The Smiley Smile Message Board

Zeppo Wilson: The Beach Boy Time Forgot

Notes and Research by Andre Perkowski

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Figure 143. Zeppo Wilson, AKA: "The Lostest Beach Boy," "The Firmly Forgotten Beach Boy," "The Real Reason Smile Wasn't Completed"

While Beach Boys scholarship continues chugging along nicely, filling in vast swathes of previously murkily sketched areas and highlighting often under-appreciated band members, for some reason research into the life of Herbert Manfred "Zeppo" Wilson is sorely lacking.The Middle-Middle Brother of the Wilson clan, Zeppo's disdain for publicity and lack of a mailing address have made contact difficult if not annoying. Let's try to pool our resources and see if we can correct the history books once and for all.

There are different theories as to where Zeppo got his stage name: Al Jardine said in a press conference for the Carnegie Hall concert in 1971 that the name was derived from the Zeppelin airship. Zeppo's ex-wife Barbara Sinatra repeats this in her 2011 book, Lady Blue Eyes: My Life with Frank; only with more emphatic hand gestures. Mike Love insists that he was the one who coined the nickname, adding that he also came up with the hook in "Good Vibrations."

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Figure 144. Zeppo Wilson in a Beach Boys promo shot before being airbrushed out

The popular assumption that his role in the band was superfluous was fueled in part by Brian Wilson. According to Brian's own ghostwritten story, when the group signed to Capitol Records and it was revealed how the money would be split, Brian Wilson replied "We're twice as good without Zeppo!"

LORREN DARO: "He was as mean as Murry. It's not surprising that he became a Hollywood agent. Can you imagine any of the other Wilson brothers becoming an agent? Of course not. Zeppo didn't give a sh*t about surfing, but he sure cared about percentages."

Buried in court transcripts of the Mike Love vs. Brian Wilson legal maelstrom is testimony from a Sandra Glick of Pico Rivera who insisted that Zeppo was responsible for Mike Love not getting credited for anything, "He said we should put everything in an extremely small font and apparently that was enough to fool him."

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Figure 147. Zeppo Wilson introduces the Maharishi to the rest of the band. Notice how Brian looks to Zeppo for guidance.

His brief enthusiasm for Transcendental Meditation shoved Mike Love into a creative cul-de-sac he reportedly never emerged from despite "doing that funny cross-legged sitting down for like, minutes at a time" according to former BRI production assistant Jimmy Agnello.

VAN DYKE PARKS: "He was as fast as a mongoose who forgot about the snake entirely in favor of going into advertising. He was the real reason Smile never came out."

Let us pay homage to a difficult, apparently deeply conflicted man.

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DANNY HUTTON: "Offstage, he was actually the most musically talented of the Beach Boys. He had this way of holding the guitar that meant business. I guess that's why he didn't play any gigs with them live, he knew he'd make them look besides the point. We tried to write a song together and I'm pretty sure I ended up hitting him, or he hit me. Somebody hit somebody. (chuckles)"

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AL JARDINE: "He's responsible for my growing a beard back then. He kept ribbing me and calling me Ron Howard. Once everybody else started doing it too, I figured it was time for a change. To this day, when I wake up in the morning and shave... I think of Zeppo. Then I start thinking about my favorite episodes of Happy Days."

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BRIAN WILSON: "I was 19. Dennis was 15. Carl was 17. I was 19, Zeppo was 16. Mike was 18. Al was 19. I was 19, too. And so we wrote a song called "Surfin'" in my living room. We were all playing and singing and Mike and I wrote a song called "Surfin'" and that's how it all started. I never surfed."

I love you.

I would love to hear Mike's thoughts on his cousin Zeppo.

(cracks knuckles)

^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^

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FANTASY MIKE LOVE: "Yeah, it was Zeppo that told us that the Maharishi was someone we should pay attention to and he booked our flights for India in February of ’68. We all went down there and the Beatles were there as well, and so was Donovan, and Mia Farrow was there for a little while. Mia Farrow and her sister, I can't remember her name but the Beatles wrote Dear Prudence about her. It was actually a teacher-training course, a gathering to train teachers of Transcendental Meditation but Zeppo didn't tell us that. I didn’t really realize that that was the case when I first went there, I was so new to meditation... I mean, I thought meditation was something to do with air conditioning. Zeppo claimed to have been doing it for years, but I never saw it.

So, Zeppo and I are eating breakfast one morning when Paul McCartney from the Beatles came to the table with his acoustic guitar and he kept saying "Hey Zeppo! Hey Michael! Will you listen to this... I flew in from Miami Beach, BOAC," and he sang us the original version of ‘Back in the USSR’ and I told Paul...well, you ought to talk about all the girls around Russia like we talked about all the girls around the world in ‘California Girls’ and he did. Zeppo told him he should make it a Beatles song and he agreed with that too."

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Figure 43535. People more famous than you'll ever be.

THE ROLE OF ZEPPO WILSON IN THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY
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As the two last surviving Wilson brothers, Brian and Zeppo's participation in the reunion was deemed "almost positively crucial, I'm sure of it" by Capitol Records and indeed, it was Zeppo's business acumen and ability to read attachments sent with emails that made the reunion possible in the first place. Displaying his characteristic ruthless modesty, Zeppo insisted on staying strictly behind the scenes in a logistical support role. He worked tirelessly for days just constructing Mike Love's color coordination timetable, and there are rumors that he's directly responsible for rhyming "spring vacation" with "good vibration."

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CYBORG BRUCE HISTORICAL JOHNSTON: "By the time I got into the band, Zeppo was coming around less and less because, let's face it, he had less and less to do. Sometimes he'd stand at the back and hold a tambourine, but for the most part his main function as a Beach Boy seemed to be to be really sarcastic to people. So. Fast forward to Smile. Suddenly Zeppo is the hippie to end all hippies and every word out of his mouth is far out this, psychedelic that. It was scary. Everybody said he was really talented and I was just jealous and didn't "get" Zeppo. No, not jealous. It was more frustration than jealousy. It was about the way Zeppo was treating us and the reputation of the band. Up until 1967 it was no worries mate, put another shrimp on the barbie as they say in Australia. Then Zeppo takes LSD, starts feeding it to Brian, starts putting it in Dennis' orange juice and suddenly all of our livelihoods are in jeopardy. The Beach Boys are and were a business, it's just a job to me. What would you do? Am I supposed to be ashamed of trying to save Zeppo from self-destruction? We threw him out of the band but it was the only way to try to get him to straighten out. He did, so we were right. But he was still sarcastic even off drugs."

