I'm highly sceptical that all [or even any] of the people claiming to be posting there are really the people they claim to be. However, I do have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale- cheap - that might interest some of you.

If someone was going to pretend to be another person posting on a comment section of a website, I think they'd probably pick someone a little more famous than Ambha Love, Stephen Love or Adrian Baker.


People can be a bit more skeptical than necessary on here sometimes. Ambha Love isn't exactly a household name. I'd say its far more unlikely that a pathetic person would pretend to be one of those people, than any one of those completely normal, non-famous people would be posting on that website defending themselves or Mike Love.

To me it is exactly the names the impersonating self-ordained "expert" would choose. Obscure enough to satisfy their "experty" ego and fringe enough to seem like reality randomness.

It would be like if I found some guy's blog bout the TV show "Flipper" and left a comment like "I loved that show. It was so sweet. It used to make me cry." and signed it Brian Wilson. 

Alright, I'll bite. Two questions:

1. What is Man vs Clown? I went to the site and it appears to be some guy's blog about random things ( Star Trek, telemarketers, etc.) How would Adrian Baker, Stephen Love and Ambah Love all know about it and why would they hang out on it? It doesn't seem any different than any other person's blog.

2. Furthermore, why would the aforementioned "friends of the Love Doctor" all make a point to sign their names at the end of their posts?

Not for nothing, but I know a guy who kept the members of a Beatles message board hyperventilating for two years because he had everyone convinced he was Neil Aspinall and it was fairly easy to pull off.

Mark Dillon was my guest on my radio show this week to talk about his book, the tour and play some music (this message board even gets a shout-out!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0Nx9P9oEfk

Well...these look nice but if they're set up to resemble the Beatles 2009 remasters I'll pass. The damn glue came off the cardboard sleeves on the Beatles remasters and stuck to about half the CD's! 

I know it's not the PC thing to say, but gimme plastic any day.

That said, I'm happy with the twofers so I doubt I'll be buying this stuff over again unless they came loaded with tons of unreleased bonus tracks.   

This week's guest on my radio show (That Modern Rock Show) will be Mark Dillon, author of the new Beach Boys book "Fifty Sides Of The Beach Boys". We'll talk reunion news and spin some obscure gems from the Beach Boys' back catalog. Saturday at 10pm ET on 89.1 WFDU fm in NY/NJ and streaming live at http://www.wfdu.fm

Well...they won't be obscure for this board but for the general public they will be.

They were looking to sell it to the Baywatch show, which was still on.  Another tie-in like Kokomo and that Tom Cruise movie.  I'm sure Mike was looking forward to filming a video with Pam Anderson and Elena Eleniak or whatever her name was.

The song for Baywatch Nights never materialized on or around that spin-off, but remember the Beach Boys (with Brian) did in fact appear on the show Baywatch singing a new song. It never really went anywhere, popularity-wise. But it was somewhat nice to see Brian taking part in the beach activities. It's probably on YouTube - I can't remember if Pam Anderson or the other Baywatch Babes were in the video with the band.

Is summer of love with Brian looking really disinterested and wanting to leave.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBFsJk6PWu0

Alright I'll say it...Brian looks like he's having the time of his life in this and in the "Rock'n'Roll To The Rescue" video. I imagine Mike calling him up and saying "Hey Bri, we're gonna be shooting a video tomorrow"
BRIAN: "Well, you know how I am. I'll just sit this one out"
MIKE: "Yeah, but it's a promotional gig. You being there will help us sell the idea of 'group unity'".
BRIAN: "Sorry, Mike, that's just not my bag."   
MIKE: "But there's gonna be loads of girls in bikinis with us....Brian?.... Brian?
(knock on door)
BRIAN: Mike, lemme in! I got here as fast as I could! Bring on the bitches!

I'll go with Endless Summer too. Mainly for sentimental reasons..my Mom had it on 8 Track and it's the first Beach Boys recording I'd ever heard. When my folks split and I went to go with live with my Dad (who DIDN'T have an 8 track player) I held my Mom's player up to a tiny personal cassette recorder so I could at least bring a cassette dub of it with me when I moved....(which I guess makes me a child bootlegger). 

I'd have to say LA....It's slicker and not as quirky as MIU but it has some superior Carl vocals and great Dennis tracks.

