This from New York magazine online:

You don’t think of Beach Boys co-founder and lead singer Mike Love as a New Yorker. But the prototypical California boy and his wife, Jacquelyne, did buy an apartment on East 93rd Street in 2004. “They wanted to renovate something,” says broker Gary Brynes of the Corcoran Group, who’s now selling the space for the Loves. Priced at $2.35 million, it’s a top-of-the-line rehab: Brynes (who’s handling the listing with Marcia Salonger) says the couple handpicked the finishes and oversaw all the details of the extensive reworking, which combined two units. The kitchen has a built-in glass table cantilevered from a counter, and in two of the bathrooms, the floors have rocks embedded in tile, lending it a pebbly beach feel. Endless summer indeed.

Read more: New York City Real Estate - The Beach Boys’ Mike Love Is Selling His Upper East Side Apartment -- New York Magazine http://nymag.com/realestate/movers/62900/#ixzz0byKjOUWx

I just was going through some stuff in the closet and I found a composition notebook with a few notes in it from a phone call I had with Milt Love.  This is what the notes say:

Mt. Vernon and Fairway.
40 by 20 foot living room.  Red rugs, white couchs, chairs with ottomans.  designed by Glee, made by Windsor Hills upholsterers.

At one of the Christmas parties it was reported to Milt that one of the Wilsons put out his cigarette on the run.

After Dennis' funeral Mike celebrated with a bottle of champagne.

Forced Mike Love to babysit, when he left the casement windows open and Glee found out she put all his belongings out on the porch.

Next page is titled "Stan Love" from an interview with him:

Dennis had a choice of going into the army or McLaren Juvenile Hall.  Den pilferred from the neighbors.  This got Murry upset.  Den was ruining the rep of the Wilsons in the neighborhood.

Stephen Love was quiet, into coin collecting and stamps, student council, he was a good kid.

Stan says he was a "deliquent trouble maker, went to college on athletic scholarships.  Within the Love family Stan wasa considered a bad apple."

The Love children weren't allowed to stay at the Wilsons.

Steven, I have a question for you. A page or two back in this topic, you mentioned that you have several hours of Landy on tape. I was wondering, were you ever given access to the "therapy songwriting sessions" with Brian and Landy from the early 1980's?

No, when I was involved I dont think Landy was blatent enough to be writing songs with him yet.  Landy gave me all that access because he was convinced that I would write an article about him and he'd be on the cover of Rolling Stone.  It was only after "Brian Wilson is Trying to Catch Another Wave" (New West magazine, 1976) was published that Landy let go of all pretense and became Brian's writing partner.  Landy was such a charlatan as a doctor.  I have a copy of a book of hip slang he published before he became Brian's shrink.  He was a used car salesman.

I got this in the mail today, it's a GPS tour of Beach Boy locations in Los Angeles based on places in Heroes and Villains.

http://topey.com/796446-GPS-show-locations-where-Beach-Boys-make-history.html

I wish I knew where the transcripts were to the tapes, I'd publish them here for everyone to have a look at.  I just started using a computer then  (I wrote the Beatles book on a Selectric) and the tapes were probably transcribed on those big floppy disks.  I don't even know if there's a computer around old enough to play them.  The tapes themselves are in a bank vault.

Thanks for all the good words about the book.

Hey, I've popped up again.  It's amazing how Heroes and Villains keeps on selling (and pissing people off.)
All these years later I'm still gobsmacked about how much Brian's "autobiography" ripped off my book.  At the time a reporter from Billboard kept on calling me asking me if I wasn't angry, but the truth was I had a lot of other stuff to think about, a new book in the works, and I didn't want to start a lawsuit.  It was only years later when I was giving deposition at a libel lawsuit that I read the passages in Brian's book and Heroes and Villains side by side that I realized they were identical.  I wonder what happened to the guy who wrote that book?

Just for the record, I have over 100 tapes in a bank vault, tapes never heard before by anyone but me, tapes with Brian, particularly the one in Landy's office when he talked about Murry; the heroin tape from Australia; interviews with Marilyn, Diane and their mom and dad; over 12 hours of tapes of Karen Lamm reading her diaries aloud to me; several hours of Landy's bull; taped interviews with Lorne Michaels; interviews with members of the Love family; photographs and memorabilia nobody had ever seen before; a copy of the ms of the book Rocky and Stan were writing about the group; and some mind blowing on-tape stories from David Anderle, Van Dyke Parks, Gary Usher, Nik Venet and on and on and on.  I have five cartons of articles about the group collected from around the world. 
I also have the depositions I gave in three Beach Boy trials, including one in which I presented a taped  interview with Chuck Kaye that got the publishing money from Sea of Tunes back in Brian's pocket.  Also my extensive depositions about how and why my book was plagiarized.
So if anybody tells you that I used everything I had in the book--no matter what you think of my best selling book--they're just bitter and they don't know what they're talking about.

It serves no purpose making long lists of what's wrong in Heroes and Villains.  I've already said that there are mistakes that are regrettable.  I'm not interested in participating in an orgy of "what's wrong with Heroes and Villains."  So, for a while, I'm going to say goodbye to all of you and wish you luck.

Zander--thanks!  But I think I should just leave the book as is, and leave it to somebody else to write the second half of the story.

It pains me that there are mistakes in Heroes and Villains, and if I had the chance I'd love to correct the errors. 

I'm surprised at all the interest.  I never would have none that this board existed were it not for a Google alert that my name appeared in a blog.

We're nerds.  As for which university ... how about MIU, in Fairfield, Iowa? Seems appropriate!

Actually, it's called MUM now, Maharishi Institute of Management. I looked it up awhile ago, it's a very interesting school. The food in the dining halls is all vegetarian/organic, and students are required to go to some sort of exercise class every day.

*has nightmare: MUM, out of its own principle, selling all of Steven's tapes to the highest bidder, an anonymouse Japanese businessman, who locks them away again ASAP*

I'll NEVER sell those tapes.  Those tapes will go to a University that will appreciate their value.  I don't want money for those tapes, nor for the Beatle tapes, nor for the thousands of other tapes I have of all the great rock bands of the 20th century.  I want them to be available for research and for posterity.

I appeared on the Mort Downey show, with a good haircut as I remember, because Albert Goldman had just published a scathing, lying, nasty book about John Lennon and he left the country because he couldn't take the heat.  Downey was looking for another Beatles' author and I agreed to go on the show.  The book Downey put in the pirhanna tank was Goldman's book, not mine.  All the anger that the audience and other people on the show had for Goldman was directed at me.  They were "pieing" people (throwing pies in the face of people they didn't like) and I wanted to avoid that embarrassment.  Most of all I found myself defending the right to write a book about living people.  I do remember there was a jerk from Twisted Sister on the show with me who was bitching about the possibility that one day somebody would write a book about him.  What a laugh!  John Lennon changed history, as far as I'm concerned.  I think I told Downey and his audience of idiots that Lennon wasn't just some guy with a guitar and that he was an important figure in the 20th century and he deserved a full-fledged biography, but not the crap that Goldman has written.

Twisted Sister is part of the junk pile of rock and roll.  Goldman died of a heart attack on an airplane, all coked-up.  Downey died of lung cancer. 

Yes, "The Love You Make" about the Beatles was huge, and not just with Beatle fans.  It was an international blockbuster and it's still the biggest selling book about the group.  The Beatle Book had an emphasis on the private lives of the group, and their personal relationships.  When I set out to write the Beach Boy book I took the same tact.

I have to repeat what I've said all these years.  I love rock and roll.  Music saved my life.  But I've never been a musicologist or a music critic.  I always wrote more about the people in the business and the business of rock and roll, with much less of an emphasis on the music itself.

As for Carl, like the other brothers, he had a problem with drugs and alcohol.  That didn't change the fact that he was a really nice guy.

Stan and Rocky sold me a copy of the "heroin tape" from Australia.  They hid a tape recorder in the room under a chair.  You can actually hear the sound of the punch connecting with Carl's face. 

Finally, I haven't kept up with the Beach Boys since I wrote the book.  I was asked to testify as an "expert witness" in three lawsuits over the years and so I was still involved on the periphery--and I had something to do with Brian and the others getting back royalties (Marilyn loved me for this) but otherwise I drifted away.

I still listen to the music, all the time. 

I've got to admit my interaction with Carl was limited, and the observation that he didn't talk as much because most of the media centered on Brian or Mike or Dennis is probably closer to the truth than that he was just taciturn.  I also think its true that he was a gentleman, yet he had some of the same issues as the rest of the Wilson clan.

As for my easy, direct access to the group, most of my taped conversations took place during the preparation for the New West magazine article.  Also, I interviewed various members of the band over the years for my column in the Sunday News in New York.

Remember, after the New West article I wrote a book about the Beatles that was a huge international success but at the time seemed shocking. (The Beatles took drugs!  The Beatles had sex with girls on the road!  Cold Turkey was a song about John kicking heroin!)  The Beach Boys read or knew about the book, and when it was announced that I was going to write a biography of the Beach Boys they weren't any too happy.  They closed ranks.

As for the 1976 birthday party, you've got to remember that my being there was just luck.  I had no idea that the party would have any significance.  Maybe it didn't have any significance, maybe it was just because I wrote about it, who knows?  I have very vivid memories of being there.  I was nervous and an outsider.  The Beach Boys were wary of journalists.  I was very distracted by the presence of Paul McCartney (who I would later get to know when I wrote the book about the Beatles) and I spent a lot of my time talking to Audree about the weather.

