“My whole life is backwards,” muses Steve Martin during the second “episode” of Morgan Neville’s Steve! (Martin) A Documentary in Two Pieces.
The point that Martin is making stems not from some Benjamin Button-style anomaly, but from his contention that he has gone from being riddled with anxiety in his 30s to achieving contentment and happiness in his 70s.
While I would posit that this isn’t all that remarkable — “Finding wisdom and peace with age” seems ideal and not unusual — there’s truth to Martin’s bigger point. Biopics and bio-docs tend to have familiar arcs that allow us to reconcile the contradictions of complicated lives; Martin’s biography has no such arc.
Neville’s approach, in the annoyingly titled documentary that I will henceforth only call Steve!, is to bifurcate Martin’s life.
The 98-minute “Then” looks at the origins of Martin’s comic style — a...
The point that Martin is making stems not from some Benjamin Button-style anomaly, but from his contention that he has gone from being riddled with anxiety in his 30s to achieving contentment and happiness in his 70s.
While I would posit that this isn’t all that remarkable — “Finding wisdom and peace with age” seems ideal and not unusual — there’s truth to Martin’s bigger point. Biopics and bio-docs tend to have familiar arcs that allow us to reconcile the contradictions of complicated lives; Martin’s biography has no such arc.
Neville’s approach, in the annoyingly titled documentary that I will henceforth only call Steve!, is to bifurcate Martin’s life.
The 98-minute “Then” looks at the origins of Martin’s comic style — a...
- 3/28/2024
- by Daniel Fienberg
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Jeffrey Foskett, a singer-guitarist that spent decades in the Beach Boys and played a pivotal role in Brian Wilson’s late Nineties comeback thanks to his soaring falsetto and effortless ability to harmonize, died Monday after a long battle with anaplastic thyroid cancer. He was 67. A spokesperson for Wilson confirmed Foskett’s death to Rolling Stone.
“Jeff was always there for me when we toured and we couldn’t have done it without him,” Brian Wilson said in a statement. “Jeff was one of the most talented guys I ever knew.
“Jeff was always there for me when we toured and we couldn’t have done it without him,” Brian Wilson said in a statement. “Jeff was one of the most talented guys I ever knew.
- 12/11/2023
- by Andy Greene
- Rollingstone.com
Even if you think that Brian Wilson is God — and yes, I do — you could easily say that we don’t need another documentary about him. There have been some good, rich, and deep ones, like “Brian Wilson: I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times,” the 1995 musicological meditation directed by record producer Don Was, or “Brian Wilson and the Story of ‘SMiLE’,” which chronicled the history of that most fabled of all unfinished albums as well as the remarkable story of how, in 2004, Wilson and Darian Sahanaja put its majesty back together again. “Love & Mercy” (2014) wasn’t a documentary, but it had the true-life power of one; it’s one of the great music biopics, with an insight into the perfect storm of forces that made Brian Wilson tick. Beyond that, so many of the tales of Wilson’s life and art — his creation of, and withdrawal from,...
- 6/16/2021
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
Nicky Wonder, longtime guitarist for Brian Wilson and cofounder of power pop band the Wondermints, has died. He was 59.
“It is with my deepest regret to tell you that our beloved Nicky Wonder passed away last night in his sleep. We are in a state of shock as you can imagine,” Brian Wilson said in a statement on his official website. “But we are going to honor him with tonight’s show. Nicky was my favorite guitar player ever. I always loved the way he used his fingers.”
Born Nick Walusko...
“It is with my deepest regret to tell you that our beloved Nicky Wonder passed away last night in his sleep. We are in a state of shock as you can imagine,” Brian Wilson said in a statement on his official website. “But we are going to honor him with tonight’s show. Nicky was my favorite guitar player ever. I always loved the way he used his fingers.”
Born Nick Walusko...
- 8/8/2019
- by Althea Legaspi
- Rollingstone.com
Brian Wilson and the Zombies will embark on a North American tour this summer celebrating their music from 1968 and beyond.