Sorry, doesn't look like a pan to me. It's just the typical snarky crap they try to pass off as "hip" on Pitchfork. Unfortunately Pitchfork thinks it has a sense of humor when it's reviews would suggest otherwise.

Even if it were a pan, the thing to always remember about Pitchfork is that if an album they trashed suddenly becomes "trendy" they'll go back and change their review or just delete it all together. That's the kind of site we're dealing with here. They're not to be taken seriously anyway.

Forgive me, but can anyone explain where do the striped shirts come from? What were they associated with at the time in order to be adopted as the group's outfit?

Borrowed the idea from the Kingston Trio who were HUGE in the 50's and early 60's.

Just for a goof I compiled a "companion" CD to That's Why God Made The Radio using songs that I felt had the same feel as their 2012 counterparts. I kept it strictly 70's and 80's based and included one Brian Wilson solo cut for the sake of matching the flow of TWGMTR. It's not perfect but it sounds pretty good right after listening to the 2012 album. Any suggestions or swaps? Remember, the idea here is to make a 70's/80/s version that sounds similar to That's Why God Made The Radio (for example, I chose "Johnny Carson" in place of "The Private Life Of Bill And Sue" because both songs deal with TV):

1. One For The Boys
2. Goin' On
3. It's Ok
4. Kona Coast
5. Johnny Carson
6. Our Sweet Love
7. Everyone's In Love With You
8. Wontcha Come Out Tonight
9. Marcella
10. Baby Blue
11. Winds Of Change
12. Till I Die 

I'd make an effort to see Dave, as he's the only living Beach Boy I've yet to see live. 

I've grown to like this one even more than "Summer's Gone". I still wish it could be a little longer though.

Oops! My fault too. Didn't mean to hijack the thread yesterday.

Speaking of some fans' issues with Brian's voice nowadays (for the record I'm fine with it) I always harbored this fantasy that the guys would one day cut an album of covers of Brian's solo stuff...sort of like a "Beach Boys sing Brian Wilson" album.   

Alright I'll just say it....does anyone else think Brian looks like an angry Ted Danson during this era?

At the risk of this turning into a Beatles thread I agree with part of what you're saying here but I think your interpretation is way off base. It's not a case of Paul capitalizing off John, it's Paul capitalizing off the Beatles as a phenomenon. It's not like he goes out there and front loads the setlist with songs John wrote. He front loads it with Beatles songs that HE wrote (it's no secret that John and Paul rarely collaborated after 1964 and the majority of Paul's songs like "Yesterday", "Get Back", "Let It Be" etc. feature no input from John whatsoever outside of him giving a thumbs up to it). He has every right to do that, of course. He wrote them. They're Beatles songs but they're more his than they are John's, Paul's and Ringo's. The fact that he doesn't go out and play the "Band On The Run" album in it's entirety is the problem. It's a classic album and it sold in the multi-millions but Paul has resigned himself to being "Beatle Paul" and whooping it up onstage like it's the 60's again. No shame in that, really, but from a fan point of view I'd love to see him give a little more respect to his solo catalog but as Paul puts it "If I were a fan going to a Paul McCartney show and he didn't play "Hey Jude" I'd be upset". That's his thinking and as we all know, Paul is a bit of a control freak so I doubt he can be talked out of it.

Believe me, John brought up the Beatles as much as Paul does now in interviews. Despite the whole idea of "I'm John Lennon and I'm my own man and  could care less about living in the past", it was just typical Lennon posturing. Every interview he gave after 1970 is loaded with Beatles talk (and he usually contradicted himself John was motivated more by emotion than getting the facts right). Heck, he brought up the Beatles and discussed them constantly more than any ex-member back in the 70's, including Paul.  

As for George, he never criticized Paul for anything to do with John. It was always Paul's "I am the Beatles" attitude that rankled him. Of course, George would go on to his own Beatles-heavy concert tour in 1990 in Japan (cough cough).  Keep in mind that George harbored a lot of bitterness for both John and Paul for how they "carved up the empire between them" (John's own words) and dismissed his songwriting. Paul had no reason to begrudge his association with the Beatles while George had a big chip on his shoulder and rightly so. Some of the mot caustic criticism of George' songwriting came from John who told him "I'm loathe to play any of your songs" during what would be the Let It Be sessions (a bigger diss than Paul famously telling George what solo to play) Sadly, John and George were sniping at each other in the press right before Lennon was killed in 1980. People forget that.

It's a complicated situation between those guys to say the least.

I totally agree about Yoko. She's turned John into a mini-industry, turning any doodle he made into designer ties and some such nonsense. That's an entirely different animal compared to what Paul does.    

We'll have to agree to disagree.  I find Paul's constant posturing regarding Lennon in his interviews since John's passing in my opinion have been particularly distasteful.  Let the man rest in peace.

For me at least in the seventies it was a different game.  All four Beatles roamed the earth and if they wanted to use their legacy as a means of enhancing what they were currently up to that was their prerogative and John could also be extremely negative regarding The Beatles during the seventies.  Whether it was posturing or not is almost irrelevant because most of the media back then took his anger towards the group as fact.  It's only been in years after the fact that through research we've learned that a lot of what Lennon said in interviews at times was smokescreen bluster.  

I'm sorry if I gave the impression that Harrison was upset with McCartney for his "Lennon posturing".  I meant to reference exactly what you did with his "I am The Beatles" attitude and also his attitude of using The Beatles as a method of promoting his own agendas.  Also from what I understand Harrison didn't exactly want to do the Japanese tour but was talked into it by Clapton.  Although Harrison was a fine songwriter I think even he wasn't oblivious to the fact that his solo catalog was for the most part was considerably weaker than his Beatles catalog which is why he filled his set full of his Beatle tracks.  I honestly think that for the most part by the end of his life, Harrison really resented the fact that he was ever as famous as he once was.  I think he just wanted to be forgotten and left alone by the world at large.  I honestly believe that was his sincerest wish.  

You're right about George.

I still don't know what about Paul's comments about John you find distasteful. If anything, he's practically reverent about him. Again, I don't hear him using Lennon's memory to promote his new material. He uses the Beatles as a whole or more accurately our fond memories of the Beatles. It's because Paul's become the "professional ex-Beatle" which I guess could be seen as distasteful. I just see it as a) reality...he IS an ex-Beatle and b) using his Beatle status to plug his own solo work. That said, it hasn't worked. There have been no hit singles and the album sales are low (despite his material being so much better than his Wings days). Paul is driven to succeed (always has been).

There's another thing too..and one that Lennon didn't get the chance to experience and that's the passage of time. Paul talks as much about growing up in Liverpool as much as he does the Beatles. Obviously he looks back at that period of youth with rose-colored glasses as we all do after we hit 40.

We also know that ever since Lennon was canonized to near "sainthood" after his death, his contributions to the Beatles have been blown way out of proportion while McCartney's have been diminished (at least they were in the 80's and 90's). Paul was NOT happy about that and while he could have taken the high road and not said a word about it, the truth is he DID more or less lead the Beatles from 1967 onwards (Lennon couldn't be bothered). In a way, he may have been right to try to restore the balance as that seems to have worked and we don't see too many Beatle fans who are under the impression that John wrote everything and the others were glorified sidemen like we heard so much in the 80's.

I just don't see why he has to bring up John Lennon's name every time he is interviewed.  For example he just put out this recent oldies albums in the vein of "The Great American Songbook" thing that Rod Stewart has been doing for the past several years.  The first thing out of his mouth was "These were the songs that John and I used to talk about when we were young songwriters in Liverpool" or something to that affect.  I'm not denying that isn't true and I'm also not going to deny Kitty's comments that Paul may legitimately not want John to be forgotten by the public.  That being said I think that Paul interjects John into all his interviews as a means of using the Lennon/McCartney songwriting partnership as a means of drumming up interest into whatever his current product.  In fact it's almost the identical behavior that George took him to task on in the late eighties where he said he found it odd that every time Paul had a new record out he somehow brought up in the press that he was thinking of somehow reconnecting with either him or Ringo on some potential project.  I believe that Harrison saw these attempts by Paul as merely an attempt to drum up some media interest, nothing more which is exactly how I view this situation.

In my opinion actually this whole thing might go a bit deeper than what we are discussing here.  A few weeks ago I was at a book store and thumbed through Paul DuNoyer's latest book on John Lennon and towards the end he speaks a bit about the acrimonious relationship between Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney that apparently exists to this day.  He compared the Ono/McCartney relationship since Lennon's passing to essentially being like the Capulets/Montagues but without any great love story.    I really keyed in on that statement because I believe that both Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney have used to Lennon legacy to promote their own agendas since his passing and there is legitimate resentment on both sides as to the other's use of John's legacy.  I'm not entirely sure what Paul's beef would be with Yoko but I think Yoko still harbors a lot of resentment towards Paul McCartney perhaps due to some of the stuff I've already mentioned here.  I know she was quick to snap at him a few years back when he mentioned in passing that some of the song credits in the Beatles catalog should read McCartney/Lennon.