I'm sorry but this needs to be stickied.

Zeppo is not in Wikepedia nor is he on AGD's site. This oversight needs to be addressed!

And what of Gummo, the even murkier figure in BB history? He was forcibly ejected from the family home by Murry for a perceived transgression as a pre-teen and left to fend for himself on the mean streets of Hawthorne. Little more is known....

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Figure 352. Mike and Zeppo, Happier Times.

The fragile yin/yang relationship of the Beach Boys can best be understood by examining the tense give and take between Zeppo Wilson and Mike Love -- see for example the feud that turned physical over who REALLY kept the summer alive. Friends, enemies, cousins: they never actually wrote a song together, but Zeppo to this day is irritated over Mike getting 30% of the royalties for them. Despite their almost desperate dive into Transcendental Meditation, they never managed to heal the rift this caused. A rift that became a chasm, a chasm that became a vortex... a vortex that in 1999 claimed the life of a youngish Matt Jardine, who to this day is impersonated by a series of convicted criminals as a sign of respect.
 

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Figure 2525. Relaxing in Big Sur, 90s.

AL JARDINE: "Despite what he did to my son, I'd invite him up every couple of months... he liked getting out of Los Angeles. We'd feed goats, take long walks. We'd talk about old times. A lot of people don't know that he was responsible for my leaving the band. He just "forgot" to tell me about rehearsals and I got so bored of waiting around I decided to go to school. Brian thought it was hilarious when he found out, of course. Zeppo was always playing pranks like that. He lit up like a Christmas tree when I fell into my well."

Do you people see what happens when you start a "least essential Beach Boy" thread? Huh? Do ya?

Don't let THIS happen to you. Give generously to The Michael Edward Love Foundation.

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Figure 5776. Zeppo confronts Phil Spector

Disturbed by Brian's insistence that Phil Spector conspired with director John Frankenheimer to make his film "SECONDS" some kind of "mind gangster assault" on his brain, Zeppo handled the matter in a distinctly Zeppovian way, marching right into a session.

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HAL BLAINE: "He started extending his arms and spinning in circles like that guy in um, what's that game... 'Final Fight' I think. Instruments were going everywhere. Maracas were slamming into tack pianos. Phil was going ballistic. He ran down from the control room."

CAROL KAYE: "And Spector ran a tight ship. He liked to have fun but he worked hard and got the job done, he was a perfectionist. I know because I was there."

HAL BLAINE: "Phil starts spittin' cotton almost, just goshdarn this f*** that, Wilson this, Zeppo that. Zeppo is still spinning in circles, music sheets are everywhere. Now this is session time, so it's costing a lot of money. Finally Zeppo slows down, points at Spector..."

CAROL KAYE: "He told him, 'Call off your mind gangsters!' and Spector started squawking like a parrot. Hal cracked a joke and the tension kind of died down. We got back to work."

As I understand it, Gummo Wilson was more talented than Brian. He was the oldest of the brothers and unfortunately died in the Korean war before the group started.

The event that "broke Murry's heart" as Audree put it. He took to his bed  playing "Two Step Side Step" for sixteen hours solid upon receiving the news.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcJIn8rUZUw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcJIn8rUZUw)

Some say that it led directly to his death twenty some-odd years later.

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Figure 2425. Pacific Ocean Blues: Three Wilsons, One Big Mess

Often cast in the role of "enforcer" or "hatchet man" for the Beach Boys, Zeppo was entrusted with handling tricky family business, which got even trickier in the difficult years after the death of Murry. Here he is at the exact moment following his firm ultimatum to Dennis Wilson that he cannot tour as a solo act AND be a Beach Boy. Dennis was crushed, and Zeppo "found it all rather hilarious, especially when Dennis started crying and crooning soulfully between gasping sobs" according to Barbara Sinatra on a February 23, 1993 interview on Larry King Live. Larry King went on to say how interesting that was and announce an upcoming interview with funnyman Gabe Kaplan.

Whoo! Saturday Night Slam Masters!!!

FANTASY MIKE LOVE: "By the eighties, some of our critics were saying that we weren't keeping the summer alive anymore, it was barely on life support. The summer was flatlining. The summer was in dire need of resuscitation. That's when a little thing called 'Kokomo' changed everything. I have to hand it to Zeppo, he recognized quality when he saw it. He backed me 100%."

BRIAN WILSON: "I really like 'Kokomo.' I wish I was on it. Zeppo kept calling, leaving messages. 'Brian, Brian, we're recording! You have to be on Kokomo!" And I really wanted to do it, but I wasn't on it. Zeppo was really angry at me for a while so I stayed away from his house. He was sleeping in my living room, so it was real hard to do."

The Beach Boys are currently performing "Kokomo" on their extremely successful 50th Anniversary Tour.

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Gummo was kind of like the Charles Crumb to Zeppo's Robert, or Jack's older brother (forgot his name), killed in WWII, to J.F.K. BTW this is hilarious, as is the whole thread, nice work.

This is the balls-out weirdest thread ever, particularly if you get the Marx in-jokes.  I have to wonder if Boyd had a hand in this...

Now hold on just a minute there, sir. This is Murry Wilson speaking to you. Now I'm not going to sit here and an allow an honorable, decent man like Zeppo be slandered by two-timing cons and hoodlums! That was a pack of lies! In every way Zeppo conducted himself, he was an utmost professional and a valuable member of the Beach Boys singing group. Just ask Carl, or Al - anyone except Brian, because he's probably too fried out of his overblown head to answer!

On many an occasion I had the pleasure to hear Zeppo sing, and he was angel with a strong soprano. Never once did I witness or was a party to Zeppo smoking or otherwise ingesting any illicit substances, including both marijuana and LSD. When the time came to screw Mike and Al out of royalties, not once did Zeppo say anything untoward. He understood that the Beach Boys were a family group built on harmony and family kinship, not ego or lies. The money stayed within the Wilson family, where it belonged, instead of the pockets of some Hollywood fat cat with a slick tongue.

In fact, I trained Zeppo as my right hand man, and it was with great joy that I watched him become a fine agent and a reputable businessman. Bruce Johnston could eat his shorts for all I care, although with how small they are I doubt it would make for much of a meal.

Love always,

Murry Wilson

Ontor, I love you man.

