02 - BIOGRAPHIES
03 - This is Brian Wilson.
03 - This is also Brian Wilson:
03 - Words
After spending the intial couple days doing research on the internet I decided that after gaining an overview of Brian Wilson and his life I wanted to get specific, I wanted to know what he was about, headed to the library for some tactile inspiration and after alot of persuasion managed to convince the stern librarian that I was a responsible enough person to handle what I can only assume after the interrogation was the libraries crown jewels. 'Words' is a book of essays written on Brian Wilson, it was an amazing source of information, allowing me to understand Brian Wilson in a number of different contexts from different angles. The authors of these essays varied from art critics to musicians to artists, each essay differed in content allowing me to copy (manically as photocopying of this precious book was of course prohibited) a number of different aspects of his life and his influence on well, everything. I sneakily photocopied the front and back pages so as to reference but also because I really like the photograph, I am beggining to unwrap the layers of Brian Wilson, I will scan in my notes and try and condense them into a mini essay so that I can begin to sort through my information...
03 - Albums
I have started really listening to some of the Beach Boys Albums, each one has a story, the most famous is Pet Sounds, it is hailed as one of the best albums in pop music history by a number of music critics, it was released in 1966. Brian Wilson said "During Pet Sounds, I stepped out from the Beach Boys to bring my heart and soul to people." It was the album said to have inspired Sgt.Peppers Lonely Hearts Club, with The Beach Boys and The Beatles constantly reacting to one aothers music. "It is hard to think of another record that anatomised feeling with such intricacy and precision." Thomas Demand.
Smile was intended by Brian to be " A teenage symphony to God." However Smile became rock's greatest lost album, few have heard this masterpiece. It is said that Smile cost Brian Wilson his sanity, it was during this period that the famous Brian Wilson anecdotes happened. (More of that later.)
03 - Good Vibrations
03 - Peter Blake
Sir Peter Blake was a bit of a music artist whore, he created the Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club amongst many other record covers, he also did the piece of work above for the beach boys, this is as it happens my favourite piece oF Blake's work, I got out a couple of books on him in the library to study his collage style, it suggests alot both stylistically and metaphorically. I showed my group his work the other day and Luke mentioned that if I could get in contact with him, he's quite a nice guy and is quite friendly. Thing is, I can't get any address, phone number, or email so will check with Luke again as to how I could contact him, it would be lovely to meet him and see his work in the flesh.
03 - Questions, questions...
After reading the book 'words', I realised that an important aspect of any famous persons life is the notion of the opinion. Everybody has an opinion on Brian Wilson, I think it is a key aspect of studying a person to establish a variety of opinions on the said subject. Therefore I've made a questionnaire to gain a better understanding of contemporary views on Wilson, I have asked people to listen to his music whilst filling in the answers as some of the questions require a knowledge of the musioc itself. I've kept the questions quite broad as after some intial research I found that some people do not know who he is... Here is an example:
03 - Nice Graphics.
I really like this style of record sleeve, the colour palettes are really stunning, not particularly conceptual but they needed to be shown. I would quite like to experiment withsome screenprinting, perhaps of some lyrics or some of the imagery of Brian and The Beach Boys. I have started to research Pop Art generally, after making a few semi-conclusions on The Beach Boy's Music, the way they were and are now perceived and the actual, the contradictions draw parallels with some of the contradictions explored within Pop Art, Andy Warhols work immmediately springs to mind with his fascinating portraits of the famous, although a little predictable within my research a stepping stone nonetheless. After popping to the tate modern for some inspiration, I was a little disappointed to find that the curators have had an all change and the section on Pop Art is no more, all that really remains that I found useful was the Lichtenstein Wham piece and a couple of Richard Hamiltons works that I had never seen before. His work did strike a chord with my research perhaps because its so reminiscent of the Pop Art and Beach Boys era, the images have a very particular tone with strong undernotes of nostalgia, the mixture of mediums creates perhaps a mixed message (or massge depending on how much you like it...:) I think I need to explore further.
