Dope Brian Wilson documentary last night on BBC (UK)

[On The Edge of Insanity]

I'm not a fan of his music, but I thought I'd check out the documentary, because I wanted to see what his creative process was like. I thought the documentary was really well done, starting off with a brief history of the Beach Boys, leading up to the start of the Smile album. It basically told the story of the making of the album, and all the factors that eventually led Brian to abandon the album entirely. After the history lesson, it flicked back to late 2003, when Brian decided to remake the album with his current touring band. It showed a lot of the studio sessions, and the interview with Brian himself was very revealing of the pain that re-recording the album brought back to him. They showed all the band doing vocal rehearsals in Brian's house, and he looked so disinterested, most of them looked like they though it was going to be an uphill battle to get the album done, and play it live. They then skipped to the rehearsals at the London Festival Hall before his first concert performing the album. As the days went on he got more and more into it, and seemed to have shaken off the burden of revisiting an album which had caused him so much pain in the first place. They then showed him just before the concert looking nervous but focused, and the reaction of the crowd when it came out was unbelievable. They showed highlights of the concert, finishing with Good Vibrations, and then having the crowd give him a standing ovation for what seemed live forever. The guy he collaborated with on the writing of Smile originally was in the crowd crying, and was invited on stage by Brian for the final bows.

As I said at the start, I'm not going to pretend to be a Beach Boys/Brian Wilson fan, because I'm not, but I thought that the documentary was very enlighting, and definitely showed that Brian is a musical genius, and that prehaps he was too far ahead of his time for anyone to realise it back in the late sixties.

By the way, for any UK people, on BBC Four at 11 tonight they are showing a full length concert of Brian and his band playing the entire Pet Sounds album.

[Trauma-san]

Yeah! Isn't that a great documentary? They played it here in the states a few months back, it's called "Beautiful Dreamer: The story of Brian Wilson's SMiLE" I believe.  I'm happy they showed it in England, it was very well done I thought. 

He really has gone through a kind of rebirth as shown on the film... it's actually gone farther than that, now, too... in the video they showed early parts of the tour, Brian's confidence and just mental health in whole has really grown this year, and in concert this month he's in unbelievable form.  He's talking about recording a Rock & Roll album with Paul McCartney, and recording an album with his two daughters (his young, 3 and 5 year old daughters), a children's album. 

I think there's something spiritual about Brian's story, and his music, I think he's pretty inspiring, personally, because of the demons he's overcame in his life.  I saw an interview with Sheryl Crow one time, and she was telling Brian to just keep writing, singing, whatever he could, because the world's a better place because of it, and I agree with that. 

[Javier]

Yeah! Isn't that a great documentary? They played it here in the states a few months back, it's called "Beautiful Dreamer: The story of Brian Wilson's SMiLE" I believe.  I'm happy they showed it in England, it was very well done I thought. 

He really has gone through a kind of rebirth as shown on the film... it's actually gone farther than that, now, too... in the video they showed early parts of the tour, Brian's confidence and just mental health in whole has really grown this year, and in concert this month he's in unbelievable form.  He's talking about recording a Rock & Roll album with Paul McCartney, and recording an album with his two daughters (his young, 3 and 5 year old daughters), a children's album. 

I think there's something spiritual about Brian's story, and his music, I think he's pretty inspiring, personally, because of the demons he's overcame in his life.  I saw an interview with Sheryl Crow one time, and she was telling Brian to just keep writing, singing, whatever he could, because the world's a better place because of it, and I agree with that. 

you think they will have documentary on DVD soon?

[Trauma-san]

Yes, I'm sure they will.  There's also a great DVD you can get really really cheap that's out, made by Don Was (you probably know who he is) called "Brian Wilson: I Just Wasn't Made For These Times"... you can get it at Best Buy for about 10 bucks or something.  It was made in 95, though, but it's cool, it has footage (from 95) of Brian and Carl and their mom singing "In My Room" it's almost a tearjerker



Also: SMiLE Live DVD coming in January