Intro:
Alan Boyd is a film maker, archivist, and musician who recently released a CD of music that he'd recorded over a period of several years. The CD "Channel Surfing" was reviewed in a previous issue of Earcandy. I had the opportunity to ask Alan a few questions about the record and his other work.

E.C.: Alan, first of all, as a man who has worn a lot of different hats, is there some title that you call yourself when somebody asks what you do? Do you still consider yourself a film-maker at heart or have you settled into being a jack-of-all-trades of sorts as you juggle being a recording artist, documentarian, and "vault-rat"?

Alan Boyd: Hmmm..... I hadn't really thought about that. I guess I have settled into being a "jack-of-all-trades" over the years. Perhaps we should come up with some sort of a nifty new title or word for this. "Hi, I'm Alan, and I'm a....ummm.... an archivaultodocumusicologist." Hmmm.....I may have to ask Steve Kalinich for help on this one. He's good with words.

E.C.: I understand you've just had the opportunity to play some of your music at a festival with Al Jardine. Tell us about that experience and your relationship with Al.

Alan Boyd: That was utterly amazing! I've been playing some shows with Adam Marsland's Chaos Band over the past year, starting out with a sort of musical challenge that Adam wanted to try, namely having the band perform a 90 minute set of songs by Dennis and Carl Wilson. For no reason other than the sheer challenge and joy of doing it, which is very much the "Chaos Ethic." Adam, who I've known for years, asked me to join the band for the project, and we rehearsed like fiends, and the first show in Marina Del Rey came off really well. I don't think people ever expected to hear "River Song" or "Baby Blue" or "Where I Belong" live. And one of the best parts was working with Evie Sands, whose performance of an unreleased Dennis Wilson song called "Live Again" was incredibly moving...

Anyhow, we did the show in Marina Del Rey, and that led to us being booked to play a special reception immediately following the dedication of the Wilson home site in Hawthorne as a California State Landmark, and Al heard us and liked what we were doing, and that led Paula Springer to book last week's show in Sacramento. Al was going to be in town publicizing his "Sloop John B" children's book, and so he agreed to join us as a special guest. So we rehearsed like fiends (again) and Al joined us for a few songs - "Help Me Rhonda," "Good Vibrations," "Sloop John B," "California Saga," "Heroes and Villains".... and my favorite, from a purely Beach Boy fan nerd level, "Honkin' Down The Highway!" And it was wonderful. I hope we get a chance to do it again sometime.

Al is a wonderful person, and I'm glad I've had the opportunity to get to know him over these past few years. Of all of The Beach Boys, he's the one most interested in the archival aspects of the group's catalog, and on projects like "Endless Harmony" and "Hawthorne" his input really added to what we were doing. And personally, he's always been very encouraging, and he even invited me up onstage with him at a special performance he did in Big Sur last year to sing one of my tunes.

E.C.: In recording and compiling your album, you worked with Earl Mankey, and you've developed a relationship with Stephen W. Desper as well. Can you describe what their experiences as very long-time engineers contributed to your philosophy of record making?

Alan Boyd: Earl mastered my CD and did a fantastic job, especially considering the fact that some of these songs were totally amateur productions that had been recorded and mixed many years ago by someone who had no clue technically (that would be me), and somehow he took all of these old tracks and made them sound like.... well, he made them sound less like sonic disasters and more like, "Oh, it's supposed to be like that!"

I know I was very inspired by the sound of Brother Studio - particularly on "Love You" and "Pacific Ocean Blue," and even the Ricci Martin album "Beached," which Carl produced with Billy Hinsche and which has some of the most eccentric yet wonderful sounds, especially when it comes to the drums. The tack pianos, the rich organs, the spacious strings, that incredible Brother Studio open mic drum sound - I've never heard anything before or since that sounds quite like those three records, and I always thought it was a shame that The Beach Boys abandoned that studio and that unique sound. After hearing those three records in 1977, as a fan I couldn't wait to hear all of those elements come together in a new Beach Boys album.... and it never quite happened.