03 - William Blake
I started to look at lyrical analysis of some of the Beach Boys records, there are a number of essays on this which are quite interesting, the levels of interpretation could potentially lead me to some different avenues, the lyrics are very catchy so when you listen to the melodic music it is easy to overlook the potential meaning, this is quite similar to the poet William Blake's work, in particular his collection of poems 'Songs of Innocence'. I've included a few pages from his book with my analysis on them, I thought that I might see if there are parallels between them, however I don't really see it going anywhere so shall leave it there.
03 - Record Sleeves
Here are some examples of the graphic layouts for the back of The Beach Boys Record Sleeves, I really like the style used it is classic of the era, the typefaces and colour schemes are representative of the music within, I would like to create my own version but include pivotal moments in Brian Wilson's life as track names. Will include these later.
03 - Web Links
Here are a number of the Web Links I've found useful whilst researching Brian Wilson:
The Official Brian Wilson Website
Brian as Wikipedia knows him
The Brian Wilson Blog
The Beach Boys Website
Brian's Mental State
Audio files of Murray Wilson 'abusing' Brian
The New York Times article on Smile
The New York Times Review of Pet Sounds
03 - "Quotes"
Some of the best quotes I've found;
Paul McCartney
It was Pet Sounds that blew me out of the water. I love the album so much. I've just bought my kids each a copy of it for their education in life ... I figure no one is educated musically 'til they've heard that album ... I love the orchestra, the arrangements ... it may be going overboard to say it's the classic of the century ... but to me, it certainly is a total, classic record that is unbeatable in many ways ... I've often played Pet Sounds and cried.
I played it to John so much that it would be difficult for him to escape the influence ... it was the record of the time. The thing that really made me sit up and take notice was the bass lines ... and also, putting melodies in the bass line. That I think was probably the big influence that set me thinking when we recorded 'Pepper', it set me off on a period I had then for a couple of years of nearly always writing quite melodic bass lines.
"God Only Knows" is a big favorite of mine ... very emotional, always a bit of a choker for me, that one. On "You Still Believe In Me", I love that melody - that kills me ... that's my favorite, I think ... it's so beautiful right at the end ... comes surging back in these multi-colored harmonies ... sends shivers up my spine."
Bob Dylan
... Jesus, that ear. He should donate it to The Smithsonian.
Eric Clapton
All of us, Ginger (Baker), Jack (Bruce), and I consider Pet Sounds to be one of the greatest pop LPs to ever be released. It encompasses everthing that's ever knocked me out and rolled it all into one. Brian Wilson is, without a doubt, a pop genius.
Elton John
Pet Sounds is a landmark album. For me to say that I was enthralled would be an understatement. I had never heard such magical sounds, so amazingly recorded. It undoubtedly changed the way that I, and countless others, approached recording. It is a timeless and amazing recording of incredible genius and beauty.
John Lennon
Celophane flowers of yellow and green, towering over your head.
Jimmy Webb
I don't think that the California Myth, the dream that a few of us touched, would have happened without Brian, and I don't think Brian would have happened without the dream. They're inseparable.
Van Dyke Parks
Music is Brian Wilson's best friend, lover, everything. On a one-to-one basis, it's the only thing that has never wronged him. It's when people, and gossip, and record companies came into play that things went askew. The music never betrayed him.
George Martin
If there is one person that I have to select as a living genius of pop music, I would choose Brian Wilson. Without Pet Sounds, Sgt. Pepper wouldn't have happened... Pepper was an attempt to equal Pet Sounds.
John Cale, The Velvet Underground
What Brian came to mean was an ideal of innocence and naivety that went beyond teenage life and sprang fully developed songs. Adult and childlike at the same time. I thought how it was difficult for me not to believe everything he said. There was something genuine in every lyric. That can be a very heavy burden for a songwriter.
Billy Corgan, The Smashing Pumpkins
Brian Wilson the astronaut, peering down from the Heavens, cooly dreaming of California girls. An idealized pop utopia that widens the senses and soothes the ears. Lands the spaceship, finds nothing but disco and platform shoes and decided to take another trip around the moon for good measure and to search for the elusive lonely harmony. Landing back down for the millennium, our astronaut decided it's time. Time to stop and hear what he's brought back.