I introduced myself to everyone, but there was a lot of big egos in the room and I could hardly breathe.

As far as I know I never showed up in any of the footage.  (The first thing Lorne Michaels said to me was "Don't ask me to write for Saturday Night Live.")

I don't remember Dennis at that party, but I had a long, weird, surprising interview with Dennis later that trip, I think.  Or maybe it was for a Beach Boy article I wrote for my Top of the Pop column in the Sunday News in New York.  I remember really liking Dennis, but he was marked for doom, he was out of control.

When I started work on the book I contacted Karen Lamm and arranged for her to read aloud to me in person, recorded on tape, all of her diaries from the time she met Dennis until his death.

I knew that journalistically I wanted to recreate Dennis' last days, the way Bob Wooward had done about John Belushi. 

It was very hard to get people to talk to me.  I was a vulture, and the tragedy of Dennis' death was a raw, painful subject, and everyone cried a lot in the retelling--well, almost everyone.  I'm glad now that I went through the embarrassment and uncomfortable moments to recreate his last days in such detail.

By the way, I hated the Beach Boy movie they made from my book, I had no say in it, and the producers did a lousy job.

Steve, thanks so much for making the time to post here, and tell all of us some of your stories. I have a question for you, if I may. Actually, it's more like a request. Would you PLEASE digitize all of your original interview tapes?   If not to release them publicly(I doubt you could, for various legal reasons), then at least to perserve them. I'm sure that there is way to much important information to lose if those tapes deteriorated(God forbid). Simply put, those interviews are a Beach Boys fanatics wet dream.  

Jay;

I wish I could release the tapes, but...there's personal stuff on the tapes, not just things that the Beach Boy coterie said, but personal things I said in the course of doing the interviews.  It doesn't even have anything to do with the Beach Boys, just the kind of observations people make about life when they're in deep conversation and forget the tape recorder is running.

However, I'm leaving those tapes, and all my tapes, the Beatles, the hundreds of musicians and music business people I've interviewed, to the archives of a University--which one is still undecided.  So one day when I'm not here to be embarassed by them, the tapes will be available to everybody.

I hate to go to the bank vault, but I'll see if I can find some sections of tape that I can post here.

I'm surprised at all the interest.  I never would have none that this board existed were it not for a Google alert that my name appeared in a blog.

I'll start it, since no one else did. Mr. Gaines, it seems you're willing to answer some questions and interact a little bit.  If this is too much, it can just slide down the board and disappear.

Anyway, I think we're all very pleasantly surprised to find you in our midst and appreciate anything you're willing to share about the writing of your book and (of course) the book itself. For me, Heroes & Villains was the first Beach Boys book I ever got my hands on; I picked it up at the mall in a small college town in Georgia right when it came out.  My copy is sitting here by my computer now.  This was my first substantial window into the band beyond the records themselves; my first good look at the Rovells, Murry, Hite Morgan, Landy, and the other guy on the covers, David Marks. 

Oddly enough, at the time, I was even more interested in finding a definitive Jan and Dean biography (a book we're still waiting for).   I had thought they'd be more interesting. After all, they'd had a TV movie.

The other Beach Boys books I fished out of used shops over the next few years were written by super-fans, and worked a different side of the street.

I have a list of questions, and I'm sure a lot of folks will, and (although it's remained with me pretty well), I'm going to re-read your book for the first time since the Fall of 1986.  I'll start simple:

Why is Carl such a rare interview?

Thanks in advance for your participation here.

I don't really know the answer to why Carl didn't give many interviews but he didn't seem to be very verbal and didn't really enjoy speaking to the press. 

As a writer myself I know I get caught up in revising my work over and over. I have a few questions for you regarding that. I know the germ of the book was born in 1976 and it came out 10 years later. How long did the process once it became a definitive book take you? Also what are you proudest of in the book, and what would you most like to change? Any input from any Beach Boy after it came out.

I'd like to change all the mistakes.  Hah!   There was no fact checker.  I did the best I could.  A few mistakes are serious, but those mistakes were mostly about the music and albums.  There were no substantive errors about the situation and the people involved in it.

In the early 1970s I was the rock and roll columnist for the New York Daily News and the editor of Circus magazine and I always loved the Beach Boys, but it was two friends of mine, now both dead. writer Scott Cohen and A&R man Bob Feiden, who really got me into the whole mystique and incredible personal story.  We listened to the albums hundreds of times.  We were convinced, even though the group was no longer respected by mainstream rockers, that the Beach Boys were the best group on the planet and that Brian was a genius, a label he hated, I would learn.  For whatever reason the Holland album became a special favorite of mine.  Go figure.

