The Smiley Smile Message Board

On Brian's Instagram there's a photo of him at Hawthorne HS (walking away from the building), being filmed. Does anyone know the story behind this? I was hoping maybe they were making a documentary or something.

Hawthorne HS tweeted a picture of him, looks like they changed a grade on one of his papers from his time there. Perhaps just a friendly visit?

That's cute. I only saw the photo of him walking away before.

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DTjn1ZkVQAAF9JN.jpg)

@HHSCougars
 9h9 hours ago
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Guess who dropped by HHS to appeal that grade Fred Morgan gave to him? Dr. Landesfeind signed the grade change! @BrianWilsonLive now has an A on that assignment! @beachboyslegacy  #OnceACougarAlwaysACougar

Thanks for posting this - what a day brightener!

So "Surfin" has now officially has been graded an A instead of an F by the school.  :)  Brian is actually looking pretty good in the photo.

He's looking pretty good!  :)

(https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/fr/cp0/e15/q65/26757856_10156324160627241_607632697398349860_o.jpg?efg=eyJpIjoibCJ9&oh=3ae8cf7ff443721ca6378ebb5183d3de&oe=5AE7D66C)

Yeah he’s looking really good. This is a great story!

Glad to see him looking so well. I bet the rest from being off the road is doing him wonders.

A documentary wasin prep last year, filming took place at a few gigs. This could easily be part of it

Brian is an A Student! ;D

I guess I’ve been living under a rock, I haven’t heard about a documentary. Or I forgot. Exciting news!

Rock and Roll album documentary? 8)

Y'know, I've often wondered about this...supposedly "Surfin'" wasn't written until Brian was in college...but it's been said his very first composition was "Surfer Girl"...so maybe THAT was the actual composition that earned him an "F" (and now an "A")?

It looks like the form that Brian is holding says, "Surfin' USA demonstrated..."

Regardless, I think it's cool that they did this!

I'm wondering the same thing.  It's a cool story, but the OCD part of me has trouble with the timeline.  Was Brian writing about surfing while still in high school?  Maybe it was a chord progression or "Boogie-Woogie"-type  instrumental that evolved into Surfin' or something similar?

Fred Morgan's quote was:"Brian wrote a composition for me and it turned out to be 'Surfin.' That composition got an F, but it made a million dollars."

I think the key words are "TURNED OUT TO BE..."

Brian always talks about Surfer Girl as the first song he ever wrote, at 19.  Brian's memory with regards to dates is impeccable, so that would be 1961, a full year after he graduated.

I'm guessing that based upon Brian's recollection and Fred Morgan's quote, that what he submitted in high school was a prototype of what became a surfing song later on, perhaps a partial musical phrase that wasn't a fully-formed song.

That's what I'm thinking

BW looks like a badass walking out of the school! :bw

It’s encouraging to see a picture of him walking by himself.  I remember when I saw him on the Pet Sounds tour, he looked to be really struggling.

Are you saying his F should have been changed to an incomplete?  :lol

What the heck , Brian in 2018 looks healthier than Mike.

He looks really good, happy and well rested.  I saw him live in early October, and that concert left me feeling more worried about him than anything else. 

It's a great song, but Mr Morgan asked him to write something in sonata form. This is a slippery slope.

A documentary?? 

A bonus feature on a full concert DVD???? 

Speaking of which, whatever happened to Mike’s documentary? Wasn’t it supposed to accompany his book?

I don't remember hearing about that.   I remember there was a trailer on The Beach Boys Facebook page a year or two ago that looked to be a documentary on the current touring band, but it turned out that it was fan made. 

So, maybe Mike's doc went the way of that phantom "History of The Beach Boys" doc that was teased back in the summer of 2012......or did that become the Doin It Again doc?

He's looking very well!!  He looked very tired during his last tour.  Maybe he needs to reduce the amount of shows he does?

I spotted camera crew last year....a friend on another board confirmed a documentary for US . Not heard anymore....but this would  be apt

Yeah, back in 2015 he had mentioned it in a couple interviews, here's one (http://bedfordandbowery.com/2015/06/mike-love-of-beach-boys-on-love-mercy-poor-brian-hes-had-a-rough-rough-time/)...


But I also remember one where he was fairly certain about the documentary in terms of being a companion with his book.

I forgot about that.  I would actually check that documentary out, but I'm not holding my breath as these type of projects seem to have a way of fizzling out.

Yeah, talk of documentaries from both camps makes me wish PBS did a 3 part/6 hour unbiased series on the entire band - from it's genesis to TWGMTR. There's plenty of footage, audio, pictures. It would be an amazing story from start to finish.

