Category Archives: Brian Wilson Songs

Brian Wilson songs & covers: Acoustic cover songs – music videos by the songwriters of the Laptop Sessions video blog. Daily music blog with new indie rock acoustic songs.

Brian Wilson – SET LIST – 7/16/2008

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By Chris Moore:

Click here for the concert review!

The set list for Brian Wilson’s 7/16/2008 “Greatest Hits” show at the Warner Theatre in downtown Torrington, CT. A review of this great show will follow, so check back here very soon!

1.) Do It Again
2.) Dance, Dance, Dance
3.) Catch a Wave
4.) Surfer Girl
5.) In My Room
6.) Hawaii
7.) Don’t Worry, Baby
8.) You’re So Good to Me
9.) Then I Kissed Her
10.) Drive-In
11.) All Summer Long
12.) When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)
13.) Add Some Music
14.) Do You Wanna Dance?
15.) That Lucky Old Sun track (“I’m goin’ home…”)
16.) California Girls
17.) Sloop John B
18.) Wouldn’t It Be Nice
19.) God Only Knows
20.) Marcella
21.) I Get Around
22.) Good Vibrations

ENCORE
23.) Johnny B Goode
24.) Help Me, Rhonda
25.) Barbara Ann (Brian on bass)
26.) Surfin’ USA (Brian on bass)
27.) Fun, Fun, Fun

ENCORE #2
28.) TLOS track (“Southern California…”)

The venue really was excellent, boasting great acoustics and atmosphere. More on that when I post my review, but this is what it looks like from the outside:

Brian Wilson Live at the Warner Theatre! 7/16/2008

Brian Wilson’s “Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin” (2010) – The Weekend Review

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By Chris Moore:

RATING:  3.5 / 5 stars

For songwriters with strong, distinct voices, albums populated by covers are typically stopovers between other, more serious efforts.  For Wilson, it appears that projects such as this are where he looks these days to keep himself occupied while he waits for inspiration to strike.

Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin delivers just about what you’d expect from the former Beach Boy: lush harmonies laid over a bed of smart, tight pop music, albeit the pop music of a bygone era.

Perhaps the slogan for this release should have been, “Brian Wilson updates the music of the Gershwin brothers… to the sixties!”

The greatest criticism I can lob at Reimagines is its apparent contentment to revisit the established.  Wilson was given access to fragments of songs written but never finished by Gershwin that numbered in the triple digits, and yet there are only two new compositions — “The Like in I Love You” and “Nothing But Love” — which provide the bookends for the full-length tracks.

Simply put, this is what prevents Reimagines from reaching the same creative heights as Mermaid Avenue (the original, and Vol. II not so much), a similar project conducted by Wilco and Billy Bragg.  The key difference there, of course, was that they dipped exclusively into unfinished lyrics and wrote the music for them.  The results on Mermaid Avenue should be attributed just as much to Wilco and Bragg as to Guthrie, whereas Reimagines often reads as a collection of Gershwin tracks with the Brian Wilson filter applied.

In other words, Reimagines often plays more as a tribute from Wilson and his band than as a fresh and creative project.

On the other hand, to label Reimagines as a straightforward tribute to the Gershwin brothers would be to unfairly marginalize the creative spirit that Wilson so evidently brought to these recordings, not to mention the crispness and emotion that each of his lead vocals are imbued with.  There can be no question as to his intentions; he clearly threw himself into the project, as supported by reports that he would spend eight hours a day in the studio perfecting his vocals.

Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin (2010)

Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin (2010)

There are many, many positive words to be said about this record.

For starters, even on a project that lends itself to slow paced, old-school compositions — and he does indulge at times — Wilson and his crack band of music makers manage to carve out a record that verges on rock.  As would be expected, there are some beautiful bass lines and some wonderfully fun harmonies that beg to be sung along with.

There are other touches, many of them subtle, that should allow for Reimagines to be accepted among Wilson’s studio discography, as opposed to a one-off side effort.  Paul Von Mertens’ contributions can’t be overstated, serving as a link between the instruments that were employed on many of the original recordings of these songs and Wilson’s more rock/pop-oriented arsenal of drums, guitar, and bass.  Likewise, Probyn Gregory’s acoustic guitars add significantly to many of the tracks, filling in the gaps admirably.  The acoustic guitar is not an instrument one might readily associate with Wilson’s general sound, which makes it all the more notable.

“Rhapsody in Blue,” snippets of which serve as the intro and outro of the record, should be familiar to fans as a song that Wilson has noted in past interviews as one of his influences.  That this is the song he chose to place at the corners is quite fitting, and that he would choose to sing the multiple vocal tracks entirely on his own may, if nothing else, be read as a sign that he is still in command of his music.  Reports of his mental acuity — or lack thereof — may not have been greatly exaggerated, but no one should presume to claim that Wilson is present on his recordings in name only these days.

