The Smiley Smile Message Board

After Blondie left, Ricky stayed on for roughly 2 more years... during this time, I've seen a small handful of group photos with Ricky present along with the rest of the Boys. Was there any further plan at this point (pre 15 Big Ones) for Ricky to indefinitely maintain his official band member status (as opposed to being more of a backing musician)? I guess (?) there wasn't any type of official demotion between Blondie leaving to the time that Ricky left, but I wonder how this all played out.

Some live pro-shot videos (like the 1974 New Year's Eve show floating around on Youtube) seem to focus much less on him as though he were on the level of a non-official backing musician member; would this have been the case if Dennis was behind the kit? Or was this just mere happenstance of how the show was filmed?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSj1x6tMzUY

(PS - amazing performance of the song - Carl kills it!)

We only got a brief taste of both Blondie + Ricky being in the band as "official" members of the band, so once one of them was out, I wonder how the politics and changing/evolving times (coupled with Brian's re-integration) affected Ricky and his membership status during this time. If Ricky had stayed on in the band for years to come, would he have remained an "actual" member, or have somehow reverted to the level of Ed Carter or Billy Hinsche (semi-sorta-kinda/not-really-official member)? Or perhaps that type of transition was already happening in the period before he left, such as on this video?

Drummer on Rockin' New Years Eve is almost certainly Kowalski (er... or Figueroa ?), I think it was established some years ago. Apologies if I'm talking more nonsense than usual, it's 6.32am here, just woken up.  :)

I sure thought that looks like Ricky at 3:40 on that video? But it's blurry so a bit hard to tell for sure...

Gotta add - I love this clip. The vocals are so tight and together.

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NEVER

the suites are suite

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I think it's either Ricky or Bobby F. I really doubt that's Mike K.

It was Ricky (drums) and Bobby (percussion)!

Sure is. They can be most clearly seen during the ensemble rendition of Auld Lang Syne (along with Billy, Carli, Jim, and Ron)

It was a fill in gig because Dennis, who was drumming again by this time, refused to wear the suits and boycotted the show

My question is did Fataar play a gretsch kit? And was that the only kit he had while being a BB?? And was that what was used on Holland and In Concert? Fataar was/is a very underrated drummer.

Some time ago on here, it was definitively established (after quite a lengthy investigation and discussion) that the clip features Ricky on drums and Bobby on percussion. 

But enough about New Years.  Let's get back to the topic on hand and discussing the questions posed in the original post.  I'm pretty interested in hearing about that period as well.    :police:

Blondie left in December '73, Ricky left in September '74...so Ricky only stayed for about 10 months. Dennis took back the role of the Beach Boys primary drummer in November '74.