Either way I'm pretty much in the camp now that believes that what is keeping any worthwhile new Beatles projects from hitting the shelves is the fact that Ono and McCartney can't agree on much of anything these days despite the fact that they are forever going to be irrevocably linked to one another due to John Lennon and The Beatles.  The bottom line: I just see as two people trying to lay sole claim on the Lennon legacy thirty or so years after the man's passing and they both seem to have very divergent viewpoints on how history should be written.  From where I stand, Paul works almost too hard an overemphasizing The Beatles brand as a happy go lucky foursome when the reality is far from that while Yoko Ono seems to promote a version of the story where The Beatles were almost irrelevant in John's life in comparison to their own personal love story.  

That all being said as I mentioned in the onset, I wish they would both just let the man rest in peace.

Well, Paul and Yoko's strained relationship is a bit of "ditched lovers" syndrome if you catch my drift. I'm not suggesting that Paul and John were actually lovers but they WERE best friends and Paul felt like he was ditched for Yoko in '67. John admitted as much in one of his interviews, boasting that the only two people he ever chose to have an artistic collaboration with were Paul and Yoko "and that's a pretty damn track record". Is it any wonder that when John split from Yoko for that year and a half starting in 1974 that he suddenly reconnected with Paul again and they hung out and jammed?

The bitterness with Yoko goes all the way back to when she and John first met and John withdrew from the Beatles. In the years since his death, it's only gotten worse since now they're forced to work together. Paul's resentment really started when the Lennon/McCartney songwriting catalog was up for sale and Paul wanted to pair up with her and buy it (legally he had to). She held out, insisting that the price would go down and Michael Jackson swooped in and bought it. He bitches at her in the press over it and to this day has never gotten over that. She retaliated by claiming that Paul was nothing but a Salieri to John's Mozart (which is a profoundly stupid comment to make) and so on and so on.

As for the songwriting credits, they were "McCartney/Lennon" on the first Beatle album and then after that they switched to "Lennon/McCartney" for the next album and stayed that way. Feeling self-conscious about it, Paul asked John if he could switch it back to "McCartney/Lennon" on the Wings Over America album and John said sure. Years later, after John died, he asked Yoko if he could do the same thing on his "Back In The U.S." album but this time she said no which caused another fight.  In a way, they really are like two ex-girlfriends arguing. lol

But we'll agree to disagree here. I don't think what Paul does is anywhere near the sleaziness of what Yoko does...not even close. When Paul starts turning scraps of Lennon's artwork into socks, decorative plates, builds a "Peace Tower", etc. then I'll say he's leeching off his old partner, George's comments notwithstanding (he was fairly grumpy anyway). 

       

"Girl Don't Tell Me"....you go on summer vacation, you meet a girl, you fall in love, you go back to school, she goes back to school, she never writes....that's happened to me. It's depressing at the time but years later becomes a fond memory. Can't explain why.

At the risk of this turning into a Beatles thread I agree with part of what you're saying here but I think your interpretation is way off base. It's not a case of Paul capitalizing off John, it's Paul capitalizing off the Beatles as a phenomenon. It's not like he goes out there and front loads the setlist with songs John wrote. He front loads it with Beatles songs that HE wrote (it's no secret that John and Paul rarely collaborated after 1964 and the majority of Paul's songs like "Yesterday", "Get Back", "Let It Be" etc. feature no input from John whatsoever outside of him giving a thumbs up to it). He has every right to do that, of course. He wrote them. They're Beatles songs but they're more his than they are John's, Paul's and Ringo's. The fact that he doesn't go out and play the "Band On The Run" album in it's entirety is the problem. It's a classic album and it sold in the multi-millions but Paul has resigned himself to being "Beatle Paul" and whooping it up onstage like it's the 60's again. No shame in that, really, but from a fan point of view I'd love to see him give a little more respect to his solo catalog but as Paul puts it "If I were a fan going to a Paul McCartney show and he didn't play "Hey Jude" I'd be upset". That's his thinking and as we all know, Paul is a bit of a control freak so I doubt he can be talked out of it.

