The Smiley Smile Message Board

Finally got round to seeing the Don Was "IJWMFTT Doc".

In the part when Carl talks about mike love not liking the smile stuff. Carl says "personally i loved it" .

His body language and the tone of his voice suggest to me that he is lying. Anyone else think this or am i imagining it?

edit: well, wow......20 year old posts being drug up.....better own it....2006 was a ...very different time..

Carl rocks!

Well, I had that same thought, but I don't know....

You've hit on something there!  I think it comes across as him sincerely liking it retrospectively but perhaps not as much at the time as he would like you to think.  But I could be wrong...   

I don't think any of them liked it with the exception of possibly Dennis, it probably seemed like crazy drug music at the time.

Carl's attempts to resurrect Surf's Up though I think probably point to him appreciating the music at least THAT far back, though... so I think it was a thing where at the time, nobody liked it but after it was gone and they moved on, they realized the greatness of what Brian was trying to do. 

In the end, though, I don't think it's black and white, and Carl was just trying to give a black and white answer.  He couldn't very well say "I didn't like it then,  but then a few years later decided I liked it".   

As for Mike, I doubt he EVER liked it.  He probably just got on board to do his part in the band over the  next few years when they performed the stuff and things, but I don't think he would even today point to that album as anything special.

With all that said, I think Brian was hypersensitive to their negative reaction, if Brian was mentally competant at the time he wouldn't care if they liked it or not, he would have done it anyways.  Plus, we've got hours and hours and hours of tapes of Mike saying things like "Bom, de doobe doobie" and "Bom bom bom, bom bom bom bom bom" so he must have not been causing too big of a scene because there he is singing the tracks over and over again in the studio.  I don't know how much more support Brian could have wanted, you can't make somebody like something they don't, but if they're willing to try it and work on it anyways, there's no more you can ask. 

Well he could have actually.  How about:  "I/we didn't like it at the time but in retrospect I/we realise(d) Brian was on to something quite special".

Or even "Hands up, I/we was/were wrong!".

Of course, that's assuming he/they didn't like it at the time.

If we are to believe Brian's recent interviews, Carl apparently was not supportive of the Smile project.  I would reconcile Carl's comment with Brian's this way:  Carl liked the music and lyrics, but agreed with Mike that it was not appropriate for the  Beach Boys.  Carl had a unique point of view during the  Smile era because he was on many of the sessions.  I think he saw the difficulties and self doubt and paranoia that Brian was experiencing during these sessions and may have wanted the project abandoned because of both the toll it was taking on Brian and the increasing likelihood that Brian was not going to be able to complete it. 

Mike has said he liked the music, but didn't like the lyrics - if you believe his current spin on Smile, which is complicated by his legal stance that Smile is a Beach Boys property.

I think you hit it right, bicyclerider.  Carl probably appreciated the artistry and creativity of the Smile music, but just didn't feel that it was appropriate for the group at the time.  Would have been nice if he said that in IJWMFTT, but I think he just felt that it would be easier to make it sound black and white.  Mike didn't like the lyrics, of course.  Seems like Dennis was the only group member who was totally supportive of what Brian was doing (evidenced by several articles during that time).  This is why I find it odd that Brian included the Dennis in the "did not like Smile" group a few years ago, when it's pretty clear that he did.

I think Brian's recent comments have been contradictory, but I think it was Al and Dennis on the "like" side and Mike and Carl on the "uncertain" side.

Carl may have been a late convert, say, in the late '60s/early '70s when the Smile material could be used for the progressive/FM sound the Boys were using during that period. 

I don't think Carl was lying. If he'd wanted to avoid answering the question honestly, he would have simply diverted the interviewer's question as politely as possible. But he said he loved the *Smile* music, so I believe (based on what I know of the man from personal experience) that he was speaking the truth.

In a pre-BWPS interview with Goldmine, Al said SMiLE was just a bunch of interesting fragments, but not worth the trouble of putting together. He also made a big deal about having to grunt like a pig. Doesn't sound too supportive to me.

Interesting question. Because almost everywhere you read about both Pet Sounds and Smile that Mike hated it and called it "Brian's ego music", Al disliked it because it was too progressive for his taste, Dennis loved it because he was Brian's biggest fan and Bruce loved it because, well, Bruce is probably one of the most positive people of the face of the earth. But you never really read what Carl's opinion was...

Carl sure did love Smile, I guess that's why him, Mike, and Al sold their votes on the project to Brian.

In a Q interview last year, Brian said that Mike and Dennis didn't like it.

One thing I always admired about Brian Wilson - he's the best bullshitter in the world.

Al has said a few times that he felt that California Girls was the best example of progressive music linked with commercial appeal, and should have been where the Beach Boys stayed - which makes me think he must have thought the Smile music too far out for the Beach Boys.  Doesn't mean he didn't like it though.

Al has said many times that he likes the Smile material, but the thought of putting it together was daunting.

Remember the interview with Al around the time of the Good Vibrations box set? He was going on and on about what tracks were what and "wrong versions were used" and such. If he didn't like the music, he sure did know a lot about it.

Carl played on the sessions --- I'm sure that while he appreciated the musical beauty, he may have realized it almost impossible for the touring Beach Boys to play properly. Since a lot of their income was made through tours and shows, being able to perform their own music accordingly would've been a very big issue. Brian Wilson on the other hand stayed at home, He recorded with numerous musicians, each wholly capable of many talents. He had hardly to worry for the touring Beach Boys; that was their problem, and while I'm sure he addressed it, I wonder if he cared more for the artistic direction of the group as an album band (Put to serious competition by the Beatles) or for the touring group being able to play well.

Before BWPS was released he always said that Al & Dennis liked it, Carl & Mike didn't. After the release, he said Dennis and Mike didn't like it (in interviews) while on his homepage he still said that Carl & Mike didn't. Al was always in the liking-corner.
In "Beautiful Dreamer" someone said, that Dennis liked it, but he left out a comment about Al (he gets overlooked quite often unfortunately)

Sadly, Brian is probably the last person whose recollections on the project I'd trust. And as for the rest of them, it seems overwhelmingly that they ALL were at least uncertain about it, and (according to non-band members in interviews) leaning toward dislike. The only exception I can think of is Dennis, from whom I've never read a negative quote about Smile.

But really, isn't is possible that they were all just like most of us when it comes to our tastes? I like this part and that, but not that. Today I like this, tomorrow that. And so on. When you add enormous commercial (personal financial) ramifications for them, it makes plenty more sense why they felt that way, too.

Based on their own music, though, it makes sense to me that Al might have liked it. His late 60s and early 70s music had a similarly quirky, humorous slant often.

The Return Of The Thread

I think it's easiest to understand what their reations were or might have been when you realize they were hearing it in terms of their career(s), and not as music-lovers or Brian fans (and some people have emphasized this point).

They might have liked it a lot better as a Jimmy Webb album or a Curt Boettcher album, but for the Beach Boys, they were hearing something far riskier and less commercial than Pet Sounds; it was even less performable than that album (which had brought some criticism on that point in England), and it continued the trend of reducing their own profiles and raising Brian's.  That last one was especially true for Mike- besides being deposed as a lyricist, he was also seeing his vocal role diminish a great deal, mainly to bass parts, with almost no leads.  And lastly, the album offered only one really good chicken-dancing opportunity ("Barnyard").

Brian should go back and read all the cases of Dennis telling people how wonderful Smile was in the press in late '66..."it makes Pet Sounds stink its so good." Can't find any of the other guys saying things like that.

At one point or another, in Brian's mind, everyone has loved it and hated it. But yeah, Dennis is a definite yes. Al said doing the vocals was humiliating at one point (the pig reference), Carl seems very sincere on American Band talking about Brian (and then he went on to finish some of the songs), Mike called H&V Brian's last dynamic track, and Bruce was excited about Brian finishing SMiLE, in retrospect.

I think Bruce also said that he thought BWPS wasn't as good as the BBs original. Mike said this for sure, but I believe Bruce too...

Yeah, Bruce definately said that over on that 'other' message board a couple times.  I respect his opinion, it's a very valid point that I don't totally agree with, but hell he was there. 

We rely too much on the perceptions of a former-anfetamine-adicted-brainwashed-by-Landy bulshitter like Brian Douglas Wilson. He proved too many times that his memory can't be trusted. Next week he'll say that Rick and Blondie hated Smile.

Between Brian and Carl, I trust Carl's word.

That's some funny sh*t.

If that's true, that's pretty damning.  Just ridiculous to think that the group should have stayed in that place throughout the late 60s.

The Boys have consistantly said, over the past 40 years, they liked it inspite of a few qualms [very, very few].  It seems to me that it didn't matter what the others thought, whether they didn't like it or some small aspect of it [edit: or all absolutely loved and supported it with all their souls],  Brian did what he wanted and he had the Boys do what he wanted, and the Boys did what he wanted,  to the point of their humiliation even.  Brian's sensitivity to their feelings and wishes is a bunch of bunk imo, so I'm not seeing how their like or dislike had any leverage.  Brian didn't want it, and said so for the same 40 years, and that's why it went south. 

Anyway....

Bruce:  said in Mojo around 1995 that he hated the grunting session. Bruce has also said Smiley is far better. So I don't think he dug it.
Mike: We know didn't like some lyrics, but I have heard him say good things about various cuts like "Heroes". Remember that Wally Heider session speach has the others, including Brian, on it , so it was probably meant in fun. People do forget that he  did eventually agree to sing on "Cabinessence". If he hated Van Dyke so much why did he use him on Summer In Paradise? (Ok bad example as that album would kill anyone off). As with Pet Sounds Mike's dissention and influence has been overstated. Afterall if Brian had wanted it out in 1967 it would have came out in 1967.
Al: He seems to have been the one who finally came around now with things like Smile or Dennis' work. Remember he was not a full business partner, until around the end of '67.
Carl : His support was never questioned except for in the Brian's-Landy's autobiography. I think he was a sincere person.
Dennis: You know loved it. It was him, not Bruce, who was Brian's biggest fan.
Brian:  Has said more bad things about Smile then anyone else really. This was probably because he was hurt by the memories of the sessions. Van Dyke bowing out was to me the thing that upset him most.

Whatever the ins and outs of who said or did what and who, if anyone, is to blame etc - IMO Brian's attitude to Smile down the years was one born of pain and regret.  This was the beginning of BW's downhill slide, both creative and personal.  Even MIke Love described Heroes and Villains as (forgive me if I don't write this absolutely word for word verbatim) "the last of Brian's real dynamism".

In 1967 Bruce said to the UK press (it was when they were promoting Then I Kissed Her, begrudgingly) that "I have some SMiLE music that will blow your mind." (something like that). Sounds supportive to me.

I think there's a tremendous temptation to oversimplify things, especially when the truth- which is a highly subjective matter anyway, in this case- is unobtainable.

