The Smiley Smile Message Board

Sorry for the contentious title, but I didn't want to cause any confusion over who I was actually going to be meeting.

So, through a friend of mine who very much wants me to go, I have a meet & greet pass and tickets to the Beach Boys show tomorrow in Long Beach, CA. So, thanks to her, I'll be meeting Mike and Bruce and Jeff and everyone, and I figured this would be a good time to get some questions answers. However, realizing that I don't have any questions, you guys feel free to list your own, as many as you want. I'll pick a couple and ask them tomorrow.

Also, I was told to bring a record along to get signed, I guess by Mike and Bruce. Any suggestions on which one to bring? This is what I have:

• Summer Days [orig mono]
• Pet Sounds [orig mono, open]
• Pet Sounds [orig mono, sealed]
• Pet Sounds [2008 "ltd."]
• "Good Vibrations" 45 [orig]
  
• Sunflower [2009]
• Surf's Up [orig]
• Holland [orig + 45]
• 15 Big Ones [orig]
• Love You [orig, sealed]
• L.A. (Light Album) [sealed]

15 Big Ones seems the most Mike Love-ish.

I have a question that needs asking.

Oh man, you're gonna have fun!

Is the meet and greet before or after the show? Cause if its beforehand you could ask them if they'd take a request. It would be pretty neat to have them do "Marcella" or something, just because you asked!


Those are my top picks to have something signed. If I were you I'd probably agonize for hours over which one, and just bring Pet Sounds by default  :-D

firstly..... I would go with 'sunflower'...... they both dig it, and both are quite vocally present....

and just as a collector?..... do NOT get a 'sealed' Pet Sounds signed unless your gonna have all of the original members on there...

getting Denny's n Carl's may be a bit difficult now....  :-\

and if it's mono..... its worth more sealed, not with Mike n Bruce's autographs...... leave that baby as it is....

my question would be......

when do we get to hear and see new or old 'Mike Love' solo music??...... even a reissue of 'Looking Back With Love'....??

RickB

I would probably go with Sunflower myself, as it has some definite highlights for both M&B.

As for things to ask, see if you can find out what M&B's favorite unreleased tracks are. If you do ask that though, be careful to phrase it so Mike can't answer "Goin' To The Beach".

Yeah, but there's no Bruce. Bruce might fight me or something if I give him short shrift.



Excellent, I'll be sure to ask them.



I don't know if the meet & greet is before or after the show, but if I get to them before, we both know I'll ask for "All I Wanna Do". My phone will be at the ready...
Thanks for the suggestions. I was thinking about those records, but, like you said, I'll be thinking about it until I'm out the door tomorrow.



Well, of course I would have them sign the shrink wrap. I might just save the record for a Brian signature one day, though.
I don't think Mike's too crazy about Looking Back with Love and I'd prefer to not have him shush me, but I'll ask about his other music.

If you get The Beach Boys to perform All I Wanna Do for the first time ever, I will seriously lose my sh*t. That would be awesome.

Sunflower does seem to make the most sense, but I wish it was an original copy instead of my 2008 repress if I have the ability to get it signed. Maybe I'll have to check around some record stores before I head over to the concert tomorrow.


That would definitely be an interesting question to get an answer to. I'll add it to mah list.

In fact, I wouldn't muck up any of those records with Mike's autograph.  Just have them sign your special pass.

Ask Mike if he's aware of how badly some fans would LOVE to hear All I Wanna Do performed live.

Like most people have mentioned, I'd get Sunflower autographed. It's a great album and has contributions by both Mike and Bruce.

This. Tell him it's one of his best and most overlooked vocals that many fans love.

ask him 'how is your relationship between you and Brian n Al and Jeff and David at the moment??? and what is happening in the future

between you guys?....  :o  :P   ;D   :lol  :o

RickB

Ask Mike about his thoughts on the Sunflower album

Ask mike to take his hat off

Tell Mike you understand his needs to work with Brian and, on behalf of BB fans everywhere, tell him we wait in joyful hope of another album and reunion shows...

