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Daily journal Feb. 13, 2020 (Let it Loose, Lose? edition)

I forgot to publish this yesterday. So I am publishing now, Friday, Feb 14 Happy Valentine’s Day (Fake thought it is). I will add new items for the next 24 hours to this post so keep checking. It’ll be stuff I remembered that I forgot or forgot to remember.

[UPDATE 2/15: A column is forthcoming either later today or Sunday morning on AL.com — may post here as well]

UPDATE 2/16: Click here for my just published ‘Losing it’ story.

There’s lot’s of stuff going on inside my head these days and that’s good. Sure there’s bad stuff like memory loss caused by the invasion of alpha-synuclein proteins. I just say my brain is streamlining.

Keep this post at the ready and go back over the course of the next 24 hours because my memory will be jarred and a new bit of news will appear on my blog. It will be a compilation blog.

My vinyl obsession now makes me forget of a lot of the great CD’s I accumulated in the 90s. Remember I went 20 to 30 years with my vinyl stashed in boxes as I did the digital thing. Anyway, it’s a long setjj-up just to play you a song. This oneis by Sufjan Stevens riffing off of “Sound of Silence” All Delighted People contains everything people love or loathe about this artist. (I’m on the love side.”

ONWARD: Here are some ICYMI’s.

I gave Mike Love a vinyl record on Wednesday. Then I went to see them in a moderately entertaining concert at the Alabama Theatre. I’m talking about the Beach Boys — although that’s a point of contention as several of the commenters pointed out.

Ear worms are a condition we’ve all experienced and I listed a dozen or so of my most ear wormy songs.

In yet another list — and I’ve promised that I’m going to do a best-of my lists list later — I compiled a line-up of top songs about the rain.

I still stand by my argument that nothing is something.

I still dislike ‘Seasons in the Sun’ by Terry Jack, both the music and the lyrics and any and all emotion it evokes: anger, sadness, bewilderment, and huh? (That’s an emotion in most states).

This is going to be big for me: I’m going to the Alabama Record Collectors Association show at Gardendale Civic Center on March 6. That means I am going to start selling my Countdown records I’m the guy in the booth in the back with a tear in my eye

Let it Loose.

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I gave Mike Love a vinyl record today (blog version)

This is not the album I gave Mike Love today.

I gave Mike Love a vinyl record album today.

This all came about just a few hours before Love and his Beach Boys were to take the stage at the Alabama Theatre.

I’m going to the show, by the way. My brother bought me tickets for Christmas. Thanks David.

OK, here’s how I came about giving Love an album, or at least I hope he got it.

Earlier today I decided to take a stroll out of my office in downtown Birmingham to get a bite. Instead, I stopped at Reed Books, a favorite haunt which sells just about everything vintage, old and collectible.

All records are $2 and since I was skipping lunch I figured I’d use my lunch money for a record. The record was ‘Almost Summer,’ the 1978 soundtrack of a movie with the same name, which I found just rummaging around. Never heard of it but I looked at the songs and who wrote them.

A good portion of the tracks were written by Mike Love and Brian Wilson, I noticed. So there seemed to be good vibrations following me or leading me.

A record with obscure Beach Boys songs. One of them was apparently a hit.

I bought the record and wandered back to my office. The Alabama Theatre is on the way to my office, however. I stopped where a small group of people were standing near at least three large buses. They eyed me warily as I approached and began talking: Are you with the Beach Boys I asked? They really didn’t say anything. A security guard, clearly labeled so on his shirt, started to make his way closer to me. I reached into my satchel — slowly — and pulled out the album.

I told him I just wanted to give this to Mike Love or Bryan WIlson (not knowing if he’d be here or not).

“Oh,” the security guard said. “You just want me to give this to him?”

I said, yes. And I did, give it to him. Hope he likes it. Hope the security guard gave it to him. Then I started thinking, Love probably has this or maybe he doesn’t like it. I was arguing with myself.

Well, you never know. God only knows I felt good doing it, even if I won’t have it for My Vinyl Countdown.

AL.com version here.

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The Beach Boys — 653, 654

ALBUMS: Pet Sounds (1966) Shut Down Volume 2 (1964)

MVC Rating:  Pet Sounds, 5.0/$$$$$; Shut Down 4.0/$$$$

So, we’ve had the Beat Farmers, Beat Rodeo and the Beat. Before we get to another band with a ‘Beat’ in it, let’s go to the Beach.

This  copy of ‘Pet Sounds’ is a little worn. My rock roots were decidedly Beatles, Rolling Stones, the Who, Al Green, Hendrix, Janis, Otis Redding, Allmans and so on.

The Beach Boys didn’t sound like those. To my rock n roll ears, the Beach Boys tilted slightly toward Pat Boone’s version of ‘Tutti Frutti’ not Little Richard’s definitive take.

The Beach Boys on the west coast, specifically Southern California, seemed so white-surfer- boy with a decidedly middle class orientation — and there’s nothing wrong with that.

But for all their initial radio beach and car songs, there was genius at work from Brian Wilson. Listening to arguably their best work, ‘Pet Sounds,’ one is struck  by the arrangements and interlocking melodies, a jazz sensibility.  ‘God only Knows’ is a near perfect song. Sloop John is perennial.

Shut Down has Fun, Fun, Fun, which is definitely worth the three Funs. Shut Down also had some talking interludes which reminded me of a Zappa interlude if Zappa wasn’t so cynical. Come to think of it Zappa was actually making fun of the Beach Boys. Interestingly on Pet Sounds, there is some secret freak out at the end of the album after ‘Caroline No.’

Counting down my 678  vinyl records  before I die of  brain disease.