The Smiley Smile Message Board

this interview from 1976 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gQD2g6F7y8 - is quite a watch, for brian's near-alarming candour.  but also his articulacy, ease and intelligence.

i mistakenly thought that brian had disappeared into wrongdom after snagging his gourd on SMiLE and LSD, but clearly i'm miles off - because here he is, in fine fettle, ten years later.  yet these days he's vaguer, less obviously comfortable, and many times more inarticulate.

so what happened, and when?

You are leaving out the fall back into bad habits in 1978 (if not earlier) which culminated with Brian at his heaviest and most depressed in 1982...Then 10 years under Landy-who prescribed many medications he should not have to control Bri...It's been discussed ad nauseam here and elsewhere....

Indeed, the worst was yet to come.

I've never thought that Brian seemed that out of it or anything. It's just how he looks. If he was slim, 22 years old, clean shaven and had slicked back hair, he'd sound exactly the same. Except that the innocent naivete just looks plain weird when he's over thirty.

He never really seemed very "out of it" until the 80's really.  Like you said, his looks were the biggest change in the 70's...he was still pretty articulate and intelligent, he just seemed a bit "off."  By the time we get to the late 80's, he is still somewhat articulate, but the slurring starts to show its effect.  It seems that the worse the slurring got, the less articulate he became.

I read conflicting reports about it. Brian on television interviews is hardly going to be the Brian that hangs out at home. I was reading http://gadflyonline.com/05-06-02/ftr-epiphany.html (http://gadflyonline.com/05-06-02/ftr-epiphany.html) this recently. Called Epiphany at Zuma Beach Or Brian Wilson hallucinates me
By David Dalton

That piece makes an interesting read, comparing Brian to a modern Californian Buddha but by the time it got to the "Phil, what are you doing here?!" bit where Brian thought Spector was in the disguise of a journalist... I realized that a man's mental balance was being exploited in the name of wacky acid adventures.

I want to say that the Dalton story doesn't seem right. First off Brian was doing the pyramid thing at the beach. Second Brian could have been putting the guy on or have been stoned on something if and when he made the Spector comment. Dalton has always brough a bit of comedy into his writing, so I think he probably should be read in that light.

I'll read it again later but I recall the tone changing from "You are aware that I'm blowin' this up a bit, right?" to "Okay, this really WAS strange!" when it got to that part.