Updated the top post with a new May tour date for Al's "Family & Friends" lineup.

Well…Carl has the reputation of being a saint, so anything that suggests he was an actual human being who occasionally behaved badly or lost his temper seems to shock people. He for the most part kept his emotions tightly hidden so he remains a bit of an enigma. As I stated-in the absence of Brian he became the band leader-Mike was the singer and got the crowd moving but Carl was in control of the music and therefore he was annoyed that Mike crossed into his territory and tried to impose a musician on him. Clearly there was a lot of tension in this period. As far as drinking, Carl liked a drink and dabbled with the other stuff but he seemed to be able to handle it all till the pressure of 1976-77 sent him on a downward spiral that lasted till mid 1978. As far as other musicians, almost all of them that I interviewed, with the exception of Ron A, tended to praise the Wilsons but seem less enamored of Mike. But in Mike’s defense, he had really gotten into TM and vegetarian healthy living and really did not want to be around drugs and alcohol. In the 1970s music business that was not going to make you many friends.

It was interesting to read in the book that some members seemed to feel they were purged from the band at one point for not being TM guys. It's the kind of stuff that, today, would probably result in a wave of lawsuits.

I made the mistake of going to The Beach Boys subreddit… some idiot is making jokes about Brian’s condition. Some people in this world are truly sick

Yeah, Reddit is a cesspool. With message boards being so rare these days, unfortunately there are times where Reddit is the only place to look up certain things on certain topics/areas of interest, and on occasion I've found niche subjects covered on Reddit by actual sane, normal people.

But on the whole, any given fandom/fan community/group of people sharing an interest are about a hundred times more annoying on Reddit. So many people who don't seem to actual *get* the thing that they profess to be such a huge fan of.

It's fascinating to see Reddit continue to be so popular while web-based message boards have died out, because Reddit is pretty much formatted the way *very old, ancient* message boards were in the earliest days of the web (see: Beach Boys Britain board up to the very end), with the threading in particular rendering it supremely taxing to even try to read.

Excellent stuff; as with the "In Concert" book, it's great to dig out these details that otherwise would have been lost to time.

Fascinating stuff with the backing band. Reading the last few years posted, it was interesting to read weird stuff like Ron Altbach and Carl Wilson not getting along. You'd think the nerdie, hippie-dippie Altbach and the uber-calm-soft-spoken Carl Wilson would get along just fine. Yet this is the one of the few cases where it appears Carl just didn't mix well. Obviously, as is pointed out, this was during the heady days of the meditators vs. the free lifers (or whatever we've decided to call them). So I totally understand the initial skepticism Carl had. I also wonder if this was the beginning of Carl drinking more heavily.

Still, it's pretty epic to read a random instance where a musician is like "Carl was a really sweet guy, but he was a total d*ck to me" (loosely paraphrasing of course).

They had so many players coming and going during certain eras, it's unavoidable that a few of them at least would not have been as amenable to the weird Beach Boys politics. Those Putter Smith stories were also pretty entertaining. It's always interesting to try to discern whether the musician is just axe-grinding, versus the musician accurately bringing to light the weird inner-workings of the BB organization. In that particular case it appears to be both.

I guess it makes sense; the players that lasted much longer tend to be more sympathetic and positive about their experiences.

Updated the top post with the first 2024 setlist from a few nights ago.

Hopefully Al can get more bookings; it seems to continue to be an excellent show.

I think we should be grateful that there are people around him that truly care about him and are looking after all of his best interests, both (and most obviously importantly) from a personal/medical standpoint, and also all the business stuff.

I don't want to go too much into it for many reasons, and I don't say this out of pedantry or anything else, but I know some folks have been hearing for some time now some details about some of Brian's challenges as described in this article. This is not, as far as I'm aware, an abrupt thing, but rather has been ongoing for some time. Melinda's passing is obviously just extra awful, awful timing.

I know that article and all of these latest court maneuvers and whatnot seem scary and traumatic, but from every sense I have, this is a best case scenario given all of the circumstances. Brian has a huge family and a business team that truly cares about him, understands his deal, and will act in his best interests across the board.

The "Sail on Sailor" set is doubly a game changer, because for the folks who think it's all about Brian, it (and of course the "Feel Flows" set as well) proves the other guys were turning out excellent material. And then, for those who conversely assume Brian played no role in things by that point, and just slept through the whole trip other than singing the opening line on "Saga", there's a bunch of quintessential Brian stuff that we had never heard before.

Added more 2024 dates to the top post schedule.

Melinda worked for Landy?