Related topic: also note, by the way, that this means all the BB are rocking in CA tomorrow in three different bands.........please get back together.....the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, said Mike.

‍

i'd go out and buy the today lp. he loves signing that one.

 Sunflower is the best choice, but from what you have I'd take Summer Days.  The one I'd pick if it were me.  It's my favorite pre-Pet Sounds record.  And right, it should be an original if you're asking to have it signed.

I'd ask both of em what they think of the Smiley board, and why they don't post here.

:lol

This! Plus ask details considering "Summer of Love". I've always been a fan of that cut.

I'm kinda serious. If the few pricks could keep their abuse to the minimum or even be ignored, there's no better qualified forum on which to engage the die-hard, hardcore, utterly committed fans. Some people here are very well qualified to discourse with the core band members and a lot of wrongs could be righted, matters put straight and information shared where it would be genuinely appreciated.

Plus, I've heard that "people who matter" monitor this board, and sometimes take note of what's said here. Could bring results. ;) ;)

SO COOL! Have fun. :)

Get them to sign Summer Days... They'll dig it the most! I'm cereal.

(http://www.cerealbenefits.com/images/cereal_bowl_photo.jpg)

Ask them if they like Harry Nilsson - if they do, you can have a good old chat.

Have a time! Lucky guy!

What a great opportunity. Enjoy your evening !

And I'd advise either Sunflower or Summer Days... or both!

I'm off to the concert.

whatever you do, don't say "between you guys." Make it polite and grammatical: "among the surviving band members."
Tell them about the BB pile up today and that we want them together to create and perform music. Our hearts are longing for it. Mike will understand.

That wont happen, Mike is too self obsessed as the only real BB and equal of Brian Wilson. Mike's ego and jealous rage at BW destroyed the BBs past and present.

Sorry Waves.

Mike who?

good to see you pop up.  Where u been?

Nice to see you Steve and Donald!

All right, so here's how it all went - and, like any good writer, I'll start us off with some useless exposition.

On our way over, my friend decided to play some of the C50 live album (God knows why, seems like that will only lead to disappointment) and holy crap is that terrible. She didn't really seem to mind the whole autotune disaster. I wonder if we're the only ones who really care.

We picked up our passes at will call and made our way into the very crowded area. We talked to a couple of people about this meet & greet, but no one really seemed to know anything about it and my friend reassured me this is how it goes every time. Not a very organized bunch, apparently. There's supposedly a woman named Tara who knows what's supposed to happen, but no one can find her. We're just told to come to the stage entrance 30 minutes before the Beach Boys go on, as if we somehow know when that is. So, we decided to wander around the grounds for awhile, during which I completely walked by Bruce and some of the touring members without even noticing. Didn't really see anyone else with a M&G pass while walking around.

There were THREE opening bands for the Beach Boys. We only stuck around for a song or three during the first band's set, who miraculously had four instruments pumping through the loud speakers with only three people on stage and multi-layered vocals supplied by one guy. Truly a remarkable band.

We went back to the front and managed to run into Jeff near the backstage door. The person who brought me is actually friends with Jeff, so we went up to him and they greeted each other, only to have him step away on a phone call. This happened repeatedly - Jeff seems like an incredibly busy guy - and it made our meeting a bit awkward. It started off great: I shook his hand, smiled, looked him in the eye (which is more than I can say more for most of my personal encounters) and had an incredibly forced conversation. I was introduced as being a huge fan of Brian and then was told to tell him about the instruments I play. I listed about one or two, which is when he left again on a phone call. He came back and we started over, and when I finished listing them, I got a thumbs up and "Congratulations" from Jeff. Thanks, Jeff...? So, I was then set up to answer the question of "Who's your favorite composer" and I obligingly said "Brian Wilson." Jeff replied "Well, we have that in common" and he looked at my friend and smiled. She asked about the meet & greet and he told us to show up at the backstage door after the show, and then he took off.

