Beach Boys in current Rock Cellar magazine

[SonoraDick]

A lot of good stuff here...

http://www.rockcellarmagazine.com/the-issue/

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

Great Brooth interview!

[Pretty Funky]

Under Dave's story.

'In the meantime, Al split. He got a job at an aircraft company.'


Haven't heard that one before.

[Rocky Raccoon]

The Brian/Mike/Al interview is definitely one of the better interviews I've read from any of those guys.

[jb412]

Thanks for sharing!

[The Shift]

The interviews with Boyd, Linette and Wolfe are terrific. Revealing. Hope one or two of them drop by here again soon!

[seltaeb1012002]

"RCM: As archivists and keepers of the flame, what are the Beach Boys’ holy grails for you?

Alan Boyd: Well, there’s a half inch reel of SMiLE masters that we’d love to get a hold of if it wasn’t destroyed or left behind at Capitol back in ’68."

 

edit - nvm. Seems he's talking about the masters for songs like "Wonderful" and "Cabinessence". Would be a huge revelation, but I assumed he was talking about some final mixes. 

[Mikie]

If that's really Brian answering interview questions (and I don't doubt it is) then I think we're going to get a real good autobiography when it comes out. He still seems to have a good detailed memory about his collaborators and specific songs etc.  

But.......here's even one more account of the events surrounding the writing of Warmth of the Sun. Among others, I've read that it was written in a corner of the room at the El Dorado Hotel in Sacramento the night of the assassination, and I've read that it was written in Brian's office in Hollywood the day after the assassination, and now this version by Mike:

"Brian had moved out of his home in Hawthorne to a rented house in Hawthorne and I spent the night at his place, mattresses on the floors and all that. Brian came up with the beautiful haunting melody and the harmonies and I came up with the lyrics. The melody and mood of The Warmth of the Sun was so melancholy. It was written the preceding day, words and music, and we got up to the news that President Kennedy had been taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas and that he was dead. It was shocking. We didn’t change the lyric to conform to the event. Within days of that event we went into the studio and recorded it. That session was even more charged with emotion".

[Pretty Funky]

This from wiki but still fits.

The song was commenced by Brian Wilson and Mike Love in the early hours of the morning before John F. Kennedy's assassination. After learning of the news, the song was completed by Brian and Mike later that day in a hotel room, inspired by the emotional shock felt by its authors over the death of President John F. Kennedy.


"The Warmth of the Sun" was started in the early morning hours of the same morning that President Kennedy was killed in Dallas. The melody was so haunting, sad, melancholy, that the only thing that I could think of lyrically was the loss of love, when interest slips and feelings aren't reciprocated... though I wanted to have a silver lining on that cumulus nimbus cloud so I wrote the lyrics from the perspective of, 'Yes, things have changed and love is no longer there, but the memory of it lingers like the warmth of the sun.' I think it's really impactful and memorable... one of my favorite songs from an emotional and personal point of view." Mike Love, 2007


Brians version doesn't work really.

[EgoHanger1966]

Brian says he wrote "Darlin'" for Carl's voice. Danny Hutton would disagree! 

[Mikie]

Brian's version is:

"I wrote this in honor of President John F. Kennedy. He was assassinated on November 22nd, 1963 and that night, Mike and I got together at my office in Hollywood and wrote the song." In the liners for the Shut Down Volume 2 CD, Brian wrote: "The day after President Kennedy was assassinated, Mike and I went to my office in Hollywood and wrote 'The Warmth of the Sun' at my piano. We knew that we had a spiritual song on our hands and we recorded it with that kind of attitude." In the liner notes for the same CD, noted Beach Boys Historian David Leaf writes: "The song was written on November 23, 1963, only hours after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Brian had just broken up with his first serious girlfriend. This melancholy ballad and beautiful lyric perfectly capture that feeling of loss. He clearly feels the pain but he is at peace."

The circumstances as described by both Mike and Brian don’t hold water when you consider the fact that The Beach Boys were out on the road at the time … and, in fact, played a concert performance in Marysville, California on the evening of the assassination!

http://forgottenhits.com/the_story_behind_the_warmth_of_the_sun

Fred Vail's account:

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=1437

My take:

It would make sense that they started the song in Brian's apartment in L.A. the night before or very early morning hours of the 22nd and finished it (or nearly finished it in the hotel room 400 miles North on Novemner 22. Then maybe Brian made some adjustments to it in his office the following day.

