I was listening to the Howard Stern interview of Mike in 1991.  During the interview Mike recounted a story of Dennis witnessing Manson killing a black guy at the Spahn Ranch.  Did this occur?

Brian appears to be enjoying performing now more than he ever has before. I can't help but think that it is due, in large part, to having a band that is totally behind him 100%.

1962 - 1964
Brian is touring, writing, producing etc. Too much pressure and the touring is keeping him from what he wants to do.

1976 - 1996
Brian is an occasional member of the touring band shunted off to the side in the hope he wouldn't screw up the show.  When he is there it is like a side show - he contributes little. The band is playing arrangements of songs different from how he produced the music.

1998 -
Brian has a band that is devoted to his vision of the music.

11. After killing "Smile" for effing with the formula Mike pushed the release of "Smiley Smile" cause that certainly didn't eff the formula.:O

Well, if for Mike Love, "the formula" meant band-oriented music with non-poetic lyrics over ornate heavily-produced songs with introspective and/or poetic verse, then him preferring Smiley Smile makes absolute perfect sense. Which is exactly the case.

One part of the formula you did not mention was commercial viability.

Smiley is about as uncommercial as anything can be.

If Ringo is in for his drumming Brian should be in for producing.

Had To Phone Ya instrumental track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDr2jZzirw4

Just wow

Do Mike & Bruce/ BRI still get paid if the concert is canceled due to weather?  

Many festival/outdoor venue contracts stipulate that if the show is canceled due to weather, and if the performer is present and ready to perform, the performer gets pain in full. Others will state that the event will be rescheduled with the artist.

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra owns the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre (profits fund the orchestra).  It is a 12,000 seat venue that books a lot of major acts.  I went to an engagement where the keynote speaker was the ASO CFO.  He stated that for many acts the competition is so fierce that payment is guaranteed, even if the act itself cancels.

I prefer the suites.

I was never a collector of bootlegs so prior to BWPS my only exposure was to the individual released songs.  With the exception of "Surf's Up" they seemed to lack context.  For whatever reason, BWPS really touched me.  For example, going from the hell of "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" to "Blue Hawaii" always makes me optimistic.  For me, it is an uplifting piece of music that would be less if they were separate.

So everyone here knows one of the main reasons SMiLE was cancelled was because Mike Love was very much against it and complained to Brian about how kids in that day wouldn't get what the songs were supposed to be about. That said, how did Mike let Brian release Smiley Smile? It's even more weird and abstract than the original SMiLE sessions!  For as much as there is written about SMiLE, I can't seem to find much about the making of Smiley Smile.

I mean, Mike complained about Pet Sounds too, so how was Brian able to have enough confidence to release that album?

I do not accept the premise.  SMiLE's cancellation was due to Brian.  The release of Smiley Smile illustrates this.

If Pet Sounds was f****ing with the formula Smiley Smile anally raped it. 

  The Knebworth performance of "Surfer Girl" is interesting. Dennis comes to the front of the stage and Mike clearly has no interest interacting with him. At the end of the song, Carl seems to be heading Mike's way for a word but is stopped by Dennis. Then you see Al and Dennis shaking hands while taking their bows. What was going on with Carl and Mike? Was Carl angry?

I've watched this part many times, and my theory is that Carl (who was the last person to start trouble) was trying to get between Dennis and Mike to cut off any conflict between the two.  It looked like Dennis was trying to instigate Mike and he was probably hammered too.

I don't think Carl had any issues with Mike that day.  At the end of "Barbara Ann" he gives mike a bifg shout out.

If we are talking live albums "Live Bullet" should be somewhere on there.

For compilations it is hard to beat "Endless Summer".

For studio albums I would rte "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" because it is so damned consistent (btw, instead of "Crocadile Rock" the Beach Boys should have covered "Harmony").  Too many other double albums have too much filler.

For albums that should have been double I present the Beach Boys Holland:

Side A:
"Sail On Sailor"
"Mess of Help"
"He Come Down"
"Marcella"
"Funky Pretty"
"All This Is That"

Side B:
"Sail On Sailor"
"Steamboat"
"Leaving This Town"
"Only With You"
"Cuddle Up"

Side C:
"California Saga: Big Sur"
"California Saga: Beaks of Eagles"
"California Saga: California"
"The Trader"

Side D:
Mount Vernon and Fairway (A Fairy Tale)"

"Do It Again' is a classic that went to no. 1 in the UK, but only hit no.20 in the US. There's little doubt that AM top 40 turned against the band 67/68 -- but why?

So, the Beach Boys were no longer "cool". But does that explain why such uncool acts as the 1910 Fruitgum Company, the Ohio Express, and Gary Lewis and the Playboys had big hits in 1968? Something else was going on, but I've never heard an explanation as to what went on.

GV was not followed up properly and H&V + Smiley and WH did nothing to save the decline, quite understandably. They are fan favourites, but they could never be mainstream. If they had been full blown productions then perhaps they would've had a better chance, but the new sound was offputting and so the group was quietly forgotten in the dramatic music scene following the summer of 67 (where they failed to deliver anything relevant).

BCN is perhaps the greatest station of all time.

I remember hearing "This Whole World" followed by "My Aim Is True".

Non-BB realted but one time a jock played the Kinks' "Superman" non-stop for an hour.  Takes a call from someone whoe requests "Superman" and says "sorry, we don't have it".

Good Times!

Smile was the only chance they had to latch onto the new trend. Big production a la Wouldn't It Be Nice and California Girls were they way to go.  Smile might not be a smash of an album, but it would certainly be considered cool and then stuff like a well produced WH thing could succeed more, but then we get back into that endless discussion.

We're talking about two things here -- counterculture music and what was called "teeny-bopper" music. We all know why the Beach Boys didn't cross over to the counterculture crowd.

But what I'm asking is why commercial, top 40 AM radio seemingly rejected the Beach Boys. It had nothing to do with SMiLE, WH, or Smiley Smile, or with lps in general. AM played singles. And it wasn't only the BBs  -- AM radio also turned its back on the Dave Clark 5 and Herman's Hermits, for instance, who continued to make hit UK singles. Some popular groups made the post '67 cut -- Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Rascals, the Grassroots (not even getting into the Beatles or the Stones) -- and some didn't (the Beach Boys).

It wasn't "coolness", because lots of AM top 40 singles were as uncool as you can get (e.g. Bobby Goldsboro). And it wasn't the boy band cuteness factor, either -- some of the biggest hits of the post-67 era were made by faceless studio bands.

The reasons why the Beach Boys were rejected by the hippies 1967-1970 have been gone over upteen times. My question is, why did US commercial radio reject them? This is what I haven't seen explained.

'Do It Again' is as commercial as it gets, and yet it was a relative flop, compared to what it deserved. The quirkiness of 'Smiley Smile' or 'Wild Honey' doesn't that failure.

A couple of factors were in play.  Radio can be fickle.  The greatest stations like WABC, in NYC, and had a huge evening -- nighttime signal, swung from radio soaps and comedy from 1953-1960, to music radio from 1960-1982, to talk radio, (News, Opinion, Passion) (I'm not kidding - that was the ad.) Paul Harvey. Limbaugh. Then, sports. Eww.  There was even a "Brian Wilson" working the studio then. 

During that time, I suspect that sponsors could articulate non-controversial artists/musicians whose music they would support.  And pull their support for other artists.  Money talks. Carl Wilson was not convenient, with a CO status. After all, Elvis was in the Army. Why not a Beach Boy? It was really difficult to convince a WWII veteran parent that Vietnam was not the same kind of war.

But, Cousin Brucie, the top DJ, and with that far-flung signal was listened to by everyone who could catch him at night.  I could hear him two states away.  No one did the Top Hit countdown better than Bruce Morrow.  The ratings were tied to something called "cumulative audience" or "cume" and it was determined that people spent only 10 minutes at a time listening to WABC. They jammed commercials between songs, then changed to 5 songs together, then a commercial. Cousin Bruce Morrow quit, because of the short setlist, and went to the competition, WNBC.  And FM radio started to overtake AM radio.  It was freeform radio/progressive rock radio. Then, AOR, album-oriented radio.

WBCN - FM - in Boston, was a pioneer, with less chat and more good stuff.  Lots of Smiley, Pet Sounds and Surf's Up. If I had to guess, SDT helped pry that door wide open. And, it was right up their alley, in a huge college town. Carl Wilson was their hero; no conflict with philosophy clash or sponsors breathing down their necks. Different story with AM.

This is an extremely general observation, but I see Pet Sounds as the culmination of everything the Boys were doing to that point.  GV (although not on Pet Sounds) is the perfect example of that.  To me, Smile is more like a movie soundtrack.  No artists specifically come to mind, but you'll have an artist that releases straight albums and then provides a soundtrack to a film.  Same artist but totally different kinds of music.  I can't say which is "better" because the intent with each, it seems, is quite different.

To me-- and again this is very general and perhaps personal to me-- there are three eras or categories:

1. Surfin' Safari to Party!
2. Pet Sounds/Smile
3. Smiley Smile to SIP

I prefer eras 1 and 2 to 3 by a wide margin.

My eras would go like this:

1. Surfin' Safari to Xmas Album
2. Today through SMiLE Recordings - Brian at his peak
3. Smiley Smile through Sunflower - Brian steps back
4. Surfs Up through Holland - Brian reilly steps back, the Carl/Dennis Era
5 - 15BO - Love You - Brian is Back (Sorta)
6 - The Rest - Love Conquers All (Although LA doesn't fit in here).

My order is
2 3 4 1 5 6

I can't remember the last time that they had the correct first single from an album.  'It's OK'

As for singles that should been:

"Love Surrounds Me" and "Full Sail" from LA.  Both fit the times well.  If you look at the Billboard Top 100 for 1979 it is littered with things such as "You Don't Bring Me Flowers", "Lady" (LRB), "She Believes in Me" and "Time Passages".

"Maybe I Don't Know" from BB85

"From There to Back Again"/Pacific Coast Highway" - There is something to be said about releasing the best damn Brian Wilson song in 40 years.

"Marcella" and "Funky Pretty" from "In Concert" - Both blow the originals away and provide a great example of how powerful the Beach Boys were as a live act.   

Two that I have not seen mentioned.

"Jessica" - The Allman Brothers
My favorite part is Chuck Leavell's piano solo.

"Intro" - Lou Reed (the intro to "Sweet Jane")

 

Too bad they could not have collaborated on more songs.

"Pacific Ocean Blues" and "Only With You" give an indication that they could have been a pretty good song writing team.

In my opinion, the four most overlooked acts are Chicago, The Moody Blues, Grand Funk Railroad and Journey.  Nobody has mentioned Grand Funk or Journey so I will state their cases.

For Grand Funk they became one of the biggest acts of the early 70's despite being hated by the critics.   All they did was sell millions of records and concert tickets because the fans loved them even if Rolling Stone didn't.

While not my cup of tea Journey is also deserving based on record and ticket sales alone.  In addition, they pretty much invented the power ballad and made hard rock more palatable for females.  I would also point out that there are millions of people that had their first kiss or slow dance or first held hands to a Journey song.  That alone makes them more deserving than Patti Smith or the Sex Pistols. 

By my count there have been 296 inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Of that number 89 are either more deserving or as deserving has Chicago, the Moody blues, Grand Funk or Journey. 

Those inductees are: Linda Ronstadt, Brian Epstein, ABBA, Jeff Beck, U2, Traffic, Prince, The Police, The Clash, Isaac Hayes, The Ramones, Michael Jackson, Aerosmith, Paul Simon, Queen, Steely Dan, Eric Clapton, Earth Wind & Fire, Scotty Moore, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, Don Kirschner, Curtis Mayfield, George Martin, The Eagles, Santana, Fleetwood Mac, CS&N, The Rascals, Pink Floyd, The Velvet Underground, Neil Young, The Allman Brothers, Janis Joplin, Led Zepplin, Frank Zappa, Elton John, The Band, The Grateful Dead, Rod Stewart, Cream, CCR, The Doors, Van Morrison, Sly and the Family Stone, Jimi Hendricks Experience, The Yardbirds, Johnny Cash, Leo Fender, Gerry Coffin & Carole King, Holland Dozier & Holland, The Four Tops, The Kinks, The Four Seasons, The Rolling Stones, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, The Beach Boys, Berry Gordy, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Drifters, Les Paul, The Supremes, Aretha Franklin, B. B. King, Bill Haley, Jackie Wilson, Marvin Gaye, Ricky Nelson, Roy Orbison, Smokey Robinson, Muddy Waters, Elvis Presley, Alan Freed, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, James Brown, Jerry Lee Lewis, John Hammond, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, The Everly Brothers, Sam Phillips & Little Richard.


The idea that there are 207 inductees that are less deserving renders the entire enterprise a joke.

A little OT, but what were the circumstances of Dennis' estate selling its interest?  Any idea how much it was sold for?

My guess is that it turned out to be a bad deal for Dennis' heirs.

Has Brian ever comment on "An American in Paris" as being an influence on "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow? 

Overrated - Black & Blue

Underrated - Some Girls - The Stones take on Punk and Disco and win.

Roadrunner (1976) - Modern Lovers  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLwbRhbta2I

Birds Fly Away - Theresa Andersson  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr-SkkyoWL8

Nice Work If You Can Get It - Ella Fitzgerald http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu0JjhbaVbE

From Here to Back Again/Pacific Coast Highway - The Beach Boys

Caravan - Van Morrison (with The Band from the Last Waltz - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJXVD-nSSKE

1. Beaver Brown (before they became John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band) 1979 - Bentley College, Waltham Mass

2. Van Morrison - 1990 - Lakewood Ampitheatre, Atlanta

3. Steely Dan - 2006 - Chastian Park, Atlanta

4. Paul McCartney - 1989 - Omni, Atlanta

5. Bruce Springsteen - 1978 - Music Hall, Boston

1. Let Him Run Wild
2 .She's Not the Little Girl I Once Knew
3. California Girls
4. Wouldn't It Be Nice
5. God Only Knows
6. Good Vibrations
7. Wonderful
8. All This Is That
9. From There To Back Again/Pacific Coast Highway
10. Surf's Up

Roller Skating Child

I dont' 100% agree, basically because of the Bambu tracks on LA, but yeah...Love You is definitely the last AWESOME Beach Boys record, for me.

Have we got the point where we can admit TWGMTR was an unlistenable, autotuned mess yet? B/W I've been smashing the f*** out of 'Chain Reaction of Love' recently. I really wish they'd come through with that proposed '96 lp...that could have been awesome.
[/quote]

The last three songs are the best post Holland Beach Boys work.  FTTBA is among my 15 favorite Beach Boy songs.

I've been thinking about this for a while and wondering if I'm right,  but it seems that men seem to like Bruce's songs more than women.  Mind you there aren't a lot of females on this board...   My daughter and I don't like Bruces songs, think they are sappy.  Mike, you stating what your wife thinks made me think of it again.  It's a massive generalisation I know, and probably wrong,  but I am surprised at all the love.    Mind you, I live in Australia where men are not especially open in the "emotions" department.  This generation seem to be a lot better though.  Again.... this is a massive generalisation, but true of most of my male friends.
[/quote
Of course you like Bruce  
http://youtu.be/_f_p0CgPeyA

 A former girlfriend once described Bruce's music as "hideous" when I tried to make a case for "Disney Girls."

 Bruce and Rieley were oil and water-no mixing. When Rieley's ideas helped get the band back in the spotlight, the winds of change were not blowing Bruce's way.

 Moreover, Bruce thought SURF'S UP was a bit of con in terms of how Brian's involvement was presented to the public.

That is an interesting era.  I don't know Rieley from Adam, notwithstanding what I've read about "embellished credentials." What I do know is often new managers zone in on a knowledge base, or a talent, and using their "new broom," sweep out that person, in order to establish a new power base.  I'm not sure things would have been different, regardless of who was at the helm.  At that point, the individual band members were working on their own material, and it was a height of creativity.  

Second, it was a time, when the college campus was the place to perform.  There was a captive audience, as it were, and particularly massive numbers of young people who could network word of these performances.  For example, I was wearing my alma mater shirt to a BB C50 NY show, and in the row behind me was a guy who introduced himself, and we immediately discussed a BB show at Boston College in 1972, that we both attended. Amazing that 40 years later, we had been at the same show.  Toni Tenille was there.  (I was very jealous.)  

So, in going from colleges to casinos, alongside their contemporaries, with various formats, and managers, it's important to remember that the manager is about power and control.  And if that manager, perceives a member as a threat, because of his or her experiential background, then there will be conflicts.  As they say, "new broom sweeps clean."

Rieley did not invent the trend of changing the performance venue; colleges and universities had auditoria, arenas, and student networking and new underground newspapers and media outlets, such as fm radio, at their disposal.  And, performers and promoters just plugged right into it.

Interesting you mention the BC show - I wasn't there but my school's 1974 yearbook mentioned that concert as one of the big events that occurred over the six years that the class was at the school (along with a picture of the Beach Boys).