"Brian is The Beach Boys. He is the band. We're his fucking messengers. He is all of it. Period. We're nothing. He's everything." - Dennis Wilson
A chilly, damp evening in a post-industrial yard in Birmingham, known as Digbeth Arena, seems like an odd place to start this anthology. The bleak image (bar the dreamy pink sky resting upon the stage) conjures up the polar opposite image of the casual listener’s association with The Beach Boys. Instead, a more idyllic image is evoked, of toned surfers and bikini-clad models spending simmering summer days riding the waves of the Pacific Ocean in sunny Southern California, only to return come the night-time for partying around campfires. Brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, along with cousin Mike Love and family friend Al Jardine, iconised the distinct character of what made California beaches the most attractive place on Earth in the 60’s. It was the image of paradise, the place to be. Yet, here I was in the midlands of sullen England, waiting for one of the most treasured musicians on the planet to enter for the expecting crowd. Finally, about 30 minutes after the warm-up act, Brian, accompanied by two bodyguards, drags himself out with a zimmerframe, sits at his angelic white piano. Cue ‘California Girls’, the orchestral into beckoning me towards paradise. I closed my eyes, and I was there, on sunny Californian beaches.
The greatest misconception about popular music is that it is strictly an auditory artform. Well it is primarily that, no doubt, but popular music is heavily reliant on the visual elements that complete a musical performance. Visuals can aid the expression of the innermost feelings that soundwaves can convey, from feelings of euphoria to despair, and can . This can act as a source of encouragement for musicians, to be more versatile and rounded artists, engaging in other forms of art. However, likewise, the look can also be a distraction. Our sense of sight is a notably immediate human point of reference, so when a successfully marketed and iconic public image is built, breaking that can be near-enough impossible. If one band suffered the most from this, it was The Beach Boys.
In the public eye, The Beach Boys were already established as the handsome, baby-faced, and, retrospectively, goofy surfers that iconised the California beach youth of the early 60s. Their collective personae was aggressively marketed by their manager and father Murry Wilson. Murry is chronicled by his sons as a domineering, abusive drunk, restricting them to the given style for his own financial benefit. Horror stories emerge when his name is echoed. He often denigrated Brian down to nothing more than a “loser” (probably because he was a failed musician himself). Murry resulted to physical enforcement of his patriarchal role in the family’s early years, shaming Brian by forcing him to defecate on a newspaper in front of the rest of the family, or tying him to a tree, and even socking Brian with a 2x4, culminating in permanent hearing loss in his right ear. Finally, in 1964, the band broke from Murry by firing him. Brian had bigger ambitions than making goofy pop singles to earn a cheque for his dad (much to Murry's disdain, penned in a letter that I can aptly sum up as a case of sour grapes). Instead, he wanted to make an album. A proper album, rather than a compilation of hits. Hungry to one-up The Beatles, who had released Rubber Soul the year prior, and now that Murry was out of the picture, Brian opted to make his most grandiose statement yet – Pet Sounds.
So, what about the other Beach Boys? In this period, of their career (1964-1967), Brian was, what I would term, the 'omniperformer', or the 'total musician', and the first figure of such. This is where a single performer is involved every aspect of the music's creation - singer, songwriter, producer, composer, conductor, artistic director. The rest of the band had accepted Brian's talents in mostly stepping back from the creative process, allowing the mastermind to utilise each member’s unique vocal ranges to execute numerous combinations of harmony, each one as enchantingly beautiful as the last. Much of Brian’s production methods were owed to Phil Spector. Spector’s ethereal ‘wall of sound’ production technique, served as the basis of critical and commercial success of R&B groups such as The Ronettes, The Crystals, and Ike & Tina Turner. Utilising site-specific acoustics of studio halls to achieve certain types of reverberation from his orchestral ensemble, The Wrecking Crew, and consequently overdubbing tapes over one another with 8-track recording technology, shrouded cutesy pop tunes in shimmering instrumental force-field of ambience. It gave an almost religious feel to the sounds, as if they were being played at the altar of a cathedral. To understand the innovations this ‘wall’ made, I will hand over to Brian himself:
"In the 40’s and 50’s arrangements were considered ‘OK here, listen to that French horn’ or ‘listen to this string section now.’ It was all a definite sound. There weren’t combinations of sound, and with the advent of Phil Spector, we find sound combinations, which – scientifically speaking – is a brilliant aspect of sound production."
In the public eye, The Beach Boys were already established as the handsome, baby-faced, and, retrospectively, goofy surfers that iconised the California beach youth of the early 60s. Their collective personae was aggressively marketed by their manager and father Murry Wilson. Murry is chronicled by his sons as a domineering, abusive drunk, restricting them to the given style for his own financial benefit. Horror stories emerge when his name is echoed. He often denigrated Brian down to nothing more than a “loser” (probably because he was a failed musician himself). Murry resulted to physical enforcement of his patriarchal role in the family’s early years, shaming Brian by forcing him to defecate on a newspaper in front of the rest of the family, or tying him to a tree, and even socking Brian with a 2x4, culminating in permanent hearing loss in his right ear. Finally, in 1964, the band broke from Murry by firing him. Brian had bigger ambitions than making goofy pop singles to earn a cheque for his dad (much to Murry's disdain, penned in a letter that I can aptly sum up as a case of sour grapes). Instead, he wanted to make an album. A proper album, rather than a compilation of hits. Hungry to one-up The Beatles, who had released Rubber Soul the year prior, and now that Murry was out of the picture, Brian opted to make his most grandiose statement yet – Pet Sounds.
