music
Wouldn’t It Be Nice?
The romance of insanity is as intrinsic to our concept
of genius as it is to our love of rock-’n’-roll gold.
Combine the two, and you’ve got one serious speedball
of flameout. Nothing sucks worse than fading away. We
demand that our avant-garde icons be brilliant, fucked-
up and heading for early death. A good, solid addiction
always sweetens the pot. But for every authentically
tortured genius who’s ever revolutionized his chosen
artistic cosmos — for every Plath, Poe, Van Gogh and
Artaud — there are at least 5,127 imitative hacks
scrambling on the fast track, striking a mope ‘n’ dope
pose for the crown-of-thorns set. What a ruse. It’s a
suicide shtick for the e-masses, a pretty pig in a public
poke, and it pays off like a fix in the sixth at Fenway.
So, with this in mind, let us now praise “Little
Surfer Girl.” Back in my teens, the Beach Boys were
considered a bad joke — a geriatric cash cow of
perennial headliners pimping the state-fair suck
circuit, regurgitating “Surfin’ U.S.A.” and “Barbara
Ann” into a hayseed fug of cotton candy and pig shit.
Little did we know, as we moped the Puyallup midway,
stoned and snarling in our Black Flag tees, that the
harmonic vibration we heard over the rattle of
rollercoasters wasn’t really the Beach Boys —
something essential was missing. We had no clue that
the songs we mocked as the quintessence of
brainless bubblegum pop had, upon appearance,
shocked the international music community to such
an extent that the Beatles — the Beatles! — felt as
though they’d been challenged to an aesthetic duel.
That something missing at the Puyallup Fair, year
after year, was songwriter/singer Brian Wilson, and he
wasn’t only M.I.A. — the poor guy was looping the
cosmos, paralyzed by mental illness and severe
anxiety exacerbated by drug use, not to mention the
Sisyphean pressures of a tyrannical father and
possessing the brains behind America’s greatest
band. Wilson is right: He just wasn’t made for these
times, and his tragicomic struggles — the antics and
abandonments, the stasis and sand in the living room
— have been well documented. As has his genius: the
ecstatic transcendence of Pet Sounds, the orchestral
magnificence of “Good Vibrations,” perhaps the most
satisfying pure pop song ever written.
But, now being now, we seem to have forgotten
more than we ever knew — if we ever knew it at all.
This is the Culture of Kardashian, and our hunger for
so-called reality has grown so insatiable and
indiscriminant, so greedy, that we seem to have
gnawed away our own common sense. Celebrity and
art (and talent, and worth) are not always
synonymous. Talk about insanity, people: Clint
Eastwood’s daughters now have their own television
program running continuously on the E! Network, but
the fact that in 2004 Brian Wilson actually completed
SMiLE caused scarcely a fart among the empty
calories of our culture. If you don’t know whether to
laugh or cry, maybe you should put on some Beach
Boys. You’ll feel better.
The Beach Boys celebrated their 50th anniversary
last year by miraculously reuniting the band’s remaining
original members — Wilson, Al Jardine, Mike Love —
along with David Mark and Bruce Johnston, and
recording a new album, That’s Why God Made the Radio,
released June 5. Wilson has said he wants to record
another album, “a bit harder and faster” this time. And
Eugene just happens to be one stop among the 50
cities in the United States where the Beach Boys will
play. The Beach Boys are playing in Eugene. I repeat:
The Beach Boys are playing in Eugene. Got plans?
The Beach Boys play 8 pm Saturday, July 14, at Cuth-
bert Amphitheater; $45, $70 reserved. — Rick Levin
Temporal Geology
Deep Time is a band that cracks sonic earth in a new epoch. Known for the past six years as
Yellow Fever, an infectiously discordant two-piece pop outfit out of Austin, Texas, trademark litigation
with a clothing company forced a name change.
“Deep Time is a geologic reference,” Jennifer Moore (guitar, organ, vocals) says. “The
concept of the earth going through cycles [of] water, life and mountain-building is what
we’re going for.”
And the richly cyclical sound, like Ian Curtis and Kim Gordon locked in a stereo-
lab, gives Deep Time enough rough weight to hold down the wispy structure of their
songs. Whereas Adam Jones (drums, bass, vocals) draws influence from the harsher,
more abrasive sounds of free jazz and grunge, Moore’s songwriting avoids the gloss of
pop by integrating a different palate of sounds and tones.
“We’re like an ugly door that came with a prefabricated house,” Moore says. “An open
door for a new project.”
Deep Time’s new album, the first under the fresh moniker, is set to be released
eponymously July 10, on Seattle-based record label M’Lady. Recorded over the
past year, Deep Time is a cleaner, more complete sound than the previous
Yellow Fever releases. Lead single “Clouds” is a skittering, yelping, guitar-
licking igneous inclusion that tumbles from sedimentary cliffs. “Bermuda
Triangle” sounds like a march into the Marianas Trench. The songs
“Marathon” and “Homebody” offer a mellower take on molten music.
For Deep Time, summer brings a West Coast tour, followed by a
Midwest and East Coast supporting gig for The Mynabirds, and then an
eventual month-long European circuit. Live, the multi-task juggling of
an array of odd noises inserted around a liquid-metal center of off-
kilter melodies makes Deep Time sound like the band is mining
diamonds from the future veins of pop music.
Deep Time plays with the Groundblooms 8:30 pm Friday, July 13,
at the Old Whiteaker Firehouse, 1045 W. First Ave.; $5 suggested
donation. — Patrick Newson
26 JULY 12, 2012
EUGENE WEEKLY
WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM