The Smiley Smile Message Board

He thought the BB were an Eisenhower era nostalgia boring band until he came along just at the right time. He saw BW was trying to break out of that "funk" and was more than happy to help. Introducing the cello on GV for example and something about the triplet used. Lot's of chatter about Pet Sounds which he said he played on. Talked also about Sail on Sailor and the announcer said the song saved the album as the record company said no release without a hit single. Strangest thing about this half hour program was no mention of SMiLE. I couldn't believe the broadcast was ending without Van Dyke saying SOMETHING about it.

VDP was probably relieved that there was no mention of Smile. I can imagine it would be tiresome to talk about someone else's album for 40+ years when you have your own work to talk about. Also, did he actually play on Pet Sounds? I've never seen mention of that before, and he's not listed in the personnel on our-Lord-and-Savior, Wikipedia.

He always comes off as such an ass to me, as though the Beach Boys were no good without him.

Doesn't VDP say in the "An American Band" documentary that he wrote songs on Pet Sounds?

Van Dyke never claimed that he wrote songs on Pet Sounds. There's a piece of footage on Endless Harmony where he holds up a notepad that read something like "I wrote for the Beach Boys...Heroes And Villains, Surf's Up, Mostly In 1966".

Was this not Carl's idea?

Well, according to the Doe Tobler Guide Book..."Revolutionary in its modular structure, use of cello as a rhythm instrument (played by Jesse Erlich and suggested by Van Dyke Parks, who declined a request to supply new lyrics) and its use of theremin, it was Brian's satisfaction with this song that gave him the confidence to attempt Smile..."

Sept '89 guitar magazine interview which I posted here, Carl said he blurted out "cello" when Brian mentioned needing to add an instrument on the low end to the track. And VDP has repeatedly said he suggested the cello play triplets on the root note of the chords during the choruses.

So I'd take a combination of the two to get to the full answer, and suggest Carl recommended using cello and VDP may have *also* recommended that, but suggested what rhythms the cellist actually played.

Without digging it out to verify, I believe there's also a VDP clip or voiceover on the "American Band" documentary which can be taken as VDP implying he had something to do with "Pet Sounds". But his name is nowhere on any of the "Pet Sounds" AFM contracts, nor his is voice heard or his name mentioned on any of the session tapes for that album. Unlike "SMiLE", which he is all over.

"I wrote lyrics for Brian Wilson. Most of them went on an album that was done called Pet Sounds which readied us for the next record which is uh, still an unexplained event. I don't understand it. It was just after the Beach Boys were in litigation with Capitol Records."

The VDP quote from "An American Band".

I pulled out the video. Van is outside of a Tower Records store, it looks like the mid-late 1970s, and he says, or at least mostly sounds like he says, "I wrote lyrics for Brian Wilson. Most of 'em, when an album was done called Pet Sounds, uhh, which readied us for the next record, which uhhh...still is an unexplained event, I don't understand it. It was just after the Beach Boys were in litigation with Capitol Records."

Oops, sorry Mayoman, ya beat me to it!

But we're hearing it differently.

Watch it again Mayoman and read along to both our quotes.

Before going too far I'd like to hear what he actually said in this new interview. If he said he played on Pet Sounds sessions, then I think that would be a mistake.

But he knew Brian in passing and through mutual friends like Loren Schwartz and Terry Melcher, in fact it was Melcher who recommended Van Dyke to Brian partly because of Van Dyke's song "High Coin". Keep in mind too how David Crosby had invited Van Dyke to come with him to hear Brian play an early mix of Sloop John B, which would date before Pet Sounds, and through Loren and their work around LA Brian and VDP had crossed paths well before they were formally introduced and started working together. Brian up through the Smile sessions would invite people to the house for listening sessions with whatever tracks he was working on, and solicit opinions - at one of these or at any other random social gathering Van Dyke could have mentioned the triplet thing on GV.

It's similar to how David Anderle was around Brian and the band as early as "Today" from earlier in '65, through family who knew the band (and Loren's hangout sessions with Tony Asher among the guests) , yet he didn't formally work with them until later. Same with Danny Hutton, through Anderle his manager, it was more interconnected of a scene than I think is assumed.

The tendency is to take a few reported dates in history and apply them overall when in reality these guys would naturally be crossing paths through friends and acquaintances, through being at the same studios, and through being at places like Loren's pad at random times much more than a timeline would report.

