6-19-06 "Long promised road" recording
brennan's pub, marina del rey, ca
The live recording of LONG PROMISED ROAD: SONGS OF DENNIS AND CARL WILSON: LIVE
Personnel: Adam, Evie, Teresa, John Perry, Kurt Medlin, Alan Boyd, Probyn Gregory (on "Little Bird" and "All I Want To Do")
Set List:
WHAT THE HELL
MEANWHILE (Alan)
YOU'RE THE BEAUTIFUL (Alan)
WHILE I LOOK AT YOU (Evie)
DON’T LOOK BACK, DON'T LOOK DOWN (Evie)
BIG BEAR
OTHER THAN ME
RIVER SONG
MOONSHINE
GOT TO KNOW THE WOMAN
ANGEL COME HOME
LONG PROMISED ROAD
BABY BLUE
WHERE I BELONG
TRADER
WHAT’S WRONG
LIVE AGAIN
LITTLE BIRD
WHEN PATTY HAS TIME (Alan)
CARRY ME HOME
FOREVER
KEEPIN’ THE SUMMER ALIVE
ALL I WANT TO DO
MY KICKASS LIFE
CAN’T LET GO
HEROES AND VILLAINS
WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW IS A GOOD DEUS EX MACHINA
CELEBRATE THE NEWS
HALO BOY
LAST TEARDROP (Evie)
Comments:
This was the show recorded by Mark Linett that was made into the LONG PROMISED ROAD: SONGS OF DENNIS AND CARL WILSON LIVE album. There were 30 songs performed in all, and counting extra takes during the encore and recordings of the soundcheck there were over 40 tracks that were whittled down to the 20 track album. This was John's second-to-last performance as an official member of the band (though he returned for one off performances, most recently at the Carl Wilson Foundation show in 2008), and also the last time (to date) we did the Chaos arrangement of Evie's unreleased Philly soul ballad "Last Teardrop." There were also two Alan Boyd songs performed that didn't make the album: "You're the Beautiful" and the unreleased "When Patty Has Time."
There were post-production fixes done on the album the following month, mostly individual vocal lines on small sections of songs that were out of tune. Most of the onstage mistakes were covered by balancing and muting the offending tracks. The biggest fix was Evie rerecording her vocal for "Wouldn't It Be Nice To Live Again," the unreleased Dennis Wilson track, in the studio (the rest of the track is completely live).
From the blog posted at the time:
You want to talk about a terrifying prospect -- it's hard enough to get a recording right in the studio. Performing intricate arrangements with four part harmonies all the way through live onstage in a club environment to the perfection required for a CD release is well nigh impossible. Still, with Mark Linett -- Brian Wilson's engineer -- offering to come down with the same crew that did Brian's live recordings and make this idea a reality, we decided we could only give it a shot.
We only were able to do three warm up rehearsals for the show...we already knew the songs and even though there were many spots in the set that we thought needed work, we had to balance that with the need for sleep and vocal rest before the show. We went back to using headphones and in-ear monitors -- the first time I'd used them since they catalyzed my sinus and hearing problems a year ago -- to achieve the detail needed and by the time we had our last rehearsal things were sounding pretty tight. I was still tired and cranky from all the touring -- there are times when I just need some down time and when I don't get it I sort of resent things that I normally enjoy doing -- and I'm sure I wasn't the only one. Still, by Friday night I was focused and back on my game in terms of drilling the band, and they were extremely cooperative; we were all on the same page. It didn't hurt that Eric Vesper (Evie's hubby) was back with us on percussion. He added tremendously to the first few times we'd done the Carl and Dennis show and we were glad to have him back.
Preparations for the show started the night before, with Teresa and I actually loading the bulk of the gear into our vehicles (Teresa having just bought a new RAV-4!!! Party time!!!) and heading down to Brennan's at 1:30 a.m. to load in, to save time the next day. Then we went back to our respective pads and got some sleep.
