--  Apparently, they asked Don Was to do it. He was busy.

http://www.metrotimes.com/music/story.asp?id=13073

MT: Have you heard Brian Wilson's new project yet? That Lucky Old Sun. The one he just did with Van Dyke Parks?

WAS: Is it finished?

MT: Yeah, it's finished. It’s coming out in September. It’s premiering live in England in August, as a matter of fact..

WAS: He asked me to play bass on the British shows. I couldn’t do it, though, 'cause I was doing these other records. But I know he's doing great, so it would have really been something to do that. I haven't heard any of it, though. I'm sure it's great. You know he played with Was (Not Was) in February, right?.

MT: That's right. I forgot all about that. That's one of the reasons I was unhappy not to still be in L.A. When I heard about that show, with him on one side of the stage and Kris Kristofferson on the other side, that must have been incredible! We blogged about that.

WAS: Yeah. I saw that. But you’re right. It was something else, man. It was really something else. And what was great about Brian is that he was in such good shape. He was happy. He was really on that night. And he hung out all day and was jokin’ around with the band and even the crew guys — the guys who carried in the sound system, the rental guys (laughs). He was so present and so happy. And charming onstage, too. It really was an eye-opener. So, I’ve got high hopes for this record. I think he's got confidence and command again.

Another nitpick.

The lyrics in "Goin' Home" is: "At 25 I turned out the lights / Cause I couldn't handle the GLARE in my tired eyes." It has the benefit of making more sense, too.

Fantastic news, STE. Nice to hear that there will be some surprises.

Andrew: The essay is, to say the least, odd. Some of the grammar in there about who was contributing lyrics to what is confused to the point of being obfuscatory. On the other hand, if it were ghost-written by Leaf, let's say, surely he would know that PS had debuted earlier and fudge that a bit more.

Anyway, a curious piece, but one that certainly lays out the broad lines that you suggest and that have been rumored.

And let's face it -- the concept of TLOS as presented is pretty obvious. You have Brian singing a song about the Lucky old Sun. You have a bunch of songs that includes tunes about the night (MAD), the morning (Morning Beat and Oxygen to the Brain) as well as diverse LA subjects like the environment and Mexican girls. How much of a stretch is it thread TLOS through the piece and make it about a day in the life of LA? Not very -- which is one of the reasons it works so well, IMO. Brian may not have sequenced it or conceived of the songs as being part of a suite, but they just have a natural unity of subject and style.

Although in his recent concerts, Brian has occasionally stopped and restarted songs at different tempos, etc. (This doesn't count the infamous "false start" to YSBIM at the PS shows.)

That's why I think -- honestly -- it's probably one of Brian's finest solo albums. It captures a lot that's true and lovable about the man, the band and the music.

Perhaps Brian should have performed in front of a lot of people who didn't like him.

I knew the 20 bucks I blew on that would be good for something!

Plus, it has a lot of cartoons drawn by Scott in it. As well as Van Dyke's texts.

For what it's worth, Brian's essay in the TLOS tour booklet confirm's Andrew's account. Who knows if Brian really wrote it, but it's pretty transparent about the process.

"When I got the call from Royal Festival Hall to create a new piece for their re-opening I was thrilled, because Pet Sounds and Smile had debuted there with so much love and appreciation from my British fans.

"At that time, I was deep in the middle of a real creative trip. Scott Bennett and I had been collaborating "All Summer Long." I was stuck on an old spiritual called "That Lucky Old Sun" and decided that it was a good tune to thread throughout this new piece.

"I asked my friend Van Dyke Parks to write some narratives about life in Los Angeles. Then I asked Scotty to go back and incorporate the lyrics he had written for the songs we had been working on in to 'That Lucky Old Sun.' Once he had finished, we brought in the musical secretary, Darian Sahanaja to help us glue together what we had created."

Another thread possibility: Let's imagine the worst things that Melinda could be up to Re: Brian.

I know, I know. Perhaps she's getting ready to kill him and sell his organs on the black market!

Sheriff -- I had totally forgotten that, but you are absolutely right! I think they counter-sued him, too. I wonder if we can get the text of that lawsuit anywhere.

Anyway, I will add that to Melinda's list of crimes, along with the pet hoarding thing. Perhaps it should be a new thread.

I don't mean to personally attack anyone with the list of Melinda charges. My point is simply that Brian and Melinda are public people -- we can't have it both ways. We can't say they have private lives and then mutter about them behind their backs. Heaven knows I've done it on occasion.