This just in from Probyn Gregory: "Not many people realize that Zeppo was a diehard fan of Pez candy, in fact, his nom de guerre is short for Operation Pez, backwards."

I just reread all this. Apparently I had a very strange Thursday.

Many people go through their whole lives without Thursdays like that. You should be proud.

By the way, I'm convinced it's actually Zeppo who says "good" on With Me Tonight. When he approved, the boys knew it's the take.

There was a little-known instance in 1964 when the Beach Boys were on tour in the midwest, and Brian suffered an acute attack of appendicitis necessitating emergency surgery and a brief hospital stay.  Zeppo, who traveled with the band but generally refused to show his face onstage, was persuaded to fill in for Brian.... and no one in the audiences ever noticed the difference.  Apparently, Zeppo also fooled Alan Jardine, who to this day swears this never happened.  "No one can tell me that wasn't Brian standing next to me singing 'Everyone Says I Love You' night after night on that tour.  God, I loved that song. The Three Stooges once sang it in a movie."

Welcome back, Mr. Boyd! Hope you're feeling well these days and thanks for the laugh.

If Brian is hot about covering "Honeycomb", I think "Everyone Says 'I Love You'" could be make a decent Beach Boys cover as well.

Urban legend posits that the Beach Boys acquired their name after a Candix records employee with the improbable and most likely illegal name "Russ Regan" took it upon himself to rename the fledgling "Pendletones," and thus was born a legend. An urban legend, of course -- the real story is that Zeppo was tasked with coming up with the perfect name. He spent nearly twelve minutes doing so, in an incredible bit of ephemera which we're pleased to publish here for the first time:

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Figure 4967. Zeppo's original handwritten potential band name list.

To preserve historical accuracy for future generations, might I add that the full proposed Zeppo name was actually "Fantasy Mike and His Amazing Beach Boys".  Candix were all for the name until someone pointed out to them which one was Fantasy Mike.

"The Crab Boys" might work for somebody. Awfully Burroughsian.

:o   Woah!!! I never knew this stuff!!!  Hopefully Zeppo reads this board....

Dear Zeppo,

• Why did Brian quit touring in 64?
• Was Glenn Campbell really a Beach Boy?
• What caused the collapse of SMiLE?
• What made Brian finally agree to finish it in 2004?
• What was Brian up to during the 70s and early 80s?
• Was there going to be a Shut Down Volume 3?
• And..what's in the 50th Anniversary Box Set!!??

Your Friend,
Harold Bean Bag

It just so happens I have pertinent notes concerning those subjects around here somewhere...

(rummaging sounds)

Also, Zep - can you explicate the following verse from "Beatrice From Baltimore" -

She got the clap not the heppo
She do the bump with ol' Zeppo
Pulls his strings like Geppetto
Drinks absinthe and Amaretto

And an even stranger Friday

What caused the collapse of Smile? Are we any closer to a definitive answer?

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The above still captures the upswing of Smile's brutally bipolar pendulum -- a moment of silly tomfoolery in the studio with Brian, Van Dyke, and Zeppo. But would they be smiling long?

DAVID ANDERLE: "Brian was always so full of enthusiasm when he'd play these acetates for me. Initially, anyway. They'd spin around and the most heavenly, groovy music imaginable would be spilling out into my ears... bliss! Exquisite! I'd look at Brian, who would be lost in thought. What? 'Zeppo doesn't like it,' he'd sigh, staring out of the window. Zeppo doesn't like it. I'd hear that phrase for months as Brian kept rerecording Heroes and Villains to please Zeppo. 'Not enough glockenspiel,' he would sniff."

TRANSCRIPT FROM A RARE ZEPPO WILSON PRESS CONFERENCE

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Figure 34535. Zeppo holds court with members of the dreaded "Fourth Estate"

Q. Why did Brian quit touring in 64?

A. Why don't I like your face? You should go ask Brian that. Maybe you'll get a different answer this week. He just couldn't take the pressure, put him in the cooker and he goes soft. Well, usually we all go a little soft in the cooker, but he was softer than most. "Sensitive," Mom would call him. [Indecipherable] Besides, some people thought Glenn Campbell was Brian Wilson anyway, so we figured... get Glenn Campbell.

Q. Was Glenn Campbell really a Beach Boy?

A. Cousin Mike likes to say stupid stuff like "Being a Beach Boy is a state of mind" in interviews. I like to say, being a voting member of this organization makes you a Beach Boy. So, no. If he's a Beach Boy, then Elliot Gould is a Beach Boy. Let me remind you, my friends... Elliot Gould is no Beach Boy.

Q. What made Brian finally agree to finish Smile in 2004?

A. Why would you ask me that? Am I literally my brother's keeper? I had nothing to do with that except as sort of a benign presence, a phantom spectre, a gray ghost in the room. I told him to do the pirate, tho. Pirates were big that year, people like them.

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Figure 90784. Zeppo applies a keen editorial eye to Van Dyke's word salad.

Is there any truth to the rumor that Zeppo is currently Phil Spector's cellmate?? Or is that just more Keith Badman BS??

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Figure 3463. Rejected Shut Down Volume 3 album cover art.

Beach Boys history is littered with apparently several hundred unreleased albums in various stages of completion and decomposition. One of the more tantalizing of these "almost albums" was the unimaginatively titled Shut Down Volume 3.

NICK VENET: "The hammer came down when Zeppo got a load of the track listing. THREE Chuck Berry covers was two too many. It's a good thing he was in prison, right? On top of that,  Zeppo said that the mocked-up cover art 'looked like somebody just added me onto a preexisting photograph.' So we shelved it, hoping he'd be out of the band soon enough anyway."

Proposed track listing:

Somethin Else
Yes, We Have No Bananas (In Our Car)
Tell Me About Your Carburetor
Motorin' Monkey Doodle-doo
Route 66 Theme
You Can't Catch Me
Baby Loves My Coupe
Denny in the Passing Lane
Rocket "88"/ Maybellene Medley
Mike Love's Last Race
Hot Rod Highway
Oh! Oh! Get Out of the Car

The conceit of the album is that it's recorded at a hot rod rally hosted by Mike Love that gets busted by the police at the end of the album, so there are inane short links between tracks featuring Mike Love speaking over a megaphone and doing exactly what you'd expect. Brian Wilson was very excited about his plan to include a locked groove at the end of the album, leaving an ear-piercing police siren looping until the listener got up and took the record off. When he brought it up, Al Jardine reportedly said, and I quote: "Uh."