Believe me, John brought up the Beatles as much as Paul does now in interviews. Despite the whole idea of "I'm John Lennon and I'm my own man and  could care less about living in the past", it was just typical Lennon posturing. Every interview he gave after 1970 is loaded with Beatles talk (and he usually contradicted himself John was motivated more by emotion than getting the facts right). Heck, he brought up the Beatles and discussed them constantly more than any ex-member back in the 70's, including Paul.  

As for George, he never criticized Paul for anything to do with John. It was always Paul's "I am the Beatles" attitude that rankled him. Of course, George would go on to his own Beatles-heavy concert tour in 1990 in Japan (cough cough).  Keep in mind that George harbored a lot of bitterness for both John and Paul for how they "carved up the empire between them" (John's own words) and dismissed his songwriting. Paul had no reason to begrudge his association with the Beatles while George had a big chip on his shoulder and rightly so. Some of the mot caustic criticism of George' songwriting came from John who told him "I'm loathe to play any of your songs" during what would be the Let It Be sessions (a bigger diss than Paul famously telling George what solo to play) Sadly, John and George were sniping at each other in the press right before Lennon was killed in 1980. People forget that.

It's a complicated situation between those guys to say the least.

I totally agree about Yoko. She's turned John into a mini-industry, turning any doodle he made into designer ties and some such nonsense. That's an entirely different animal compared to what Paul does.    

We'll have to agree to disagree.  I find Paul's constant posturing regarding Lennon in his interviews since John's passing in my opinion have been particularly distasteful.  Let the man rest in peace.

For me at least in the seventies it was a different game.  All four Beatles roamed the earth and if they wanted to use their legacy as a means of enhancing what they were currently up to that was their prerogative and John could also be extremely negative regarding The Beatles during the seventies.  Whether it was posturing or not is almost irrelevant because most of the media back then took his anger towards the group as fact.  It's only been in years after the fact that through research we've learned that a lot of what Lennon said in interviews at times was smokescreen bluster. 

I'm sorry if I gave the impression that Harrison was upset with McCartney for his "Lennon posturing".  I meant to reference exactly what you did with his "I am The Beatles" attitude and also his attitude of using The Beatles as a method of promoting his own agendas.  Also from what I understand Harrison didn't exactly want to do the Japanese tour but was talked into it by Clapton.  Although Harrison was a fine songwriter I think even he wasn't oblivious to the fact that his solo catalog was for the most part was considerably weaker than his Beatles catalog which is why he filled his set full of his Beatle tracks.  I honestly think that for the most part by the end of his life, Harrison really resented the fact that he was ever as famous as he once was.  I think he just wanted to be forgotten and left alone by the world at large.  I honestly believe that was his sincerest wish.   

You're right about George.

I still don't know what about Paul's comments about John you find distasteful. If anything, he's practically reverent about him. Again, I don't hear him using Lennon's memory to promote his new material. He uses the Beatles as a whole or more accurately our fond memories of the Beatles. It's because Paul's become the "professional ex-Beatle" which I guess could be seen as distasteful. I just see it as a) reality...he IS an ex-Beatle and b) using his Beatle status to plug his own solo work. That said, it hasn't worked. There have been no hit singles and the album sales are low (despite his material being so much better than his Wings days). Paul is driven to succeed (always has been).

There's another thing too..and one that Lennon didn't get the chance to experience and that's the passage of time. Paul talks as much about growing up in Liverpool as much as he does the Beatles. Obviously he looks back at that period of youth with rose-colored glasses as we all do after we hit 40.

We also know that ever since Lennon was canonized to near "sainthood" after his death, his contributions to the Beatles have been blown way out of proportion while McCartney's have been diminished (at least they were in the 80's and 90's). Paul was NOT happy about that and while he could have taken the high road and not said a word about it, the truth is he DID more or less lead the Beatles from 1967 onwards (Lennon couldn't be bothered). In a way, he may have been right to try to restore the balance as that seems to have worked and we don't see too many Beatle fans who are under the impression that John wrote everything and the others were glorified sidemen like we heard so much in the 80's.

Afterwards I had an embarrassing exchange with Al Jardine that I won't go into here

Ooowowoowowow hey there now, you can't just say that and go away! why wouldn't you say it? come on, share with us!

