The Smiley Smile Message Board

Because several people have asked for it here is the latest on my Beach Boys book. When I finished it last year I thought I would be able to sell it aggressively, but my writing career took off in other areas quite unexpectedly. This is something I am of course happy about, but it meant a change of plans. I have an Elvis project I am contracted for that takes most of my time right now. Before that I had a good offer to do some Presley projects out of Norway that I couldn't turn down. It's the funniest thing that these jobs came in days after The Beach Boys project was finished! I love doing all my work, but because of how busy I now am its not possible to work on selling "I Can Hear Music" full time. The only way I can get The Beach Boys book out in the next year or so is if I get an agent. Hopefully there will be some good news on that end soon, but as I am getting married in June I can't even look until then. As it was finished early last year, I will need to now write a new chapter about The Smile Sessions box and the reunion. I also recently did an interview with David Sandler that I think everyone will want to read that needs to be added. I do promise to make it happen, but without some help it won't be for a long while. I wish I had better news to share but I will keep all of you informed.

Good luck on selling the Beach Boys book!  :) And I'm also looking forward to any Elvis stuff.

(+always nice to hear of someone who has a somewhat successful writing career going. Keeps my hopes up.)

Thanks! - Any news is good news and I look forward to your next update  :)

Thank you for your kind words.

f you love doing it keep at it! I started at 15, began to work in major publications at 25, and now at 35 have got my own book. The only real pointers I have is to mention what you want to do to everyone (and I mean everyone) you meet. It takes only one person in the right place to like your work, but finding that person that can be tough. Of course practise all the time, and if you do non-fiction keep your point of view original. I wish you good luck as well!

You are welcome. The inspiration I have from being here is a HUGE reason why it exists. 

Much appreciated!

Mike have you heard of kickstarter? It's a website where you can get funding for artistic projects from everyone on the internet. The stuff people solicit can be a little silly, but some projects have been really successful and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you don't make any headway on publishing in the near future you might consider putting up a kickstarter for the book. I'm sure a lot of people would chip in, and you could raise enough to self publish and make something nice. And if it turns out well you could then attract some publishers and do an expanded print run.

I hadn't heard about kickstarter before and it seems interesting. I have thought about doing a limited run I put out myself to send to potential publishers. However I do have a few issues with self publishing a book like this for public consumption. First I want everyone to get a well made product that they wouldn't see later in far better form. Without the help of copy editors, layout designers, and the like, it wouldn't be what it could be. Plus keeping it in print and available to everyone that may want it would be a major problem. Print on demand is being done now at great savings, but even that is problematic as far as marketing it and getting it to people.

The main thing I need is to find someone who thinks it's good enough to help me sell it and other projects while I keep working on what I currently am doing. Deadlines are a very real thing. It's funny but my need for an agent is much stronger than it was before I was signed!

Thanks for the updates !
Any infos you can give about your Elvis stuff ?

Glad everything is going so well for you  - we Beach Boys fans are a patient bunch (even though we don't always show it), and I'm sure it will be worth the wait to finally get to read your book!

I decided to do it the other way, at 15 I published my first book and now at 35 I decided to get started.

Have fun scribbling about the King, our own sideburned Faust!

Thanks for all the support.

 The Elvis Records Faq book is going well. I really am enjoying writing it. It will cover everything issued in Elvis' lifetime with a review of each record and each year of his career.

If you're in need for a copy editor, drop me a line here or on Facebook....

Very best of luck with the book, I look forward to it emerging some time. Do keep us all posted.

I have to say though. 'I Can Hear Music...' Rotten title! There must be another BB song you could have used (as all music books have to be named after a song, it would seem...) but the 'I' bit sounds as if it's more about You rather than Them (or maybe it is - and why  not?)

Man, I'd really like to read that David Sandler interview. Brian's era collaborating with him is so overlooked, and it would be interesting to hear more about Brian's work during that era, since we have only heard dribs and drabs.

"I Can Hear Music" is the title because, apart from the biography, it is my critical review of the music. The thing I did to make it more than that is interview a lot of people, research some areas I felt needed looking into, and also try to give air to the general consensus on any given thing.  I made a point to give everyone their due, and also to get the facts correct. It isn't a rose colored view, or a dismissive one, I went for balance.  I also think "I" can apply to you or anyone who listens to The Beach Boys music. Besides it's a good song and from the era I think needs more attention by the general public.

The Sandler interview is good, and backed up all my other info about Brian at that time.  There is a lot on the post Smile pre 15 Big Ones period because I felt it deserved far more attention than most have given it.