"Hot Rod Highway" is a barely-rewritten "No-Go Showboat." "Baby Loves My Coupe" is as boring as it sounds, but if you turn up the volume as it ends, you can catch a hilarious piece of studio chatter as Zeppo pans the track as "smelling like hot garbage." As usual, there were several "filler" tracks: Dennis Wilson's disarmingly demented drum solo on "Denny in the Passing Lane" made Maureen Tucker sound like Buddy Rich, whatever that means. An incredibly surreal confection, "Mike Love's Last Race" combines a chugging Carl-driven guitar twang backing with an echo-drenched Mike Love describing time stopping before his death in a terrible car accident, his entire life flashing before his eyes. The morbid humor of this track doesn't date well, but here's to hoping the upcoming boxed set includes it to please the Pitchfork crowd.

OMG, Zeppo is even tinier than...than...AL!!!

They didn't have Photoshop in those days, so darkroom fakery was pretty primitive.

 He also has terrible posture.

Actually, Zep looks a helluva lot more like a "man waiting for a bus" in this photo than Al EVER did....

Have I gone too far in mainlining so much Zeppo, or does that actually sound like a fine album?

It was really great until you start inserting all those G-D "link tracks" into it. That theory was debunked years ago!

It's clear that this is some overly clever vault looter at work--which makes me wonder (please...) if it was Zep who, in a fit of pique, leaked all the Capitol stuff to the Sea o' Tunes folks....

There was another Wilson. Unfortunately we don't know anything about him because he died at birth. Also, it was Mike Love's sister, Harpo Love that played the harp on Catch a Wave. But she never said anything.

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Figure 242. Zeppo unveils his treasure trove seconds before Alan Boyd screams, "you mean they aren't even in boxes?"

WHAT CAN WE EXPECT ON THE UPCOMING BOXED SET?

While looking for something he could sell for drug money, Zeppo's son recently discovered a box full of lost reference mixes, demos, acetates, and what could only be described as "assorted flotsam." After buying the box of priceless recordings back from his son, Zeppo worked closely with Alan Boyd to identify some of these thrilling and often annoying discoveries.

While a full accounting of "Zeppo's Box" will not be revealed until the October issue of MOJO, guys who like to hint about things other people don't know about on message boards have dropped the following hints:

* There are recordings
* They will be released in some fashion
* They sound amazing but I can't say anything more

While that's not much to go on, if you read between the lines you can clearly see that they are referring to items such as:

* Mike Love, Bruce Johnston, Zeppo Wilson & David Marks Of The Beach Boys
  Salute Sizzler - demo recordings for a thankfully abandoned late 90s promotional album.

* "Please Mr. Postman" and "Walking The Dog" - Nov '67 Wild Honey sessions.

* A disturbed Zeppo Wilson/Charles Manson duet of "I've Been Working on the Railroad" that Mr. Desper briefly dismisses in his upcoming book as "intolerable despite the effective stereo panorama."

* "The Bristol Stomp / Paint it Black" - "15 Big Ones" sessions, Mike Love lead vocals.

* "Lady California Calling My Feelings" - described by Zeppo as "something Jardine did when we weren't paying attention that somehow manages to sound like everything else he did when we weren't paying attention."

Hopefully he could drop a few more hints in this thread because reading between the lines makes you go blind.

The only bummer here is I can't share this funniest thing ever with anyone I know in my day-to-day life.

By the way, could even Zeppo explain away SIP and Stars & Stripes vol 1? Doubt it.

This is all fascinating stuff and solves quite a few Beach Boy puzzles.

First, I notice that Zeppo's handwriting from the band name checklist is the same as that on the proposed list of track names for the anticipated SMiLE album that was used for the printed sleeves. Zeppo was clearly involved in the whole planning process.

Similarly, the written titles on the tape boxes shown in Zeppo's private vault collection - the plausiible source of the Sea Of Tunes boots here - are pretty obviously in his hand. How could we have missed this?

Next, will we now see a timely first release of the abandoned Remember The Zeppo album in the next wave of discs from Capitol? Mono or stereo is not important, but this release might just help set the record straight. AGD and Phil - any thoughts?

I heard that Brian Wilson wrote 'Til I Die' after Zeppo tacked an ordered list of his favorite Beach Boys to the door of Gold Star Recording Studios. 

Perhaps there's a kink my internet cable...but this is making A LOT of sense to me.

Manson/Zeppo tapes?  I think we all know there's more to that story.


And, yes...Shut Down Volume III better be on the flugkin box set!!! 

Let's just hope "Burlesque," whenever Boyd finds it, is the version with Zeppo's lyrics.  And speaking of lyrics, is it true Zep was involved with Shapiro and Almer in the SOT rewrites?

Clearly I need to do additional research before getting back to you guys. The SOT rewrites particularly.

(Well, actually pretty busy the next few days with a jillion things slamming into Cinefamily - the Everything is Terrible fest, Cinematic Titanic/MST3Kers who helped out on my silly new movie out next week, etc etc etc. LA people, cinefamily.org (http://cinefamily.org) and come on down! The schedule is nuts. Bound to be something you'll like!)

It is with a great deal of sadness and a smidgeon of embarrassment that I must report that the material on these tapes will remain unheard.  The Zeppo Wilson reels were found to be dangerously radioactive, a likely result of high levels of psychic angst directed towards the tapes by Beach Boys fans desperate to hear unreleased material, according to Dr. Barovelli Theiceman of Huxley College.  As a result, the tapes were sealed in concrete and the blocks were slated to be sent to Phelp's department store for long-term storage.  Unfortunately, due to a clerical error, the concrete blocks were removed from the Capitol Records parking lot before they could be shipped and were subsequently pulverized, and the radioactive dust was utilized in the manufacture of official Beach Boys 50th Anniversary limited edition glow in the dark surfboards, which will be sold for $6,000 apiece in conjunction with the Beach Boys' upcoming 32 disc box set (scheduled for release after the congressional midterm elections in 2014). In place of the lost Zeppo masters Capitol plans to release a series of CDs with the missing songs performed by Andrew G. Doe, who heard the tunes once and kinda remembers how they went.