The “Something Great from ’68” tour will launch August 31st at the Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada and wrap September 26th at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. Tickets go on sale May 10th, while pre-sales start tomorrow, May 8th. Complete information is available on Wilson’s website and the Zombies’ website.
Wilson will primarily perform songs from two of his favorite Beach Boys albums,...
The “Something Great from ’68” tour will launch August 31st at the Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada and wrap September 26th at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. Tickets go on sale May 10th, while pre-sales start tomorrow, May 8th. Complete information is available on Wilson’s website and the Zombies’ website.
Wilson will primarily perform songs from two of his favorite Beach Boys albums,...
- 5/7/2019
- by Jon Blistein
- Rollingstone.com
Wild Honey Orchestra: Buffalo Springfield tribute Alex Theatre, Glendale CA February 17, 2018
The Wild Honey Foundation started putting on themed benefit concerts a quarter century ago and was revived a few years back, now benefitting the Autism Think Tank. A collection of superb Los Angeles-based musicians with extensive résumés comes together, led by guitarist Rob Laufer (Johnny Cash, George Martin, Cheap Trick, etc.) as The Wild Honey Orchestra to back special guest stars (many, but not all, also L.A.-based) and augment existing bands, this year performing songs of Buffalo Springfield, the band that shot Stephen Stills, Neil Young, and Richie Furay (Poco, Souther-Hillman-Furay Band) -- along with bassist Bruce Palmer (later Jim Messina) and drummer Dewey Martin -- to fame in the late '60s.
Thanks to my Wild Honey pal Michael Ackerman, I got to attend both the show and two rehearsals, which even after decades of listening...
The Wild Honey Foundation started putting on themed benefit concerts a quarter century ago and was revived a few years back, now benefitting the Autism Think Tank. A collection of superb Los Angeles-based musicians with extensive résumés comes together, led by guitarist Rob Laufer (Johnny Cash, George Martin, Cheap Trick, etc.) as The Wild Honey Orchestra to back special guest stars (many, but not all, also L.A.-based) and augment existing bands, this year performing songs of Buffalo Springfield, the band that shot Stephen Stills, Neil Young, and Richie Furay (Poco, Souther-Hillman-Furay Band) -- along with bassist Bruce Palmer (later Jim Messina) and drummer Dewey Martin -- to fame in the late '60s.
Thanks to my Wild Honey pal Michael Ackerman, I got to attend both the show and two rehearsals, which even after decades of listening...
- 2/24/2018
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Over the past decade, Paul Dano has portrayed everyone from a firebrand preacher in There Will Be Blood to a mentally challenged kidnapper in Prisoners. But on the second day of shooting Love & Mercy, the new Brian Wilson biopic, he faced his greatest acting challenge yet: re-creating Wilson's spellbinding solo-piano performance of the Beach Boys' "Surf's Up" from a 1967 television special. "I was shaking," says Dano. "It was a fool's errand to try to get my voice to sound exactly like Brian's. His range is so bananas."
Dano nailed the scene,...
Dano nailed the scene,...
- 6/11/2015
- by Andy Greene
- Rollingstone.com
Everett The Beach Boys in 1967
Today’s release of “The Smile Sessions,” with music by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks recorded in 1966 and ’67 by the Beach Boys and Wilson’s preferred Los Angeles studio musicians, suggests the lost, legendary Beach Boys album “Smile” is now available.
It’s not. What’s referred to as “Smile” on the first disk of both the two-disk and five-disk version of “The Smile Sessions” boxed sets is a facsimile cobbled together from recordings...
Today’s release of “The Smile Sessions,” with music by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks recorded in 1966 and ’67 by the Beach Boys and Wilson’s preferred Los Angeles studio musicians, suggests the lost, legendary Beach Boys album “Smile” is now available.
It’s not. What’s referred to as “Smile” on the first disk of both the two-disk and five-disk version of “The Smile Sessions” boxed sets is a facsimile cobbled together from recordings...
- 11/1/2011
- by Jim Fusilli
- Speakeasy/Wall Street Journal
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