I'd just as soon we say what we know -- the good and the bad, and throw it out there. I honestly think TdHabib's post is one of the best I've ever read on the Melinda question. There is no question she is, as I stated earlier, a tough cookie. There is also no question that she is not in awe of Brian as a man (although she obviously respects him as a creator). This means she's tough on him at times. I some folks near him -- and a few of those people swing into our orbits -- take a really dim view of that.

Regardless, these will all be academic questions soon enough. Brian probably won't tour much past his mid-70s, if he makes it to that point. Although BB King is past 80 and still out there, so who knows.

The other issue here is that most folks who make albums, even well-received ones, don't make much money. It's one of the reason so few artists are shedding tears over the slow death of major record labels. One of the best essays on the subject:

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

So touring is pretty much where folks make their bucks. And if Brian doesn't make bucks touring, he sure isn't making it from recent work,

Whoops. I meant to say "vocal tracks" double tracked -- as in, Brian's leads.

Again, not saying I agree with the criticism. This was just the scuttlebutt at the time.

You know, this is one of the things that annoys me about fandom.

People just don't say what they mean. Who are we protecting? Melinda is a public figure, and her marriage to Brian is certainly a matter for public record. So dish the dirt if you got it. Inquiring minds want to know, and having it out in the open is healthy! It's better than this innuendo that has surrounded Melinda for at least 10 years (back when Carnie is alleged to have made certain comments about her stepmother).

Here's some knocks against Melinda that I recall from the past decade. A greatest hits, if you will. I don't agree with them, but let's have them out in the open. Just for fun. Why not?

1.) Melinda didn't know much about the BBs when she met Brian. We know more about them than she does!

2.) She was a car saleswoman. We all know about them.

3.) Brian at one point wanted a separation from her (this was a couple of years after they married) and she cried. This inspired the song "Cry" on the Imagination album. What kind of devil would cry in front of Brian Wilson?

4.) She manipulated Brian by having them adopt three new children, thus replacing Carnie and Wendy in his thoughts.

5.) Carnie supposedly called her "Melinda" at one point. That obviously has implications of control over Brian. Melinda was also Brian's conservator for several years after their marriage. She's now been referred to as his manager. She has not, so far, requested songwriting credits.

6.) She forced Brian to make an adult contemporary record with Joe Thomas, thus creating an album's worth of music that she liked, not him.

7.) She wanted tracks on the "Live at the Roxy" album double-tracked, thus showing her ignorance of live recordings.

8.) The label name on recent BW recordings has been BriMel -- somewhat less subtle than Brains and Genius.

9.) She interfered with the mix of Pet Sounds live, bringing Brian's voice to the front and smothering the backing vocals and instrumentation. (The DVD does have a substantially different, fuller mix.)

10.) She forced Brian to tour with Pet Sounds.
11.) She forced Brian to tour with Smile.
12.) She's forced Brian to tour the rest of the time.
13.) She forced Brian to record GIOMH

14.) She fired (okay, oversaw the departures of) two longtime band members recently, as well as some touring crew members.

15.) She has impersonated Brian on his message board, deceiving fans.

16.) She has taken too much credit for Brian's musical and personal recovery.

17.) She has unfairly criticized Brian's first wife. And we all know what a saint Marilyn was (or at least Rocky Pamplin knows).

And that gets us back to where this thread started. Got anything to add? Go ahead! Let's flush 'er out! There's nothing too racy or scurrilous!

Simple.

BW's real contribution was the concept of the rock star as auteur -- that is, the same single person wrote, produced and performed the records. And the artifact being produced wasn't just a song that anyone could play, but instead a recorded artifact that was shaped to his specifications.

Other, earlier performers came close. Les Paul and Buddy Holly both made inroads in that direction. Neither followed through, through. Brian was really alone in terms of the specificity of his vision and the quality of what he ultimately produced. He laid the groundwork for so many one-man bands who followed -- from Todd Rundgren to Lindsey Buckingham to Trent Reznor -- who saw the studio as not just a place to record product, but a place to create something that was ultimately, entirely them.

You see, Brian's ultimate genius as a musician is not that he necessarily invented anything new. It's that he combined and revised what was around him (including the talents of co-writers and studio engineers and players) to create nearly perfect gems of recorded feeling. That is, he used the same notes as other folks, he used the same musicians, he used the same studios -- but how he put them together expresses profound love, spirituality and yearning in a way few others have managed.

It was my understanding that Mike got his own microphone because he's not a "real" bass singer -- that is, he can't really project his bass notes with any power. He needed the separate microphone simply so the notes wouldn't be drowned out by the other singers. His natural range is obviously somewhat higher.

I used to find Mike as a person very difficult to deal with. But he's done a few things recently that have softened my views a bit.

One, he actually rose to the challenge presented by Brian's shows. Some folks here won't remember what a big deal it was in 99 to just look at Brian's first setlists. They were awe-inspiring. And at the time, you could predict Mike's setlists from show to show pretty easily. But guess what? As the years passed and Brian gained notice, Mike has changed the shows. They play "All This is That" now, for God's sake! And this makes me like Mike simply because he isn't content to stay in place when challenged -- he actually will adapt. And there's something admirable in that.

Two, he actually recorded some good songs recently. "Cool Head, Warm Heart" has some icky bits, but it's also a better song than I would have ever expected from him at this stage in the game. And he deserves real respect for that -- especially given that there's not real demand for Mike Love solo material.

With all that said, I still don't especially like him, or his lead vocals. I came into the music through Brian, and that's why I'm still following it. But Mike's with us, for better or worse.

Surfer Joe: Given that Brian's original title for CG was "Yeah, I Dig the Girls" (and is what they're singing the background on the fade), my assumption has always been that Mike took that line and revised it to "I wish they all could be..."

To my mind, you have to look at the credits thing in context.

Mike's basic concern, and a valid one, is that he co-wrote one of the Beach Boys' biggest hits. "California Girls" is the band's friggin' anthem. If he had written nothing else, the lyrics to that song are still a big contribution to the band's legacy.

Now, I may quarrel with his methods, I may not care for his public persona, but Mike deserves to have his name on that song. And he did what he thought he needed to do to right that wrong. In the process, he obviously listened to the band's back catalog and listed songs to which he contributed things. Thus the lengthy new list of co-writes.

I don't think all of them are defensible (the WIBN and DWB additional co-writes seem a tad opportunistic), but many of them are simply Mike asserting his place. If he got carried away, I can sympathize.

That being said, I think in the history of the band, it's clear that Brian was the major creative force. Mike was nothing close to his equal (as arguably Lennon and McCartney were to one another). But that doesn't diminish the fact that Mike played a role in defining the band's sound and lyrical voice during those years.

Edit

Very, very good questions. I would buy that album.

Jonas: I understand basic internet jargon. The addition of an IMO does not make Jason's statement any less presumptuous. He was simply restating his point, and I was restating mine. All posts on message boards are, by definition, IMOs anyway (I assume that the almighty does not make it a practice to post regularly).

I find it very hard to believe that people with absolutely no interest in the Beach Boys could get into them without the strength of the classic tunes which Michael sang lead on. IMO, of course, it seems like these fans are speaking with the cloudiness of hindsight and one too many reads of a biased book on the topic or Brian's consistently confounded responses to a stupid interviewer's questions which he's been asked a thousand times before.

Jason: I will say it again. Please don't presume to speak for me. I will say it again, in case I wasn't clear the first time: Mike Love's lead vocals were not what attracted me to the Beach Boys.

Perhaps it was because I liked these songs:

Surfer Girl
In My Room
Don't Worry Baby
Help Me Rhonda
God Only Knows
Wouldn't It Be Nice
Heroes and Villains
Darlin

None of which, you will note, have a "Michael" Love lead vocal on them. Yes, yes, he's on the WIBN bridge. I know.

There is no question, that in general, Mike's distinctive nasal tone was one of the things that set the BBs apart and that made many people like them. However, those songs have always been my least favorite in the catalog, and they were not the ones that led me to explore the band.

And yes, my opinion of Mike Love has been "biased" by witnessing what he has said and done in the last fifteen years. I won't run through the list; folks can reach their own conclusions, as I have reached mine. But this has nothing whatsoever to do with whether I like his voice. Hell, I like Phil Spector records, and he probably shot a woman.

Edit: Admittedly, I have recently listened to the Summer In Paradise album again and enjoyed it. That's right, enjoyed it.

Um. Jason, please don't presume to speak for me. It was not Mike's voice that got me hooked -- it was Brian's. Don't Worry Baby, Surfer Girl. I always found Mike's leads somewhat grating. His bass singing, on the other hand -- that is truly underrated.