“Summertime,” the first full-length cover, touches on bits of Billy Stewart’s chart-topping 1989 version in the intro but quickly spreads out into a ballad filled out with horn blasts, twinkling bursts of piano, and strings that loom ominously on the horizon.  This version is a bit slow, but after the recognizable Wilson-esque romp of “The Like in I Love You,” it’s as though he is flexing his classical muscle, as he continues to do on “I Loves You, Porgy.”

Subsequently, the instrumental “I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin'” sounds like it could have been found on a Pet Sounds outtakes tape, the bass harmonica adding greatly to that feel.  “It Ain’t Necessarily So” is probably the first track on the album that is a fully realized blending of traditional and more modern styles, to the point that the two are difficult to distinguish between.

This is when Reimagines works so well: when Wilson manages to blends a traditional approach toward these songs with his own distinctive sound.  Contrary to some recent criticism, Wilson does not merely reconfigure the words to fit over instrumentals that conjure his previous songs, except perhaps for “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.”  Where it works exceedingly well, by the way.

Where the album does fall short is on tracks like “‘s Wonderful” and “Love is Here to Stay” that fail to transcend lounge music, being little more than standard covers that don’t diverge all that much from the originals.

“I Got a Crush on You” sounds like it was ripped off a best ballads of the fifties disc, and it works surprisingly well.  It is followed by “I Got Rhythm,” which sounds like a cross between SMiLE and surf rock on the intro, before settling down into a groove that sounds like all the best parts of a sixties Beach Boys song.  Then comes the indisputable latter-half gem “Someone to Watch Over Me,” easily one of the most beautiful little tracks Wilson has recorded in years.

The original tracks are the strongest efforts on the album, and it is for this reason that the decision to stick primarily to covers will always baffle and disappoint me.  It is the single strongest justification for why I’ve denied Reimagines a rating of 4 stars: for all the promise of what could have been.  It is still an enjoyable record and I would argue that it has earned its place as a serious effort, in league with Wilson’s recent and quite excellent albums.

The BEST COVER SONGS of 2011 (The Year-End Review Awards)

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By Chris Moore:

What better way to kick off a Monday at the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover song music video blog than to unveil the Weekend Review’s picks for the top ten cover songs of 2011.  After all, this is kind of our thing.  And this has been a busy year for covers.  Not only were there two – not one, but two! – collections of Buddy Holly covers released as tribute to the legendary singer/songwriter in 2011, but there were also two covers EPs put out by Relient K.  This is not to mention Brian Wilson digging back to his childhood (farther back than the Gershwin brothers this time) for the inspiration to In the Key of Disney.

A regular amount of covers wasn’t enough for 2011.  No, no: 2011 needed more covers!  Now, as you’ll recall from our mission statement, it has always been the goal of this blog to put an end to the proliferation of bad covers on YouTube.  In keeping with that tradition, we will now take the time to recognize these non-YouTube covers that have demonstrated excellence this year, standing out from the pack of mediocre (or worse) ones:

1)  “(You’re So Square) Baby, I Don’t Care” – Cee Lo Green (Cover of Buddy Holly)

2)  “Caroline No” – America (Cover of the Beach Boys)

3)  “Here Comes My Girl” – Relient K (Cover of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers)

4)  “Colors of the Wind” – Brian Wilson (Cover of the Disney song)

5)  “Baby” – Relient K (Cover of Justin Bieber)

6)  “Not Fade Away” – Florence and the Machine (Cover of Buddy Holly)

7)  “Interstate Love Song” – Relient K (Cover of Stone Temple Pilots)

8)  “It’s So Easy” – Paul McCartney (Cover of Buddy Holly)

9)  “Listen to Me” – Brian Wilson (Cover of Buddy Holly)

10) “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” – Brian Wilson (Cover of the Disney song)

 

Honorable Mention:

“Surf Wax America” – Relient K (Cover of Weezer)

Brian Wilson – CONCERT REVIEW!- 7/16/2008 at the Warner Theatre in Torrington, CT

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By Chris Moore:

For the set list, click HERE!

A quick Google search of Brian Wilson these days will yield first and foremost the release date and information about his upcoming album That Lucky Old Sun, which will hit stores on September 2. This is exciting news, extending a decade of increased productivity on the former Beach Boy’s part. In 1998, he released an excellent if somewhat overlooked album titled Imagination; this yielded the adult contemporary hit “Your Imagination.” Six years later, he released not only an album of new recordings, Gettin’ In Over My Head (which was received similarly to Imagination), but also released an album called SMiLE. Since 1966, this album has been considered perhaps the most anticipated new rock music album that was never released. Wilson managed to overcome the demons that once haunted him during the initial recording sessions in the mid-sixties and released this US #13 and UK #7 charting album! Now, word that he is releasing new material could not be more exciting than for the fans who have waited with bated breath to see if Wilson’s period of productivity, both in the recording studio and on the stage, would continue.

You may be wondering what all this wonderful background information has to do with the concert that Brian Wilson and his band performed at the Warner Theatre in Torrington, CT on Thursday, July 16, 2008.