No quote here or there- even a 1966 or 1967 quote- is ultimately going to prove "support" or "non-support", or reveal the extent of it, or demonstrate how important a factor it was or wasn't. Obviously by 1968 or so everyone must have known a terrible mistake had been made.

When the album essentially became a directed solo project, Brian wasn't able to bring it off by himself, and never would have been able.  That's the only statement I think is really safe, and I'm sure some will take exception to even that.

The big problem with opinions is that the other guy's got one, too.

First, let me say that I love SMiLE, wish it would've been released in 1967, and feel that it's Brian's best work. However...

Sometimes I think like the quote above regarding Al's feelings. Because SMiLE turned out to be such a debacle and damaged Brian's psychey, I sometimes wonder what The Beach Boys' career would've been like WITHOUT SMiLE.

The Beach Boys went a year and a few months from the release of Pet Sounds to Smiley Smile. Back in those days, that was good for about two new albums. What if Brian never met Van Dyke Parks at that party, never asked him to write lyrics, and decided to stick with Love, Asher, himself, or somebody else. What if Brian continued to produce music a la Summer Days & Summer Nights, Pet Sounds, and even "Good Vibrations". You know, commercial, ground breaking, accessible, Beach Boys' sounding music.  I'm not talking "Fun, Fun, Fun", or even "Help Me Rhonda", but maybe "Let Him Run Wild" or "Wouldn't It Be Nice".

If you do the math, that would mean about 25 new RELEASED songs from Brian Wilson from late 1966 to mid-1967. Probably four or five hit singles. Probably two hit albums. But that means you would have to sacrifice the SMiLE music. Would you do it? Do you ever wonder what The Beach Boys' career would've been like with no SMiLE? Just continuing for another year with the great music that Brian was churning out?

I repeat that I love SMiLE; I "get" SMiLE. But every once in a while, as I'm listening to "Surf's Up", and not exactly being "touched" by the lyrics, I say to myself, "I wonder what this song would've sounded like as a love song", with Beach Boys' lyrics like "Kiss Me Baby", "Please Let Me Wonder", or "God Only Knows". Would I like the song (or some of the other SMiLE songs) better with more accessible lyrics? Do I sound like Mike Love?

I'm not trying to disparage SMiLE. Anybody else ever have these thoughts? Kind of like Al was saying...

California Girls is an amazing song, so I don't know why its being trashed.

I'd certainly trade the unfinished SMiLE for two or even one more finished album(s) in the Pet Sounds or Summer Days modes.

SMiLE is utterly amazing as both a later-finished and an unfinished piece of work, but the style is not as important to me as substance, and the style and substance of the work leading up to it leave absolutely nothing to be desired, for me.  Plenty of bands were demonstrating at the time that ceaseless change wasn't necessary commercially or artistically. 

The style of SMiLE was unusually substantial in that it was so completely different and innovative, but what matters most to me is the quality of the songwriting and production, and the heart that was in it.  Would I trade an unfinished "Worms" for a finished piece of the quality and style of "Girl Don't Tell Me" or "Yuo Still Believe In Me"?  Sure- but I don't know if that was ever an option.

Bruce has been really changable. I mean the quotes I have and the quotes you have are probably both true. I mean in 1971, 1975, and 1995 I read interviews were he is down on doing an oldies format. Then I have read many others were he defends the old songs. I just can't get a handle on what he thinks.  Even if he didn't like Smile, he was still the "new guy" so I don't know if what he felt meant much to Brian. Probably like anyone else he changes his mind at times.

I do agree with you about why Brian was down on it. I just don't know if his perceptions reflect the reality of the times or what he has been told since.

Mike always said he liked Van Dyke as a person but that he just wasn't into some of his lyrics.

No, it's NOT a bad example. It's a good example. Of Van Dyke Parks' hypocrisy.

I have problems listening to VDP. He's a lot like Brian in that you never know if what's coming out of his mouth is the truth. Brian flat out lies but VDP uses his clever speaking ability to take shots without being direct.

I'm assuming the only reason VDP played on Summer In Paradise is because of his connection with Terry Melcher, whatever that was in 1992. On SIP, Brian wasn't there, Dennis was dead, and Al was asked to not come. That leaves Carl, Bruce, and Michael Edward Love. VDP didn't contribute to the writing. Did he need the money? When you hear VDP diss Mike Love in SMiLE interviews, you wonder how he could stand being in the same room with the guy. He probably did his part when Mike wasn't there...

I don't agree with the lying and hypocrisy charges. 

Brian certainly has problems with memory and is inconsistent; I don't know if that rises to the level of lying, which I think of as a more deliberate and calculated act.   

As for hypocrisy, I guess we're all hypocrites, since no one is completely consistent, and no one is able to represent their own values a hundred percent of the time.  But I definitely don't think it's a defining characteristic of Van Dyke's, and I've always found him very direct and honest about his own feelings about things, including Mike, in the interviews I've read. 
If playing with someone you've criticized in the past makes you a hypocrite, then hypocrisy is the defining characteristic of nearly everyone in nearly every band.

Just another subjective matter, I guess. 

unfortunately Brian's bro Carl & his mom didn't live to see the sea tides change...in Bri's favor.

maybe then, we would've seen a more confident Carl Wilson gloating and waxing nostalgic concerning the Smile era. THat said, I believe if Dennis hadn't passed away, he would've probably kicked the whole Landy crew's asses & Smile wouldve come out sometime
in the late 80's, early 90's when the public was more ready for it.

And NO KOKOMO WITHOUT BRIAN NOR DENNIS.
f*** JOHN STAMOS. DENNIS WOULD'VE KICKED HIS BUTT TOO.

But Brian would have had his problems if Smile existed or not.  That's just where his life was heading, whether it was due to drugs or mental illness or both.  It was happening well before Smile, but came to a head then.  Brian also lost confidence in his ability to compete in the marketplace and have hit records.  No matter what approach he took post-PS, that would have been true.  The Beach Boys were fading, and would have even if Brian came up with something more readily accessible than "Smile."  That's probably why he had the Beach Boys do a cover of "The Letter" -- he felt that the Box Tops were writing more commercial material at that point than he could.

As for Van Dyke, I don't think he dictated the entire direction of Smile.  If Van Dyke weren't there, you probably would have had an LP full of "Vegtables."  The health kick/elements thing still would have been there, because that was more Brian's idea.  The Americana part was more Van Dyke's, but it turned out in fairly commercial fashion on "Heroes & Villains."  Also, I think Mike Love likes Van Dyke more than Van Dyke likes him.  Mike is just rather insensitive.  But he has said he genuinely likes Van Dyke Parks as a person, and enjoys his sense of humor.  He just didn't know what Van Dyke was trying to say with some of his lyrics.  But even at that, Mike sang them.   I think Van Dyke tends to assign too much blame to Mike and the Beach Boys for the reason Smile was not finished. 

Steve Desper has said that Carl was very disappointed and frustrated with Brian for not going back and completing SMiLE, so I've taken that to mean that Carl was honest and sincere in IJWMFTT.

GREAT post!

I'd trade SMiLE for two quality albums in the like of Pet Sounds. The whole question is a bit of a dead end. Brian HAD to change at some point. If it wasn't through and with VDP, Michael Vosse, etc then it'd be someone else. I don't think two Pet Sounds can be accomplished, that's why they headed in the different direction. Some of the compositions of SMiLE are overrated anyway.

forget marie,
       I ALWAYS look forward to your posts and USUALLY agree with them. However, your above statements disagreed with a lot of what I posted, so I thought I'd respond.

Do you really believe that Brian, in 1966, coming off of the chart success of "Sloop John B", "Wouldn't It Be Nice", and "Good Vibrations" (a No. 1 record), lost confidence in his ability to write hit records? I think had he continued the Summer Days & Summer Nights/Pet Sounds/Good Vibrations approach, he/The Beach Boys would've had another 4-5 hit singles and two Top Ten albums. Do I think he could've found a lyricist to accomplish this? Yes, I do.

I never viewed the Beach Boys, coming off of Pet Sounds and "Good Vibrations", as fading. Around that time, weren't they voted as the Top Group in a worldwide poll? With the exception of Carl (who got better with age), all of the Beach Boys were peaking vocally in 1966-67. They were becoming much more accomplished musicians. They were all beginning to write a bit (of course, Brian was already in the cosmos), and I think, even with "Good Vibrations" going to No.1, they viewed their career as just taking off, with their best days ahead of them.

I DO THINK Van Dyke Parks dictated the direction of SMiLE. I've always viewed the SMiLE music as Brian writing music to Van Dyke's words, as opposed to the other way around. Not completely, of course, it was a collaboration. But SMiLE has VDP's influence written all over it. If VDP wasn't there, you would not have had an album full of "Vegetables", you would've had an album full of songs reflecting whatever lyricist Brian chose.

But, like Mr. Phileas Fogg stated in his above post, the issue is a dead end/mute point. But it it's still fun speculating about it...

Sherriff, I hope you won't slap the cuffs on me if I disagree again!

I don't think Van Dyke dictated anything...I do think he was a big influence, but I don't think "Surf's Up, "Heroes And Villains", "Wind Chimes", "Vegetables", or "Worms" were ever going to bePet Sounds type tracks with any lyricist, and I think that was simply the direction Brian was going, musically. I think Van Dyke's lyrics were perfectly married to what was there melodically, especially in songs like "Heroes", "Wonderful", and "Cabinessence"- can't imagine those with Asher lyrics- and of course Brian's melodies usually came before the words, right?

Brian was a ticking timebomb by 1967; having an unmanageable project on his hands didn't help, but the complexity of the work was his own choice.

As usual, just one man's opinion; worth (at best) the cyber-space it's written on.

Surfer Joe,
          You're right, "dictated" is too strong a word to use. I took that word directly from forget marie's post. Big influence is a better description.

As far as which came first - the music or the words - you wrote "of course Brian's melodies usually came before the words, right?" I don't know if I would say "of course". I will concede that it might be split. I'm trying to think back to the various documentaries, books, and print interviews; I can't think of a specific passage that answers that question. Maybe somebody else can locate one.

I'm also going to semi-agree with you that Brian was a "ticking timebomb" in 1967. However, it is my opinion, that if Brian would've stayed the Summer Days/Pet Sounds/Good Vibrations course for just one more year, and avoided the SMiLE "effects" (we all know what they were), perhaps that timebomb would've been diffused - at least until much more music was released. And I realize I just made a very Mike Love-ish statement.

Again, I'm not dismissing SMiLE, just speculating what life, Brian's life, would've been like without it...

Yeah, when I said "Brian's melodies usually came before the words, right?" I added the question at the end because I didn't want to make it a blanket statement.  I get the strong impression that it was mostly melody-first from various comments and descriptions, including Van Dyke's statement that his job was to put a syllable everywhere Brian put a note, or something like that.

