Flex's Takes: The Beach Boys

General music discussion.
WestwayKid
User avatar
Unknown Immortal
Posts: 6704
Joined: 20 Sep 2017, 8:22am
Location: Mill-e-wah-que

Re: Flex's Takes: The Beach Boys

Post by WestwayKid »

matedog wrote:
17 Feb 2023, 5:34pm
Image
Don't Go Near the Water - predicts both the 1972 Clean Water Act as well as 1992's "Summer in Paradise." Weird ass song. You have this pleasant Mike Love part and then some very Brian Wilson interstitial parts. Then there's this strident Carl part where he's shouting very staccato. The backing is all chaotic and then he ends with a Little Richard "oooh" (predicting their future "Happy Endings" collab???). It's not a great sign when the Mike Love part returns as a welcome reprieve. Then the last 30 seconds or so is this pleasant instrumental bit. Alright, then.
Good takes. I've never felt that Surf's Up is the gem that some critics believe it is. It's weird. Jack Rieley wrote some truly awful lyrics in an attempt to make them relevant. I disagree on your opinion on Tree, however. Sure, Reiley's vocal is not great, but the song is such a great example of Brian's whimsical weirdness. Dennis attempted the lead and then Brian had a go. He then had Reiley attempt it, just to put down a guide vocal. He did a handful of tapes before Brian stopped the session and declared the vocal complete. Al later said nobody wanted to sing it because it was too depressing, so they ended up having their manager do it.

Rush's song about trees is truly awful, however. Neil Peart might have been a great drummer, but he was not a great lyricist.
"They don't think it be like it is, but it do." - Oscar Gamble

matedog
User avatar
Purveyor of Hoyistic Thought
Posts: 25797
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 4:07pm
Location: 1995

Re: Flex's Takes: The Beach Boys

Post by matedog »

Man, WWK and Flex just let anyone sing on Beach Boys songs.
Look, you have to establish context for these things. And I maintain that unless you appreciate the Fall of Constantinople, the Great Fire of London, and Mickey Mantle's fatalist alcoholism, live Freddy makes no sense. If you want to half-ass it, fine, go call Simon Schama to do the appendix.

Flex
User avatar
Mechano-Man of the Future
Posts: 35799
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:50pm
Location: The Information Superhighway!

Re: Flex's Takes: The Beach Boys

Post by Flex »

For the record, Inder turned me into Surf's Up (and, in some sense, the Beach Boys overall). years ago he was touting Surf's Up and I was kinda like - what? the car and school guys? you serious - and the rest is history.
matedog wrote:
17 Feb 2023, 5:34pm
Don't Go Near the Water - predicts both the 1972 Clean Water Act as well as 1992's "Summer in Paradise." Weird ass song. You have this pleasant Mike Love part and then some very Brian Wilson interstitial parts. Then there's this strident Carl part where he's shouting very staccato. The backing is all chaotic and then he ends with a Little Richard "oooh" (predicting their future "Happy Endings" collab???). It's not a great sign when the Mike Love part returns as a welcome reprieve. Then the last 30 seconds or so is this pleasant instrumental bit. Alright, then.
This is, imho, the ultimate "fuck with the formula" song and kudos to Mike for going along with it. Real great vocals on this one. if I recall correctly, I built my "beach boys for beach boys skeptics" comp from some years back around this song. You get the "surfs up" title, the melancholy cover, then a song title that sounds like it could be an old surf n sun song, only to get an enviromental protest number. Great stuff.
Long Promised Road - Real cool hook from Carl in the chorus on this one. Probably a classic. Production ain't great with the lead vocal jarringly high and I wish I could hear a live version from the 80s or 90s when Carl's voice had substantially more grit, but those are minor critiques. This song is great.
Super classic. Hoy, it'll please you to know that on the Brian Wilson tours Blondie has been taking lead vocal and guitar work on this one. Turns it into a real Stonesy number. I'm not sure Brian knows he's on planet earth while it happens.
Disney Girls (1957) - The issue with 3/4 time is where do you put the snare? Where is the upbeat? Is it the 2nd or 3rd beat? Either one is wrong. You can go all oompahpah and do snare on 2nd AND 3rd beat, but no, don't do that. It's the same issue with 5/4 time, but that's such a god forsaken time signature, you only do it for the sake of doing it. You aren't trying to make something listenable if your song is in 5/4 (mild exception for The Rentals "My Summer Girl"). Even on this song, the drummer doesn't know what he's doing. On one chorus it goes on the 2nd beat, on another the 3rd. Oh fuck, it's Daryl "Drummer" Dragon on drums? Bruce does this song on his shitty 1977 solo album and wisely doesn't have drums. There's a song on this album called "Rock and Roll Survivor." And it's soft as shit. God he sucks so bad. What did you survive? "Oh no Blondie and Ricky rock too hard, I'm out!"

