your drum machine where you left it last, and that it will be ready to work when the rest of the band shows up. And the chicks don’t ever want to go home with the drum machine.

Given this apparent shortage, it seems especially unfair and wasteful when a band has what seems to be an excess of drummers and doesn’t make full use of them.

Take the Grateful Dead, for years, one of the best-known of the double-drummer bands. Lately I was listening to Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty for the first time in years, and was struck by just how little they used drums: “New Speedway Boogie” (handclaps only?), “High Time” and “Brokedown Palace” (no drums at all). “Uncle John’s Band,” “Friend of the Devil,” “Candy Man,” featured brushes or very light drum work.

Granted, these are the only two studio albums of theirs that I own, so maybe they aren’t typical. And maybe they retained two drummers for their live work, which was the Dead’s bread and butter. Still, it seems odd for a band with such deep apparent folk influence and jazz aspirations to incorporate the twin drummers.

The money for that second drummer might’ve been better spent on some backup singers. Even considering the 1970 SoCal atmosphere from which the albums sprang, the harmony vocals are often shaky, sometimes downright shrieky.

Or they could have—and should have—invested some of that second drummer’s salary toward insurance for their keyboard players. What Spinal Tap is to drummers, the Dead were to keys players. For 30 years, the band replaced this perennial musical fifth wheel position roughly every decade. First was “Pigpen” (d. 1973, liver failure), then Keith Godchaux (d. 1980, car wreck), and Brent Mydland (d. 1990, drug misadventure).

The one that bothers me the most is Vince Welnick, who died in 2006, in a particularly horrific suicide. Not only the utterly preventable way he died, but Welnick’s work on my favorite Tubes albums makes his death the most tragic to me.

As a piano player myself, and on behalf of anyone they might tap for a reunion tour, I urge the Grateful Dead to forget about filling that position. Get someone in to blast some saxophone or slap around a tambourine. Just give the keyboards a break.

Oh, and the next person who uses the phrase, “long, strange trip,” or any derivative of same, in connection with the Grateful Dead should have to play keys for them.