I went to a flea market today at Eastern State Penitentiary, which may be my favorite building in all of Philadelphia, because this is the experience of coming across it: "Row home, row home, coffee shop, row home, GIGANTIC MEDIEVAL FORTRESS."
Anyway, I went mostly to dig through the hundreds of used LPs, hoping to find a diamond in the rough ("the rough" in this case being dozens of Barbra Streisand and Phil Collins albums and all the other discarded MOR from a generation ago). And I found something that is indeed quite rare: Carl Wilson's self-titled debut solo album, dating from 1981 and probably listened to by several thousand people since then, if that. Being the Beach Boys nut that I am, I've always been vaguely aware of it, but didn't really know much about it, and figured that if it was really worth seeking out I'd have heard more about it. But when you're at a flea market and stumble across a copy of it for $4, you pretty much have to pony up the dough. It may not be the real Holy Grail of forgotten Beach Boy-related albums (that honor goes to Dennis Wilson's only solo album, Pacific Ocean Blue, which is not only exceedingly rare among non-eBay shoppers but supposedly very good as well), but it's rare nonetheless.
So I came across it, knew almost immediately that I would have to buy it, and continued my search for something else of value (which turned up XTC's English Settlement shortly thereafter), and eventually took it up to the guy selling it. Just out of curiosity, I asked, "Have you ever heard this?"
"What do you want to know?" he replied.
"Is it any good?"
"Well, if you're expecting Pet Sounds you'll be disappointed."
If you don't have enough knowledge of the Beach Boys to, say, pick your favorite song on Sunflower or explain who Ricky Fataar is, you may not understand why that comment is annoying. But let's put it this way: If I'd help up Ringo Starr's first album, would he have said, "Well, it's no Sgt. Pepper's?" If it was a Tin Machine album, would he have said, "It doesn't really compare to Ziggy Stardust?" If it'd been a Roger Waters album (and in fact I did see The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking but passed on it), would he have said, "Dark Side of the Moon it ain't?" Of course not! So why is everything every Beach Boy has ever done a disappointment because it doesn't compare to one of the greatest albums ever recorded? His answer bothered me because it seemed to affirm the all-too-common belief that Pet Sounds is the only Beach Boys album worth checking out.
Either that or it was an accidental insult to my knowledge of all things Beach Boys (since he assumed Pet Sounds would be my only point of reference), which is much greater than most people would probably suspect.
Anyway, I thought about asking him if he had Dennis Wilson's album, realized that I might as well go into the art gallery over on Lancaster Ave and ask if they have any original Rembrandts, and decided not to. I bought the Carl Wilson and the XTC albums, and made my way back home past the Art Museum and over the bridge over the Schuylkill, and back into West Philly. I slipped the cover off my turntable, put on Carl's album, and sat back... And more or less forgot it was on until it was over.
Carl Wilson was an undeniably gifted singer, perhaps even more so than his older brother Brian, and that's saying something (if you tell me you can listen to "God Only Knows" or "Our Sweet Love" and not choke up a little, you're a filthy liar), and he had his occasional moments of composition genius with the Beach Boys ("Long Promised Road," "The Trader"), but his solo debut features some of the former and almost none of the latter. The songs and glossy production are the very definition of all the aforementioned MOR junk I had to wade through to find this in the first place. I would literally not notice it was on for several songs at a time. When the first side ran out, it took me a minute to figure out what had happened and flip it over to side B. Every now and then a great vocal line would jump out at me, and I'd nod and say, "That's the Carl Wilson I know and love," and then it would be back to generic 70s soft rock (it was released in '81... but 70s is the sound here).
I'll obviously have to give it some more time, and see if it starts growing on me, but it's looking like Carl's long lost solo debut may go in the "check out what I actually own!" section of my collection with The Concert for Bangladesh, the copy of Highway 61 Revisited that's too scratched to play, and the vinyl copy of the first Godspeed You Black Emperor! album, which I own on vinyl and CD for some reason.
In better news, I have been blessed with a pair of free tickets to the Architecture in Helsinki show at the Trocadero next Wednesday. The opener is my 2nd-favorite Philly band, Dr. Dog (my favorite is Espers, of course). So I'll be sure to write about that experience soon after. I was planning on actually buying a ticket and going, but now it be free! Somebody up there likes me. And by "up there" I mean "at WKDU." So I owe my friend Priya concert tickets, or pancakes, or a back rub, or... maybe a Carl Wilson album.
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