As for this song, it's probably the best thing I've heard from him, but that's not saying much. It's a deep nostalgia dive, but maybe not quite as schmaltzy as his usual stuff.
I've mentioned a soft spot for Bruce songs before, but it's really just THIS song. Hopelessly reactionary but, well, it really does invoke nostalgic feelings of the Cape. So sue me.
Student Demonstration Time - One of the most raucous, nasty instrumentals they've ever done. Sick leads presumably from Carl and some great distorted vocals. It's a cover of Riot In Cell Block 9, but with some of the dumbest lyrics ever committed to tape. To make matters worse, Mike is basically telling civil rights protestors to stop being so uppity. 
We've lamented this one before. What a killer instrumental sound they get here - I wish they did this more often (I think they tried with Blondie and Ricky a little). Some of the most repulsive lyrics in rock and roll tho. Fuck Mike Love forever. Devo would kick his ass for this if they could, I think.
A Day in the Life of a Tree - I thought the two randos were bad, now we have their fucking manager singing a song about being a tree over some blaring church organ. This is the worst political biographical tree song since Rush's "The Trees."  Who wants this shit?
This is one of those "you ready to get weird with Brian & co?" songs, and if you are then you are, and if you aren't then you aren't. That's just the way it is.
Til I Die - I guess this isn't bad? The melody is really drab. Yeah it's got some weird Brian Wilson chord changes, but it doesn't add up to much for me. 

Surf's Up - A track from the lost Smile sessions supposedly added to the album at the behest of the record company who thought "weird ass art songs from four years ago are sure to make this album a hit!"

The song is a ballad of sorts and I detect three distinct sections in this song. The first and second parts are piano led with strong quarter note pulse rhythms. The first section is more traditional with the melodies cycling through two times. There's some cool supporting instrumentation with a french horn and a descending glockenspiel that are well placed. The second section is more open ended with tempo shifts throughout.  The tacked on coda is very Smile even if it was recorded for this album from the discarded 66/67 tapes even moving to a swung rhythm after being straight the remainder of the song.

I still don't know if I like this song or not. Like a lot of the Smile material, it is seemingly made up of disparate pieces of music with baffling chord changes and ambiguous key signatures. I don't know if Brian is winging it by ear or if he purposefully does this. Based on that video I posted awhile back, he doesn't seem to know much theory as Carl had to tell him what an ostinato and chord inversions are which suggests the latter. The vocal performances by Carl and Brian are some of their best. Melodically, it has some nice bits, even if it lacks the pop punch of GV. I am finally starting to understand the kind of wondrous/dreamy aspects of the song now that I understand the lyrical context better, but I'm still not 100% convinced it fully succeeds in execution.
I think of these two as a mini-suite. Just super melancholy Brian but still drawing from his period of artistic strength. Leaving aside the fiddle-fucking around which take is best, these two songs are, like, a total trip man. it's that "death of the 60s" stuff that I love so much.

