Love & Mercy (Bill Pohlad, 2015)

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#51 Post by **mfunk9786** » Thu Jun 25, 2015 10:01 pm

I watched Don Was' mid-90s documentary I Just Wasn't Made For These Times last night and it gave me a newfound appreciation for Cusack's performance that I didn't necessarily have before. A few of the sequences in the film (most notably the one where Wilson demonstrates his father's corporal punishment) were taken almost line-for-line and action-for-action from the interviews in that film, and you can really see the sort of tics that Cusack managed to pick up on in the process of watching it for research.

Being totally engrossed in Brian Wilson everything for the last few weeks (man, I knew Pet Sounds and not a heck of a lot beyond it going in and now I'm listening to Love You and the third and fourth discs of The SMiLE Sessions and just finished reading Catch a Wave, AND am going to see Wilson on Monday night in concert - what a difference a great film makes) has made me wish there were a bit more to Pohlad's film. It works very well as it is and would've been unfortunately overlong if there were much more there, but that middle section of his life would be so interesting to delve into, perhaps with a third actor in the role of mid-to-late 70s Wilson. Part of me sort of wishes this'd been something conceived as a 12 episode HBO miniseries instead of a 2 hour film, jumping around in time but giving a more complete picture of Wilson's rise, fall, rise, fall, and redemption. I'm sure there'd be plenty of ridicule around including a lot of "fat Brian" stuff, but having some insight into stuff like this, or god forbid this would be interesting.

In other words: I really hope there are deleted scenes on the Blu-ray!

#52 Post by **zedz** » Thu Jun 25, 2015 11:47 pm

mfunk9786 wrote:Being totally engrossed in Brian Wilson everything for the last few weeks (man, I knew Pet Sounds and not a heck of a lot beyond it going in and now I'm listening to Love You and the third and fourth discs of The SMiLE Sessions and just finished reading Catch a Wave, AND am going to see Wilson on Monday night in concert - what a difference a great film makes) has made me wish there were a bit more to Pohlad's film.

Pet Sounds is such an incredible album that it does tend to overshadow a whole lot of other great music. Just about everything Brian did between his retirement from touring in the mid 60s and the Holland album in 73 is various shades of wonderful, even if his personal life was totally screwed up - and the biggest surprise of exploring the lesser known corners of the band's discography is how brilliantly Carl and Dennis picked up the songwriting slack when their brother was more or less out of commission in the early 70s. How many bands ever manage an album as good as Sunflower? Plenty of great music pre-65 and even some good stuff after 73 (and acres of godawful crap), but the core period is so much more than Pet Sounds.

Hey, even Smiley Smile grows on you after a while if you consider it a radically different project from the aborted Smile. Lop off the big production singles and it makes a lot more sense. If it had been released by an unknown band on an indie label in the 90s, not only would it have fit right in, but it would now be regarded as a stoned, neo-psych classic.

#53 Post by **Jeff** » Fri Jun 26, 2015 12:14 am

mfunk9786 wrote:It works very well as it is and would've been unfortunately overlong if there were much more there, but that middle section of his life would be so interesting to delve into, perhaps with a third actor in the role of mid-to-late 70s Wilson.

According to Pohlad, that was the original plan, but he changed his mind:

So originally it was actually going to be three and it kind of still is. It was more of a triptych. It was Brian past, which was the 1960s Brian. Brian present, which was the guy in bed. And Brian future, which became the John Cusack era. And kind of by interweaving those we'd show, without having to tell every beat. Obviously we don't wallow in the bed era. We could have. A lot of dramatic things happened there. But again, it just didn't seem necessary. There's a lot of different ways of painting a portrait of someone and in this case it just felt right to focus on these two or three and let them kind of speak for the other eras that we're not seeing. It just felt more intimate to me.

#54 Post by **mfunk9786** » Fri Jun 26, 2015 5:35 am

He isn't wrong. And I can't imagine there's a whole lot of dramatic heft in those lost years of Brian's life the way there is in the eras that we're shown. I just want more in general, I suppose.