Honestly Mike, your focus on the 1967 to 1974 era is why I'm so looking forward to your book. I feel like that era gets a lot of respect in Beach Boys hardcore fan circles, but hasn't really gotten its fair share of attention in books and whatnot, since many people (like Phil Cohen for example) seem to think that after SMiLE Brian didn't write any new material for the band, and that even if he did, he wasn't really "active" as a Beach Boy. And albums like Wild Honey, Friends and Sunflower make that plainly obvious that this was not the case. Even albums like 20/20 and Surf's Up feature a pretty decent amount of contribution from him.

I'm really looking forward to that. That's the most mysterious and fascinating period of the band's history. The 1967 Hawaii trip, the tumultuous spring and summer months of 1968, the post-Holland loss of momentum. Those are some of the most frequently discussed topics in the band's history but nobody knows much of substance. I'm really looking forward to hearing more about Brian's withdrawal, Murray's sale of the catalog, Brian's attempted sabotage of the Warner deal, the 1969/1970 songs he wrote that the band elected not to use, his input on 20/20, American Spring, his time in Holland. I'm really hungry for information on how all those things fit together.

Exactly. Brian did a lot more than he has been given credit for then. It makes the story neater to have him 300 pounds in bed after Smile, but that took years to happen and some of his best moments are lost to the public because of that myth. If one understands that Brian had serious mental issues from the get go, his story makes a lot more sense. There's less drama but more humanity in the truth. I can honestly say that some weird things went down with all of them, but they are just people like you or I. They have done good music and done some kind things, they have done some bad music and did some bad thing. I hope that I  humanized them, turned them into flesh and blood human beings. Even Murry wasn't quite what people think he was. He did some horrible things, but he was a real person with real feelings too. He has a side to him that justhasn't been touched upon much.  As I said earlier Landy is the only one I can't find something nice to say about.

I hope I did  the whole story justice. The truth about 1967-74 was what led me to start the book, but I give equal time to 1961-66 and to a certain extent 1975-97. Of course there isn't as much to say after they gave up recording regularly, but I don't think I am amiss by giving 1970 more time than 1990.  The early period has had so much written on it before, but I hope with the interviews, and my goal of presenting all sides, that it will read as fresh as the rest of the book. I am a great fan of the early years, though I dislike their throwbacks to it with the exceptions of "Do It Again" and "It's OK".  It was indeed hard to write about their various  personal declines and the eventual lessening of group standards, but I aim to explain the reasons behind these things with compassion.

I do try to inject a little humor in the book where it fit. This doesn't mean I don't take my work seriously, but a book can be informative and at the same time entertaining to the reader. I do this a lot with the interviews because many of the people I talked to were indeed funny. Brian has a few real zingers in there. I suppose this kind of thing would normally hit the cutting room floor, but this gives great insight into the subjects as people. In the end I write because I want others to share in the joy I get from certain artists. I think because these people have brought me so much happiness that I owe it to them to tell their story as truthfully as possible with sensitivity. I'm not afraid to say I don't like a certain song, and I don't tone down a story if it puts them in a bad light. However in doing this I attempt to explain why wrong moves were made. Again they are just human beings like the rest of us. If Mike acted like an ass at times, or Dennis showed up unable to work etc. doesn't mean they deserve to be condemned as people and especially as artists.  I would hate my mistakes of decades before to get harshly judged, so I do attempt  to make sense of even the worst things.

Fantastic post, Mike! Best of luck in getting this book published; sounds like a real labour of love.

I think you will find all of that there because those are the things I asked about. Brian often had two minds about things so one day he wouldn't want to sign with Warner Brothers, the next day he would  have been enthused. Some stories that were previously painted as tragic weren't really all that harrowing. He had an odd sense of humor and a unique perspective that some don't understand or try to make more of than there was.

On the other side of it, Brian's mental illness was a real thing very early on. If one can accept that, how things unfolded are far less of a mystery.  There was a period that was very dark, but it didn't happen overnight, and I contend strongly that it was only Murry's death that changed things for good. How Carl, Dennis, and Brian reacted in the wake of it explains every last thing that happened since. Their problems weren't all that different before hand, it's how they handled them that changed. Actually one of the biggest revelations is how supportive they were to each other up to that point. Funny enough in the wake of Smile they were getting along fairly well. A lot of detail on that is included.

