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This was The Big Bang of Alan Boyd's home studio efforts, commissioned for Endless Summer Quarterly by press agent extraordinaire Les Chan.
Back in 1990 or so I'd been doing some recording just for the fun of it, experimenting with vocal parts, and Les asked if I'd come up with a "jingle" for the Endless Summer Quarterly fan convention he was organizing with Phil Mast and Rick Edgil… Recorded this on Steve Rapa's Tascam 8 track, and this was the first time I'd ever tried stacking up those kinds of vocal parts, and it was a learning experience! But it was fun, and I was utterly blown away when an umpteenth generation dupe of this track appeared as a "bonus" track on a Brian Wilson bootleg CD! I didn't know whether to be flattered or indignant because the darn thing ended up sounding so murky…
This 1993 song is a whimsical warning about the dangers of wasting time watching too much television. Notice how Boyd plays Valentino for the couch potato set. "It's better when you get near it...."
This was about a colleague of mine whose work-related frustration left him so stressed that the only way he could "decompress" was to sit at home late at night watching hour after hour of old sitcoms on Nick At Nite, much to the dismay of his poor wife…
Sentimental street corner do-op. A collaboration with some of my favorite music pals - Irene Liberatore took an old backing track I had and came up with the bittersweet story" of a lonely girl, and Dane Conover helped us across the finish line… and Dane's wife Marisa joined us for the group vocals (serious Beach Boys' scholars will recall her sparkling backing vocals on Dennis' "Morning Christmas"). We did all the vocals and mixing up at Dane and MarisaÕs rustic paradise in the gold country of Northern California.
Fitting statement for Alan Boyd supporters who have been waiting for this debut for quite some time. Follow up theme for a later ESQ convention.
In 1992 they had another ESQ San Diego convention, and I was asked to come up with a "sequel" to DOWN SOUTH (IN SAN DIEGO). Somehow, it came out a little darker and moodier than I expected...Longtime Beach BoysÕ fans, aware of the group's sometimes tortured history, should know the feeling well... standing with the crowd at a BB show, waiting for the band to take the stage and waiting for that incredibly positive music to lift everyone's spirits, and knowing that behind the "Good Vibrations" lies a great deal of heartbreak. It's a fascinating contrast, and I'll go out on a limb here and say that I think this fundamental contradiction between their music and their reality is one of the aspects of The Beach Boys' story that people find so compelling… (How's THAT for a long-winded response, eh?)
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