03 - Sketch Book
Some sketchbook pages collecting thoughts.
03 - Brian Wilson Colour Referencing
I think its really interesting what colours can convey to an audience. The Beach Boys began in an era that is recognised by its bold grasp of colour, it was post war and there was a stereotypical desire for fun and frivolity after the bleakness and seriousness that the war created. I thought it would be good to collect a colour samples from a variety of Beach Boys memorabilia, I could then use these colours with my future work.
03 - Great Interview
Whilst collating the most famous of the Brian Wilson anecdotes I came across the most honest and brilliant interview yet, the link for it is below:
The Guardian Interview with Brian Wilson
03 - The Infamous Anecdotes of Brian Wilson
After Fridays discussion with the tutors and my group I felt like I really needed to specify exactly what I have found the most interesting about my research, after much deliberation I've settled on the anecdotes, I felt this was the most prominent thing that was consistent throughout all my research sources wasthe endless stories that are now part of the Brian Wilson legend. I have compiled the most famous anecdotes in list:
• Wilson built a great sandpit for his grand piano to be placed in so that he could feel the sand beneath his feet while he was composing it was seen as a sign that the singers wits had turned particularly since his dogs tended to crap in it.
• He spent the best part of twenty years in bed living off junk food making him into a 25 stone Michelin man.
• Tom Petty once mentioned that he thought Brian Wilson was an utter gentleman, apart from the buttering his head and trying to put it between two slices of bread and make a Brian sandwich.
• He redecorated his huge Californian mansion bright purple, his redesigns included a hole punched in his studio wall for ventilation. On the odd occasion he would knock on the wall and have his wife blow marijuana smoke through the hole into his mouth.
• Brian Wilson once ate so many hash brownies with lyricist Tony Asher, Asher thought they might die.
• Despite being famous from singing about the joys of surfing, Brian Wilson actually couldn’t surf and tried it once in 1963 after which he said, ‘I got up on the board, got out onto the water, and fell. The board almost hit me in the head, so I just said, forget this!’
• Brian Wilson was deaf in one ear, there has been much speculation as to how he lost his hearing, one theory is that Brian’s violent father dropped him on his head as a small child.
• Van Dyke Parks worked as a collaborating lyricist on Smile with Brian Wilson, he remembers
• Wilson was willing to try anything as a producer, on the instrumental Let’s Go Away for Awhile, Wilson used an entire orchestra, a guitar with a coke bottle applied to the strings to create a steel guitar effect, scrunched p carrier bags and Wilson’s dogs Banana and Louie added vocals.
• Brian Wilson was an absolute perfectionist and used to work late into the night on compositions, one night while recording a section of his ‘Elements’ suite about a fire called ‘Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow,’ Wilson distributed plastic fireman’s helmets to the orchestra and lit a small fire in the studio so they could smell smoke. Later Wilson learned that a building near the studio burned down and that there had been several other fires across Southern California. Wilson believed his music had caused the fires and he immediately stopped work on the song and locked the tapes away in a vault.
• Brian Wilson’s schizophrenia got so bad at one point he believed his house was bugged and so would only hold meetings with Capitol executives in the pool, he would tape answer of ‘yes’ and ‘no’ so that he wouldn’t have to actually speak during these meetings.
• Even the rock elite of hard core, Iggy Pop and Alice Cooper had to leave Brian Wilson’s house because ‘it was too messed up to stay vaguely sane in.”
• Brian Wilson created an entire track about vegetables and for the solo’s he recorded people chomping on different types of vegetables, this included Paul McCartney allegedly chewing on a cucumber.
03 - The Best of The Bed Boys
I found this Beach Boys record sleeve other day, I really like the typefaces and think that I could edit the type so that each track name implies a Brian Wilson anecdote from the list below... I would also like to edit the photo's to include pill bottles that implies Wilson's psychological illness. I think that the record sleeve would be an appropriate format to invite audiences to draw parallels of the irony and contradiction that is the Beach Boys and their music. I'm then going to screenprint the main graphics, I think this will be reminiscent of the era, but I also want to draw links to the Pop Art movement and how it made subtle challenging points creating an ironic depth to each piece of work.
