Beach Boys

was beach boy mike love one of rock & roll’s greatest frontmen?

by
BeachBoys on stage 1971 1500

OPINION QUESTIONS are big on Quora and I try to pro­vide an­swers that are ac­cu­rate but some­what off the beaten path. The ques­tion I re­ceived this morning was, “Who are the all-time great frontmen in music?” I read the ques­tion as who are the great lead singers of rock groups, as both vocal and vi­sual per­formers.

In an in­stru­mental group, the frontman would be the in­di­vidual who is out front leading the band, re­gard­less of the in­stru­ment he plays. READ MORE

real rarity, relative rarity, and the “wow!” factor

by
PinkFloyd TheWall Scarfe header 1501

IN RECORD COLLECTING, we bandy about cer­tain terms so often that they lose their meaning. One such word is ‘rare,’ which should be con­sid­ered a bugaboo not just record col­lecting, but all fields of col­lec­tables. An­other abused word is ‘psy­che­delic,’ or, as it is more often used, ‘psych.’ But the misuse of that term—unintentional and intentional—deserves an ar­ticle of its own. READ MORE

a requiem for those timeless good good good vibrations

by
Byrds 1965 airport copy

THE MAJOR RECORD COMPANIES usu­ally re­leased new ti­tles on Monday, or at least they did in the ’60s. On April 12, 1965, I rushed home from school and ran up­stairs to my room and tossed my books on my bed and pulled my money out of my drawer and ran downstairs to the garage and picked up my bike and zoomed off to Joe Nar­done’s record shop and bought Mr. READ MORE

on brian wilson and SMiLE (a convoluted conversation part 1)

by
BW Smile LMposter2

WAS THE LEGENDARY “SMILE” ALBUM based on Brian Wilson’s ex­pe­ri­ences with LSD? Did Brian con­sciously or un­con­sciously in­cor­po­rate as­pects of Zen Bud­dhism into SMiLE? Who was Arthur Koestler and what did he have to do with SMiLE? What the hell is ‘biso­ci­a­tion’ and why is it a part of a con­ver­sa­tion on Six­ties rock music? Did the other Beach Boys re­ally hate his new music of Bri­an’s, or just Mike Love? READ MORE

on brian wilson and SMiLE (a convoluted conversation part 2)

by
Convoluted header3

THIS ARTICLE ADDRESSES BRIAN WILSON and the in­spi­ra­tion for his leg­endary SMiLE album. It bears the un­wieldy title of “On Brian Wilson And SMiLE (A Con­vo­luted Con­ver­sa­tion Part 2),” be­cause it is the second of a three-part ar­ticle. Please find Part 1, which is an in­tro­duc­tion to Arthur Koestler, and read it be­fore con­tin­uing with this ar­ticle. READ MORE

on brian wilson and SMiLE (a convoluted conversation part 3)

by
Convoluted header2

THIS ARTICLE ADDRESSES BRIAN WILSON and the in­spi­ra­tion for his leg­endary SMiLE album. It bears the un­wieldy title of “On Brian Wilson And SMiLE (A Con­vo­luted Con­ver­sa­tion Part 3),” be­cause it is the second of a three part ar­ticle. Please find Parts 1 and 2 and read them be­fore con­tin­uing with this ar­ticle.

 

 Convoluted Conversation Part 3: cover of the original Beach Boys' SMILE album 1966.

This is the cover for Capitol DT-2580, the Beach Boys SMILE. READ MORE

david anderle’s won-won-wonderfully weird portrait of brian wilson

by
BrianWilson 1967 DavidAnderle Painting 1500

THINGS WERE GETTING WEIRD in Brian Wilson’s world when he met David An­derle. By the third quarter of 1966, many sig­nif­i­cant changes had taken place in his life and his sur­round­ings. PET SOUNDS and Good Vi­bra­tions and the SMiLE ses­sions that everyone in Los An­geles seemed to know about had brought a very dif­ferent kind of at­ten­tion to Brian that pre­vious Beach Boys records had not. READ MORE

what was the first “rock” double-album of the ’60s?

by
dbl header FO2 1500

 IT IS ACCEPTED “FACT” that two sem­inal works of pop­ular music—the Beach Boys’ PET SOUNDS and Bob Dy­lan’s BLONDE ON BLONDE—were re­leased on the same day, May 16, 1966. And there was a second reason to cel­e­brate that date: BLONDE ON BLONDE was also the first rock double-album of all-new studio record­ings, beating the Mothers of In­ven­tion’s FREAK OUT! READ MORE

the forward-slash/hyphen conundrum resolved

by
JamesTaylor header

I PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED AN ARTICLE about the use of dashes ti­tled “On Those Pesky Dashes As Punc­tu­a­tion Marks” on Neal Umphred Dot Com. There I ad­dressed the em-dash (—), the en-dash (–), and the hy­phen (-). It should have in­cluded some sug­ges­tions on the proper use of the for­ward leaning slash (/). After all, graph­i­cally the forward-slash, or vir­gule, is just an up­right, slanted dash! READ MORE