If you want to say that drugs were a big problem in Brian's life in 1966 and 1967, I'll join you and it'll be you and me against the whole rest of the board. :lol

Guys, It was all My fault...i thought Brian's mind was ready.
The Beatles, The Stones, The Doors, Spector, Warhol...he was too talented not to turn on.
 Turns out he never came back.

I love this board ! People are so open to different views. I mean people willing to think the whole Brian and the five a--holes thing is false makes me quite happy. Brian is great, .but I think he never learned how to say "I don't want to talk about this so drop it". In other words Brian is not trying to fool anyone but trying to aviod a subject.  I also think his memory is great at  times and at others terrible. I think he pretends to remember things, or has been told about certain events falsely by hangers on who have motives. I think we all can guess who they are. While his book is tabloid fodder, Gaines did say in a radio or TV interview that The Beach Boys were ok but it was the people aound them who were really the ones causing trouble. As far as Brian being ill, he had problems as early as 1963. He was slowly putting on weight, he was missing shows, and already unhealthy as to how he viewed people like Spector etc. Drugs gave Brian brain damage and changed him from who he was before his dad died, but I just don't really see how someone as prolific as Brian was in 68-70 can be seen as any worse then he was in 66-7. Of course by 1974-5 he was in trouble but I think it was after Landy saw him that things got worse. I mean Brian in 1971 was in control enough to work only when he wanted to. He wasn't obese, he didn't need minders. Can you say that about Brian in 1977

Isn't that close to what the Beach Boys achieved?  Wild Honey is filled with Wilson-Love songs in the classic style, let down in places by the homemade production.  Songs like "Let The Wind Blow" stand with their best work.  Listen again to the live version of "Aren't You Glad".  Then we have Friends with a proper Brian Wilson sound and more eccentric (but still great) compositions.  By the 1969-1970 era, songs such as "We're Together Again", "Do It Again", "Breakaway", "This Whole World", "All I Want To Do" (Sunflower), "Forever", "Cool Cool Water", "Slip On Through", "It's About Time", "Lady", "Sound Of Free", "Till I Die" and "Big Sur" (first version) were meeting your specifications exactly.  The group, especially Dennis and Carl, filled the void as Brian began to withdraw, but his guiding spirit is unmistakably there.  The work was not always released in the most commercially sensible way, but 1967-70 was a period of sustained brilliance that rivals everything that went before.  It's a pity that there were few sympathetic listeners.

I think the homemade production WAS, as you state, a let down. It's personal taste, of course, but I think Brian's music suffered when he eased out of the Western/Sunset Sound/Wrecking Crew mode of recording and moved into the simpler, home studio style. While I can appreciate parts of Wild Honey and Friends, I still prefer the "full blown" BW productions. Do you think the listening public did too?

The period of 1967-70 certainly did contain some worthwhile music. But I think it's a stretch, even as a faithful diehard, to say it was SUSTAINED brilliance, rivaling everything before. Rivaling Today, Pet Sounds, Good Vibrations?

Besides agreeing with every word of that- "Darlin' " and "Breakaway" were about the only tracks of that later Capitol period that rose to the full heights of the earlier productions for me personally*- I don't think they ever got back to the level of All Summer Long- an underrated early plateau.

* O.K., throw in "I Went To Sleep" and "Time To Get Alone".  I like a lot of stuff off of those albums, and love some of it, but the "Salt Lake City" gloss of perfection is missing for me.

But wasn't it the quest for studio perfection in the Smile period that brought Brian to creative breakdown in the first place?  I think Brian was suffering from a lack of discipline, but it wasn't limited to the home studio.  In the professional studio he eventually had too much freedom to rework obsessively and become unable to make decisions.  Did the listening public prefer the full blown stuff?  Probably it did, but a rawer style was becoming fashionable in the late 60s  e.g. Music From Big Pink, John Wesley Harding, White Album.   The Beach Boys might have been able to sell Wild Honey as their "Big Pink" with better PR.  I think Friends is a pretty damn good production.  It's instrumentally sparse in places, but it has all of the old vocal warmth.


The band never released another album as consistently good as Pet Sounds before or after 1966.  Sunflower comes quite close and I would say it's a better album song for song than Today or Summer Days.  For me, the frequency and magnitude of the highpoints are comparable in both eras.

Pet Sounds didn't sell that well, and it hurt Brian deeply, according to his mother, Marilyn, and others around him.  Since the lack of success of PS didn't sink in until Smile was already under way, don't you think that had some influence on how that album proceeded in the end?

You also can't dismiss the influence of the Monkees controversy.  There was a big hoo-ha when it was revealed that the Monkees didn't play on their own records.  It seems stupid now, but apparently is was important then, especially since all acts were compared to the Beatles.  The direction the Beach Boys went in was a good approach for the times, and I don't think Brian's earlier approach would have gotten them more airplay when it would sound incongruous next to what was being played on the radio 1967  and beyond.

I think the Beach Boys were concerned about Brian's overall self-indulgence and lack of discipline in the studio, starting with the sessions for "Good Vibrations."  There really was no reason GV to have tracked that many sessions, and when you listen to the outtakes, it becomes apparent that Brian seemed to be trying to do variations on a theme, most of which were never intended to make it onto the final record.  Smile has bits that are similarly experimental.  Brian wanted to stretch and perhaps attempt to make serious music, but it seemed more for his own thing and not clearly meant just to make a chart-bound Beach Boys record.  He was very prolific and efficient prior to that, with some experimentation and variations, but not on the scale of Smile and "Good Vibrations."  The Beach Boys didn't necessarily have faith in "Good Vibrations" in any form; even Brian had some doubts about it.  It probably was considered a lucky fluke that it was such a huge hit.  "Heroes and Villains" is actually a fairly good, stylistically consistent follow-up to GV, but it just didn't get the airplay, never got very high even in the home market of LA, and fell off quickly.  That was probably the nail in the coffin for Brian's ever being that ambitious again, and IMO, it was dictated more by the changing marketplace than what Brian and the Beach Boys were doing.  They were getting too old for bubblegum (and replaced by new acts with new approaches for the Top 40 kids' market), and were considered poison by the older, hipper fans.  Even the Doors were quickly considered too bubblegum and sell-out for the dopehead hipsters, but too old for the younger kids.

Great points...i like the way you wove the BB's contemporaries into the mix. Very good insight to bring in the true history. Nothing like facts, to make a point.

Except for one thing.....

Pet Sounds DID sell in 1966 and (if Capitol hadn't f***ed the band over) was on tap to be their best selling studio album!

How does one know?

First of all, Pet Sounds was finally certified gold in February 2000 thanks to a subpoena from Melinda Wilson to Capitol Records forcing an audit of all of the sales of Pet Sounds from '66 to 2000.

However, by the time that Brian was given his Gold album after the Roxy shows, Pet Sounds was already certified PLATINUM! ow's that posible? Simple, the Capitol bean counters had found unreported record sales - from 1966. Pet Sounds DID sell enough to have gone gold in '66, it WASN'T a "flop" (how can a Top Ten album be called a "flop"?), and it was on track to be a HUGE album for the BB. So can we stop repeating the myth that Pet Sounds "just didn't sell"?

Thank you!

Alright!!! Alright!!!
                   The Pet Sounds Conspiracy, i knew it,man...................................this stuff'll Kill Ya

That's INSANE!

But did Brian think it sold all that well back in 1966?  No.  Did he have to face the reality then that Capitol was pushing a greatest hits collection at the expense of promoting PS?  Yes.  Did his first attempt at a solo release not do very well (Caroline, No)?  Yes.  Did his own mom and his first wife say he was devastated by the weaker showing of PS, relative to earlier BB releases?  Yes.   Other music acts would have been glad to have a "bomb" like PS on their hands, but it wasn't good enough for the expectations that Brian had built.  He also faced resistance from Capitol prior to the album being released.  Brian had a lot of reasons to be a bit less confident during the time Smile was being created.  The fact that PS has done well in back catalog sales and his current wife had sales audited to vindicate her husband wasn't a whole lot of help to Brian in 1966/67.

How many copies did Pet Sounds sell in its first year of release? Approximately. More than 500,000 copies?

These were 1966 Brian Wilson-produced singles along with their peak chart positions:

Barbara Ann            - peaked at #2
Sloop John B            - peaked at #3
Wouldn't It Be Nice  - peaked at #8
Good Vibrations       - peaked at #1

Pet Sounds (album) - peaked at #10

First, I would consider all of these HIT RECORDS. Second, it proves that Brian COULD/DID COMPETE in the marketplace in 1966. Third, it DOES NOT SHOW that he/they were fading. And four, if Brian lost confidence based on the listening public's acceptance of the above music, then there really was nothing that could be done for Brian's "condition", because, based on the competition in 1966, you couldn't do much better than that.

If Brian would've come up with something even remotely "accessible" in late 1966 or early 1967, I see no reason why it would not have been another big success...  

In the American Band documentory Carl said "it didnt seem appropriate at the time" which is probably what he felt. It also shows Al with a weird expression on his face talking to Carl and both looked uncomfortable to me. They didnt seem to understand what was going on. Then Mike knods his head no, simulating smoking a joint while trying to dance along to "Fire" He also gives someone a look that seems to say "this sucks".

Then maybe I'm just confused as to why Marilyn and Audree said that Brian was devastated by the "failure" of Pet Sounds. 

It's just another subjective thing, fm- or a matter of words.  Pet Sounds was obviously not a failure in 1966, whether based on the information they had then or the additional information we have now.  However, the response was disappointing to Brian.  It was a failure by some standard of his own,  probably processed through a personal nature that was steeped in severe depression.

The same is probably true for his perception of the response of the other band members to his work- his state of mind was such that he needed a lot of validation and support, so even a lukewarm or mixed response may have amounted to outright hostility in his own reality. Even a little heat was probably more than he could take. He was no longer equal to the pressure and no one around him seemed to know it.

This was not filmed at the fire-sessions, as I understand. Dennis probably filmed it, and those guys who did the documentary put "Fire" on it, because Brian wears that fire helmet, which he did not only during "Fire"...

I think that under-promotion of PS by Capitol is another fallacy. In my experience you can find as many or more examples of ads for Pet Sounds than BoBB or any other BB album of the time including a 4 full page trade ad.  Has any one seen a four page gatefold trade ad for any other 1966 group or album?  Pet Sounds also had 3 of its songs [almost a quarter of the album] in heavy rotation on national radio.

Which other sessions did Brian wear a fire hat?  I always thought that it was exclusively the sessions for Fire...maybe H&V intro session?

double post

Why was Mike wearing a fire helmet too? Also Brian is seen closing his eyes and jamming to music whatever it is, but they appeared to be listening to some Smile track, judging by Mike's expressions. I also remember Brian saying he liked to space out when listening to Fire even though noone in the band liked it very much. That looks alot like what happens in this video.

I like Al's giving the finger in the video. That's classic Al.

