From WXXI news this is connections I'm Patrick Hoskin in for Evan Dawson.
Our connection this hour was made in Hollywood California in the mid 1960s.
That's where Brian Wilson enlisted a cadre of professional musicians called the Wrecking Crew to help bring some new songs to life.
He'd been exploring, and felt himself moved beyond the sunny and sandy tunes his group, the Beach Boys, had become known for.
And the resulting album, Pet Sounds, is now celebrated as one of the best and most important albums of all time.
Rolling Stone said it changed the course of popular music, and yet it may not even be Wilson's best loved masterpiece.
You got smile.
You got some of the later 70s output that I feel like people ride for.
We'll get into it.
But Brian Wilson died on June 11th at age 82.
It felt like he had lived many lives.
Pop staple, outsider artist, tragic figure and then eventually triumphant champion of music and musical joy.
And his influence is so great now that even now, nearly 60 years after, Pet Sounds, musicians still cited as inspirational.
And this is true right here in our local music community.
This hour, we're joined by a group of local music makers who put Brian Wilson right up there.
So thank you all for being here.
We got Ben Morey is here.
Hey, Ben.
Hey, Patrick.
How are you doing?
Ben?
I'm doing well.
Ben is a musician and music educator, the founder of the Submarine School of Music.
Also his music with his band, The Eyes.
And as I learned, not that long ago, formed a, Brian Wilson Beach Boys tribute project over ten years ago now.
Yeah, well, it lived and died ten years ago.
Okay, well, R.I.P to that, but, it lives on in some recordings that I did here, which sounded cool.
And one of the people on those recordings, right, was Alex Northrup, who was also here.
So.
Hey, Alex.
Hi, Pat.
I'm here.
Alex is a songwriter, producer and engineer and, a frequent collaborator of Ben's.
I feel like you guys do stuff differently.
Oh, yeah.
Alex's latest record is called Victory Laps.
You can actually read a review of it in city magazine and on ROC City mag.
Com.
What is what I guess I should say.
What was the song?
Did you play on all those songs?
Because I listen, there's about mostly songs from Pet Sounds.
And then there was also Surfer Girl.
Did you play on all those songs?
Oh, and, the recording of the show?
Yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was.
I mean, so me, Ben, his now wife, Katie, we were kind of the core of that group.
So we played on all of it.
There were a few up.
Who else was in it?
Joe Parker, Justin Green.
So local folks who, when you told them the idea, they were like, yes, absolutely.
I want to do that.
Yeah, yeah, it was, actually, my, my wife Katie came up to me at the bug jar right after I'd moved to Rochester.
Said, I have this.
We weren't even really friends yet.
You know, we had met once before when our band played a show together, and she came up to me, and she's like, I have this idea to start a, Beach Boys tribute band.
And I said, oh, man, the Beach Boys are my favorite band.
And so, we we started that.
She had already had Alex enlisted and then that's how we started hanging out.
So, you know, if it wasn't for for Brian, the Beach Boys, I probably wouldn't have the, you know, my wife was very cool.
I should have added that as a tragic figure.
All the other evidence, but also matchmaker.
Yeah.
Match for sure.
Yeah.
And also, I'm so sorry to delay this, but Jacob Walsh is also here.
I got a lot of time.
Speaking of city magazine, Jake is City's art director, but also a musician.
Yes.
And I made music with people in this room, too.
Right?
You guys?
Yes.
Together.
I've played drums for both of these fellows.
And so at certain points over the last ten years, we've done some rocking.
Have you rocked to a Beach Boys song with them though?
No, it's a good question.
We did some jamming up in my attic.
A Beach Boys song might have made its way in there.
Possibly.
Yeah, like just feeling each other out.
Yeah.
You know.
So is it going to be Beach Boys or Weezer?
I'm getting more of a Weezer from you.
Is that how you.
So your band is big?
Nobody.
Yes.
Is that how you.
Is Weezer a sort of a touchstone?
Also, Beach Boys, Brian Wilson or totally.
Yeah, I would say like somewhere in the in the middle of the midpoint of those two, less so with big nobody but prior incarnations of this band.
Are huge Beach Boys, Brian Wilson, worshipers in the vocal arrangements and all of the instrumentation and all of that stuff.
So we're talking about California.
We are talking about California.
Yeah, me born and raised in Rochester, New York.
There's nothing I like, like the sunny golden coast of Southern California.
That's where my fiance is from, from Tustin.
I'm sensing a little bit of a vibe now.
He got something going on here that I didn't even know when I was playing.
This little something about California girls.
Patrick.
Yeah, yeah, I'm going to marry one.
Yeah.
And.
Yeah, well, I was going to say you didn't marry, but California was a big part of the blossoming romance.
So let me let me say, let me ask, I guess at the top of the hour, what are some, some aspects, some of the what's beloved about Brian's songwriting?
Brian's, you know, you mentioned favorite band, Beach Boys band.
What is it about?
About that.
I mean, is it the vocal arrangements, as Jake is saying?
Is it the vibe?
Is it the musical exploration?
I think really?
It's it's that there's so much heart in the music that it genuinely moves.
You like it?
Kind of like speaks to a part of your of your soul that like, you know, you get, like genuinely stirred by it.
And then like, the it kind of like, like it pays off the more that you get into it, the harder you focus on it.
The farther you look into it, the the bigger returns you get from it, right?
Like it hits you on that visceral level the first time you hear it.
And then the, you know, the more that you listen to it, it's just like, what are what are these sounds?
You know, he was combining like instruments that had never been combined before to make these new sounds.
