I'm largely indifferent to Mike Love. Up til know he always struck me as a vaguely ridiculous figure. This article certainly didn't change my opinion.

However that law suit info that Empire of Love posted is really eye opening. That's just vile.

It seems to me that what M Love really wants is respect that he doesn't get from the music industry or his peers. He assumes this is because he didn't get  credit for writing some of  the lyrics for some of BBs earlier hits, so he sues and wins (though it seems now his credits are over stated). Did this win him the respect he thinks he deserves? Nope.

If anything it seems his lawsuits have made him more reviled.   

This is a really interesting topic.


I feel like I've missed something, but Andrew Doe, if you are in contact with Mike Love, why not just ask him who it was that told Taylor the album was "scrapped", instead of everyone arguing about it here? I get the sense that he is not considered the most factually reliable guy (e.g. from the 2012 reunion tour threads) but surely he has an idea?

I understand you asked him if it was him, and he said no. But did you ask if he knew who told Taylor, or who he thought probably did?

Hi Rockcrush,

Why are you writing this book?  Do you feel like you have an important, unknown story to tell? Do you want recognition for being involved with people who were famous? Do you want to make money?

Those are the only "3 reasons" I can think of.... Just... curious.

And, I didn't even mention Duck Jardine's face... because that is just too disturbing.

Trying and failing to find online that illustration from Millward's book  which depicts the Boys as animals wading through long grass… Broan's a bear, Al's a duck, Bruce might be a raccoon … I think.

Anyone able to provide a link here?

County Air by George Chastain, from the Byron Preiss.  Reproduced utilising M7 & ISP technology processes under 3400K source lighting.

Holy cow! I find this picture very disturbing...
1) When was it drawn, and why are Dennis and Carl's eyes blacked out? That is very hard to look at.
2) What is up with the flying animals? What is the duck pointing at?
3) Are they on patrol? Like in the Vietnam war?
4) Zoom in on bear Brian's face. That is terrifying.

What the heck is the story behind this picture?

Why is there a continuing slant that Dennis Wilson gave or fed drugs to Brian Wilson? Why aren't people talking about Brian feeding drugs to Dennis? It sounds like Brian paid for them. Why isn't Brian beaten up for buying drugs for Dennis or for sharing his drugs with Dennis?

I'm not suggesting AT ALL that Brian should have been beaten up, of course. Or that people should think of Brian as preying on Dennis. But I do think that the two angles are equally valid and that it's revealing that one is chosen over the other so consistently.

They were both doing drugs. They were both procuring drugs, sometimes jointly. Sometimes they did drugs together. The idea that one was the victim of the other seems to me to be totally based on a biased and willful interpretation.

As an aside, Dennis seems to me (opinion!) to have had an addiction while Brian's addiction I think is questionable.

I suspect it has to do with their personalities, histories and, in my cynical view, their relative ability to produce"product", as somebody stated earlier.

My impression is that Dennis was viewed as a bit of a screw up throughout much of his life. Confrontational with authority and maybe out of control. Whereas Brian (again, just my impression) seemed to be responsible, hard working and in charge of "making product" up til the late 60s (?).  So maybe given how people around them viewed them, led them to think that of course it was Dennis leading Brian astray.

Also, as noted by a poster so aptly upthread:  Brian was viewed as the main money maker, and that is what the people around them were trying to protect. Helping the two guys really get healthy and lead happy lives was not the primary goal. It seems getting one of them to make money for the whole enterprise was.
 

Mad Max got 10 nominations and it came out in May, a month before L&M, so blaming release dates is lame.  I think the movie probably fails to make to make a strong enough connection for non-Beach Boys/Wilson afficionados and that is why it was shut out today. It's hard for people on this board (including myself) to watch this movie objectively, but I think we would mostly agree it certainly isn't a perfect work of art. The scenes of Pet Sounds being recorded are pure bliss for us, but not so much for others.

Another explanation might be that people just didn't watch it. The only reason I watched it was because of the interesting cover art (or whatever the term is) with the silhouette and the target. Brian Wilson/beach boys biopic would have sounded very unappealing to me.

At the risk of starting a 15 page argument: Before seeing love & mercy, my impression of the beach boys was of some old guy in shorts grinding up against a cheerleader, singing about cars. I have no idea where that image came from, but that's what it was. But the movie really opened my eyes. I really loved it.

There were a lot of flaws, but Dano in particular was amazing. I think if people saw it they would connect with it. But maybe the hurdle was getting people interested in seeing it.

[#Pretty good point.

Actually a very good point. Don't hold your breath on any insight though. I'm still not clear on what mental issues were there. A schizo effective disorder....right? That's a broad label that encompasses a lot but is that not the best term to use these days? Even at the end of L&M you are kind of left hanging.
[/quote]

Yeah, I think it would be very interesting to know what BW was going through internally at the time Smile fell apart. But I can also imagine it would be emotionally difficult to revisit as well. But bipolar  schizoaffective means having symptoms of bipolar disorder ("manic depression") while also having ongoing symptoms of schizophrenia. So swinging from racing thoughts, manic phases to extreme depression  , while also experiencing symptoms like delusions (having strange persistent beliefs - like supernatural beings putting thoughts in your mind or your family are conspiring together to poison you) or psychosis (such as hearing voices), and perhaps also having "negative symptoms", like social withdrawal, lack of motivation, emotional flatness, etc.


Obviously a very distressing condition for anyone suffering from it and for their friends and family, especially if they don't understand what is happening or why.

And before anyone says it: No! I'm not trying to internet diagnose anyone. I simply think its better to discuss stuff like this openly rather than being vague or using euphemism. It's like talking about Stephen Hawking's "problems" or "issues" instead of just saying he has ALS, he uses a wheelchair.

And also, BW seems like he's doing phenomenally well now. It's very inspiring!
 

CenturyDeprived, your ideas about why Brian credited the band with production on Smiley Smile make sense to me; though your "drug haze" statement got me thinking. I wonder if, among the BB myths, this one needs re-examining. We know now, and have for a while, that Brian Wilson was experiencing real mental health issues. He did seemingly smoke a fair amount of pot around 67 and take upoers, I understand. He seems to have only taken LSD a few times. People are talking about his "addiction" in the Pamplin thread. I'm beginning to think his drug use and the effects of it are overblown.
Relevant in this thread is I see no reason to think he was in a "drug haze."

It's funny, I've been wondering the same thing. I've been reading up on Brian Wilson lately, including old and recent topics on this board, and find it curious how little mental illness comes into the discussion. If BW was hearing voices, thought his music was causing fires, people were bugging his house and a witch was putting thoughts in his mind via ESP, then I would suggest trying to establish logical reasons for abandoning certain tracks or altering production credits is fairly pointless. I would guess his thought processes were often irrational and difficult to understand. Maybe if he writes his memoirs he will explain what was going on and what he was thinking . That would be amazing, and would clarify alot. Again, given stigmas that still surround mental illness, I kind of doubt any memoir would be forthright. But given his recent willingness to be an advocate for mental health causes, maybe he will be open about his experiences.

I just listened to"Smile" for the first time, and I have to agree with the ghost. The lyrics are distracting, they don't seem to go with the music at all, in my opinion.

We'll disagree on Pet Sounds -vs- SMiLE. To me Pet Sounds is the masterwork with honest, raw and profound lyrics that have much more going for them VDP's, some of which I find wonderful while some come off as incredibly pretentious. Loved them all when I was younger, not so much at 45, whereas Pet Sounds still works on every level for me, if anything it becomes a richer listening experience as I get older (which I can't say for many albums I worshipped as a teenager). There's also the problem of SMiLE not being fully realized. I'm leaning more and more towards the idea of it being 6 or so completed songs that should've just been released as they were.

Yeah, with Pet Sounds the emotion in the music and the emotion in the lyrics match up beautifully.  There's emotion in the music of Smile, but the words are just getting in the way and don't connect at all.

Hi Chownow, here is an earlier thread from this board with an interesting discussion of Brian Wilson's humor during that era. Someone who knows Brian Wilson says that he intentionally uses humor and shifts of mood to reach the listener at a different level: http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,20138.0.html

Thanks for this! I think what Ang Jones and Debbie Keil Leavitt were saying matches my experience of listening to Pet Sounds. A build up to something you think is going to happen (musically speaking), then something completely different happens. Strikes me as very funny every time. Great stuff.

I might resurrect that thread when I get more time to reflect on it.

Hey everyone,

I didn't mean to derail the thread with my questions. I'm  just very interested in people's perceptions and the stigmas associated with mental illness.

From what I've read, Brian Wilson suffers from bipolar schizoaffective disorder (symptoms of both bipolar and schizophrenia). Classic symptoms of schizophrenia are social withdrawal, lack of speech (not initiating conversations, answering questions with just yes or no, with no elaboration), lack of emotional expression, garbled speech, disorganized thinking, etc. People tend to be aware of the psychotic symptoms of mental illness (how could you miss them?), but are often unaware of these more subtle symptoms. I was wondering if folks were interpreting these types of symptoms as "brain damage". Anti-psychotic drugs can alleviate psychotic symptoms, but do not alleviate the types of symptoms I just listed.

The cause of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia seems to be mostly genetic. Serious trauma in early childhood (such as extreme physical or sexual abuse) appears to play a role as well. The only drug associated with permanently exacerbating psychotic symptoms is marijuana.

Brian Wilson himself might have thought drugs played arole in bringing on his illness. People often try to make sense of what's happening to them by latching onto an explanation, like chem trails from jets, or a trip to the dentist (who implanted mind control transmitters in their teeth!) etc. It just the mind trying to make sense of what is happening to it.

Mr. Rockcrush seems to have interesting insights into the world of the beach boys from the 1970s. I didn't mean to interrupt that conversation!

Hi Rockcrush,

What do you mean when you say Brian Wilson has "permanent brain damage from doing too many drugs". I hadn't heard about this before.

Do you mean that you believe his mental illness was caused by drug use, or are you talking about something else?

Hi - I just registered to ask a question that probably doesn't deserve it's own thread, so this must be the
 place  for it.

I bought pet sounds after seeing love & mercy,  and have been listening to it for a couple of weeks now.
First, it's amazing, and nothing like what I would have imagined. Second, it strikes me as a funny album, as in humorous. Something about the music, pauses and vocals comes across like there's a clever sense of humor behind it. Are there any articles or interviews addressing  humor in "pet sounds"? I can't really pin down why it's funny, so Id like to hear other perspectives if they're out there.  
Google wasn't helpful.

Welcome to the board! Glad to hear Love and Mercy is exposing people to some great music.

Brian has used humor a lot in his music. When I first listened to Pet Sounds, I also noticed some of what you're talking about. For example, I thought the "ba-ba-ba-ba-ba" vocal part in God Only Knows sounded really goofy, as did the "dit-dit-dit-ditditditdit" vocal part in I'm Waiting For the Day. The sound effects at the end of the album are a little out of left field too.

I don't know if you about Smile, which was the abandoned follow-up to Pet Sounds, but that album was even more focused on humor than Pet Sounds was. You might want to check that out.

http://www.earcandymag.com/humorsmileysmile.htm

This is an article about the humor in Smiley Smile, which was an offshoot of the Smile album that was released as the official follow-up to Pet Sounds after the Smile sessions more or less fell apart. It is a very goofy album, but one that has a cult following here, given this board's name.

Thank you! I checked out the earcandy link  you posted and the stuff about  Brian and spiritual aspects of humor were exactly what I was looking for. The rest of that article is very dark, though. I might skip Smiley Smile.

For me the funnier parts of "Pet Sounds" is the repeated use of "ah doo bi doo bi doo" in a few of the songs. Sometimes jaunty, then kind of sad. Also the meandering nature of "Let's go away for a while" and how it ends with what sounds like a conversation between the snare drum and kettle drum, and the kettle drum sounds like it's trying to get the last word in. Just funny stuff.

I'm definitely listening to"Smile" next!

Hi - I just registered to ask a question that probably doesn't deserve it's own thread, so this must be the
 place  for it.

I bought pet sounds after seeing love & mercy,  and have been listening to it for a couple of weeks now.
First, it's amazing, and nothing like what I would have imagined. Second, it strikes me as a funny album, as in humorous. Something about the music, pauses and vocals comes across like there's a clever sense of humor behind it. Are there any articles or interviews addressing  humor in "pet sounds"? I can't really pin down why it's funny, so Id like to hear other perspectives if they're out there. 
Google wasn't helpful.