After hanging around a bit, we managed to get backstage to a waiting area where a lot of the touring band and family members were hanging out. A couple minutes later, Jackie and the beautiful Ambha Love walked by and headed up the stairs, where I see Mike is standing and waiting for them. We're there with another two people (four of us in total for this M&G), a mother and daughter, seemingly the daughter's idea as the mother didn't seem very excited. A couple minutes passed and it was finally time for us to meet them.

Now we're actually backstage, looking at all the crew members and boxes upon boxes of equipment. After a bit of standing around, Bruce magically appeared right in front of me, took the record from me and said "This is the best record the Beach Boys ever made. Well, obviously Pet Sounds is the best, but...." He mentioned that he saw me carrying it earlier on (must have been when I passed him without realizing it) and said I had excellent taste. He said it was "an absolute joy to make" and it's really obvious that Bruce loves the record to death. He flipped over the record and we started to go over the track list together, with him singing bits of songs like "This Whole World". I told him that I loved "Deirdre", to which he replied "Oh, I wrote that." He also said "Oh, I wrote 'Tears in the Morning', too." And I told him that I also loved that one, at which point he told me the song was inspired by his girlfriend moving away to Europe, but he changed it to be about a husband and wife in the song. He came to "All I Wanna Do" and said "Oh, we do that one sometimes", which, as we know, is not true and completely dismantled my question. How can I request that he play the song when he already thinks they do? He also mentioned "Our Sweet Love" with obvious adoration and stared at the song title on the back of the record. It's obvious that he has a great respect for Brian's work.

All the while he was doing this, he was also serenading the mother of the accompanying mother and daughter, whose name is Linda, with all the songs he can think of that have "Linda" in the title. Linda was rosy-red and had a smile while Bruce was singing to her and it was clear she was having a great time now. He went on to talk about Sunflower, calling it the weakest selling Beach Boys record, and mentioned something about some photos of him and Dennis surfing together that recently surfaced (or something along those lines).

Mike finally showed up, took his customary photo, didn't speak much, kindly signed my record and took off. I didn't get to say anything to him, but I noticed how old his voice sounded. He truly sounded 70 years old, which sort of shocked me because his singing voice sounds so much younger. Bruce finally broke away from singing to Linda, signed my record, and headed for the stage. I wish we could have stayed back there to watch the concert, but we were ushered back to our seats. Apparently, neither Mike or Bruce usually say much, but I got lucky with the chatty Bruce that decided to show up that night.

Anyway, to finish up, Bruce was incredibly charming and charismatic and really made it a great experience. I wish Mike would have talked to us a bit more, but he might have been busy with his wife and daughter or something. Oh, well. Some other things: Cowsill was dressed entirely in purple; the show has a bunch of weird gags, like a creaking noise when Mike stands up from his BTTYS intro, and a slideshow of John Stamos selling yogurt and a video of him slightly naked. They also performed "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring", which Mike made it seem like they do very seldom, and he dedicated to John's mother who had recently passed. Do they not do that one very often? It wasn't perfect, but it was pretty good.

Anyway, thanks, Bruce. You were awesome.

Thanks for that! A good read. Glad you had the fortune to experience the 'Dr. Jekyll' side of Bruce. The 'creaking noise' gag was already there at the C50 concerts, maybe even earlier.

Here's my signed record, with Mike taking up an enormous amount of space and Bruce not completing his signature:
(http://i1268.photobucket.com/albums/jj563/paintedteeth/photo_zps3f818cbf.jpg~original)

I believe the creaking noise gag is on the 1993 box set Paramount show, so it's been around for at least that long. Glad that Bruce Johnst made it a fun time!  :-D

Did you consider that he might have read this thread, and was trolling you?

I'm not saying that it's what happened, but it's definitely what I would have done if I were Bruce Johnston.

Any chance that is one of the rarities they have been doing during the M&G's package announced a few months back? Haven't there been a few songs played in those that never make the show?

Thanks for the memories...  You should have asked Bruce if he ever does his numbers from Sunflower these days.

that would be funny...

He was probably thinking of All This is That…

Thanks for sharing your memories of the evening, Josh. Btw, coincidentally the "Linda" story was posted on the BB Britain messageboard.

