So, how blown would your mind be if you only just now blundered onto the Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds” today, after a decades-long exposure to overproduced American Idolized tunes, rap, funk, reggae, jazz, rock and pop. Fine examples of all of these genres abound, but then you decide to give this 1966 album a spin and, yeah, mind blown. You’re tempted to throw away all your other records.
Brian Wilson produced, arranged and wrote most of the songs in a supernova of creativity while on hiatus from touring with the band. All he wanted to accomplish, he said, was “to make the greatest rock album ever made.” He might’ve succeeded, and if he failed it wasn’t by much.
The (London) Times and Uncut and Mojo magazines called “Pet Sounds” the all-time No. 1 album. Rolling Stone put it at No. 2. Throw out any list that doesn’t have it in the Top 5.
Surely, though, you’ve heard “Pet Sounds” plenty of times by now. Even just walking or driving around, you’ve heard much of it: “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” “God Only Knows,” “Caroline, No,” “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times,” and the traditional folk song “Sloop John B.”
“Pet Sounds” will be the featured LP in Knights of the Round (Turn)Table, Bixby Knolls Business Improvement District’s Executive Director Blair Cohn’s latest monthly effort to engage Long Beachers.
Knights will debut at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, June 28, in the Linden Lounge of the Petroleum Club, 3636 Linden Ave.
To make room for it on his already activity-packed calendar, Cohn has put his Supper Club, in which participants dine at a rotation of Bixby-area eateries, on the back-burner for awhile until a fresh batch opens.
“We’re going to play a couple of songs from the evening’s featured album, then sit around and talk about it for a while, and have an expert on hand to talk about the record’s importance and give some background and trivia about it,” said Cohn. “Then we’ll play some more songs, and talk. It’s a casual environment in the lounge. We’ll have drinks and bar food.”
For “Pet Sounds,” the discussion leader will be composer, producer, musician Chris Schlarb who, with his wife Adriana, owns the Big Ego recording studio and label in Long Beach. Besides being a “Pet Sounds” guru, Schlarb has dabbled in the deeply textured sound of the Beach Boys’ classic in his own work with his (really good) band Psychic Temple, a collective that has included such contributors as Mike Watt, Spooner Oldham, Terry Reid and Max Bennett, an 89-year-old bassist who has backed Joni Mitchell and Frank Zappa.
“One interesting fact about ‘Pet Sounds’ is the fact that Brian Wilson was working on ‘Good Vibrations’ throughout the ‘Pet Sounds’ sessions. He worked on that song for years and even though it didn’t make it onto ‘Pet Sounds,’ it had a big influence on the album. You could take off ‘Sloop John B’ and replace it with ‘Good Vibrations’ and the album would be perfect.”
Says Cohn: “After the first meeting of Knights, we’re going to select a person to be bringing in an ‘opening act,’ one song that they want to play and discuss before we go into the featured album.”
In coming weeks, the group will discuss music of all genres, on vinyl only. It’s free to attend.