If Brian is currently filming a documentary I'm both excited and saddened - I'm excited for there to be a documentary, but I had hoped that in his current down time he'd be in the studio cutting rock-n-roll tracks. Maybe he's doing both though.

I'd love to see somebody from the outside take the reigns on a BB history doc.  Scorsese did a great doc on George Harrison a few years ago.   

I'm willing to wait on Brian's next album.  Artists around his age aren't exactly swift when it comes to releasing new material.   The guys from Pink Floyd are a great example. 

Brian is getting a little press from this.

NPR: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/01/17/578583184/be-true-to-your-school-58-years-later-brian-wilson-gets-an-a-in-music
Page Six: https://pagesix.com/2018/01/17/beach-boys-brian-wilson-finally-gets-an-a-in-music-class/
Consequence of Sound: https://consequenceofsound.net/2018/01/brian-wilsons-f-in-high-school-music-class-gets-changed-to-an-a
Noisey: https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/paqwgy/brian-wilsons-high-school-reversed-his-music-grade-from-an-f-to-an-a

“Extra credit for #PetSounds” ;D

@KDS, Scorsese also did a phenomenal doc on Bob Dylan many years ago. Would love to see a Beach Boys documentary in that style.

I never saw the Dylan one, although I'm not really a fan.   I loved his Harrison doc though.   

Maybe Zooey Daschanel can convince one of her director friends to put a documentary together.   (She's the first big time BB fan in Hollywood I could think of).

Maybe Tommy Wiseau or Ontor Pertwast? >:D

This was on ABC news this morning!

Brian: “I did not get an F, it's not true! It's bullshit! I did not get an F! [throws report card]. I did not. Oh hi, Mike.”

This needs to happen.

Scorcese's Dylan documentary was superb, absolutely top notch. Cleared up a lot of misunderstandings about him and was an outstanding editing job, tech-wise. You think you knew about Dylan until you watched that.

I'd wager a lot of people who weren't fans came away at least wanting to learn and hear more, if not getting a full conversion, after seeing that doc.

The Harrison doc was superb too, but for me maybe not as many revelations or "wow!" moments in terms of the history. But a definite must-see, and piggyback it with the Concert For George to hear his music presented in a totally new, respectful light.

What's Mike going to try to do to upstage this?

Go back to kindergarten and get a new juice box

I wish that too. I've always felt the Beach Boys deserved a documentary along the lines of the Beatles Anthology.  2012 would've been the perfect time. Another missed opportunity

:lol

Claim that he wrote part of the song so he also gets an A

:lol that one was better than mine,  although I find the idea of Mike going back to elementary Billy Madison style for the sole purpose of obtaining a juice box to be darkly hilarious. 

:lol this is great hahaha

Mike will go back to Dorsey High School and get ALL his grades changed! >:D

I watched it when I first became a fan and man it opened a lot of doors to his music for me, I went out and got the Live At Newport dvd after that, bought/read his Chronicles book - which is incredible. That movie helped me really understand his early music more, and as someone who once hated his music, it was a necessary movie to watch.

I saw on George's Facebook page that the Concert for George is getting a BluRay upgrade.

It's impossible to say the Harrison doc is bad, that's for sure. It's a good film. But not great. I'd say if one watched it blindly, it would be hard to tell it's a *Scorsese* documentary. It smelled to me at the time like he kind of employed a team of researchers and interviews and whatnot to make most of the documentary. For such a long documentary, it got hung up on taking too much time to re-tell the Beatles story yet again. It glossed over a good amount of George's later career.

But for sheer access to footage and interview subjects, it still has some important stuff in it.

But even something like the Harrison doc, 3-4 hours long, would be great to have for the Beach Boys.

I'd add Queen and Pink Floyd to the list of bands that need an upgrade on retrospective docs.

BBC put together a Floyd one that aired on Vh1 Classic for a little while.   At 75 minutes or so, it was far too brief and rather offered no insight.  The period between Syd and Dark Side of the Moon was glossed over. 

The most recent Queen one - The Days Of Our Lives (2011) - was pretty decent, but still didn't really cover any ground not on The Magic Years (1987) or Champions of the World (1995)

Hasn't Mike already made a documentary that shows his point of view?

It's called 'The Beach Boys: An American Family'

That's hilarious!  :lol

I think that's the room Mike Love is always referring to..... ;)

:lol the pieces are all coming together!

Haha, you just nailed it. The history of The Beach Boys according to Mike and presented by John Stamos offered to the unknowing public at the time as the "official" history.