I am not sure, but that's what I heard. The Beach Boys weren't there for the Fire-Sessions, I believe they weren't even in town (maybe on tour?).
Brian did wear those helmets alot during the Smile-sessions. Dennis brought him some from Europe, when they were on tour here. He even used this "fire-thing" on the promo-video to "Good Vibrations".  The Fire-Session was the one where all the studio-musicians had to wear those helmets, but like I said, Brian ore them quite often. Again, this is what I have heard, I wasn't there, so....

These "sessions" were just for a video. They may have been recordng at the same time but it I think they are merely outtakes from the "Good Vibes" video which was aired in 1966 and recently found. Pet Sounds did do well and was promoted but Best Of The Beach Boys was released too early. The songs on the US version weren't well chosen compared to the UK one. One story is that Best Of The Beach Boys was sometimes sent by "accident" to stores who ordered "Pet Sounds". Frankly Captiol had a right to put out a hits LP, but they should of released so it wouldn't conflict with new product. At least the pictures on it were modern.

If they sold them as a double package they would've got way more sales.

"COMPARE the old to the new. Hear your favorite hits and new songs from PET SOUNDS. Buy both today! and hear America's fastest evolving musical act sweeping up the world!".

Puh-leeze...i think not...Capitol did not stand behind Pet Sounds, i'll always believe that

Well, as it has been said, they did take out several big ads for it...

"The most progressive pop album ever! It's fantastic!"

Olivio....i know your just comin' on cause you're guilty, so
   why don't you just go put on a Hairy Nillson record, and Shut the f*** UP, already!!!!!

just kiddin'.

It's interesting that trade ads are mentioned, because my understanding is how much money you spend on advertising in the trades influences chart position, or at least it used to.  It was a form of payola, in a sense.   PS chart position may have been influenced by the costly ads, so it might have been selling less well than the other LP's around it on the chart that didn't have as much ad money spent on them.  Plus, the public didn't see the ads, only industry insiders.  How PS was sold to the general public is more relevant, and the information generally included in the BB history books is that the Greatest Hits collection was given a stronger in-store push than PS.  It also charted higher.  PS was also a disappointment when compared to the performance of "Summer Days" and other BB LPs shortly before it, most of which made the Top 5.  It might seem like a small thing, but since Brian was self-critical, not to mention criticized by Murry, if his records didn't reach the top, it might have influenced his feelings at the time.  Marilyn's quote is in the Badman book, as well as Bruce Johnston and the vice-president of promotion at Capitol, and all indicated that PS promotion and chart performance were a disappointment to the BB and Brian, even though it at least reached the Top 10 of LP's.

I'll Stand By You

I never understood why Capitol was worried about Pet Sounds. I mean, at that time they usually took just two singles from an album, so two songs with hit potential should've been enough for them. And Pet Sounds had Wouldn't It Be Nice, God Only Knows, Sloop John B and Caroline No...

I suppose because someone thinks something it doesn't mean it's true and vice versa.

It was several years ago and it would take a month to find it [if at all] but I recall Billboard's album charts for 1966 showing Pet Sounds as 1 of only 35 [+ or - ?] albums to break #10 that year.

Absolutely.  Did Pet Sounds do well?  Did Capitol promote it enough?  These are subjective questions with no correct or incorrect answers.

What we can probably say safely is that Capitol wasn't thrilled with it- if their response to Brian is accurately reported- and that Brian was disappointed with the sales. To say that it truly failed or succeeded commercially invites argument either way.

If it can be shown that Capitol intentionally pursued a policy of pushing the lame Greatest Hits album at Pet Sounds' expense- and there seems to be at least some evidence for that- then you have another story.

It's human nature to try to make a story simple and clear, without a lot of grey area, but life is usually a bit more ambiguous than that.  It reminds me of art school, when we all circled around the model in drawing class.  When you got up and walked around the room, you saw the same person in the same pose from twenty different angles, with twenty different impressions: some more accurate, some more insightful.  There are many different truths.

It doesn't matter if it did better than most albums by most acts, it didn't do well for a Beach Boys album compared to past album chart positions.  If the Beatles' had an album that landed at #9, after having a string of #1's, don't you think it would have been regarded as a disappointment?  Not to mention evidence of an act on the way down.  There was no precedent for acts having multi-year runs at the top of the charts.  Any sign of weakness or diminishing of sales would be perceived by the act itself, the record label, and by outsiders as signs of slippage and the potential for falling out of fashion.   None of that was lost on Brian, who seemed to have kept track of both chart positions and  money matters, if you believe some of his remarks over the years.  He was also keenly aware of the competition, and could probably name every album ahead of PS in the charts.  We're not talking about some act from Podunk just breaking out and grateful to be that far up, but an established act and leader with a fierce sense of competition.

Thats right, Marie, no retreat,baby...no surrender!!!
You are my Shinin' Star

Personally, as someone who watched IJWMFTT recently, I thought Carl was lying too. Just the way he said it, it didn't sound very enthusiastic, just him being able to read the room. (You dont go on a documentary about someone and trash their work, you don't admit to disappointed fans you're part of the reason something didn't come out.) Carl, I think, was kind of more Mike-like than a lot of fans give him credit for. I think he was shrewd, commercial-oriented, not a particularly gifted songwriter and "political" (IE fake, strategic). Something about him kinda rubs me the wrong way I can't totally put my finger on, like he was just as entitled as Mike but had better PR.

I've never gotten this vibe from Carl. But I have long had the sense that Carl felt pretty burned by his relationship with Brian by the 80s and 90s. And I get it. To have a beloved brother you looked up to as a kid and young adult, who then struggles big time with drugs and mental illness and basically loses control of his life and checks out, is going to be really hard for anyone. On top of that, to have to live your entire professional life in that person's shadow (however extraordinary the life you got from it!) can't have been easy. I don't think you need Carl to not have liked the music to get this kind of ambivalent reaction, when Smile would have been tied up in so much complicated family, personal, and professional drama from his own life. Smile’s failure was a major turning point in Brian Wilson’s life. But it was also just as big a turning point in Carl Wilson’s life, except Carl had had no control over it and probably hadn’t even really understood what was happening while it was happening.

Based on the surviving evidence that I've seen, I think it's possible Carl was ambivalent about the material all along, that he didn't get it in the 60s but came to appreciate it later, or that he loved it in the 60s and grew ambivalent over time. But frankly, and in stark contrast to the speculation on the first page of this thread, I think maybe the last version sounds the most plausible to me. That while Smile was happening, Carl was maybe worried a little about how they would do it live, and about Brian's mental state, but was also really excited about what Brian was doing musically. But as Smile became this complicated, painful part of the band's legacy, his opinion became more ambivalent.

The main thing I get from reading some of these resurrected threads is how unbelievably obnoxious were several "fans".

I may've been a little too harsh, but it seems to be my way where I over-emphasize a point if I feel it's been ignored for too long. I just think he's often put on a pedestal for dying young (not diminishing the tragedy of that) and for his public role as "the peacemaker." As a fan, I can't have been in his shoes during all the craziness, but sometimes it feels like he sold out his brothers' and the band's integrity to be commercial. I get it, it's his livelihood, but he had no right to essentially guilt/force Brian to stay in the band and do things he didn't want to do. It's understood by a lot of the non-band primary sources that Brian wanted to and should've gone solo, so I don't believe Carl was ignorant of these aspirations which he squashed time and again. With Carl, my reading of the material is he constantly pressured Brian to be productive again while simultaneously dumping on his output. That had to be straight up torturous for Brian, an unspoken reason he was so depressed and dysfunctional. There were absolutely hurt feelings on Brian's side,  even bluntly stated in interviews, but it gets dismissed as "oh that's just Landy's influence" when I think he was genuinely venting.

The Mt Vernon thing is a perfect example--it's like, Carl, he isn't into the hard rock vibe like you. You want him to make music, you take what he gives you and say "thank you" or leave him alone. As far as I recall, Carl was part of the Redwood incidents too, and wouldn't even record the Paley stuff out of some feigned concern trolling when really, I suspect, the reason is bitterness. (By then, Carl felt burned by things Brian said during the Landy years. I never got that far in WIBN but I've seen 80s interviews and I don't think Brian was being unfair there.) I just think Carl's hands aren't totally clean, he let Brian get bullied around, but unlike Mike he knows when to keep his mouth shut (and died tragically young, and had the best voice) so the fans give him a pass. That's the record I felt the need to correct when I wrote my comment.


I personally think he didn't particularly like it, not as overtly hostile as Mike (I think Mike, for all his faults, was at least man enough to say what the other guys were thinking to Brian's face) but then recognized its commercial potential soon after. Carl, I think, was the weakest songwriter of the Wilsons BY FAR but still had instincts enough to tell which way the wind was blowing by 1968. I think Carl realized they missed the boat, hence 20/20 and Surf's Up. But I don't think he really liked the material, just realized "hey it turns out having a weird psychedelic album was the thing to do in '67 after all!" He certainly didn't "love it" or there'd be quotes like Dennis', or primary sources saying "Carl was his biggest supporter/defended it" like they say for Dennis. We can't know for certain, that's just my impression.

I may be too harsh in my characterization but Im trying to swing the pendulum back a bit, I guess. What a lot of people call "playing the peacemaker" I call "playing politics" and "being two-faced." Like, right here, he's acting as if he were Brian's supporter all along when he was dumping on the Paley stuff at the exact time this interview was filmed. He didn't "learn his lesson" and was behaving in a manner contrary to the image he wants to present to the viewing audience. I call that disingenuous, and I see that behavior a lot with Carl. (People can say there were extenuating circumstances in the '90s but I say bull--Carl just never expected the Paley drama to go public.) Carl acted entitled to Brian's creative output while dissing it all through the 70s and that really rubs me the wrong way. If you're gonna shackle your bro to a failing band he's clearly outgrown, that wouldn't even exist if not for him, you should play his songs and be thankful for his effort. But I guess easier said than done.

Yea, I see what you're saying on all this. And I totally get what you mean about making your point in a strong way because you're trying to move the pendulum. You really do have to do that if you want to shift how people think about something!

This seems like a pretty uncharitable read of Carl based on a lot of mistruths. The most negative reaction I've ever heard of him giving to Brian's music in the 60s and 70s might be an initial "Huh?" (understandably) before coming around and working hard to see it finished. Many of these attitudes he supposedly had were either nuanced human situations in reality or just not things that he even said or did at all.

