[Guilty Pleasures]

Mike was not interested in having this album reissued on CD, let alone in high def.  He was approached several times by a legit CD reissue label and declined to proceed with a digital release.

Really? I'm not saying I don't believe you, but do you have sources for this? I mean, with the amount of goofy Mike Love artifacts out there, it's interesting that as CenturyDeprived basically said, this would be the thing Mike would wanna bury and keep away from easy public consumption.

Also I know I've been on this one for a while, but it's also a shame that there is nothing available digitally from Mike's band Celebration except for the appearance of the song "Almost Summer" on a CD called (yep, you guessed it) Guilty Pleasures. Even if the whole Almost Summer soundtrack couldn't be licensed, one would thing there coulda been a Celebration anthology released with the all their songs from that soundtrack along with along with their self-titled album. Best to forget Disco Celebration though. Maybe leave that in obscurity.

I know there's a moment in the 1989 BBs campfire sessions where Mike seems to want to bury the LBWL album when Brian brings it up. It's pretty shocking to hear the album as obscure as that brought up by Brian almost a decade later.

Mike seems genuinely embarrassed, although he plays it off in a joking manner. Granted that was 32 years ago, but that's some decent evidence that he's certainly not proud of that work, and I don't think it ever got well reviewed or had many fans. 

How Mike could years later give the greenlight to any number of other more recent atrocities that he has released under his own name baffles the mind, because it would seem that at one point he at least expressed the ability to be embarrassed by his own work when it was substandard.

I was going to mention that same moment - Mike was clearly embarrassed by the mention of it.

I suspect - and have read, although I'm very much paraphrasing - that in the wake of Dennis' solo effort Mike was quite jealous of all the positive attention Dennis got. No surprise there. Suddenly within about a year of Pacific Ocean Blue - Mike has 2 albums worth of unreleasable solo material ready to go - and no-one would distribute it!!

I seem to remember also that there was a bit of an issue that arose when Mike was away doing the Maharishi's TM Sidhis course and the CBS contact was signed - precluding the release of solo albums. I think Mike may have been furious. This is just from memory, but I'm sure it's in Steven Gaines' book.

Point being, I think Mike was desperate to go solo -at that time- and then when his album didn't sell I think he realised solo albums were never going to be his strong suit! There's also the quote from, I think, the press conference after Dennis' death. Something like "We are not disbanding. We have tried specialisation, it doesn't work as well as the togetherness of the group". That one appears in the An American Band doco towards the end.

Interestingly, post Mike's album and pre Dennis' death, in the middle there is the Mike and Dean era and also the 1982 recordings with Adrian Baker.

You're absolutely right, I had totally forgotten about those unreleased solo albums that were presumably deemed unreleasable by labels that came *right in the wake of POB*. No way that timing is a coincidence.

It's remarkable because it really shows an instance of Mike nearly identically doing what he would do many years later when Brian solo shows got much better reviews than Mike... Mike would then decide to "up his game" and try to get competitive, lest he be outshined by the Wilson's to a degree that was too large for his ego to handle.

Interesting to think that as mediocre, which is to be generous, as the LBWL album is, it was something like the third and only successful attempt by Mike to get an album released.

The fact that he had recently tried a country album - and so quickly abandoned that genre - really makes it seem like he was having an identity crisis much like the character Buck Swope, played by Don Cheadle, did in the film Boogie Nights. And much like Buck eventually got absorbed back into the adult business which was his bread and butter, so did Mike soon do the same with being absorbed back into the band when nothing else worked.

Any update on this project? Could they be waiting for a release to correspond with the interest of the Feel Flows release?

I'd be really surprised if that were not the case. Especially considering the name of this documentary, it wouldn't make any sense to not want to ride the wave of publicity for the FF box.

[Guilty Pleasures]

Mike was not interested in having this album reissued on CD, let alone in high def.  He was approached several times by a legit CD reissue label and declined to proceed with a digital release.

Really? I'm not saying I don't believe you, but do you have sources for this? I mean, with the amount of goofy Mike Love artifacts out there, it's interesting that as CenturyDeprived basically said, this would be the thing Mike would wanna bury and keep away from easy public consumption.

Also I know I've been on this one for a while, but it's also a shame that there is nothing available digitally from Mike's band Celebration except for the appearance of the song "Almost Summer" on a CD called (yep, you guessed it) Guilty Pleasures. Even if the whole Almost Summer soundtrack couldn't be licensed, one would thing there coulda been a Celebration anthology released with the all their songs from that soundtrack along with along with their self-titled album. Best to forget Disco Celebration though. Maybe leave that in obscurity.