[EgoHanger1966]

"I did not like the Friends album because I thought it was wimpy. I don’t think we were doing anything where Brian was at full strength. We had to do some of the Friends stuff on the road and it just used to make me wince because it was wimpy."
-Bruce

This coming from the guy who wrote "Tears In The Morning"?

[Mikie]

Really enjoyed the Dave Marks interview.

[Pretty Funky]

Really enjoyed the Dave Marks interview.

Would be great to read that letter to his folks!

[lostbeachboy]

Is the magazine sold in stores or just online?

[kermit27]

Holy crap.  I really love Al, but in this photo there, he looks exactly like Hoggle from Labyrinth!

Here's both pictures for you to compare!

http://www.rockcellarmagazine.com/2013/09/04/beach-boys-collaborators-stephen-kalinich-andy-paley-interview/

http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Hoggle

[Peter Reum]

I like Bruce, but jeez...calling Friends wimpy when he wrote wimpy tunes is sort of the pot calling the kettle black.....

[chrs_mrgn]

The Mike, Al and Brian interview is great cant wait for the other 2 parts.

That bums me out to hear Bruce talk bad about Friends but that's pretty typical of him, he just really doesn't seem to care for it.

[Mikie]

I like Bruce, but jeez...calling Friends wimpy when he wrote wimpy tunes is sort of the pot calling the kettle black.....

Exactly.  The "wimpiest" songs on Friends can't hold a candle to Bruce's rockin' "Diedre", "Tears In The Morning", "Disney Girls", "She Believes In Love Again", and "I Write The Songs".*


* I didn't include Endless Harmony/Ten Years Of Harmony 'cause I've always loved that one.

[Wah Wah Wah Ooooo]

Tears In the Morning
Deidre
Disney Girls (1957)
I Write The Songs
Endless Harmony

Yeah, Bruce calling anything wimpy isn't just ironic, it's asinine.

[The Shift]

C'mon guys, have you heard his meaty cover of Pipeline?  And those threads… rockin'!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJZIQmiQETM

[The Shift]

btw, this Rock Cellar material seems to be the source of the feature in Record Collector but I think some of the text – the answers given by band members – differs.

[SloopJohnB]

There's a song in the lyrics quiz that isn't a Beach Boys song... 

[Cyncie]

Totally psyched to read this special edition. Loved all the interviews.

Some impressions:

Brian continues to back away from the "genius" label. I don't blame him. That's a lot of pressure to live up to.

Bruce is a bit prickly, ain't he?

David seems fairly charitable to Murry.  I know a lot of people just put his abusive behavior down to his being a product of his time. Parenting must have changed when I grew up in the 60's then, because, while spanking was OK, beating never was.

Alan Boyd has a great job, doesn't he?

[Jim V.]

"I did not like the Friends album because I thought it was wimpy. I don’t think we were doing anything where Brian was at full strength. We had to do some of the Friends stuff on the road and it just used to make me wince because it was wimpy."
-Bruce

This coming from the guy who wrote "Tears In The Morning"?

I was gonna come on here and trash Bruce for the "wimpy" thing as well, but you know what? Yeah, he wrote wimpy stuff, which I'm sure he will admit. But I think what he liked from Brian was his more dynamic stuff. And dynamic doesn't necessarily mean uptempo. It could mean anything from "Wouldn't It Be Nice" to "Surf's Up" to "Surfin' U.S.A." to "Caroline No" to whatever. And to be honest, Friends really isn't that dynamic. So I can see what he's saying. Honestly, for all the their albums from Pet Sounds through Holland, I'd say that Friends is my least favorite. The vibe is okay, but I kinda do agree that the songs themselves aren't really there, which I don't think I would say about Brian's work on any of the other albums around this time period. Honestly, I think he did the whole Friends type sound better on "I Went To Sleep" from 20/20.

Also, what a great interview from him. I feel like you really get a better vibe for the background of each album from Bruce's interviews then you do from Brian or Mike.