A couple of years ago I went to see Brian Wilson perform “Pet Sounds” at the Hollywood Bowl. It wasn’t for the fainthearted. To this day, I can summon up the feeling of angst and dread that all of us in the audience had for probably the first third of the show, when it wasn’t clear that Wilson knew who he was or where he was or who we were or what this was all about. You know that guy we’ve all seen at one point or another, on a subway or a bus or a street corner, whose mouth moves wrong and whose body isn’t in sync with whatever his mind thinks is going on? That was Brian Wilson that night. At some point his brain and his body realized there was a band behind him playing his music and he clicked into gear. Thankfully. But I knew I couldn’t — and wouldn’t — go see him perform again, no matter how much I love all that music. In fact, precisely because of how much I love all that music.

Just now I happened to come across Wilson again, this time on the Tavis Smiley show, promoting the dvd of his recent album, “That Lucky Old Son.” I wish I hadn’t. While Smiley struggled to get a conversation going, there sat Wilson very much like someone who’s been hit in the head with a frying pan. I’m trying to think of when last I felt so sorry for an interviewer, and nothing is coming to mind. The segment was mercifully brief, but it didn’t feel that way. The early questions elicited responses far shorter than what the host was expecting, which left him paddling around looking for more things to ask. When Smiley asked Wilson, a musician with a career of more than 40 years who after all was there plugging a dvd, if he’d ever imagined there’d be so many new ways to promote music, Wilson’s response was something like, “No.” Although he did then bemoan the death of radio. Smiley followed up to ask if the success of the Beach Boys would have been possible at the time without radio; Wilson didn’t know. Neither does anyone else — but at least we might have speculated, for the purpose of polite conversation. This being a chat show and all. But then, we didn’t fry our brains four decades ago.

I haven’t bought “That Lucky Old Son,” cd or dvd. I thought “Smile” was terrific, but it was almost entirely terrific because it was the rescue and rehabilitation of 40-year-old material. Judging from the video clip that was screened from the new dvd, Wilson can’t even sing now. I don’t think I want to hear any more.

Could this have worked out differently for Brian Wilson? I don’t know, but I’ll venture a comparison. His competitor and contemporary, Paul McCartney, just put out what is certainly his best new disc in 25 years or more. “Electric Arguments,” released under the name of McCartney’s side project The Fireman, captures the sound and excitement of the Beatles without getting trapped in the past. “Nothing Too Much Just Out of Sight” is the sort of howling blues vocal we haven’t heard from him since “Why Don’t We Do It In the Road?” circa 1968. Other tracks are reminiscent of “Abbey Road” or “Let It Be” — or nothing in the Beatles catalog. McCartney, recording under this pseudonym, sounds liberated from his own reputation, playing and singing with the freshness of youth. I only wish I could say the same for his friend Brian.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 at 11:55 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.