But again if VDP said he was a musician on Pet Sounds, that could be proven incorrect. If he said he was around Brian or whatever during the making of Pet Sounds, that's entirely true.

Brian has said Carl came up with he idea for the cello.  I think I may have been during a C50 interview.  

I did and I put the captions on as well. The captions back up what I wrote, although I would guess that he was probably actually saying what you typed. He kind of slurs the middle of the sentence a bit.

Yeah he does slur a little bit. He seemed liked his thoughts were rushing through his mind.

well maybe Van Dyke was part of the Pet Sounds era "Good Vibrations" in some form or fashion before helping with the latter single version....

That wouldn't really explain his claim of writing lyrics (if that's what he said).

Haven't listened to this interview, but if VDP is being quoted accurately, then he is being both self-serving and ignorant.

Far from being Eisenhower-nostalgia leftovers, the Beach Boys were strongly connected to the pop-musical zeitgeist 1962-66. It was only after VDP hooked up with Brian that the group lost touch with the cutting edge of what was happening in pop music (through no fault of VDP, granted).

And, boring? Is he including Pet Sounds in that evaluation? And has he ever listened to Today!?

  Parks has had a burr up his butt the last few years. Clearly his relationship with Brian is not what it once was. The Beach Boys, like Parks, all grew up in Eisenhower America, which isn't such a terrible thing.

Has their relationship faultered since 2004?

Yeah...I like Ike!

 I don't know any details, but things seemed good when BWPS came out. Something seemed to sour by the time of THE SMILE SESSIONS; consider Van Dyke's semi-snarky comments the least few years. AGD probably has some details and/or insights.

 Ike offered the GOP a template for success that was sadly discarded. Since this is not The Sandbox I'll leave it at that.

Eisenhower. The biggest do-nothing president there ever was. That's why Kennedy came in and got the U.S. moving again. I mean, did Ike ever do anything but play golf during his administration?

And didn't Brian call Van Dyke Parks an asshole at a party? Yes he did!

And didn't Van Dyke Parks NEVER say that he had anything to do with Pet Sounds, including playing on it? Yes!

And Van Dyke Parks say before in interviews that it was his idea about using a Cello and playing it in triplets? Yes he did, and I believe him!

  Sorry Mikie...but I'm not gonna take the bait! Everyone's entitled to an opinion.  :)

  JFK was a good president, yes.

I think they fell out around the time of That Lucky Old Sun.  If I recall, the album was meant to be a full-fledged Wilson/Parks collaboration, not just on the spoken word sections but Parks either dropped out or was fired from the project.  I could be wrong though but it wouldn't surprise me.  It would be going the same way as Andy Paley and Joe Thomas (initially).  Perhaps he was being treated as the lesser part of the collaboration as Paley and Thomas would be (only they probably didn't mind given their hero worship for Brian) and he understandably wouldn't be happy with such treatment.  But this is just pure speculation.

I don't know if this is true, but damn if "Live Let Live" isn't a seriously amazing song. Like hovering around being Brian's best song in 20 years. I wish they'd done a whole album like that.

Glad we agree on something, Steve.    :)

No, really? Bay of Pigs was a good thing?  What did he really do that was so great? 

   The Bay of Pigs plan was kicking around during the later Eisenhower years...a leader with Ike's military experience knew that it would fail miserably without air support...something the former PTO boat commander may not have fully understood. To his credit, Kennedy learned from his error. JFK did a competent plus job during his brief tenure. IMO.

He thought the BB were an Eisenhower era nostalgia boring band until he came along just at the right time.

Phew - Van Dick has been hanging around this BUNCH too much.

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GET OVER IT DOOD! Lifes too short to spend it whining over stuff that happened 50 years ago.

Actually I was kind of wondering the other day what TLOS would have sounded Like with Brian Singing and Van Dyke doing the spoken word segments.. that would have been interesting...

Um, Interstate Highway System, anyone? NASA, anyone?

.

No, really? Bay of Pigs was a good thing?  What did he really do that was so great? 
[/quote]

Marilyn Monroe. :)

Really??  Who?

.

Could some of you agree to meet in the Sandbox & talk about presidents there? Don't derail the main board, please. Now, somebody should get this on track again.