Great stories indeed!

Was "their hearts..." the only real oddball in the setlist?

The songs choice didn't seem that weird to me, but I remember someone in front of me saying "they're playing some weird songs today."

Your meet 'n' greet went off pretty well. Reading this thread, one would think it's a waste of money: http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,12939.0.html

Re "All I Wanna Do", why not say plain & simple "No, Bruce, you never performed it, please do! We, fans, like this song & have been wishing to hear it since Earth creation; Mike sounds so good there! Tell him that."? Who knows, he might digest your words.

No offense, but the entire experience sounds disappointing.

Oh, and I don't care about the autotune on C50 Live.  Its a great document of a great tour with a killer setlist.  I'm fine with that.

You should have given him a "well golly gee, Mr. Johnston, it sure would be swell if your band could play that number at tonight's show."

I'd guess that a lot of people on this board have different ideas of what a 'weird song' is from the average attendee of an M/B Beach Boys concert.

Otm. Short of track or 2, I like it a lot. If the music is good, nothing will get in the way of enjoying it for me.

Meet and greets are designed to be very superficial, hello, where you from, great, let's take a picture.  They aren't the place for in-depth interviews unfortunately.  It sounds like you got more from the time with Bruce than most.

The burning questions for Mike that I have, and as far as I know have never been answered, is what he thinks of Smiley Smile.  I'd have probably brought a copy of it for him to sign to open the door for discussion.  His rewrite of He Gives Speeches as She's Goin' Bald is as trippy as anything on Smile.  Had he accepted this was where music was going and he was joining in the psychedelic lyric writing of the time, was he getting stoned at this point (he did use marijuana for a time until TM in early 68), was the group happy with the new DIY approach of Smiley vs. the big LA studio productions, how much input did the group really have in the arrangements and production of the songs since production was credited to the Beach Boys, what does he think now of Gettin' Hungry being released as a single by Brian and Mike, etc.

He really smoked weed? I've never heard or read that.

"We did this one night on the bus with the Buffalo Springfield all stoned and drunk and everything. It sounded great!"

- The Grateful Dead + The Beach Boys ~22:25

Since someone brought up Smiley Smile, does anyone ever wonder if maybe it was an act of rebellion? Did the label ever say to Brian at some point, "Hey, you've done enough sessions. Deliver the album or no more sessions!" I had to imagine the pressure was intense. So perhaps Brian, in reaction, dashed off an album in his home as fast as possible as a sort of stoned f*** you. "No studio? OK! No problem. Here you go. I call it Smiley Smile." I might be way off, but I wonder.

Cool story, Bruce seems like a nice guy.

I just thought of this...while Bruce was coming up with songs with Linda, did he sing or mention Al's Lady Lynda?

(http://www.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/2014829/rs_500x289-140929133122-judging.gif)

Caught him on a good day...I definitely didn't, and neither did several other posters here.

That said, though, I'm glad he was on good behavior that day, and definitely glad you shared the story.  I can imagine it must've felt kind of weird with Jeff, though.

Speaking of Bruce, I recently read a story that somebody at a recent show somebody came up to him and said something to break the ice, something like, "hey, I'm a big fan of Jan & Dean," to which he responded "not me"!

This is a bit rich considering this guy partnered with the other big surf music do-nothing, Dean Torrence, to remix and re-record early '60s Jan & Dean records as The Legendary Masked Surfers. Now I agree that Jan & Dean isn't that great, and that they are probably not worth much more than a best of CD, but the funny thing is with this is that Bruce himself doesn't even agree with his statement. I think it probably just comes down to his better than everybody, country club conservative asshole personality. He also probably realizes that he's not Brian Wilson or Mike Love (or even Al Jardine), so if he is kind of a dick to a Beach Boys fan, it probably won't stop them from supporting the group as the person probably doesn't give a sh*t about him anyways.