Im open to being schooled on what I said that's untrue if you have the time, but I understand if its not something you wanna get bogged down in either. I acknowledge he was in a tough spot too, Carl, watching his bro that everyone relied on fall apart. But from what I can see, Brian had outgrown the guys and wanted to go solo--his friends could see it, and I think this is part of why they were pushed out. Also there was clearly a lot of hurt on both sides in the 80s and 90s and I dont think that came from nowhere; I also think blaming it solely on Landy is a convenient scapegoat, not that he doesn't deserve a mountain of blame and ridicule for his own actions. In a lot of Beach Boy retrospectives it feels like the band is divided into two camps--the Wilsons and the Squares, with Carl either on the "cool kids" side or playing mediator. I think some of that is understandable--Brian and Dennis were out of control by the late seventies--but I also think he played a not insignificant part in getting them to that point. If Brian had been allowed to branch out and Dennis' contributions more respected, actually included over Mike and Al's mediocre songs on albums--I'm willing to bet they wouldn't have spiraled as badly as they did.

Im not nearly as much an expert as others, so I'll admit I could be wrong. But this is where I stand now based on the evidence I've seen. That's probably the nicest way I can express my feelings on Carl's mixed legacy. (They ALL have mixed legacies, of course. Carl never offered his own kid drugs or had sex with his cousin's much younger daughter out of spite.)

"With Carl, my reading of the material is he constantly pressured Brian to be productive again while simultaneously dumping on his output." - I'm wondering what would even inform that impression of him and their working relationship. When are we talking? 60s? 70s? 90s? Aside from his public dejection about the way 15 Big Ones turned out (which he produced the mixdown of, uncredited), where does this idea come from?

Mount Vernon - I mean, Carl co-produced that whole thing side by side with Brian, assembled the edit, and he's the reason it was ever actually completed at all. Not understanding how that would be an example of Carl not supporting Brian's music.

"Like, right here, he's acting as if he were Brian's supporter all along when he was dumping on the Paley stuff at the exact time this interview was filmed." - This whole thing sits somewhere between a wild exaggeration perpetuated on forums and a total falsehood. And anyway, the Beach Boys reunion sessions happened in November 1995. You're talking about an interview Carl shot in August 1994, where he's repeating the same sentiments that he expressed in numerous other interviews throughout his life. I would recommend reading the interview he gave to Geoffrey Himes in 1983 included in Kingsley Abbott's Back to the Beach. If you want to get a sense of what Carl actually thought about the music he recorded as a Beach Boy, that's the place to start.

As usual the truth sits somewhere in the middle, but Carl's actions and decisions are not infallible either in some of these cases. I'm not out to drag Carl at all, but I do feel in some instances the pendulum of hindsight has swung too far as to not include some of the things Julia mentioned, and to suggest Carl was the great peacemaker and stood the high ground.

As far as examples - and I've both dug up and researched and heard directly some of these cases (some not for publication) - I go to the one right after Brian got "free" of the Landy situation and was working most with Don Was and Andy Paley. Brian told Don the one thing he wanted to do was get back to making music with his band. He had a collection of songs and demos for them, as we all know. Brian invited "his band" to come listen to what he had for them. And no one showed up. They ghosted him, in today's slang.

Now of course there can be many reasons, many excuses...but at that specific time, when interest in Brian particularly was gaining a lot of steam in fan circles outside the normal nostalgia Beach Boys circuit, and when there was a palpable momentum for something to happen, when Brian emerges from all of the bullshit he was dealing with and was "free", and he says he has new original songs for the Beach Boys, that's pretty big news, right? At least give him some respect and come to his invited listening party...but they didn't. Carl didn't. And eventually it was Carl who put the kibosh on Soul Searchin and the other Wilson-Paley tracks they had at least begun working on.

Also keep in mind, this was at a time when the Beach Boys could not beg, borrow, or steal a record deal, and they had little or nothing in the tank as far as something original to offer for a deal. Brian as much as said this in interviews from that time, where he says flat out I want to help the guys get a deal. And whatever Carl and the others didn't feel right about caused them to stumble around and eventually decide to go with Mike's idea to bring in Joe Thomas and do the country covers/tribute record instead of new music.

I have the full article where that case is described, I've posted many other examples here in the past and would just need to dig them up. In case anyone thinks it's not true, it did happen, and that's just scraping the surface. When Brian said he wanted to make music with his band again, he was rejected in favor of a series of ideas that were questionable at best, ridiculous at worst.

I'll cite as well another long-form interview published where Brian briefly gets into the brother and family dynamic between him and Carl in the 90's, and even in a few statements the sense of anger and hurt comes through pretty clear. Again I think Brian was hurt by some of Carl's actions, and vice versa. But it wasn't a case of one person being the infallible high ground of morality and peacemaking that the telling of the story sometimes suggests. There was much more to it in the 90's than what meets the eye, and again some of it is not for publication.

Consider too that there is a difference between working on the fairy tale music in 1972 and Brian being told "no" repeatedly throughout the 90's, after Landy was out of the picture.

As ever, it's a deeply nuanced situation where the personal relationships and working dynamics do and don't clash. Nobody would deny that Brian and Carl had a difficult time with each other in the post-Landy years. It's the idea that Carl was being disingenuous in the Was interview and in his general attitude about Brian's music that I think just isn't a fair or accurate characterisation of the guy.

The oft repeated accusation that Carl hated Brian's new tunes and shut down the Beach Boys reunion sessions is such a puzzling thing when you actually get down to what's been said about it. Because, well... he just didn't.

The Baywatch Nights session was a one-off in March '95. According to Andy, he thought the session with Carl and Mike had gone well, until afterwards Brian announced without explanation that he'd hated the experienced and never wanted to do it again. The "Beach Boys are trying to destroy me" interview appeared a few months down the line. I'm not refreshed on whether the snubbed listening invite happened in '94 or '95, but again according to Andy, there was a listening session with Carl at Don Was' house in 1995 where Carl reacted very favourably to the material. Only two days at Ocean Way were booked in November as a test to see if the group would get on with each other, which they apparently did, aside from a slightly strange atmosphere around Mike, who arrived on his lonesome on the second afternoon. Eyewitnesses (Mike Harris, Cindy Lee Berryhill, Andy Paley, Matt Jardine) all describe an enthusiastic atmosphere with Carl upbeat, professional, and down to sing whatever Brian wanted however he wanted it.

Nothing further was planned, but the thought was that the sessions might move to Don Was' Chomsky Ranch studio on the proviso that he coordinate their schedules. He didn't, and in Don's own memory of what happened next (via Mark Dillon's book), a month passed before he told Brian that the material wasn't up to snuff, and that he should write better songs before they work on an album. Brian's enthusiasm obviously evaporated at that, and the situation never came up again. The group had already committed to Stars & Stripes at that point (started beforehand, in October '95) and by early 1996 were in Nashville working with Joe Thomas. Brian and Melinda put the blame on Carl for changing his tune and deciding Soul Searchin' wasn't commercial enough some amount of time after the fact, but clearly whenever this conversation took place it was already a non-starter. Bruce was gunning for the group to work with Sean O'Hagan and Melinda was gunning for Brian to focus on a solo album with Joe Thomas. Carl certainly didn't shut a project in progress down, and it isn't a situation where you can assign blame to any one person. Don Was, if someone has to take the fall.

Damn, talk about believing something and then finding out it just... didn't happen that way!

So sad about Don Was. I mean, I guess in general the whole point of working with someone like Don Was is that he'll tell it to you straight. But in this case, a real shame... Though that said, if Brian was that fragile about it I guess it would have taken an actual miracle to get an entire Beach Boys album recorded.

Are there any contemporary or retrospective interviews that go into this, out of curiosity ?

In other words, Don Was told poor Brian not to "mess" with the formula.

In recent years, there seems to be a trend among some fans to think/say "Carl wasn't as good as people said he was" - meaning, "he didn't always support Brian 100%." Because that's what certain fans want from the "other" Beach Boys. Brian (and to a lesser extent, Dennis) was the real talent in the group, and the other guys should have just done what Brian told them to do without question. I mean, those guys would all be stuck in Hawthorne pumping gas if not for the genius (except for Dennis, who would have become an alt/indie star).
I guess it was inevitable that this would happen. For many, many years, we heard nothing but good things about Carl - how kind and thoughtful he was, how supportive he was, how he kept the warring factions from killing each other; "Carl was the rock that kept the Beach Boys together".
Well, maybe Todd Gold's portrayal of Carl as an uncaring drunk in "Wouldn't it Be Nice" was true. That's not how I see him, but maybe I'm guilty of putting him up on pedestal.

The relevant passage from Mark Dillon's 50 Sides of the Beach Boys, for anyone curious:  “The first day we had a full band there and Brian went around the room and told everyone what to play and cut the tracks. He was confident. And the next day The Beach Boys came in and did all the vocal parts. Everybody got along and it was a lovely couple of days. There wasn’t a tense moment and the results were pretty good. We did the cuts and lived with them for a month. Then I went to Brian’s house and told him, ‘This shows that a great Beach Boys record could be made, but I think you could write better songs. Let’s do better songs and finish this record.’ He said, ‘Yeah, I agree with you.’ And then Carl was sick and it just never happened. The situation never came up again and I had to live with my role in stopping the momentum. Maybe I should have just kept the momentum going instead of worrying about making a worthy successor to Pet Sounds.”

It isn't as if Was is the devil here, or did anything that would usually be considered unhelpful, but knowing Brian's history of course it put the brakes on his enthusiasm. Whatever Carl expressed about turning on Soul Searchin' specifically, how is that project going to keep moving if the producer himself doesn't want to use the songs Brian's been collecting for the past half decade? It isn't, especially not when they've already signed onto this country album deal that involves flying out to Nashville in a couple of months. Add Bruce and the alternate Sean O'Hagan album pitch to the mix too, then Brian basically hopped straight from that situation to working with Joe Thomas in Chicago. There's a prevailing sense that it could've continued if Was had told them, here's what we're doing next, when and where, but the iron didn't stay hot for long enough.

For a window into the atmosphere on day 2 of the Searchin'/Mystery vocal sessions, visiting engineer Mike Harris did what nobody else ever thought to do after watching the Beach Boys in the studio: sit down on camera two days later and describe everything he saw in detail. https://youtu.be/K8qm6r4-wKg?si=CPM9Oj1GCOCdO6F9

It's inevitably how things go, yes. Movements start, they push too far, the pendulum swings. I'm just a stickler for nuance myself. I hate this black and white thinking that seems to permeate so much of our society, where if you criticize anyone for anything at anytime you're a hater. This whole idea that my bringing up some of Carl's shortcomings means I'm a believer in WIBN "Carl's a drunk asshole" is ridiculous. I'm not a one-dimensional Brianista who thinks he or people in his camp did no wrong either. Brian was a bad leader during the SMiLE years and alienated EVERYONE with his actions. He, more than Mike, Anderle or VDP is responsible for that project's death because he refused to communicate effectively or delegate. I have criticized Melinda's tactics managing him and his career. (Just for saying that again, I'm probably inviting a tongue lashing.) Not all of Brian's ideas were golden and sometimes the other guys did great things without him. Yadda yadda yadda.