We finally get to see all the so-called leeches, drug pushers, and hangers-on portrayed by actors according to Mike's history of 1966-67. And how Mike was able to swoop in like Superman and save the day, and rid Brian of all the stuffed animals and ne'er-do-wells and get into the room to write some lyrics with his cousin.

One of the biggest loads of pure revisionism and pure crap that has ever been foisted on the fandom of this great band.

I was disappointed. I'm actually having trouble remembering any details, but my biggest gripe was the coverage of his solo career. Correct me if I'm misremembering, but it felt like the soundtrack to 'Living In The Material World' was nearly exclusively "All Things Must Pass'. Considering the length of the documentary (and even the title), I think I was hoping for/expecting a much more comprehensive documentary. I love Early Takes, though. That's nice to have. Still waiting on Volume 2 or maybe they'll skip to Volume 3 ;)

Okay, this is an amusing story, a nice little publicity shot for Brian, but...come on, man...dude has a doctorate! Does he really need to appeal a half-century-old homework grade???!!  :)

 :lol :lol

I too wish for there to be an unbiased series. Sadly, I feel absolutely certain that the only way this will happen is when the principals are no longer with us, and nobody is around to try and force an agenda, or shut down content that actually speaks about the role narcissism played in the trajectory of this band (and its affect on the music, band, and the members). That's been the huge elephant in the room that I don't think has *ever* been talked about at length (or at all?) in any documentary about this band, and there's no way anyone can be honest with themselves and claim that isn't a big part of the story.   The actual *word* needs to be used and not stepped around.

Riiiight, because that would be unbiased and free of any agenda

 :lol

Sadly I think you're right

I'm not suggesting a hit piece, just an honest talk about this uncomfortable, but sadly unavoidable (if it's actually an unbiased series) subject. Just as that same subject could not and should not be avoided in any real, proper, and unbiased documentary (should one be made) about guys like Phil Spector or Billy Corgan. I honestly, truly, from the bottom of my heart am not suggesting this be done with the intent to diminish the reputation of a particular member of this band, but simply an honest discussion about things. I'm sure if it were properly done, some empathy would come his way too if the probable root causes were discussed.

Possibly, and I'm not at all saying Mike was a saint or anything.  I just think The Beach Boys history is wrought with issues, and if you're going to discuss any of Mike's foibles, then an unbiased documentary should give equal time to everything that plagued the band, be in the substance abuse of the Wilson brothers, Manson, Landy, poor musical decisions (ie Smiley Smile instead of Smile, no Dennis songs on Surf's Up, becoming a nostalgia band after Endless Summer, ill advised forays into disco and rap), etc etc etc. 

Agreed. I think there could be a decent, sensitive way to discuss this stuff, although it wouldn't be easy, without it being done in a tabloid/agenda-driven manner. Yet of course I also understand that band members' families may wish for privacy regarding certain matters too.

But the narcissism angle is **way, way** too big a part of the story to just causally avoid. We're talking decades of consequences.

I think the only way you can tell the story while mentioning all of the BB issues without it going into tabloid fodder would be to do an extensive doc like what's been mentioned.  That way the darkness doesn't completely overshadow the light. 

I'm fine with that angle being acknowledged as long as it doesn't perpetuate the belief that Mike is the devil, and Brian, Carl, Dennis, and Al are angels. 

Fair enough.

Getting back on topic (sorta), I wonder if any BB band member left any evidence of their high school attendance, such as graffiti in bathroom stalls, names/initials carved into wooden desks, etc?

Also those cards left in the back of library books (before computers came along) that would specify who took what book and when. I can see a book on composing or baseball being checked out by Brian at one point or another.

If it's anything like the schools I attended some of those cards might still be there. 

Yeah, what made me think of it was my father was recently sent one that had his name in it from a school he attended long ago. He probably checked that book out when The Beach Boys were still making hits!

The "Early Takes" CD was a total hodge podge, and was predominantly ATMP outtakes. Great stuff, no question. But it definitely didn't accompany the film particularly. And yeah, they haven't done any more volumes. For some reason, Harrison's estate continually reissues stuff that's already been out instead of digging into the archives.

The film itself ignored most of his solo career post-1974 tour other than the Wilburys and a few other bits.

It certainly highlights why the BBs need a long documentary. "Endless Harmony" covered 37 years in about 105 minutes, while the Harrison doc covered about 40 in like 3 1/2 hours or whatever it was.

Concerning a long-form BB documentary along the lines of a "Beatles Anthology", while there are many reasons it's difficult to pull off, one big one is music clearances. A 6-hour-ish documentary would have to include a ton of music, and all of that has to be paid for. One of the reasons things like the C50 live Blu-ray or the Knebworth 1980 DVD have truncated setlists is that they had to pay for sync rights to every composition, and that can get expensive.

