Our Prayers

I’ve said a few times that I don’t want this to turn into a weekly obituary round up but it’s impossible not to pause for thought when two characters of such towering influence leave the earth within days. I’ve been feeling that there’s more than a few links and commonalities between Sly Stone and Brian Wilson, certainly in my mind if nobody else’s. Both died at the age of 82 this week, though Brian was older and would’ve reached 83 if he’d hung on a week and half longer. Both released memoirs in the last decade which I read, both co-written with the same gifted co-writer Ben Greenman (possibly ghost writer is a better term). Both were part of the 1960s California scene, integral to their different sides of it. Terry Melcher turns up in both their stories, he turns up in every California story really. Both revolutionised what pop music could be, particularly through their skills in arrangement and orchestration. Both hit a creative peak then fell from their perch thanks to drugs and mental instability. I think when news of the deaths of both these musical giants reached many people this week there was at least a momentary flash of “Oh, he was still alive…” or “didn’t he do well to last so long…” Nobody would have seen Sly Stone reaching 82 years when the middle 60 of those years featured such heavy abuse. Nobody would have placed a bet in 1969 that the last Wilson brother to leave the earth would be Brian, by a considerable margin.

The one that had the bigger impact on me was Brian but that’s because his songs of teenage life, love and melancholy landed in my life at the precise point I became a teenager. That probably happened to a lot of people, I’m not unique. Looking through Facebook and Instagram this week I’ve seen moving posts from an incredible array of people, some who you’d have never guessed had the same space in their soul that you do.

There’s something profoundly sad about seeing everybody’s social media posts on this (don’t worry, it’s not lost on me that this is one) because it highlights how alone we all feel. We want to cry out into the void, “this was a piece of me…” “I felt all these emotions…” “I need everybody to know how much I love the Beach Boys…” We’re not just dipping our heads and paying our respects, we need somebody else to understand how we felt all these things, how much we are made of these feelings to this day. Being a teenager can be the loneliest and most confusing time of your life and with bewildering elegance disguised as charmingly naive simplicity, Brian Wilson made you feel safe, secure and loved. With music that you can wrap yourself up in he let you know that all that sadness and yearning is part of our shared journey of growing up and searching for each other. And so it makes me sad to see all the tributes because they make me feel like we’re all becoming lonelier and we all need to spend more time together. Probably listening to the Beach Boys when we do.

Somehow Brian kept going. Somehow Brian kept working, a machinery of support around him meant that he was able to stay active in music in some way. He carried on playing and I managed to see him three times. The first as I’ve mentioned before was when we watched him perform Smile at the Royal Festival Hall, when the room was nervous for him but the payoff was immense. The last time was in 2016, a good show but I had to admit in the end that I was just witnessing an old man surrounded by his work and that was a little bit sad. The one in the middle though was at Glastonbury in 2005. On the Sunday afternoon when the sun came out and broke evil’s hold on the weekend, when Kate and me with all of the Earlies stood smiling together, when me and Nicky had wet eyes because we confessed to each other that he reminded us of our German grandfather, when you could see Brian’s band beaming at each other enraptured but you couldn’t tell if Brian himself just wanted the whole thing to be over. That was the best day ever. When I die and my brain does a quick 60 second highlight reel of my life to discreetly divert my attention from the yawning, godless void that awaits me, I think that afternoon will show up. I’ll be happy to see it.

Some Accompanying Media

I love how unpretentious Frank Bruno’s choice of a favourite Beach Boys song was in the tweet above. My choices are more pretentious, sorry but you know me by now. This is some of my favourite footage of Brian, from a 1966 TV special Leonard Bernstein did about pop music. I would usually want this kind of thing without any voiceover, but the fact that such a legendary composer and conductor is unabashedly singing the praise of a Beach Boy is something to cherish in itself.

I could go on forever picking favourite Beach Boys songs, I probably will so watch this space. Today I feel like listening to this one, which I first heard when I bought the Good Morning Vietnam soundtrack as a 13 year old. I was captured forever.

Or of course there’s the ultimate ode to teenage loneliness, one of the easier ones to sing along with:

If I’m really picking the one it’s always going to be the most obvious one. I first heard it on a C60 cassette of chart hits, clumsily recorded from radio broadcasts by Joe Madden, but nonetheless full of formative works of genius that have been the bedrock of my musical DNA. Whenever I hear it I remember that it’s actually the most perfect pop song that was ever written.

