The Smiley Smile Message Board

what are some examples of when the Beach Boy members were Finicky? here's a couple I can think of..
1. Mike Love and how he wears his hat..
2. The kind of women Dennis chased after
3. Brian recording "Break Away"
4. Mike Love and how he DOESN'T wear his hat
5. Carl in the way he played Chuck Berry
6. Al in the way he likes to sing about TM
any more you can think of????

Oh my god Brian in the studio at any time before, say, '70.

Bruce Johnston being finicky about the placement of the microphone on his mic stand. 

I'd be inclined to add "fans" after "Boys" and before "being"... :hat 

I've never been particularly interested in the "womanizing" aspect of Dennis's life, but isn't #2 above actually the total opposite? Every account I've heard is that he was into anybody and everybody. I would presume he had preferences and predilections like most people, but I've never heard him described as "finicky."

I don't know about Al and TM, but I'd say for years he was overly-finicky about messing with his on-stage monitor and the volume knobs on his guitar during live shows. He still does it to this day, though to a somewhat lesser degree. But it does stun me that he sometimes appears to not be happy with his monitor levels and mic levels and all of that after a half century in the business. I don't think it's anything more than a funny idiosyncrasy of course.

I have to think of the suggestions from the OP were in jest. 

Dennis did seem to prefer women who had a pulse though.  :)

lol... we would hope so,,,,,

I've shared a monitor wedge with Al and I can tell you he likes them loud and trebly, like an ice pick.  I suspect he just has hearing difficulties and he likes to sing on key.  If you want to get finicky about something, a monitor is a pretty good place to do it, because the squeaky wheel gets the grease in that department.

Alan's brief suspension from the band in the early 90s was due, in part, to his tinnitus worsening and affecting his overall outlook..

That explains why Al's voice is in such great shape!

how about Bruce and his mike stand. (not as in Mike Love stance) haha
lets open that can of worms.
maybe he needs a headset.

Mine sure got worse after sharing that wedge!

Finicky?  Take a peak at some of their tour riders :)

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/beach-boys-rider

Without prying too much into someone's personal life and medical issues, can you elaborate at all on Al's tinnitus?  I ask because I'm personally interested due to my own and family members' issues with the same condition.  I hadn't read about Al having tinnitus and it makes me sad to learn that it affected him so much (though I understand how it can do so). 

Marcella, one thing I can tell you is most of the medical knowledge in the U.S. (it's different elsewhere) about tinnitus is flat wrong.  We are mostly told that it is almost always from hearing damage and is always irreversible.  Neither is true...it is a symptom a wide variety of things.  11 years ago I developed tinnitus in one ear that has nothing to do with playing music, except that when I first became ill, doctors assumed I had hearing damage because of the tinnitus and my occupation when I really had something else going on, and so I didn't get treated at all, and I was very sick with whatever it was for about two months (I suspect now it may have been Lyme disease or something like it).  Thanks doctors!  (I still have the T in the one ear, but it is greatly reduced from that time and does not trouble me)

That's not to say hearing damage doesn't cause tinnitus - it does - but it's quite frequently something else.  It is linked a lot to nerve damage and also sinus, neck and shoulder problems.  The thing I would suggest is to try to correlate the tinnitus to some other physical problem.  For instance, if you experience numbness in your fingers, that's usually a sign of a pinched nerve in the neck.  High blood pressure is another thing to keep an eye out for.  If you can figure out what's actually driving your tinnitus you can often alleviate it (for me, it's some combination of all of the above, but the one thing that has almost no effect is playing music).

I always tell people to start with the neck.  Doctors for some reason never consider neck problems, but with the amount of computer work and driving we do most of us have issues in this area, and it's pretty easy for the muscles and nerves in this area to get compromised.  Tinnitus often is one of the results.  Chiropractors are way more hip to this stuff than MDs.  ENTs are unfortunately useless for the most part.

As for Al's tinnitus, I have no idea.  I did once observe him wince in pain at a sudden bright light when we were at the same show, so there may be some nerve thing going on there as well.  But I'd guess with the amount of shows they played there's probably a hearing co-factor.  No idea though, maybe someone else does.

Definitely, and a one-off gig or some sort of gig outside of a regular touring operation would definitely result in a greater need to get used to and dial in one's monitor.

But I've recall many, many instances over the years of Al being finicky (or picky, or whatever word we want to use) with his monitor and guitar during BB tours over the years. I think it's just how he is, and may be his personality as much as any sort of technical issue.

He does a lot of start and stop playing the guitar, like he can't settle into a groove quickly and easily, or can't decide exactly what he wants to do. I've seen him do this sort of thing for instance at one or more of those in-store solo acoustic shows from recent years. He sometimes can't just play a song from beginning to end. He stops, starts, stops, apologizes or mumbles something about the key or the chords or his voice. He sometimes does that sort of combination of a smile/wince/shoulder shrug.

I've seen him do that on stage too. Nothing major at all. I'm the biggest Al fan around. He just seems a bit more unsettled on stage (not persona-wise, just in terms of playing his guitar and dialing all of that in) than one would think a guy playing all those years would be. He's 100% capable of playing and singing stunningly well. I saw him do great guitar work at a 2005 solo gig.

One time I had a horrible tooth ache and couldn't get to the Dentist for a couple weeks.  So my solution was to take "BC" Powders a couple times a day.  Basically, if you're not familiar it's crushed up aspirin in a little wrapper, not sure if they sell it outside of the south.  Anyways, the toothache got worse and worse, and I was taking two at a time. 

After about 5 days of this, I started noticing that I would get this horrible tinnitus in both ears, that actually hurt a little bit as well.  So I'd have the ringing, and my ears felt clogged up or swollen internally.  I eventually figured out maybe it has something to do with these BC powders, and googled it.

So, essentially, I almost killed myself with aspirin poisoning (which causes Tinnitus)...