I got to know Stephen Desper while working on the "Endless Harmony" project some years back, and that was a thrill for me because, as far as I'm concerned, the man invented "Stereo." There had been lots of two channel recordings back in the 1960s, but "Sunflower" took it to a whole new place, with that incredibly dense, layered, ambient sound which just envelops the listener in a sonic paradise. And when I was 12 or so I actually tried out the quad on "Surf's Up," stringing an extra pair of speakers in the back of my bedroom just like the diagram showed, and there I was, with sirens wailing all around me on "Student Demonstration Time, and Brian skipping merrily on gravel around my head on "Take A Load Off Your Feet," and all of those voices chiming in at the end of "Surf's Up."

A few years ago I had the extreme good fortune to hear the "Surf's Up" and the "Flame " albums in mint condition first pressing vinyl in Steve's studio, with his Spatializer perfectly dialed in, and the sound booming at me from the same monitors that he had at Brian's house in Bel-Air 30 years ago. The effect was breathtaking. You'd have sworn there were five speakers there, the surround placement was so precise.... A couple of years ago, when Steve began marketing home versions of his Spatializer, I bought half a dozen of them and gave them to friends as Christmas presents!

A great time with Steve was when we went to the "Busy Doin' Something" fan convention that Susan Lang did in Connecticuut. Steve had a mobile 8 track porta-studio studio that he'd used for industrial presentations, and we went to the vaults, transferred a pair of vintage Beach Boys' tracks from the old 1" tapes, and set up a special room at the convention where fans could sit one-on-one with Steve and "remix" "Cool Cool Water" and "San Miguel," and really experience the process of taking those separate elements, vocals, track, effects, and see what it takes to make them into a cohesive whole. People were blown away having that opportunity, I think.

Working with Mark Linett has also been a revelation. He has worked with The Beach Boys' material for so long (well over 15 years, longer than anybody), and he's worked so closely with Brian that he has an intuitive feel for how to make those recordings come to life. Just listen to "Hawthorne" and you'll know what I mean. His studio, at his home in Glendale, may be the most laid-back and comfortable recording environment I've ever seen, and it's easy to see why Brian likes to work there. Mark is also, in my opinion, the best engineer out there when it comes to recording orchestras - check out the work he's done with John Lithgow.

E.C.: You're obviously quite involved with the Beach Boys, and Channel Surfing is obviously a loving tribute to that group, but I think you've avoided turning your music into simple pastiche, as so many have. How do you take inspiration from another musician and then move on from there, instead of doing a "knock-off"?

Alan Boyd: I'm not sure how to answer that one.... I suppose that in most cases I wasn't setting out to make a "Beach Boys" konck-off, but it was more like, "How would The Beach Boys approach this idea?" Like the song "Channel Surfing," it was almost a joke to see what it would sound like if The Boys were singing a song about the pitfalls of watching too much TV. A spoof, kind of. I don't know if that makes sense or not.

I guess when you really focus on someone's work for so long, you naturally kind of absorb it and try to build on it or add something of your own to it. I dunno..... just call me "the Beached Boyd," I guess.

E.C.: Can you talk about any other musicians who contributed to Channel Surfing, either directly by playing on it, or indirectly by influencing you to try something?

Alan Boyd: Most of the older tunes on there were things I did alone, track by track and bit by bit, with lots of ping-ponging on an 8 track deck at the home of my friend Steve Rapa. Very much trial and error. In the last couple of years when I started getting back into recording again, I was working a lot with Dane And Marisa Conover, who I met through my girlfriend at the time, herself a very talented singer-songwriter named Irene Liberatore. Marisa's a wonderful singer who had sung on Dennis' "Morning Christmas" back in 1977, and Dane - who had a great album on MCA called "Trees" back in the early 1980s (produced by Earle Mankey, by the way) - is just pure music. That's what he's all about, and we've been writing and recording together for years now, and he's taught me an awful lot of studio craft. In fact, when I finally decided to build a little recording facility here at home, he guided me through the whole process so that we'd have completely compatible systems.

