Right on Paul. Good luck with the tracks

Hey Paul - I'm not generally a Beach Boys fan but I listened to the whole playlist and really appreciate the vibe, musicianship and recording quality. Speaking of which, the recordings sound great. I wouldn't have noticed that you'd lifted a guitar solo from a different gig -- what song was that?

Sorry to hear you're no longer able to gig.. and man, that is truly annoying about the Cubase issue..

Ben.

benhj wrote:
I wouldn't have noticed that you'd lifted a guitar solo from a different gig -- what song was that?

Surfin USA - 1:58 in there's a guitar break that is 18 months older than the rest. I just couldn't find it, but the old one fitted pretty neatly with a bit of squashing as the tempo was a bit different.

I'll miss it - the foreign trips were always the crazy ones - you've seen our pictures, and we were playing at the F1 in Abu Dhabi and they bussed you from your hotel to the various stages around the event. We got there, they got us out of the bus quickly and told us to hurry - something seemed a bit odd here, so I asked who they thought we were (bearing in mind the white trousers, crazy loud shirts) and the stage manager looked at us and said Jay-Z's band? The funny thing would have been if we'd not asked ........................ At least we did two days of shows at the racing, we once flew to a foreign country, straight to the gig, played an hour, then back on the plane home!

paulears wrote:

benhj wrote:
I wouldn't have noticed that you'd lifted a guitar solo from a different gig -- what song was that?

 

Surfin USA - 1:58 in there's a guitar break that is 18 months older than the rest. I just couldn't find it, but the old one fitted pretty neatly with a bit of squashing as the tempo was a bit different.

Just had another listen and nope, I definitely can't tell -- good stuff! Was it difficult to get it to align 'time-wise'? Did you have to do any kind of subtle tempo-matching?

I'll miss it - the foreign trips were always the crazy ones - you've seen our pictures, and we were playing at the F1 in Abu Dhabi and they bussed you from your hotel to the various stages around the event. We got there, they got us out of the bus quickly and told us to hurry - something seemed a bit odd here, so I asked who they thought we were (bearing in mind the white trousers, crazy loud shirts) and the stage manager looked at us and said Jay-Z's band? The funny thing would have been if we'd not asked ........................ At least we did two days of shows at the racing, we once flew to a foreign country, straight to the gig, played an hour, then back on the plane home!

That sounds absolutely awesome. I would love to do something like that one day.. keep telling myself to try and find another band to gig with. I last 'semi-pro' played around 20 or so years ago (I'm almost 42 now). We played in Nice, France for a week and got to record at Puk Studios in Denmark (sadly no longer... google 'puk studios fire') and this was in a band with music I didn't particularly enjoy playing. Great times though!

Jay-Z's band... haha! That is a truly cool story. Must have been awesome to have just been there and experience 'everything', not to mention the actual playing!

Ian - the keys player started the band a very long time ago - and we had one lineup change and we kept in touch with the other guys so it was pretty good. We always got in trouble - following rules was our downfall. P&O don't like the visiting musicians to mix with the crew, in the crew sections - we got caught playing table football with the Phillipino engineers, who fleeced us mercylessly, so we didn't get invited back. In Berlin, Ian got marched off by security because he was busy telling a tale at check-in and she asked him "Did you pack this case yourself Sir?" He said no and carried on talking. "Sir, do you know what is in this case?" No - again was his answer. "Sir, could anyone have put anything in this case without your knowledge?" Yes - he said, I just shut it in the hotel and came here? That was enough, they X-rayed it and saw little boxes, lots of wires and batteries.

Ian's brother, Adrian, left the band, moved to California and joined the real Beach Boys, and he's still there. Most beach Boys songs fade out, and our live ones have ends - he even used one of our endings with the Beach Boys. He's retired now, but still out there.

We supported Status Quo here in the UK which was a stadium show, that was a good one. The worst was when we arrived at a UK theatre, via a new (to us) agent, to discover it was billed as "The Beach Boys" - he then asked how good our American accents were? That was uncomfortable. We also played the USAF air bases which was always nice - loads of homesick servicemen and women.