It's not that I think the other guys should've been his slaves and submit to his will on everything forever, at least not in a vacuum. It's that they wanted to have their cake and eat it too (at least as far as I can tell). They wouldn't let him branch out and be a solo artist or independent producer as he clearly wanted--nearly all the non-band primary sources from the Pet Sounds / SMiLE era I've seen say as much--without a massive guilt trip. They literally interrupted studio sessions to berate him into submission in front of others, making him cry and feel publicly humiliated. How is that ok? Why does that get brushed under the rug because "they're family/why you hate the other BBs, you Brianista!?" It's messed up, they stifled his creative and professional ambitions to remain their meal ticket because they knew they couldn't have done it without him--at least not until CATP:ST or Holland. (I go that far into the future because even Sunflower and SU were dependent on SMiLE leftovers--the latter used it as its main marketing push!) I didn't even realize until this summer that they took the recording equipment from his home studio when they toured so he couldn't surprise them with another PS/SMiLE ever again! That's straight up dystopian if you ask me--it's his house!!

And even if we let that go because "hey its just family drama / you'd do the same thing in their shoes" ok, but then you better use his material without complaint. You're claiming monopoly on his output, use it or lose it. But did they do that? No! Even without the previous examples, Mike belittled Til I Die (by far the highlight of SU) as a "downer" and they accused Brian of writing a drug song. The guy was pouring his heart out, arguably delivering a not so veiled cry for help and they just sh*t all over it. Do you have any idea how stifling that is for a creative person to be put in an ideological box indefinitely: no sad songs (our fans want fun!) no complex arrangements (we gotta play it live!) no new genres (Endless Summer sold like hotcakes!) no outside collaborators (Mike might get jealous!). That may not be "getting beat up" level abuse (oh whoops, they subjected him to that too!) but it's certainly emotional abuse, which I'd argue is more insidious. That's the kinda thing that can consume a man's soul and make him give up on life--like, get 300lbs and waste away on drugs level giving up. (Yeah, Murry and other factors contributed but I'll die on the hill if Brian could've honestly expressed his muse from '67 to '74 he would've been better off psychologically.) Marilyn outright states the other guys wore him down into submission--is she a BB hater too?

This attitude that all I want from the other BBs is to be Brian's puppets isn't true. By all means, contribute your own material if you've got it--it's just that they so rarely did. I really like Holland so they eventually found their footing without him but that's one album. CATP:ST has its moments. I like Dennis' stuff and even enjoy some of Bruce's like Tears in the Morning (goes on too long tho) and Nearest Faraway Place (the outro is diabetes tho). But yeah, I'm not gonna pretend I love Carl's lackluster songs or Al's ode to foot care just to put up a front of being unbiased. People don't talk up Dennis out of peer pressure or whatever you're implying, it's that he showed with POB that he could bring the goods on his own. Carl, Mike and Al never had that, and I don't see it in their contributions to the late '60s thru mid '70s output either. This isn't being mean, this isn't "you're not Brian," it's brutal honesty. I know we all love this band and want to pretend they were a big happy family, that they belonged together always and forever, but real life is complicated and people outgrow each other. David Leaf definitely overstated his case but he didn't stumble on the premise of "Brian and the 5 assholes" from nowhere. The group clearly took Brian for granted and he was too passive to stand up for himself. I don't think it does any good to sweep that very real issue under the rug just because it makes the other guys look less than perfect.

I'm sure the others would've been successful at something else without Brian--hardly pumping gas 50 years on--but they wouldn't have made a record deal in '61-'62 without him. They wouldn't have become the top American band without his production and songwriting talents. Absolutely not and to argue otherwise is wishful thinking. This shouldn't be a controversial take against the fantastical "everyone deserves equal credit because that makes me feel good" line of thinking. It's the cold hard fact of a brutal industry--you need a unique secret sauce to stand out in a crowded field of hungry artists and Brian was theirs. And yes, obviously Mike's talent for writing hooks, Carl's voice, Dennis' sex appeal and Al were big parts of their success too...but let's not act like it wasn't Brian who got their foot in the door and put them above the other flash in the pan pop stars. Lots of guys off the street could write catchy lyrics or look good on stage, but nobody--even 60 years later--could write the melodies and arrangements to something like GV.

If Brian was so incidental that they would've made it without him, they would've...made it without him. They tried and it didn't work. His old melodies rereleased outshone anything they'd done in 7 years with minimal (or diminished) contribution from him. If Carl and the others were such perfect angels that their actions were beyond reproach, why would so many outside parties who've looked at this band (from authors to Marilyn to Anderle) take issue with how they've treated Brian through the years? Could it be possible that there's a grain of truth to their misgivings? Naw, everyone's just out to slander them for no reason. That makes more sense.

Funnily enough, this is what he told the Rolling Stones around the same time... At least according to Jagger, talking about Voodoo Lounge in 1995, "... there were a lot of things that we wrote for Voodoo Lounge that Don steered us away from: groove songs, African influences and things like that. And he steered us very clear of all that. And I think it was a mistake"

I don't disagree with you, here, but I don't think the question at issue is whether the other Beach Boys needed Brian to be successful in the music industry (they obviously did!), or whether the band and band dynamic as a whole was bad for Brian post-1967 (I think that's also pretty obvious, personally). It's whether Carl supported Brian musically. I certainly don't think Carl was a saint, and I think the band dynamic in the 70s was obviously toxic in some respects, and by the late 70s probably all respects. And frankly no one is innocent in that; they were all adults, and family is complicated. I think where you're getting the most push back is the idea that Carl didn't like or support Brian's new direction during Smile, which is something on which, so far as I can tell, we have basically no documentation. And secondarily, whether Carl supported Brian musically in the 70s and 90s. Like many fans, I've always considered Carl's work on the fairy tale in the early 70s and Love You in the late 70s to be signs of genuine support and an effort to support Brian musically, and you haven't presented any evidence to the contrary, beyond your sense that it was a shitty situation and Brian would have been better off without the rest of the band or with a very different attitude from the rest of the band as a whole. And again, I agree, but I also think it's not reasonable to think Carl Wilson could have solved those problems from his position. He couldn't control Mike's actions, and I guess he could have broken up the band, but not without blowing up his own life and everyone around him's.

Consider that Don Was had been hired to produce on almost all the Rolling Stones albums released since Voodoo Lounge, including the original albums, live albums, and compilations. And they were pretty successful. So Mick may have had some nitpicking to air on Voodoo Lounge, but that album was a success and they brought Don back to produce over the past 30 years again and again and he gave them respectable sales and even some critical acclaim in return.

That's generally what he's known for - making albums that sell and are well-received especially with "legacy artists". He knows the biz. 

Thank you for adding those details. I do think though that some of the scenes in question are being conflated into other issues, and some points mentioned that were more isolated cases, like the whole Baywatch Nights debacle.

I think trying to "blame" Don Was in these cases is similar to those who try to blame or assign more weight to one factor over others for the collapse of Smile in '67. It's not possible to do so because of so many external influences and other moving parts.

There are several very strong undercurrents running at this time in the band's and Brian's timeline. Some of them are personal and interpersonal, some are business, and some are just they way things happened in the process. You cannot point a finger at Don Was without pointing another at Carl, and then the rest of the band. Remember The Beach Boys at this point were a corporation. And they were also a group lost in the wilderness desperately trying to get a label deal. They had no original music to offer of any consequence, yet were still basking in the afterglow of the renewed interest in their back catalog Capitol classics, from the box set to the reissues to TV appearances. And yet they couldn't score a new deal and had no songs to speak of in the can to get such a deal. Most deals, I'm fairly certain, hinged on Brian's involvement in the music and his name being attached to any project. Even Joe Thomas had to make deals to get Willie Nelson involved to bring Brian on board, since he was not interested in it otherwise. And in fairness, he did have dozens of songs in reserve if they needed them - which they did.

Now how much power did Don Was have, and what did he think his role was? He originally wanted to work with Brian, and began doing so, cutting original tracks with Paley and Don's regular crew of session cats like Waddy. When Brian became "free", he told Don he wanted to make music with The Boys again. So did that shift Don's role from working with Brian as he wanted to do to working with "The Beach Boys", which is an entirely different set of circumstances. Did Don eventually balk at the group politics and dynamics associated with that, could that have been a factor too? Did Don simply feel that after hearing "The Beach Boys" on songs he had been working up with Brian and Paley that they were not what The Beach Boys needed to make a hit? Maybe good for a Brian solo project, maybe not for what The Beach Boys were looking for?

Then factor in the interpersonal stuff, including the lawsuits (plural), the tensions already in the band without Brian's involvement, and the tension with Brian's return and the past several years of nonsense that went on.

It was not a good time. The details could fill pages. But I think again the family issues and at times turmoil mixed with jealousy and resentment contributed as much to various happenings as anything a producer-for-hire like Don Was could have had an effect. And again I'm curious to hear and speculate whether Don was fully on-board producing the Beach Boys rather than just working with Brian, and whether at any points he may have asked "did I sign up for this?" when it shifted from working with Brian to trying to get The Beach Boys a record deal and back on the charts with new material.

I/we could add much more to this but that's a start.

If Carl and the other Beach Boys were against the SMiLe music as being uncommercial, how the f*** did they find Smiley Smile acceptable? "Hey, we're gonna have a hit single singing about Vegetables with just a bass guitar for backing, and someone chewing on carrots"? It makes no sense to me. How on earth is the "Little Pad" a potential hit? Where are the fun in the sung songs, the cars, the bikinis? The only angle that works on is, "well at least we don't need an orchestra to reproduce this stuff on stage".
I don't know where I have ever dismissed Brian's talent; his record was almost 100%  before Smile (I knock off half a point for whoever thought Ten Little Indians was a good followup to Surfin' Safari). Even in later years, the best songs on Beach Boys albums were often Brian's - whatever they could coax out of him.
Dennis is loved, worshipped, adored for his songwriting, but I don't belong to the cult. I like/love about half of the songs he contributed to Beach Boys albums - Little Bird, Be Still, All I Want to Do, Slip On Through, Got to Know the Woman, It's About Time, Forever, Cuddle Up, Only With You, Baby Blue. That's a pretty good list right there, but I like Carl's songs ever more - Long Promised Road, Feel Flows, Trader, Good Timin' (yeah, he wrote it with Brian), Angel Come Home (sung by Dennis), Full Sail, Keepin the Summer Alive, Livin' with a Heartache, It's Gettin' Late, Where I Belong, Maybe I Don't Know - those are some of my favorite Beach Boys EVER. I know I am supposed to be unbiased, objective; but all I know about music is what I like and what I dislike.

