The Smiley Smile Message Board

I listened to the Beach Boys as a kid, eventually grew out of it, and didn't start liking them again until I heard some of their good late stuff (like from the Blondie/Ricky era). It was then that I learned more about who the beach boys were (as I didn't know any of their names except for Brian)

So with the main five members (Mike, Al, Brian, Dennis, Carl), how do you think they would have turned out had they not become famous?

- I think Mike would have been sort of an Uncle Rico type given how his life was early on at the time (pumping gas, shotgun wedding, alleged wife beating). Out of all of them, his ass was saved the most by tagging along with his cousins

- Al, knowing that he was always the quieter and inoffensive out of all of them, would probably be a Dentist living in Orange County with a wife and kids

- I could see Brian becoming a professor or something like that. He was definitely the brains of the group.

- OK, I might have been too rough on Mike but to be fair, Dennis probably wasn't going anywhere in their early days. From what I read, he was considered a juvenile delinquent who got kicked out of Hawthorne High for fighting. A lot of the stuff that happened to him in the late 70s and early 80s was probably only delayed by the success and fortune of the beach boys.  My guess is he would have ended up like Jeff Bridges character in "The Big Lebowski."

- I'm not sure about Carl as he was only a kid when they first got started but my guess is he would have been successful whatever he had gotten into as he had the least baggage out of the three Wilson brothers.

What are your thoughts?

I think that Brian would have been in a band no matter what. The Beach Boys were one of the earlier American bands to form, but the guys who would later make it in The Byrds, Love, Buffalo Springfield were all around the LA scene too. I imagine Brian would have just been in another group before the British invasion, maybe a group without a hit single, but he would have been one of the seeds germinating during the 1964-1965 period.
Hell maybe he would have joined The Lovin' Spoonful, or formed a group with Danny Hutton/Van Dyke Parks/Gary Usher or some other guys like that.

The point is, I think that Brian would have had some part of the LA scene with or without The Beach Boys. Mind you I'm not saying that this would have been some how preferable, or that his career would have been "better" or anything like that. I'm only saying that Brian was a very dedicated guy, and had a ton of musician pals pre-Beach Boys who were all trying to break out of the LA scene as well.

(I also think that Brian's commitment to his family prevented him from fulfilling his mid-70s destiny of a Wilson-Newman-Nilsson-Van Dyke Parks supergroup!  ;D)

Thought provoking first post topic and you did hit the nail on the (bald) head about Myke. Yeah, he got his ass saved by his cousins for sure but there wasn't much they could do about his hair or looks in general. :lol :lol :p :p

Professionally, I don't think any of them would have been in the music business (maybe Dave...). Brian seems like the kind of guy who would've written songs in his room and not played them to anyone. Mike would have had a regular day job, Al would have been a dentist of course, Dennis probably would have stayed working at Murry's factory. Carl would have been president.

Dennis would've ended up losing both eyeballs :( those beautiful, beautiful eyeballs.

Brian said he would be folding clothes at K Mart  ;D

Carl, yes, but I always thought that Dennis marched to the beat of his own drum (no pun intended). Out of the three of them, he had the most issues with Murray.

I sometimes wonder if he would have been a member of the Doors

I wonder what type of music would have been on a Brian Wilson collaboration with Nilsson or Newman....

It's not widely known, but Al did have a successful career after leaving The Beach Boys – as a dentist. The guy now currently masquerading as Al in The Beach Boys is actually one David Marks, who never actually left – the other members simply liked him so much that they just changed his name and hoped Murry wouldn't notice. Whenever they were together, David simply stood on Murry's blindside and the deception was never seen through*.

Al enjoyed a great career as a dentist but never gave up on music. He and a bunch of his colleagues formed a weekend folk band, The Teeth Boys, and actually scored a string of largely now-forgotten hist throughout the 60s and 70s.

They included:

I Get A Crown
Floss, Floss, Floss
Good Extractions
Their Mouths Were Full of Fillings
Take Good Care of You Teeth
Cottonswabs
40Ca9s
Indian Wisdoms
Amalgam Parks USA
Beach Boys Stump
Busy Doin' Fillings
Molar System
Dentures Near The Water …

See, it's not just AGD who knows a thing or twooth about The Beach Boys.


* Which of course begs the question, who's the guy playing guitar on stage with The Beach Boys today? However, this modern day deception is easily exposed by the fact that this guy 1) is much younger than the other originals 2) can actually play a mean guitar 3) is noticeably absent from the album credits. The Beach Boys' own Billy Shears!

Canines :)