ABOUT THE ARTIST
Alan Boyd's lifelong obsession with the music of Brian Wilson and The
Beach Boys has taken him on a long and slightly off-the-wall journey
directly to the group itself. For Alan, his love of all things Beach
and Boy goes all the way back to 1966, when he wore out his brother's
copy of the SURFER GIRL album listening to "In My Room" over and over
and over again... A persistent, at times rather lonely, fascination
with the group's music followed... and a chance visit to a London
record shop, where Alan stumbled on a copy of a BEACH BOYS STOMP
fanzine led him to a worldwide community of serious Beach Boys' fans,
which in 1990 led to....
... of all things, a song. Alan, an award-winning documentary
filmmaker and historical footage archivist, had been dabbling in music,
having recently written and produced some songs for a children's
video... Les Chan, organizer of several west coast Beach Boys' fan
conventions, asked Alan to write and record a theme song for an event
to be held in San Diego in the summer of 1990. The result, "Down
South (In San Diego)" quickly became something of an "underground" hit,
with bootleg copies passing along amongst Beach Boys' fans all over the
world - and the song itself, uncredited, was even included on a bootleg
CD of unreleased Brian Wilson tunes.
Subsequent recordings by Alan, including another San Diego convention
tune, "Everybody's Waiting," and the semi-legendary "Channel Surfing"
(which was later featured on the Varese Sarabande compilation CD WARMTH
OF THE SUN - MUSIC INSPIRED BY THE BEACH BOYS), soon found their way
into the hands of BB associates Jeff Foskett, Mike Kowalski, Gary
Griffin, and Brian Wilson biographer David Leaf... which in turn led
to Alan's becoming directly involved with The Beach Boys as a
documentary filmmaker and archivist. Since 1996, Alan has directed
and/or edited a number of films for the group, including NASHVILLE
SOUNDS, THE PET SOUNDS SESSIONS, ENDLESS HARMONY (for which Alan
received a Grammy nomination in 2001), BRIAN WILSON 1999 (a short film
that opened Brian's first-ever solo tour), GOOD TIMIN' - THE BEACH BOYS
LIVE AT KNEBWORTH and, most recently, a special short film for the 2003
CARL WILSON FOUNDATION event. Alan has also produced archival audio
releases for The Beach Boys, including the ENDLESS HARMONY soundtrack
compilation, and, with engineer Mark Linett, the 2001 release
HAWTHORNE, CA. Currently, Alan is working with Brother Records and
Capitol Records to organize, catalog, and preserve the mass of
vintage Beach Boys tapes in their archives. In addition, Alan has
directed and/or edited documentary films for NASA and Delilah Films,
including specials on The Monkees, Marianne Faithfull, and Earth, Wind
& Fire.
Though Alan's own music had been on the back burner in the late 1990s,
he recently found himself recording some new Beach Boys' fan convention
songs, as well as embarking on collaborations with Beach Boys' lyricist
Steve Kalinich and Wilson sons Carl B. and Justyn Wilson for the
ENDLESS SUMMER QUARTERLY compilation, ONE IN A MILLION in early 2004.
These recent forays back into the recording studio have rekindled "the
bug," and Alan's finally releasing a full-length CD compilation of his
own music, CHANNEL SURFING. Spurred on by former Brother Studios
manager and former Dennis Wilson personal manager Trisha Campo, and
with the help of PACIFIC OCEAN BLUE/THE BEACH BOYS LOVE YOU engineer
Earl Mankey, Alan has finally gathered up all of the Beach Boys
convention tunes and demos that brought him to BB-Land in the first
place, along with a couple of excerpts from recent silent movie scores
that he's prepared for American Movie Classics and the Classic Arts
Channel, and a tune specially recorded for a Harry Nilsson fan
gathering. For this release, Alan has received some enthusiastic
support from Beach Boys Al Jardine and Bruce Johnston, Gerry Beckley
(from the group America) and, most surprisingly, from Brian Wilson
himself, who completely blew Alan away one recent morning when he
called and left a message on Alan's answering machine saying, "I just
heard 'You're The Beautiful' - your voice is fantastic! I didn't know
you could sing like that, man!"
|
 |