Ugh...after the show when the stage set-up was being broken down, Al came out to help. Looking back, that's kind of odd considering the Beach Boys obviously had a road crew. Maybe Al was the low man on the totem pole? Who knows? There was a crowd of fans around the front of the stage and Al was signing autographs and chatting. I rushed down with my tour program and joined the crowd. As Mr. Jardine got closer to me I guess all these thoughts were flashing through my head like "Hey, he sang on Pet Sounds" or "I've been listening to this guy sing on the greatest records of all time since I was a little kid" and even though I was 19 at the time, I felt this flood of emotion and started shrieking Al's name.....I mean SHRIEKING...like an 8 year old girl. "AL! "AL! AL!". I have no idea what came over me.

When Al walked over to sign my tour book I was still screaming and jumping up and down like a little bitch. Eventually Al said "Okay...okay" and then finally "OKAY!" as in "Dude, calm the hell down!". He signed my tour book and I made a comment about them having "California" in that day's setlist. I guess it was a recent addition and as I recall they hadn't played it in a long time. Al asked me "Hey, you noticed that? Did it sound okay? We just rehearsed it the other day?". For some weird reason I just smiled and maybe out of nervousness or Beach Boys-mania I blurted out "Keep it up!"....

He looked at me like I was either and idiot or hard of hearing an asked me again. "Was it okay? What did you think of it?"

..and again I smiled like a dope and said "Keep it up!"

I think I meant to say "Keep it in" like "keep it in the setlist". To be honest, I was so nervous I couldn't think of anything else to say. Either way I didn't answer his question and instead I think he interpreted "keep it up" like I was suggesting they needed to rehearse it more or it wasn't good enough.  Al gave me a weird look like maybe I was on something and then just walked away.  I have no excuse for my behavior that day other than I was 19 and wasn't nearly as cool as I thought I was.

Funnily enough, I'm not much for autographs but I still have Al's and around the same time I wrote a fan letter to Brian and received an autographed photo and a form letter 10 YEARS LATER! 

I saw them perform this live. My enduring memory of seeing "Problem Child" performed live is that I knew every word to the song and happily sang along at full volume (my belated apologies to the folks at the PNC Bank Art Center in NJ). The song had not been released as a single yet but I had taped the video off of "Friday Night Videos" on NBC and watched it repeatedly. I was upfront competing with Carl Wilson which I guess earns me a place in hell now that I'm older and wiser. This was noticed by Mike Love who said afterwards "Well, I see we have some super fans here today" or something like that.

Afterwards I had an embarrassing exchange with Al Jardine that I won't go into here but I did get an autograph.

At the risk of this turning into a Beatles thread I agree with part of what you're saying here but I think your interpretation is way off base. It's not a case of Paul capitalizing off John, it's Paul capitalizing off the Beatles as a phenomenon. It's not like he goes out there and front loads the setlist with songs John wrote. He front loads it with Beatles songs that HE wrote (it's no secret that John and Paul rarely collaborated after 1964 and the majority of Paul's songs like "Yesterday", "Get Back", "Let It Be" etc. feature no input from John whatsoever outside of him giving a thumbs up to it). He has every right to do that, of course. He wrote them. They're Beatles songs but they're more his than they are John's, Paul's and Ringo's. The fact that he doesn't go out and play the "Band On The Run" album in it's entirety is the problem. It's a classic album and it sold in the multi-millions but Paul has resigned himself to being "Beatle Paul" and whooping it up onstage like it's the 60's again. No shame in that, really, but from a fan point of view I'd love to see him give a little more respect to his solo catalog but as Paul puts it "If I were a fan going to a Paul McCartney show and he didn't play "Hey Jude" I'd be upset". That's his thinking and as we all know, Paul is a bit of a control freak so I doubt he can be talked out of it.

Believe me, John brought up the Beatles as much as Paul does now in interviews. Despite the whole idea of "I'm John Lennon and I'm my own man and  could care less about living in the past", it was just typical Lennon posturing. Every interview he gave after 1970 is loaded with Beatles talk (and he usually contradicted himself John was motivated more by emotion than getting the facts right). Heck, he brought up the Beatles and discussed them constantly more than any ex-member back in the 70's, including Paul.  

