Stamos accused…

[drbeachboy]

Uncalled for, Mikey.

Didn't mean anything negative about it at all. It's just a fact. If I were there, they wouldn't give me the time of day, even though I've supported the band for 44 years. They aren't dumb; they know who David is. It's good will and it probably came from their hearts. They did the right thing. David came away a very happy man, as he should be. He wrote about his great experience here and will probably write about it in ESQ too and people will read it and think how great the Beach Boys are on a personal level.

Watching that YouTube video of Stamos though. He brings the female audience in, but he's really over the top with his on-stage playing/acting. I can see where this non-Beach Boy non-backing musician would piss people off. Especially the hardcore die-hards.

I am pretty hardcore, and he doesn't bother me one bit. I see him as helping bring in new fans, especially back in the late 80s and 90's. If I had the chance to play with them every summer, I would and I would likely ham it up too. I've been going to Beach Boys and related shows now for 45 years. I still get very excited before the shows. I can just imagine how I would be up on stage performing.

[the captain]

Yeah, John even got Brian to appear on "Full House" with the band, that's how bad it got.

Exactly. He wasn't that much on it though, to be fair:

Regardless of the reality of the episode, I'd like to pretend Brian spent the whole time trying to hide behind Al to avoid being seen on camera, with the result a physical comedy gem. Either Brian has to duck or Al needs a taller hat.

[SMiLE Brian]

Stamos should learn how to play guitar and drums better if he wants to guest with the group. The musicianship and quality of the show take a hit when Mike and John ham it up on stage.

[drbeachboy]

Stamos should learn how to play guitar and drums better if he wants to guest with the group. The musicianship and quality of the show take a hit when Mike and John ham it up on stage.

Please explain exactly how bad the drumming is? I've seen him play Be True To Your School many times and I have never heard anything terrible. sh*t, even Dennis used to miss beats and screw up rolls.

[startBBtoday]

I thought his guitar was unplugged. Can we all try to agree on how John Stamos is singlehandedly ruining every facet of the Beach Boys (including their legacy)?

[SMiLE Brian]

From watching videos with Stamos, the band sounds out of sync and miles behind their sound with Cowsil on drums. John just sounds average at best and the band suffers for it. (IMO)

[drbeachboy]

From watching videos with Stamos, the band sounds out of sync and miles behind their sound with Cowsil on drums. John just sounds average at best and the band suffers for it. (IMO)

Go watch the Knebworth 1980 concert or really any show from 1975 onward. Dennis was not perfect by no means. He didn't ruin many/any shows because of a few errors. Stamos usually plays on one or two songs per show. Nothing that will ruin an entire show.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

sh*t, Stamos is a hell of a better drummer than Kowalski was since the 90s.

[Cam Mott]

Before long Stamos will be the new Mike, a victim of fan-tacide. Only with gorgeous hair.

[Mike's Beard]

I wish having a (minor) celeb who is friends with the band sitting in for the odd one or two songs was the worst thing this group ever did.

[Nicko1234]

Stamos may or may not be a nice guy. It's great to hear that he's good to fans.

But that doesn't affect the central point. He is a distraction and has no place onstage.

Just like the cheerleaders.

I have said it before and will say it again -- any goodwill he generates among some part of the public is outweighed by the continuing damage he does  to the brand.

I can't tell you the number of people who have made cracks about Stamos when I mention the Beach Boys. They don't talk about the mastery of Pet Sounds or the artistry if Good Vibrations or the fractured whimsy of Love You. They make jokes about a 50-year-old sitcom actor.

It's great that he's a fan. It's great he wants to bring people to the music. But that doesn't mean you crash the show and play rock star yourself. Even if the band asks you.

It's not wish fulfillment. It's destroying something he purports to love.

If anyone here ever wonders why we don't get cool archival releases, if anyone here ever wonders why we don't get more respect among music fans, if anyone ever wonders why you can't going to a music store and buy actual Beach Boys albums, if anyone wonders why Mike has the terrible reputation he does -- just look at Stamos.

He is absolutely emblematic of a band that does not take itself or its music or its fans or its legacy at all seriously. And if the band doesn't care about these things, other folks won't either.

This is sheer poppycock.

[southbay]

Nm

[J.G. Dev]

Yeah, John even got Brian to appear on "Full House" with the band, that's how bad it got.

