For a long time I’ve been puzzled by the fact that The Beach Boys’ album “Pet Sounds” always seems to figure in lists of “The Greatest Albums Ever Made”. However, I’d never actually heard the album.
Today I found it in the HMV sale for £4.99. This particular edition had both the original mono mix and the 199os stereo mix, so a bit of a bargain….except it’s not.
The Beach Boys are a singles band. “Good Vibrations”, “God Only Knows”, “Fun Fun Fun” etc etc. The album is not good in my opinion. There may be some groundbreaking effects in use but, frankly, I find the music substandard.
You may think that this is because I’d never heard it before, and I can see this as a valid argument – I didn’t grow up with the music, it wasn’t a part of my life etc etc.
However, I recently heard for the first time, the mid-sixties albums by Simon & Garfunkel. I thought that they were very good indeed and clearly rivalled The Beatles for their song-writing and studio trickery.
For me, the Beach Boys don’t do this. Therefore I say to potential Beach Boys albums buyers, “stick to the greatest hits compilations and save yourself the time of listening to the rest”. Sorry, Brian.
I also purchased the Jethro Tull compilation, “Living In The Past” and very entertaining it is too. Much better than “Pet Sounds”….
As we were getting ready to go and see Laurie Anderson tonight at the Queen’s Hall, Anne came upstairs saying that something terrible had happened and I should come and see. Right in front of our front window, lying motionless, upside down impaled on the Butterfly Bush that grows there, was a very big and very dead Pigeon.
We wondered how it could have found itself there. However, on close inspection of our upstairs window, I found a distinct pigeon-in-flight imprint on the glass. It seems the poor bird had crashed at full speed against our window and was killed instantly, its body bouncing back and landing upside down in the bush. I don’t suppose it would have known anything about it….
Since her concert at the same venue back in 1982, where I queued up to have my ticket autographed and got the chance to exchange a few words, I estimate we’ve seen Laurie Anderson perform around six or seven times, including the full “United States I-IV” show over two nights in London in 1983.
Two years ago in Glasgow, she was captivating, tonight she was even better. Her show was loosely based around her time as “Artist in Residence” at NASA. It was quite understated, performed on a stage bedecked with a small console of keyboards, an armchair, a very much less than huge screen which was only used for around five minutes of the show, and around eighty tea lights, perhaps representing stars.
This was, for me, the very epitomy of performance poetry, as she told her stories over ninety minutes, occasionally interspersing them with some pieces for her effects laden violin. She had us laughing, she had us thinking.
For me the highlight was the story of her small terrier dog Loolabell. As a terrier, the dog instinctively protected a specific area around herself wherever she went. One day, while walking in some California woods, she was mistaken for a small white rabbit by a group of marauding vultures.
At that point, the dog suddenly realised that, not only did she need to be vigilant and check all directions around her, but that she was now vulnerable from above too. From then on, she walked along, not with her nose to the ground, but with her nose in the air, always looking over her shoulder - just like post 9/11 New York....
We met Jim Park (http://www.toecurler.com/) and, purely by chance, our old friend, and artist, Eona Aitken, in the bar before the show. Afterwards we gave them a lift home and Anne had a chance to catch up with Eona.
We went for a quick drink with Jim and discussed the possibility of a terrorist attack on the UK in the run up to the election. Jim reckoned it was a distinct possibility – I doubted this saying there’d been no terrorism in the West since 9/11. He had to remind me of the Madrid bombings……
Stayed up till 3 working on the May Crispycat Newsletter, the first this year, which I want to issue tomorrow re the release of the first three CBQ singles on Monday…
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