Actually, those were all pretty mainstream, I’ll go deeper again in future.

Finally, the best social media grief post of the week was from PC473XB himself. If you haven’t yet seen it please do enjoy. Nicky Madden should probably do a Substack, he has as much right as anybody else I know.

Over twenty years ago I was working the beat on the mean streets of Acton. That's right, I was a Peeler, a Bobby, a Pig, a Harbinger of Justice and Defender of the Peace. This was admittedly a strange turn of events, the back story to which is one of the mildly amusing anecdotes that I pull out when people feel like they are getting to know me, just so that I can keep them on their toes.

Anyway, about 8 months into the job something incredibly exciting and important was coming up and I was eager to share the news with my 'team mates'.

"I'm off to watch Brian Wilson at the Royal Festival Hall! He's performing his lost Album, 'Smile'! LIVE! All the way through!" I proclaimed.

Blank faces were all I received from my Team 'Mates'. They obviously had no idea who he was. Indeed, even mentioning the Beach Boys barely helped. They simply didn't know and weren't interested. Then again, these were the kind of people who, after a hard day's work of policing, went home to the section house to watch The Bill on the telly on the common room. It left me feeling quite alone, and brought me face to face with the reality of what I had done when I left my family and friends and the musical world of East Lancashire.

For me, the Beach Boys music is the key to many rooms in the sprawling mansion of my soul that I forget I even have. I can put on a record and be transported, not just to different times in my life, but somehow, to different emotional states too. Ones which I don't the names to describe, and struggle to hold onto afterwards.

That weekend I went with some of my best friends and had a truly magical musical experience. The kind of event where you come out at the end of the night, look each other in the eye and have no words for what you have witnessed.

I went back to work, and continued to try and pretend that I fit in and make a go of it but my days as a copper were numbered.

Before long I had quit to tour with the Earlies, and the next Summer we played Glastonbury. Brian Wilson was playing on the Sunday and, if you watch the video of it...and pause in just the right place.... You might just be able to see all of the Earlies, drunk and happy, having the time of our lives listening to the music we love, and belonging.

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Great words from Nicky, and to cap it all off Alex Berry did watch the video and did pause it in just the right place and what do you know? There we all are!

Glen Campbell is really good.

I stumbled into this the other day, probably the Beach Boys led me to it. Weirdly enough the day after Billy send me another Glen Campbell clip which was also amazing but it was more in the country territory you’d expect him to occupy. This one of him tearing through Back Home In Indiana has floored me. There’s no way you haven’t got time to watch the whole thing but should you be the most impatient prick on the internet today you could whip forward to the 30 second mark. It’s at that point that he breaks into a guitar solo of world beating virtuosity the likes of which country front men have no business being in possession of. You might just think this is “pretty good” but trust me, or if not me ask a guitarist friend. Ask them if they can do it. I don’t know of anybody who can do this, let alone do it on telly, smiling and having a lark, then carrying on with the lead vocal. I’m now watching Glen Campbell clips quite a lot, as well as Huey Lewis and the News clips. My algorithm is really doing the business so don’t fuck it up by sending me something rubbish.

The Earlies Rarities

If you’re still in two minds about whether to come and watch the Earlies in October (I know, I know, not you- you’re already coming) let me tell you, it’ll be worth it just to visit the merch stall. Not only am I going to get all the spare picture discs and Enemy Chorus 10 inch EPs out from the cupboard under the stairs, not only am I going to get all those small or XXXL t-shirts out of the loft and give them a quick once-over with the iron whilst asking Kate to give them a cursory smell- we’re also going to do some new merch. That’s right, there’s a re-press coming and also a rarities compilation. We’ve been compiling the latter this week, JM has been mining hard drives and DATs that date back to the late 90s looking for gems. He frankly found too many but we’ve put something good together. In the meantime I’ll let you lot listen to this, from our first ever 7 inch, 200 copies of which sit in houses from Duke Bar to Abilene.

The Earlies- Ride

See you at the merch stall my friend. The only way you’re going to be able to spend all that money you need to get rid of is by buying a ticket to this once in a lifetime event*

*I suppose something like this could happen again. Don’t sue me if it does, I’m just a salesman.