The key connection here is what follows lower on the first page of Google results, namely a blog article titled “Brian Wilson refunding Hammerstein Ballroom ticket money…” According to the article, fans complained that the show was only 75 minutes long and performed by a smaller band than Wilson is typically known for. Reading this for the first time the afternoon before I was to attend this concert, I suddenly wondered if disappointment lay ahead. After all, a quick glance at the posts on BrianWilson.com’s message board suggested that there was a significant amount of tension surrounding the recent concerts. When the time came to leave for the concert, I did what any self-respecting Wilson fan would do; I gathered a collection of Beach Boys and Brian Wilson solo albums, got in my car, and kept my expectations somewhere between medium and low.

It should at least be explained briefly here that this show probably did have a lot to live up to. After all, I have seen Brian many times in my brief six years as a loyal and interested fan of his work. The most memorable and incredible concert I attended was, without hesitation, a SMiLE show in New York City. Not only did I go with my friend and fellow Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog founder Jim Fusco, but he had enlisted me to help him film his honors’ college thesis project. Due to his legwork, we were graced by the presence of a handful of Brian Wilson’s touring band members right in our very hotel room! After recording enough footage, we enjoyed the rest of the stay in New York for what it was — an opportunity to meet, in a casual environment, such Beach Boys figures as writer David Leaf and band members Probyn Gregory and Taylor Mills. This was probably the most memorable music experience of my entire life; it certainly was up to that point!

So, this being said, the concert at Warner Theatre on July 16th had a lot to live up to. Still, I came to terms with the fact that this was billed as a “Greatest Hits” show, meaning I wasn’t expecting rarities or even tracks off the new album. (I’m not sure what the aforementioned show at the Hammerstein Ballroom was billed as…) I had read elsewhere that Darian Sahanaja, a major contributor to the sound and structure of the band, was unable to attend this tour, as well as Taylor Mills. Two other regular members had recently left the band. I wondered what it would all sound like, and whether or not it would be worth my $50.

It most certainly was. Even with the aforementioned absences, the band was spot-on and sounded remarkably clear and crisp, most likely owing to the acoustics of the small venue. Although the show only lasted for 90 minutes (which was brief compared to some previous shows I have seen), he played 28 songs spread out over a main set and two encores. The set list was somewhat predictable, but then, isn’t that the nature of a greatest hits show?

What struck me was the energy in the room. Applause broke out the moment background vocals were sung during “In My Room.” Within the first few notes of “Do You Wanna Dance?,” every single person with a floor seat was on his or her feet and shaking around. Finally, and perhaps most unusual for this concert veteran, was the fact that not a soul went for the door until the final song of the second encore was over and the lights had fully come up. This was exciting, as I am often frustrated to find that people would rather get out of the parking garage before the traffic builds than stay and watch the band perform their final song or two.

What I couldn’t understand to any degree was why the couple in their early thirties sitting in front of me got up during “Do You Wanna Dance?” and never came back. What did they expect to hear? As far as greatest hits concerts go, this was just about the best you could ever ask for — well-known songs, lively performers, and faithful arrangements.

Perhaps the best aspect of the concert was Brian’s talkative nature. I wondered if he was considering the bad press he had recently received or if he was simply in a good mood. Regardless, he engaged the band and the audience throughout the show. He began with a brief statement before the show, something like, “It’s great to be in Torrington.” He explained the origins of songs — “I wrote this one when I was 19 in my car” — and later asked the band, then the crowd, to make the noise a coyote makes.

Before the final song of the main set, he asked, “You didn’t come here for bad vibes, did you?” No! the crowd responds. “Did you come here for medium vibes?” No! “Good vibes?” YES!!

I think the set list speaks for itself; these are the quintessential Beach Boys songs, mostly tracks that he wrote in the 1960s and 1970s that still have importance to us today. We still love to hear them, and the band did an excellent job (as they always do!) of performing them. The two curve balls of the night were the tracks from the upcoming release That Lucky Old Sun, “Goin’ Home” and “Southern California.” The former sounded great; it was catchy and employed powerful harmonies, although Brian’s lead vocal was difficult to distinguish in the mix. In the second new track, he clearly took command of his part. Suffice it to say that, if I wasn’t excited about the new album before now, I was after listening to these performances.

Other highlights included Scott Bennett’s absolutely scorching electric guitar solo, not to mention Brian’s opening piano riffing, on the seventies Beach Boys track “Marcella.” (He had tapped the keys of his keyboard just before “Sloop John B,” and then continued to ignore the instrument behind which he sat as the night went on.)

All in all, this was a great show and I’m glad that I went. I can’t say it was my favorite Brian Wilson show, and how could it be when compared to the others I have seen in the past? No, I took this for what it was — a greatest hits show with a couple of sneak peaks of new material to come. I truly couldn’t have been happier to find that Brian was in high spirits and incredible form, on the eve of yet another new album.  While you wait, make sure to check out all of our Brian Wilson and Beach Boys cover songs here on the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog!