The Smiley Smile Message Board

Can anybody tell me the full story about how Brian got involved in the whole "autobiography" mess? Did Brian actually right ANYTHING in it? I just got the book about a week ago. I don't put much, if any, faith in it....I got it just as a weird curiosity. Did Brian ever actually believe any of what was said in the book? How does Brian feel about the book now? Has he ever talked about it in interviews?

Well Landy apparently wanted to do a book and eventually a movie on Brian. I think Brian got involved because he just did whatever Landy wanted him or told him to do. I don't think Brian wrote anything as Todd Gold has said that he would interview Brian and ask questions. So Gold would say "what are your memories of such and such". But he said that Brian would give very brief answers (surprise!) that were of very little help and so a lot of the book is either made up (in the case of the latter "Landy" years) or taken from old sources (interviews Brian did in the 60's etc..) or other people.

As far as I know Brian has said that he never read the book. Todd Gold claims that Brian was given a copy of the book before it was printed so that he could edit it but I doubt Brian did much (if any) editing.

As far as I can judge MikeyJ hit it on the head here. I can recall this:
At the time (1991/2 or thereabouts) Rolling Stone magazine pre-published the first chapter of the book. I think the whole fanbase of BW/BB was stunned then and eager to get the book. I ordered the first printing in hardback and devoured it. Even then I did not have many suspicions, it sounded quite believable, esp. the Hawaii episodes; or the painful depictions by Brian of himself just before being brought to Hawaii.
But after a month or so doubts began to emerge. Brian never was a very verbal person. The book used just too many words he never used. And Landy and Co. were depicted as some sort of superb, unfailing healing community.
Then word got out about that possible film. With William Hurt and Jeff Bridges, as Landy and Wilson respectively. More doubts were raised. It all seemed too nice.
Finally, Gold admitted a couple of years ago that in fact he only had had a few afternoon sessions with a very non-responsive Brian (think: 'um...yes', or 'um...no').
That is what I know about it.

According to Gold, Brian also dropped off several hours worth of tapes to be used in the book.  But it was never made clear if it was Landy interviewing Brian or maybe Landy himself providing some kind of narrative.  It has to be assumed that Landy had a large hand in both providing information and otherwise directing the book.  It's a praise-Landy book.  However, there are stories in there that are unique and sometimes rather bizarre, including ones about Brian's relationship with his father, details about his relationship with Diane, details about various hospitalizations, and ones about scenes with the Beach Boys.  How true they are and what the source was is uncertain, but they are found in no other book.  Other than that, one large source was Steven Gaines' "Heroes and Villains," without proper attribution.

Yup, agreed. But I have somewhere funny recordings  of Landy and Brian in some sort of interview. Landy says: 'Brian, you were in a hole!'. Brian echoes, very submissively, audibly on medication: 'Yes. I was in a deep hoooooooole...'. The way he says it makes you laugh unintentionally... I have to dredge that thing up soon.

I really want to hear that, for some strange reason.  ;D

OK jotted down. It might take a while since I moved house but I won't forget it.
Can you tell me why you want to hear it, incidentally?  ;D

It was obvious this wasn't Brian writing when he would describe events in the first person while quoting verbatim from Heroes and Villains and other sources.  I suspect the new things in the book are all Landy, his interpreting what Brian was going through with his father and the Beach Boys, and the accuracy of it is questionable.

As I read this, the name Landy invented for the both of them strikes me as fairly very ludicrous nowadays: 'Brains And Genius'. What was the man thinking?

Yeah that always weirded me out too. I mean clearly Landy had some issues himself. I mean I have mentioned it recently but the guy had such a big ego - "Brian Wilson is a perfect example that in my field, I am an artist". And then he wore that shirt that said "I'm a f**king genius" or something like that.

...which was a birthday present to BRIAN when he turned 34! (In the party footage in An American Band you can see Brian holding it up.)

If you want to know how Brian really writes, read the liner notes of the twofers -- which came out at roughly the same time.

A real quote (from the Stack o Tracks intro)

"Wouldn't it Be Nice" was recorded with two accordions. That gave it a unique sound. This tracks is one of my biggest accomplishments ever. It rocked along and it even slowed down toward the end. This is called a mentally handicapped person."

Landy's explanation at the time was that it was a play on their names - Brian & Eugene - which came about because they were both dyslexic. Which I suspect came as some surprise to Brian: he may be many things, but dyslexic ain't one of them.

Re: the 'interviews', I have it from someone who was there that the vast majority of Brian's answers were "yes", "no" or "I don't remember".  As for the plagiarism, it hit me in the face the very first time I read the book that Gold was stealing in equal parts from both Gaines and Leaf.

