Sagittarius
Cold and Bouncy
Not long after its release, former Wilson collaborator Gary Usher tried, with a studio project he dubbed Sagittarius. And in recent years the London-based High Llamas have become contenders, making several albums in a style explicitly reminiscent of Wilson’s.
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Gary Usher first hooked up with Brian Wilson, who was then only 19, in early 1962. Together they came up with “409,” the intended A side of the Beach Boys’ debut Capitol single, as well as “In My Room,” an introspective ballad that foreshadowed the guileless sensitivity of Pet Sounds. They soon parted ways, and Usher went on to produce and arrange a spate of hot-rod albums inspired by the commercial success of “409.” Later, on staff at Columbia, he produced significant records like the Byrds’ Younger Than Yesterday and Sweetheart of the Rodeo. But his creative input in those sessions was relatively minimal and, feeling like he was living in Brian’s shadow, he responded to Pet Sounds with a determination to create “an inspirational album” of his own.
The somewhat unorthodox single managed to chart nationally, prompting a follow-up: the cheery “Hotel Indiscreet,” which rhythmically mimics Wilson’s “Wouldn’t It Be Nice.” Again Usher saw fit to insert a nonmusical bridge, this time some inspired foolishness from a comedy troupe he’d recently signed to Columbia–the Firesign Theatre. Their sketch, a send-up of California trendies (“We are all hip-two-three-four”), takes up nearly a third of the two-minute, 20-second single, and ends on an ominous cry of “Sieg heil!”
By contrast, with Pet Sounds Brian Wilson managed to carry his vision through to the finish, fully intact. Somehow, the label bosses at Capitol–whose ruthless hacking of the Beatles’ LPs for American consumption was thought to have inspired their infamous butcher cover for Yesterday…and Today–allowed Pet Sounds out of the barn relatively unscathed. Of course, Capitol then elected to bury the commercially disappointing album at stores with the hastily assembled Best of the Beach Boys, Volume One. Still, at least Wilson’s masterpiece was preserved for posterity.
O’Hagan and Wilson share a musical language of gentle melodies and haunting chord changes. But in the indie-rock 90s, O’Hagan operates within an entrenched business network of labels, clubs, and media. This allows him to take for granted the status and support as an artist that Wilson struggled to attain against his typecasting as a hit maker in the “establishment” 60s. O’Hagan can blithely exhibit his latest ditties in a charming little gallery today only because Wilson poured his soul into thin air more than three decades ago.