And no one had ever heard, and then like, you know, it seems like really simple sometimes on the surface and stuff, these melodies are like, really kind of really pure and like direct, but then like, you know, harmonically it's doing like all of these like, weird changes and modulations and stuff that, you know, you you don't even realize that it's doing that until you try to learn to play it and you're like, wow, this is this is really intricate and strange.
Yeah.
There's a there's like a, famously he was very influenced by Gershwin and Rhapsody in Blue and a lot of these, sort of contemporary classical, pop leaning, but American songbook kind of arrangements.
I feel like kind of made his own version of that.
Yeah, absolutely.
Then do you find that you as an educator, I mean, at the Submarine school, there's a lot of Beach Boys.
Do people want to learn those songs?
Do you teach them?
Are there are there people coming in being like, I want to learn how to play.
God only knows.
Listen, they're going to learn whether they like it or not.
Sometimes.
Definitely.
Yeah.
I think, you know, there's a lot of, parents that send their kids to submarine with, like, kind of like, I don't know, they pick up the vibe, I guess, that we're going for, and they're just like, all right.
Yeah, that's cool.
Let's send them there.
But yeah, sometimes, like the kids, I think the Beach Boys are still, you know, hittin, you know, I think.
Yeah, I think the younger generation is aware, like Beatles and Beach Boys and stuff like that.
Having said that, I have gotten to be the person for a lot of kids to show them the Beatles or to show them the Beach Boys, which is an insane responsibility that I don't take lightly.
Yeah, that's really so.
And and obviously it's a positive, you know, reaction.
Are there anybody who just straight up is like, absolutely not.
I can't do this.
I'm sure there has been a blocked it out.
Yeah.
Let's find you a new teacher.
Special schools.
You are not.
What is it.
What about for you Alex?
I mean, you mentioned, I actually, I think I was reading both.
Both Ben and Alex wrote really lovely, tributes to Brian Wilson after he passed by.
I think it was may have been something in that that I read, but just about how there was so much in it that spoke to you in Brian's music and especially Pet Sounds that spoke to you.
I think he he put so much, of himself into the music.
Probably intentionally, probably also unconsciously, that it just shines through and you kind of feel like you, you kind of get to know the guy through his music, and he put a lot of heart into it.
It all comes from a special place.
But he also couldn't help that.
He just had this brilliant mind.
So he's put all this heart into it and it kind of hits you and you're like, this sounds great.
But then you keep listening to it and you're like, wait, what did he just do there?
Once you start thinking about it, there's a lot to really pick apart and work your own brain on it.
Yeah, it's interesting that he worked with, outside lyricists too, because we talk about this like, you know, such a piece of himself.
But if he's conveying so much of it directly in the music alone, before you even talk about the lyrics that he sort of collaborated with and I parks with Tony Asher, a lot of these other folks with it like that, that does say a lot that you can get that just from a lot of the musicality, too.
He might have been a guy who just couldn't find the words, but he could definitely go to his piano and play it and you'd be like, okay, I get it.
And I kind of get that too.
I've always struggled with lyrics, and it's nice when someone else writes the lyrics and you can just make the music.
That's maybe like one of his great skills too, is like, you know, identifying his own shortcomings and, and kind of like, having an eye for the exact right person that they could compliment that at the exact right moment in his artistic, journey.
You know, because Tony Asher is the the perfect lyricist for Pet Sounds, and then Van Dike Parks is the perfect lyricist for smile.
But they could not be more different, right?
You know, and Mike was the perfect lyricist for the early stuff, but he couldn't have pulled off Pet Sounds or Smile.
Right?
You know, he found the right people for the right songs, and he always I feel like for a long time there was narrative.
Brian Wilson's The Genius Behind the Beach is none of none.
The rest of the matter.
But he had all those great voices at his disposal, and he knew when to use Mike.
This part or he use al on this part and you don't even notice.
Sometimes it just blends into this huge hole.
Yeah.
But he knew when to use them at the right time.
And then with the Wrecking Crew, too, right.
It was like, oh, I can get these players into bringing all these different sounds.
So, yeah, I think collaboration is, a key part of his sound that maybe doesn't get mentioned as much.
Definitely.
He's like master collaborator, for sure.
Right after you said that he's the ringleader of it all.
He's at the center of for sure.
But right after he passed, like, the way that I kind of mourned him was just listening to the smile outtakes where it's, you know, like, you know, 16 hours of him, like, you know, it'll be like 30s of, like, Kevin Essence and then him, like said, stop, stop like how I want you to play this and like, kind of like just, you know, singing all the parts to all the musicians and to to to kind of experience all of those songs come together because of his, because of how he's able to communicate, you know, music to others.
Jake, as a drummer, you've probably been subjected to probably even me being like, no, no, play the drums like, but da ba da ba da and stuff, but, but but but the my my favorite thing about this type of musician and songwriter is that I've had so much experience.
I'm like both sides of it.
Like, I have very much been like a drummer in service to other people's projects where they are like writing and arranging everything and but then also being on the songwriting side.
I am not always very good with words or communicating things, especially as it pertains to like music.
In very frank, plain terms.
I feel like I always get stressed out when I'm in the driver's seat and the people that I work with.
Also, I'm very lucky to have as like very close friends, so you can kind of do that thing where you're not so much saying like, can you play the drums?
Like, can you accent the, the, the, the two in the four or whatever a little bit more or whatever.
You can just be like, no, it has to be like that.
Like you do your little your gibberish thing and you're, you're close with the people that you're making music with.
And there's, there's a lot of like frantic gesturing and it's also very frustrating to be, for me, at least I'll speak for myself.
It's really hard to be on the end of.
I need to tell everybody how this sounds in my head, because it's like all all in there and I can't, like, do it.
And I need you guys to do it.