As for George, he never criticized Paul for anything to do with John. It was always Paul's "I am the Beatles" attitude that rankled him. Of course, George would go on to his own Beatles-heavy concert tour in 1990 in Japan (cough cough).  Keep in mind that George harbored a lot of bitterness for both John and Paul for how they "carved up the empire between them" (John's own words) and dismissed his songwriting. Paul had no reason to begrudge his association with the Beatles while George had a big chip on his shoulder and rightly so. Some of the mot caustic criticism of George' songwriting came from John who told him "I'm loathe to play any of your songs" during what would be the Let It Be sessions (a bigger diss than Paul famously telling George what solo to play) Sadly, John and George were sniping at each other in the press right before Lennon was killed in 1980. People forget that.

It's a complicated situation between those guys to say the least.

I totally agree about Yoko. She's turned John into a mini-industry, turning any doodle he made into designer ties and some such nonsense. That's an entirely different animal compared to what Paul does.    

I have two episodes of the show on VHS. I'm kicking myself for not recording it every week when it was on but I certainly watched it religiously. Variety show would be right since the Beach Boys were only on for about half the program and it was loaded with comedians and other musical acts. One of the shows I have on tape has Amy Grant as a guest (which should give you an idea of what type of musical acts were on it).
I did find it a bit odd that Brian would occasionally do solo spots such as the time when he sang "In My Car" on hi own in front of the touring band while stalking the stage in leather pants! 

In a perfect world, Brian would continue to tour for another five years with the Beach Boys but these days it seems he is bored, not doing well physically, and is just there cause he was talked into it and nostalgic reasons. I don't want to see the Beach Boys end cause Brian is not a part of the group. I would pay to see Mike and Bruce with or without David ANY day of the week. I would also love to see Al with Family and Friends.

The world will not end because Brian is taking a break. In fact, I am sure he will have another solo tour in the future.

I agree and disagree.  I understand realistically that it is not feasible for BW to tour with The Beach Boys everywhere they go from here on out.  Touring has never been Brian's thing to be quite honest and I've always felt privileged to see him when I get the chance for that very reason.  That being said I've never considered what Mike and Bruce have taken on the road since Carl's passing to be "The Beach Boys".  I can't really describe it but in the same vein I've never understood people who go to see Paul McCartney simply because it's the closest you can get to seeing a "Beatles concert" these days.  I've seen Macca a few times myself back in the nineties but I haven't gone in recent years because I know he's going to base the majority of his show around "Beatles songs" and I'm just not into hearing Paul and a backing band perform Beatles songs.

I don't know if that makes any sense but it's probably why I avoid the Mike and Bruce incarnation of The Beach Boys as well.

Excellent post. I can absolutely relate to what you say about Paul McCartney. I was one who simply could not wait to see the man live when he hit the road again back in, what was it, 89 or 90? I can't remember the year, but it was his first tour in years, and the band with Hamish, Wix, Robbie, Linda, etc. Flowers In The Dirt? I still have the program, buttons, t-shirts, etc...I have to dig them out to confirm. I remember so many details about the preparation for this, including calling a ticket hotline repeatedly on a Saturday morning at 10AM to get tickets, which turned out to be upper-deck at the old Veterans Stadium at Philly. I was super excited as a Beatle freak, and this was the closest I'd get especially at that time and at that age. Great show, I was moved to tears several times, and the band was spot-on terrific. A fantastic show and experience, quite expensive at the time but well worth it.

I did the same for Brian's "comeback" solo tour, hanging on the phone for tickets, seeing him with some really good seats at Symphony Hall in Boston, waiting on the street entrance to backstage clutching the DCC Pet Sounds cover for a signature, as the band filed in followed by Brian...incredible. Again, moved to tears and feeling like this was a watershed moment for me as a fan. The Smile tour...same way.

But having had numerous opportunities to see Paul McCartney live in the 20+ years since, I have not gone. While he has expanded the setlist and released new material with a crack new band (I went to school with the drummer  ), I chose not to go. I felt as if I had seen what I needed to see and could cross it off my "bucket list". I'm happy with the memories, and honestly I saw him do Hey Jude and have the crowd extend the singalong ending with everyone waving and belting out the na-na's, I don't need to experience that again even though it would be a nice show to see. It's not as much of a priority now as it was then.

That takes nothing away from Paul or Brian, but those earlier shows were such a catharsis and an intimate experience for me, I'm content to leave it at that. I don't mean that to sound dismissive or derisive in any way, but what JohnMill says about McCartney live is something that rang true for me as well.