When I first read the book, I didn't know much about Brian's history with the BB, but I did know a bit about Landy so I nautrally thought that the portions pertaining to Landy and Brian's relationship was bullmerda and from Landy's perspective.

However, I did think that most of the portions pertaining to music itself were from Brian's tounge. Then, a few years later I re-read the book after hearing lots and lots of Brian interviews and it's plain to see that it just didn't sound like Brian's talking. If you read the liners to the original 2-fers and the forward to Priore's second book on SMiLE, that's Brian's prose and it basically sounds like Brian's talking. The whole tone of the book is slightly off, as if Brian (though it wasn't him writing) was pissed off about everything, most likely that's Landy's influence.

As has been said, a hell of a lot of the book is Leaf or Gaines' writing paraphrased to Brian's position.

The one thing that I did carry away that Brian could've written were the early chapters about Judy Bowles and his other early girlfriends. That sounds a bit like his own writing, but I'm not holding my breath.

I'm weird like that.  :lol When I first got the Long Beach 1981 show on DVD, I watched it almost daily for about a month. I did the same thing with the "cocaine tapes". I have a morbid side.  ;D

There is something slightly disturbing about the book, that I caught last night. Remember that picture of Brian walking across the street? If you look very closely, you can see a pin that Brian is wearing. It says "I love Gene". The word love is replaced with a heart.

I read Brian's "autobiography" when I was first getting into the Beach Boys, so naturally I had no idea about the circumstances surrounding it.  I suppose if nothing else, it made me curious enough to pursue my growing BB interest further; most notably, it made me want to hear the Smile tracks.  

Knowing what I know now about Brian, it becomes clear that the book isn't really in his voice.  It's almost as if they tried to tell Brian's story from the voice of an early-20's Brian (who was obviously quite the verbiose guy at the time), but it doesn't ring true if you know what Brian is like.  Some of the stories from the early days seem believeable enough, as there are several details that only Brian would have known.  But once we get into the first Landy era, it really does just seem like a Landy puff piece.  

Not that he really has any motivation to do so, but I would love more than anything for Brian to write a REAL autobiography.  No co-writer, just Brian's own words.  It'll never happen, but how cool would that be?

I think that to much of Brian's memory is gone for that to happen.

So.... Murry didn't actually make Brian sh*t on a newspaper?

That may be true...I don't know why, but I have a feeling that he probably remembers more than we'd think.  I've read things where he reels off really obscure things (most of them music related).  Like I said, it won't ever happen anyways...I would even settle for just a book where he gives his thoughts on a large number of his songs, in as much detail as his memory can muster. 

Exact same way I became a fan. And yeah, that's a great idea.

One thing that I've always wondered about. It implies that Brian and Tandyn Almer had sex, and that's the only time I've read that anywhere.

I think he did. I recall reading it in numerous other places. Perhaps also in the Tom Nolan serialized articles for Rolling Stone? And did Noland 'borrow' the anecdotes from David Leaf? Don't know, hey Doe!

If I am right in the autobiography Brian compares this episode as: 'my Dad virtually raped me' or something to that effect. Now that is psychobabble that he himself never would've written, he's too much of a literal thinker and not a Freudian at that. That must be Landy talking.

I havn't read Brian's book yet, but I know in the Gaines' book there is a story about how Brian was convinced that Marilyn wasn't satisfied so he tried to talk her into sleeping with Tandyn Almer, but then when he walked in on them actually doing it he was pretty upset.  But that would be the first I have ever heard anything about Brian and Tandyn.

The story that was around in the old days was that Brian crapped on a plate and served it to Murry to eat.

And? Did Murry?

No I doubt he was fooled.

 :) Reminds me of the '60s Dutch Fluxus artist Wim T. Schippers. He made turds out of premium brown breakfast cake and beer, and put them out on the most prestigious Amsterdam shopping street late Saturday night.
Imagine the horror of all rich ladies walking their poodles on Sunday morning, and seeing that their precious pets devoured those turds with utmost glee...

I read the book in 1991 and dismissed it from my mind...but most of the sordid stuff, I think, is just recycled from Gaines' book, which was questionable enough to begin with.  Using one to corroborate the other is about one step from using a message board to corroborate something. I'll give Gold this much credit: I think the Murry as naked Tarzan stuff was news to me.

But the Murry/plate story, I believe, comes from a 1971 Rolling Stone article which- again, if my faltering brain serves, was the first public revelation of past abuse in the Wilson home.  Story goes that Murry made a furious call to Brian, and I'll leave it to somebody who has the verbatim quote to tell us what Brian supposedly said to the elder genius.