Marilyn Monroe. :)

And that ain't all. To name just a few.....

Judith Exner
Mimi Alford
Angie Dickenson
Pamela Turnure
Priscilla Wear
Jill Cowan
Marlene Dietrich
Mary Pinchot Meyer
Ellen Rometch
Blaze Starr
Gene Tierney
Gunilla Von Post
Inga Arvad

This is very confusingly worded. It seems like what you're saying contradicts what Van Dyke said in the NPR interview - that he did, in fact, play on Pet Sounds.
Now, if he does believe this, then can we really place the utmost authority in whatever else he says, like the cello part being his idea?



Ooh, very interesting point: his association with the band was the beginning of the public decline of the group. Quite ironic that he considers the band before his involvement as the out-of-touch phase, despite this being apparently the complete opposite.

So then VDP must have came around about the time of "Today", then, eh?  Never realized that.

What I DID realize a long time ago, is that VDP is his own biggest fan. 

Im sorry you're confused.

I've seen VDP interviews before where he does that. Self-serving junk. If they were that bad, why hitch your 'star' to them. It  saddens me that someone with his talent feels the need to big himself up like this. Ironically, not unlike the Lovester banging on about Kokomo in every interview he does. I don't think introducing a cello is such a stretch bearing in mind the way Brian had used them before. "Hey Brian, remember before I came along and made you cool how you used that stringed instrument in those songs where the band was clearly in a funk?"  And then Carl shouts, "Cello!"

And as for JFK. Hell, yes.

I agree.

Another thing to think about: If he really did feel they were square before he joined them in the studio, that would have caused a lot of contention wouldn't it?  If I were Mike, I'd have told him to go screw himself as soon as any of that started out of his mouth. 

"Look motherfucker, we've sold out shows all over the world and the guy sitting behind the mixing board is the greatest genius in the business.  Bring me a Diet Pepsi"

Given some comments by VDP, it would seem he would rather be recognised for his 50+ years work of arrangement, producing, etc rather than 6 months of work that didn't get finished. The star was hitched to him, not the other way around.

VDP is a douche.....

he can keep SMILE. I'm perfectly happy with everything before and after.

Kennedy was an okay president, but he did start the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

Yes, Van Dyke can be very douchey. And so can Mike Love. Actually he's probably even more of a douche. So I wouldn't tell either of them that they can "keep" either of their music.

Funny how you defend Mike's "doucheyness" but if Van Dyke acts like a jerk, he should "keep" his contributions. Right.

There was no fixed beginning to the Viet Nam war. Harry Truman gave military aid to the French Colony aid back in 1950. Eisenhower dispatched military advisers to train a South Vietnamese army, and unleashed the CIA to South Vietnam. When Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, there were more than 16,000 U.S. military advisers in South Vietnam. Kennedy indicated in an interview with Walter Cronkite in September 1963:

Kennedy: "I don't think that unless a greater effort is made by the Government to win popular support that the war can be won out there. In the final analysis, it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment, we can send our men out there as advisers, but they have to win it, the people of Viet-Nam, against the Communists. We are prepared to continue to assist them, but I don't think that the war can be won unless the people support the effort and, in my opinion, in the last 2 months, the government has gotten out of touch with the people".

Who said anything about Mike?

But OK, with Mike: I like just about everything he's done or been involved with and he doesn't go around insulting The Beach Boys 50 years after the fact .... Good enough for me.

I dig VPD's solo stuff and SOME of his lyrics for SMILE, but on the whole, he's an overrated ass when it comes to The Beach Boys. Mike is not ..... That's it.

Actually he does still insult Beach Boys fifty years after the fact. He still makes it a point to insult his cousin Dennis quite a bit even though dude has been for over 30 years. sh*t, he even basically talked about Dennis dying and Brian's problems on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous and then compounded it with a "whatever." And he's also went on record (in legal documents I'm pretty sure) saying fellow band member Al Jardine has mental issues. And well, with Brian, I'd direct you to his extremely bitter 1992 Goldmine interview amongst many others. Now he won't insult "The Beach Boys" as an entity though because he's trying to make money for that "brand" (notice I said brand not band), but if somehow the license was taken away I'm sure he'd have bad to say about the brand as well.