I've been following this thread with amusement, but that one just put it over the top. Had to chime in with  :lol

Alan, you forget that Zeppo's preternaturally photographic memory has all of those tunes burned into his brain matter and even now is working from his jail cell with Phil Spector (remember, they're cell mates...) on their comeback record, "The Crack in the Wall of Sound." (Several of the more noxious tracks are intended for inclusion, along with some never-before-heard dolmen-like vocals recorded by Murry Wilson in the last months of his life--which, of course, represent an astonishing departure from his previous work.) Officials are doing everything they can to delay its release until after the Congressional Elections in 2014 and are apparently willing to litigate (using as many of Mike's lawyers as possible--who, after all, with all this newfound harmony, really need the billable hours...) all the way to the Supreme Court.

Ok, you force to show some pics I was saving for a book...and some quotes.

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Alan, PLEASE tell me that you and Mark have come across the Big Band/Punk Rock LP that Zeppo and Brian were putting together in 1977 called LOST CHILD. It was suppose to come out (I think) in the Fall. I know the other guys weren't too crazy about, thinking it was more a Wilson Brothers solo LP (and they thought 2 multi-millionaires putting out a punk LP wasn't legit). But I would love to hear some of it. The only track I have heard is the Big Band/Punk opening track arranged by Dick Reynolds and Johnny Rotten called "Life Is For The Living, Muther-****ers!" I really liked it. Oh, and that song about coke on side 2 "Snorting Lines". That was a black humor track, but I still thought it was tacky of Zeppo to write such song, given what Brian had been through.

This is one of the greatest threads I have ever read, Kudos and thanks to all and a special thank you to Alan Boyd for mentioning the great Phelps Dept. Store which is a place that has given me so many happy memories,

Jezzo

I came across a demo tape of Harpo singing a capella. But as it turns out, the $3,000 that I bought it for was a waste, because I can't hear anything.

Murry, their hard driving manager, was also known as Murry Palmer.

I heard it's actually Zeppo chewing celery and carrots on "Vegetables"

In an attempt to save the band, Zeppo came up with the idea of wearing short shorts on stage. When everyone protested, he promised to give them $1000 per hour if they wore them. Because everyone wouldn't cooperate Zeppo doubled the amount. To this day Bruce continues to wear shorts while Zeppo scribbles checks to him every hour. At this hour Zeppo has written a total of 555,555,555,555,555 checks for Bruce.

Dennis' boat, The Harmony, became the property of Zeppo's after it was repossessed. Before steering the boat to his own slip, Zeppo angrily tossed a lot of Dennis' personal belongings from The Harmony into the water. It's thought that Zeppo's claiming of Dennis' prized boat and throwing his stuff into the ocean was out of revenge for Dennis hooking up with Shawn Wilson, Mike Love's daughter. Zeppo had proposed to her in 1979 and even bought her the Bellagio house that Brian had lived in up until recently. She stole his XKE, made off with $5,237,006 in cash and left him for Dennis.

To this day, Zeppo feels guilty about Dennis' death. "Dammit, if I'd never tossed all his stuff overboard, he would've never gone down there to look for them..." Whenever the band plays 'Forever', complete with the video of Dennis behind them, Zeppo cries. Al Jardine always tells him to "cool it, Zep."

(cackles from his secret lair, screeching FLY, MONKEYS, FLY!)

To think there was a moment where I almost didn't make that first post, thinking: Naw, too silly.

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This is, without a doubt, the single greatest thread or post ever made out of every message board, website or blog about the beach boys in the history of the internet. Something this beautifully brilliant should not even exist.  ;D

I feel let down and ripped off by Jon Stebbins after reading this thread. David Marks 'The Lost Beach Boy' my ass! Stebbins took the easy option instead of having to do some real detective work and track down Zeppo. 

I recall reading about a certain "zeppo" being somehow left out or only seen on the periphery of his brothers act but for as long as I have been a diehard BeachBoys fan, I never realized this "zeppo"  was one of the Wilson brothers. I now  know that this business of only some of the BeachBoys being in the touring band has gone on from the very beginning.
Now we don't know what is truth, and what was fabricated.   We have relied  on poorly researched bios and heresay.

What next?

Do we learn that Zeppo was among those who co-wrote Sail on Sailor?
Did Zeppo vote with or against Mike in BRI decisions?
With his undue behind the scenes influence, was he responsible for such atrocities as Hey Little tomboy?
Was he Audree's favorite?
How did he wield such power yet remain almost totally unknown to the public, even to crazed fans trolling the internet?
I think it is time for the surviving band members to come forward and tell the whole story.

Wait.  Has all of the "Salute the Sizzler" material been lost?  Something HAD to leak out.

We may never hear the "Manson/Zeppo" tapes -- I accept that.  But, there were far too many people involved -- and too much riding on the "Sizzler Sessions" for it to be wiped from history.



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(http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/5162/1966torontobeatlesb.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/594/1966torontobeatlesb.jpg/)

Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)
John Lennon (interview from 1980)-"when me pal Paul died in a car accident in 1966 we were looking for someone to take his place,there was this chap that was with the beach boys,I think his name was zippy or something like that,he seemed to be on the outskirts of their band and was only around them once in awhile,anyways,with peace and love me and George met up with this zippy guy and asked him if he could join us in order to give us some insight on how to record better music,he seemed like a total git,he came by and was bossing us around,we managed to record a couple songs with him and it was just bloody awful,the music he did was nothing but noise and screaming,it made my bloody ears bleed,thank the gods above I never went down that route with me music,to make a long story short,we couldnt' stand it no more,he was bringing in this crazy lady who he called Harpo,he claimed it was his sister,she played on "She's leaving home", after a few days she became unbareable because all she did was sit there and she never said a bloody word, so we fired zippy,he didn't care too much,he just left and said something about how he was going back to the beach boys to do music that would make us smile and ruin our carrers so that no one would buy our stuff and we would become reclusive, he was out to get us. We finaly found a nice chap named Billy Shears to take his place,but those few days with him was sure a bloddy drag,last thing I heard he was hanging out with some high class hollywood shrink trying to write songs with him and Brian Wilson,oh bloody hell!!!"

No, Manfred Wilson was actually Audree's favorite, but he died in infancy. Audree then transferred all her love to Brian, the eldest surviving brother.

