Brian and Sly

• Thanks to all you Shedheads who suggested link-saving alternatives to Pocket, which is about to go out of business. Folks mentioned ReadKit, Goodlinks, Raindrop, Readwise and Instapaper, among others … I also have an Evernote account that might be useful. I’ll probably test-drive some or all of these over the next month or two. Thanks for the tips!

• Also thanks to the Shedheads (and assorted book lovers) who came to Little Jumbo in Asheville last weekend to hear my conversation with the great Denise Kiernan. The bar created a special cocktail for the event called Dog Days of Summer—bourbon, dry vermouth, sugar and orange bitters. A variation on an Old Fashioned. Man, was it tasty:

• Finally, I should note that Father’s Day is TOMORROW and if this somehow slipped your mind, get thee to a bookstore and grab a copy of DOGLAND to save the day. Way better than a tie or socks.

You might have read or heard a lot already about this week’s deaths of two musical geniuses—Sly Stone and Brian Wilson. They had some important things in common. They helped define the ‘60s. They helped redefine what was possible in pop music. They both became recluses who disappeared from public life for decades, at least partly due to drugs.

I think there’s one other meaningful crossover. To me, they both felt like ministers, just different kinds. Sly wrote sermons. Brian wrote prayers.

Sly and the Family Stone was meant to be seen as well as heard, live or on TV. They were the first superstar band to thoroughly mix race and gender. Their recordings felt alive with movement—switching lead vocals and lead instruments with every verse and chorus. Listen to “Everybody Is a Star” and tell me you don’t hear the closing ensemble number of some great unwritten Broadway musical.

“Everyday People,” “Dance To the Music,” “Hot Fun in the Summertime”—they feel like exclamations, meant to be shouted from the stage.

Brian Wilson’s deepest songs feel more like incantations, meant for an audience of one—a girl, or God*, or just Brian himself. He spent months in the studio, adding instruments, rewriting melodies, and more than anything, layering vocals until the Beach Boys sounded like an massive choir.

*Wilson famously called the Beach Boys’ legendary unreleased album SMILE a “teenage symphony to God.” The power-pop band Velvet Crush used the title for their excellent 1994 album.

I’m always drawn to songs that pin down one highly specific feeling while making it also seem universal. I don’t know that any work of art has ever captured “lonely but contented introvert” any better than “In My Room.”

And then there’s “God Only Knows,” which a lot of musicians who know what they’re talking about consider the greatest song ever written. Some of that is for technical reasons—chord voicings and harmonic progressions I don’t understand well enough to explain. But most of it is how the form matches the feeling. Hanif Abdurraqib wrote about it in his book THERE’S ALWAYS THIS YEAR:

Some days I’d like to live in that loop, the same way I’d like to live in the long fade of Sly’s “I Want To Take You Higher,” where the band sings “Hiiiiiiigher! Hiiiiiigher!” over and over until your soul starts to lift off the ground. Sly Stone and Brian Wilson didn’t reach in the same way, but they were reaching for the same thing. And they came about as close as anybody who ever lived to grasping it.

10 things I wanted to share this week:

1. My latest episode of SOUTHBOUND features Jeremy Markovich of the brilliant newsletter North Carolina Rabbit Hole. Every state should have one of these!

2. My weekly for WFAE was about how Duke University is punishing itself before the Trump administration even gets a chance to.

3. Book of the week: Megan Greenwell (who edited me at both ESPN the Magazine and Esquire) just came out with BAD COMPANY, her story of how private equity is ruining not just the economy but the American dream. I can’t think of a more timely book.

4. One more new book I’m looking forward to: KING OF ASHES from S.A. Cosby, the new king of the Southern gothic thriller. I did a SOUTHBOUND episode with him back in 2021.

5. For those of you who don’t follow baseball, Aaron Judge of the Yankees is having one of the greatest offensive seasons in history—for the second year in a row. But when you play for the Yankees, you play for a different kind of history, and Wright Thompson goes way back in that history to figure out where Judge fits in. (ESPN)

6. Speaking of baseball, you have to see this catch from Denzel Clarke, centerfielder for the Athletics (formerly of Oakland, now playing in Sacramento until they move to Las Vegas, it makes me sad just to have to say that). This catch gets better every time I watch it.
   

7. I really enjoyed the two-part documentary STEVE! (martin) … the first half is about his childhood and rise to be the biggest comedian in the world, and the second half is mostly about his current life touring with Martin Short and being a dad. It probably gets as deep into his heart and mind as any outside person is ever going to get. (Apple TV)

8. We’re also watching the new Welsh cozy mystery DEATH VALLEY, featuring a retired TV detective who turns out to have a knack for solving actual cases. I wouldn’t put it in my top tier but it’s worth checking out if you’re looking for something lighter. (BritBox)

9. The YouTube algorithm decided the other day that I needed to see an interview with Gary Oldman about TIPTOES, a movie I had never heard of, in which Oldman plays a little person by (apparently) crawling around the entire movie on his knees. Matthew McConaughey is also in this movie. I am still having a hard time believing it’s real. I think I might have broken a rib laughing at the interview. Thank you, YouTube.

10. I’ve been hearing some traditional straight-ahead country music lately that makes me hopeful the good stuff will find its way back to the top of the charts. Here’s a new one I really like: Mae Estes’ “Mr. Fix-It.”
    

    
    

Upcoming events:

• Aug. 2: Casino Theater on St. Simons Island, GA

Have a great weekend, everybody…

—TT