There are some things in certain Beach Boys songs I've read about, but have yet to hear. For example, the "funky pretty gone" vocal part in that song. I read about it in the vocal thread, but I STILL can not hear it.

Put on a decent pair of headphones, and go to about 2:20 in the song. Pay extra close attention to the left channel. It shows up in the left channel after each line of the vocals, thus...

"She said don't worry it's alright" (Funky pretty gone)
"I'm coming back when the aspects are right" (Funky pretty gone)

Alternately, listen to this:
http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/20/800088/funky%20pretty%20clip.mp3

The lead vocals can still be heard back there somewhere, but the background harmonies and Brian's "funky pretty gone" are much more audible.

Hopefully it's okay that I post that - just a modified 18 second clip trying to point out a vocal part.

Thanks a bunch for that! 

Somwhere in this thread, somebody wondered about Brian smoking in the early 1980's during the second Landy "treatment". If you watch the footage of Barbra Ann from the July 4th 1983 show, Brian has a cigarette in the neck of his bass.

[YES! In the live version of Marcella, Dennis supposedly goes "one arm, one arm, over my shoulder" in a much loved exuberance, but i just can't hear it!!!]

There are some things in certain Beach Boys songs I've read about, but have yet to hear. For example, the "funky pretty gone" vocal part in that song. I read about it in the vocal thread, but I STILL can not hear it.

YES!  In the live version of Marcella, Dennis supposedly goes "one arm, one arm, over my shoulder" in a much loved exuberance, but i just can't hear it!!! 

Now, I can hear that quite clearly. 

The drunk Brian Barbara Ann from around 1996 is pretty wild.

I totally forgot about that. It just seems odd to me that a person with his history of abusing substances would drink, or rather be "allowed" to drink. Even "socially". Somebody with the brain of an addict can't really even "tempt" their sobriety even with an occasional glass/bottle. I haven't even mentioned Brian's mental state, and whatever medication comes with it.

This thread reminds me of a question I intended to ask, but forgot until now. Is Brian an "alchoholic"? I remember reading about Brian doing 40 shots of something(whiskey?) while the group was in Vegas around 1981. The reason I ask is I clearly remember in Rolling Stone during the BWPS promotion, Brian was interviewed, and the person who interviewed him noted that Brian was eating a big steak, and a glass of beer. I thought that was a little suspicious for somebody with a well known and documented substance abuse problem.

There are some things in certain Beach Boys songs I've read about, but have yet to hear. For example, the "funky pretty gone" vocal part in that song. I read about it in the vocal thread, but I STILL can not hear it.

Mike seems fairly hammered on the Australian 1978 recordings I have heard.

I heard somewhere that Mike was drinking heavily around the time of his infamous HOF speech.  In Brian's "autobiography", it seems to imply that Carl was a pretty heavy boozer, around the late 1980's, and on to the ending of the book(1991).

[And then he'd throw in a honking sax solo during the break.]

Michael singing God Only Knows...yeah, I'd definitely cringe. And then he'd throw in a honking sax solo during the break.

Just like the original studio take, that Brian produced. Hmmm....

*sigh* Why do Brian's "people" make him do stuff like this?   

Oh, I thought he meant the "solo" bit.

Dennis sang on Hushabye?  I thought it was Mike.

This is slightly off topic, but I have always wondered why Mike went on tour as a solo. Was it to "promote" his album? Or was it just a clever ruse to get away from Brian and Dennis?

c***

I didn't know that Barbara was performed live.

This has also puzzled me. If you document the Smiley Smile through Friends period, it becomes obvious just how quickly Brian lost interest. It's not that he just long interest, but how fast the process was.

i forgot that he also sang lead on Help Me Rhonda on occasion.

I have another "random" Beach Boys related question that really doesn't fit anywhere else. In the first few year of the 1970's Dennis could not play drums because of a bad injury to his hand. Yet he continued to tour with the group. My question is, what exactly did Dennis do onstage? I mean, besides act as "MC", to get the crowd excited and on their feet.

brian talking about 'prayer sessions' for pet sounds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAEt3IKnZWY&feature=related

This is a good example of how Brian has changed over the last 15 or so years. He looks good in the above clip, but I for one, can barely understand what he's saying. He's slurring his speech pretty badly.

"It's in an old garage, been sitting there for years
She flipped on the light but it wasn't there"

It was Al all along! 