And they I, I'm very lucky to find myself in circumstances both on the giving and receiving end where like, everyone's down to just like, we got it.
We get what you're saying.
Weird but good.
And it's.
We were talking about the film Love and Mercy not that long ago after he passed Jake.
And it's it's, Paul Dano plays sort of like Pet Sounds.
Smile era.
Brian Wilson, John Cusack plays later.
Late 80s, maybe early 90s version as well.
But there's great to your point, Ben, about the smile that takes.
There's some great scenes in that movie where he's essentially running around the studio doing exactly that kind of acting out, all of these kind of wild gestures.
And yeah, it's a kind of like cut in a montage.
So you can really kind of get the frantic nature of it, which is, which gives you.
I feel like a really good insight into that.
Definitely.
Yeah.
And that movie is so great to, it's like kind of one of the very few, music biopics that I thought nailed it, nails it completely.
We went and saw it on.
Yeah, yeah.
Did you see it again?
Oh, wow.
That still holds up.
It's so good.
It's it's got everything right that a music biopic should.
I'm just I, I'm really I don't bother with the any of them anymore.
Yeah.
The Dylan one was fine.
That's a different show.
But yeah.
Sort of.
I love films I do, but I, I agree, though, I think I do.
I think that there's a certain care that was like dedicate it to, okay, let's like let's because I feel like Brian Wilson's life in general had been so dissected as well.
Like, it's like if one of the very famous, most famous examples of like, kind of a peak career breakdown, you know, he struggled with mental health and sort of was in a eventually in a very toxic situation with an alleged caregiver.
So to kind of divorce or like to feel like you don't have to live up to the expectations, you don't have to establish a narrative that's already been well established.
You can kind of have some fun, you know, take some narrative, have some fun with the narrative and kind of do all that stuff.
So I agree and and in fact, I think that's very to the essence of a lot of the playfulness and kind of that, you know, what goes along with it, which I also think comes from, I mean, there's a lot of talk about, sort of like teenager dumb when you talk about the music.
I think Ben, in your tribute, you were talking about discovering that sounds when you're a teenager.
Alex I think you did as well.
Does that kind of go hand in hand with, like, I'm developing my own, certainly abilities as a musician, but also my ways of thinking as a musician.
And so, like, hearing somebody else do it to this caliber is also really inspiring, is that is that why like Pet Sounds hits as a teen?
Perhaps?
Definitely.
I think it hits you kind of at any age through the lens of being a teenager, though.
I think he he wrote it when he was 23, but he wrote it, you know, kind of from the perspective of, of teenagers a lot of the time, like songs like wouldn't it Be Nice if we were older and stuff like that, you know, like, I think that's the time where you're falling in love for the first time.
And those feelings are kind of like the most, you know, like, potent and, like, unbearable.
Than at any other time in your life and in if he can kind of put his listeners back in that headspace when you when they're listening to these songs and then you, you know, get even more emotional when you, when you hear him.
So I think that was a purposeful kind of kind of thing, but also probably like a lot of the music that he loved, you know, like the Phil Spector stuff, like Be My Baby was kind of speaking to that same right audience.
And they were I mean, Phil Spector was doing it because that's who bought records.
You know, he was trying to sell it to teenagers.
But I think Brian Wilson tapped into it because he just thought it would be more moving.
Yeah, I think he's still had, a sense for what was commercial two.
Sure.
You know, he he knew what his audience was, but at the same time, he was trying to push boundaries, break some new ground.
As far as how it hit me, I think it wasn't so much like the first love and stuff as a teenager, but just all the confusion and craziness that you have to deal with at that age.
I think more than anything, it really speaks to that, just trying to navigate your way through teenager.
Dumb.
Yeah.
For sure.
You know, it's confusing sort of glory.
Yeah.
Well, I wouldn't want to go back there.
Couldn't couldn't pay me.
Ben, you mentioned finding a copy of Pet Sounds at a yard sale in your 16.
Alex, I think you said.
Yeah, you said everything I do goes back to those 13 songs.
It felt like you and Brian were kindred spirits, so I think, yeah, there's definitely a theme in how the music can can hit and kind of can channel or or maybe give you language for something that maybe you're just kind of experiencing and you don't have it for yet.
In terms of then translating or I guess I should say, Jake, was it similar for you?
Were you when did you was it Pet Sounds?
I mean, because that's just one of many entry points, I think, for people.
That's very true.
My, I got into the Beach Boys, when I was kind of in my early 20s, I think when I started writing music in earnest, I was just sort of like looking for any sort of North Star, and I was like, looking towards people I trusted to see who, maybe who their North Star was.
And it's like always the Beach Boys and it's always that specific album.
It was it was my early 20s for sure, and that's that's a very potent time in anybody's life.
And, yeah, I wrote down a couple of things here, and one of the notes is music to Lick your wounds, too.
That's a that's a wound looking album for sure, especially if you're, you know, kind of a, a softy in your early 20s, someone who's prone to self-flagellation and self-doubt, all that sort of stuff.
You'll find, a bottomless well to jump into if you listen to Pet Sounds enough times.
Yeah.
It's crazy.
It's it's a comfort food, for sure.
You know, it's kind of like, you know, when you, I don't know, like, when I'm sick or something, like, I'll put on a show that I've seen a million times.
Yeah.
You know, just so that I don't have to think about something, but I can feel, like, kind of embraced, you know, totally.
You know.
Yeah, I see that.
And I think that there's, there's certainly like.
No, it's not as if, like, certainly the band didn't begin and Brian's abilities didn't begin with Pat downs.
We're just talking about that cause that's kind of like the most heralded, I think.