The songs I don's specifically discuss are quite good, imho. It's really a classic. The somber tone sits a lot better with me than Sunflower even if I admit Sunflower is probably the more consistently high quality listen.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a rolling hoop
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a ton of lead
Wiggle - you can raise the dead

Pex Lives!

Flex
User avatar
Mechano-Man of the Future
Posts: 35799
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:50pm
Location: The Information Superhighway!

Re: Flex's Takes: The Beach Boys

Post by Flex »

matedog wrote:
17 Feb 2023, 8:10pm
Man, WWK and Flex just let anyone sing on Beach Boys songs.
yeah, i meant to mention, the EET WEEK PLAYERS are guesting on Mike's next album. You haven't heard Fingerpoppin until you've hear Mike and Stamos give it a go.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a rolling hoop
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a ton of lead
Wiggle - you can raise the dead

Pex Lives!

matedog
User avatar
Purveyor of Hoyistic Thought
Posts: 25797
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 4:07pm
Location: 1995

Re: Flex's Takes: The Beach Boys

Post by matedog »

Image
Bruce Johnston's sole worthwhile contribution (in my humble opinion) is that prominent backing vocal at the end of "God Only Knows." That contribution to one of the finest moments in recorded music is the only not shitty thing he ever did. Every over thing he touched was tainted by his flaccid, sterile ooze. He hops back in the fold in the previous album and then gets to produce this one, because why the hell not? Nothing else is working. Also this is 1980. We are at the tail end of the late 70s soft rock boom. Right up his shitty alley. Also the only person doing decent stuff at the moment, Dennis, is pretty much absent from this album, so that does not bode well...

1. Keepin' the Summer Alive - A Carl composition cowritten with father of "She's So High"'s Tal Bachman, Randy Bachman. Not sure why this sounds so bad. Carl sounds like he's singing in a trash can and tries to add some grit and toughness to his voice and fails. Shortly after this, he'd do his solo albums that weren't really much better than this. Hey, Joe Walsh is here playing some ineffective slide guitar. What's up with Mike's bass voice on this. He would do this in his 80's albums too, but don't think I've heard it otherwise. I imagine the studio session went something like this:
"Hey Mike, can you do some low "do doos" in a dumb person voice?"- Bruce
"Oh, I call that my retard voice!" - Mike
"Haha, Mike, you are too much!" - Bruce

Anyway, it's a swing and a miss from Carl this time.

2. Oh Darlin' - yeesh, this is that horrible 70's soft rock balladry that was so popular at the time. This is terrible. Carl sings lead, unfortunately. Brian cowrote this? You have to be kidding me.
3. Some of Your Love - Now here's a banger. It's got a fat sax, a decent hook, some clever vocals, and a good breakdown where it actually gets sparse. I'm into this.
4. Livin' with a Heartache - Another one that's quite alright. Listen, if you write a clever double time switch, it's going to win me over. It's like a clap track. I fucking love a good clap track. This one has a few different hooks throughout that are kinda decent. Carl and Tal Bachman's dad, you did better this time.
5. School Day - I guess they did this because their other recent Chuck cover was a chart hit. This is god awful and Al is still in his 1970s suckage mode. Jesus christ, there are four guitar credits, two keyboard credits, one organ credit. Fucking Hal Blaine gets dragged out to play drums on this for some reason. Not sure we've seen him since one of the two randos gave him the boot. This is miserable.
6. Goin' On - This is another good one. Carl sounds tough as fuck. He wish he sounded this good on "Keepin' the Summer Alive." This features a midsong sax solo which was soon to become a staple of all their 80s/early 90s shit. But this is another one I can get behind.
7. Sunshine - Another song that is mixed to shit. I've listened to this song like five times and can't remember a damn thing about it other than it having a steel drum solo that's not nearly as well written or arranged as the resplendent "Kokomo" steel drum part.
8. When Girls Get Together - This one has a real interesting melody. Likely Brian's contribution. That being said, the melody does not change for the duration of the song, so it's repetitive as shit. And this also has some of the worst lyrics in their catalog:
When girls get together
They don't waste time on things like weather and stuff
They all just play around and never seem to discuss it enough
I'd like to blame Mike for this as he has cowriting credit, but Brian does some real questionable lyrics from time to time. It's also really poorly paired with the melody. There's no thought of how the lyrics flow with the melody. It's all really clunky which is unfortunate because there's one legit good idea in this song and everything else is terrible.
9. Santa Ana Winds - This one is pretty inoffensive relative to the horrors that surround it. The spoken word intro is dumb though. You are going to tell us all about the Santa Ana winds in the song, you don't need to preface it with Al talking about it. This could be on one of their early 70s albums.
10. Endless Harmony - Oh boy. The album ends with Bruce singing about the original band he wasn't a part of. He adds some flatted thirds to try to make the melody a bit more flashy over some putrid 70s keyboards that are his bread and butter. It's so bad because Bruce Johnston is an awful and talentless songwriter. He sucks so so bad. There's also some more horrendous lyrics. Bruce makes Carl sing some of this shit because Bruce has always been and will forever be a coward:
And we sang God bless America
It's a land where we tour
She takes great care of us
And people love for where we sing
Look, you have to establish context for these things. And I maintain that unless you appreciate the Fall of Constantinople, the Great Fire of London, and Mickey Mantle's fatalist alcoholism, live Freddy makes no sense. If you want to half-ass it, fine, go call Simon Schama to do the appendix.