Gaines or someone said that he had at least three different versions of the plate story, all sworn to by people who were presumably there.  One version is one too many for me.

Brian also gave a really, REALLY out there interview around that time to Dr. Demento, of all people, in which a playing of "Two-Step Side Step" inadvertently triggered some awful stories of the many moods of Murry. It circulated on a radio station LP.

Landy was always on about how Brian had been badly "parented" (I hate to acknowledge the verb "to parent"), so he was "re-parenting" Brian. "Parenting" Brian Wilson was once a lucrative profession. As the Hi-Los would say, nice work if you can get it.

Going off of memory (and it's been about a decade since I last read this book), the passage says that same thing, and when it didn't work, Brian slept with Almer. The line in  the book says something like "but the experience was almost more than I could bear."

Was that when Almer undressed and Brian discovered he is a man?

Would be a good trick for Tom Nolan to borrow anything from DL for the 1971 articles, seeing as it was reading said pieces that made David a brianista. :-)

Brian's alleged response was "let's tell him you hit me on the head with a plate and I sh*t in your ear".  ;D

 ;D one never ceases to learn... I have the complete Nolan series as an introduction to my BBs sheet music book, so that is why I couldn't exactly date them - but cheers anyway!

I wrote "Heroes and Villains" and I can tell you that huge portions of Brian's so-called autobiography were stolen wholesale from my book.  I easily could have sued them, but I didn't want to get sucked into all of that negative energy.

As far as Gene Landy quotes in my book, I was there.  I covered Brian and Landy for a magazine called New West and Landy wanted desperately to be on the cover of Rolling Stone so he could be famous as the "addiction doctor" and he gave me total access.  I was Landy and Brian's shadow for two weeks.

Once I got locked in Landy's office with Brian when the doornob fell off, but I think it was one of Landy's oddball schemes.

A low bow of thanks.  I had it just about right in my memory, but a line that good needed to be delivered to the board perfectly.

Beach Boys Author...this could be an interesting visit.

So in other words, "Wouldn't It Be Nice" is the Brian equivalent of "The Lives of John Lennon", basically?

No, Wouldn't It Be Nice is the Brian equivalent of the latest science fiction novel by the late L. Ron Hubbard.  Some would say that the Brian equivalent of The Lives of John Lennon, if any, was written by someone who has posted in this thread, though that may be a bit harsh.  I'll leave it to our distinguished guest to respond to that, and I'll be very interested in anything he has to say.

roflmao

I'm not sure where to post this.

I saw a google alert with my name and it brought me to this site and I read some of the posts about Brian's autobiography.

So, it's me, and it's no big deal, actually.

I've written a lot of books about different subjects and sometimes they're not popular with fans.  I know the book has a lot of factual errors, but none of the substantive material, about Landy or the relationships between the members, etc., is incorrect. 

I don't believe there's a passage about Brian trying to get Marilyn to sleep with anybody, and I don't believe Brian ever served Murray such a feast.

I asked this above, but it was buried in a quote - Any interesting stories you can tell us about your time with Landy and Brian that didn't make the New West article?  do you still have all the interviews you did for the Heroes and villains book?  We Beach Boys/Brian obsessives would love to get access to source material like that.  I understand Marilyn gave a bunch of interviews.

By the way, I thoroughly enjoyed the book - I've heard it criticized for focussing on the sensational aspects of the Beach Boys (the scandals and mental illness etc.) - but that stuff is what it is.  And it sells more books.  Loved the Van Dyke quotes.

"Even more bizarre was Brian's desire for Marilyn to have an affair with another man. He chose Tandyn Almer for this role, and encouraged Tandyn to make love to Marilyn. ... Tandyn once went to bed with both of them. ... This relationship came to a bad end one day when Brian went shopping ... and arrived home to find Tandyn and Marilyn romantically involved by the swimming pool." p 249-250, "Heroes & Villains," Stephen Gaines, 1985 (First Da Capo Press paperback edition 1995)

In the Autobiography (1991), Brian relates the story of Murry calling Jan & Dean pirates. And Brian's comments on Jan are more detailed than in the Gaines book.

But in the Gaines book . . . (pp. 103-104, first edition hardback 1986) . . . there's the story that Murry called Jan & Dean pirates, and that Jan showed up at a Beach Boys session in an elaborate pirate costume.