Well I kind of see Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson as two different animals when it comes to their solo performances.  To put it simply, I don't think Brian "needs" The Beach Boys as much as Paul McCartney "needs" The Beatles in a live setting.  For me the infamous comment made by the anonymous backing band member regarding the differences between a BW solo tour and the current tour kind of sums it up for me as far as Brian goes:

Brian is one of those unique performers who can fit in comfortably in both theater and arena settings.  What he does as a solo performer is sustainable in it's own right because it's almost like you are going to see a great composer perform his catalog instead of a rock show.  The Beach Boys on the other hand are a rock show and having Brian integrated into that atmosphere has worked out pretty well because he's not required to MC the shows or to ham it up with the audience.  He leaves that stuff to Mike and is therefore able to focus the majority of his attention on the music which is essentially what he does at his solo gigs.  Now obviously there are always going to be some ripples in the road when it comes to Brian and live performances but I think most of the fanbase understands and accepts that.

With McCartney, I just think that he's never been a solo performer and he has admitted as much himself on several occasions.  But I think ever since Wings disbanded and John Lennon was assassinated, he's never truly found his niche.  Now he's obviously made some great music since 1980 but I think he stopped challenging himself creatively as a performer since that time.   He kind of allowed himself to become "rock's elder statesman" and certainly has become the torch carrier of The Beatles' legacy neither role which at least in my opinion has suited him well.  To be fair perhaps these roles were thrust upon him but after the loss of John Lennon it seemed to me that McCartney lost that fire in his belly that he had in the sixties and seventies.  I think he gradually came to terms with the fact that his legacy will always be tied to The Beatles, something he desperately tried to fend off when he was with Wings and has comfortably settled into a routine where he takes to the stage with young musicians who won't challenge him creatively and simply serve as his backing band and they give the audience "The Beatles Rock & Revival Show as interpreted by Paul McCartney"

For me it was never like that with Brian Wilson.  While I'll admit there are some similarities between how both men tour (young backing band, basing their shows around sixties hits) with Brian it seems he has found a way to change the game up just enough to keep things interesting whether it be the album tours of "Pet Sounds" and "SMiLE" (which in enough of itself was a occasion of some significance given that record's long history) or touring TLOS as a complete record instead of just dropping a few songs off the record into a set filled with sixties standards which is how most of his contemporaries map out their shows.  

I'll close here because I've written a lot and am starting to ramble but to me there is a fundamental difference between what Brian Wilson has done with his solo gigs and what Paul McCartney does with his.

I can appreciate what you're saying about McCartney's shows but there's an even bigger factor at work here and that's Paul's massive fame. After all, his fame goes way beyond simple music fandom. As such it would be harder for him to NOT give a show that aimed at the widest audience possible especially when he's playing to 10X or 20X the crowd Brian's playing to. Brian can afford to give smaller and more intimate "fan-friendly" shows because he's got that smaller and loyal following.
Paul only played a smattering of Beatles songs on his Wings tours because he was looking to establish himself as a solo act which he did with platinum Wings albums, multiple #1 singles, etc. By the time the hits dried up in 1985, he hadn't been on the road since 1979. When he finally returned to touring in 1990 it wasn't with a much younger band but with (slightly younger) peers like Hamish Stuart and Robbie Macintosh from the Average White Band and The Pretenders respectively. Of course they've all been replaced since then and the shows have become heavy on Beatles as Paul indeed sees himself as the torch bearer for the Beatles. That's been his choice....which is sad because his albums beginning from 1997's "Flaming Pie" onwards have been outstanding and miles ahead of his 70's and 80's work. The recent "Electric Arguments" album is, for my money, the most challenging work released by any 60's performer...but you're right, aside from the 2 songs he played from it on his recent tour, you'd never know it from his concerts.   

Well, generally TV and radio interviews are a little bit on the "fluff" side and print interviews dig a little deeper. I thought the Rolling Stone article was top notch (and I LOATHE that magazine). Besides, the reunion is a happy occasion and people in the media seem genuinely giddy about it.

Incidentally, here's my quickie interview with Brian from back in 2008:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-BRNg3uYz0

There would be no shame in calling it a day after this album. They did what seemed impossible...a reunion, a solid album and a tour that's getting raves.
I can't foresee many more large scale group projects like this.
 
Realistically, and I don't want to sound morbid here, these guys are nearing the end of their time on planet earth and a retirement to focus on family (a rather enormous one collectively) with the odd fun little solo project that involved one or more members would be a joy for them, I would think.