Regardless of all his self serving sh*t, I still like most of Mike Love's music. Hell, I've even listened to "Camp California" more than once. So, if you don't like Van Dyke, fine. But if it's gonna be because he's a bitter prick, well then that's pretty rich considering Mike is THE bitter prick.

One thing that to me, makes VDP's sour grapes attitude a bit more understandable (or at least, that I have empathy for the man) is that he really wound up with the short end of the stick, especially seemingly in terms of financial benefit, despite having been very close to having things go the other way, had SMiLE come out. He sees things a certain way in terms of blame, and his viewpoint is based on his own experiences firsthand that none of us had.

Not trying to go back into a debate of who is "right" or who is "wrong", but the man did wind up struggling, or so it seems, comparatively speaking, and while I'm certain he feels some self-blame + responsibility for leaving the project (he's said so on Beautiful Dreamer), he also probably feels that his own life struggles and trajectory was adversely deeply affected by someone else (Mike) in a negative way.

Whether or not you agree with that is besides the point - I'm saying that since he presumably does feel that way, it is understandable that he'd have a chip on his shoulder, and I can have some empathy for that. However, it sucks that he does seem bitter, because I'm sure that bitterness isn't doing him any emotional good.

I think that's very well put ...... Which is why I still kinda think SMILE should have been a solo project for Brian without any "Beach Boys" related pressures .... Not like that would have been easy .... I guess: only record when The Boys are off touring?


Still, VDP chose to hire on with an already famous/established band, so knocking them doesn't seem very wise as an employee.

Question - using that logic, do you think that Pet Sounds should have been a solo project for Brian without any "Beach Boys" related pressures?

Good question, but I'm gonna say no .... That record feels like a Beach Boys record and Mike has some contributions here and there lyrically (another debate, I know) and the boys "feel" more present.... Plus, those songs needed the emotional variety of the Beach Boy voices.

In the words of Lumberg, I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you on that :) I think they both should have been BB albums, through and through, but that's just my opinion.

But seriously, you are probably right in that it would have been easier on some level and less pressure if SMiLE had been conceived as a solo offering. Nonetheless, the thing that would have made SMiLE so cool in its day was for it to be released under the name of the BB, who just a year or two earlier were in a totally different musical world.

I would really, really love to know the nitty gritty into what the reasoning was for the "BW" credit on the Caroline, No single. Did Brian conceive of the idea himself? And do we know if it was intended as a band political statement of some sort? Has this topic ever been addressed by the band?

I do agree with you actually, I think that if this alternate scenario meant the album had been released as planned, then sure, BW solo SMILE!

I think (just guessing and not going back to do research) it might have been as simple as Brian's the only Beach Boy on the song? Same with why Getting Hungry was a "Brian & Mike" effort ..... I could easily be wrong though.

I just can't believe that there wasn't some sort of intentional statement being made by the unique credits for Caroline, No + Getting Hungry. I don't think I'm reading too much into it - there was something that made those decisions actually happen.

I know that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but these credits don't strike me as arbitrary decisions made just because those songs mainly (or only) featured either just Brian or just Brian + Mike.

I agree. Otherwise, 'Surfer Moon' and 'Keep an eye on summer' would've been credited as 'Brian Wilson' songs. With 'Caroline no' it wasn't that surprising in that Brian was having an increased public profile. With GH, though...what was the purpose?

Has VDP ever been a part of a bona fide hit record, and if so, more than one?

Well, he was on "Kokomo," of course.
Not sure about others.

Wasn't one of the reasons 'Caroline, No' released as a solo record was that it was issued within 2 weeks of 'Sloop John B'? Maybe the thinking was that a Brian Wilson single and a Beach Boys single could co-exist in the charts, while 2 Beach Boys singles on the charts at the same time would compete with each other.

As for 'Gettin' Hungry' : I seem to remember Peter Reum speculating that it was issued as being by Brian and Mike as part of effort by Brian to make good on a commitment he made  to Mike to write with him post GV -- a commitment Brian broke by teaming up with VDP, of course. I guess Mike having his name on a hit would have raised his public profile.

Bet Mike would have preferred having a hit 'Beach Boys' single, though, than a flop 'Brian and Mike' one. :p

I meant a song VDP either wrote or produced. 