Irene sings on a couple of the songs, Probyn Gregory played ukelele on the Hawaiian thing which I did with Brian Chidester (PLUG! PLUG! Brian's "Dumb Angel Gazette 4" which he did with Domenic Priore, Mark London, Mark Moore, and Shag, is Pure Godhead, buy it now and get a second copy for a friend!!!), Irene's husband Casey Dolan contributed some tasty guitar licks to one of the songs, and Wendie Colter helped out with some lovely vocals on "You're The Beautiful" and "Hawaiian Rhapsody." But for the most part, though, I'm doing most of the stuff on here, track by track and bit by bit and vocal by vocal. MIDI is my pal, because I can go back and surgically correct all of my sloppy mistakes so that people will think I'm a much better player than I actually am!

In the future, though, I'd really like to collaborate more on new recordings. Each time someone came into the process here, they'd add some special spark or inspiration that I would never have though of.

E.C.: how much of a presence was Steve Kalinich?

Alan Boyd: Steve is incredible. He is as he creates. Very inspiring, very uplifting, and he's personally helped me through some very rough times through his encouragement and insight. There's no cynicism with Steve at all, and he means exactly what he says. And one of the concepts that he stresses is appreciating what's right and good and all that, and that was the idea behind a song like "You're The Beautiful." It's all about appreciation - it could be dedicated to a spouse, a lover, a child, a friend, a pet, or anyone or anything - a really good sandwich, even - that makes you feel better or happy.

I felt bad for Steve when people were giving him a hard time for the lyrics to "A Friend Like You." Because that song comes straight from the heart, and it completely captures the relationship that Stevie and Brian have had together over the years. But we live in cynical times, when irony is all the rage, and sometimes people have a hard time accepting or believing a simple, honest statement like that. It's a shame, really.

E.C.: I know you recorded the album over an extended period of time, but was there a particular methodology you followed? Would you track mostly with a live band, or was it more piece-by-piece?

Alan Boyd: Methodology? Ummmm..... I guess the methodology would have to be described as "trial and error." Just about everything on this record was done piece by piece, with lots of ping-ponging as it's been done on various 4, 8 and more recently, 16 track home setups. On some of the older tunes like "Channel Surfing" I would have to make out flow charts in order to determine how many "bounces" I was doing, as a lot of those tunes were done on reel to reel 8 track, with a MIDI sequencer synced to one channel, meaning there'd be 7 tracks for what would turn out to be 15 vocal parts...

Later on, after I moved to LA and met some very talented people like Dane and Marisa and guitarist Casey Dolan, I'd have them come in a bit later in the process and add overdubs and help finish the tunes.

Now, after having spent some time playing live with Adam Marsland and his merry troupe, and hearing what they were able to add to a couple of my old songs that we've played live, I'd love to record with a band!

E.C.: Describe the overall recording process as well as how and when you decided to put together an album of the various things you'd recorded.

Alan Boyd: Well, like I said most of these songs were just individual exercises, demos, or - as in the case of the various Beach Boys fan convention tunes, little projects on their own. For awhile there I kept getting asked to write and record these little jingles for fan conventions, and those "assignments" were always just a great excuse to do something Beach Boys-ish. Over the years I'd done a handful of those, and writing and recording was always a hobby even beyond that, and early in 2004 I was asked by David Beard at ESQ to come up with a contribution or two for his "One In A Million" CD compilation. That was so much fun, not just working on my own stuff but helping Steve Kalinich, and Carl and Justyn Wilson with their tracks, and working with Dane and Marisa again, and I got excited all over again about working in the studio. And in the meantime I'd started working with Trish Campo, who had run Brother Studio for Dennis and Carl back in the 1970s, and she was starting to get all of my archival film projects organized in a formal business sense, and when she heard some of these songs she immediately got on my case about putting together a CD. She initiated the arrangement with Earl to get the album mastered, she got me to finish a few tunes, and she really kicked me in the butt to get this stuff out there. She's somehow managed to get it online, overseas, and in people's hands, and she's still working it. And Elliot Kendall also had a lot to do with making this finally happen. He's been prodding me since 1994 to put a CD together!

E.C.: Is the Beach Boys vault-organization project still keeping you busy, or is that all sorted now? For those who don't know about the work you've been doing for that, describe what you've done in a nutshell.