I know there's a moment in the 1989 BBs campfire sessions where Mike seems to want to bury the LBWL album when Brian brings it up. It's pretty shocking to hear the album as obscure as that brought up by Brian almost a decade later.

Mike seems genuinely embarrassed, although he plays it off in a joking manner. Granted that was 32 years ago, but that's some decent evidence that he's certainly not proud of that work, and I don't think it ever got well reviewed or had many fans. 

How Mike could years later give the greenlight to any number of other more recent atrocities that he has released under his own name baffles the mind, because it would seem that at one point he at least expressed the ability to be embarrassed by his own work when it was substandard.

As bad/mediocre/awful/sometimes guilty pleasure OK that this album is throughout, it's far more listenable relatively speaking to my ears than any other solo efforts that Mike has put out. Ironic that this would be the one he wants to bury.

Bill House must be one of the most annoyingly difficult names to research and do Google searches on. 

I love me some Make it Big.

As I explained in the book-the melodyland theater in Anaheim was a round theater with numerous entrances and the BBs agreed to be at each entrance to greet the fans who came to the show (not sure if this was a regular thing at melodyland or just a special treat for local fans). A fan I talked to noted that Brian was at one of the entrances to greet fans. The lucky fan then took their seat and much to his surprise Brian was seated next to him for the show. This fan went to Hawthorne High and when Brian found out, he spent much of the show peppering him with questions about whether various teachers and coaches were still there. I also interviewed Alex del Zappo of the band sweetwater, who opened the shows.

Thanks Ian! I do own the book, and I have read it, but it's been a while and I should go re-read it more thoroughly

Well....I don’t think that hospital visit was a major turning point (and exact dates of that visit are not known). You are forgetting some things. In September Brian worked  on We’re Together Again and took part in meet and greets at the BBs Anaheim shows. In October he was involved in the Time To Get Alone sessions and in December 1968 he produced a Honeys single. However it is fair to say that he was becoming only a sporadic contributor to the BBs sessions instead of calling the shots.

I had no idea there were BBs meet and greets as far back as then. Was that some sort of extra bonus for VIP ticket holders or something? Was that even a thing back in the 1960s?

I know it's just a movie, but I think of "The Manchurian Candidate." Even after Frank Sinatra finds out he's been brainwashed and realized he never particularly liked Raymond Shaw, he says there's STILL a part of him that thinks, "Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.”

It's hard to get over brainwashing easily, especially for the number of years it went on with Landy and all the medications the evil doctor used to reinforce it. So even after Brian was "freed," there was probably still some Landy in his brain, so he might have believed the things Landy said -- like all Carl cared about was whether Brian could write and produce hits.

For Carl's part, logically he probably knew that when Brian said bad things about him they were Landy's words, but they still had to hurt coming out of the mouth of his brother -- a brother who he had to go and rescue several times. Those bad feelings probably carried over into the abortive 1995 sessions.

I think time would have healed most of those wounds, but unfortunately Carl didn't have enough time.

Not trying to knock Carl, I'm sure their relationship was complex and imperfect with regrettable things being done/said on both Brian and Carl's sides... but I can certainly understand a level of resentment that Brian might've had, for example the Redwood sessions for Time to Get Alone, where it would seem Brian was guilted into abandoning writing for other bands, and to use his songs for his family's band.

My understanding is that Mike and Carl were part of that, and maybe Dennis too?  - maybe that was an isolated one off type of event, or maybe there were other times and stuff like that happened as well, bottom line is that regrettable incidents like that could've given Landy actual legitimate ammunition to help estrange Brian from Carl. If Brian was reminded by Landy of stuff like that, I can't say that Landy - who I am certainly no fan of - would have been 100% wrong in pointing out to Brian that Brian may have for years found himself in any number of toxic incidents in his relationships with his family/band.

Yet I assume Landy vilified others to an extraordinary degree, while painting himself as a patron saint. It gives me no pleasure to say that Landy might have occasionally had a point to some degree, yet of course he exploited stuff like this to his own gain in a disgusting way.

I'm sure from Brian's perspective, he did at times legitimately feel like his talents were taken advantage of by his family. And likewise, if Brian perhaps saddled Carl with lots of duties that Carl never necessarily wanted, but felt obligated to take, there could've been resentment brewing from Carl's side for decades as a result of that.

Complex stuff with no easy answer.

The very strange thing is when on Spotify, take a look at the artist listing for the album. Yes it states "Mike Love", yet it's a wholly different Mike Love artist listing compared to his other releases like UTL.

That's very, very weird, and almost comical that this discrepancy has gone unnoticed both by fans as well as whatever people in a corporate office who uploaded the songs to Spotify

Crazy confession..:.I actually really like about 3/4 of this, especially on and on and on, and the last three songs.