Dr. Medulla
User avatar
Atheistic Epileptic
Posts: 115975
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:00pm
Location: Straight Banana, Idaho

Re: Flex's Takes: The Beach Boys

Post by Dr. Medulla »

As always, superb stuff to read (and saves me from listening).

We need to build the all-time Hoy poison band. Terry on drums, Bruce on bass …
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

WestwayKid
User avatar
Unknown Immortal
Posts: 6704
Joined: 20 Sep 2017, 8:22am
Location: Mill-e-wah-que

Re: Flex's Takes: The Beach Boys

Post by WestwayKid »

Great write up on a terrible album.

It's a tragedy that Brian didn't win a Grammy until 2004, and then only for an instrumental, while Bruce won Song of the Year in 1977 for penning Barry Manilow's terrible I Write the Songs.

When Girls Get Together had a tortured history. It was first recorded in 1969. It was originally intended for what would become Sunflower, but thankfully dropped at some point. It was then considered in the early stages of Surf's Up, but again scuttled. Brian pulled it off the pile again in 1976. Working on 15 Big Ones had relit the fire to create music and led to Love You and an unreleased LP that was known as New Album. When Girls Get Together was penciled in to be released on New Album. That album was never finished and Brian moved on to Adult/Child, which also was not released. Why they finally plunked it on to Keepin' the Summer Alive is a mystery. Maybe they just wanted something from Brian.
"They don't think it be like it is, but it do." - Oscar Gamble

matedog
User avatar
Purveyor of Hoyistic Thought
Posts: 25797
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 4:07pm
Location: 1995

Re: Flex's Takes: The Beach Boys

Post by matedog »

WestwayKid wrote:
09 Mar 2023, 1:07pm

When Girls Get Together had a tortured history. It was first recorded in 1969. It was originally intended for what would become Sunflower, but thankfully dropped at some point. It was then considered in the early stages of Surf's Up, but again scuttled. Brian pulled it off the pile again in 1976. Working on 15 Big Ones had relit the fire to create music and led to Love You and an unreleased LP that was known as New Album. When Girls Get Together was penciled in to be released on New Album. That album was never finished and Brian moved on to Adult/Child, which also was not released. Why they finally plunked it on to Keepin' the Summer Alive is a mystery. Maybe they just wanted something from Brian.
Good lord that is a lot of chances to realize you are making a mistake. Also, Brian is all over that album, so didn't seem like they were specifically starving for his input.
Look, you have to establish context for these things. And I maintain that unless you appreciate the Fall of Constantinople, the Great Fire of London, and Mickey Mantle's fatalist alcoholism, live Freddy makes no sense. If you want to half-ass it, fine, go call Simon Schama to do the appendix.