03- Brian Wilson: Anecotes
03 - This is also Brian Wilson:
03 - Words
After spending the intial couple days doing research on the internet I decided that after gaining an overview of Brian Wilson and his life I wanted to get specific, I wanted to know what he was about, headed to the library for some tactile inspiration and after alot of persuasion managed to convince the stern librarian that I was a responsible enough person to handle what I can only assume after the interrogation was the libraries crown jewels. 'Words' is a book of essays written on Brian Wilson, it was an amazing source of information, allowing me to understand Brian Wilson in a number of different contexts from different angles. The authors of these essays varied from art critics to musicians to artists, each essay differed in content allowing me to copy (manically as photocopying of this precious book was of course prohibited) a number of different aspects of his life and his influence on well, everything. I sneakily photocopied the front and back pages so as to reference but also because I really like the photograph, I am beggining to unwrap the layers of Brian Wilson, I will scan in my notes and try and condense them into a mini essay so that I can begin to sort through my information...
03 - Albums
I have started really listening to some of the Beach Boys Albums, each one has a story, the most famous is Pet Sounds, it is hailed as one of the best albums in pop music history by a number of music critics, it was released in 1966. Brian Wilson said "During Pet Sounds, I stepped out from the Beach Boys to bring my heart and soul to people." It was the album said to have inspired Sgt.Peppers Lonely Hearts Club, with The Beach Boys and The Beatles constantly reacting to one aothers music. "It is hard to think of another record that anatomised feeling with such intricacy and precision." Thomas Demand.Smile was intended by Brian to be " A teenage symphony to God." However Smile became rock's greatest lost album, few have heard this masterpiece. It is said that Smile cost Brian Wilson his sanity, it was during this period that the famous Brian Wilson anecdotes happened. (More of that later.)
03 - Good Vibrations
03 - Peter Blake
Sir Peter Blake was a bit of a music artist whore, he created the Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club amongst many other record covers, he also did the piece of work above for the beach boys, this is as it happens my favourite piece oF Blake's work, I got out a couple of books on him in the library to study his collage style, it suggests alot both stylistically and metaphorically. I showed my group his work the other day and Luke mentioned that if I could get in contact with him, he's quite a nice guy and is quite friendly. Thing is, I can't get any address, phone number, or email so will check with Luke again as to how I could contact him, it would be lovely to meet him and see his work in the flesh.
03 - Questions, questions...
After reading the book 'words', I realised that an important aspect of any famous persons life is the notion of the opinion. Everybody has an opinion on Brian Wilson, I think it is a key aspect of studying a person to establish a variety of opinions on the said subject. Therefore I've made a questionnaire to gain a better understanding of contemporary views on Wilson, I have asked people to listen to his music whilst filling in the answers as some of the questions require a knowledge of the musioc itself. I've kept the questions quite broad as after some intial research I found that some people do not know who he is... Here is an example:
03 - Nice Graphics.
I really like this style of record sleeve, the colour palettes are really stunning, not particularly conceptual but they needed to be shown. I would quite like to experiment withsome screenprinting, perhaps of some lyrics or some of the imagery of Brian and The Beach Boys. I have started to research Pop Art generally, after making a few semi-conclusions on The Beach Boy's Music, the way they were and are now perceived and the actual, the contradictions draw parallels with some of the contradictions explored within Pop Art, Andy Warhols work immmediately springs to mind with his fascinating portraits of the famous, although a little predictable within my research a stepping stone nonetheless. After popping to the tate modern for some inspiration, I was a little disappointed to find that the curators have had an all change and the section on Pop Art is no more, all that really remains that I found useful was the Lichtenstein Wham piece and a couple of Richard Hamiltons works that I had never seen before. His work did strike a chord with my research perhaps because its so reminiscent of the Pop Art and Beach Boys era, the images have a very particular tone with strong undernotes of nostalgia, the mixture of mediums creates perhaps a mixed message (or massge depending on how much you like it...:) I think I need to explore further.