After some last minute preparations (buying cords and a new in-ear earpiece), I headed down for Brennan's at about 2 p.m. The bar didn't open 'til 3:30, but we'd had dreadful experiences with traffic getting down there and we knew every minute counted. As it happened, I got there early. A group of marathon trainers were running down Lincoln Blvd. and having nothing better to do, I joined them for a mile or so. Not the brightest thing to do at the top of a grueling day, but what the hell.
The entire band (except Kurt, who we knew was going to be late) and Mark and his three man crew were all at Brennan's by 3:40 and commenced the long and arduous set up. The first problem, which I'd anticipated though not solved, was trying to figure out how to get the cable from the stage out to the patio where Mark was setting up his system. Naturally, the Brennan's folk were freaked out by the idea of cords running all over the floor, but Mark's gang worked it out by running the cable along the wall and on beams on the ceiling. While they set up what to us was an enormously elaborate studio on the patio (although Mark assured us it was his "small" rig), Alan and John worked on setting up the lighting and camera angles, while Kurt and I worked on getting the PA together and all of us set up our gear.
It took roughly four hours to get everything together, and when Mark was ready to roll, we still had to get the stage and outside sound balanced. This proved really difficult, and it took a frustrating half hour before we isolated the problems (too-live mics on a stage full of monitors; a faulty microphone; and Alan's and John's voices being out of balance in one of the two monitor mixes). By the time we were able to start doing "safety" runthroughs of songs for soundcheck, it was 8 p.m. and people were beginning to drift in. The first takes were pretty bad, and we (or maybe it was just me) started to get a bit nervous. We weren't getting the onstage sound we wanted. But as we started running through the set, little by little, things got better. Ominously, though, we didn't get any perfect takes -- just 2 or 3 songs that were good except for one mistake somewhere.
Of course, we had the option of going back and fixing things later, but since that sort of takes away the point (and the accomplishment) of doing a live album, we wanted to limit any "sweetening" to the bare minimum necessary. Still, after the soundcheck, getting a workable live album seemed like an elusive goal, which was frustrating, since we knew the material cold. We also were sweaty and gross, and there were already a good 40-50 people in the room. Evie, Teresa and I all fretted about our appearance, acutely aware that we were being filmed for Alan's documentary. I thought Evie looked fine but after the long day Teresa and I really looked like we hadn't showered in a week or two. Teresa, still fighting off her sciatica problems, was in a lot of pain from using her heavier (but better-intonated) bass at the show.
Anyway, this is where I tell you that despite all the misery, I'm glad on one level my sinus shit happened because if not for that I never would have gotten into yoga, and once the opening band Runaway Diamonds (featuring our good friend Andrew Lockwood from Phoenix) was underway -- a task that required painstaking labeling of every bit of gear and cord that had to be moved for their set -- I went off to the patio and spent about 20 minutes just practicing breathing and doing shivassana(). When I got back into the room, just as the Runaway Diamonds were finishing. I was a new man...not totally relaxed, but pretty close. And ready to rock. What the hell. It was just a huge investment of time and effort. But in the end, just a rock and roll show.
And so we just let loose and rocked. The first few songs were a little tentative -- John and I messed up the words to "What the Hell" and my guitar was way out of tune for "While I Look At You" (but getting that one on tape was always a long shot anyway), but by the time we got to "Karma Frog" the band was starting to get comfortable. Then when we got into the Wilson set, everything flowed. For the first time since my ear woes, I used the in-ears for nearly the whole show and they were invaluable; I could hear the vocals great. Here's what we did, with my recollections of how the recording went:
River Song -- This one really seemed to go great. The vocals were tight; the only problem was Kurt messing up a drum part on the bridge. This might be problematic because we ran this song three times and each time, either me or Kurt messed up this part. Hopefully we can make it work out.
Moonshine -- We did a good version of this in soundcheck, but this one really sounded great to me.
Got To Know The Woman -- a few of the "oohs" in the backgrounds were sketchy, and I sang the wrong line in the 2nd verse, but basically a rocking track!