You're not alone. I wouldn't use the word love, but some of this album is definitely a guilty pleasure, same with some of SIP.

Finally, Mike's beloved ode to muff diving can be heard by a new generation. Fans rejoice; Rockin' the Fan in the Boat

I've often pointed out when we have these "near reunion" projects that one reason one person might sit it out is to avoid it actually being a full *REUNION*. Sometimes some members don't want the added pressure of it actually being a real "Beach Boys" product/release, and/or they want to save an actual real reunion for a bigger event.

No offense to this latest project, but doing the first full BB reunion on record in a decade for a one-song, low-key, home brewed project is a bit like those that lobby for Brian, Al, and Dave to like show up at some random Mike/Bruce casino gig.

There's still a lot of selling power in a "first reunion in ten years" (or whatever) sort or project, so I think it makes sense to save this for when/if they do a real, full-blown group project (e.g. an album, a show/tour, etc.)

Obviously, in this case, the fact that this *isn't* a BB reunion didn't stop some headlines for calling it that. But I'd certainly prefer to save an actual reunion for something more substantive and high-profile.

All good points.

Ironically and oddly, the fact that this near-reunion does in fact reunite David and Al along with Mike and Bruce, which in and of itself is still somewhat significant in my view, it's stilll close to a reunion considering how Brian was so often absent from any number of Beach Boys related appearances in the 1960s and 1970s. Obviously the circumstances are different this time. But there's a weird "BBs history repeating itself" kind of vibe the more I think about it.

That said, it is a shame Brian isn't part of it, regardless of the reasons. I still contend that the many antics that Mike did last year couldn't exactly have *helped* bridge the gaps and fractures between the Brian and Mike camps. Time will tell if there's any full reunion activity that happens, but if Brian was asked to do this song during a soured time in their relationship, that could have contributed to the decision of whether he'd participate or not.

several takeaways:

-Mike sounds really good, and this proves he doesn't need to rely on autotune

Unless I'm confusing my sound processing, I believe he is autotuned here.

Most of them are heavily dunked in autotune on the whole track.

I'll listen to it again on proper speakers.  Even if there's some autotune assistance here, it ain't anywhere near stuff like the Mike UTL Help Me Rhonda, which I guess means the bar was set so robotic that it's a breath of fresh air to have stuff sound less robo than that, relatively speaking.

several takeaways:

-Mike sounds really good, and this proves he doesn't need to rely on autotune

Unless I'm confusing my sound processing, I believe he is autotuned here.

Admittedly I only listened to this once on my phone speakers, will have to relisten. But whatever processing happening here upon first listen seemed less egregious and more tasteful than other recent Mike vocals.

several takeaways:

-Mike sounds really good, and this proves he doesn't need to rely on autotune

-I would be surprised if Mike's antics from 2020 didn't play into the reasons why Brian was MIA here. Brian is certainly missed.

-it's heartwarming to see the kids involved, and I very much applaud them for trying to move past the baggage of their parents' generation.

-it's incredible how much legitimacy Al brings to the entire project. This just goes to prove what a bad mistake it was for Mike to fire Al in 1998. The version of the band that Mike has been peddling since then would have doubtlessly been taken far more seriously if Al had been part of the equation.

-really great to see David involved too.

-props to everyone involved, it's totally rad to finally see this.

Episode 14- In 1992, OSD encounters a copy of SIP at Sam Goody....

I'm setting my DVR for that one

Greg, the point you made about the Beatles and Beach Boys related to fans who weren't around in the 90's is something I've been writing and talking about for years. I go back to the years 1992-1994, roughly, and it was truly a Jekyll and Hyde scene, surreal if not kind of sad. I had taken that deep dive into a Beach Boys obsession, the timing was right because the PS reissue was still making waves and available, the 2-fers were in  the stores, in '93 the box set had come out with all of that glorious Smile material, etc.

Yet when I (and others I'm sure) were trying to share the pure joy of that music, you'd see the Beach Boys being represented differently than what that music would suggest. Summer In Paradise in the same bins as the Today/Summer Days 2-fer. Video of concerts with hula girls, cheerleaders, and Mike pretending to play a tenor sax next to clips of the original band kicking ass on the TAMI Show or the Sullivan appearances. The same band who did "California Girls" and "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" doing a song originally written as a rap duet with Bart Simpson. It seemed like two different bands. In some ways it still does.

I think something was needed to make things more cohesive moving forward, and I'm hopeful this new deal is going to help in that regard. One of the reasons why The Beach Boys as a brand entity has been misunderstood and overlooked by so many is because there were too many entities out there labeled "The Beach Boys".