But there's obviously a whole career of really great songs and even what kind of gets, I guess, if you compare it to Pet Sounds or what came later, what gets slightly marginalized in terms of being like a very sunshiny, kind of pop centric thing about California and surfing and beaches.
But to that point, we got an email from Charlie in Pittsburgh who says, I'm in of an age where I remember Am radio before the Beatles.
Although I was, a little I had an older brother who was already buying records for his favorite Beach Boys LP with Surfer Girl, with his haunting title tune and the introspective In My Room.
Those two tunes are part of my DNA, and whenever I hear them, I still get chills and warm memories of growing up in a beach town.
Of course, as a working musician, I love Pet Sounds, a masterpiece.
Rest in peace, Brian Wilson a true genius.
Yeah, so I think that there's a lot and Surfer Girl was the first song on that.
Cover album anyway, so and it's, I think the first song that Brian wrote.
Right.
He, he heard, Beautiful Dreamer on the radio, and then he, he tried to match it like he went inside and wrote Surfer Girl is his attempt to, you know, match Stephen Foster.
Those are great stories, right?
Like there's one about Kurt Cobain staying up all night listening to Meet the Beatles.
And then he he writes, about a girl.
It's just like, those are nice little, like.
Yeah, stories that, you know, that I probably first heard, like, from David Fricke or something as a talking head on VH one, but I'm like, oh, I remember that.
That's a certain point.
So similar to that.
You know, I, I would love to, to hear about, as music makers, are, are any all of you trying, I guess consciously to not recreate but trying to channel something, hearing an idea that you like in a Beach Boy song and then trying to do that, trying to do your own version of it, like how much you mentioned Jake, the vocal harmonies obviously being a big part of it.
Yeah, I think that's kind of where a lot of people would, would start maybe.
Yeah, totally.
There's there are so many songs that because my, my band is a pretty straightforward, like heavy rock band, but a very melodic, pop pop grounded, heavy guitar band.
And in all of the studio sessions that we did, there's, there's, there's like four vocal tracks on every song, even if they're not always used.
It's something that myself and the producer for these records, Dave Drago, are both very in love with.
Like, I have a note here.
I didn't know what I was going to say about about Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys, but I wrote down that harmony is like my favorite thing about music.
I think there are many things to love about music.
And harmony is the one that to me comes the most naturally.
I feel like if you do it enough, you kind of get this sense for like, oh, okay, I can like, sing this harmony and then I can just run three tracks above it and that feels so good to harmonize A with yourself, but more so with like, other people.
Yeah.
I remember like when, when Alex and I played in the John Lewis Band, there would be like, Dave and John and I would like take any excuse we could to sing three part harmonies because we felt so comfortable together doing that.
And, I'm like getting goosebumps thinking about it.
I love I love multiple part vocal harmonies.
So you'll you'll find a lot of that sort of stuff, even in places where it straight up does not belong.
Like there are there are songs that are, you know, kind of thrashy and heavy and distorted, and then you'll hear like, a for freshman, like, like who's coming in over, over very like fuzzy guitars.
But I love, I love juxtaposing stuff like that.
And there always has to be sort of like a heart of sweetness for me, I think.
And vocal harmonies really, really, really do that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, actually, this might be a good I because I'd love to hear more about that from from you both Ben and Alex.
But maybe we can play a clip from Big Nobody's song.
Quiet, right?
This is the last song on your record, right?
From the from the dreamy.
Like being in the cover.
Like you.
You.
But you don't have a choice.
You drown in something, baby.
You make a move.
Justify the time.
You can play.
So I hear, I hear some jangle for sure.
But tangled up, it feels like a nice mellow vibe.
But you're.
And honestly, this part is kind of like a wave.
Like we're talking about a wave, but I hear the vocal harmonies for sure.
That's a lot of what you're talking about.
Yeah, yeah, I would say they do belong there, probably.
I did a terrible job of setting up the clip that I sent you this morning.
I was like, it's really aggressive, like, you know, rhythmic, fuzzy guitar music.
And then I sent, like, the softest song we've ever done we've ever had in our set before.
But yeah, also things change.
Collaboration is important in that album.
I was very much like, kind of left to my own devices for arranging that one.
Like that album is a big nobody album, but I did all the recording by myself, like I did all the instruments and all the vocal stacks.
So it was me and Dave working on that one.
And since then that ear towards Harmony has not gone away.
But I've got like three other people in the room with me who are, more and more we are working on these songs together, and there's like a much more present spirit of collaboration between the four of us.
And so that sort of jangled out like harmony heavy stuff.
There's still a place for it, but we are all kind of pushing collectively in a different direction.
But there's still there's still room for harmony.
So you're not you're not in the same Brian Wilson role of trying to know everything in your head.
I've got my my best friends in the world that I can lean on and whose tastes I trust and who have very different tastes too.
They all are incredible, like writers, arrangers and people.
And it's baffling to kind of have all of them.
Connor, JT and Kyle are the other three.
I want to name them because I'm talking about let's name them.
Yeah, they're they all have bands, projects and aspirations of their own.
And when we were together as Big Nobody, we all benefit from all of us kind of having different interests, different tastes, and all of that stuff.
That's cool.
And I should.
So the harmonies you're singing with yourself on that song, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're not singing with your two brothers and your cousin and your friend, not.
Yeah, like the Beach Boys.
I could not imagine doing that.
Okay.
What about for.
For you, Ben.
I mean, is it, do you hear something in in a song and in a Beach Boys song?
Or.
I guess maybe it's there's an idea that you like because and and even saying that, like, there's, you know, if you it depends on the song.
Right.
Because you're talking about a ferryman in certain circumstances.
You're talking about all sorts of different instruments.