Forget SMiLE, that's the least of my complaints--I even made a point to blame BRIAN for its death if you'll recall. SMiLE was an unfortunate perfect storm, where Mike's conservatism (as a songwriter AND political I'd argue) paired with Anderle's intelligent but unwise BRI legal maneuvering (he should've waited a month or two before pushing Brian--it's not like there was a deadline for this corporate posturing) and VDP's independent career needs (I "blame" him for leaving the first time, in Dec, rather than defend his work but by April I'd take the Warner deal and bail too, absolutely) combined in the increasingly frazzled, paranoid, avoidant, irresponsible, incomprehensible, drug-addled mind of an overgrown child who could barely handle the mounting pressure and responsibilities even with everything else going perfectly let alone all these snags at once.

My main criticisms, which you're conveniently avoiding to address this strawman argument, are the fact that they forced a home studio into his house he couldn't even use without THEIR permission. (So, all the extra expectations of productivity and other people coming and going in YOUR HOUSE at their pleasure, but none of the benefits for you). Also trashing his later efforts, from Til I Die to Mount Vernon, to 15BO to the original Love You to Adult/Child to the Paley Sessions and even suing him during BWPS to piss on that moment of happiness. It's also having him beat up, stalked and physically intimidated by the likes of the Love cousins and Rocky. It's that every primary source (Hutton, Marilyn, Anderle, Vosse, etc) and secondary source (Leaf, Gaines, other authors) say the guys berated him publicly and beat him down. It's that Carl, as I perceive it, is lying decades later in the Don Was documentary rather than own his mistakes. You can't sidestep my whole argument for a cheap "gotcha!"

As for why they recorded Smiley despite it being less commercial (I agree) how should I know? I've been combing over every source there is systematically and can't find an answer. Best I can determine is they were so overdue for a new album (6 months when the work even started on it) there wasn't time to start writing new songs--it was just "what songs do we have and how can we bang them out in the home studio?" I think the decision to record in that weird funky style was absolutely Brian's--he was trying to salvage what he could from SMiLE without the modular style or Wrecking Crew (which was getting annoying: having to book studio time, getting flak for touching the console, for Brother Records they'd have to pay the fees themselves, they were getting criticized for not playing their own instruments, plus Brian legitimately thought other people had listened to the tapes without permission...). When one looks at the change from this context it makes sense, plus I'd argue the radical departure to a minimalist sound was Brian wanting the lack of progress in his sound to appear deliberate not desperate. What's important is, the extenuating circumstances of this one artistic compromise does not mean those other slights from the guys never happened.
 

You sarcastically accused me (or people who share my misgivings) of saying the other guys would've been pumping gas. I said that wasn't true but emphasized that, yeah, they wouldn't have had a career in the record business long enough to even get to make the Carl-led Ricky/Blondie albums without Brian. Hence, they owed it to him to give his material a shot (or, out of gratitude and with respect for his wishes, tell him it's ok to go on and produce Three Dog Night & Spring exclusively or whatever else he might want to do).


Fair enough, I'm the opposite. Different strokes.  :smokin One thing I like about Dennis is he was always in Brian's camp, from the famous SMiLE quotes to as late as his drunken ABC appearance "he's the reason we're all here!"

I know! That was my original point, that the whole point of hiring Don Was in the mid-90s is that he'd help you honor your legacy and be successful at the same time, and the way you do that, in large part, is by not deferring to the artist, having a strong perspective, and not being afraid to call out weak material. Daniel Lanois played a similar role with Dylan, their relationship was creatively contentious but artistically and commercially very successful. I wasn't trying to criticize Was, I was trying to point to the fact that he was doing his job, with Brian Wilson as with the Stones, but with Brian it may not have been the ideal strategy, although we agree that there were a lot of factors in play. I do think hindsight shows that the ideal collaborator for Brian is a Paley or a Scott Bennett, someone whose approach is almost always "yes, and," rather than "no, but," which isn't really how being a star producer works. But I don't think anyone in this thread was trying to blame Was, really, I think we're all just trying to paint a more complex picture, one that places whatever hesitancy Carl may have had in its broader context.

Yeah, Dennis was always in Brian's camp; Carl was not.

It's baffling, and a bit frustrating, how the "evidence" about Carl's relationship to Brian is all over the place, to the point that perfectly reasonable reconstructions have been made with diametrically opposite results.

But... if I think about the Beach Boys' (as a group) relationship to Brian, the view is more clear imho. I agree with Julia. Basically, the BBs leeched on Brian up to a point that they actually damaged him. And I don't think Mike is the only one responsible for that, though he's the main one. Much as it saddens me to say all this.

To be clear, I'm not actually blaming Was as the reason it fell apart, I used that comparison to highlight that he probably shouldered more direct responsibility for the project not going forward than Carl, who can't have been more than another cog in the general vague sputtering out of this thing rather than the arch villain. A lot of conflict and dramatic objections tend to be to put into the telling of what happened here but in my view, after doing a lot of digging, the album basically just crumbled into the rear view under indifference and mismanagement the way a lot of Beach Boys ideas tend to. They all hold responsibility for fumbling the potential. It was plainly a huge failing of them all for not rallying behind an enthusiastic Brian who had material that sounded as good as You're Still a Mystery. While Carl likely didn't help, nobody else lifted a finger to keep it going, and Bruce was actively going out of his way to start them on something else. Don Was probably just undervalued that it took a miracle to get them together in the first place, and they'd need to keep being glued in close proximity under cohesive leadership or it wouldn't happen at all. Joe Thomas, for all the questionable things he did with music, was a "get stuff done" guy who spoke corporate and knew how to maintain the balance. He wasn't taking his time between calls and turning up to places barefoot.

I do think that Don Was wanted to work with the Beach Boys. What he was after was a Pet Sounds 2 for current times, and he said as much in interviews. He envisioned Brian and Mike writing deep stuff about working through their family troubles, probably not songs titled Baywatch Nights. During the IJWMFTT doc shoot in 1994, he was filmed on the phone pitching to Elliott Lott the idea of getting the guys down to a studio and singing parts on one of Brian's new tracks on camera (Proud Mary floated as an option), just to test them working together again and get a positive public image rolling. I think working with Brian was one thing, working on a competent Beach Boys album of Brian Wilson songs was the real ambition. Proud Mary, Wasserman's Trios, and the documentary remakes aside, he had been fairly distant to what Brian and Andy were stacking up in the studio until this came together in November 1995.

Forest for tree here, but I think this is another example casting the Beach Boys as monsters for something that didn't really happen the way you're framing it. Brian begged for a home studio! He went on and on about wanting one of his own for ages. Marilyn and Danny Hutton have both said as much. The original makeshift setup involved a Gates Radio Company console and equipment mostly rented from Wally Heider's that could be used any time of year. Later, for practical reasons, new sound system equipment was developed for the road that could also be multipurpose installed as a more durable setup in the house. Kind of a weird way to do it, sure, but it isn't as if this was designed to constrain and control Brian. He was personally wealthy enough that he could've had a permanent studio built outside of the Beach Boys corporation if he'd wanted. When the equipment was moved out of the house at Marilyn's behest, Brian spent years talking about wishing he had it back.

Now this gets into some of the deeper layers that were a factor during this specific time, and also gets into how the personal issues would have an effect on the music and the band's business. Brian may have wanted a home studio, no doubt he did because he had an ad hoc studio at his previous house with expensive tape machines (including his own 8-track machine) and primitive mixers as early as 1966, we have photo evidence. But when it got into say 1969-70-71 was Brian actually actively using the studio in his house? It did become like a business venture for the band more than a place for Brian to work on his music. He rarely ventured down to the studio when the guys were there working except to occasionally offer a suggestion. Yet he and his wife and kids (key point to come there...) heard what the band was doing.

Picture having two daughters under 5 years old, a wife/mother taking care of them, and all the other issues of being a homeowner. And then you have a studio running at who knows what hours where you'd hear the tracks being recorded and mixed in your own home. What if you needed a break so to speak? Nope, this was the business agreement made with the band/corporation and these guys needed to record.

I'm just thinking that arrangement wore thin after some point, from a personal perspective, and again Brian who had the studio in his house was probably the least involved in actually using it at various points in time during that era.

There was also the situation where I believe it was Mike had invested in some of the road gear, which was also rented out to other acts, so he was collecting rental fees when the band toured with that live sound equipment as well as if it were rented to other acts. Check with Desper on that one...but was Brian getting anything for the use of his house apart from the gear itself, which he didn't personally own outright?

And the personal layer is as simple as imagine raising a family with a baby and toddler and dealing with that, and having musicians coming and going and recording music that you could hear in the house, and that's just on Marilyn's side. With Brian, if he were 22 again and super competitive and brimming with ideas to put his band on the top of the charts, he'd be in that studio cutting tracks whenever he wanted. By 1969 that simply wasn't the case, and yes he DID agree to the business arrangement for the studio, but man that probably got old pretty quick if there was little or no break from music being made in that studio and people coming and going when Brian wasn't even directly involved.

Just raising that as one issue out of many where the personal and the business/music intersected, perhaps negatively, and how what seemed like a good idea could turn sour.

Point being, maybe Brian loved the idea of having a studio setup like that in his house, but the reality and everyday issues surrounding that reality weren't as great as the concept and they were a few years too late in the execution.

Yes, and just for the record I remember all of this stuff trickling out into the music press in 95 and 96, and I still have "Pulse!" magazine, Tower Records' in-house magazine from November 1995, Brian and Van Dyke on the cover promoting Orange Crate Art. That's where there was a sidebar article about Don Was working with Brian and describing how he told them how uplifting it would be to write a song about about the truths of their lives and family, etc...and they came back with Baywatch Nights.

I've posted that article or at least clips/scans of sections on this board in past years, not sure if they're still accessible, but I'd highly recommend looking for that Pulse! issue Nov. 1995 for the interview. That is also where Brian tells about the Boys not returning his calls and not showing up for the listening party he had invited them to, and it says Brian was hurt by this (obviously!).

Similarly, I have Mix magazine March 1996 where Brian is interviewed by "Bonzai", invited by Don Was to the studio where Don's crew was recording with Brian and Andy, to photograph and interview Brian. That article has some neat descriptions of the recording process Don was helming at the time, and how Don and the guys were cutting the tracks live and sometimes on the fly to capture that electric live feel of the past. Brian also mentions how Carl was excited about the track "Soul Searchin" ('Carl liked it a lot') after saying Andy wrote most of that himself, and in Brian's mind, quote, "Andy was a hero to Carl".

There's also a quote at the end of the Pulse! article where Don Was says of Brian and Andy's new songs "of the 40 new songs we've got, a handful are as good as anything he's written."

That last quote would seem to contradict the notion that Don didn't feel the material was strong enough. So was Don's opinion that the material was as good as anything Brian had written, but not what The Beach Boys were looking for? Maybe that's the crux of it. But it would seem like a direct contradiction for him to say that, then say the material wasn't up to par.