So, what about the other Beach Boys? In this period, of their career (1964-1967), Brian was, what I would term, the 'omniperformer', or the 'total musician', and the first figure of such. This is where a single performer is involved every aspect of the music's creation - singer, songwriter, producer, composer, conductor, artistic director. The rest of the band had accepted Brian's talents in mostly stepping back from the creative process, allowing the mastermind to utilise each member’s unique vocal ranges to execute numerous combinations of harmony, each one as enchantingly beautiful as the last. Much of Brian’s production methods were owed to Phil Spector. Spector’s ethereal ‘wall of sound’ production technique, served as the basis of critical and commercial success of R&B groups such as The Ronettes, The Crystals, and Ike & Tina Turner. Utilising site-specific acoustics of studio halls to achieve certain types of reverberation from his orchestral ensemble, The Wrecking Crew, and consequently overdubbing tapes over one another with 8-track recording technology, shrouded cutesy pop tunes in shimmering instrumental force-field of ambience. It gave an almost religious feel to the sounds, as if they were being played at the altar of a cathedral. To understand the innovations this ‘wall’ made, I will hand over to Brian himself:
"In the 40’s and 50’s arrangements were considered ‘OK here, listen to that French horn’ or ‘listen to this string section now.’ It was all a definite sound. There weren’t combinations of sound, and with the advent of Phil Spector, we find sound combinations, which – scientifically speaking – is a brilliant aspect of sound production."
Brian saw more potential in the wall’s dreamy seduction, but rather than constructing one glittering combination, he treated the combinations like layers, letting every soundwave hit against the walls of the studio, and delicately weaving them together. Found sound was also blended into these layers, bringing in – as per the title – animals into the studio, and recording their bleats, roars and woofs. This unrestrained ambition birthed one of the definitive psychedelic experiments from any album ever recorded. Marijuana had a significant effect on how Brian produced, wrote, and thought. Drugs open what Aldous Huxley called, “the doors of perception”, to altered states of consciousness. Under the influence of marijuana, senses of touch and sight are heightened; as it is a psychoactive drug, the cognitive reception to those senses are also heightened. Greater ponderance is given to external influences. Because he had such an adept ear for absorbing musical influences, not just from his peers, but from his environment of the sun-soaked beaches of Southern California, listening to ocean tides ebb and flow like vibrations, and internalised. Sounds that were realised with the iridescent chamber ensembles and the dazzling vocal harmonies of Pet Sounds.
Introspection also characterised Pet Sounds, going against the tide of pop and rock music, the extrovert’s genres. Self-imposed isolation (‘That’s Not Me’), cycles of guilt and consequent self-chastisement (‘You Still Believe in Me’), and the feeling of just not fitting in (‘I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times’) were, thematically, a major departure from singing about surfing and dating. Indeed, there were sad, introspective songs in this era – it would be naïve to think otherwise. But when immersed in Pet Sounds, you are sitting in on a confessional, a confession of a deeply embedded inner melancholy, and a belief of there being an entity (supernatural or not) greater than oneself. ‘God Only Knows’ embodies the lover’s existential crisis, its narrator toiling over his place in the world, torn between love and religion. Even the more triumphant songs are riddled with youthful heartbreak with ‘I’m Waiting for the Day’ and ‘Here Today’ finding a glimmer of hope in the face of unrequited adoration, what others would call worship.
Introspection also characterised Pet Sounds, going against the tide of pop and rock music, the extrovert’s genres. Self-imposed isolation (‘That’s Not Me’), cycles of guilt and consequent self-chastisement (‘You Still Believe in Me’), and the feeling of just not fitting in (‘I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times’) were, thematically, a major departure from singing about surfing and dating. Indeed, there were sad, introspective songs in this era – it would be naïve to think otherwise. But when immersed in Pet Sounds, you are sitting in on a confessional, a confession of a deeply embedded inner melancholy, and a belief of there being an entity (supernatural or not) greater than oneself. ‘God Only Knows’ embodies the lover’s existential crisis, its narrator toiling over his place in the world, torn between love and religion. Even the more triumphant songs are riddled with youthful heartbreak with ‘I’m Waiting for the Day’ and ‘Here Today’ finding a glimmer of hope in the face of unrequited adoration, what others would call worship.
Pet Sounds was a statement of intent. Brian wanted to be taken seriously as composer and an artist, as opposed to a baby-faced pop singer. Indeed he was, by critics and Pet Sounds’ cult followers, but by the consumer public, not so much. Although Pet Sounds broke No. 2 in the charts in the UK, amid the city’s new-found counter-culture movement, across the pond it was met with the chart equivalent of a nod of mere acknowledgement, clocking in at No. 10. Worried by the prospect of being both artistically and commercially overwhelmed by The Beatles in his home country, and slipping into irrelevancy, Brian was determined to one-up them a second time. After Brian boldly demonstrated Pet Sounds' brilliance to them personally, inviting them to a private listening party (the cheek), The Beatles were understandably stunned, so stunned they asked him to play it again. Just a few months after that night, and after releasing Revolver in June, The Beatles began work on their grandest statement, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, an album by a fictional band, or their alter-egos. Meanwhile, Brian was going further left than anyone had previously. His plan was to construct an all-American psychedelic journey, in three movements, to the heart of his homeland: the first movement on the Americana psyche and history, the second exploring the cyclical nature of life and love, and the finale representing the elements of the Earth. His magnum opus was to be called SMiLE. The Beach Boys also employed The Beatles' old press officer, Derek Taylor, as their publicist, who devised a new tagline for their band - "Brian Wilson is a genius". The unspoken creative cold war was about to heat up.
To be continued...
To be continued...