Brian Wilson
ATLANTIC CITY — There’s one important factor that’s keeping a one-night stand by a 50-year-old rock ‘n roll band from becoming just another nostalgic blast from the past this weekend.
The Beach Boys, now down to one original member and one long-time “temporary” fill-in, will hit the stage of Borgata’s Music Box on Friday (Oct. 14) just a few weeks prior to the release of a brand new album that’s nearly 45 years old.
Smile, the revolutionary concept album recorded — and then abandoned — by the band in 1967, will finally be released Nov. 1 as The Smile Sessions.
Unlike Brian Wilson’s 2004 adaptation of the Smile album, which was completed, re-recorded with his own band and then neatly edited, The Smile Sessions is a warts-and-all compilation of studio masters and out-takes from the original recording sessions that spanned the period between the summer of 1966 and the spring of 1967. The album is being released as a five-CD set.
Mental issues fueled by drug abuse certainly played into it, Wilson, who suffers from widely-publicized bouts of depression, acknowledged last week during a Wall Street Journal interview.
“I was on heavy drugs — LSD and marijuana,” he said. “We had no idea what people would expect. There was a lot going on.”
When the album was in its earliest stages, Wilson, considered the creative genius behind the Beach Boys’ success, and collaborator and lyricist Van Dyke Parks initially described Smile as a “teenage symphony to God.” He also said the music was far too sophisticated at the time for their fans to accept, grasp and enjoy.
But times and musical tastes have changed, Wilson, 69, said.
“[Because] people who were young then have grown older. Now they miss their youth,” he said. “Their minds have grown musically, too. Now they can understand the music we made. A lot of people tell me that when they hear Smile, they feel like a kid again.”
Smile has often been referred to as the most famous unfinished project in the history of rock music. It was designed to follow up Pet Sounds, the Beach Boys album that initially showed the world the first flashes of Wilson’s musical genius and was credited with inspiring The Beatles to record Sgt. Pepper.
Two songs originally recorded for Smile — “Good Vibrations” and “Heroes and Villains” — were released as singles and later included on other albums. “Heroes and Villains” still “wipes me out every time,” Wilson said.
“I dreamed that this would happen and it’s here. It’s so great to be back with Brian. It’s a remarkable milestone. Fifty years is a long time. Everything about this made sense. Capitol Records offered us a record deal and we were thrilled about that."
Greetings and salutations. As you are aware, next weekend the Geator, the Bubba Mac Blues Band, Pinky Kravitz, and the entire Longport Media group, WOND and WTKU and my man, Dave Coskey, will be heading down to the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Fla., for South Jersey “Boardwalk Live” weekend. Also joining the Geator will be my pal Frankie Valli, who’s performing at the Hard Rock Live. We’ll dance starting at 5pm Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, March 1, 2, and 3, and I know we’ll see lots of our Florida fans, like Carlos & Vicki, Judi & Jim, and Ed & Linda, down there — hope to see you, too. Before we get to your questions, one of our readers was able to answer a question posed by Joe Breitner in this column a couple months back. The name of the song, from...
With good vibrations returning to the Beach Boys, could that newfound harmony spread to Atlantic City this summer? That's one of the intriguing possibilities now that two of the three surviving founding members of "America's band" have settled a legal dispute that dates back to 2001. Last month, shortly before it was scheduled to go to trial, Mike Love and Al Jardine, both of whom were original members of the band, settled a lawsuit over Jardine's use of the Beach Boys name. Love and the band's record label, Brother Records, had sued Jardine five years ago for using the name "Beach Boys Family & Friends." After leaving the Beach Boys in the late 1990s, Jardine toured with various knockoff groups performing Beach Boys material. The legal fireworks actually began in 2001, when Jardine filed a $4 million suit against Love and Brother Records alleging that Love had excluded him from touring dates with the band. On March 21, while lawyers hammered out a settlement, Love and Jardine were spotted in a Los Angeles courtroom chatting amicably and singing lines from "Help Me, Rhonda" and other Beach Boys classics. For a time, even troubled Beach Boy Brian Wilson, whose personal demons...
The Beach Boys, who made history in 1983 when they drew approximately 300,000 to a twilight July 4th concert on the Atlantic City beach, will celebrate the 25th anniversary of that historic event wit...
"It’s the Creedence of the new millennium. The Beach Boys only have one original member and that’s Mike Love, but they’re still the Beach Boys."
It should be a long joyful stroll down memory lane Saturday at the House of Blues, since the legendary Brian Wilson will perform his greatest hits throughout the evening. The brilliant Beach Boy has written a plethora of tunes, which have scaled the pop charts. “Good Vibrations,” “California Girls,” “Surfer Girl,” “Help Me, Rhonda,” “Little Deuce Coupe” and many other songs, which are now regarded as pop classics, are among the cuts Wilson helped craft.
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1. Mark said... on Oct 13, 2011 at 10:29PM
“This is amazing music. If you think you know the Beach Boys, think again.
Forget nostalgia, and embrace beauty and art. The harmonies are there, the melodies are there. This is the Beach Boys at their full potential.”