Zedz - I've found Smiley Smile to be the most compulsively listenable of their albums so far, even more than Pet Sounds - not better than, of course, just something I could play on repeat for longer stretches. I love the version of "Vegetables" on it, and "She's Goin Bald" is a lot of fun. That said, stuff like the recording of "Wonderful" that made it on there just totally pales in comparison to what was pieced together for The SMiLE Sessions. That said, it's a really strong pop record that fits right in with what the Beatles were doing around that time, as far as I'm concerned.

Oh, and has anyone pulled the tracks from disc 1 of The SMiLE Sessions through "Good Vibrations" and given it its own iTunes entry with 1967 as the year and SMiLE as the album title? ...because I did. And it feels great.

Also: Is there any more deserving villain in rock music history than Mike Love? Any time I see a photo of present-day Mike, looking like Max Hardcore, in his Beach Boys baseball cap and Hawaiian shirt I want to fly to wherever he is just to punch him between the eyes.

#55 Post by **zedz** » Fri Jun 26, 2015 6:58 am

mfunk9786 wrote:Also: Is there any more deserving villain in rock music history than Mike Love?

Probably Murry Wilson!

dustybooks · #56 Post by **dustybooks** » Fri Jun 26, 2015 9:00 pm

mfunk9786 wrote:Zedz - I've found Smiley Smile to be the most compulsively listenable of their albums so far, even more than Pet Sounds - not better than, of course, just something I could play on repeat for longer stretches. I love the version of "Vegetables" on it, and "She's Goin Bald" is a lot of fun. That said, stuff like the recording of "Wonderful" that made it on there just totally pales in comparison to what was pieced together for The SMiLE Sessions. That said, it's a really strong pop record that fits right in with what the Beatles were doing around that time, as far as I'm concerned.

I love Smiley Smile. And though I prefer the sweeter Smile version, I enjoy the utterly terrifying take on "Wind Chimes," which also inexplicably showed up as the b-side to "Wild Honey." I never fully understood the logic that Smile was supposedly abandoned because it was too weird, only for the band to then release an even weirder album!

#57 Post by **mfunk9786** » Fri Jun 26, 2015 9:48 pm

Yeah, I mean, "Gettin' Hungry" is the sort of thing that'd make me stick up an eyebrow far more than "Surf's Up" (they're both great, but the former feels so raggedy compared to what careful work Wilson was doing at the time)

#58 Post by **zedz** » Sat Jun 27, 2015 2:33 am

The album has such a radical sound for that time. It's not even Lo-fi especially (we had garage for that), it's just completely stripped-down, internalised and weird. They preserve that immediacy, if not the weirdness, with Wild Honey, which is just a sensational quasi-soul album, despite a couple of missteps.

Actually, the album it resembles the most is probably the off-the-cuff, hastily put out Party!, which I think is their worst 'studio' album by far until 15 Big Ones. But it almost seems as if Brian knew there was something in that aesthetic that warranted further exploration in a more creative mode, and it's interesting that he reverted to that mode a second time when his grander vision was yet again rejected, though presumably by a peculiar kind of choice in this case.

Drucker · #59 Post by **Drucker** » Sat Jun 27, 2015 3:13 am

I adore the finally released Smile-sessions, but the "complete" tracks ("Surf's Up" and "Cabin Essence" and the like) certainly stick out to me as being brilliant, while I find that some of the instrumental tracks go on far too long.

I don't have the sessions box, but considering the way that certain snippets of song are used and re-used ("Child Is the Father to the Man"), and considering the involvement of Van Dyke Parks, is it plausible that some of the longer instrumental tracks were meant to be abridged and only had brief sections of them used, in a more interlude-like way?

#60 Post by **zedz** » Sat Jun 27, 2015 4:06 am

We'll never know for sure, but I am 100% certain that Brian didn't intend to release a three-sided album in 1967. I assume that some of the instrumentals are just songs for which lyrics had not been written /recorded and others were intended to be short bridging tracks. Mrs O'Leary's Cow, for example, seems to be a complete, finished, short track, and Our Prayer sets the scene for this kind of musical punctuation.