I don't think Van Dyke necessarily suffered financially for Smile not being released, unless one is of the school that it would have sold multi-millions of copies and been a blockbuster. Which I personally doubt. Also, in those days, hit albums sold far less than the big hits of years later. For example, Sgt. Pepper didn't sell anywhere near as many copies as Hotel California or Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. Many of Van Dyke's songs for Smile were released on Beach Boys albums over the years, so he did get royalties when those songs were released on albums such as Smiley Smile and Surf's Up. He now has gotten royalties for his work on both "Brian Wilson Presents Smile" and the Smile boxed set. Considering he had the highest royalty rate split of any BW collaborator, he hasn't done too badly from his work with the Beach Boys. His lack of financial success has more to do with his other career choices than "Smile." He could have done more film soundtracks, or worked with bands that are as commercial or more commercial than the Beach Boys, if he had chosen to. This is a guy who claims he walked away from being in the Byrds, so he should look in the mirror if he's not happy with his financial success.

Yes, he did mention that he was involved with the Byrds with more exuberance than talking about the BB or BW.

I think I remember that Brian had said that they had plans to release occasional songs under the name of the BB featured. Apparently it didn't get far.

Wasn't C,N advertised along side SJB as new releases from the BBs and it of course was on the album.

"Heroes And Villains" went to number 12. I'd say that's a hit.

"Sail On, Sailor" got into the 40s I'm pretty sure.

So I'd say he had two hits. Not huge, record breaking hits like "Hey Jude" or "Good Vibrations", but solid hits that still feature on compilations to this day.

All I care about is one thing with Van Dyke. See if somebody here has the correct answer. Cam, do you know about this?

Why didn't Van Dyke Parks contribute an essay to the book that came with The Smile Sessions box in 2011?  He was around for BWPS in '04, contributing additional lyrics and attending the SMiLE show in the UK. Did he really feel that he'd said enough over the years about Smile?  Or did he just not want to take any hoopla/accolades/media press away from Brian after the release? Or did something happen between 2004 and 2011 to alienate VDP from the Brian/Beach Boys camp?  Do you think an essay was prepared but aborted just prior to the book going to the printers?

Don't know a thing about it, Mikie.

That probably means, while or just after Pet Sounds was finished, Brian and him wrote the songs for SMiLE. I'm certain anyway that he would have worded it differently had he had the chance to write his words down.



IMHO, the decline in popularity began with Pet Sounds, was paused with GV, and then went on. An idea I just had: Pet Sounds might have been more popular had it been rereleased before Christmas 1966 with GV added as another track.

Pet Sounds was more popular then we used to think and was certainly much better promoted then was recognized but I agree it probably was part of the falling out between Brian [in the beginning and other Boys later] and their fan base. You see it reflected in the fan magazine letters and in sales. On the other hand don't you think Brian really stomped down on the accelerator of fan base alienation during SMiLE?

I agree and I think part of its less than stellar commercial success is attributable to its title (poor choice) and dumb cover.

Bona fide hit record as in a top-ten smash? Not quite, but he was involved in some top 40 singles that either charted before or around "The Smile Era" or singles that got a second life through compilations like "Nuggets" and the like.

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The single "Come To The Sunshine" as covered by Harper's Bizarre (featuring future star producer Ted Templemann) did get airplay in 1967 on AM top-40 stations, while it wasn't a big hit per se. The original release by Van Dyke himself got caught up in some corporate stuff going on at MGM involving VDP's manager David Anderle and Danny Hutton...Van Dyke's single was a "Sunshine" song ready to release before "Good Day Sunshine", "Sunshine Superman", etc. riffed on the sunshine theme in 66-67, but MGM left it on the shelf for too long after Anderle had it ready for them. They did similar things to Danny Hutton's singles too, apparently holding them back too long for release.

Note the "Colours" single too, while it wasn't a smash hit single it did get played on jukeboxes and less often on radio, but just as important it did generate a buzz.

And note too the presence of Lenny Waronker on these early VDP-involved projects, he really believed in Van Dyke's work and that continued well into the future as far as releases and deals and jobs and whatnot.

I don't know Van Dyke Parks, I've read lots of things he's said here and in other publications.  He seems like one of those guys that has a bit of a difficult personality and a whopper of an ego, and I think it irritates him that lesser musical types have had tremendous commercial success (as in hit records) whereas he has not been so successful in that regard.