I think that that definitely happens and that there's so many kind of aspects to be inspired by in beach, Beach Boys music, you know, like there's that collaborative aspect that we're talking about, like trying to get like, you know, really cool ideas out of other people's brains and trying to orchestrate that or trying to communicate your own ideas to somebody with, you know, more prowess on an instrument or something like that, or like trying to combine, instruments, you know, in a way that, that you've never heard before.
I think that's something I take from Brian a lot is trying to come up with unique sounds.
I think, trying to move chord progressions in, in sort of an unexpected but smooth way is something that I try to, to do a lot.
And that's from Brian.
Trying to use like the recording studio as an instrument itself, like trying to get like a bunch of people in one room and then and like, kind of like Mike make it from the, you know, the walls or something like that, and trying to get like this kind of this big wall of sound, that, you know, Brian love to do.
And then, you know, Harmony is absolutely.
I think harmony is, like, instantly elevate a song, you know, that's good.
Also example of what that means, cause I hear that expression a lot using the or using the studio as an instrument.
And I just never as someone who does not record music, really, I've always I was like, what does that actually look like?
So you're talking about putting up mics.
Just is it more about like just seeing what the room can do?
Yeah.
So different rooms have obviously have like different vibes.
Like if you record in church it's going to sound, you know, like really big and reverb being spacious.
And then if you record the, you know, like in a, in a bathroom, you know, it's going to be really reflective and small and sometimes, you know, that's, that's the thing you want.
And sometimes it's that church sound or like, you know, every studio studio is different.
Like they can be made out of wood or the tile floors or what have you, you know.
But Brian really, he like, had what's kind of cool is that as a 23 year old, he had like, you know, just this incredible string of successes and like, an unlimited budget to do whatever he wanted.
Yeah, yeah.
That's true.
That's another very key aspect.
Yeah, yeah.
We must no wonder this room can really recreate, right, with the major label recording budgets.
Yeah.
And some of the greatest recording studios that ever exist.
Yeah, and the greatest musicians.
So he like a song like Good Vibrations that was recorded in, like, six different studios.
Like an every, every single, like section of that song is splice together from takes from different studios on different days.
Right.
And another way you can play the studio as an instrument.
It's not not even just the room itself, but from the technical side, you can start cutting things together, like on the other side of the glass.
There you can start running things through different echo chambers, tape echoes.
That was really all that was available to them at the time, so they'd be really inventive about what they did.
But that's another playing the studio as an instrument.
And the Beatles were doing the same thing across the pond.
I think, Strawberry Fields is kind of a yeah, the, their, their version of Good Vibrations.
They were doing the same thing there.
It was cut together from totally different recordings.
They did.
They sped the tape up.
They slowed it down.
That's playing the studio.
Yeah.
You're just going to a knob and just kind of turning it to change the pitch.
Okay?
Like, like go into your amp and be like, well, let's see how it sounds.
If we do that and turn that knob.
Sure.
We have an email from Michael in Rochester who says, when I was a child, I didn't have a lot of money.
I used to maximize what little I had by waiting until one of my favorite groups came out with the greatest hits record.
The first Beach Boys Greatest Hits was one of my all time favorite records.
I played it so many times that the whole in the middle of the record got so big that it would not play anymore.
I just made a playlist of my top 20 and in my room made the list.
Hearing the song takes me back to my childhood and bedroom and Charlotte, where I always felt safe and secure.
Yeah, I think there's a lot.
I think that it's all there, right?
Like the the entry point, being whatever it is, the kind of love and, you know, literally wearing out a physical disc and then also kind of the memories for that.
So.
Yeah.
That's great.
Well, we have to take a quick break.
It's going to be our only break of the hour.
We've been talking to Ben Morey and Alex Northrup and Jake Walsh about Brian Wilson.
When we come back, we will talk more about that and we'll also hear a little bit more music.
I'm Megan Mack Wednesday on the next connections.
Guest host Gino Fanelli talks with winners from the Monroe County Democratic primary and the first.
Our winners of the Rochester City Council race in the primary and then in the second hour, winners of the Rochester City School Board race candidates for commissioner in the Democratic primary.
That's coming up Wednesday on connections.
Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Mary Kerry Ola center, proud supporter of connections with Evan Dawson, believing and informed and engaged community is a connected one.
Mary Carey, ola.org.
All right.
This is connections.
We are talking about Brian Wilson with Ben Morey with Alex Northrup and Jake Walsh.
We heard a little bit from Jake's band before the break.
Big nobody song was called quiet, right?
Yes.
Okay.
I just wanted to make sure that people knew where to find it.
It kind of does tie into to that last email.
It's a song about kind of trying to be alone and, like, be away from everything and find quiet, find like peace within yourself.
I know we're trying to come back, but it did occur to me like, wow, some connections.
Yeah.
My connections.
Connections.
Yeah.
This song that I sent you for today is also about that sensing a theme.
And let me read one of my notes.
Music for introverts, dreamers, softies and romantics and that as the subtitle of this up, let's assemble the crew.
Well, actually, yeah.
So why don't we can you talk a little bit about, the song?
Maybe we can set it up.
And so yours is, it's called tears in My Ears.
It's it's, I would say it influences you know, I think Brian kind of, you know, has touched all the music that I've ever made in some way, but, you know, I this one is, is definitely kind of a in my room type song.
It's definitely from the point of view of like a teenager that's going through like, you know, has gone like through a breakup.
And then they're just like listening to music by themselves in their room, and then a song comes on that, that, that reminds them, you know.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, let's hear a little bit.
This has been more tears in my ears.
I get to in my you when I'm not laying in my bed.
In your sweet memory dreams in my forget tears in my ears when I'm up late.
And oh okay.
So we heard, we heard that I.
