The year has got off to a great start with a successful gig at the Boom Boom Club (Sutton United FC) which is always an enjoyable evening for us (We look forward to returning in August), Followed up by a return gig to New Eltham Social Club last Saturday.
27/04/2010
First update of the year and this is incredible! We have been asked by the organisers of the Mathew street festival to perform on what is called the classic albums stage and you don’t have to be a genius to work out which album they want us to perform. Yeah Right! It’s PET SOUNDS. Now some of you will remember Brian Wilson’s band performing his Magnum Opus a few years ago at the Royal Festival hall and many other prestigous venues around the world. As I’m sure you will also recall he had (and still has) a ten piece band to play it “live”. As there are only six of us, this will be our most ambitious and challenging project to date. This performance is provisionally scheduled to commence on the afternoon of Sunday 29th August and we hope to see plenty of Beach Boys fans there. The Mathew street festival is renowned all over the world as the largest festival of it’s kind so it is worth seeing. Over the course of the weekend perhaps more than a million people will visit. For more info please visit www.mathewstreetfestival.org/ Meanwhile if you can’t wait until August there are still tickets available for our show at the Millfield Arts Centre, Edmonton on Thursday 13th May, see details below.
Now where’s my big Gunn board?
The Beached Boys xx
15/12/2009
Well! Another year (in fact our tenth) draws to a close and a most interesting year it has been for us. If we begin in April when we played the Tropic at Ruislip and we were joined onstage by David Marks. As some bright spark pointed out to us at the time, at that moment we had as many original members onstage with us as the real Beach Boys do when they perform. Fast forward to August and an article appears in the national monthly periodical “Record Collector” describing us as the best Beach Boy tribute band in the country. Thank you Kingsley Abbott. Finally in October we are chosen to play at the annual Beach Boys convention in the UK. A big thank you to everyone who has attended one of our shows and another thank you for everyone who will be attending one next year.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
The Beached Boys xx
20/07/2009
As I’m sure you’re all aware we are now officially the best Beach Boys tribute band throughout the UK. Who says so? None other than than well known Beach Boys biographer Kingsley Abbott in the latest issue of Record Collector magazine (August 2009, Issue No 365) so shell out £3.90 and buy your own copy like I did. Kingsley has written a number of books about the Beach Boys (some of which are still in print) These include “Back to the Beach/ed” (think we might have to sue for copyright here) and “The Beach Boys Pet Sounds – The Greatest Album of the 20th Century”.
On another note think I’m going to have to change our gig page format. As you’re all aware, at the moment I only really list the gigs that people can get into (for obvious reasons) don’t want a bunch of people turning up mob handed at some corporate do. However I’m going to have to be like everyone else and list when we’re not free as I keep getting calls from people wanting to book us based on the gig guide. I can sense frustration whenever someone does this and I’m telling them we’re not free.
On your boards, ready, set , go!
The Beached Boys xx
13/04/2009
Finally some real good news. Did a gig at a new venue on Friday called “the Tropic at Ruislip” which is in, yeah you guessed it, Ruislip. A solid showing for a first gig but for us the most important person in the audience was former original member of the Beach Boys, David Marks who just happened to be here on vacation.
The first half was a mixture of hits plus some lesser known tracks to please the Blueboarders(as the regular board posters from the Brian Wilson website call themselves) who had turned up in reasonable numbers. In the second half we introduced the crowd to Charlotte Cooper, a young lady who is in the process of recording an album. Charlotte is greatly influenced by the music of the Beach Boys and performed a couple of songs from the early mid sixties era “Don’t Worry Baby” and “Devoted to You”. She sung these songs very sweetly and was recieved warmly by the crowd. Shortly afterwards we persuaded David Marks to join us onstage and in doing so achieved what few Tribute bands achieve, which is to perform with someone that they are a tribute to. Anyone who is not familiar with David Marks might consider purchasing Jon Stebbins excellent book “David Marks – The lost Beach Boy”. In a nutshell David was in the band when they signed their first deal with Capitol records and featured on the first four albums. The songs David chose to play with us were some of the famous songs that he recorded at that time “Surfin’, Surfin’ Safari, 409, Little Deuce Coupe(which you can find on youtube) and Surfin’ USA.
To a degree, fame and fortune passed David Marks by. However he remains a good musician and a true gentleman, unaffected by the fame that he has acquired and we look forward to seeing him again. For the people of Ruislip who came to see the show, £8 to see one of the legends of the Beach Boys on your own doorstep must have seemed a real bargain.
To see some comments about the gig please visit www.brianwilson.com and go to the community page but be quick as posts come there thick and fast and finally push older posts out.
The Beached Boys xx