I must say I was surprised to read that Brian and Al had gone back to high school after graduation and actually met there in the early sixties. The things you learn these days . . . . . . .

Not the grocery aisle, but I stopped at Barnes & Noble in The Woodlands after church this morning and suddenly realized the song I was humming along with was Runaway Dancer.  They played the entire album, followed up by Pablo Cruise.

I'm half tempted to move this sh*t to the Sandbox.

Best idea yet. (But I recommend not remaining "half" tempted.)

Is the issue with the topic itself?

It's just tiresome, and I get turned off on these constant threads that seem to have no purpose other than to denigrate someone.

I'm half tempted to move this sh*t to the Sandbox.

Best idea yet. (But I recommend not remaining "half" tempted.)

Good grief. The questions just get sillier and sillier. You're "writing an article"? And this is the topic you chose? What's next - "why do you love Brian"? "Why are you indifferent to Al"? What a waste of time.

There was a magazine interview back around 1978 where Brian says he's thinking about finally going out for major league baseball. I think he was kidding.  I think.  I hope he was kidding.

Maybe with Brian's scratchy singing re-done. Songs are pretty good.

Actually the Bearded Brian Wilson has been out of baseball the last couple of seasons. Ours is still in the game.

Good Lord, this nonsense gets tiresome.

Did it bother the guys around this time to come back from the road and find session folks playing on the records?

You're assuming it was a sudden, new development. The first BB track with full-on Crew playing it was "Why Do Fools Fall In Love", recorded January 7th 1964. Two years later, it was SOP.

Shoot, I just spent an entire minute trying to figure out what song in 1966 had the initials SOP.

Nice.

I'm often mystified at the reason for some posts here (or the reasoning behind them).  This is one of those times.

". . . . . upon completion of the tour, Wilson, Jardine, Marks and Chaplin were thrown out of the band. Mike Love and Bruce Johnston, who owned the name, went back to business as usual. "

Oh, yeah, here we go again. "Thrown out of the band". Never let the facts get in the way of a juicy story.

Ron, yes and yes. Toy also played at a place - in Greenville or environs? - somebody's Pump House? in the (very) early 90's shortly before he passed, that was on youtube. He had a quartet and did lots of MTB and solo stuff. Or is that the one you're speaking of? The youtube videos disappeared a year or so ago, unfortunately. There are some great ones of him solo and the original line-up, plus a short interview with Tom Snyder in 1980 when they appeared on his TV show.  Some classic humorous southern-type lines from Toy, Paul and George. I loved how he could slip from rock to blues to jazz and back so seamlessly you never really noticed it at first. His solo on "I Should Have Never Started Loving You" is immortal.

To understand why this band - the original line-up, specifically - is not in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame requires far more imagination than I possess.

(Sorry guys, we didn't mean to hijack the thread.)

Can't think of a BB album cover I don't really care for, except perhaps Love You, which just doesn't amount to anything. Most of them are great,in fact. Love the suggestion above for TWGMTR! Beatles, I never really thought about those too much.

It must be, Ron. That whole original MTB line-up from Spartanburg was incredible. Toy's solo album, Son of the South, recorded not long before he passed away 20-some years ago has some of his best guitar work - Why Am I Cryin', instrumental Night Life, Texas On My Mind, live Can't You See . . . . . George McCorkle was no slouch as second guitar, either.

When I play bass, which I guess I really don't since my bass was stolen 10 years ago, I use(d) that classic "hand pointed down over the edge, use the first two fingers" style. Never liked a pick or thumb for bass. For thumb-picking, see the late Tommy Caldwell of the Marshall Tucker Band. Like his guitarist brother Toy, it's all in the thumb. I never saw anyone play that way with as much speed and dexterity as those two boys on either instrument - jazz, rock, blues, country, whatever they happened to be playing at the time.

80-2015: Mostly sings and SITS at his keyboard.

I don't get it.

OK, looking at the tracklist, now I know why Mike said "we're going to do another song about school . . . ." before introducing Graduation Day. I've wondered about that for 50 years (had a suspicion, though, what else could it have been).

I had several from their several 1980s era post-game concerts at Candlestick Park (San Francisco Giants) but lost all but one in a fire at my parents house in 2000, where we had left them with other items while living overseas, along with a couple of others. Still have two or three, I think, one of them from a Cal-Expo show in Sacramento in 1983 with Pablo Cruise, one from 1987. I loved the first Candlestick poster from1982 - a San Francisco cable car climbing up over a baseball. I'd love t have another one of those. The only one on display is from the Las Vegas C-50 show, hanging over the piano, along with a round 2004 SMILE poster my wife framed for me with the tickets from Houston and Grand Prairie, on a side wall.

"Beg to differ - I wasn't there, but I've seen a photo (Rolling Stone ?) of the Boys with Joan, and Brian had a six-string acoustic over his shoulder. Not saying he was playing it much, but...

Oh, and the Tahoe gig was two days later.  "

AllI know is the emcee announced to the crowd that the Beach Boys would not be around for the after-concert festivities because they were leaving that night for Lake Tahoe immediately after the concert.  As for Brian and guitar, was that during her opening set, or was it at concert-end as a kind of closing number?  We weren't there for that, and I just don't remember it if it was earlier.

Two things:  Brian likes touring better now than in the 60's because he's had a lot of practice singing the songs.  Ohhhh-Kay; and, good grief, what a terrible picture of him to post with it!

How proficient was Brian on the guitar? He really was a good bass player (despite his odd technique)

Brian's aptitude on guitar is surely minimal. He can probably play a few very basic chords and pick out some melody lines, but I don't think he played very much on record...just "After The Game" (the melody line), "Heroes And Villains" (alternate tag - the one where Carl sings a live scat - Brian strummed the 12-string Rickenbacker while Van Dyke formed the chords), and "Where Is She" (picking out melodic lines on the 12-string). Reportedly, he played rhythm guitar onstage when The Boys backed Joan Baez on a mostly a capella "Amazing Grace" at a Cambodian refugee relief benefit concert in Oakland, January 1980.

I was at that Oakland show and don't remember that, not to say he didn't.  He mostly sat at a keyboard and on one song, maybe Rhonda, traded places with Bruce who was at his usual smaller rig. Joan Baez opened and The Boys followed.  They didn't stick around for the after-show get-together all the attendees were invited to since they were on their way to Lake Tahoe for a gig there.  The bill included Jefferson Airplane (or Starship, I guess), Santana, and the Grateful Dead. We left midway through Starship as we had a two and a half drive north. A few days later my dad told me that a family friend, who had worked for the Dead and helped build their sound stage set-up, was there as an official photographer and would have got us backstage passes had he known we were there. Sob.

Ricky played accordion on Box Scaggs' "Sierra" from the "Some Change" album in 1994, along with organ and keyboards.