It was almost coincidental that I took the assignment from New West magazine to cover the "Brian is Back"/Gene Landy story.

As I said, it was during this two week period I did my preliminary interviews with the members of the group.

I was invited to Brian's birthday party in Malibu and met Paul and Linda McCartney and the whole cast of characters, save for Murray who was already dead.

Lorne Michaels and his film crew all hated Landy with a passion. 

When the New West article came out Landy was furious.  It was called, I think, "Brian Wilson is Trying to Catch Another Wave."  I didn't write anything bad in particular about Landy, I just let him be himself.  The article turned out to be some of my best writing and New West flew me back to Los Angeles from New York, where I lived, to do press for the article.  It was the talk of the town in L.A.

One of the most telling moments with Landy was the phone call he received from Alice Cooper.  I had written Alice's autobiography "Me Alice" for him in 1974 (or so) and we remained quite close.  One night I was at Landy's house listening to his grand schemes when Alice called because he heard that Landy worked with people who had drug and alcohol problems.  I just happened to be sitting there and Landy put me on the phone to help convince Alice that he should become Landy's patient.  I didn't want to shill for Landy so all I said was "Alice, I got to talk to you about Doctor Landy."  The next day I went to Alice's house and warned him, but to no avail, Alice went into treatment with Landy anyway.  I forget how it ended, something about one of Landy's "watchers" and a hypodermic needles in the glove compartment of Alice's car.  It's muddy, it happened so long ago.

After the New West article appeared Landy called me on the phone in New York and tried to get me to say that I had intentionally made him look bad.  I was positive he wanted to sue me.  I kept saying on the phone that all I did was write what I saw, that I had no ulterior motives, and that was 100% true.  I was prepared to embrace Landy as a talented psychologist who could help Brian.  But clearly Brian was very ill and he needed another kind of treatment, medication, etc.  I realized that Landy was selfish in trying to treat Brian, self-aggrandizing and altogether a bad bad man.

Years later, before I wrote Heroes and Villains,  I wrote a bestseller about the Beatles called "The Love You Make" with a guy named Peter Brown, and a few months later Dennis drowned.  New American Library called the second the news broke and asked me if I had any connection or interest in the Beach Boys and I presented the New West article as a proposal and...we were off to the races, as they say.

I moved to Los Angeles and started work.  My first chore was getting David Leaf to trust me and to purchase his files.

I was crazy about Marilyn Wilson, I thought she was terrific. 

More later about Brian's alleged autobiography and the three Beach Boy lawsuits in which I was an "expert witness."

 

The story that was around in the old days was that Brian crapped on a plate and served it to Murry to eat.

I don't believe there's a passage about Brian trying to get Marilyn to sleep with anybody, and I don't believe Brian ever served Murray such a feast.

I guess I forgot about the Tandyn Almer stuff.  It's been a while since I wrote that book.



By the way, it's Steven, with a "v", not Stephen.

Yes, I have all the tapes from the book, they're all in a bank vault and have been for years.

I've written half a dozen books since Heroes and Villains so my memory of it all is sort of blurred.

(I did interview Marilyn and her sister and her parents at length.  Any interviews I did for the book are on tape, including one of Landy's "therapy" sessions with Brian.)

The story that was around in the old days was that Brian crapped on a plate and served it to Murry to eat.

I don't believe there's a passage about Brian trying to get Marilyn to sleep with anybody, and I don't believe Brian ever served Murray such a feast.

I'm not sure where to post this.

I saw a google alert with my name and it brought me to this site and I read some of the posts about Brian's autobiography.

So, it's me, and it's no big deal, actually.

I've written a lot of books about different subjects and sometimes they're not popular with fans.  I know the book has a lot of factual errors, but none of the substantive material, about Landy or the relationships between the members, etc., is incorrect. 

Can anybody tell me the full story about how Brian got involved in the whole "autobiography" mess? Did Brian actually right ANYTHING in it? I just got the book about a week ago. I don't put much, if any, faith in it....I got it just as a weird curiosity. Did Brian ever actually believe any of what was said in the book? How does Brian feel about the book now? Has he ever talked about it in interviews?

I wrote "Heroes and Villains" and I can tell you that huge portions of Brian's so-called autobiography were stolen wholesale from my book.  I easily could have sued them, but I didn't want to get sucked into all of that negative energy.

As far as Gene Landy quotes in my book, I was there.  I covered Brian and Landy for a magazine called New West and Landy wanted desperately to be on the cover of Rolling Stone so he could be famous as the "addiction doctor" and he gave me total access.  I was Landy and Brian's shadow for two weeks.

Once I got locked in Landy's office with Brian when the doornob fell off, but I think it was one of Landy's oddball schemes.