{"id":294,"date":"2012-09-26T17:24:54","date_gmt":"2012-09-26T16:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/badhedgehog.com\/?p=294"},"modified":"2018-12-14T19:33:20","modified_gmt":"2018-12-14T19:33:20","slug":"the-best-brian-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atantalus.com\/badhedgehog\/2012\/09\/the-best-brian-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"The best Brian ever"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My favourite Brian ever, ever, EVER, is Brian Wilson.<\/p>\n<p>Brian Wilson has written and arranged music of sublime beauty. He is a genius. It&#8217;s an overused word, but I don&#8217;t misuse it here.<\/p>\n<p>If you don&#8217;t understand or appreciate the Beach Boys, it&#8217;s probably because you haven&#8217;t really listened to the Beach Boys. Once you do, you will appreciate Brian Wilson.<\/p>\n<p>I am listening to &#8220;I Get Around&#8221;, a 2 minute pop song from 1964. Harmonies; Brian&#8217;s clear falsetto; the guitar arrangement and those crisp, crisp handclaps. It&#8217;s an evocation of a vacation; of a teenage summer driving the car down to the beach. It ends, drifting into the xylophone opening of All Summer Long.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Beach Boys - I Get Around\" width=\"1010\" height=\"758\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KnPL5OXSBNE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a foretaste of the compositions and arrangements Brian would go on to do with The Wrecking Crew on Pet Sounds and the long dormant SMiLE. Just listen to &#8220;Heroes and Villains&#8221; from the remastered SMiLE project. Such complexity, such beauty.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Beach Boys SMiLE Sessions - Heroes and Villains Music Video\" width=\"1010\" height=\"568\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ptxwWt2JeGQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s well known that Brian had his troubles; he spent much of the 1970 and 1980s quite ill, with disordered eating and sleeping, depression and auditory hallucinations which he self-medicated with alcohol and cocaine. Brian Wilson didn&#8217;t &#8220;overcome mental illness&#8221;, as the cliche goes. He lived through it, as the reality goes. These symptoms and disorders weren&#8217;t a result of taking too much acid, and had actually been around for quite a while.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Remember too (particularly&nbsp;when you see all the&nbsp;ridiculous \u201cdrug casualty\u201d post SMiLE stories), that Brian was checked in (possibly at his own volition) to a psychiatric hospital in 1968 to treat his mental illness (and possibly try to help deal with long standing problems relating to his childhood abuse). This is a mental&nbsp;illness&nbsp;that is pretty much referred to&nbsp;directly&nbsp;in the hit single \u201cBreak Away\u201d\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h5>the aTantalus blog <a href=\"http:\/\/atantalus.com\/blog\/2012\/11\/an-artist-and-a-machine\">An Artist And A Machine<\/a> from July 2012<\/h5>\n<p>Finishing SMiLE in 2004 in collaboration with Darian Sahanaja and original lyricist Van Dyke Parks was a fantastic achievement. To have seen your work as a failure for 37 years, and then to be able to listen to it, appreciate it, and work with it is a beautiful human achievement.<\/p>\n<p>Some people retire at the end of their lives. Brian Wilson retired in the middle of his life, and then came back. I&#8217;m so glad he did.<\/p>\n<p>Recommended reading and watching:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/books.google.co.uk\/books?id=eYyovo_AbqAC&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;dq=catch+a+wave+brian+wilson&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=6iX7T53eMo3I6QH1mJXEBg&amp;redir_esc=y#v=onepage&amp;q=catch%20a%20wave%20brian%20wilson&amp;f=false\">Catch a wave: the rise, fall and redemption of the Beach Boys&#8217; Brian Wilson<\/a> by Peter Ames Carlin.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Brian-Wilson-presents-Natalie-Imbruglia\/dp\/B0007YKL2G\">Brian Wilson presents Smile (2004)<\/a> double DVD featuring the &#8220;Beautiful Dreamer: Brian Wilson and the story of Smile&#8221; documentary, concert footage, interviews, backstage footage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My favourite Brian ever, ever, EVER, is Brian Wilson. Brian Wilson has written and arranged music of sublime beauty. He is a genius. It&#8217;s an overused word, but I don&#8217;t misuse it here. If you don&#8217;t understand or appreciate the &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/atantalus.com\/badhedgehog\/2012\/09\/the-best-brian-ever\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lists","category-pop-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atantalus.com\/badhedgehog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atantalus.com\/badhedgehog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atantalus.com\/badhedgehog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atantalus.com\/badhedgehog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atantalus.com\/badhedgehog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/atantalus.com\/badhedgehog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":504,"href":"https:\/\/atantalus.com\/badhedgehog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions\/504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atantalus.com\/badhedgehog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atantalus.com\/badhedgehog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atantalus.com\/badhedgehog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}