Angel Come Home -- This one just shined as far as I could tell.
Long Promised Road -- The bridge is always the most difficult part, and I made a minor mistake on the keyboards there. The others said the vocals were a little sketchy but I was too busy to tell.
Baby Blue -- This one probably won't make it, although we made a decent stab at it. I wasn't crazy about my part of the lead vocal.
Where I Belong -- We did a really good version in soundcheck, except for the 2nd verse vocals, which had one really honking bad note in it. This one was much more consistent.
What's Wrong -- Alan and I had a good time dueting on the vocals. This seemed pretty rocking to me.
Trader -- Miraculously, this one seemed good from start to finish. I had one really minor mistake on the keyboards, but other than that, this one went spectacularly well.
Wouldn't It Be Nice To Live Again -- Bar a minor but very noticeable mistake on the piano at the end (me), this one sounded good all the way through, particularly the difficult 4-part block harmonies that go all the way through the song.
Little Bird -- Probyn joined us on banjo for this one. We've had some trouble with the vocals in the midsection, and there was one part we didn't nail, but the big problem here may have been John's keyboard, which was loud onstage and probably bled into all the vocal mics.
Carry Me Home -- We did three false starts for this one! But when we got it going, it was reeeallly nice.
Forever -- This one was scary; we've always had trouble with this one, and with Dennis' ex-wife Barbara in the audience (for whom the song was written) we really wanted it to go well. And again, miraculously, it really did.
Keepin' The Summer Alive -- This one just smoked. I sounded a little like Black Sabbath on the vocals, but we rocked and the backing vocals were almost flawless. Teresa got behind on the bass during the bridge; that's the only thing I heard.
All I Want To Do -- All I can say about my lead vocal is Mike Love, eat your heart out. This one will make it.
then we headed into some non-Carl and Dennis songs: a smokin' "My Kickass Life" and "I Can't Let Go" followed by a (frankly mediocre by Chaos standards) closer of "Heroes and Villains." We were then called back up for an encore in which we performed "Celebrate the News" -- Evie owning the place on an extended guitar solo -- and "Deus Ex Machina" -- during which John proudly played the piano with his elbows and was the loudest thing onstage. Repeated encores allowed us to play bits of a couple of songs for editing purposes, ending with "Halo Boy" and Evie's "Last Teardrop."
From the reaction of the crowd, we knew we'd hit a home run with the performance. Evie, who's even more of a perfectionist than I, was unhappy with some aspects of it but my sense was that we'd done about as good as anybody could possibly do in that environment, and even Mark's assistant Phillip said "whatever mistakes you guys heard, I didn't hear them." Mark's initial assessment was a thumbs up, although he told us later after hearing the playback that we might have to do a little post-production on some of the background vocals. I'm hopeful, though, that when we whittle it down to the best 12 or 13 tracks (we recorded a total of 40 tracks, plus a few edit pieces) and get them mixed and balanced right we won't have to do much "fixing." Like I said, I'm just not into that.
Even more rewarding than Mark's blessing was the great comments from the large crowd that stayed there 'til 1:30 a.m., which included Marilyn Wilson-Rutherford (Brian's ex-wife) and Carl B. Wilson (Denny's son), who personally thanked the band afterwards. Cowriters of "Angel Come Home" (Geoffrey Cushing-Murray) and "Live Again" (Stanley Shapiro) were also there and got their props from onstage. We've seen enough of these people that they feel like friends now, and their support means so much to us and let me tell you, the Wilsons are warm and wonderful people.
Afterwards, the gargantuan amount of equipment was broken down in surprisingly short order. The band had a little post-mortem in the parking lot...we had really worked our asses off for a few months, and now we were going to get a bit of a break from each other. Evie was going to the U.K. to tour and do some recording with a fairly well known recording artist, and I'm going under the knife in two weeks to correct a deviated septum, which hopefully will help clear up my remaining sinus and ear problems (and if nothing else, will allow me to breathe better than I ever had in my life).