Exactly. He wasn't that much on it though, to be fair:

Time for a Beach Boys huddle

[adamghost]

The post upthread about all the band being complicit in the band's cheesier decisions to varying degrees -- particularly Carl giving up on it -- begs the question...why?

It wasn't just Mike being the dominant and most business-oriented personality in the group, though that's certainly part of it.  It's just that the band had to acquiesce that it was just too uphill of a battle to try to express the band's artistic side from the mid '70s onward.  The band did not begin to be taken seriously artistically by a large number of people until the PET SOUNDS rerelease in the late '80s, with things steadily growing through the '90s to today.  The reason the band could tour such a diverse set list in 2012 is there were finally enough hardcore fans that they could get away with it.  That wasn't the case in years prior.

To paraphrase Carl, "it became obvious what the fans wanted.  Really obvious."

Those who argue that the band could have made sharper decisions during this period that enhanced rather than cheapened their legacy -- no argument here.  But it would have been a much harder road to hoe, with real economic consequences and not much short-term payoff, than most fans realize.  Carl was given his shot in the early '70s and he didn't come up with any hits.  It's really that simple.  In the plastic context of the late '80s, no one was going to be able to get behind that approach again.  Brian got away with it -- barely -- on his solo album, but looked at from a cold hard graft standpoint, that project lost tons of money.  Yes, there might have been a long term payoff over time, but given the short term day to day realities of keeping the band employed and the crew fed, it's not hard to understand why they went for the path of least resistance.  After all, they didn't have the built-in respect of a Who or a Stones.  They were the Beach Boys with an image to work with or against.

[southbay]

John Stamos has been playing with the Beach Boys for nearly thirty years. Longer than some of the fans here have been fans of the band, and before some were even born yet. It's not like most of the people complaining are the ones buying tickets to see Mike and Bruce, so I don't know what the problem is.

29. First appearance July 4, 1985  in Philadelphia. But I get your point

Isn't 29 nearly 30?

Yes, almost exactly 30. I was trying to emphasize how accurate kitty kat  actually was. Guess I just didn't word it right...

[KittyKat]

No single appearance by John Stamos will kill the group's career. And no one is saying that.

But a group's reputation and legacy is defined by the choices that the group makes. And the choice to welcome Stamos as an honorary member has reaped a bitter harvest for the band.

It's certainly not their only regrettable decision, or even their main one. Mike has made a bunch of terrible choices over the last few decades, often with Brian's active participation or benign neglect. The cheerleaders being one of them, releases like SIP being another, relentless touring of shoddy venues for no real purpose being yet another.

For me, I would gladly trade any popularity of recognition the group acquired through the likes of Stamos (and Home Improvement, etc.) for a wider understanding of the great work they did -- and continued to do when no one was looking.

And I do not solely blame Mike or John, although both should have known better. Brian has allowed Mike to use the name and keep touring, and has allowed his cousin's vision of the band to predominate. Al went along for too long, and by the time he decided to fight back, he had no leverage left and had alienated the rest of the group. Carl simply surrendered at a certain point and decided to focus on keeping the backing band competent. All of these guys are to blame.

Stamos is the one guy who encapsulates how everything went terribly, terribly wrong for the group in the 1980s. And yes, that decade saw a renewed popularity for the boys -- but it was not a popularity worth having.

Yeah, a popularity not worth having. It has to be all serious and arty and humorless.  The less fans and the less fun, the better!

[rab2591]

No single appearance by John Stamos will kill the group's career. And no one is saying that.

But a group's reputation and legacy is defined by the choices that the group makes. And the choice to welcome Stamos as an honorary member has reaped a bitter harvest for the band.

It's certainly not their only regrettable decision, or even their main one. Mike has made a bunch of terrible choices over the last few decades, often with Brian's active participation or benign neglect. The cheerleaders being one of them, releases like SIP being another, relentless touring of shoddy venues for no real purpose being yet another.

For me, I would gladly trade any popularity of recognition the group acquired through the likes of Stamos (and Home Improvement, etc.) for a wider understanding of the great work they did -- and continued to do when no one was looking.