Zeppo had an amazing ability to imitate each of his brothers' stage presences & mannerisms (sometimes resorting to subtle disguises when necessary) and an intimate, pitch-perfect knowledge of each vocal part. One even lesser-known instance than the example cited above was a show during MLs fasting/gourd/hallucination episode ('69?) when an urgent call was made by Brian for Zeppo to fly back from a Catskills vacation and fill in for the Lovester on extremely short notice. He hopped on a plane and made it onstage in the nick of time, taking a moderate dose of a specially formulated herbal mixture hastily concocted to augment the nasality of his voice, and proceeded to ham it up admirably in a Carnaby Street custom-tailored quasi-guru outfit 2 sizes too large, emitting booming bass notes and cracking corny jokes so cringe-inducing that the audience was alternately groaning, giggling uneasily and dry-heaving, a preternaturally intuitive, seamless impersonation that led Dennis to once comment offhandedly in later years: "Zeppo made the real Mike stink, that's how good he was". :o

(BTW, didn't intend for that last to be gratuitously anti-ML. Considered other band members, but he seemed like the easiest to caricature).

Go easy on the Lovester...the Curse of Kokomo is hanging heavy on him right now. He is the last of the four left, y'know.

Ok, I have a confession to make. I have known this secret for quite some time now, and I think it's time for the truth to come out. Audree once confessed to me that Murry was not the bilogical father of the three Wilson's. It was actually Lou Levy. :o

Just to prove the old adage, "Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you," Zeppo had Brian followed. A lot.

Brian and Zep at the American Music Awards.

(http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/s720x720/523064_458014327554401_419936055_n.jpg)

This is true.  However the commonly-reproduced xerox of the handwritten list leaves out Zeppo's rather crucial original heading:

(http://i.imgur.com/LVLe6.jpg)

Looks like Zeppo was the only Beach Boy to not grow a beard. He also aged gracefully.

Here's something I recently unearthed. The ORIGINAL All Summer Long back cover:

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v51/shireling/zeppobbs.png)

I think there was something about that in The Walrus was Paul

According to unconfirmed sources, Zeppo went around the world tryng to find a drummer for the Pendletones. He came across a chap named Ringo Starr. Unfortunately, Ringo joined the Beatles instead. Then Audrea suggested Dennis. Zeppo wasn't convinced. But he knew that his sex appeal would be a great asset to the band.

There are supposed to be hidden tracks with demo songs from the short-lived Zeppo and the Z-Listers combo on disk 7 of the Good Vibrations (GV30) box set from 1993. Unfortunately, I have only been able to buy the regular US set that did not have this bonus disk. Did this only appear on the Japanese release? What were the tracks? One song, "Just Like The Stars (Your Teeth Come Out At Night)", is regularly claimed to rival WIBNTLA but few collectors (including me) seem to have heard it.

Update: Have been told that there were only 1000 copies of this particular box set, and that SOT editions were seized in a raid in Luxembourg in 2004.

The track lineup for the 7th disc of Zeppo demos was:

Just Like The Stars (Your Teeth Come Out At Night)"
If My Aunt Had Balls (she'd be my Uncle)
She's Your Mother, Not Your Sister
Bobby, Dale, Holly and Harpo (from the Hamburger Today sessions)
Run Chico Run (instrumental)
Maggie, She Needs Me - that was a tribute to the actress Margaret Dumont
Dollars, Taxes (Is My Home) - a western style track for Mike's Country Love LP.

Track #3 was a Bobby Darin original, of course.

Quality research, fellas. It's good to see crackpot stochastic scholarship working so smoothly.

I'll have some material about the disastrous Mike, Zeppo, and Dean period shortly but I'm still hip deep in EVERYTHING IS FESTIVAL III: THE DOMINATION. AieeeeeeeeEIEIEIEIEIEI!

I repeat my command for Los Angeles characters to head down to Cinefamily, the programming is absolutely ludicrous beyond belief. Cynthia Rothrock? Pete & Pete reunion? The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling? Plus: That one stoned comedian that interrupts people and laughs at his own jokes. Oh yeah, and some of my shorts on Sunday's Found Footage Battle Royale -- including at least 200mg of Michael Edward Love at full pharmaceutical strength... so give him some DUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Still not sold?

How about an A CAPELLA rendition of Koyaanisqatsi? See, told you.

Zeppo had this nasty habit of making weird noises in the backgorund/intros of the recordings,like coughing, doing immitations a little kid, and saying random words here and there..also when he was with the Beatles for that short time period you can hear him saying,"Yup" on "hey Bulldog" and he put his infamous "yup" sound on Jan and Deans "Deadmans Curve" he liked to say "Yup" alot..

BRB, running to LA.

https://vimeo.com/47212502

I'll be pointing cameras for the live stream of that Friday night, tune in at cinefamily.org! The other acts are equally "!" altho without lush harmonies.

Needless to say, Zeppo refused all offers of a short acoustic set.

Thanks for this thread. The Zeppo discussion often begin and ends with his association with infamous "Murder Man", Marv "Murder Man" Mike.

Whatever happened to the themed collection of BB tracks that Zeppo put together in early 1965? The novel idea (which preceded Pet Sounds by months and just might have triggered Brian's studio activity) was inspired by the fun and frolics to be had at various lakes and water park locations in California. Zeppo persuaded the breakfast-time jock on K-ELLOG-FM to play an early acetate from the album during a phone-in that summer, where he said that Chuck Britz and Brian had bounced the 8 tracks down to a punchy 1-track mix for AM radio. The song played was the title track from the next album, "Back To Mono", and the lyrics mention taking woodies and boards from the beach to the hills somewhere. Unfortunately Wikipedia and Google have so far provided little further insight. "Back To Mono" was picked up by the music gurus and press but was seemingly lost in transit somewhere after a campaign to secure its release.

I am convinced that Zeppo was a genius too. Cannot wait to see what makes the box-set later this year. Fingers crossed.

[Note added: Phil Spector is said to have abandoned an experimental quadraphonic SQ-Q4 rework of his Christmas album on hearing this track and of the pioneering recording method. He was regularly seen wearing a lapel badge to show his high regard for Zeppo's music.]

i was half-hoping this thread would be extinct by now...

here's trivia that most people don't know...did you know that Zeppo Briefly left the Beach boys during the mid 70's to help the band Queen with a couple of their albums? it's true,he helped them with the albums "A night at the opera" and "A day at the races"..

Zeppo was also the fifth Rutle, having produced their albums. He was always weirded out that one of them sorta looked like Ricky Fataar, though.

Hey All--

Ever since I read these posts back late last year, I was fascinated to see if Capitol or anyone had ever done an official release with Zeppo.  I was obsessed with finding something with his name on it!!

