Feel Flows - The Beach Boys

I was reading an article about The Beach Boys in this past Sunday's New York Times. It caught my attention because I was also just reading about the new Feel Flows: The Sunflower & Surf's Up Sessions 1969-1971 5 CD box set compilation on a music website and had marked it on Spotify for My Albums collections. I wanted to give it a listen. So after reading the article I started playing this on Spotify and it's been almost non-stop the past couple of days. I loved those weird quirky albums from the late 60's and early 70's and saw them a few times during those years at the Spectrum in Philly and on Steel Pier in Atlantic City. 

This is a great set of music in this box set. It was a time of experimentation and reinvention for the band. This was a time when Brian Wilson was having one crises after another. The two albums featured in this collection were commercial flops and neither Sunflower or Surf's Up contained any radio hits which of course was how the Beach Boys valued themselves all through the sixties. The 70's were not off to a good start for them or so they thought but they released some wonderful music which is highlighted in this collection.

During the early 70's while I was living onboard a Navy ship I had a close friend from California who was obsessed with the Beach Boys and had all their albums on tape. He had friends send him the new ones as they were. He was especially fond of the two albums focused on here... Sunflower and Surf's Up. He played them all the time and I became very familiar with them. One of the first albums I bought when I got out of the Navy in 1973 was the Beach Boys' Holland and of course I was obsessed with the song Sail On, Sailor. A few years later in the mid to late 70's I collected a group of twofer albums. Double album sets containing two LPs. I had Suflower/Surf's Up, Friends/20/20, Smily Smile/Wild Honey and Today/Summer Days and Summer Nights.

So I played this 5 CD box set for a couple of days straight and loved every minute of it. There were lots of live cuts and plenty of weird quirky songs that didn't make the official albums at the time. They were all interesting but when the really great songs came along within the mix it was sublime.

After I finished this collection I immediately began playing I Can Here Music: The 20/20 Sessions 1968.