By Arye Dworken, eMusic ContributorSummer is festival season, but lately, festival season is actually just reunion season. Beginning with Coachella's uncanny knack for raising the dead (sometimes with the assistance of a hologram), bands are proving with alarming regularity… more »
By Jason Diamond, eMusic ContributorIf you try and follow the musical examples set by The Beach Boys, good things will probably come your way. That has been the wisdom used by artists from Panda Bear to Of Montreal over the… more »
By eMusic Editorial Staff, eMusic ContributorBonnaroo has come a long way since its jam-band origins 10 years ago. Now, it's the home for musical eclecticism, with everything from roots rock to fizzy electronic music to soul-shaking R&B occupying its seven… more »
By Barry Walters, eMusic ContributorIf you've read one of many biographies about the Beach Boys and their troubled leader Brian Wilson, you know there's been enough bad blood between them to generate several litigious wipeouts. With all lawsuits now… more »
By Mikael Wood, eMusic ContributorAndrew Bird first got notice playing violin with the Squirrel Nut Zippers, but over the last decade he's developed his own following with a series of acclaimed solo albums on which he sings, bows and… more »
By Lenny Kaye, eMusic ContributorThe Beach Boys' move to Columbia regenerated the band, especially since label president Walter Yetnikoff was not a man to be trifled with. Calling Bruce Johnston back into the fold, they seemed to return to… more »
By Lenny Kaye, eMusic ContributorA virtual solo album, with only minimal help from his band, Brian's continual creative paralysis had resulted in an association with a hard-line psychiatrist, Dr. Eugene Landy, who made him sit at the piano each… more »
By Lenny Kaye, eMusic ContributorWith Brian unreliable and out of the loop, it devolved for Carl Wilson to take the helm of leading the Beach Boys in the studio. New members Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar added a slightly… more »
By Lenny Kaye, eMusic ContributorFinishing up both the '60s and their obligations to Capitol, this pairing of albums reveals not only the considerable schisms within the band, but their out-of-step attempts to keep pace with a rapidly-changing culture. In… more »
By Lenny Kaye, eMusic ContributorThe Beach Boys were suffering an identity crisis of no mean proportion, cancelling out of the Monterey Pop Festival in a year when Brian's aspirations might have given them a new, hipper audience. This recording… more »
By Lenny Kaye, eMusic ContributorStack O Tracks is a behind-the-control-board look at what components comprised the band's considerable studio acumen. With Brian Wilson's closeted recording of what would become Pet Sounds, ever-hungry Capitol Records needed product for the holiday season… more »
By Lenny Kaye, eMusic ContributorPerhaps in reaction to Today! — which found Brian Wilson in a more wistful and personal exploration of himself — Summer Days has the feel of a strategic retreat, since Capitol (and Mike Love) thought… more »
By Lenny Kaye, eMusic ContributorPerhaps in reaction to Today! — which found Brian Wilson in a more wistful and personal exploration of himself — Summer Days has the feel of a strategic retreat, since Capitol (and Mike Love) thought… more »
By Lenny Kaye, eMusic ContributorAll Summer Long, the Beach Boys's sixth long player, is a transitional album, with the band balanced between the youthful innocence of their image and Brian's growing mastery of his art. "I Get Around" would… more »
By Lenny Kaye, eMusic ContributorAll Summer Long, the Beach Boys's sixth long player, is a transitional album, with the band balanced between the youthful innocence of their image and Brian's growing mastery of his art. "I Get Around" would… more »
By Lenny Kaye, eMusic ContributorSurf and turf. Though the Beach Boys would continue to mine their twinned subculture for all it was worth, there are only so many ways in which you can celebrate going fast on a curling… more »
By Lenny Kaye, eMusic ContributorSurf and turf. Though the Beach Boys would continue to mine their twinned subculture for all it was worth, there are only so many ways in which you can celebrate going fast on a curling… more »
By Lenny Kaye, eMusic ContributorThe dawning of the 1970s promised fresh beginnings for the Beach Boys, with the reemergence of their own Brothers Records label and a new parent company at Warner Bros. With Sunflower, an auspicious debut, the… more »
By Michaelangelo Matos, eMusic ContributorSure, you know about The Big One. It's been almost coming, then shelved, then coming in dribs and drabs, then promised, then shelved, then released in part, then supposed to be in whole, then shelved… more »
By eMusic Editorial Staff, eMusic ContributorThe only thing ardent music fans seem to enjoy more than watching artists unquestionably succeed is getting to see them fall flat on their faces. It's reassuring to know that our heroes are fallible, even… more »
By Lenny Kaye, eMusic ContributorTo finish. That is the unacknowledged trick of great art — completing a journey that begins with conception and arrives at the concluding moment when all decisions are made and chiseled into stone. As Brancusi,… more »
By Lenny Kaye, eMusic ContributorTo finish. That is the unacknowledged trick of great art — completing a journey that begins with conception and arrives at the concluding moment when all decisions are made and chiseled into stone. As Brancusi,… more »
By Douglas Wolk, eMusic ContributorOver the course of innumerable sessions in 1966 and 1967, the Beach Boys labored over what was to have been their magnum opus, Smile: a lavishly orchestrated suite of "modular" songs by the group's chief… more »