Looks like he did get a release back in the early 1960s.    After months of searching, I found this at a Garage Sale in Hollywood.  



(http://i47.tinypic.com/29122w5.jpg)           (http://i49.tinypic.com/1fh53t.jpg)


The songs are amazing.  I'm reminded of Gerswhin, Schubert, Beethoveen, Mancini, Morricone, Captain and Tenille, Billy Joel, and without a doubt, Beiber--ALL IN ONE!   Could Zeppo have really been the answer to all of Murry's dreams??

Shame he's not still producing music. ???

Dogbone

The last I heard of him was in the late 80's where he filled in for Roy Orbison on The Traveling Wilburys' "Vol. 2" album. Apparently the stuff recorded was so bad that the others kicked him out, destroyed the tapes and moved straight on to "Vol. 3". I hear that the split all stemmed from a fight after Zeppo broke one of Jeff Lynne's reverb units. Does anyone know anything else about this?

Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod.... do you realize what you have here?  These were two of the most important songs from that stack of Zeppo tapes that were inadvertently destroyed a couple of years ago!

We'd just about given up hope of ever finding any trace of these recordings!  After the recent flurry of interest in Zeppo, sparked in no small part by the fine scholarship of the folks on this message board, we managed to obtain, through a Freedom of Information Act request, a previously classified Capitol memo that described how 500,000 copies of this single were pressed at Capitol's New Jersey plant and were then immediately sent to a landfill and buried.  Apparently it was some sort of a shady accounting move that ultimately led to the Beach Boys 1967 lawsuit against Capitol after it was discovered that the label had charged the manufacturing costs to Murry Wilson's Diners Club card. 

Which, incidentally... still technically works and was just used to finance the forty-seven dollar recording of this cover of that immortal classic, Two-Step Side-Step: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cZZvYU4_D0

You're flatting, dear.

I've heard on the grapevine that the acetates for these two songs were the only ones Durrie Parks kept hold of. No-one knows why.....#Twilight Zone theme#

That's because she has fond memories of that time she was caught flagrantly making out with Zeppo, who cheerfully insisted it was all innocent and he was merely "telling secrets in her mouth."

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Also, have you heard the bass line on Run Chico, Run? Pure sex.

That's totally appropriate for that particular tune, as Chico himself was apparently quite the ladies man, his conquests outnumbering even Dennis' by the tens of thousands, according to people who have the free time and the inclination to research such things.  Chico was also an inveterate gambler - and a very poor one at that, always trying to beat the odds - and the song "Run Chico Run" is reputed to have been inspired by a couple of "wild situations" when he was caught in bed with the wives and/or girlfriends of gangsters to whom he owed massive gambling debts.  The record was suppressed partially because one of those gangsters owned a great deal of Capitol Records stock.

I recall Jon Stebbins telling me that Dennis loved the song, and that he used to pester Zeppo constantly for stories about Chico.  I've also heard that Dennis once boasted to a friend (Ed Roach? Steve Kalinich? James Garner? ) that he had seen "Animal Crackers" over 327 times.

Oh!  I thought it was just a reference to the fact that the bass line finishes a couple of minutes before the end of the song.






I've said too much.

I can only add:  The lyrics for "Run Chico Run" definitely have references to "Big Daddy" and to "Silver Cannons", which could only be interpreted as having connections to Chico's immoralities and to the gangsters (who were married to all of these women) and their pistols.   The overall feel of the song, ie the "bass" line...is as said, "Pure Sex" and does sound quite "thumpy".   At first, it suggested two canines sharing a bowl of Alpo, and then having a "doggie quickie", but with further listening and deciphering, it became more clear.  I hear it as being more in tune to the soundtrack of a Ron Jeremy Porno Movie, where Ron is really pounding some skank with all the flavors of a Salisbury Steak TV Dinner with Mash Potatoes and Gravy.   Not a totally conclusive cornocopia of taste, unless there's Peas and Carrots and the little space in the foil tray for the Brownie, if you know what I mean.   I think Chico knew exactly what he was doing and what he was eating, and it's clear that Dennis Wilson was so intrigued by this, not only did he eat the Brownie, but he spent his whole life pursuing other delictable desserts!!  Chico, Ron and Dennis, at least to me, are all one in the same!!   :hat

It's pure genius, that Zeppo could take all of this about Chico and make a "classic" song out of it.   

We're truly blessed.

Dogbone 

All great stuff guys. I think it's clear now that "Do You Dig Worms" is, in fact, the veiled history of Zeppo's hasty exile to a remote location in the Hawaiian Islands due to all of the transgressions alluded to above, and that the Hawaiian chant, in the hands of a licensed cryptologist, will reveal exactly where Zep has been hiding out for lo these many years (hint: it's nowhere near where Steve Love has been "in exile"). Zep's "under duress" departure kept him from meeting the same fate as Bobby Fuller, but was one more of the destabilizing effects on Brian, who no longer had the "humor" ballast that had kept him grounded (OK, semi-grounded...) and would look in vain for surrogate jokesters with which to chill (Jasper Dailey, Stanley Shapiro, Tandyn Almer, Rodney Bingenheimer). None of those estimable gentleman could take Zep's place, of course.

I recently picked up a copy on 'run chico run' on eBay!!!

I fell over it by mistake, and not thinking i'd ever get close to getting a copy, I won it for $87.00!!!  there was only 2 others bidding on it..

it was not advertised all that well, the listing said Zeppo Marx record....... so I opened the page, and 'bingo'!    Zeppo Wilson on Capitol....

of course i was worried it was going to be a re-issue.... but after some heavy research, i found myself an owner of one hard to find 45....

when i get a chance.... ill upload a youtube link.....

Now i can store it safely with my Glen Campbell 'Guess Im Dumb' Capitol 45...


RickB

I'm gonna blame this on hash joints, fellas.

Not particularly surprised that Zeppo has yet to be cast in the upcoming "Love and Mercy" biopic. He's definitely a hard shoe to fill.

and if you Wikipedia Zeppo Marx under 'personal life'... this is what is says:

"Marx bought a yacht after he and Blakeley were married and named it the "Barbara Ann".

Rb

Well, they decided to depict Zeppo like Jesus in "Ben-Hur." You just see the back of his head or other characters talking to him for added gravitas.