Pretty sure that identification was made to ensure it would be more difficult for folks to identify Melinda. Calling her Brian Wilson’s ex girlfriend would be a little on the nose. No, it’s not great journalistic practice, but the circumstances were pretty tangled.

It obviously doesn't matter a thousand years later, but I'm curious why they didn't just name her as a source "close to the situation" or something like that. Like industry trades will often name "a person with knowledge of the situation", etc.

As it is, they probably recognized her voice anyway, and thankfully it was all moot before too long.

On another board someone mentioned that Mike's statement, while very kind, is written almost entirely through the prism of Brian. And well, yeah I think that's true. And yes, that does stick out a bit for this attuned to such things. There will be plenty of time to parse all these words later.

But I think one has to be realistic about things. That statement from Mike, who always posts very eloquent statements in these situations, is really the most kind, compassionate thing I think we could ever expect from him concerning anything to do with Melinda. And I don't mean that as any sort of back-handed compliment. I think Mike obviously had a very complicated relationship with Melinda, and he cares about Brian obviously, so he leaned mainly on compassion for Brian in his statement. I'm not sure what else he could have done. I don't begrudge him skipping any sort of "While Melinda and I didn't always see eye to eye...." stuff in the moment.

I have to think Mike and Al are in a very similar position as fans in that I think a lot of us haven't been this worried for Brian since the 1991/92 Landy era. But even that is a difficult topic to lean too heavily on, because it can tend to take away the strength that Brian has also exhibited over all these years. I honestly don't know what someone in his position thinks. Do these things make him feel life is more fragile, or does he feel like's destined (or doomed a cynical person might say) to outlive *everybody* at this point?

Both Al and Mike have posted on the various social media outlets. Al referred to it as "unexpected".

Possibly strangely, in another forum, someone mentioned that a New York Times article had a quote from Jean Sievers that she "had died suddenly", yet at some point that verbiage was removed from the article.

To be clear, I'm not one of those people inclined to fixate on needing to know all those details in the immediate aftermath. On so many levels, it doesn't matter.

But I think fans (and I'd say Al and Mike as well) are justifiably concerned for Brian, and knowing how sudden or expected this was might help at least a tiny bit to understand how Brian might be coping.

I'm not speaking to how anybody should feel about Bennett, but if you've followed this stuff over the past decade, a number of people in that community, including some band members, have remained supportive of Bennett (providing testimonials on his music industry "for hire" page, etc.).  So I'm not surprised that some folks would be fine doing an event with him.

I recall at some point several years back, Bennett was soliciting music industry work using a pseudonym/name change, but I guess he's not doing that anymore?, maybe because the only way people could look up his music credits is under his name.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on one's view), when you Google "Scott Bennett Brian Wilson", the search results are still probably as close to career-killing as something can be.

I don't know anything about the guy or what he's doing now, but it wouldn't surprise me if he's either in a totally other line or work now, or working on a more staff level in music to where he isn't selling his services based on his name recognition/clout having worked with Brian Wilson.

It's a very cool book. I think the Genesis version was obviously not do-able for most folks, but this version is well worth the price, trust me.

My only issue with his recording career is that there isn't more of it! I very much had hoped he would make his rock & roll album Pleasure Island and am sad that that never happened (there is still time, but I highly doubt it will happen). But he has given us so much more than we could've imagined or deserved.

I think the soundtrack to the documentary was meant to be that album, more or less. They apparently did Johnny B. Goode and possibly another rock tune or two at the sessions but didn't finish them. Then Brian's health took a turn for the worse. I think everyone assumed they would get back to it, but they had to instead fill the album with the Paley tracks.

For me, I think the lack of another fully original studio album after No Pier Pressure (2016-2018) was a missed opportunity. Brian was getting big bookings after the biopic and everyone wanted more live Pet Sounds, but it sucked up the time and energy from everything else.

Yeah, the "Long Promised Road" soundtrack ended up sort of being akin to the George Harrison "Early Takes" CD that accompanied the Scorsese documentary. Essentially,  a grab bag of outtakes, some of which were featured in the film.

I'm all for more archival Brian solo releases too (he has essentially released a whole extra CD's worth of outtakes on his website).

But the LPR soundtrack was certainly puzzlingly low-key, released with little fanfare or publicity.

I thought "No Pier Pressure" was a mixed bag, but he undoubtedly had/has more material that could have formed a relatively quick follow-up.

You also have to wonder what's ever going to happen to what was apparently essentially a whole second album's worth of material that was leftover from the 2012 reunion album. Even assuming a few got repurposed for "No Pier Pressure", I'm curious what that extra album's worth of 2012 Beach Boys material looks like. How finished were the tracks? How about just putting *that* stuff out next year to accompany the new documentary? Perhaps Mike is still *that* pissed at Joe Thomas that he doesn't want the stuff out.

Depending on how strong that material is, and how unwilling Mike would be to get it come out as a "Beach Boys" project, I say get Al and Matt in there with some of Brian's guys to finish the stuff off.

I always loved this version of the is song, odd it has never come out (better than a lot of things that have).

RE: who’s singing in it- I always hear Carl in the “doo-doo-wah-dah”, but then again those Celebration guys did a good job of sounding like the actual Beach Boys of the era. I can never tell who is singing what on MIU either- I bet some of those vocals that sound like Carl and Al are not.

According to the latest issue of ESQ, Carl doesn’t sing on it, but Brian, Al, Mike, Ron Altbach and Gary Puckett (!!!) are all singing the backups. Additionally, in regards to Carl on MIU, he’s only on She’s Got Rhythm (vox and guitar), Come Go With Me (vox), Hey Little Tomboy (vox and guitar), Peggy Sue (vox), Wontcha (guitar only apparently), Sweet Sunday (lead vox only), Pitter Patter (vox and guitar) and My Diane (vox)

Hopefully that’s helpful, and yeah this is a great song

Oh and yeah sneaking one extra detail: Brian is on every track in some way (vocally or instrumentally)

I'm a little skeptical that Carl isn't on those "doo-wah-dah" backing vocals on "Alone...", there's a voice in that stack that sounds exactly like that circa 1977/78 tipsy/drunk Carl voice (also heard on the lead on "Go and Get that Girl"). But I also know that those guys could tend to sound like each other in weird ways at various junctures, and I certainly can't claim to be super familiar with what Gary Puckett sounded like in 1977. .

I always loved this version of the is song, odd it has never come out (better than a lot of things that have).

RE: who’s singing in it- I always hear Carl in the “doo-doo-wah-dah”, but then again those Celebration guys did a good job of sounding like the actual Beach Boys of the era. I can never tell who is singing what on MIU either- I bet some of those vocals that sound like Carl and Al are not.

I definitely hear Carl on the backing vocals on the '77 version of "Alone on Christmas Day."

As for why the song never came out, as I recall from the heady days of 1998 when Brad Elliott was still doing liner notes and working on BB releases, he mentioned that there had been a vetting process for the '77 tracks on the 1998 "Ultimate Christmas" CD. The sense I got was that someone (or several someones) vetoed stuff like "Alone on Christmas Day" and "Go and Get that Girl." Although, it's worth noting that that CD is pretty much filled with no room to spare (apparently why they left off "The Lord's Prayer" thinking it was going to be a bonus track on the aborted plan to reissue the 60s albums on CD as individual albums with lots of bonus tracks), so they really didn't have room for more '77 tracks. But I recall there were questions back then about especially the aforementioned "Alone.." and "Go and Get that Girl", because one could argue they're better or more interesting than a few of the tracks that made it on the CD, and certainly I think most would have been happy to elbow the spoken-word stuff to fit even one more actual song.

Mike's lead vocal on "Alone" from '77 is a bit shaky; I always figured that was the main reason it might have been vetoed. Weirdly, when Mike re-recorded the song solo years later, he acted as if he had completely forgotten about the song and hadn't thought about it since 1977, to the point of not remembering who co-wrote it. Yet, there were at least two attempts to release the song, in 1993 as well as 1998, so Mike presumably just forgot about those instances as well.

I do notice in the few recent pictures we’ve seen he’s looked much better than he did during that final tour

Yeah hopefully he's doing better.  I really hope he isn't pushed into touring any further if he doesn't want to and isn't in good shape for it.  There's been recent videos going around on Facebook of an 89-year-old Frankie Valli hobbling around on stage and is very clearly lip-syncing to a pre-recorded vocal track and it's not a good look.  We don't need Brian going that route. 

Frankie Valli has been lip-syncing for eons. It's truly bizarre that he still gets bookings when for years and years (probably well over a decade?) he's been doing this, and very unconvincingly. I guess people are still buying tickets.

I’ll never understand lip synched concerts , like, ever

I mean, I guess I can understand it from the performer point of view. People pay, it keeps working and making money, so why not? Clearly they're not embarrassed by it from an artistic point of view.

If you go on YouTube (and apparently TikTok, at least that's what people on YouTube are saying), there are a million concert videos arguing (I'd argue pretty convincingly proving) that Valli is lip-syncing. Not only is he lip-syncing, but he's been using the same *one single* voice recording for over a decade. Like, they can't even mix it up and work from a few different archival recordings. There are also examples of someone forgetting to bring the fader up on the pre-recorded stuff, revealing Valli's real voice (I was actually surprised that at least on occasion he might actually be really singing, even if it's into a dead mic). On top of all that, there are some (admittedly mean-spirited, often from snarky young people who don't know anything about Valli) videos pointing out that Valli kind of looks and acts like a zombie on stage. Barely moving, super stiff, dead-eyed, etc. I mean, the dude is almost 90 so I think he still seems pretty spry. But obviously, this is not something that should be on stage or have tickets sold to.

Yet, some fans in the comments sections on these videos are adamant that Valli is really singing (with an off-shoot group of defenders admitting he's not singing, but making excuses for it), which probably explains how he's still booking venues, in some cases pretty large ones.

Like, there are some videos online breaking Valli's last decade or more of touring down like the Zapruder film, with proof of the same exact recording of his voice being used over and over for over a decade, with the same exact inflections, etc. It's truly bizarre to watch Valli from like ten years ago, more spry and less dead-eyed, and then watch his decline over a decade of shows while the vocal recording stays *exactly* the same.

I think ditching the reunion in 2012 will, as time goes by, become more and more of a strong candidate for one of the worst "bad decisions" they made, as we learn how they could have gotten a few more years of excellent touring in together before age/time took its toll on multiple fronts. It's unfortunate that we all now don't even really talk about a reunion anymore, as we kind of all understand it's just not a do-able thing at this stage. It remains to be seen if Brian can (or will ever) even do a single live show let alone something more substantial.

The reunion implosion was shocking at the time, but looking back all these years later, there was probably little chance it could have ended any other way. Maybe dates could have been added into (say) spring or summer 2013, but past that?

I wish it could have continued. It was a beautiful thing, and the NYC show I saw was one of the best I've ever seen, and was the reason I joined this board in the first place. But to put it a different way, it was likely baked into the DNA of this group *decades* ago that Mike and Brian would not be able to co-helm the reunited group without a whole hornet's nest of issues.

For sure, I think in the larger context of the group's history, and knowing what the 2010s-2020s politics are with the group and shareholders, it's not surprising the reunion fell apart. Indeed, one could argue it's amazing it happened at all. I think, despite Mike saying in his book that he was ready to quit multiple times, that the stack of contracts signed for the entire reunion project were what held it together at a certain point, because if anybody had walked in the middle of the scheduled dates, it would have kicked up enough legal/contract/financial problems that they'd probably still be sorting it out a decade later.

That being said, while there are a myriad of things over the band's history that were and are always clear non-starters that could have *never* happened, I think keeping that 2012 reunion going was something that is more frustrating in its failure because it could have been done with not only *minimal* issues vis-a-vis all their back-biting politics, it ultimately would have benefited them (and obviously fans). There are multiple tiers to what could have been. They could have kept the "reunion" lineup as the permanent lineup (with other "solo" bands still in play for side gigs and corporate gigs, etc.) Or, even if it wasn't going to be a "forever" thing at that point, they could have lined up another year or two of worldwide touring, one more studio album (much of which had already been recorded in 2011/2012), and then retired the whole thing. Or, *at the very least*, they could have had their sh*t together enough to end the 2012 year with a better sign-off than the clusterf*ck that actually occurred. Get everybody on the same page, book a final "goodbye" show in LA or NYC for the end of the year or something. And all of that is not even getting into how they could have done more and better with *minimal* actual compromise. Brian's camp could have just acquiesced and let Mike "write with Brian in a room" for a bit, throw Mike a few bones like that, and in turn Mike could agree to not need to immediately have his Stamos Edition out there playing bowling alleys.

But yeah, we'll have the rest of time to hash all the couldas/shouldas.

I agree that recent photos show Brian looking better than he has in awhile.  However, I fear that he continues to have trouble walking - is he confined to a wheel chair?  As they say, "father time in undefeated"; while Brian survived mental illness, drug use, Landy, etc., he's probably winding down in all respects as the years pile on. 

Brian has had back issues (which apparently run in the family) and had a few back surgeries over the last decade or so. He was having trouble moving around back during the reunion tour in 2012 (watch Mike holding Brian’s hand as they walked on stage for one of the late night talk shows, I think it was Fallon?). Aging and back issues kind of usually inevitably fuel each other, but I do think Brian has had some non-age related back issues that have intermittently been an issue on top of whatever else he has going on.

