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There's a strange appeal to the arrangements on Love You. There's something about a "man-child" writing ditties on his synthesizers and whatever other instruments around, that is intriguing. I find the fat Moog bass particularly cool. Another aspect of the arrangements that catch my attention is how BW used the drums. Similar to Pet Sounds and SMiLE, the drums aren't used necessarily to keep tempo, but to add color. On "Roller Skating Child" there aren't really drums in the verses, except for those snare hits in-between lines. And then in the chorus, we go into a steady rock beat.

I love the sound of the snare drum on Roller Skating Child and Let Us Go On This Way. Was BW using a drum machine or actually playing the drums? (Well snare drum is the only prominent percussion on the album... Hi hats and kick drum make several guest appearances on the album...  :drumroll)

That is some phat, phat Moog.   :hat

As far as I'm aware, all of the drums on Love You are real, not programmed. They're so Brian, too. Listen to Love You and then hear Brian play the opening drums from Be My Baby in Endless Harmony. You can hear it in how he clubs the instruments. For a guy who was never a drummer beyond the necessity to get some drums on a recording or fill in in the early days so Dennis could sing, Brian could hold his own on drums.

Other than this album, how many released songs have Brian (and Brian only) performing drums on them?

Funky Pretty is the only one that comes to mind.

Is it really Brian on Wanderer? He swings better than Denny!

According to Steve Desper both he and Carl were amazed by an in studio Brian drum performance in the early '70's

Do we know what the track was?

It wasn't actually on a track. I believe I read this in an issue of ESQ regarding Sunflower.

Agree. The arrangement on Love You is beautiful. Especially when considering Brian recording so much of it.

It's such a unique album...and if it were a Brian solo album I think it would be viewed differently. The step he took there reminds me of how Kanye West did a similar thing much later and made '808s and Heartbreak' in 2008, abandoning his rapping and previous production style to create a unique singular project

I always believed it was Dennis on Love You's drums.

Dennis plays drums on, l think, "Mona", and maybe "Honking" too.

I think it's not only important HOW the drums were played, I mean, the actual drum parts on Love You don't sound too difficult to play. It's WHEN they were played. They're perfectly arranged; after 40 years I still get a kick out of 'em.

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I definitely saw Brian playing the drums on Wanderer while Denny sang lead during the 1964 summer tour, so I would imagine it was true in Sacramento as well.

Oh man, this album, this fucking album. Been listening to it for hours.....(I may be a little drunk)....Jesus.....I want to put my willy in it's soul.


That is all.

Woah.

I Wanna Pick You Up too, I believe.

On certain tracks there is definitely electronic percussion layered on top of a real drum kit. An early mix of I'll Bet He's Nice has a drum machine loop and it makes it sound a hell of a lot like Rundgren.

A little drunk? Make sure its soul consents first. :lol

Thanks for clearing that up, that questions been bugging me since 2007, when I first bought the album. But yeah, just listen how effortlessly the drums swing, as opposed to Denny's (admittedly very effective and driving) clubbing. Man, what a musical guy (duh).

Enjoyed responsibly, alcohol and the internet can be very enjoyable. 

But, they should rarely be combined. 

Cheers

 :beer :smash

Sorry guys and gals....  :-\

Happens to the best of us after some good good good, good libations. 

Hey, you provided a laugh. That's a good thing.

All correct. Also, "The Night Was So Young".

I think the liner notes of the 15 Big Ones/Love You "twofer" suggest that Brian played drums on "Honkin'", if I remember correctly. Would that have been an error, then?

There's a track by track rundown of the album in one of David Leaf's Pet Sounds 'zines that includes partial musician details.

I don't recall that being the case, but if so, yes it's an error. The rough mix with Billy Hinsche's lead vocal also includes Dennis' count-in from behind the drum kit. There's actually a pretty noticeable difference between Brian's drumming style on the album and Dennis'. Both are forceful, but Dennis' is more "masculine" for lack of a better word. Compare the drumming technique in the intro to "Honkin", as well as "Mona" and "I Wanna Pick You Up", to that on "Let Us Go On This Way", "Johnny Carson", and "Airplane", for instance, and you'll see what I mean. For one thing, Dennis often hits the floor tom in conjunction with the snare, as "real" drummers sometimes do, whereas Brian uses the floor tom sparingly for an occasional hit. You can also hear the open floor tom mic on the songs where Dennis drums, even when he's not hitting it, which suggests a different mic'ing technique on the "Dennis-drummed" songs, compared to the "Brian-drummed" songs. As for "The Night Was So Young", I long suspected that was Dennis, mainly because of the way the hi-hat is played but didn't know for sure, until I was able to hear the session tape a couple of years ago in preparation for the upcoming "MIC" sessionography series. The hi-hat playing on that song is more in line with what we'd expect from a "real" drummer, opposed to the way Brian plays drums on this album. Yes, others have witnessed very solid drumming from Brian in past years, but for whatever reason, his drumming on Love You is goofy, idiosyncratic, and endearing, but not what I would call "professional". It seems more like "demo" drumming, whereas Dennis' performances are "master"-style.

Dennis Diken's liners only say "Like a lot of songs on this album, it sounds like Brian played all the instruments, including the rudimentary drums."

Umm... "Surfin'".

So let's break it down, then. Let's set out the official drum / percussion credits for Love You.

"Let Us Go On This Way" -- Brian
"Roller Skating Child" -- Brian
"Mona" -- Dennis
"Johnny Carson" -- Brian
"Good Time" -- Dennis Dennis Dragon
"Honkin' Down the Highway" -- Dennis
"Ding Dang" -- ?? Ricky Fataar?
"Solar System" -- Brian
"The Night Was So Young" -- Dennis
"I'll Bet He's Nice" -- Brian
"Let's Put Our Hearts Together" -- Brian
"I Wanna Pick You Up" -- Dennis
"Airplane" -- Brian (main song) and ?? (tag)
"Love Is a Woman" -- Brian

Does this look right? And what about the question marks?

Once you look at it this way, it seems like Love You is more a Wilson brothers album -- at least instrumentally -- than a BW solo joint.

"Where Is She". "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling". "Funky Pretty". Maybe "'Til I Die" (the snare that comes in somewhere halfway through or toward the end - I would still count that as "Brian only", since the Rhythm Ace isn't a drumming person - just a drumming machine).

Mostly right, but "Good Time" is another Dennis - Dragon. And I'm pretty sure it's Brian drumming on the "Airplane" tag as well as main song. As for "Ding Dang", a safe bet would be Ricky Fataar, but I couldn't say for sure.

Who is Dennis Diken? I thought Peter Buck did the liners?

You are entirely correct, and I'm not.

But Dennis Diken - drummer of The Smithereens - did contribute in a research capacity to the twofer reissue series in general.

He did the 15 BO liners.

Although most of my cd collection was stolen some years ago and I no longer have the 2fer, I remember quite well that Buck used some of your text for his liner notes, some of it pretty much word for word. :D

The Love You notes are awful factually, though. Thankfully, AGD's are not.

Oh, and "I'll Bet He's Nice" doesn't actually have drums, just percussion. :) Which, I believe is Brian.