I think this is a key point, since it was Waronker who helped VDP get a deal to produce an album at Warner Brothers (Song Cycle, that is), as well as his job there.  VDP's pre-Smile work with Waronker indicates that he does not, in fact, owe his whole career to Brian Wilson.

If Van Dyke had written more pop songs in the mold of "Come to the Sunshine" and demo'd them to be recorded by the right acts, he could have had a more commercially successful songwriting career. However, those types of pop songs, apart from the oddball lyrics, are more "Eisenhower era" than anything the Beach Boys ever did. Van Dyke himself was not that hip musically, because he's not rock'n'roll.

That's how I see it too.

Number Nine went to #20 in Phoenix on Feb. 18, 1966.

VDP is one of the artists that Bougie people want to act like is a genius and to bougie people commercial success is nothing more than a sign that something is appreciated by the stupid, ignorant, unwashed masses.  That's the only way they can subjectively claim that somebody like VDP is better in any possible way than Britney Spears, who... objectively.... is better in every possible way than VDP.

So don't bring up a VDP wasn't commercially successful argument because anybody who's a fan of VDP doesn't care about commercial success. 

If I were Mike or one of the other guys, i would have felt threatened.  They were obviously trying to test the waters, as far as seeing if a solo Brian Wilson would work.


In 1958 Jerry Butler wrote and sang lead on "Your Precious Love" with the Impressions.  It was one of the biggest hits of the year, it wasn't long the record company was BEGGING him to start a solo career.  Basically Curtis Mayfield told him to go ahead because they would make more money without him, Jerry hired Curtis as his band leader, etc. they spread it out and made more money between all of them. 

Somebody at Capitol was thinking something similar, i'm sure. 

The usual suspects were hinting around on here, around that time, that essentially VDP was pissed and threw a hissy fit and declined to be a part of the book at all.  Of course they asked him, either he didn't like the money involved or was pissed at Brian. 


Interestingly enough, you can trace the 'bad blood', at least publicly, as none of us have any idea what happened privately, to Brian's "lucky Old Sun" album.  VDP wrote the lyrics for "Live Let Live" and it had kind of an environmental theme to it.  Brian changed the lyrics and made them less political..... That seems to be around the time that they had a falling out.

I'm sure it wasn't specifically about that song, but something happened around then.   Didn't somebody even quote Brian as saying that VDP was an asshole?

I think Brian said he wad a "butthole"

If memory serves VDP was pissed that Brian was reuniting with the Beach Boys. 


I'm a big wresting fan.  I'm used to seeing this type of behavior where 60 year old former pro wrestlers hold grudges and talk trash about each other and claim they're going to beat each other up if they run into each other.  Seeing Van Dyke Parks and Mike Love do the rock version of it is a little unsettling....

I wonder if it pisses VDP off that Mike could write all those antiquated, Eisenhower era lyrics and score major hits, then go and write things like Good Vibrations: score a major hit, then go write things like Big Sur, All This Is
That, the Wild Honey stuff, that fans like us love and obsess over.....

I still like this story - from the New York Times - Van Dyke Parks:

"Many years later, when Terry Melcher wanted to take the song 'Kokomo' to the tropical islands, he called me and wanted to use my Rolodex, so to speak. So, I brought some great   musician friends -- people who'd played with Sinatra, Fitzgerald, Cecil Taylor -- to play with me on that session. I was paid well for my work, although it was a nonunion session -- no hospitalization, no dental, nothing extra if it went   commercial. The Beach Boys, after all, were Republicans -- unions weren't something to mention to them. We weren't dealing with Studs Terkel. We were dealing with Bruce Johnston and Mike Love, who'd become the entity known as the Beach Boys. Of course, the song went to number one, and Mike Love always made a very big deal out of the fact that it was made without Brian Wilson. And that was always very alarming to me because beyond the Beach Boys' beautiful music, my allegiance has always been to Brian Wilson, who hired me years ago and told me he'd give me 50 percent of anything we wrote together. He said that speaking from his throne at a time when I was nobody. Isn't that the sign of a marvelous person?"