The lyrical stuff you say Alex playing organ on this.
He's he's going to come in on the second verse there.
Yeah.
Very good, very good.
Yeah.
So okay so yes I definitely can sense that are a little bit of a little melancholy but sounds upbeat, you know, right in that wave, which is nice.
When's that song from, how old is that one?
That one came out in 2020.
Okay.
Yeah.
It's an album called Still Life now is.
Have you have you all found, it and it's sort of like you mentioned this earlier.
Been we you're talking about, you know, sort of being the, the entry point or being the person who allows a lot of your students to have this entry point with the Beatles or the Beach Boys or however, a lot of these acts who, like you're almost assumed to have just the knowledge of.
Right.
But obviously everybody does have an entry point.
Is it a is it a given when you talk to other musicians here?
I mean, you've all been here in Rochester making music for a long time, is there is that like a Common Core Brian Wilson Beach Boy stuff, or is it almost just like a given in the same way that like maybe a Bob Dylan or Beatles or something would be?
I mean, do you really bond?
I mean, the Pet Sounds cover thing, it sounds like a really good example of a bunch of really dedicated people bringing that to life.
But did you find that that's like, emblematic of a community?
Not always.
You know, I think that, like whether a person likes the Beach Boys or not is a good litmus test for me.
You know, like when I'm when I'm like going to see if I'm going to bond with another musician or if we're going to have that, that common ground, you know, because you to to like the Beach Boys.
I guess you have to, you know, you got to put a little bit into it, you know, you got to dig a little bit.
Yeah.
I think, you know, there's a ton of people that just think of the Beach Boys as, like the radio hits and like the surf songs and the car songs and stuff like that.
You know, Pet Sounds lovers are totally different.
Camp of of, like, Beach Boys fandom, you know, it's like the mike love people are the Brian people.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, man.
I'm just remembering that the person who, like, showed me that era of the Beach Boys was Connor Benincasa, who plays drums in my band and who has a great band of his own called Comfy.
We were on tour together and we were like driving through Boston and he played the smile sessions and that was like he he was very much, I think, on a mission, maybe not on a mission so directly, but we were in the car for hours and he was like, I'm going to, I'm going to show everybody this.
And he did.
And that was like the beginning of of that.
That's one of the most fun things if you're in that era of your life where you're just with a bunch of open minded people and you get to show them all the cool stuff that you like, and to see the enthusiasm that kind of comes from that, oh, that's the best.
It was very cool, and I could see how that would lend itself a lot to musical collaboration.
We have an interesting message here.
This is an email from William.
He asks, to what extent do you think the environment around LA, where Brian Wilson lived, contributed to his musical genius?
I'm interested since I grew up one mile north of the Wilson brothers.
And we should say, you know, Wilson Brian Wilson was in the band with his brothers Carl and Dennis.
Their cousin was Mike love, and then their friend Al Jardine was also in the band.
And they're all from although Al Jardine, born here in Rochester before he moved out to SoCal.
That's so crazy.
Got shout it out.
But yeah, I mean I don't know, I don't I do you do you all have any thoughts on that question?
I we took a trip to LA last year and we did a thing where we were like, we we ended up renting a convertible and like, let's just find like all these classic LA records and just listen to them while we're driving around.
And eventually you got to the Beach Boys, and we were like, this just sounds like what we're seeing.
Yes.
Yeah, I think he of all of them, they they somehow tapped into that sensibility and that environment and translated it in the music that they.
Yeah.
The California myth, they, they sold that through their music.
People around the world would hear it be like, oh, that's what California is like.
And I think if you go there and you listen to it, you're like, you would be like, oh yeah, it just feels like it's in the air.
Yeah, yeah.
The first time was a spiritual experience.
Yeah for sure.
That's cool.
Smart, smart to do.
What a cool idea.
Yeah.
That's right.
How do I put the the lay the foundation for a guaranteed cool experience, I guess is to rent a convertible.
Listen to these really great albums in L.A. Yeah, yeah.
What, where are you going?
To say something about that.
JC, I was just.
Oh, I was just gonna say my first time out in Los Angeles.
I remember, like, being in LA and being, like, being overcome with the feeling of, like, this is.
This is like the Beach Boy.
Like I explain it, but it's like big things are things are incredibly different.
On the West Coast and I, you know, everything is very spread out.
You are doing a there's a huge car culture, for better or for worse.
And there's, you know, there's just so much space and so much, so much to like, take in visually.
And it you do kind of if you're driving down the road or driving on the coast or whatever, you feel very much like a, a liquidity, like a feeling of like soaring, you know, not to romanticize driving too much or like, I don't that's kind of what rock and roll is all about, right?
You got that right?
Yeah.
Bruce Springsteen, speaking of biopics, yeah, think the first thing in the trailer is I'm sitting in the car, you know, say.
But yeah, I mean, there's there's I've been thinking about this also because of where we live.
Like, we just see so little sun, with the exception of the past week or so, we see so little of it that I wonder if there's any particular attraction to the Beach Boys or something like that, because it it's a bit escapist.
It's an escape for sure.
Yeah.
Also, we're we are a beach town too, so that's all I eat my all the time.
Yeah.
Shout out to Duran Eastman Beach shout some of my early memories of the Beach Boys are listening that I'm at the beach.
Yeah.
So that's another way I feel connected to it.
Of course, the Christmas album is great for the, eight dark months of the year.
Yeah.
So we have here it's one or the other, though.
That's your other name.
I mean, they're not called like the Pacific Beach Boys.
It's the Beach Boys.
It's like, you know, West Coast Beach Boys.
Yeah.
No, you know, Minnesota land of lakes.
Yeah.
There's beaches too.
You can tell that these boys that they're America's band, they're for all Coney Island.
There you go.
Yeah.
Okay.
So there's, there's one more track that we should play.
This is your song, Alex.
This is called We Were the Stars.
This is, this is from your your new record.
Right.
Victory laps.
And do you want to how would you set this up?
Gee.
Oh it's, it has to pick a song and I it, I couldn't think of one was like explicitly like, oh yeah.
This is my Beach Boys song.
Just because I think it's just so ingrained in my DNA.
Sure.
My musical DNA at this point, that it never comes out explicitly, Beach Boys, but it's just always there.
It's always filtered through my own sensibility.
But I was thinking about this one, and, there's vocal harmonies on it, for sure.
Bands I and my friend Katie is one of the main focus on it.
And we layered a whole bunch of tracks.
And part of the reason I had, urn, there, because I just want to use different voices.
So checks that box.
It's I feel like this one's kind of catchy and accessible, and then around the bridge, the chords start to go off the rails and it gets into some weird modulations.
So there's that.
Definitely some studio is instrument, and it there's some weird tape effects late in the song too.
So very cool.
And, I did not write the lyrics to this one.
This was a collaboration with our friend Clem Coleman from Syracuse.
So in a lot of ways, it checks a lot of Brian Wilson.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was the last one.
Oh, yeah.
I didn't write the lyrics for this one either, so that's great.
So yeah.
Okay.
All right.
So this is Alex.
North of this song is called We Were the Stars.
Crawl through the crowd.
Now that you got.
To care for these devils.
But they are fun.
You swam in the fountains.
And you still ever been.
But the trouble was, mountain just.
He could not speak.
For the dreamer.
No, I loved what was the.
The second instrument we heard after the acoustic guitar and the vocals.
What was that?
That came in.
It's a piano, which was a regular piano.
Tacks and the hammers.
So that makes kind of a metallic clanging sound when you play it.
Fed through a Buchla synthesizer.
Wow.
That my partner Sam Hirsch built.
And so I, I went in the we call it studio B, which is the little room and I played the piano and he was in the other room manipulating the sound live and it gets a little goofier as it goes on to.
Sure.
Yeah, but we thought it was cool sounds Alex Northrup song.
We Were the Stars.
Yeah.
I mean, not not dissimilar to the, was it the hair hair clips in the piano for, that's kind of the sound of metallics.
Yes.
And they, they said thank you.
Yeah, they definitely had tech pianos on Pet Sounds.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Let's go.
Yeah.
I mean, and that's your earlier point been about unusual instruments or maybe I think you said instruments that you wouldn't necessarily put together.
That's something that really draws you in.
Yeah, definitely.
I mean like Good Vibrations I think part of its popularity is just that he's using a theorem in and a cello.
And, you know, all these really like, these instruments that you don't hear in pop songs ever.
You know, that was maybe the first use of theremin in a pop song.
Well, and except for the ones he did at first or that.
That's right.
Yeah, yeah.
What an innovator.
I do love that.
Like, I think that's so much of the reason all these sounds exist on the albums is because, like, they kind of they were very, very successful and at a certain point you're just like, well, I got all this stuff, I gotta use all this stuff.
Like I'm in the studio.
I got all these people at a huge budget, like, why not be weird and try like a bunch of strange stuff?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's, like, stories about him, like, you know, having to call up like, a place because it's LA.
So they have everything for movies and stuff, you know, there are like warehouses that just collect kind of strange stuff.
And there's one that specialized in instruments.
So he, he just, like, call them up and be like, do you, you have like a, like a pump organ there.
Can you bring it here in ten minutes?
Yeah, you can hear it on the progression on the early albums too.
Like they start off as just a basic GarageBand, pretty much two guitars, bass, drums.
Even as far back as the first album, you get an organ solo and okay, that kind of breaks it up a bit.
By Surfer Girl, you get, they've catch a wave on that one.
They do.
It's now there's a harp.
So like okay there's one little bit and then as the albums go on you get more and more random little instruments in there until like 1965 with Beach Boys today.
Now he's bringing then timpani.
There's harpsichords, there's bass harmonicas regularly and every song has at least a couple of weird instruments.
And it just kind of blew up from there.
Okay.
Yeah.
So as you, as they had the success and the money to be like, yeah, yeah, we can bring in these, these players that cost a lot of money per hour.
Right.
Yeah.
You can hear that progression through the discography.
Well, this is good because we had, an email from Michael in Rochester asking what records after Pet Sounds would you all recommend?
So this is a good one.
I had this question too, and I'd love to throw that out to.
Yeah, whoever.
Well obviously smile you know, which you know, was the most famous unreleased album and most bootlegged album until it was finally released in 2011.
The smile sessions.
Yeah.
Like that.
That's probably my favorite album.
Do you guys like period?
Do you like the, the 2004 Brian Wilson present smile as well?
Definitely.
And I think that, kind of was an entry point for me to, to Brian as an artist to, you know, like I got Pet Sounds and I love that album.
But then when it was like, right after that, they put out, Brian Wilson Presents Male with the documentary Beautiful Dreamer, which told, you know, like the whole story of of Brian.
And that's kind of was my introduction to him as an artist.
And, and it's also probably the reason that, like, I wanted to become like a recording engineer and like, spent time in recording studio.
This was because of that.
So, I mean, smile.
Yeah.
You got to listen to that.
Totally.
Okay.
What about you, Alex?
What do you think in smiley Smile, the album that came out in its place, I get it, it's not smile.
Yeah, but my God, it's weird as heck.
There's nothing else like it.
And I thought I wouldn't like it when I first heard it, but there's just something about the weirdness really drew me in.