MoonlitKnight · #61 Post by **MoonlitKnight** » Sat Jun 27, 2015 12:05 pm

zedz wrote:We'll never know for sure, but I am 100% certain that Brian didn't intend to release a three-sided album in 1967. I assume that some of the instrumentals are just songs for which lyrics had not been written /recorded and others were intended to be short bridging tracks. Mrs O'Leary's Cow, for example, seems to be a complete, finished, short track, and Our Prayer sets the scene for this kind of musical punctuation.

Yep. If you listen to Brian's finished solo version from '04 (which is sequenced exactly the same as Disc 1 of The Smile Sessions, except it has "I'm in Great Shape" kicking off the 'Elements' suite), "Roll Plymouth Rock" (aka "Do You Like Worms"), "Song for Children" (aka "Look"), "Child Is Father of the Man," "I Wanna Be Around," "On a Holiday" (aka "Holidays") and "In Blue Hawaii" (aka "Love to Say Da Da") all have complete lyrics.

The finished product does leave questions as to how it would have been presented on vinyl back in '67. I also doubt it would've been a 3-sided LP, but with it consisting of 3 suites, where then would you divide the 2 sides? Do you put 2 suites on one side and leave the other side awkwardly much shorter than the other? Or do you split the 'Childhood' suite halfway through? :-k

It's also frustrating so see how close Brian actually was to finishing it; he just needed Parks to finish the remaining lyrics for the above songs (back then), record those vocals with the rest of the group, and put the tracks into their proper order. #-o

hearthesilence · #62 Post by **hearthesilence** » Sat Jun 27, 2015 3:42 pm

If Brian/the Beach Boys had wanted to release SMiLE in more or less the same length as we now know it to be, releasing it in its entirety would have been very possible. Not ideal, but perfectly viable without any massive compromises.

The program runs about 46 to 47 minutes, and while that wasn't common for most rock records, it wasn't unheard of (Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited among others) and it was fairly common in other genres.

Fidelity would have been an issue, but Brian's approach to mixing made things easier. For starters, he preferred mono, and that alone would have given him more space to work with during the cutting/mastering process. (Remember, he didn't even bother with stereo for at least three LP's preceding SMiLE, including two of his most personal, Today and Pet Sounds). Also important, for better and for worse, Beach Boy records of this vintage used a ton of compression. There's various aesthetic reasons for this: it was a by-product of their efforts to get their records to sound good on A.M. radio (though I honestly think less compression in the mix would've actually helped) and Phil Spector used a lot in the cutting masters for his Wall of Sound records, which Brian tried to emulate. Regardless, space/running time becomes less of an issue when you add that much compression. Think about Frank Sinatra's pre-60's landmark LP's, which were also made by Capitol - at least for the preferred mono versions, it wasn't a problem to cut those back then, and they were much more dynamic, not to mention equally long, often clocking in at 45 to 50+ minutes.

The only real issue would be the middle suite, and at worst, I think they'd break it in two - half to finish one side, half to start the other. They would have to do away with a segue/cross-fade and let one work part come to a cold finish and the next part start cold as well. At worst, they'd fade it out and fade it back in (which would be kind of half-assed). It seems logical because there are already a lot of albums that had to do this, and there are more than a few that were reissued on CD with the added benefit of doing away with the side break that was imposed upon them on their original LP release.

Paring down the work would be plausible as well - I could see odder non-song bits like "Barnyard," "Workshop," etc. getting sacrificed, but if Wilson had the option to keep it all, he probably would.

Drucker · #63 Post by **Drucker** » Sun Jun 28, 2015 2:26 pm

I saw the film last night and wanted to add praise. The viewing experience was way less than ideal, as the theater I saw it in had a blown front-right speaker, so there was annoying distortion during many of the musical moments.

Dano was unsurprisingly great, and kudos on him for really transforming his body to be the spitting image of Wilson. I have yet to be let down by him in anything, but his performance here was spot on, and exactly whom I imagine Wilson to be. Kudos, also, to the filmmakers for not letting Wilson's misery off the hook in these early years. I feel like other, lesser Beach Boys movies, would allow the conflict between Love and Wilson/Wilson and Wilson to have a happy resolution, and with few exceptions here, there is nothing of the sort. Especially the scene where Murray Wilson announces he has sold his son's band's catalog, which was truly heart-wrenching.
Cusack, Banks, and Giamatti deserve any praise they receive. Cusack's every tick and nuance was spot on, as well.