Alan Boyd: The Beach Boys' vault project is still ongoing. We're still tracking down missing masters, and Mark Linett and I have recently begun a serious preservation program, making high resolution safety masters from the best of the unreleased material still in the vaults. And this hasn't just been for Brother Records either - about a year ago we went through every tape box at EMI's west coast storage facility, and finally tracked down most of the first-generation singles masters that had somehow never been entered into their database, as well as finding a lot of material we didn't even know about. Cheryl Pawelski was instrumental in helping us with that project.

E.C.: In your opinion, is there any chance of new archival Beach Boys releases from Capitol any time soon?

Alan Boyd: I sure hope so.

E.C.: Rumor has it that you've been performing Dennis Wilson's ill-fated song "Wouldn't it be Nice to Live Again" at various appearances you've been making. How likely is it that the original recording will come out, since it was so close to release on the proposed Surf's Up DVD-A?

Alan Boyd: It's an amazing song, and the version that Dennis produced is, in my opinion, one of the best things he ever did. Vocally it may be his strongest performance...ever. And I know I'm not the only one who feels that way. It needs to come out. We're working on that!

E.C.: Any tips to those of us who wouldn't mind having careers that involve the Beach Boys in some way?

Alan Boyd: I don't know what to say to that, really. In my case I guess it was really a case of luck and good timing.... I happened to be around at a time when they actually needed whatever skills I had to offer, in this case the filmmaking and historical archivist stuff which I'd been focusing on for many years, and my knowledge of the group's music and history just seemed to make those other tasks somewhat simpler. Before working with The Beach Boys I'd been doing historical and musical documentaries, and I've long had my own business restoring and reformatting vintage films for various clients and stock footage projects. And what was really weird was that it was those convention tunes that made it all happen - folks in Beach Boy Land and Wilsonia heard some of those things way back when, found me, and one thing led to another. Kinda like, "Cool song, who are you?..... Oh, you do film stuff?..... that's interesting, maybe you could help us with this little project we're doing...."

E.C.: And related to the above, is it surreal for you to come from being a kid who loved listening to Beach Boys records to the point where now you are helping to preserve the very same records?

Alan Boyd: Yes. Very surreal!

I guess at some point I figured if I was going to be an obsessed fan, I might as well do something constructive with it.

When I was 6 we went to the local Payless Drugstore and, as always, I went rooting through the record bins (yes, they used to sell records at drugstores), and I was already an obsessed BB fan.... and I saw STACK-O-TRACKS there, newly-released, and I really really really really really wanted it because it looked cool (and of course I was too young to notice the bit about there being no vocals on the record, but what the hell) and I think I drew my Mom a picture of the cover and anyhow later that night we had chicken for dinner and we did the wishbone thing and I got the bigger half and my secret wish was to have all of The Beach Boys records.....

And the moral of this story is..... Be careful what you wish for!!! (Just kidding)

E.C.: What can we expect from you next? More albums, a return to film? More playing live around the country?

Alan Boyd: I'd love to do another album!!! And I'd love to work with some real musicians and a live band and more collaborations and all that good stuff! That's what my chicken wishbone request would be right now. Otherwise, I'll be working on some more music soon, namely original scores for short silent films from our archives that will be shown on CLASSIC ARTS, a truly wonderful world-wide satellite television service run by a foundation that's been actively helping us preserve some of the films in our collection..... still working with Brother Records and The Beach Boys.... and I'd love to play live more. The truth is, I'd NEVER done that before Betty Collignon organized that fun "Pop and Sizzle" show last year, and then Adam and Evie Sands and everyone in the Chaos Band showed me how much fun that can be. And Al Jardine's been incredibly encouraging, like I said. To be honest, I was utterly petrified of the very idea of singing onstage, especially something of my own, before 2004. SO whaddya know? Life begins at 42!

E.C.: Thank you very much, Alan.

Alan Boyd's "Channel Surfing" is on sale for $11.00 USD and $13.00 international through this paypal address: info@boydproductiongroup.com

www.boydproductiongroup.com