In 2002, I was consulting historian for the Jan & Dean episode of A&E's Biography . . . and when asked by the producer about the "pirate incident," Brian had no memory of it. He remembered Jan throwing toilet paper out of a hotel window in New York, but nothing about the pirate thing.

WELL . . . it just illustrates that Brian's memory is sometimes off (as happens with all of us) . . . and that he's probably also a bit lazy in certain interviews.

Because the fact is . . . I have Brian on tape in 1964, talking with Jan . . . and Brian makes a direct reference to Jan's pirate get-up.

So there ya go . . . You can hear that and more on track 28 of our new Jan Berry / Jan & Dean tribute album.

M.

I guess I forgot about the Tandyn Almer stuff.  It's been a while since I wrote that book.



By the way, it's Steven, with a "v", not Stephen.

Yes, I have all the tapes from the book, they're all in a bank vault and have been for years.

I've written half a dozen books since Heroes and Villains so my memory of it all is sort of blurred.

(I did interview Marilyn and her sister and her parents at length.  Any interviews I did for the book are on tape, including one of Landy's "therapy" sessions with Brian.)

One of the things I like about the book is the vivid portrayal of the Rovells, and ditto for the Marks family and David Marks in general.  Some of the overall tone is off-putting to fans, of course, but the information was fresh for sure, and it covered a lot of different territory with the management and so forth.

Would you be up for having your own thread, as some other guests have, and taking on some questions and discussions?

I happen to know that the information regarding the band's financial dealings and contract clauses is accurate.

Mark is there some way we can hear a 30 second preview or something of this track? And how long does that track go for and is the whole track just Brian in the studio with Jan or what? Any details would be much appreciated :)

As a writer myself I know I get caught up in revising my work over and over. I have a few questions for you regarding that. I know the germ of the book was born in 1976 and it came out 10 years later. How long did the process once it became a definitive book take you? Also what are you proudest of in the book, and what would you most like to change? Any input from any Beach Boy after it came out.

The track is a montage . . . and the parts with Brian were pulled from a very lengthy session of Jan and Brian working together. Because of space limitations, we couldn't use the whole thing. So instead, we added the Jan & Brian clips to a montage that highlights Jan working with other people, as well.

If we can ever get a true Jan & Dean Box Set released, I'd like to put the whole Jan & Brian thing on there.

M.

I'd like to change all the mistakes.  Hah!   There was no fact checker.  I did the best I could.  A few mistakes are serious, but those mistakes were mostly about the music and albums.  There were no substantive errors about the situation and the people involved in it.

In the early 1970s I was the rock and roll columnist for the New York Daily News and the editor of Circus magazine and I always loved the Beach Boys, but it was two friends of mine, now both dead. writer Scott Cohen and A&R man Bob Feiden, who really got me into the whole mystique and incredible personal story.  We listened to the albums hundreds of times.  We were convinced, even though the group was no longer respected by mainstream rockers, that the Beach Boys were the best group on the planet and that Brian was a genius, a label he hated, I would learn.  For whatever reason the Holland album became a special favorite of mine.  Go figure.

It was almost coincidental that I took the assignment from New West magazine to cover the "Brian is Back"/Gene Landy story.

As I said, it was during this two week period I did my preliminary interviews with the members of the group.

I was invited to Brian's birthday party in Malibu and met Paul and Linda McCartney and the whole cast of characters, save for Murray who was already dead.

Lorne Michaels and his film crew all hated Landy with a passion. 

When the New West article came out Landy was furious.  It was called, I think, "Brian Wilson is Trying to Catch Another Wave."  I didn't write anything bad in particular about Landy, I just let him be himself.  The article turned out to be some of my best writing and New West flew me back to Los Angeles from New York, where I lived, to do press for the article.  It was the talk of the town in L.A.

One of the most telling moments with Landy was the phone call he received from Alice Cooper.  I had written Alice's autobiography "Me Alice" for him in 1974 (or so) and we remained quite close.  One night I was at Landy's house listening to his grand schemes when Alice called because he heard that Landy worked with people who had drug and alcohol problems.  I just happened to be sitting there and Landy put me on the phone to help convince Alice that he should become Landy's patient.  I didn't want to shill for Landy so all I said was "Alice, I got to talk to you about Doctor Landy."  The next day I went to Alice's house and warned him, but to no avail, Alice went into treatment with Landy anyway.  I forget how it ended, something about one of Landy's "watchers" and a hypodermic needles in the glove compartment of Alice's car.  It's muddy, it happened so long ago.

