Dennis and the ultimatum?

[Banana]

Is Brian, Al, Bruce, Mike, David, and 49 other guys on stage the Beach Boys?
[/quote]

Yeah, I'd say it is.  They've been augmented on stage for decades...but the key is that ALL of the surviving members are front and center.  Besides, you need quite a few other guys to create the sounds live that Brian crafted in the studio all those years ago.  Wouldn't it be like if Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood hit the road as The Rolling Stones while Keith and Charlie were not involved?

[Autotune]

We are yet to see how the future M&B tour develops.

See, I've heard for years "no Dennis, no Beach Boys". And then "no Carl, no Beach Boys". And still, here we are celebrating.

 No one's trying to fool anybody with the M&B outfit. Even ML makes it clear in current interviews how each of them toured with their own outfit, etc. Brian made money out of it and is ok, and so is Al --who also profits from it, I think.

Let us see how things develop in the following months. We still have plenty to celebrate... and to moan about (like WIBNTLA not being released because Al said so to a fan, bad edition in concert clips we're not supposed to hear, or Angel Come Home not being performed in some fan's town).

[Phoenix]

I hope this question doesn't get lost in the discussion but it seems pointless to create a new thread for what might a question with a really simple answer.

Does anyone know (and could tell me) the last studio recorded Beach Boys song that Dennis played the actual drums on?  I'm gussing it had been a while, even before KTSA but I'm really curious either way.  And again, I'm talking about the drum track, not piano, percussion or anything like that.

Thanks!

[Jonathan Blum]

According to AGD's site, there's a version of "Johnny B. Goode" from October '79, early in the KTSA sessions, with Dennis on drums.

Before that?  Aside from the Bambu tracks, looks like nothing since POB (or the September '77 bustup)...

Cheers,
Jon Blum

[Phoenix]

Wow.  Going back even further then: Does anyone know the last released track by the Beach Boys to feature Dennis on drums?

[gsmile]

Wow.  Going back even further then: Does anyone know the last released track by the Beach Boys to feature Dennis on drums?

BUMP.  I would also like to know this.

[Alan Smith]

Wow.  Going back even further then: Does anyone know the last released track by the Beach Boys to feature Dennis on drums?

BUMP.  I would also like to know this.

The answer may lie here - http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,5272.msg84883.html#msg84883

[Jonathan Blum]

Wow.  Going back even further then: Does anyone know the last released track by the Beach Boys to feature Dennis on drums?

Probably "Love Surround Me".  If he's got drum tracks on MIU, they'd have to be the leftovers from the "15 Big Ones" era -- e.g, he may have played on the original "Come Go With Me", but I don't think we know how much of that they re-recorded...

Cheers,
Jon Blum

[MBE]

I think I mentioned this recently but he does play drums on She's Got Rhythm which Alan Boyd said can be seen in the outtake footage from the MIU special. So yes he was there briefly and he did contribute.

[runnersdialzero]

I think I mentioned this recently but he does play drums on She's Got Rhythm which Alan Boyd said can be seen in the outtake footage from the MIU special. So yes he was there briefly and he did contribute.

I think it was previously said to be an early take of "She's Got Rhythm" and not the final, thus I'm not sure about that.

[MBE]

I think I mentioned this recently but he does play drums on She's Got Rhythm which Alan Boyd said can be seen in the outtake footage from the MIU special. So yes he was there briefly and he did contribute.

I think it was previously said to be an early take of "She's Got Rhythm" and not the final, thus I'm not sure about that.

Could be but I had the impression he was used by what Alan said to me back when we talked about.

[Julia]

The drugs vs sober on this board or any other DOES degrade into cool and not cool. It has even before there were boards. And I never understood it. LSD opens your horizons? Gimme a f***ing break. It natural? It a MOLD. Good MOLD - anti-biotics. Bad MOLD - poison. And that is all anyone is really feeling on any of this stuff is a poisining of their system. I may feel good or different. But its posin. I always laughed at guys that would get high, tell you how uncool you were for not doing it, and then they either pissed or s**t themselves or vomited the rest of the night. Don't get me wrong. While no pot/coke/etc every entered my system, the alcohol that passed thru my body found its way out the same as I described above. So who is the a**hole here? But I would never think that was cool. Who would?

