"Dark Stuff" question

[voxnut]

Howdy-

Longtime lurker -back to the Smile Shop days- first time poster.  A recent illness found me trolling through my bookshelf for things to re-read and I picked up the Nick Kent book "The Dark Stuff" again. I am still slightly surprised at Tony Asher's tone in the Brian Wilson chapters. He was really letting his slip show during that interview. The capper for me is the "A professional musician, but an amature human being" quote. Anybody know the context or background or even time period of the Kent/Asher interview for the book? I am assuming it was from the 70's- the book mentions dates, but doesn't seem to pin point which specific interviews were which dates, unless I'm missing something, which could entirely be the case.

By '96 Tony seems to be much more gracious and tactful for the Pet Sounds box set book, and his opinion perhaps mellowed when he once again collaborated with Brian in the 90's. Although I'm guessing it was more of a goodwill gesture rather than hoping to once again recapture the Pet Sounds magic.

As one who has gone through all the cycles of Brian Wilson fandom, I can appreciate that Asher's observations of Brian at that time were probably pretty apt, but the way he relayed them, at least in print seemed pretty judgemental and cruel.

I'm just curious about other folks impressions of both the book and the contrast of it versus other public Asher admissions about the period. I wonder if years later he's made any retractions or apologies for being so harsh?

I'll take my answer off the air.

Dean

[Charles LePage @ ComicList]

Given this description of the article:

The saga covers how he attempted to interview Wilson in '74, failed, tried to piece together his life through family and friends, and later finally interviewed him in the eighties. The results were instructive if disillusioning. It certainly articulated what I didn't like about Wilson's music.

http://www.fastnbulbous.com/rants_archive.htm

I'd say Asher's comments took place sometime between 1974 and the 1980s.

[Mitchell]

Is the same quote in the Gaines book?

[voxnut]

It's been so may years since I've read and owned the Gaines book that I can't recall. I read it at a time in the mid-90's when my Beach Boy fandom was more latent and it was such a depressing read that I didn't figure I'd read it again and it went back to the used book store. It's possible though, because I know that I'd heard it before the Kent book, although I didn't know it was attributed to Tony Asher.

Dean

[Roger Ryan]

By '96 Tony seems to be much more gracious and tactful for the Pet Sounds box set book, and his opinion perhaps mellowed when he once again collaborated with Brian in the 90's. Although I'm guessing it was more of a goodwill gesture rather than hoping to once again recapture the Pet Sounds magic.

From my perspective, Wilson and Asher did recapture the "Pet Sounds" magic with "This Isn't Love" and "Everything I Need"; I just wish we had decent studio recordings of both (without the meddling of Joe Thomas).

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

Tony talks about how Brian would just lie around eating and watching cartoons and making him wait to work during the Pet Sounds period. I think he says that in Abbott's book. I think he was saying that Brian didn't act like a normal adult or in a professional manner at times.

The Kingsley Abbot book has alot of direct quotes from Tony. Very useful.

[Charles LePage @ ComicList]

There are bootleg recordings of "Everything I Need," usually found on CDs with Wilson/Paley bootlegs, that supposedly are versions of the song before Joe Thomas "produced" it.

[Roger Ryan]

There are bootleg recordings of "Everything I Need," usually found on CDs with Wilson/Paley bootlegs, that supposedly are versions of the song before Joe Thomas "produced" it.

Yep, I've heard that one. The operative word in my earlier post was "decent"; the bootleg version isn't really listenable. "Everything I Need" as heard on "The Wilsons" and Brian's live version of "This Isn't Love" are alright, but I would love for those two songs to be re-recorded in the studio with Brian's band (even though I would prefer the "rock and roll" album to be all new material).