After the New West article appeared Landy called me on the phone in New York and tried to get me to say that I had intentionally made him look bad.  I was positive he wanted to sue me.  I kept saying on the phone that all I did was write what I saw, that I had no ulterior motives, and that was 100% true.  I was prepared to embrace Landy as a talented psychologist who could help Brian.  But clearly Brian was very ill and he needed another kind of treatment, medication, etc.  I realized that Landy was selfish in trying to treat Brian, self-aggrandizing and altogether a bad bad man.

Years later, before I wrote Heroes and Villains,  I wrote a bestseller about the Beatles called "The Love You Make" with a guy named Peter Brown, and a few months later Dennis drowned.  New American Library called the second the news broke and asked me if I had any connection or interest in the Beach Boys and I presented the New West article as a proposal and...we were off to the races, as they say.

I moved to Los Angeles and started work.  My first chore was getting David Leaf to trust me and to purchase his files.

I was crazy about Marilyn Wilson, I thought she was terrific. 

More later about Brian's alleged autobiography and the three Beach Boy lawsuits in which I was an "expert witness."

 

Thanks for the details Mark. Sounds really interesting!

Thanks Steven for your insights. I guess one of the things I've always thought about your book is that there were very few books on the band back then so it must have been a lot harder to find information on the history of the band etc.. But it's cool and interesting to read your personal stories and experiences of being around guys like Landy etc.. And I think most people around here share your feelings towards Landy, what a creep!!

Just wanted to say thanks Steven for coming by and posting.  Your insights are most welcome and I just loved reading your last post about Landy and Alice Cooper.

Bravo.  More please!

Sorry about that. Considering I obviously had just pulled out the book to get the quote and page numbers, you'd think I'd have gotten your name spelled correctly, too. I need a fact-checker for me when I'm checking facts. I might have to consider posting sober from now on.

Thanks Steven for all the very interesting stories. I have the New West article and it is one of the best pieces writen on Landy. I say that because what you wrote then gave insight few of us would have on him until the 1991 lawsuit, perhaps you got too close to the real him. Marilyn is a great person from when I have talked to her, I think she really has a strong voice in your writing. I also enjoyed your insight into Dennis' last few months. Something that was unpleasent, but I thought you were able to recreate that time vividly.  The thing that sticks out is how he made several attempt to dry out, and how close he seemingly came. By the way what did you think about the TV movie based on your book?

Was "Summer Dreams" or "American Family" based on Steven's book? 

"Summer Dreams"

Steve, thanks so much for making the time to post here, and tell all of us some of your stories. I have a question for you, if I may. Actually, it's more like a request. Would you PLEASE digitize all of your original interview tapes?  ;D If not to release them publicly(I doubt you could, for various legal reasons), then at least to perserve them. I'm sure that there is way to much important information to lose if those tapes deteriorated(God forbid). Simply put, those interviews are a Beach Boys fanatics wet dream.  ;D

Luther, are you ever NOT drunk? :-D

I would really, really appreciate it if Steven would be willing to be honoured with a writer's thread of his own, like the other ones. His insights are very worthwhile and informative.

Jay;

I wish I could release the tapes, but...there's personal stuff on the tapes, not just things that the Beach Boy coterie said, but personal things I said in the course of doing the interviews.  It doesn't even have anything to do with the Beach Boys, just the kind of observations people make about life when they're in deep conversation and forget the tape recorder is running.

However, I'm leaving those tapes, and all my tapes, the Beatles, the hundreds of musicians and music business people I've interviewed, to the archives of a University--which one is still undecided.  So one day when I'm not here to be embarassed by them, the tapes will be available to everybody.

I hate to go to the bank vault, but I'll see if I can find some sections of tape that I can post here.

I'm surprised at all the interest.  I never would have none that this board existed were it not for a Google alert that my name appeared in a blog.

We're nerds.  ;D As for which university ... how about MIU, in Fairfield, Iowa? Seems appropriate!

Is that the party in the Beach Boys: American Band movie, around the time of 15 Big ones? That must have been a blast - I think I'm going to have to dig out your book again!

Actually, it's called MUM now, Maharishi University of Management. I looked it up awhile ago, it's a very interesting school. The food in the dining halls is all vegetarian/organic, and students are required to go to some sort of exercise class every day.

*has nightmare: MUM, out of its own principle, selling all of Steven's tapes to the highest bidder, an anonymouse Japanese businessman, who locks them away again ASAP*

I'll NEVER sell those tapes.  Those tapes will go to a University that will appreciate their value.  I don't want money for those tapes, nor for the Beatle tapes, nor for the thousands of other tapes I have of all the great rock bands of the 20th century.  I want them to be available for research and for posterity.

...is the right answer! Cheers man!