Eh. If someone soiled themselves they were on a lot more than just acid. As far as "it's a mold!" you could say that about nearly every drug: "it's plant mush! / it's animal goo!" Hell, certain intestinal issues are solved with poop transplants... Every drug is poison at certain levels, it's not that there's good or bad drugs/substances, it's that there's good and bad uses for them.

That said, I'm not here to pretend psychedelics are wholly positive either. If you asked me in my younger years, I would've said so. But I have to say I think the spiritual component that was so profound to me doesn't seem to be a universal truism so much as manifesting what I wanted to happen. I know many people who've done psychedelics and they're just as shitty or as lame as they were before. I remember my first significant-dose mushroom trip texting my friend (who knew I was tripping and wanted an update) "if you were gonna invent the plane you would've done it without shrooms." Which is to say, it's not gonna unlock some secret "you're a genius/guru now!" gene in your system--you're still the same person and what you experience was always a part of you. Hence, meanspirited people who litter do acid to get f***ed up and emerge from the other side unchanged, while those who want to "see God" and feel the connection to all things will have profound life-changing epiphanies...but they probably would've found them eventually by reading religious texts and meditating by a tree. If that makes sense.

Some of my trips have been among the best memories of my life, and the worst was an unstoppable 8 hour panic attack where all my fears, anxieties and regrets beat me over the head. It can be either extreme and I think it's important people know that. When you take these substances, you're rolling the dice even if you have a positive set & setting and did your research (though you should do all that to improve your odds!). I took a few hits off a DMT vape and watched the snow fall, all happy and excited, only to be left cradling myself in a feeble position contemplating the true implications of samsara/reincarnation and that if the universe is a simulation (or built on math/numbers) that means I can never escape the misery of life. I was freaking out because even if I killed myself to "reset to zero" zero is still a number and therefore part of the "code of the universe" that was determining my fate. Funny thing is, just a few months earlier I'd had the same revelation on a mushroom dose, but there it was a very comforting thought because it meant I'd always be connected to God/nature no matter what. sh*t's unpredictable and crazy.

I know Im oversharing to a decade old comment that you won't ever see...but I always feel the need to correct the record and provide as accurate an account of psychedelics as I can. It's unclear if they're really "the spirit molecule" that taps you into the divine plane of existence...but they can sure make you feel that way with all your heart in the moment. And in its own way, the fact that a simple chemical can have such a profound effect on the brain, that it can temporarily change your perspective so completely, is pretty fascinating in and of itself. Whether it's something you want to do or not after what I've just said is up to you. I'd never accuse the abstainers of being "uncool" but I do think those who choose to do it must have a certain curiosity and thirst for deeper meaning in them that I find endearing. (Unless you're just using them to "get f***ed up" in which case I cut you some slack if you're young but post-20s it's time to grow up.) 

[HeyJude]

I've met smart and cool people who have never touched a mind-altering substance in their life, and I've met smart and cool people who have done every substance you could possibly name. 

It's like, Mike Love was in there recording and performing with these guys, so hearing his position/side is interesting and important, regardless of how right or wrong or justified one might think his position seems.

Fans doing the anti-drug rant, as it relates to the BBs now approximately half-century old use of drugs, and especially concerning acid? Not so interesting usually.

It's amusing reading the 14-year-old diatribe about drugs quoted above, because it reads exactly like that same person's current series of diatribes about the "We Gotta Groove" set. You could almost just remove "LSD" and insert "We Gotta Groove." And stuff like that is far, far more about someone being unhappy with something to do with their own life than it does with drugs the BBs took or how the BBs release their music. And that's really the kind, sympathetic way to frame it in my opinion.

[Julia]

I've met smart and cool people who have never touched a mind-altering substance in their life, and I've met smart and cool people who have done every substance you could possibly name. 

It's like, Mike Love was in there recording and performing with these guys, so hearing his position/side is interesting and important, regardless of how right or wrong or justified one might think his position seems.

Fans doing the anti-drug rant, as it relates to the BBs now approximately half-century old use of drugs, and especially concerning acid? Not so interesting usually.

It's amusing reading the 14-year-old diatribe about drugs quoted above, because it reads exactly like that same person's current series of diatribes about the "We Gotta Groove" set. You could almost just remove "LSD" and insert "We Gotta Groove." And stuff like that is far, far more about someone being unhappy with something to do with their own life than it does with drugs the BBs took or how the BBs release their music. And that's really the kind, sympathetic way to frame it in my opinion.

