Sometime back in the 1960s, my brother's band got into a massive Battle of the Bands competition to be held at the Hamilton, Ontario, Armouries. His band then was called The Hawthornes, named after the hometown of the Beach Boys. They primarily did Beach Boys covers and sang in harmonies.
It seemed as though every other band in this event were early heavy metal or hard rock bands along the lines of Black Sabbath and Iron Butterfly.
When it was The Hawthornes turn to perform, they played Good Vibrarions - light gentle, happy.
They won the Battle of the Bands.
Watching this reminds me of that Battle of the Bands, back in the day.
This is fantastic. I love seeing candid footage of legendary musicians. It humanizes them, ya know? If you haven't already, you should check out the movie Love and Mercy. I just saw it yesterday and I've been on a Brian Wilson binge since. Realized I never listened to any of his albums front to back. That was a situation that just had to be rectified. Stunning movie visually and sonically. I'd totally recommend it to anyone who's even a bit into the Beach Boys.
hey C_J - I'm glad somebody noticed this post. I loved the studio footage. I'm aware of Love and Mercy. I'll try and see it. This article from NPR gave me a pause. I was among the many people who always assumed the instrument on "Good Vibrations" was a Theremin, invented by Leon Theremin. Apparently not.
Damnit man! I'd just overcome the irresistible urge to buy new gear and then you show me this. A more user friendly theremin alternative?! Maybe I could try to build one... Its actually kinda funny you brought that up. I was going back and forth between two instruments that I thought it might be. I figured it had to be either the theremin or the Ondes Martenot; seen here: You can get a good look at the thing at around 1:40. It actually looks pretty similar to Tanners electrotheremin.
Wow -- the atonal is certainly fascinating in its energy. Life can be so atonal sometimes... hence my frequent retreats into harmony. Maybe there's a kit somewhere. Re the theremin: Amazingly Leon Theremin lived to be 97. He was interviewed here including the story of showing the theremin to Lenin:Theremin: I brought my apparatus and set it up in his large office in the Kremlin. He was not yet there because he was in a meeting. I waited with Fotiva, his secretary, who was a good pianist, a graduate of the conservatory. She said that a little piano would be brought into the office, and that she would accompany me on the music that I would play. So we prepared, and about an hour and a half later Vladimir Il'yich Lenin came with those people with whom he had been in conference in the Kremlin. He was very gracious; I was very pleased to meet him, and then I showed him the signaling system of my instrument, which I played by moving my hands in the air, and which was called at that time the thereminvox. I played a piece [of music]. After I played the piece they applauded, including Vladimir Il'yich [Lenin], who had been watching very attentively during my playing. I played Glinka's "Skylark", which he loved very much, and Vladimir Il'yich said, after all this applause, that I should show him, and he would try himself to play it. He stood up, moved to the instrument, stretched his hands out, left and right: right to the pitch and left to the volume. I took his hands from behind and helped him. He started to play "Skylark". He had a very good ear, and he felt where to move his hands to get the sound: to lower them or to raise them. In the middle of this piece I thought that he could himself, independently, move his hands. So I took my hands off of his, and he completed the whole thing independently, by himself, with great success and with great applause following. He was very happy that he could play on this instrument all by himself.