For most of my life, I was mostly an early-era Beach Boys fan. Actually, the first person to turn me on to later-era Beach Boys was a (crotchety, old) English teacher I had in high school (possibly the best teacher I've ever had, and exactly the kind that wouldn't be allowed in a classroom today with all the nonsense "reforms" that happen, ANYWAY). But in the last few years, I've fallen madly in love with Surf's Up and am slowly making my way through the other later albums.

#64 Post by **zedz** » Sun Jun 28, 2015 9:28 pm

hearthesilence wrote:If Brian/the Beach Boys had wanted to release SMiLE in more or less the same length as we now know it to be, releasing it in its entirety would have been very possible. Not ideal, but perfectly viable without any massive compromises.

The program runs about 46 to 47 minutes, and while that wasn't common for most rock records, it wasn't unheard of (Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited among others) and it was fairly common in other genres.

Fidelity would have been an issue, but Brian's approach to mixing made things easier. For starters, he preferred mono, and that alone would have given him more space to work with during the cutting/mastering process. (Remember, he didn't even bother with stereo for at least three LP's preceding SMiLE, including two of his most personal, Today and Pet Sounds). Also important, for better and for worse, Beach Boy records of this vintage used a ton of compression. There's various aesthetic reasons for this: it was a by-product of their efforts to get their records to sound good on A.M. radio (though I honestly think less compression in the mix would've actually helped) and Phil Spector used a lot in the cutting masters for his Wall of Sound records, which Brian tried to emulate. Regardless, space/running time becomes less of an issue when you add that much compression. Think about Frank Sinatra's pre-60's landmark LP's, which were also made by Capitol - at least for the preferred mono versions, it wasn't a problem to cut those back then, and they were much more dynamic, not to mention equally long, often clocking in at 45 to 50+ minutes.

The only real issue would be the middle suite, and at worst, I think they'd break it in two - half to finish one side, half to start the other. They would have to do away with a segue/cross-fade and let one work part come to a cold finish and the next part start cold as well. At worst, they'd fade it out and fade it back in (which would be kind of half-assed). It seems logical because there are already a lot of albums that had to do this, and there are more than a few that were reissued on CD with the added benefit of doing away with the side break that was imposed upon them on their original LP release.

Paring down the work would be plausible as well - I could see odder non-song bits like "Barnyard," "Workshop," etc. getting sacrificed, but if Wilson had the option to keep it all, he probably would.

I'm actually a little skeptical that the 'three suites' of the final release was the original conception for the album. One of the most confusing things about the project for the longest time was that there were a bunch of different, clearly stated 'concepts' for the album, most of which seemed mutually contradictory:
- the 'album about laughter' with various skits etc., which really only remains in a few places (and the title, obviously), but which becomes much clearer as an organizing principle when you saw the album performed live (where different tracks were animated with 'novelty' percussion and props)
- the 'history of America' concept, which is quite overt, but only in a handful of tracks
- the 'childhood to adulthood' theme, which I don't think was articulated by Brian in those kind of terms at the time, but which fits with a good chunk of the album
- the 'Heroes & Villains' leitmotifs running through a bunch of tracks
- the health and wellbeing thread that runs through a few tracks (and which Brian would return to a few years later)
- the Elements Suite: the only identified 'suite' at the time of recording, and something which seems to be quite at odds with many of the other ideas floating around, except for the historical reference of 'Mrs O'Leary's Cow'

The 'official' tracklist seems to be an (admirable) attempt to try and accommodate as many of those different organizing ideas as possible, but I expect that Brian was actually moving through a bunch of possibilities and would have settled on only one or two of them back in 1967, with certain tracks potentially falling by the wayside as a consequence. Also, in terms of the running time, in 1967, the versions of 'Heroes and Villains' and 'Good Vibrations' featured on the album would most likely have been the single releases, and thus would not have run over 4 minutes as they do on the released version.