And I do not solely blame Mike or John, although both should have known better. Brian has allowed Mike to use the name and keep touring, and has allowed his cousin's vision of the band to predominate. Al went along for too long, and by the time he decided to fight back, he had no leverage left and had alienated the rest of the group. Carl simply surrendered at a certain point and decided to focus on keeping the backing band competent. All of these guys are to blame.

Stamos is the one guy who encapsulates how everything went terribly, terribly wrong for the group in the 1980s. And yes, that decade saw a renewed popularity for the boys -- but it was not a popularity worth having.

Yeah, a popularity not worth having. It has to be all serious and arty and humorless.  The less fans and the less fun, the better!

Speaking of humorless, I recently watched that Beach Boys episode of Full House.

[SMiLE Brian]

Full house is unfunny, period.

[Nicko1234]

The post upthread about all the band being complicit in the band's cheesier decisions to varying degrees -- particularly Carl giving up on it -- begs the question...why?

It wasn't just Mike being the dominant and most business-oriented personality in the group, though that's certainly part of it.  It's just that the band had to acquiesce that it was just too uphill of a battle to try to express the band's artistic side from the mid '70s onward.  The band did not begin to be taken seriously artistically by a large number of people until the PET SOUNDS rerelease in the late '80s, with things steadily growing through the '90s to today.  The reason the band could tour such a diverse set list in 2012 is there were finally enough hardcore fans that they could get away with it.  That wasn't the case in years prior.

To paraphrase Carl, "it became obvious what the fans wanted.  Really obvious."

Those who argue that the band could have made sharper decisions during this period that enhanced rather than cheapened their legacy -- no argument here.  But it would have been a much harder road to hoe, with real economic consequences and not much short-term payoff, than most fans realize.  Carl was given his shot in the early '70s and he didn't come up with any hits.  It's really that simple.  In the plastic context of the late '80s, no one was going to be able to get behind that approach again.  Brian got away with it -- barely -- on his solo album, but looked at from a cold hard graft standpoint, that project lost tons of money.  Yes, there might have been a long term payoff over time, but given the short term day to day realities of keeping the band employed and the crew fed, it's not hard to understand why they went for the path of least resistance.  After all, they didn't have the built-in respect of a Who or a Stones.  They were the Beach Boys with an image to work with or against.

Isn`t it also down to the fact that some bands now simply play longer shows than they did back in the day?

[Cam Mott]

Full house is unfunny, period.

And that's why it was cancelled after just a few episodes.

[drbeachboy]

Stamos may or may not be a nice guy. It's great to hear that he's good to fans.

But that doesn't affect the central point. He is a distraction and has no place onstage.

Just like the cheerleaders.

I have said it before and will say it again -- any goodwill he generates among some part of the public is outweighed by the continuing damage he does  to the brand.

I can't tell you the number of people who have made cracks about Stamos when I mention the Beach Boys. They don't talk about the mastery of Pet Sounds or the artistry if Good Vibrations or the fractured whimsy of Love You. They make jokes about a 50-year-old sitcom actor.

It's great that he's a fan. It's great he wants to bring people to the music. But that doesn't mean you crash the show and play rock star yourself. Even if the band asks you.

It's not wish fulfillment. It's destroying something he purports to love.

If anyone here ever wonders why we don't get cool archival releases, if anyone here ever wonders why we don't get more respect among music fans, if anyone ever wonders why you can't going to a music store and buy actual Beach Boys albums, if anyone wonders why Mike has the terrible reputation he does -- just look at Stamos.

He is absolutely emblematic of a band that does not take itself or its music or its fans or its legacy at all seriously. And if the band doesn't care about these things, other folks won't either.

This is sheer poppycock.

Awe man, I haven't heard that saying in long, long time.

[KittyKat]

Brian looked like he was having a good time when he was on "Full House." And I'm sure he did.  Just like he had a good time guesting on that laugh riot, "The New Leave It to Beaver."

[drbeachboy]

Full house is unfunny, period.

And that's why it was cancelled after just a few episodes.

Just remember Cam, only his/her opinion matters. All else is total bullshit.

[Cam Mott]

It is very hard for me to see how the legacy has suffered at anyone's hands. They have been one of the most revered Pop groups since almost their inception. If they were another kind of band they could have had another kind of legacy but they aren't so they didn't.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

can we please stop being raging assholes to one another?