After all, what is time? A mere tyranny.

In 1971 and 1973 I saw The Beach Boys play several concerts at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom. The first two shows remain among the best I have ever seen. The ’71 ensemble even included a Wall of Percussion that created the closest thing I had ever heard to Phil Spector’s Wall Of Sound. The sound was awesome, exalting and thrilling, to say the very least. However, as early as that final Winterland show, the unfortunate writing was on the wall, no longer a Wall Of Sound but a Wall Of Sentimentality, as their setlist was including more and more oldies. The band I had revered, as vital and modern as any in rock, was turning into little more than a nostalgia act, the mode favoured by the hammy Mike Love.

Feel Flows [MOJO 334] is a much-deserved and welcome appreciation of the superb, divine music The Beach Boys made, oftentimes in Brian Wilson’s absence, yet often with his oversight, inspiration and blessing. But the compilation’s greatness shouldn’t surprise a soul who was paying attention to the blissful magic conjured by a group

struggling against a stereotyped past to stay relevant and engaged with the present.

Greg Marriner, Walnut Creek, California