The culture around psychedelics is really obnoxious to me, hence why I feel the need to weigh in with my honest and balanced experiences whenever I can.

On the one hand, you have the very annoying myths started during the prohibition period and perpetuated by D.A.R.E. and its analogues. The whole "durr if you crack your back you'll trip forever! / there's this one guy who took acid and thought he was a glass of orange juice for the rest of his life / I know a guy who knows a guy who started wearing dresses and talks to the sky!" There's just a lot of holier-than-thou assholes spreading misinformation (not accusing Petsite of this) and looking down on anyone who partakes as stupid reckless hippies. But the worst thing is, a lot of those same people who would say "nah man, acid will ruin your life" are down to experiment with harder drugs like coke, heroin or alcohol in my experience. (Me, I stick to weed and psychedelics very rarely when they come around. I'd never touch anything physically addicting, that's where I draw the line.) Like I knew this one girl who constantly denigrated me for doing psychs but then did heroin a few times and bragged about it, like that's somehow not infinitely more dangerous. Or there was another who looked down on me for smoking weed, much less psychs, but was an honest to God kleptomaniac who eventually got busted for it. Like, people will talk down about certain, mostly harmless vices while doing things that physically degrade your body, could get you permanently addicted or actually hurt others. (Taking acid in your own home is a victimless crime, theft is not.)

But then there are some people who are too blase about psychedelics for my liking. Like, who do it every month when in my opinion it ought to be a "1-3 times a year at most, maybe even just once every few years" type of thing. Usually that attitude changes after they've had their first full-on bad trip, but the point is they probably wouldn't have even had one in the first place if they didn't force it. And then they lash out and get all defensive whenever you point out the dangers or potential negative outcomes, or how getting high every other weekend maybe isn't the best thing you can do to your brain. They want to think it's a wholly positive experience that EVERYONE should do and that any negative experience must be hushed up or it'll prove that Nixon was right. This attitude isn't helping the cause of decriminalization and study, it's just setting a lot of people up for a bad time that'll cause another backlash. Plus, y'know, HPPD. I always recommend people to do it at home or in nature where you feel safe, be in a good mood and do research on erowid, shoomery, grassity and bluelight first but almost no one ever listens. They either chicken out when I tell them there's an unpredictable element or insist on doing their first dose at a rave or something and have a bad time. (Someone else might have fun doing it at a rave but probably a low dose and CERTAINLY not your first time with no idea what to expect!)

Out of about 15~20 trips in my life (stopped counting at some point) I've had what I would call two wholly bad trips and they were absolutely terrifying. The worst feeling I could ever describe, absolute existential dread, believing with all my heart I was worthless and put on this earth to suffer and even after I die I'll just get reincarnated a million times to go on suffering for all eternity. That's a lot to come back from and while I'm a more mentally stable person than poor Brian was, so I didn't completely crash out or start hearing voices, I can totally understand why he warned people against it after the fact. "Seeing God" is both exhilarating AND terrifying, just like most religious texts oscillate between the two. Revelation and the Bhagavad Gita are beautiful inspiring books but they also involve horrifying images like the seven-headed, ten-horned beast and the Supreme form of Vishnu ("I am become death destroyer of worlds") and that's just two examples. Psychedelics, even good trips, are often like that. Even the amazing trips which I genuinely feel have made me a more well-rounded person consisted of a lot of heavy emotional moments--once, I literally cried for 20 minutes over a fly I'd swatted earlier in the day. Like, the hardest I've ever sobbed in my life, over an insect, because who was I to decide one of God's creatures was unworthy to live?

I think they're a profound tool for experimenting with altered states of consciousness, they have clinically been shown to connect parts of your brain together with stronger neural passages, and they can be a lot of fun. Since the mind is the lens through which we experience everything, from objective reality to our subjective imagination, I believe understanding what it's capable of at a different frequency is important. It may not be the end-all be-all singular key to enlightenment but it's at least as valid of a tool towards that aim as yoga/exercise, learning new things, logical reasoning, scientific discovery, creative artwork, sensory deprivation and transcendental meditation. Broaden your horizons however you can, however you feel you need to, and you will know God.

[Lonely Summer]

I have occasionally thought about what it would be like to try LSD, but two things keep me from doing it. First of all, I don't know where I would get it. Second, with all the mental and emotional problems I've had in life, it might seriously mess me up like it did with Brian.
I find caffeine much easier to deal with.