The Smiley Smile Message Board

Finally picked up a copy of Paul Shaffer's "Swingin' Showbiz Saga" We'll Be Here For The Rest Of Our Lives.  As usual, I glanced at the Index before starting to read it, thumbing thru from Z to A - with special attention paid to the W's. Was surprised to only see 3 pages of reference to Brian, and two of them consecutive.
The first mention is really fun, as it's about him seeing the T.A.M.I. show as a youth in Thunder Bay.  (Good gawd, he's not even a full 2 years older than I am!)  Really great description of the show, (which had it's only showing at 9am on a Saturday morning), prefaced by a story about purchasing things from the James Brown estate, like his cape & Hammond B3.
The second story is the more interesting to me, though, and explains why his song "Metal Beach" is an instrumental.  He begins with a story of seeing the original 5 Boys play a concert in Thunder Bay, and of how, when Carl played the organ solo for "Surfin' USA" on a guitar, he thought to himself that he could have been up there, playing the organ part himself, as he knew it note for note.  He tells this story when he plays with them in Hawaii, for the 20th. Anniversary Concert; (is that story in the televised show?  Gotta dig it out, I guess), and goes on to say that today, Paul Shaffer is a Beach Boy!
He then goes on to say that the reason Brian doesn't sing on the track is because a certain Dr. Landy had written lyrics to the song, and he told him, "Sorry, Doc, but "Metal Beach" is going to be a surf instrumental.  No lyrics."  I had always wondered why he had invited Brian, then chose to not have him sing.  Good old Eugene spoiled another one...  

Technically, there's a some vocals on "Metal Beach," a bass line and some harmonies...and of course Landy doing the "metallll.....beach" line, but yeah no leads. It's a really cool surf instrumental, in my opinion.

Just to flaunt my "Shortenin' Bread Suite", "Metal Beach" appears at 2:26
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCvOiwUMNW8

Thanks for posting/sharing that.  Nice bit of art and music.  I have most of those pieces but would never have thought of putting it together that way.
A lot of those pictures were new to me.


Cool.

Great video, love hearing all the SB together!

Thank you both, credit must go to Alan Boyd who posted a rough draft of the "Shortenin' Bread suite" in 2006 on Shut Down...I took that and added a few more and that's all folks...

anyone care to repost it?   ;D

By the way, it was pointed out to me that Paul was mistaken; it was the 25th. anniversary show in Hawaii

Interesting, even though I don't really like Paul...find him really annoying on the show.

Mght pick this book up though.

Paul's book is really good.  Like him or hate him, the dude is extremely talented and has serious credentials in the "bizness."  It's a fun and fast read.

Not totally on topic, but related, here's Paul with Al Jardine and David Marks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXOeS7Tig0E&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXOeS7Tig0E&feature=related)

For me, Paul lost a lot of cred supporting Spector. >:(