However, at least to me, in the past few years Bruce has severely damaged his reputation. He comes off as a cranky, "get off my yard", somewhat spiteful old white guy. Which coincidently are some of the most annoying people in the world.*


I'm a reasonably young white guy, and hope to be an old white guy at some point. So nothing against old white guys, just Bruce ;D

Pretty much, yeah, and also the fact that he looks down on people who obsess over the BB music, as it's just (by his own words, from several sources) "a paying gig' to him.

I'll take Jan and Dean over Bruce's tunes any day of the week.
The guy is a complete phony.

Bruce was a grade A knock-off artist.

Grade F. Get it right, dammit!

:lol

I had a similar experience with Bruce that Bubbly Waves did - he was really nice and talkative, told me some stories, brought up getting a photo together, etc. I didn't expect to run into him so it took my brain a little while to catch up, but he really filled up the conversation.

It's a shame he has 'off' days where he's cranky, but my chance meeting with Bruce is a really great memory.

I don't get the "I'm a fan but I hate Bruce sentiment". He's a great talent, a solid-crafted songwriter, an accomplished instrumentalist and singer... And he's immortalized on a few classic records. He produced LA Album, which seems to be a favorite around here. He's done and produced his due ammount of caca, just like any of us. But he's achieved much more than most of us; that's why I don't dig the "I'm above him" tone of some posts. True, based on his capacity he could have afforded a much bigger career than he has, but A) he accomplished a lot anyway by all means and B) by the time you're 70+ you have already achieved your peak years if not decades before.

I'm not taking away from his talent whilein the band (although I consider his solo work the weakest by far, and producing two out of my 3 least favorite BB records does him no favors)...I'm just saying that my own (thankfully limited) dealings with him were less than pleasant (to put it mildly), and I'm not alone in that regard.

Yeah, I met Bruce when he was having a bad day also. I met him a second time and he was fine.

I have met Bruce approximately 10 times over the last 20 years. I kid you not when I say that on 5 of those occasions he was absolutely wonderful . Great conversation about the Beach Boys history, anecdotes about recording, signing things I didn't even ask him to sign. Some of these conversations lasted nearly an hour in length.  On one occasion he made sure I followed him into the venue when my name was mistakenly left off of the ticket and pass list--if not for him that night I would not have gotten in and he made sure I got backstage passes and tickets with the groups's family. Why I have no idea other than it was indeed one of his "good days". The other 5? Complete nightmare Diva behavior.

kind of sums Mike and Bruce up in a lot of ways

thanks for sharing!

:lol

I don't think of myself as above Bruce, nor he above me. We both put our shorts on one leg at a time, his just ride a little higher.

Please believe you (and a few others) are most definately the only ones who care... or can even tell. 

One thing Bruce DOES do, is say he doesn't like people he knows and has actually met and worked with (Jan, and Dean).  You, on the other hand, have problems with anybody you imagine is a 'better than you country club conservative'. 

So since you espoused that, I'm still in camp Bruce.  You're giving him sh*t for his opinion, but yet you have an opinion about a whole group of people you created in your mind. 

Good day.

I SAY GOOD DAY, SIR

This.

You are indeed way off...  ;D

Re: Good Bruce/bad Bruce, allow me to let you all in on The Secret: he's human, he has shitty days. I got on the wrong side of him more than once, and to give him his due, he apologised shortly after. But fact is, like the rest of the band, he's human. Is anyone here a regular sunbeam for Jesus 24/7 ? Anyone who just put their hand up, you're lying, and fooling yourself.  :)

True. Still, there is a difference between being 'regularly human' and periodically being an unpleasant a**hole toward people (/fans).

Ah, dammit, did it again...

This is of course true . I will say, however, that in the same number of times I had the pleasure to meet Al, Carl and Mike over the years they were a heck of a lot better at not taking out their bad days on other people😏 Yet giving Bruce his due, on his good days none of the other guys has given me as much of their time as he has

  Perhaps the best thing would be for Bruce to wear a reversible Good Day/ Bad Day tag at all the concerts, so as to alert his fans to his mood   

Well...keep in mind that we as hardcore Beach Boys fans are colossal weirdos, incessantly babbling about things these men did decades ago that they've either forgotten or don't care about. That may be a factor in how we're perceived.  ;D

Makes us fit in perfectly with them dontcha think?