It's been speculated that the fragmentary recording process made completion of the album just too complicated for Brian in 1967, but I suspect that conceptual confusion was a bigger issue. He clearly wanted to make a big statement, but he couldn't settle on which big statement, and kept revving up new organizing principles (the Elements Suite being quite a late arrival) that didn't especially fit with what came before and forestalled completion. If he'd been satisfied with a mere 'album of songs' he would have had more than enough material that at least had been fully written (and almost fully recorded) to create a fantastic album, on schedule, ahead of Sgt. Pepper:

Our Prayer
Heroes and Villlains
Do You Like Worms
Cabin Essence
Wonderful
Vega-Tables

Good Vibrations
Wind Chimes
Mrs O'Leary's Cow
Child Is Father of the Man
Surf's Up
You're Welcome (as a hidden track)

That's a pretty solid 12-track collection, clocking in at about 34 minutes (longer if you incorporate various pieces of music as bridging tracks, as 'Gee' was used very nicely in the official tracklist), and with only a few stray vocals left unrecorded when the project ground to a shuddering halt.

Cold Bishop · #65 Post by **Cold Bishop** » Sun Jun 28, 2015 10:48 pm

While we're on the subject, anyone has plugs for bootleg edits of Smile? I'm partial to the Purple Chick version, which is modeled on the Brian Wilson Presents... but with the actual original session work plugged in whenever possible. But I've always been interested in some of the more radical reworkings out there (especially as I'm skeptical that the three-movement sequencing is really how the album would have been released had it been finished).

hearthesilence · #66 Post by **hearthesilence** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 12:40 am

zedz wrote:I'm actually a little skeptical that the 'three suites' of the final release was the original conception for the album. One of the most confusing things about the project for the longest time was that there were a bunch of different, clearly stated 'concepts' for the album, most of which seemed mutually contradictory.

I share your skepticism, and I honestly believe it's impossible to be certain what the album's track sequence would have been if it somehow made it to completion in 1967. At best the three suite arrangement to me seems like speculation, but it does work, enough that it upended by initial skepticism about those recordings in general. (I had previously written them off as a fragments that would never find anything approaching coherence as an album)

#67 Post by **zedz** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 3:08 am

hearthesilence wrote:
zedz wrote:I'm actually a little skeptical that the 'three suites' of the final release was the original conception for the album. One of the most confusing things about the project for the longest time was that there were a bunch of different, clearly stated 'concepts' for the album, most of which seemed mutually contradictory.
I share your skepticism, and I honestly believe it's impossible to be certain what the album's track sequence would have been if it somehow made it to completion in 1967. At best the three suite arrangement to me seems like speculation, but it does work, enough that it upended by initial skepticism about those recordings in general. (I had previously written them off as a fragments that would never find anything approaching coherence as an album)

Yeah, I'm in exactly the same boat. The first time I heard the 2004 recording, I was astounded that the album actually did work in just about all the contradictory ways Brian Wilson had described it years ago.

Although I'm skeptical about the suite structure as it eventually emerged, I don't doubt that there would have been a lot of internal musical (rather than conceptual) coherence had it been completed at the time, with the musical motifs from 'Heroes and Villains' being woven through various other tracks, a number of the recorded fragments being able to serve as link tracks, and the consistent melancholy mood of about half the tracks.

#68 Post by **mfunk9786** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 3:34 pm

So which version do you guys reach for if you just want to listen to SMiLE in some form? I admire the meticulous recreation for the Wilson version, but can't shake that feeling that these aren't original recordings and therefore don't hold the same magic, so I opt for the first 19 tracks of the Capitol release, but I don't think there's a way you can really lose there.

hearthesilence · #69 Post by **hearthesilence** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 3:37 pm

Same here, I just stick with disc one of the standard two-disc Smile Sessions release from Capitol. (I think disc one was also issued commercially as a standalone in the UK for some reason.)

Drucker · #70 Post by **Drucker** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 3:42 pm

I loved Wilson's 2004 SMiLe release when it came out, but nothing beats the Beach Boys vocals.