Parks recalls he saw Love one final time when Melcher called him to Monterey to play synthesizer on the Beach Boys' final album, recorded without Brian, 1992's dreadful Summer in Paradise. A neighbor offered to fly the musician to Monterey in his one-engine plane if Parks agreed to cover gas and other expenses. When he got there, Love was meditating in Melcher's living room. "For the first time in 30 years, he was able to ask me directly, once again, 'What do those lyrics -- Over and over the crow flies, uncover the cornfield -- mean?'" Parks said about that meeting in '95. "And I was  able to tell him, once again, 'I don't know.' I have no idea what those words mean. I was perhaps thinking of Van Gogh's wheat field or an idealized agrarian environment. Maybe I meant nothing, but I was trying to follow Brian Wilson's vision at that time." Parks says Love asked if he could fly back to L.A. in the plane with him. "We had a nice chat and he insisted that he wanted to split the cost of the flight with me, so he gave me a card with his number on it. The next morning, I called to discover it was a disconnected number. And that was the last time I saw Mike Love."

To stay angry at somebody for 50 years, you've got to love them.  VDP loves Mike Love.  

Van Dyke has told that airplane story in more than one place. He would have had to pay that money if Mike had not flown to LA with him. The guy is just obsessed with the Beach Boys. He mentions them often on Twitter.

I wonder why Melcher/BRI didn't cover those costs? VDP was doing Melcher the favor.

Because he was being paid well as he said himself.

Two problems I see with VDP's assumptions (stated as fact): (1) In '92, the corporate BBs were Brian-Mike-Carl-Al, not Mike-Bruce even if Al was absent from many of the SIP sessions and Brian absent from all of them, and (2) the BBs didn't seem to have any problems with unions the hundreds of times they DID do sessions through the AFM (including several ML solo sessions and other sessions for "Kokomo").

I actually find that comment from VDP quite amusing as the complaint of, `The Beach Boys didn`t give me a dental plan.` is possibly the most pedantic in the history of popular music.  :)

Craig, Bruce has said that work was started on Kokomo and then Carl got involved and sort of re-recorded it or the tracking or something. Is there any documentation to support or refute that?

No.


Again, no.

Maybe he meant vocally? According to the Wikpedia entry for "Kokomo", which I believe draws from engineer Keith Wechsler's recollections, the original vocals were recorded by Mike, Bruce, Terry and Jeff, and that was the demo used to "sell" the song. Carl and Al then replaced Melcher's and Foskett's voices. Do you have Bruce's quote handy somewhere, or recall where it's from?

No, I apparently didn't save it but my memory is it was a comment on BB Britain or Male Ego and my memory is he was taLking about instrumentation. Anybody else remember or save that?

Just requoting this post because it's so fucking dumb. Why should having a hit record be a marker of artistic success?

Ron, record sales aren't a marker of artistic success.... remember which board we're on when we debate the merits of Friends or Sunflower. They're bad. They charted below the hot 100. Horrible albums. Can't stand them.

The hit record thing really only comes up in reference to VDP dissing The Beach Boys/Mike who've have gigantic hits ..... and whatever one cares to infer regarding that. It would never come up if such dissing didn't occur .....

Van Dyke's son Richard is currently filming a documentary on his father.  Could be interesting.

I'm the last guy to be an authority here, but on some of these provocative VDP quotes, I'm just thinking he's making funny, as well as maybe, uh, influenced by something or other....

I found this article that was linked from the Wikipedia page for "Kokomo" in which VDP tells the same story, except that in this version it took place during his involvement with "Kokomo."  What do we make of this discrepancy?

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,640541_3,00.html

Surprisingly, he compliments Kokomo (albeit in a somewhat backhanded way).

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VDP is probably lying. Everytime Brian was asked he said the cello was Carl's idea. And the triplet I have also heard Brian saying it came from Da Doo Ron Ron piano

Van Dyke is his full first name. His son's full name is Richard Hill Parks. And I am awaiting that film eagerly.

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Dick... it Van Dick Dyke.....and his wife's name is Moore Tyler Mary..

:lol

Dick's up mmm mmm mmm aboard a tidal wave..

Do not ever call Van Dyke by the name of Van only. He gets very upset.

As he gets older and grayer, he reminds me of Strother Martin.

I saw VDP live in The Hague, Holland, in 2008 (if memory serves), together with Inara Geoge, daughter of the late Lowell George. VDP has been a friend of the family for very long now.

VDP introduced Inara (who was the main act, she performed her debut album An Invitation in full.

He said about her: '...she knew me when I was a brunette...'.

It's one of these instant gags that make him such a wonderful raconteur, IMHO.