It's super minimal, so it it pulls back from the, orchestra in a tiny room.
Sound of Pet Sounds to, maybe a piano and a bunch of, substance influenced vocalizing over it.
Sure.
Real minimal stuff.
That that's one of my favorites.
And friends, which came in early, was it today was the release date?
Oh, six year anniversary.
Okay.
Yeah.
Cool anniversary.
Yeah.
And that's when they, they, they kind of get back into more sounds than friends.
Friends?
It's great.
How old friends?
What about you, Jake?
I really I remember really loving, wild honey.
I was, I was into that for a while, and, I actually don't know if Brian is on Wild Honey or Surf's Up, but those are the two.
He's.
So.
He's on.
He's on.
Yeah.
Okay.
Surf's up.
Not my memory is not serving me, but.
Yeah, well, he was sort of, like, in and out of the picture.
I feel like at that point.
Right?
Like.
Yeah, but yeah, yeah, I didn't.
I have to admit to I didn't spend too much time with those albums because I really do love the early Beach Boys stuff.
That's also very influential to me.
And and then right up to Pet Sounds, those are that's kind of I think and I think that's kind of the story for a lot of people.
I may fall into that stereotype of like, I really love the early stuff.
I really love Pet Sounds.
I must capture falling off afterwards.
But, you know, I, I know that I've at least listened to to the whole the whole catalog.
Sure.
Or the proper catalog.
But yeah, I think those are the two that kind of stuck around in my head, outside of, like, outside of Pet Sounds and the early stuff.
Are you all familiar with the shortening bread situation?
It's it's kind of a meme at this point, since might be for the, I don't think so.
This slightly, is perennially online, folks, but.
Okay.
Ben, could you explain this a little?
Yeah.
It's like, Bretton was just obsessed with shortening bread.
He's just the, like, at different periods in his life.
He has said that it's his, you know, he thinks it's the most brilliant song ever written and trite, trying to get people around him to to sing it with him at, like, parties and stuff, which is like the tune that goes, mom is a little baby love.
Sure.
Yeah, yeah.
Yep.
Mama's little baby.
Sure.
There's a Beach Boys recording of it.
Yeah.
Right from was it for Adult Child?
Oh, yeah.
The, weird unreleased late 70s album.
So there's a lot of law.
There's a lot of.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, there's a funny story about, like, him trying to get Iggy Pop to sing it, and which leads to Iggy Pop, like, leaving his house saying, that guy's crazy.
Yeah, right.
And so it's kind of become a meme like.
And to the point where I.
So I, I don't know when I became aware of this, but yeah, there's a, there's a great on the, the Wikipedia page for the song Shortened Bread.
There's a whole Beach Boys section that's just devoted to stories like that, that Iggy Pop thing.
There's one about him calling up Alex Chilton from Big Star being like, you have to sing this song.
You have the perfect voice for it.
It's like the middle of the night and he's like, oh, okay.
But there's a lot of, there's so there's a lot of the stories and it's sort of become a meme and like to the point where, even when, after I learned that Brian had passed away, I went on to the there's like a seven minute version of it from the 70s.
That is unbelievable.
I mean, it is really, really out there, but it it really rips and it sounds like very of the era and indulgent in many ways, including in substances, perhaps.
But, everybody in the comments was like, real heads are here.
IP Ryan Ryan.
And it was like it was like, that's where they went.
Like, oh my God, Brian Wilson died.
Let's listen to Short in Breath.
Wow.
So I have to say, Jake, if you're you got to check this out I should and I will.
That's a promise.
And ding ding and ding ding.
Yeah.
Which is just fun to say.
Good clean fun as a mark.
Which which he's, he said is his favorite song that he ever wrote, which is like a 52nd song.
Yeah.
That he co-wrote with Roger McGuinn.
Okay, of the Byrds.
The Byrds.
Yeah.
No kidding.
So so there's and I, I honestly think that this is why it's very, it becomes so much more fun to be like an active fan in this era because it's like, you don't you have so much more than just the records now, you know, all the more accessible now.
Yeah, totally.
It's and there's a lot good to be a Beach Boys fan.
Yeah, it's it's a fun community that you can I mean there's, there's like make friends through and it's true everything it's it's great and there's so much to to your point earlier been there's so much unreleased stuff in the vaults.
I mean, much of it has been released at this point, but there's a lot of, you know, fan track lists for smile.
Is this the one that Brian wanted?
Like, you know, how can we play with it?
So it's a debate.
It's a very active sort of community, which I think for music fans and music obsessive.
I feel, you know, it feels like it's it's.
Yeah, it makes sense why it's.
Oh, this, this Pet Sounds is going to be 60 years old next year.
But it doesn't matter.
It seems like, you know, because it kind of stays just as fresh.
Yeah.
It feels it's it's kind of funny.
Like the Beach Boys are probably one of the most famous and successful bands, of all time.
Yet, like being a Beach Boys, like, super fan, you know, like it kind of.
It kind of makes you feel like you're part of this, like, special underground club that, you know, that there's no one knows that I know.
All I know about that is true.
I don't know what it is about.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I, I have to say, I appreciate the perspective from all three of you and, highly recommend, to our, our listener who asked about albums.
I think, all of those are great.
But also we have to add the song Sean and Brett in there as well.
Yeah.
And love you.
That album Love You is also.
Oh yeah.
So very cool.
Cool.
Well, I have to thank my guests.
Ben Murray, co-founder of the Submarine School of Music and recording engineer and songwriter, and Alex Northrup, producer songwriter as well.
Jake Walsh, city art director and musician and Big Nobody.
Thank you all for being here.
R.I.P Brian Wilson and thank you for listening to member supported public radio.
Oh.
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