You're kidding me, my best mate told me the same thing a minute or so before I read this! Check you're wearing pants before reading what she said next:



they're in talks with Zeppo himself to get him to supply HIS OWN BACK OF HEAD

It's madness. If those rumors of him retiring from film are to believed, what a superbly fitting way for him to crown ;) his illustrious film career.

I heard a rumor that Mike Love has signed a contract for a Z. Wilson/Love produced Beach Boys album, but only if he can write with him, alone in a tree house in India (to make levitation easier). The lyrics must also include the following words: beach, ocean, fun, Kokomo, girls, coupe, and John Stamos. If any of these conditions are not met... well, lawyers are standing by.

I wonder how the Z.Wilson/M.Love arrangement is coming along in regards to recent events: Sonny 'Wilson vrs. Cassius 'Love'.....

Could be a winner for Dr. Love....

RickB

In all of this talk about Zeppo Wilson, even Alan Boyd weighing in, we should all be ashamed that we have been so remiss as to forget the fogotten one, Gummo Wilson. We should be ashamed indeed.

(http://media.liveauctiongroup.net/i/11707/11899418_1.jpg?v=8CEAE06B6EC60C0)

Hate to tell you this, but that's not a picture of Gummo Wilson....it's actually Chico Love!!!  :hat

here is my copy of the ultra rare Zeppo Wilson 45.  Not many of these around. 
(http://i676.photobucket.com/albums/vv121/rickenbacker2000/zep_zpstff1u4qq.jpg?t=1461357074)

As we were saying the other day, what more proof does one need that this board is dying and has gone to hell.

I think I have a scratched-to-smithereens copy of this disc buried at the bottom of a mouldering heap of refuse in the far corner of my barn. I got it in a job lot of random compostables a few years ago and hadn't realized the full extent of its profound insignificance until now. Maybe I will excavate it and contact Alan Boyd to strongly urge that a needle drop (the master was lost by Chico himself in an early morning poker game in '49, put up as collateral against a 2 dollar all-in wager) of the deservedly obscure track not be included in the next umpteenth-anniversary BB compilation. :-\

yeah, my copy is pretty trashed too, somebody really loved this at some point.  by the groove wear, it looks like it ended up in somebody's
jukebox, but still plays ok.  I keep looking to find a Mint copy of it, but so far, havn't found a copy.   :(

Perhaps we could all share our stories of meeting Zeppo, those of us that have had the honour?

I miss Mikie & AGD.

Hey!

Now!

Alan Boyd and Jon Stebbins really should consider writing a book about Zeppo.  Call it 'The Lost Wilson'.
So much is unknown about him, and hard to find anything on the net about him.

It's a love thang!

BABY!


Now the summer of Love™ begins...

Here, here.

I had the picture disc. Damned if I know what I did with it. Maybe I left it in the pocket of my other suit. No! This is my other suit.

seriously?  :o  wow! I'd give my left testie for that. I've never come across that one in my collecting!
I'd love to get a hold of one of those. And I thought having 'summer in paradise' on vinyl was cool!.

Give us a break, Rick!

We know you gave your leftie for the SIP vinyl; ya got nuthin', Bub!

 ;D

Reading the small print, it looks like this was the Canadian release (or were all Zeppo's North American discs pressed in Canadia?). Did it come in a picture sleeve?

im just surprised nobody in the Brian camp has ever spoken about this release.  I know Brian has no memory of 'guess I'm dumb', around the same time.
this seems to be another release that's off the radar.  Surely someone in the Beach Boys world knows more about Zeppo and this 45.

I'm trying to remember (well, sort of trying...) where I read that after taking it on the lam to Hawaii (years before that copycat Steve Love would do the same), the most mysterious of all the Wilson brothers started a proto-surf punk band called Zeppo and the Short Hairs, with intermittent "help" from those two guys from the Turtles (Volman and Kaylen, who later became Flo & Eddie), getting a co-write on a song that Brian started to commemorate the BBs '67 Hawaii interlude, but subsequently abandoned. Naturally enough, it was entitled "Lei'd In Hawaii" (and featured bass vocals from brother Dennis, the man who really got "lei'd" in Hawaii)...

 :3d

This is really intriguing!!  And since I posted the US Copy some months ago...I've been digging.

A friend who lives at the top of a Mountain in Sweden sent me a copy of what he claims to be the "withdrawn" Sleeve for
the Zeppo Wilson release in Sweden.  He couldn't provide scans of the record, as it also appears to have been cancelled. 

Here's the scan he sent of the sleeve:

(http://i67.tinypic.com/2z8xqnl.jpg)

And like many of the Euro releases, this seems to follow the serial number they used in the UK.   Could there be a UK release??

The mystery continues.

Dogbone

oh my god!  I always wanted a copy of the original 'smile' 67 sleeve, but this truly must be rare as hens teeth.
I need this in my collection along with some 78 rpm records from argentina. Africa etc etc.
what a really neat item. your friend is a lucky 'son of a gun'.

The "Herbert" I do not use for a long time.

I myself have done some digging on Zeppo and found out something truly vicious!
When Brian decided to abandon stereo and go for mono masters starting with Beach Boys Today!, Zeppo blew a gasket. Capitol Records, while unhappy about this turn of events, agreed that they would respect Brian's artistic wishes, and not issue a Duophonic copy. Zeppo, determined to punish Brian, emerged at the  Capitol Tower offices with super-duper accountant Allan Klein and produced royalties withheld from the Beach Boys and threatened to show them to the rest of the band if Duophonic was not employed. Zeppo maliciously wanted to confuse Brian by forcing him to hear a weird double audio image in the Duophonic mixes. Capitol meekly acquiesced. When Capitol then switched from the delay effect of Duophonic to the less traumatizing (for Brian) bass-treble separation of fake stereo, Zeppo blew another gasket. He picked up Klein, and they presented the royalty statements to the Beach Boys. The result was the 1967 lawsuit. So yes, Zeppo did play a major role in derailing Smile.

Never liked the font used on Capitol album labels in Canada. Singles I had no problem with.

I find that font causes a subliminal bass undertone in the left channel or, if the speakers are incorrectly wired, the right channel.

under close inspection, that font doesn't really fit with the Canadian issues of the time, I'm starting to doubt whether or not that
this is a legit release or a B-Leg.  I bought it on the condition it was an original, but it sure could be a fake, I just don't have enough
info on it's release other than the copy I have.  The part of the label that says 'Zeppo Wilson' kind of looks like it's been photoshoped
and his name added over the top of it.  ::)