I borrowed a dvd of Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road. This is a doco about the head Beach Boy reflecting on his life and music. He’s not always the most reliable narrator about his own life, is old Brian, but I’m sure he’ll be entertaining.
I watched the Brian Wilson Long Promised Road doco tonight. Rolling Stone editor Jason Fine drives Brian around the streets of LA informally interviewing him whilst taking him to key destinations in his life. They go to Paradise Cove, site of the first Beach Boys album cover, which has a plaque of the event. Then on to the Wilson’s home town of Hawthorne where the family block is now just a frontage sporting a sculptured wall featuring the Boys. Then it’s Brian’s home in Laurel Way, where he wrote Pet Sounds and Good Vibrations whilst camped in a sandbox, then the Hollywood Bowl, and beyond. Brian’s a hard man to get to talk, but Fine persists, and Brian responds, but you wonder how much is the truth. Bruce Springsteen, Elton John and others fill out the doco with glowing accounts of Brian’s genius, including some nice vintage footage of the Boys in action. Producer Don Was gets all tingly as he listens in the studio to a playback of the end section of God Only Knows that’s just the vocals. I wonder if he knows that one of those three voices belongs to new member at the time, Bruce Johnston. A backstage interview in 1964 reveals Dennis as a lothario, flirting with the female interviewer. A crucial moment happens when Brian is told by Jason about the death of his old manager, Jack Rieley. It had happened a few years previously, but Brian hadn’t heard about it. He’s shocked and on the verge of tears. Even more shocking is when we find out Brian had never listened to brother Dennis’s classic Pacific Ocean Blue solo album. Jason fixes that problem by playing it to him. Brian seems to like it. It’s a nice revisit of Brian’s legacy, but not too deep. One for the fans. It makes me want to go back and listen to his version of Smile though.