I recall there were conversations here a few years ago when he was using a wheelchair on stage during concerts, and obviously that conversation can involve a lot of broader issues than anything to do specifically with Brian. I was never troubled by his use of a wheelchair (indeed, it was surely for safety reasons, and I can attest to having watched Brian trip on cabling running along the stage floor backstage all the way back in like 2001, concert stages are a hornet’s nest of opportunities to trip and fall); I was eventually troubled with his on-stage demeanor/singing (or lack thereof). I think he had a pretty rough time on the last few years of touring, but that last 2022 tour shouldn’t have happened, and/or should have been called off early on when it was clear he was intermittently either not singing at all or mumbling/whispering the stuff he was singing.

Ideally, probably a few years ago, it might have been a good idea to stop doing live tours, and instead shift to perhaps doing some livestreamed internet shows, or pre-recorded internet shows where the presentation and performance quality could be molded a little better.

Obviously, I’m not trying to dwell on this stuff too much because it’s all in the past now. I think folks have been waiting since that last show in 2022 to see what kind of shape Brian is in as far as any sort of musical performances in the studio or on stage. He sang Al “Happy Birthday”, was it last year or this year?, and he sounded pretty weak, albeit still being a cool thing to see.

I suspect we’re going to get this new Beach Boys documentary soon, and I’m curious what kind of interviews Brian was able to provide to them, and whether they might have tried to look for some Brian interviews from at least a few years prior, perhaps more “Long Promised Road” interview material or something.

Guess it's safe to say things are carrying on as usual! But, there's definitely less on Mike and Bruce's plate than usual by this point in the year.

I suspect, even as stunningly spry as Mike is at 82 going on 83 years old, they've had to slow down that tour schedule grind to some degree, even after adding younger players to the backing band.

I don't think it's clear how Brian's doing, but that's okay. He still seems to be doing stuff. He participated in the new documentary shoot for the Beach Boys.

I suspect his increasingly rough tour performances indicated some mounting issues, and we can only hope those have eased off now that he's been taking it easy for a good year and a half.

Based on what I've heard and also just my own sense of what info we have been given, I think he's hanging in there and doing okay. I feel like a confluence of things over the last few years, probably medical, and aging, and just life, have made it seemingly a non-starter to do live gigs anymore, and probably not easy to do a lot of studio work or other work (e.g. appearances for a documentary), but he still manages to do those things from time to time.

I've said it before, but just from a "PR" standpoint, they dodged a HUGE problem last year concerning Brian's live gigs. He was in really rough shape, and I think it was becoming pretty problematic that they weren't canceling those gigs. Yet, somehow they managed to muddle through the tour and quietly essentially retire from touring, all without the mainstream media really picking up much on how rough those shows were.

I think a lot of things in the Beach Boys world have just continued to very quietly and subtly, yet increasingly, wind down. It's sad and a little depressing, but I think there's tons to be grateful for both from the fan perspective and in terms of the fact that the guys that are still around seem to doing okay overall.

I think ditching the reunion in 2012 will, as time goes by, become more and more of a strong candidate for one of the worst "bad decisions" they made, as we learn how they could have gotten a few more years of excellent touring in together before age/time took its toll on multiple fronts. It's unfortunate that we all now don't even really talk about a reunion anymore, as we kind of all understand it's just not a do-able thing at this stage. It remains to be seen if Brian can (or will ever) even do a single live show let alone something more substantial.

I don't have a lot of optimism about this upcoming Beach Boys documentary (and what I've heard hasn't helped my optimism either), but I hope they can squeeze out something half-way decent on that front, and then they can get back to the achives, which is where there's TONS of lifeblood left and many more discoveries and revelations to be made. 

I do notice in the few recent pictures we’ve seen he’s looked much better than he did during that final tour

Yeah hopefully he's doing better.  I really hope he isn't pushed into touring any further if he doesn't want to and isn't in good shape for it.  There's been recent videos going around on Facebook of an 89-year-old Frankie Valli hobbling around on stage and is very clearly lip-syncing to a pre-recorded vocal track and it's not a good look.  We don't need Brian going that route. 

Frankie Valli has been lip-syncing for eons. It's truly bizarre that he still gets bookings when for years and years (probably well over a decade?) he's been doing this, and very unconvincingly. I guess people are still buying tickets.

Despite some things like "Pet Sounds" seemingly having been run into the ground in terms of archival releases, I'd still love to hear that stuff pulled apart more. Just hearing the songs with single-tracked instead of double-tracked lead vocals is really interesting. I'm not saying double tracking the leads was a bad idea, but there is a sense of immediacy and intimacy with those single tracked leads that is worth hearing as well.

Wasn't this the album that got caught up in the Sony "rootkit" controversy?

While not a major deal when it came to Brian specifically, it slightly tainted a lot of releases from around that time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal

Updated a ton of setlists in the top post for 2023, and also added the first 2024 date.