03 - William Blake
I started to look at lyrical analysis of some of the Beach Boys records, there are a number of essays on this which are quite interesting, the levels of interpretation could potentially lead me to some different avenues, the lyrics are very catchy so when you listen to the melodic music it is easy to overlook the potential meaning, this is quite similar to the poet William Blake's work, in particular his collection of poems 'Songs of Innocence'. I've included a few pages from his book with my analysis on them, I thought that I might see if there are parallels between them, however I don't really see it going anywhere so shall leave it there.
03 - Record Sleeves
Here are some examples of the graphic layouts for the back of The Beach Boys Record Sleeves, I really like the style used it is classic of the era, the typefaces and colour schemes are representative of the music within, I would like to create my own version but include pivotal moments in Brian Wilson's life as track names. Will include these later.
03 - Web Links
Here are a number of the Web Links I've found useful whilst researching Brian Wilson:
The Official Brian Wilson Website
Brian as Wikipedia knows him
The Brian Wilson Blog
The Beach Boys Website
Brian's Mental State
Audio files of Murray Wilson 'abusing' Brian
The New York Times article on Smile
The New York Times Review of Pet Sounds
03 - "Quotes"
Some of the best quotes I've found;
Paul McCartney
It was Pet Sounds that blew me out of the water. I love the album so much. I've just bought my kids each a copy of it for their education in life ... I figure no one is educated musically 'til they've heard that album ... I love the orchestra, the arrangements ... it may be going overboard to say it's the classic of the century ... but to me, it certainly is a total, classic record that is unbeatable in many ways ... I've often played Pet Sounds and cried.
I played it to John so much that it would be difficult for him to escape the influence ... it was the record of the time. The thing that really made me sit up and take notice was the bass lines ... and also, putting melodies in the bass line. That I think was probably the big influence that set me thinking when we recorded 'Pepper', it set me off on a period I had then for a couple of years of nearly always writing quite melodic bass lines.
"God Only Knows" is a big favorite of mine ... very emotional, always a bit of a choker for me, that one. On "You Still Believe In Me", I love that melody - that kills me ... that's my favorite, I think ... it's so beautiful right at the end ... comes surging back in these multi-colored harmonies ... sends shivers up my spine."
Bob Dylan
... Jesus, that ear. He should donate it to The Smithsonian.
Eric Clapton
All of us, Ginger (Baker), Jack (Bruce), and I consider Pet Sounds to be one of the greatest pop LPs to ever be released. It encompasses everthing that's ever knocked me out and rolled it all into one. Brian Wilson is, without a doubt, a pop genius.
Elton John
Pet Sounds is a landmark album. For me to say that I was enthralled would be an understatement. I had never heard such magical sounds, so amazingly recorded. It undoubtedly changed the way that I, and countless others, approached recording. It is a timeless and amazing recording of incredible genius and beauty.
John Lennon
Celophane flowers of yellow and green, towering over your head.
Jimmy Webb
I don't think that the California Myth, the dream that a few of us touched, would have happened without Brian, and I don't think Brian would have happened without the dream. They're inseparable.
Van Dyke Parks
Music is Brian Wilson's best friend, lover, everything. On a one-to-one basis, it's the only thing that has never wronged him. It's when people, and gossip, and record companies came into play that things went askew. The music never betrayed him.
George Martin
If there is one person that I have to select as a living genius of pop music, I would choose Brian Wilson. Without Pet Sounds, Sgt. Pepper wouldn't have happened... Pepper was an attempt to equal Pet Sounds.
John Cale, The Velvet Underground
What Brian came to mean was an ideal of innocence and naivety that went beyond teenage life and sprang fully developed songs. Adult and childlike at the same time. I thought how it was difficult for me not to believe everything he said. There was something genuine in every lyric. That can be a very heavy burden for a songwriter.
Billy Corgan, The Smashing Pumpkins
Brian Wilson the astronaut, peering down from the Heavens, cooly dreaming of California girls. An idealized pop utopia that widens the senses and soothes the ears. Lands the spaceship, finds nothing but disco and platform shoes and decided to take another trip around the moon for good measure and to search for the elusive lonely harmony. Landing back down for the millennium, our astronaut decided it's time. Time to stop and hear what he's brought back.
03 - Sketch Book
Some sketchbook pages collecting thoughts.