Oh yeah, thanks, the Pulse issue, that's the one I was thinking of. I've read that one and I've heard of the Bonzai interview in Mix magazine but have never been able to find a copy. Would you be able to post that anywhere if it's in reach? Really interested to read about any studio behind the scenes. I'm guessing that was reporting on the Nov 7 and 8 sessions at Ocean Way, where they cut basic tracks for Soul Searchin', You're Still a Mystery, It's Not Easy Being Me and Turn On Your Love Light, a week and a half before the Beach Boys came in and sang. Pulse being the interview where Brian mentions them cancelling on his listening invite makes sense of the timeline - it's a few months down the line from the aborted March attempt, then it must've been shortly after this that Carl did go along to Don Was' house with Brian and Andy to hear what they'd been working on.

Noticed this as well in the Pulse report from Don: "Halfway through the movie, what Brian said to me was, 'I want more than anything to make a Beach Boys album, but you go talk to them.' So I did, and they were all anxious to work with him. Since the film is partly about him repairing his damaged relationships, I thought, fine - let's get it on film, even if it's uncomfortable. They were all receptive to that, but ultimately the lawsuits prevented it from happening." I'd forgotten about the context behind it, but that's exactly what he did during the shoot. That was early August '94 and he was trying to arrange for the others to drop in alongside Carl. Didn't know what postponed it so long, but, um... the lawsuit would make sense.

It would kind of make sense that Don had different expectations about a Brian Wilson album and a Beach Boys album. A new Brian solo record didn't have to change the world, but with the Beach Boys, he said himself that he was fretting about making a worthy successor to Pet Sounds, which was obviously in everyone's ears around the time of the 30th anniversary.

No disagreement with any of this, all great observations. I just object to the original framing of it (not in your post) as if the Beach Boys forced a studio into Brian's home that he could then only use when they allowed, evilly, as if it was a sinister machination to hold his leash. It was basically an amenity that Brian wanted at first, then life and convenience changed around it. Danny Hutton likened it to having a private pool; once you've got it, it's so easily in reach that the thing sort of loses appeal. And then imagine that, but Al Jardine is also in your pool.

Its what Brian wanted to some extent to avoid having to book time, not get flak for touching the console, not have his tapes hanging around where other people could sneak a peak (he really believed the SMiLE tapes were leaked and felt "like he was raped" according to one source I've seen.)

But the fact that he couldn't record without the guys there or without their permission I think is pretty skeevy any way you slice it. Admittedly sources can be biased and most are pro-Brian but a lot of them that I've read frame it as the group trying to control him that way. It feels like being shackled to work too, like "you better record every idea you get as it comes so we can profit off of it!" Then you factor in the guys coming and going through his house as they please, like GF was saying, or badgering him to participate (and forcing him to listen as noise leaked through the floor/walls) it sounds almost like a prison to me. Some of the sources like Anderle and Hal have said as much "when they built the studio, it [Brian's golden age] was all over" words to that effect. It's a nice gift in theory but definitely one with strings attached, or an unspoken understanding of "make this worth it."

But Im not here to quibble that everything I've read is an accurate depiction or that the guys were bad people. The point is, it was a complicated situation and they could've been more appreciative and/or more willing to take a haircut if it meant their bro/cousin/friend who made them millionaire stars got to do what made him happy. And I die on the hill anyway that in late 60s-early 70s what Brian wanted was to expand beyond the BBs--still producing them here and there but doing other groups too. They put the kibosh on that. That's the big "sin" I can't let go of, they denied him the human right to pursue his own happiness. Someone might say "hey man they didn't hold a gun to his head" and that's true but they bullied an extremely passive, childlike, mentally unwell guy in public till he broke and that's hardly honorable either.

I don't know. They all had their pros and cons. All I was saying when this whole thing started is I think Carl made some mistakes he should be held to task for and isn't the whited saint he's often made out to be. If I got some things wrong I'll admit my sources could be biased but I think the general principle still stands.

Watching that Mike Harris recap of his visit to that ’95 BB session, it’s obviously fascinating and I’m glad he did it.

I also feel based on my gut that if any of us were in the room just like he was, we probably would have interpreted things at least slightly differently. Some people are better or worse about picking up vibes and reading people, and reading a room. And some folks know the various BBs better than others and can interpret things better or worse.

I often think back to the quote Bruce Johnston gave to Howie Edelson regarding the BBs working on those Paley tracks:

"That was a courtesy to Brian for us to be there. Brian certainly wasn't at any kind of peak in those days, but we respected his history and achievements for us to go and record with him and see what it might sound like. We were just trying to support someone who had been successful and good for us. I think if you use your ears, you'll hear that those tapes don't really lift off. It's fine -- but not fine enough."

That doesn’t exactly sound like someone that is particularly enthusiastic about working on the material.

I think a lot of the people involved in working on that material didn’t fully “get it”; they were not in the mode of the BB indie nerds in the mid 90s, who would have dug on something like “You’re Still A Mystery.” I think some of the people involved were in the mode of “Kokomo”, and by that I don’t mean trying to make a song that sounds just like “Kokomo.” Rather, they were still in the mindset of trying to get “a hit”, as in a hit single. What they should have been doing (in my opinion obviously) was cutting a good album that critics would like and would maybe get them some award noms.

If Don Was said the material wasn’t good enough, was he right? Depends! I think the best 10-12 cuts with BB vocals would have done well with critics. But none of those songs were going to be a hit single. So I’m not sure where Don Was would be coming from. I think a project like that was always going to be VERY fragile, and Was just kind of blurting to Brian that the material wasn’t good enough would certainly NOT be a good idea if you’re trying to keep the fragile momentum going.

I often comment on how people like Gary Usher, Andy Paley, and Don Was couldn’t actually get their projects done and out the door, whereas Joe Thomas was able to do it.

You really have to go to Joe Thomas in 2011/2012 to see how something like that would need to be done. You need an industry guy, and also a guy both with a lot of money and access to people with a lot of money, and you spearhead the thing. It also helps when there’s a timecrunch/hard deadline, which there was with TWGMTR, which minimized the carping and back-and-forth about whose songs go where. Joe came in with a record deal based on songs he had written with Brian, he already had some backing tracks cut, and, as one person once put it, “clapped his hands and said ‘now here’s what we’re gonna do’.”

Mike Harris’s description of that ’95 BB session does not sound like anybody is clapping their hands and *telling* everybody what’s going to go down. You’ve got randos coming in and out of the studio, you’ve got three co-producers. Andy Paley certainly doesn’t sound like he felt he could take charge of that session.

And meanwhile it sounds like everybody but kinda Mike came in and did a professional job, but I suspect someone like Bruce just viewed the whole thing as a lark. Al seems to have liked the material, but nobody really cared much what Al thought based on his position in the organization.

Setting aside the observers at that ’95 session, I don’t think anybody in the control room *loved* the material they were working on other than Andy Paley, kinda Brian (because he could waffle), and maybe Al and Matt Jardine. I think Carl was a pro and did the work, and I doubt he *hated* the songs. But we know his musical sensibilities were askew in that time period (e.g. the wonky AC sounds of “Beckley/Lamm/Wilson”). I think Bruce just showed up and did whatever, and you can see based on his own later comments that he didn’t think the material was that strong. And Mike obviously had a whole potential bag full of issues, rooted not only in musical taste, but ego, and corporate politics, and so on.

That’s not a recipe for getting an album finished and released. You kind of either need to be in “Pet Sounds” mode where someone’s running the thing and everybody else comes in and does as they’re told, or you need most if not all of the participants to “get it” and truly be on board. Not there “as a courtesy”, not there with a circumspect frame of mind. But enthusiastic about the material. Or at the very least being utterly neutral and willing to do whatever they’re told.

The “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times” film is a good film for getting vibe/sense of Brian at that time period, and for getting some sense for things that had happened in the past. But it’s something like 70 minutes long, and Carl Wilson is in it for all of a minute or two. I don’t think we know enough about Carl Wilson to reach any of these conclusions, and his scant interview comments in IJWMFTT are certainly not enough to even *vibe* anything much, let alone make any broader judgements.

A dude wrote a biography of Carl several years back and had very little to work with; Carl didn’t give a lot of interviews, and to his credit, he cultivated relationships with people around him such that they are not willing to talk in much detail about him beyond simple fond remembrances.

I don’t think Carl was *anything* like Mike personality wise. I do think Carl, especially in later years, kind of just acquiesced and let Mike kind of run the band. Carl apparently didn’t side with Al in the late 90s when Al complained that Mike wanted his (Mike’s) company to run the Beach Boys tours. I don’t think Carl had any particular moral failings; I think he got either lazy or, or put more sympathetically, lost the energy to keep things about the band a bit more progressive. The setlist got very stale *with* Carl in the band in 1996/97. He was willing to let Mike run the tours. He didn’t think Brian would be able to do a “Pet Sounds” tour with the band. Most of these things are simply a case of things being different in the mid-late 90s. We don’t know if Carl would have gotten on board for more progressive setlists in the 2000s had he lived. Brian’s solo tours obviously would have been proof that Brian could handle touring, and touring full albums. We don’t know how Carl would have reacted to that.

I don’t think Carl was some sort of shrewd player like Mike. I think he was just sometimes diplomatic and sometimes passive, and those traits are often useful and then sometimes problematic.

Agreed.

Will, I do have the March 1996 issue of Mix, the full magazine. I may not be able to get it scanned in the next week, but I will try. I've only posted bits and pieces in scans here in the past. Unfortunately a lot of the interview/article is Bonzai asking Brian to comment on Pet Sounds tracks, so it's heavier on that and lighter on the Don Was sessions, but there is still some good conversation and descriptions about the then-present time and Brian's takes on things rather than only revisiting 1966. But at that time even hearing Brian talk about PS track by track in a new article was pretty cool, although you can tell Brian was more interested in what he was working on in the studio with Don and Andy than he was rehashing Pet Sounds.

When I do get it scanned I will try to post it in this thread, just check back for updates.

Very good thread….Clearly a lot of this comes down as you stated to Carl being such an enigma in his later years…We just don’t know enough to get a true understanding of his feelings/thoughts in the late 8os-90s. I do believe that he always loved Brian but it is possible that he stopped believing in him ….but obviously I cannot say that with any certainty.  But as was pointed out…Brian stopped being a hitmaker after 1972…and became a lot more quirky. He still had great talent but the majority of stuff he did in the late 70s and 80s was more quirky than commercial. I prefer Love You to Kokomo but clearly the latter is a commercial pop song and nothing on Love You really is…Things like Male Ego and Spirit of Rock and Roll are also non commercial…so strictly from a corporate point of view I can understand why Bruce and perhaps Carl were lukewarm about giving the reins to Brian in 1995. That being said…with the support of Lenny and others…the 1988 Brian album had some commercial potential. Melt Away is a pretty commercial track. But I agree that the BBs were obsessed with another hit in the 1990s when they should have been restoring their artistic cred, which was really at a low point. Stars and Stripes and NASCAR were not the way to go but hindsight is 20/20