Dr. Medulla
User avatar
Atheistic Epileptic
Posts: 115975
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:00pm
Location: Straight Banana, Idaho

Re: Flex's Takes: The Beach Boys

Post by Dr. Medulla »

matedog wrote:
09 Mar 2023, 2:04pm
Good lord that is a lot of chances to realize you are making a mistake.
:lol: What a fantastic line!
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

WestwayKid
User avatar
Unknown Immortal
Posts: 6704
Joined: 20 Sep 2017, 8:22am
Location: Mill-e-wah-que

Re: Flex's Takes: The Beach Boys

Post by WestwayKid »

matedog wrote:
09 Mar 2023, 2:04pm
WestwayKid wrote:
09 Mar 2023, 1:07pm

When Girls Get Together had a tortured history. It was first recorded in 1969. It was originally intended for what would become Sunflower, but thankfully dropped at some point. It was then considered in the early stages of Surf's Up, but again scuttled. Brian pulled it off the pile again in 1976. Working on 15 Big Ones had relit the fire to create music and led to Love You and an unreleased LP that was known as New Album. When Girls Get Together was penciled in to be released on New Album. That album was never finished and Brian moved on to Adult/Child, which also was not released. Why they finally plunked it on to Keepin' the Summer Alive is a mystery. Maybe they just wanted something from Brian.
Good lord that is a lot of chances to realize you are making a mistake. Also, Brian is all over that album, so didn't seem like they were specifically starving for his input.
Good point. Let's just blame Bruce for its inclusion.
"They don't think it be like it is, but it do." - Oscar Gamble

WestwayKid
User avatar
Unknown Immortal
Posts: 6704
Joined: 20 Sep 2017, 8:22am
Location: Mill-e-wah-que

Re: Flex's Takes: The Beach Boys

Post by WestwayKid »



This track isn't great, but it was left on the shelf while When Girls Get Together was included.
"They don't think it be like it is, but it do." - Oscar Gamble

matedog
User avatar
Purveyor of Hoyistic Thought
Posts: 25797
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 4:07pm
Location: 1995

Re: Flex's Takes: The Beach Boys

Post by matedog »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
09 Mar 2023, 7:28am
Terry on drums, Bruce on bass …
Oh god, the rhythm section from hell.
Look, you have to establish context for these things. And I maintain that unless you appreciate the Fall of Constantinople, the Great Fire of London, and Mickey Mantle's fatalist alcoholism, live Freddy makes no sense. If you want to half-ass it, fine, go call Simon Schama to do the appendix.

matedog
User avatar
Purveyor of Hoyistic Thought
Posts: 25797
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 4:07pm
Location: 1995

Re: Flex's Takes: The Beach Boys

Post by matedog »

WestwayKid wrote:
09 Mar 2023, 2:56pm


This track isn't great, but it was left on the shelf while When Girls Get Together was included.
Quite forgettable, but at least inoffensive.
Look, you have to establish context for these things. And I maintain that unless you appreciate the Fall of Constantinople, the Great Fire of London, and Mickey Mantle's fatalist alcoholism, live Freddy makes no sense. If you want to half-ass it, fine, go call Simon Schama to do the appendix.

Dr. Medulla
User avatar
Atheistic Epileptic
Posts: 115975
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:00pm
Location: Straight Banana, Idaho

Re: Flex's Takes: The Beach Boys

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Image
Rex Morgan seems to be doing a Eugene Landy thing here.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

revbob
User avatar
Unknown Immortal
Posts: 25326
Joined: 16 Jun 2008, 12:31pm
Location: The Frozen Tundra

Re: Flex's Takes: The Beach Boys

Post by revbob »


Post Reply