Additionally, they have to clear the rights to the actual recordings as well, not to mention video/film footage.

Now, I wouldn't mind just six hours of interviews without any music or vintage footage, but that wouldn't sell to anybody but the hardcore fans.

BRI would probably need to hook in some sort of financier like HBO or something to front the money to do the thing.

If this were pitched tomorrow, as of January 2018, the surviving members would never be able to come together on the telling of certain events or the postgame recap of where the band's status exists today. Just look at Mike's book for some examples.

I doubt they'd even be able to get into the same room without a legal document full of demands.

It defines the word clusterfuck.

Seriously, does anyone think something like a consensus would be reached when the topic of C50 comes up for the documentary? Not a chance in hell.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1113829/soundtrack (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1113829/soundtrack)
I'm not sure how complete this soundtrack is, but proportionally it underscores my problem with the documentary.

All Things Must Pass: 9 songs
Living In The Material World: 2 songs
Dark Horse: 1 song
Traveling Wilburys: 4 songs
Brainwashed: 3 songs

I really need to re-watch this sometime, now that I know what to expect...


Do you think anything will ever come of a "Brainwashed 2" project? I remember being teased that there was more music that Jeff and Dhani were interested in working on and possibly releasing at some point. I'm all for it.

All true, but as I've said before, other artists have no problems clearing their songs for DVD releases.   

While it's a valid reason, I think it's a poor one. 

No I don't think a consensus would be reached, but let each member give their opinion and let the viewer decide who they believe.

Who mention me?

If you want, I make big Hollywood movie about Brian Wilson.

It's usually a pretty simple numbers game, and if someone can't pony up the budget to do a release, it won't happen. If it's going to lose money because one of the parties wants a sync license that's $1 million per-30-seconds, a release won't happen.

Add to that some degree of apathy and disinterest (hopefully now in the past now that BRI has a good crew in there) in the past when it comes to such projects for the BBs, and it makes it even harder.

I've also always guessed that Mike post-1998 has been somewhat apprehensive about a ton of live *videos* of a Beach Boys band with many more "Beach Boys" in it than his current band. The C50 live videos happened because of a bunch of up-front deals related to the whole project. I think "Knebworth 1980" only happened because they were approached to do a 70-minute concert release. I remember hearing back at the time than some of the surviving BBs were not particulary enthused about the Knebworth 1980 show being released.

Music/concert releases on home video (DVD, Blu, etc.) typically *don't* sell that well (comparatively). Some bands/artists do well within that niche. I'm guessing the Beach Boys aren't in that top tier when it comes to that stuff.

Additionally, it also depends on whether the band/artist in question owns its own publishing. It's probably no coincidence that the C50 "Live in Concert" Blu-ray strangely ignores some "classic" hits but includes "Marcella", both songs off the new album, "All This is That", etc. They were able to negotiate essentially with *themselves* on some of those songs and I'm sure it cost less to clear "Marcella" than it did a classic 60s song.

Could be a chicken / egg thing.  Maybe The Beach Boys live product doesn't sell because it's inferior.   For example, if I buy an Iron Maiden DVD release, it'll have a complete concert, bonus features, a short doc from that tour, etc etc. 

However, C50 was a truncated show with zero extras.  I only bought myself a copy because I found one super cheap on Amazon Marketplace. 

Sweet dude! ;)

I think the funniest thing would be if the ‘F’ could somehow be transferred to Mikes school grade for the 92 ‘Surfin’  remake.

It does look like there is a Brian documentary in the works though.

https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/2018/01/17/beach-boys-co-founder-brian-wilson-returns-to-alma-mater-at-hawthorne-high-school-for-some-justice/

Wilson was filmed during his visit by a crew producing a documentary about him. He visited Landesfeind’s office and the school’s baseball field.

“He was quiet and didn’t say much,” she said. “But he was very nice. We drove him on a golf cart to the baseball field. He was a major athlete.”

The crew went on to make stops at places along Hawthorne Boulevard that were popular during Wilson’s teenage years. The boulevard used to be an active cruising strip for young people.

Great idea! ;D

I got thinking about docs today when I finally checked out Super Duper Alice Cooper, which makes Endless Harmony look like Beatles Anthology. 

:lol I don't know if that's a compliment or not

I emailed the author of the article and pointed out that the monument dedication occurred on May 20, 2005, not 2011 as she had stated originally in the article.  She emailed me back and said that the error has been corrected.