One last thing I should mention. Mike wasn't a team player later on, but he wasn't that much different than the Wilson's until hard drugs entered the picture. That doesn't excuse a lot of the things he did subsequently, but honestly the worst of his behavior has stemmed from what has been unfairly been said about him. Again that's not an excuse but I find ironic that Mike only become a true problem well into the seventies. It's like he became the jerk people had said he was, by trying to prove he wasn't so bad in the first place. A lot of his later power plays stem from him not getting a fair shake of things when he deserved them.

It really is. Thank you for the well wishes. I think the best thing to do is make people aware of it and hope that doing that makes it a reality.

Why'd you have to post all that! Now I'm even more upset that I'm not reading the thing right now!

Well that makes my day! ;D

So why not simply pick the price that you want to sell it, Take orders here and then run down to your local copy store and run off a bunch of copies for us?( the folks that are your core audience)
 This way you can give yourself the time to find a publisher  for a full blown release, and probably just like Capitol/BBs do, sell another issue of the same stuff later

Agreed. I think some of us here would be willing to pitch in and copy edit your writing for you and pay for copies from a private printing.

Seriously, I'd pay a pretty penny to read your book, Mike. Each post you add on this subject intrigues me even more.

Seems like a great idea; we need to read this book, Mike!

I am really flattered that there is so much of a demand for the book. I don't want to come off as dismissive of the good ideas some of you have mentioned, but frankly I can't give you a product of true quality without the efforts of all who would become involved through a publisher. To get decent photos for instance costs more money then I could ever make selling it on my own. I hate to put it like that, but writing about the music and musicians I like (along with being my passion) is my only job. I want more than anything to let you all read it this instant, but I have wanted to do this book since 1994 and must go about it the right way. If I put any sort of release out now it will make it that much harder to sell. As a rule most publishers will pass if they feel they don't have something exclusive. A major marketing point is in all the interviews I did as far as the new information contained within them. Once the interviews are out, they're out. I promise that it will match my own exacting expectations as a fan. Of course you never can please every reader, but I will do my very best to insure that your patience will be rewarded. I hope you all understand.

Billy's offer to copy edit is one I am going to talk to him about. Though I am good at fact checking, I admittedly only have very basic skills in every other aspect of proofreading. If Billy and I decide to do this together, his abilities will get it out that much faster.

In case you missed it, Mike also did a 5,000+ word, 3-part interview in late December describing "I Can Hear Music" and The Beach Boys.

Mike discussed interviewing the band, how dedicated fans of the BB are definitely unique, if Brian would have become a success w/o the band, the band's legacy pre-Pet Sounds, the Smile sessions, if Brian killed Smile, why some folks claim Brian quit contributing to the band after Smile's failure, lots of analysis on how Dennis' role in the band evolved [musician/performer/singer/songwriter], the resentment in the band after POB came out, the great contributions of Blondie & Ricky, why L.A. is kind of the underdog in the band's catalog, Mike's ego problem, and his opinion of the BB's reunion...


PART ONE    http://www.examiner.com/article/i-can-hear-music-author-mike-eder-reveals-his-dream-project-on-the-beach-boys

PART TWO   http://www.examiner.com/article/did-brian-wilson-kill-smile-the-lowdown-with-beach-boys-author-mike-eder

PART THREE http://www.examiner.com/article/remembering-dennis-wilson-plus-author-mike-eder-on-the-beach-boys-the-1970s

Up earlier in the thread, Kickstarter was mentioned. I didn't know anything about it, either, until I chatted with Rick Nelson's youngest son, Sam. He used Kickstarter to fund a project to digitize & archive all 400+ episodes of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet [plus, funds helped locate home movies and unreleased live performances feat. his dad]. Here is Sam's description of Kickstarter:

"After doing research, I came across a website called Kickstarter.  It’s the largest independent financing site for arts and entertainment based projects.  If you’re a filmmaker or musician, and you want to put together a movie or demo, you create a short clip to sell your idea.

You ask for donations from folks in a given time frame.  If you have a donation amount that supersedes or doesn’t make the cut after the timeframe, you don’t get any money.  So if you asked for $5,000, and you used a 20-day timeframe, at 20 days if you have $4,999, you don’t get anything.

But if you make $100,000 in 20 days, you get to keep it all.  As incentives, there are rewards for people who donate.  Because I had all these incredible assets, I wanted to be creative about it.  For example, you can sponsor an episode..."



http://www.examiner.com/article/my-god-what-an-incredible-asset-sam-nelson-tackles-ozzie-and-harriet

Thanks for the repost of the interview. I put a new video up on Facebook today I think you will like!

Wow!! Can´t wait for this  book! The 1967-1974 era is a favourite of mine.

What´s the link to your facebook page?

https://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=641556741