Aha! This explains everything. Al  stole Brian's car. Brian had a "conniption"....and he's never been the same since. Damn you, Al Jardine.

[You know, I've actually been trying, the last couple of times I've posted, to add my two cents of support to Jeff. Now I think it's been pretty well stated by everyone else, however, I think Jon really nailed something here. I mean face it, if we weren't all fans first, would we be hanging around boards like this, discussing all of this minutia, pretty much on a daily basis? I know I wouldn't, if not for possessing a fans love of the music first and foremost.I was just faced with having to drive the Pacific Coast Highway, from the Santa Monica Pier to just past the Malibu/Ventura County line, and listened to either Brian, Dennis or The Boys on the entire roundtrip, and thought about how life couldn't get much better than driving a good, fast car on that route, listening to that music! And it also made me flash back to many many years ago, globetrotting with those guys, and filming or photographing them while watching them and hearing them play, and thinking back then how I was the luckiest fan in the world! Well, maybe Jeff has replaced me in the luckiest department, as you can tell in the joy you see in his face, up there on stage, playing Brian's music with him, and singing his old parts right by his side.]

Truthfully, i think Jeff thinks of me as a Beach Boys fan, and I think he thinks of himself as a Beach Boys fan. That's why we relate to each other. We don't have much in common otherwise, he's conservative, i'm liberal, he's sober, i like to party....

You know, I've actually been trying, the last couple of times I've posted, to add my two cents of support to Jeff.  Now I think it's been pretty well stated by everyone else, however, I think Jon really nailed something here.  I mean face it, if we weren't all fans first, would we be hanging around boards like this, discussing all of this minutia, pretty much on a daily basis?  I know I wouldn't, if not for possessing a fans love of the music first and foremost.
I was just faced with having to drive the Pacific Coast Highway, from the Santa Monica Pier to just past the Malibu/Ventura County line, and listened to either Brian, Dennis or The Boys on the entire roundtrip, and thought about how life couldn't get much better than driving a good, fast car on that route, listening to that music!  And it also made me flash back to many many years ago, globetrotting with those guys, and filming or photographing them while watching them and hearing them play, and thinking back then how I was the luckiest fan in the world!  Well, maybe Jeff has replaced me in the luckiest department, as you can tell in the joy you see in his face, up there on stage, playing Brian's music with him, and singing his old parts right by his side.

  Remember my face-plant into the asphalt at the Sun Theater parking lot in front of all the Wilsons? Good times.

Man, you HAVE to tell us about that!   

For what it's worth(probably not much, sadly) I always liked RobMac's posts on this board.

Truth be told, ten-twelve years of consistently singing in falsetto would change anybody's voice. But, had Brian not smoked as much as he did(or at all), I believe that he'd have probably been able to hold on to most of his voice throughout the decade.

I don't know about jaws dropping, but the first time I heard that high violin note in Child Is Father Of The Man, it nearly caused an...um...."emission". 

That happened to me the first time I really listened to "God Only Knows"!

The "I wanna cry" part in You Still Believe In Me does it to me every time. 

The song by that point in 1970 was out of Brian's range. You'll note that in some tracks from Sunflower, and the Jan Berry single Don't You Just Know It, Brian's voice became a bit reedy and his higher register wasn't as easily sustained. To an extent, even in 1966 Brian had trouble with some of the notes, but we're still going on his piano/vocal track. We obviously don't know how a full version would have turned out in 1967.

I forget who made the contemporary reference, but it was to the tune of Brian being so disenchanted with how his voice sounded on his two stabs in 1970 that he became embarrassed and went back to his room, only to come back down later to help arrange the vocals for the tag. Brian also said in a 1995 interview for BBC Radio 1, and this quote is verbatim from the man himself -

"Surf's Up?!? Oh, I'm embarrassed. Totally embarrassed. That was a piece of...merda (emphasis) in my eyes. I was the wrong singer for it in the first place, and secondly I can't believe we would ever let a record go out like that."

I would say, from that perspective, Brian's never been satisfied with any released version of Surf's Up.

No offense meant, but that "Brian's voice was to far gone" thing is ridiculous. There exists an isolated recording of Carl and Brian doing their vocal parts for Til I Die. At the end Carl and Brian both do this falsetto part. Carl does this INSANELY HIGH note, and Brian does an almost but not quite as high note. Out of the two, Carl's voice cracks first. Brian consistently hold his note perfectly.