[Ultimately though we gotta acknowledge that all Brian's partners in this era, creatively and maritally, felt disrespected by him and put off by his irresponsible behavior. Marilyn, Mike, Anderle, VDP ("victimized by [his] buffoonery") and even Asher will admit as much. I think Tony summed him up best, "amazing musician, amateur human bring" (paraphrased). Not trying to sound mean just being honest that even our hero was a shade of gray.]

Yeah I agree Guitarfool. Theres no denying Brian was by far the most individually talented member of either bands operation. Absolutely. I criticized him a lot in my original post but the fact that he did so much for the group and they owed it to him to have faith in his muse is still dead-on accurate. Had Brian not been so sensitive and fragile, anyone else wouldve gone solo or threatened to and that wouldve shut the naysayers up real fast if they lnew what was good for them.

Ultimately though we gotta acknowledge that all Brian's partners in this era, creatively and maritally, felt disrespected by him and put off by his irresponsible behavior. Marilyn, Mike, Anderle, VDP ("victimized by [his] buffoonery") and even Asher will admit as much. I think Tony summed him up best, "amazing musician, amateur human bring" (paraphrased). Not trying to sound mean just being honest that even our hero was a shade of gray.

The lines in bold : Almost everything and everyone is a shade of grey, depending on the variables and the specifics being discussed. Much of reported history can be considered that too, where "the truth lies somewhere in the middle".

However, we don't need to acknowledge something that focuses solely on the negative elements, as is done in the lines above. I'll offer a few counterpoints to what was suggested.

Where would Van Dyke Parks have been if he had never worked with Brian Wilson? Van Dyke himself has said repeatedly that his work with Brian Wilson is what generated enough interest for him to be offered his own record label deal for an album, as well as his entry into a larger and more exclusive part of the music business, rather than being a work-for-hire piano player and arranger. It gave him clout, and he carved out a career thanks in large part to Brian Wilson asking him to work on new music with him in 1966. And that's not opinion, Van himself has said that often.

Where would Tony Asher have been if he never worked with Brian Wilson? Today he is known pretty much by every fan and even the nether regions of the fan base as the guy who collaborated with Brian on Pet Sounds and co-wrote God Only Knows, one of the most highly regarded pop songs of all time at this point. If he had never agreed to work with Brian, he would have probably done some great work in the advertising world...but would anyone in 2025 know his name if not for Brian asking him to write songs with him?

Marilyn was of course his wife, Mike was family. Different sets of parameters there to judge, different experiences. But without Brian, would anyone know her name or even Mike's name if he had not been in The Beach Boys?

David Anderle was a music business guy from the get-go, management, finance, planning, contracts, etc. He was very good at what he did, his resume and work after 1967 is respected and impressive within the music business world. Again, different parameters to judge.

The point is, yes we can cherrypick and repost lines they've spoken about Brian being "irresponsible" and "disrespecting" them. But what do you think the percentage is of those same peoples' comments where they were full of praise and positive comments for Brian and the times they spent with him? 95 to 5? 98 to 2? I don't know, take a guess I suppose.

A suggestion might be to more evenly balance it out by mentioning how the positives far outweighed the negatives in those regards. And if Brian refused to come out of his room to sign a legal document, or disrespected Van Dyke over something or another, or made Tony Asher uncomfortable...look at the results when they're all tallied up. These people owed Brian a lot of gratitude for giving them a golden ticket and holding the door open for them, and I think they realize that and always did much more than the fans.

[The entirety of the next 5-6 months is spent trying to get a single. That's not a sign of a stable and healthy mind, it isn't productive to constantly rework one song rather than 12 at once, and it is not going to produce both a single and an album without some big changes being made.]

But when Brian was told he needed a single, he chose to rework this song as something both commercial and exciting, and that's when it began to consume parts of other songs. First I'm in Great Shape, then Do You Like Worms, then Cabin Essence, then My Only Sunshine... songs became unusable for the next project, as they were physically disassembled, and the focus shifted entirely toward the new single. It didn't help that for the first time for The Beach Boys (this had been the case for other artists, pseudonyms, studio bands, etc), Brian needed TWO new songs. Previously, he'd relied on material from released albums to fill out the B-side, but on a new record label, he couldn't just take something off Pet Sounds, for example. The entirety of the next 5-6 months is spent trying to get a single. That's not a sign of a stable and healthy mind, it isn't productive to constantly rework one song rather than 12 at once, and it is not going to produce both a single and an album without some big changes being made.

There are valid points here, of course. But the last few lines which I put in bold come to a conclusion based solely on opinion, and to me it's one which also ignores completely how Good Vibrations was created and how that became a #1 single.

Trace the arc and the timeline of Good Vibrations and all the related sessions, reworkings, rerecordings, new edits, and even an abandonment by Brian of the song at one point...only to have the final edit be released and hit #1 on the charts. How long did it take that song to go from its initial writing and that initial "take 1" of the song until Brian had the edit mixed which was the one that we all know?

Was that too not a sign of a stable and healthy mind, or did the success of Good Vibrations validate his working methods which got that song to the finish line?

While I agree that Heroes overall became a bit of an anchor weighing the ship down at times, another point lost in the post above was the intended timeline of when the follow-up single to Good Vibrations was planned to be released. Good Vibrations was still hitting the Top 40 singles surveys across the country (USA) well into January 1967. Why would they want to piggyback another single that soon after a smash single release which was still on the charts? Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the Chuck Britz "single mix" of Heroes with Cantina made February 10 1967? That would line up with what standard practice of releasing a follow up would suggest be done: Release it as Good Vibrations finally slipped off the charts and station playlists, in other words after it had run its course. Then the new one is ready to launch.

However, apart from Brian trying to get a B-side for the single, what also happened in February '67? The lawsuit against Capitol, effectively either ending or putting a dead stop to the Beach Boys' relationship with that label, either until it got sorted out or as a final separation. Now factor that into the mix of situations surrounding the whole thing, and no one knew when or how the lawsuit would be resolved, with the "when" being the more important element. What would the band even release if they were in the middle of a lawsuit with their label where potentially they'd have a single ready but no label to issue that single and promote it, and no setup of their own yet with the proper channels and relationships to deal with marketing and distributing anything they planned to put out?

So with all this going on, the suggestion that all of the activity around "Heroes" and "Vegetables" and trying to get a workable single ready to go (mind you, temporarily without an actual label for it to go anywhere), we're supposed to believe that all of this was due to an unstable and unhealthy mind, rather than a literal shitstorm of other factors swirling around at the exact time Brian was supposed to have had a single ready? And also, should we ignore how long it took within Brian's working process the year before to get Good Vibrations from the initial session to the final released version that was still charting almost up to February in some US radio markets? That's where I'd counter those opinions and that narrative rather strongly. And we didn't even mention Carl's legal issues, the search for a new house and studio plans, etc. There is too much at play to narrow it down to the old "unstable and unhealthy mind of Brian" conclusion.

 

Your last paragraph in particular really rings true, and I was thinking the same as I read David Leaf's book. "He needed a McCartney, a George Martin or a Brian Epstein like figure he perceived as his equal or even superior to set him straight once in awhile, without being an overbearing family-member like Murry and Mike." Seems like he had those supportive figures in e.g. 1999-2022 in a way that he didn't in 1966-7. That's why in his later years he was able to tour consistently and get so many finished projects out the door.

And right there is perhaps the ultimate burden of being the person in charge who could do things that no one else could do, and also be charged with keeping the "family business" afloat and successful. Yes there is some hyperbole attached to these following notions, but the music Brian was creating - especially from the years 1963 to 1966 - was providing a group of family, friends, and associates a great income and lifestyle that few could have achieved or afforded had it not been for that music.

And it had to sting personally when those same people would pull up in their expensive cars, wearing expensive clothes, and soon to return to their expensive houses with all the trappings of 1960's SoCal wealth before they turned 24 years of age, questioning or even challenging the music which got them to that status in the first place.

Important to note that Brian was doing all of this, i.e. writing, arranging, producing, and performing on those hit records during those watershed 3-4 years while in direct competition with McCartney, Martin, Epstein, and the whole of both the Beatles-led British Invasion and the "folk rock" movement. George Martin is on the record quite a few times all but marveling at the fact that Brian was doing the bulk of the heavy lifting on this music as a one-man operation, while Martin himself was a cog in a multi-spoke wheel that was making The Beatles' music what it was.

So while it would have been nice for Brian to have had such a figure to share the burden and exert such influence in the 60's, he simply did not, and I cannot think of anyone in the band's universe who would have fit that role at that time. And if there had been, would the timeline have led to Good Vibrations being a #1 hit going into early 1967? What Brian probably needed more was validation and appreciation from those around him, and the resultant boost of confidence that he needed for his music up to his final years. It's good he finally got that in the last chapters of his life.

Re: Don Malcom's excellent and insightful thoughts - Here we have the conundrum of what many describe as an album that is perfect as-is and speculation about what could have made it even better. The album has existed since 1966 with a sequence that all devoted fans know by heart, and which has a great flow from side to side both musically and lyrically, yet those same devoted fans know about Sloop and how it was a single that the label wanted on the album perhaps against Brian's own wishes and plans. But I don't think suggesting another track would have been a better fit serves much of a purpose other than for expressing opinions any more than someone suggesting the Sistine Chapel art would have been better if a 2-foot square panel on that work had been changed to include something other than what has been there for centuries.

I think - and Brian has said something similar to this as well - that the focus was on the sounds, via the production, arrangement, and overall texture of these songs as the point of cohesion of this album project. The lyrics do follow a definite arc and storyline if you follow the lyrical narrative through the track sequencing, but ultimately was that planned in advance or did it just happen to fall into place as these songs were being developed?

I think the real glue that holds it together is in fact the production and arranging, and the overall "aura" that the production techniques created. The fact the lyrics of these songs somehow congealed and fell into place in order to create a sequential narrative could be one of the greatest happy accidents in modern pop music, not the least point of which is that they were able to sequence that storyline and develop the narrative while also having two of the album's singles appearing as Side 1 track 1 and side 2 track 1...standard practice of the day for labels sequencing albums.

And as a further point to consider, take a look at "I'm Waiting For The Day". Here's a song that was written by Brian in early 1964, when the Beatles were the hottest thing in music and ruling the charts, and Beach Boys album covers still showed images of cars and the beach. Yet, does that track sound like it was written in early 1964 as it appears on Pet Sounds? Absolutely not, and as much as the lyrical content fits well into the story arc and sequence of the album, it's the production and arranging Brian used on the song that makes it fit, and erases any thoughts about what a song Brian wrote in early 1964 would sound like versus something he wrote specifically for Pet Sounds. That's where the music, and the musical headspace Brian was in during this time in late 65-early 66, makes these songs "fit" into the bigger picture of a cohesive album. I think more than the lyrics, both Guess I'm Dumb and Let Him Run Wild as the two cited examples just don't carry that same sonic texture and weight, and therefore no matter what the lyrics say or suggest, they existed as separate productions designed for other projects when Brian was in a different headspace in terms of creating an overall "sound" for a project.

Having said that...where's the love for "Trombone Dixie"? Since that first Pet Sounds reissue that included Trombone Dixie as a bonus track, it's hard not to want to hear that as part of the album experience, at least for me. I just listened to it this morning, and it's a terrific track. Whether it was a throwaway track or Brian just playing around with the musicians or something more that never developed, it works so well as an instrumental, yet I think perhaps it could have been intended for lyrics at some point because it does follow something of a pop song form, whereas the "released" PS instrumentals really do not. Would Trombone Dixie as it exists in the state we all know have fit on Pet Sounds? I'd say yes, again more due to the overall sound and production than anything else. But again, I'm not going to say that little swatch of the Sistine Chapel would have been better serving the overall work if there was something other than what has existed and celebrated as the finished work.

The Beach Boys, “Please Let Me Wonder”

This reminds me that Brian and band played Please Let Me Wonder when I saw them in 2015, and it was *spectacular.* It's one of my favorite deeper cuts from that mid-60s era, and it was perfect for Brian's later/mature voice. Every word rung with emotion. I'm sure there are similar clips on YouTube if you dig for them.

I agree, that song always resonated with me and has been a favorite going back to when my dad got an 8-track cartridge of "Best Of Vol. 2" and I used to play it all the time as a kid. And it resonated with Brian too, I think he was very proud of what he accomplished with that song in particular and how it turned out and enjoyed playing it for the fans.

And that's why I think this clip at the link I'm posting is so damn special, and one of my favorite Brian moments of all time. I was not at this show, but someone thankfully captured it aiming their camera at the video screen to get the close-ups of Brian singing it, and the texture that the lo-fi video creates visually makes it even more of an experience. Besides the band simply nailing it that night, watch as Brian "conducts" the band during that glorious instrumental break, and you can tell how much he's digging hearing them play it and hearing that arrangement come together. And...(for those who get the reference here)...that instrumental break is PERFECT as-is, one of the best things he ever wrote and arranged, and it absolutely DID NOT need lyrics added to it decades later to make it 25% better.

But the most sublime moment in that performance is at the very end, please watch this until the last note! Brian for whatever reason that night - maybe he was just inspired in that moment, maybe with the 50th tour coming to a close he wanted to do something extra - well, he rears back at the end and lets go with a high falsetto note that sounds like 1964 Brian hitting that note. It's amazing for fans who thought that particular voice of Brian's, one of the best and most identifiable sounds in the last 75 years of popular music, would not be heard again. But there it is. And the whole thing came full circle for me with this short clip when it appeared.

Please Let Me Wonder, live from the 50th anniversary tour, September 27, 2012 at Royal Albert Hall. Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsB3s9xDzRI

I just noticed a bittersweet entry on the board, under the "Upcoming Calendar", "Upcoming Birthdays" section just under the messages: The member "BrianWilson2015" and the number (83). With that birthday coming up, it's sad that Brian passed so close to his 83rd birthday, yet joyous in a way that he not only lived to the age of 82 when others since the 70's had counted him out and predicted he wouldn't make it to 40, but also how fortunate we all were as his fans to have been the recipients of so much great new music and live concert experiences when he saw his rebirth as both a regular recording artists and a live performer for all those years.

So if you click on that "BrianWilson2015" member name, you can access his post history here, and read his answers to the Q&A he participated in here back in 2015, which is still one of the all-time highlights. And for the naysayers...if they're still lingering out there...that was 100% Brian answering those questions that day on this board. We'll never forget it. Thank you Brian.

Going between being totally numb and tearing up when I hear a certain song today and a few outright emotional collapses, I was thinking about the concept of spiritual energy and how collective thoughts and emotions can transmit feelings universally to whomever is receptive to them no matter where they are..."good vibrations" to borrow a phrase...

And it occurred to me that as long as he was alive, all of that positive and healing energy he sent into the world through his music would be reciprocated within that mysterious network and return to him. Again to borrow a phrase, "the smile you send out returns to you". And for all of those smiles this man inspired with his music, and all of the positive feelings he transmitted throughout his life through that music, it created a network of sorts that cycled all of this around and around in circular form, and whenever someone like me or you or anyone got that rush of positivity and joy that Brian's music uniquely created, it would radiate out and around and get back to him in some form.

And now that he has left us in the physical sense, it feels different, yet it might even make that circular transmission of positive energy and joy even stronger, every time we listen to one of those transcendent songs he created and those feelings reach someone else, that energy continues to grow.

And I guess my point is, share the music with anyone you can, and share the feelings with them that were personal to you and which made your own experience with his music special. It's up to us to pass on to others now and in the future just how special, uplifting, and healing this man's music was and is and can be. Then that cycle will continue for generations, and what Brian ultimately wanted to do for others through his music will continue. 

Thank you Brian. We all love you and thank you for being our best friend through your music when we needed it.

You and your music will never be forgotten and will continue to inspire for generations to come.

Bless you and thank you.

[There was a lot of snorting when I dared to suggest that all those 'skits' about Vegetables, wheezing and blowing noises and underwater noises and animal noises might be - might be - connected to the Elements. (Bear in mind Vegetables is noted as 'from the Elements' in the booklet).]

Re that other MB - there are some people with whom I agree. I think the problem is that there are some who are so authoritative that others are scared to express their views for fear of being shot down.  I noticed that after you defended your argument, when there was no real answer they just as you put it 'dug in'. And we've  all heard the one about how when you're in a hole stop digging. Someone gave them a rope by suggesting that the board was big enough to accept more than one opinion. A nice little get out clause!

There is some insufferable behaviour over there.  There's a consensus - not held up by evidence - that there was 'no plan' for Smile and that the track list was just something Brian chucked at Capitol to shut them up and he didn't really mean it.  And if you question that there's a lot of tantrums.  People also don't read posts properly.

There was a lot of snorting when I dared to suggest that all those 'skits' about Vegetables, wheezing and blowing noises and underwater noises and animal noises might be - might be - connected to the Elements.  (Bear in mind Vegetables is noted as 'from the Elements' in the booklet).

I suggested that about the "skits" years ago, and stand by that notion as valid no matter who shoots it down. Why would Brian randomly decide to do these skits and chants about vegetables, air, and water if there wasn't some connection to the elements? What's the only element they didn't chant directly about? Fire! And if you consider a quick direction given by Brian that they all talk like Smokey The Bear, you might be able to connect that one to the chants too. But "fire" had a definite piece of music already in place, complete with sound effects and various instruments' sounds portraying parts of the "fire", such as the drum putting out the fire (heard as the fuzz bass) at the end of the track, again coming directly from Brian's directions to the musicians from the control room on the session tapes.

Anyway, yeah, let's just have a situation where any ideas outside the "narrative" proposed and propped up by whoever or whichever historian thinks they're the final word get mocked or dismissed, and the narrative that Brian did too much LSD and lost focus be the gold standard. Bullshit.

Even when you listen to the chant-skit material, released and unreleased, you hear Brian in full control and directing whoever is participating in the room with him, musicians or associates, and giving them a theme or main idea to riff on. And when he has them breathing in rhythmic variants (air), riffing on an underwater theme (water) plus adding washy reverb sound effects to the skit, and having improv comedy skits and rhythmic chants about vegetables (earth), it's no accident and it didn't happen in a vacuum, and surely didn't happen without a bigger picture in mind.

Don't listen to the bullshit, listen to the source material from Smile instead, and it's all right there.

LSD may be overstated but BW clearly did a lot of coke-the drug that was all over affluent LA from the late 60s onwards

Brian was not doing cocaine in 1966 and 1967.

The "too near faraway place" folks are just getting into their talking points about this surprising development--a sit-down interview with Mike Love conducted by David Leaf as part of his "Good Vibrations" class at UCLA, which seems to have occurred last week...

'As is usual for certain folk at that somewhat ironically named message board, inflammatory bon mots too tempting to pass up. Example: "If MIKE LOVE can forgive David Leaf..."
(But to be fair to that poster, the rest of the sentence reads "...so can some of you.") [/b] And of course, "lawyer girl" is in what us baseball fans like to call "mid-season form" regarding this matter, supplying some comic relief in the form of (her strange take on) David's "bias," which--as is often the case--goes off into some non-sequitur oriented tangents.

Let's hope we can see this unexpected but most welcome development soon in its entirety, which will permit everyone to draw more comprehensive conclusions concerning a momentous moment in the "insider's world" of the Beach Boys.

That was me who made that comment and I meant every single word.  David takes an unfair beating on that board and I was just reminding them that their hero doesn’t hate him as much as they do.

Thanks for your comment Robbie Mac. It was apt to note 'so can SOME of you' [my caps] because not all there are capable of reassessing their bias. AGD was unusually reticent but then he did make a contribution to David's book though I reckon even someone who hadn't attended the premiere could have described it just as well!

Well, Andrew and David have a long, mostly positive history with each other.  A lot of fans forget how anti-Love AGD had been in the pre-internet era.

Is David Leaf even aware of all the absolute sh*t and slander that was flung specifically at Melinda Wilson in the past 20 years and who was doing it?

Thanks to juggler, Don Malcolm and guitarfool. Such interesting comments.

I'm inclined to agree with the comment that LSD was a red herring and not the main reason for SMiLE's abandonment. A convenient excuse which meant Brian could be held responsible. Got others off the hook.

I've been reading some quotes of Brian's. He claimed he'd erased Fire and the article giving these quotes stated that ''A recording of the original version of "Fire" has never been found, perhaps for the best.' But it was easy to find this, recorded November 28th 1966. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z07Ngr_Ve4  So the claim that Brian's words prove he was crazy on drugs has to be balanced by the fact that what he was saying was not NECESSARILY true.  https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/The_Elements:_Fire

It's one of the bigger red herrings in the whole saga and subsequent discussions about why Smile didn't happen in 1967 and everything else, and I agree that the "Brian was too zonked out on drugs to finish it" is a convenient narrative to absolve others involved of any responsibility for both actions and consequences that followed. It also sweeps under the proverbial carpet a litany of other internal and external factors that were at play in 1967.

Again people are allowed to have opinions about the what's and the why's behind all this, but the line needs to be drawn if and when there are efforts to create any kind of "official" history of the band and this chapter of the story in particular. The "Brian was zonked on drugs" narrative has already made it into several mainstream tellings of the story, and it shouldn't be allowed to be the main focus of future tellings beyond half-baked TV movies and YouTube "chats" with various talking heads.

Just try this as an example: Listen to whatever Smile studio sessions are available on the official releases, or if you have them the "unreleased" sessions, and listen to Brian working in the studio on the Smile music. Does it sound like a musician who is zonked out on dope and unsure of what he's doing, or does it sound like a musician in full control of the sessions who knows what he wants in that music? If you don't hear the latter, maybe you're not listening.

As far as the various myths and legends surrounding the "Fire" tapes: Would that be the first time an issue has either been deflected or outright told incorrectly within this band's history? Years ago I posted a bunch of articles and interviews here from 1967 up into the 70's where Carl Wilson among others said - on the record - that Smile was finished, completed, whatever the word he used. Was Carl lying outright when he said that, was he deflecting, or was he speaking the truth as he knew it at any given moment in time? Run that one through the machine and see how the results come out. And that's just two blatant examples: The Fire tapes were destroyed, and Smile was finished, statements coming from two Wilson brothers as close to the music as anyone else in and around the band at those times the comments were made and published.

An aside: I've always entertained the possibility that Brian did indeed burn some version of the Fire tapes, whether it was a 1/4 inch tape dub or mixdown, or something similar...maybe in a jokingly ceremonial way similar to him wanting to start a bar fight and record it or doing those Johnny Carson "Tonight Show" parodies using his Sony Porta-Pak videorecorder and camera with people like Van Dyke and Vosse being the guests. (Oh to have those tapes...but I digress). Just get a fire started in a burn barrel in his backyard and throw the Fire tapes into it like an old ceremonial thing, while the actual master multitracks and other dubdowns were safe in the vaults somewhere, and which eventually found their way to bootlegs and leaked cassettes given to researchers back in the day. Both could be true: He "burned" the Fire tapes and the source tapes and masters still existed, as we know was the case. Who knows - just speculation. 

There could be more on the LSD story and history, I'd seriously recommend looking into that more because it's a fascinating topic and one which touches on a lot of the mythology of the 1960's. Worth the time for anyone interested in the history and especially the untold history bubbling under all the textbooks and TV documentaries.

And to wrap it up, I'm glad a newly published book is getting into the topic of "drugs killed Smile" and at least trying to push back or refute the notion that the drugs were a main reason, if not the main reason, the project didn't happen as planned in 1967. Keep up the good fight.

If you are able to dig deeper and find the primary sources from especially 1966-67, this "backlash" against LSD was an orchestrated effort by elements of the federal government that saw a staggering amount of so-called news stories and articles being planted in the US media/news/journalism machine and published regularly, designed in many cases as a scare tactic if not a way to justify whatever efforts the government was undertaking regarding LSD...and the big irony is how this same government was actively using LSD in its own experiments, which included dosing unsuspecting citizens with the drug. And the letters CIA are very prominent in these efforts.

But I digress.

I will say that a browse through a paper like the LA Times in 1966 can be stunning to see just how many columns were devoted to LSD, including one outright public profile of Augustus Stanley Owsley in the pages of the LA Times which mentioned how much cash he and his partner(s) were bringing in from the sale of his compounding of the drug. How this ever made the pages of the Times is still incredible to consider, but there it was.

And connected closer to the Beach Boys' universe, Capitol Records even issued an LSD album in Summer 1966, which featured among others Timothy Leary and interviews with people under the influence of LSD. Search for it on any online auction site or record selling site and you'll find it.

The point being, it was a larger part of the public discussion especially in 1966 and especially in and around Los Angeles than I think many people realize. And there were some pretty deep and dark efforts inside the intelligence community and the more secretive departments within the US government centered around LSD and ironically the efforts to make LSD a "boogeyman" and an "evil drug" while the same government was running trials and tests on the drug, sometimes using unwitting and unknowing citizens as subjects.

Wild stuff - worth investigating. And I'd recommend reading "Chaos" by Tom O'Neill for more on these topics, bringing the Manson story into this same web of events.


As far as blaming LSD for the Smile events and for other things surrounding Brian Wilson's health and well-being? I'll give my opinion again, and call it a red herring, and if anything it was a small factor out of many, MANY other factors swirling around the group and its business and personal affairs in 1966-67. I think a more pointed answer and/or factor in all of that could be found in the events of May and June 1967 and what happened within the band's dynamic during that specific time, but I'm repeating myself again.

But I guess repeating one's self isn't a bad thing especially when others are still repeating something that isn't true ad nauseam with no signs of stopping and more signs of doubling down on those opinions (and calling them 'facts' or suggesting it should be part of an official history).

I find it weird that we're discussing using Paley sessions stuff on a Beach Boys album, when it wasn't even deemed usable for what became Brian's next solo album, Imagination.

I'm certainly not an expert, but I believe the reasoning there was that Joe Thomas (and supposedly Melinda) wanted Imagination to have an adult contemporary sound, which was a different sound than the more '60s-influenced Paley sessions had.

You are correct, and if memory serves there were band members like Darian who staged a bit of a coup against Joe after he suggested Brian's music be played live with and have a new smooth, AC "Sade feel". Had that coup not happened, instead of faithful (and to this day the best) recreations of Brian's most classic songs on stage would possibly have been rearranged to sell to the smooth-AC-lite rock market which is where the Imagination album was geared to feature. The overall sound of Imagination is what keeps me from liking that album more than I do, I'm not a fan of the production. But then again, some of the Paley material we've heard suffers from that same 90's aural sheen that sounds pretty dated to these ears at least, whether they were demos, roughs, etc...

From the site:
BeachLife Festival
starts at 3:00 PM EST on May 4
Live from Redondo Beach, California! Go behind the scenes at the BeachLife Festival with the Beach Boys & John Stamos! Catch exclusive moments, candid convos, and all the fun you won’t see on stage—only on Zeam, streaming all day long! Coverage starts at 12:00 pm PT.



https://zeam.com/events/1522

I just wanted to add this, specifically to Dan Lega and to anyone else who didn't see it: This is the last extensive Smile discussion I was involved in, and perhaps will be the last one I'll ever take part in. All 21 pages of it where similar issues as are seen here are raised and discussed...

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,28152.0.html

I put as much information and archival sources and quotes as I could find which were relevant in those pages, ultimately coming together to show the hill I'm willing to (symbolically of course) die on: That perhaps the most crucial moments in the timeline of Smile collapsing happened in May and June 1967 after the band returned from a European tour, and the decisions and changes that were made specifically at that time and which defined much of the remainder of 1967 for the band and Brian's activities and working methods. It's the same topic Don Malcolm touches on in his posts, and here anyone can see the archival clippings and quotes to help form their own opinion. Here you'll also see some of the reasons why I do not post about Smile as much as I had previously (or post in general), and the issues I have with what is being either touted as or labeled as "official" attempts to write the history of Smile for future generations of fans and readers.  There is a limit to how many times the same points, facts, and archival items can be put on the table, and for me that limit was reached in 2022. How much new can be said about the same set of facts and archival clippings, short of rebuking attempts to distort or dismiss those same points and facts to the detriment of telling the whole story for future readers.

As far as other non-Smile points Don and others have raised...people knew what was going on and what was being said and written about them, and who was doing it. Of that I am 100% sure. If some want to ignore or outright dismiss those things that were said and done, that's their prerogative. But I'll say again, people knew what was happening and who was doing it.

Nice find, Dan - Of course Brian liked the music he created for Smile, and Van Dyke was proud of his lyrics too, and vice versa. To suggest otherwise sounds like more gaslighting and revisionism. One of the more prominent things Brian has said about Smile is along the lines of "it wasn't appropriate music for the Beach Boys", NOT that he didn't like it or that he didn't think it was good, or that he wasn't proud of it...just that it wasn't appropriate for The Beach Boys. Read into that anyway which fits, and forget the revisionism that he didn't like the music he and Van Dyke created.

Just saw the news report that Wink Martindale has passed away at age 91. As a DJ Wink was an early ally for the band as they were playing shows and hops and was the emcee on quite a few of those early concerts which featured the band. According to Wink, Brian Wilson told him the first time he heard Surfin on the radio was when Wink played it on the air as Brian was driving. Search online for some of those early gig flyers and even the famous photo of the Boys with Wink and Richard "Jaws" Kiel at a teen event...

This is a great discussion and has the potential for even more great conversations, cheers and kudos to all involved! I have not yet received the book, so I just wanted to focus on and add to a few topics already on the table here. And no worries here that your opinions and character will be targeted and smeared if it disagrees with whatever other hive mind, groupthink, or narrative might exist elsewhere.

I would encourage anyone interested in a clinical and historical look at the use of LSD, specific in a few citations to the artistic and creative-minded, to read this article named "The Trip", published by LA Weekly:

https://www.laweekly.com/the-trip/


It centers around the LSD studies conducted by Dr. Arthur Janiger in the 1950's and 60's, in California, using volunteers from all walks of life including celebrities, artists, musicians, students, and regular citizens. The estimate is roughly 900 volunteers participated in these studies, cutting a wide swath of controls and parameters to weigh the results. The LSD itself was pure Sandoz labs LSD when it was 100% legal, and given in controlled doses with subjects having a "guide" and relaxed natural environments versus clinical labs or medical facilities.

Dr. Janiger was first provided the Sandoz LSD by Parry Bivins in the early 50's, who simply ordered it from Sandoz. Parry Bivins later became Dr. Parry Bivins, who also went on to help invent and innovate within the world of deep sea diving. Along with his wife, Zale Parry, they helped invent and market the first hyperbaric chamber for the civilian dive community, this is the device which helps cure "the bends" among deep sea divers. Zale Parry is one of the most renowned and accomplished female divers in history, and both Zale and Parry Bivins worked on the TV show Sea Hunt starring Lloyd Bridges, with Zale doing stunts and acting on the show, and Parry doing stunt and technical work as well.

Dr. Janiger funded the studies himself, and personally rented the house in which he conducted them. Sandoz labs provided the LSD to Janiger for free in return for his research and reports on the substance and its effects during the controlled studies. He received no outside funding other than what he charged the participants and volunteers as an "entrance fee". Unlike other "studies" happening at the same time, no government, CIA, or military interests were involved.

Among Dr. Janiger's other notable participants were Cary Grant, James Coburn, Rita Moreno, Andre Previn, Jack Nicholson, husband-and-wife Dr. Bivins and Zale Parry, and a host of others in and around Los Angeles, including the UCLA campus. When word began to spread about the studies taking place, interest skyrocketed among the artistic, intellectual, and academic communities in and around LA. By late 1966 the government outlawed LSD under LBJ's sweeping "Narcotic Control Act" which led to independent, underground chemists, most famous of which was "Bear" Owsley and his partner Melissa Cargill, to manufacture their own controlled doses of LSD and compound it into pill varieties which would be nicknamed "blue cheer" and "yellow sunshine" and fueled the underground market in the late 60's as an alternative to the pure liquid versions being dosed onto sugar cubes and eventually stamp-like "blotter" papers.

That's just a surface scratch of the history - Again I would encourage anyone interested to please read the article and maybe follow up on the individual threads within that history, such as the Bivins/Parry history and the experiences of Cary Grant to gain a wider perspective.

One quote from the article which I wanted to emphasize is this from classical musician Andre Previn:


[The doctor] had suggested that I listen to some music while the drug was still effective. I am a composer and pianist, and I have never before or since been so strongly affected by music. I listened to recordings of some Brahms, Mozart and Walton, and was moved to tears almost immediately . . . I then played the piano for approximately 40 minutes. I felt that I played extremely well and possibly with more musical insight than before. I played among other things a Chopin Fantasia which I had not looked at since my student days, and remembered it perfectly and without flaws. A few days after the experiment I again attempted to play this piece and found that I had retained it completely. I would sometime be interested in repeating the experiment and recording some improvisations while under the influence of the pills.


To tie it together briefly, the story of LSD and its use and effects goes far beyond a simple "drugs bad!" narrative, and any positive uses as a psychological or therapeutic drug were the subject of an overt effort by various elements of the US federal government including the CIA and possibly (carefully used term) the larger pharmaceutical industry monolith to both criminalize and taint the positive uses of the drug with a fear-based, near psy-op campaign to eliminate the drug entirely, even in clinical and controlled medical use.  That is subject alone for a massive rabbit hole dive and discussion.

But when it comes to Smile and Brian's experiences with the drug, I'll say again as I've been saying for decades now, if there is an effort to boil everything down to a narrative which suggests Smile and Brian were victims of a drug and the effects of a drug which turned him into a zonked-out stoned musician who couldn't make decisions and was too out of it to make the kind of music he should have been making...well, it's a really simplistic, narrow-minded, and ignorant summary of all that was happening in 1966 and 1967, and seems to cherry-pick one possible factor among at least a dozen other factors which led to the events surrounding Smile. And if somewhere, somehow, an "official history" is told that pinpoints a "drugs bad! drugs killed Smile!" narrative as a main if not the main factor in the story...you're being gaslighted if not overtly lied to with that history.

And on a more base-level look at things like factual release dates and products of that era: Brian's first musical creation under the influence of LSD on his first experience was "California Girls"...soon followed by "The Little Girl I Once Knew", "Pet Sounds", "Good Vibrations", and what became Smile. That is arguably one of the finest sets of original and groundbreaking popular music from any artist in the 20th century, music which is still being celebrated in the 21st century as among the most innovative and "best" music of the last 75 years. And when you read what Andre Previn said about his own LSD experience related to music, and also compare that to the output from The Beatles in 1966-67 and the radical shift in art, music, media, and culture going into the late 60's, the official narratives fall woefully short of showing the bigger picture.

All credit and major kudos to Dan Lega - Those are Dan's original transcriptions of notes taken from David Oppenheim's "Inside Pop" archives, which I believe Dan accessed at the NYU library where Oppenheim's archives are located, and the info which really heated up discussions on the lost Inside Pop footage searches back in the day.

This was probably 20 years ago and I think I saved those posts from either the old Smile Shop or another defunct forum, so maybe Dan himself can chime in with more details of how he got those notes.

One item I did not see in those notes was the footage of Murry Wilson diving into a swimming pool, which Michael Vosse said was filmed by Oppenheim's CBS News crew, unless it was on another camera sheet that Dan did not get in the collection.

Hey, Funko -- how about a Pop! Bruce Johnston figure to go with the rest of the set, please?? Just because Bruce was only on the back cover of PS, he still deserves to be part of the set. At least release it as a standalone add-on figure.

I think they're waiting for an 80's/90's/00's Bruce figure, wearing a Lacoste alligator polo shirt, short shorts, athletic socks, and Docksider shoes. And it comes with an adjustable microphone stand.

Just a correction before getting fact-checked...It was Atticus Ross alone, not with his collaborator Trent Reznor, who did Love & Mercy's soundtrack. It's been 9 years since the film came out - hard to believe - and I was just reading an article about Ross and Reznor's other film work so I erroneously credited Reznor too. It's fixed now. Too much going on to recall this stuff on the fly!

Here's one interview with Ross where he talks about how the L&M score came about, there's more out there online too:

https://silverscreenriot.com/talking-with-atticus-ross-of-love-mercy-gone-girl-social-network/

It seems to be pretty universally shared that the sound and the quality of sound of this documentary was wonky at best...both the music and the interviews...and yet, here it wins an Emmy for audio mixing. I don't get it, but there are a lot of things about these kinds of awards and things in general that I don't get. Maybe it was more an emotional/supportive vote for Brian's classic records and how they sounded going back to the 60's rather than the actual product of the documentary? Who knows. Wonders never cease.

I will say if there was a BB's related audio project that should have been nominated in the film/TV/video awards sphere, it would have been Atticus Ross' and Trent Reznor's pastiche soundtrack for Love & Mercy. That was fresh, exciting, and vital to several key scenes in the film, and it took the original music to places I don't think we would have imagined before hearing it in the film. But as far as I know, that one which deserved an award did not win. Or I could be wrong.

If someone wants to take a try at resizing them, uploading them to their image host, and reposting them here, feel free.

Is there any way to make these smaller?

Either right-click on the image and then click "open in new tab", or right click and "save image as" and you can control the size on whatever device you're using, then resize it however you choose. Unfortunately I couldn't resize them here without losing the clarity of the words.