Huh?

But as Howie Edelson pointed out some time back, and I have also seen myself, Bruce can go hot and cold even on this factor. Sometimes he'll seem like he's trying to impress you with having arcane knowledge about some music bit, or having been personally involved in it, and at other times he seemingly wants to dismiss the fandom or make fun of people for wanting to know.

I've known people like this. They're nice on *their* terms.

Other than some weird (but almost never mean or cruel) anecdotes about meeting Brian, I've seen exponentially more reports of weird or off-putting moments meeting and/or talking to Bruce than any of Mike, Al, Dave, Carl, Dennis, and the myriad of other related folks. And it's not as if there are a bunch of smart-asses going to shows and taunting Bruce asking him about the disco version of "Here Comes the Night", or why he plays such a minimal role in the live show, etc.

Exactly, Watson.

The f*** are you even talking about? I wasn't giving Brucie sh*t for voicing his opinion. I was pointing out that Bruce said he wasn't a fan of Jan & Dean despite the fact that he was good friends with them and has done re-records of their material (I think even more than once). Which leads me to believe that he likes their material at least a little bit. Since you know, usually people don't go in to re-record or remix material that they don't like. Although knowing about Bruce, who knows?

I know the post offended your sensibilities because you're a big Republican. I remember you're the guy who told us that all of The Beach Boys are Republicans and to "get over it" or something. Which was proven demonstrably false by either Jon Stebbins or Howie Edelson. Can't remember which. But it's all good. I'm sure you think I'm "against" Bruce because he's Republican but you couldn't be further from the truth. That sh*t don't matter to me.

You on the other hand, say you know stuff about people you have never met and who you imagine are latte swilling, elitist, New York Times reading liberals. You also have opinions about a whole group of people you created in your mind. All of have on here. Hardly any of on here know Brian Wilson or any of the guys, but through research and maybe a few meetings we've developed opinions on these people.

Good night sweetheart.

I would say there's a difference between being an asshole in general and being an asshole to someone who just paid good money into the coffers by buying a concert ticket and/or Meet and Greet.

I know the argument: they produce a product and we buy it. And, I know it can sometimes be a pain for celebrities to deal with fans. But, it's always helpful to remember that the hard earned cash of every day fans pays for their mansions, pools and baseball caps. The least they can do is be pleasant.

There's an old business saying: The customer isn't an interruption of your work. They are the reason for your work.

I've heard Bruce is nice guy from some people and a huge jerk from others. See, this is one reason why Bruce is my least favorite Beach Boy. I really like 'Deirdre' and 'Disney Girls' is pretty good, but otherwise his songs with the group are only okay. He says he loved Sunflower a lot, which is, as far as the general public goes, a lesser-known Beach Boys album, and at the same time, his comments about being in it (the whole Beach Boys thing) for the money in Peter Ames Carlin's book is distressing. I don't know sometimes.

Sounds to me like Bruce just enjoys messing with the fans' minds  >:D . After all, being asked the same weird questions by people like us year in year out might get on the nerves at times, so maybe sometimes he just doesn't feel like 'playing the game'.

Having said that, it's 'people like us' who've been paying his salary for the last 50 years or so.

I don`t find that distressing.

He didn`t want to give a lengthy interview on the same subject and answer the same sort of questions that he has been asked a million times before (which isn`t a criticism of PA Carlin btw) so he made an excuse.

Or more likely he probably would've gotten some uncomfortable questions that may have made him or Mike or whoever look like an asshole and he decided that he would rather just bail. Because judging from Carlin's book I think it's fair to say that this wasn't just the "same ol', same ol'". For instance, his interview with Mike was quite interesting. Too bad Bruce only likes softball questions on the Beach Boys Britain board, despite the fact that he claims "Europeans hate success". Errr, hey Bruce, Britain is in Europe ya know?