With the apparent loss of  Melinda, it's hard to imagine where Brian goes from here..

He seems destined to be truly one of life's survivors, having lost his two younger brothers too young, more recently his old friend/right hand man Jeffrey Foskett and now the huge blow of losing his wife,  who seems to have been such a rock for him over the last thirty years.


I hope he has a strong support network in his kids, family and management.

This is so very sad.

Never thought Brian would outlive her.

My heart goes out to Brian and of course,  their children.

Strength at this sad time.

These are incredible.  The first image Carl and Mike look like super Bee Gees circa 1977. Can't identify the guy on the left though.

The second image appears to show a young Quenten Tarantino supporting the group. Who knew?

I was watching a discussion about the movie earlier today, and one of the main points the filmmaker wants to make is Elvis was not the King of Rock & Roll, Little Richard was. It's sad that all these years later, people are still accusing Elvis of being a racist who just stole music from black people. Elvis never asked people to call him "the king". Even Richard seemed to have backed off of that in later years. I saw one talk show where he said 'Elvis and I are friends, and we know who the King is, he's up above us, but I am the originator, the emancipator, the architect of rock and roll".

I love both, but I would definitely consider Richard and maybe Chuck Berry as the 'true'  Kings of Rock n' Rolll. Elvis was a far more versatile artist.

I really don't care about Blondie. To me, he was just a small part of Beach Boys history, 1972-73. David, on the other hand, was a founding member; one who was nearly written out of the history of the band.

Interesting. I am the opposite. While I respect David Marks for his contributions to the group's music, I don't consider him a 'true' Beach Boy, because he never sang any lead vocals or  wrote any songs for the group like all the others we consider members did.

Blondie, on the other hand,  did. And I'm not the greatest fan of Blondie's contributions other than Sail on Sailor.

An album of any kind would be absolutely amazing! I hope, whatever it is, that folks are supportive!

Well, I certainly really hope his vocals are much improved on any new tracks. Based on Right Where I Belong from the LPR album and his most recent tour, I’m about ready to consider it game over for BW and time to retire.

The LPR album is a bit of a weird compilation imo as it’s a mixture of ‘new’/relatively recent recordings plus the mid-90s WP stuff.

I wonder whether the original plan was for Brian to re-record all the WP material for the LPR project, but they found that he was unable/ unwilling to do this, so they just put the original versions out instead.

This sadly makes sense to me, in part due to the, er, quality of his contribution to the new track Right Where I Belong.

Nelson's comment on this are interesting

Who Nelson? Rick? Ozzie? David?

Maybe they mean BW Band member Nelson Bragg.

As easy as it is to give Mike sh*t (deservedly) about either his personal politics or musical tendencies, I would be pretty hyped for a Mike Love Anthology style collection, compiling some of his lesser-known gems among his classic Beach Boy contributions. He's put out a lot of material I would rate poor-to-middling over the years, but I think there's certainly at least one full CD worth of solid/enjoyable/fun material out there...

Indeed. It could include the long-awaited mother lode - the official release of First Love and Country Love ...

both in full surround!!

We all know these puppies make Smile look like a bunt instead of a grand slam ...

Maybe one day, we will be fortunate enough to get a ‘Very Best of Mike Love’ solo compilation.

Imagine that ... 

I would call it ‘All the Love in Paradise’

What would be your track list??

Paradise Found is a rather lovely track. A minor classic in the weird, limited world of early 80s Beach Boy music.

Well, other than some odd vocals from Brian, I think that the Wilson Paley sessions are wonderful and the fact that they were never made into a proper Beach Boys album is yet another episode of the group’s tragi-comedy history of poor career decisions.

Weirdly, I appear to be off-topic, judging by the recent endless discussion about TWGMTR that one would have thought would have been moved to its own thread ...

But then, I’m the madman who thinks the GIOMH version of Gettin in Over My Head is the definitive version of that song and is a latterday BW masterpiece ...

Yes, Sweetie does indeed have Brian, Mike and Al trading lead vocals.

Sweetie later turned into Love Ya from the Sweet Insanity sessions, so is kind of ‘finished’.

Would be fun to hear a Beach Boys take on Sweetie though.

Pretty sure once Brian's set is over, he gets right on the bus and gone! So with this show you get 2 real Beach Boys and 3 real Chicago members! Ill be there!

Brian, upon hearing about the shared tour with Chicago -

'Cool, that means 45-minute greatest hits sets for me, then I'm gone. No more boring Pet Sounds'.

Manager - 'But Brian, I thought you liked Chicago?'

Brian - 'No. I lived there for a few years in the '90s and you could never find a good deli'.

 

My question to those who say that it was Joe Thomas who wrote most/all of the new songs on Imagination/TWGMTR/NPP is -

Where are all the other great Joe Thomas songs that he wrote outside of his involvement with Brian?

I am sure that Thomas had input into the creation of this material, perhaps to help 'start Brian off' as it were, but there are some fine songs on those albums and I have never heard of any other songs/ albums with lots of fine songs with a Joe Thomas credit minus BW.

Sadly, I don't think he has the energy level to deliver such an album today, unless he is the producer with guest singers doing the leads. I'm sure Al could deliver the goods vocally.

Agreed. Also, I suspect that our idea of a Brian Rock n' Roll album and Brian's idea of a Brian Rock n' Roll album may be two very different things.

Speaking for myself, I would like/have liked it to be uptempo covers of 50's and 60's rock classics with some cool guitar solos, loud drums and some rock attitude. My guess is that Brian might rather bring to the table some tracks that rock no harder than The Man With All the Toys, along with a few nice Phil Spector and Four Freshmen covers. Which would probably be nice, but a little limp in the rawkin' stakes  .

Would love to be proved wrong 

Perhaps sacreligiously, but a few of Mike's rockier tracks from his recent solo albums actually rock pretty hard, for a Beach Boy in his late 70s, and he sings 'em like he means 'em  .

My guess is deteriorating physical and mental health and just damn getting older  .

I wonder if Brian will record again at his current stage of life. There are good arguments for either way.

Grateful we still have him though.

Elvis is one of my all-time favourates, but how many times can you sell the same (admittedly beautiful) car?

Anyway, so what if EP Enterprises revenue drops? Elvis don't care and the music's all that matters anyway. 

I thought it was established he had laryngitis around this time?

I believe that is what Brian claims in his autobiography a few years back, but you don't have laryngitis for years ...

Extraordinary  .

Nothing substantive in this brief interview, but a local news outlet did snag Brian briefly for a new interview to promote upcoming gigs:

https://www.miamiherald.com/miami-com/miami-com-news/article239092763.html

"no current plans to record" 
That's what I expected.

I'm betting there are many reasons for Brian not recording, but I think it's sad that apparently market value of his music is one of the deciding factors.

Agreed. I think, as far as brand new BW studio recordings are concerned, other than what's already in the can, he's done. Reasons are probably a combination of mental/ physical issues, just damn age and, based on this quote alone, his apparent disillusionment with the modern record industry.

 

It would be like if McCartney talked about Allen Klein unprompted at the front of every one of his interviews. Or if Al Jardine talked in every interview about being edged out in 1998.

  This exactly. Never thought about it quite that way.

It would be as if every time someone asked Ringo Starr about George Harrison, he made damn sure he mentioned how George had an affair with his first wife while they were married - and obviously also took lots of drugs and alcohol, thus wasting his potential.

Guess all that TM never really worked.

Funny how he was allowed to choose three of his own albums

Surprised he didn't choose Love You over Summer Days or Wild Honey.

All I have to say on the matter is ...

'Metal ... Beach!' 

I would say just leave BW88 alone, it's great as it is. What's the point in trying to rewrite history? I'm no great lover of Landy but he was a part of Brian's history.

What next? De-Mike-ing the whole Boys catalogue? Un-Manson-ing Never Learn Not to Love?

Brian should have/ could perform a lot more of these songs live with his current band, as part of a 'rarities' set I wish he would sometimes do 'just for the fans'.