MoonlitKnight · #71 Post by **MoonlitKnight** » Tue Jun 30, 2015 2:18 am

Drucker wrote:For most of my life, I was mostly an early-era Beach Boys fan. Actually, the first person to turn me on to later-era Beach Boys was a (crotchety, old) English teacher I had in high school (possibly the best teacher I've ever had, and exactly the kind that wouldn't be allowed in a classroom today with all the nonsense "reforms" that happen, ANYWAY). But in the last few years, I've fallen madly in love with Surf's Up and am slowly making my way through the other later albums.

You're likely better off stopping after Holland and then skipping straight to their 2012 reunion album That's Why God Made the Radio; everything in between is largely disposable. I know The Beach Boys Love You have their fans, but it's really more a half-Beach Boys/half-Brian solo album, and Brian's voice sounds awful on it (as does Dennis'), and the predominantly synth-heavy production gives it a very uniform sound.

In addition to "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times," I'd also recommend "Beautiful Dreamer: Brian Wilson and the Story of Smile" as an additional companion piece to this film. It completely chronicles the Smile project from its inception through its recording and its ultimately being scrapped all the way to its revival, completion, and world premiere in the early 2000's.

hearthesilence · #72 Post by **hearthesilence** » Tue Jun 30, 2015 1:12 pm

I'm actually mixed about their later albums. A lot of what I like on them was built on leftover material from the SMiLE sessions - outside of those tracks, there's probably only a track or two from each that I would enjoy, and by the time they get to Holland it really feels like slim pickings. "Marcella" and "Sail on Sailor" are probably the last things that I've returned to with any regularity.

#73 Post by **zedz** » Wed Jul 01, 2015 12:23 am

For the early 70s Brother albums, you just need to get past thinking of it as Brian's band (but, man, when he pulls out something like 'Til I Die' you just have to step back and gasp): Carl and Dennis are really pushing the band at this point, with brilliant tracks (in a very different and more contemporary style than their brother's) like Slip On Through, Forever, It's About Time and Feel Flows. If the nostalgia tsunami hadn't hit a year or two later, the band could have had a chance at evolving coherently.

Cold Bishop · #74 Post by **Cold Bishop** » Wed Jul 01, 2015 1:15 am

And you also can't ignore Dennis's Pacific Ocean Blue which features plenty of monents of Beach Boy harmonious beauty alongside the more conventional West Coast singer-songwriter rock. "Moonshine" and "Thoughts of You" in particular are just gorgeous.

mfunk9786 wrote:So which version do you guys reach for if you just want to listen to SMiLE in some form? I admire the meticulous recreation for the Wilson version, but can't shake that feeling that these aren't original recordings and therefore don't hold the same magic, so I opt for the first 19 tracks of the Capitol release, but I don't think there's a way you can really lose there.

As mentioned, bootlegs, particularly the Purple Chick mix, go a long way to mixing the best of both worlds.

Roger Ryan · #75 Post by **Roger Ryan** » Wed Jul 01, 2015 2:39 pm

I created my own stereo mix of THE SMiLE SESSIONS mono presentation tweaking some of the things I preferred to hear a different way. This was the gift of being able to purchase six discs of this material: you can create your own album. Having said that, I agree that Wilson probably hadn't settled on the concept/form of the album by December, 1966 and then spent the majority of time during the early months of '67 just trying to make "Heroes & Villains" work as a single. But even if he wasn't coming from the same artistic space in 2003, he put together a version of the album that works splendidly and I'm happy to consider it the finished SMiLE.

Back to LOVE & MERCY: I alluded to this in an above post, but my one reservation regarding the time compression used in the film is how the selling of the publishing rights is portrayed. In the film, Murray Wilson sells the catalog circa mid-1967 as SMILEY SMILE is being recorded whereas the catalog was actually sold in late 1969. Two years may not seem like much, but in the Beach Boys world these years were significant. Coming just eight or nine months after the #1 single "Good Vibrations", the Beach Boys were still considered relevant in June or July of '67. However, after the failure of the "Heroes & Villains" to top the charts and subsequent singles and albums doing even worse, the perceived value of the band dipped considerably even to the point of the concerts being poorly attended. While it was definitely a bad business move, there is a certain logic to Murray thinking he should cut the losses by selling the publishing rights in '69. Suggesting, as the film does, that the catalog was sold mere months after the band released its biggest selling single strains that logic.

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