03 - Brian Wilson Colour Referencing
I think its really interesting what colours can convey to an audience. The Beach Boys began in an era that is recognised by its bold grasp of colour, it was post war and there was a stereotypical desire for fun and frivolity after the bleakness and seriousness that the war created. I thought it would be good to collect a colour samples from a variety of Beach Boys memorabilia, I could then use these colours with my future work.
03 - Great Interview
Whilst collating the most famous of the Brian Wilson anecdotes I came across the most honest and brilliant interview yet, the link for it is below:
The Guardian Interview with Brian Wilson
03 - The Infamous Anecdotes of Brian Wilson
After Fridays discussion with the tutors and my group I felt like I really needed to specify exactly what I have found the most interesting about my research, after much deliberation I've settled on the anecdotes, I felt this was the most prominent thing that was consistent throughout all my research sources wasthe endless stories that are now part of the Brian Wilson legend. I have compiled the most famous anecdotes in list:
• Wilson built a great sandpit for his grand piano to be placed in so that he could feel the sand beneath his feet while he was composing it was seen as a sign that the singers wits had turned particularly since his dogs tended to crap in it.
• He spent the best part of twenty years in bed living off junk food making him into a 25 stone Michelin man.
• Tom Petty once mentioned that he thought Brian Wilson was an utter gentleman, apart from the buttering his head and trying to put it between two slices of bread and make a Brian sandwich.
• He redecorated his huge Californian mansion bright purple, his redesigns included a hole punched in his studio wall for ventilation. On the odd occasion he would knock on the wall and have his wife blow marijuana smoke through the hole into his mouth.
• Brian Wilson once ate so many hash brownies with lyricist Tony Asher, Asher thought they might die.
• Despite being famous from singing about the joys of surfing, Brian Wilson actually couldn’t surf and tried it once in 1963 after which he said, ‘I got up on the board, got out onto the water, and fell. The board almost hit me in the head, so I just said, forget this!’
• Brian Wilson was deaf in one ear, there has been much speculation as to how he lost his hearing, one theory is that Brian’s violent father dropped him on his head as a small child.
• Van Dyke Parks worked as a collaborating lyricist on Smile with Brian Wilson, he remembers
• Wilson was willing to try anything as a producer, on the instrumental Let’s Go Away for Awhile, Wilson used an entire orchestra, a guitar with a coke bottle applied to the strings to create a steel guitar effect, scrunched p carrier bags and Wilson’s dogs Banana and Louie added vocals.
• Brian Wilson was an absolute perfectionist and used to work late into the night on compositions, one night while recording a section of his ‘Elements’ suite about a fire called ‘Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow,’ Wilson distributed plastic fireman’s helmets to the orchestra and lit a small fire in the studio so they could smell smoke. Later Wilson learned that a building near the studio burned down and that there had been several other fires across Southern California. Wilson believed his music had caused the fires and he immediately stopped work on the song and locked the tapes away in a vault.
• Brian Wilson’s schizophrenia got so bad at one point he believed his house was bugged and so would only hold meetings with Capitol executives in the pool, he would tape answer of ‘yes’ and ‘no’ so that he wouldn’t have to actually speak during these meetings.
• Even the rock elite of hard core, Iggy Pop and Alice Cooper had to leave Brian Wilson’s house because ‘it was too messed up to stay vaguely sane in.”
• Brian Wilson created an entire track about vegetables and for the solo’s he recorded people chomping on different types of vegetables, this included Paul McCartney allegedly chewing on a cucumber.
03 - The Best of The Bed Boys
I found this Beach Boys record sleeve other day, I really like the typefaces and think that I could edit the type so that each track name implies a Brian Wilson anecdote from the list below... I would also like to edit the photo's to include pill bottles that implies Wilson's psychological illness. I think that the record sleeve would be an appropriate format to invite audiences to draw parallels of the irony and contradiction that is the Beach Boys and their music. I'm then going to screenprint the main graphics, I think this will be reminiscent of the era, but I also want to draw links to the Pop Art movement and how it made subtle challenging points creating an ironic depth to each piece of work.
03- Brian Wilson: Anecotes