Dare I say it, when you say "The Beatles", it's one brand identity that everyone knows. There aren't multiple versions and variations of "The Beatles" in the marketplace, even though their image, music and sound changed drastically as a band.

Absolutely. Why is it that one has no trouble reconciling 'Please Please Me' with 'Don't Let me Down', whilst recognising the value of 'Catch a Wave' when compared to 'Surf's Up' necessitates one become an apologist?

I think that schism has been part of the Beach Boys since the beginning, despite the fact that for every 'Surfing USA', there has always been a 'Lonely Sea'. For every (A) side of Today!, there has always been a (B) side.

And as easy as that is to simplify as a battle between Mike's positivity and Brian's melancholy, (read commercialism vs art), I think that schism cam be traced to Brian alone. He entered wholeheartedly into the commercialism of 'The Beach Boys', whilst always needing an outlet for his more esoteric work. Feel free to correct me, but I think Brian alone created the schizoid nature of 'The Beach Boys', which can be directly traced back to his strict upbringing telling him  to 'succeed' in direct conflict with his intellectual and emotional need to 'create'.

It's easy to forget that under the 'Beach Boys' label, the whole mythology of 'California Cool' was created. Then Brian spent the years from '65 onwards trying to escape his own creation.

Any attempt to embrace the legacy of 'The Beach Boys' needs to embrace the entire catalogue, and reconcile it into one powerful body of work like 'The Beatles'. I think this is something Brian never succeeded in doing due to his own inner narratives.

We're on the same page, but I do disagree with some of those points. The Beatles were a true team of 4, along with their other inner circle outside and inside the studio. There was no one who could tell them "you cannot do that" after 1963. And they all basically vowed to not repeat themselves on every subsequent effort, and try new things in songwriting and sound. They changed after 1963 from album to album. When those elements above ceased to be the order of the day, and individual efforts started to become more important to those individuals than the band, they were done.

Brian specifically was told by his father and other band members "you cannot do this, you'll alienate our fans" on *Good Vibrations*, of all songs. One of the greatest singles of all time, done by a band with a successful track record, and that "inner circle" of his brothers, cousin, and father were doubting it.

Did anyone tell Lennon "you can't do" Tomorrow Never Knows or Strawberry Fields? No - They worked to make it happen. Did anyone tell McCartney "you can't do" a single that lasts over 7 minutes? No - They changed the record-cutting process to enable that single to come out as recorded on 45rpm. Did anyone tell Harrison "you can't do" Indian music with Indian musicians featured on a pop record? No. It came out and influenced others to go outside Western music for inspiration.

Those are just some examples where some groundbreaking music and unorthodox sounds could easily have been shot down or vetoed, by the band and management, no one did that to The Beatles.

One of the keys to understanding Brian Wilson is he seeks out and all but needs people around him to support what he's doing, in 60's lingo to "get on his trip" and be supportive. A lot of that came from the house he grew up in where he was always being told he needed to be better, his work wasn't good enough, etc. And when he's putting records on the top-40 charts barely out of his teens, his dad is there hectoring him and hassling him over production, singing, writing, the whole deal. Then a few years later his bandmates start doing similar things. He did indeed want to go further in his music - he inspired The Beatles to do that and other things in their own career, like drop out of regular touring to make the studio recordings and songs that much more complex and better - but there were nagging voices telling him you can't do that.

I know some will argue that didn't happen, and The Beach Boys were all peace, love, and big hugs all around, but it simply wasn't the case. Just as early as a few weeks ago Steve Levine and Brian found common ground with each other discussing the hassles they had to deal with as producers, in Brian's case telling Steve about the resistance he was met with on Pet Sounds from his bandmates. If some want to whitewash that part of the history off the books, they can try but that's what happened and those are the facts.

Finding a way to have Catch A Wave and "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" has been difficult, but not impossible. I once had a songwriting class with a professor who was a major early Beatles and Beach Boys fan. One class, he walked in and went right to the upright piano, then started banging out the intro to "Catch A Wave", singing along and the people in the class who didn't know the song were amazed. He then broke down the chords, how Brian changed keys, and explained just how far-out doing such a change on a *surf* record really was in 1963-64. It was fascinating and fun, and those people in the class got an appreciation for just how good Brian's music really was, even beyond the stalwarts like God Only Knows. This was in the early 90's.

So it can be done, it's just a tall order to change perceptions.

What I think can't be done is to put utter crap that this band released up on the same shelf as their best work. Play someone "Summer Of Love" and gauge the reaction...and then put that next to the classics. It's almost impossible to square that up, it isn't like playing a surf hit from '63 next to 'Til I Die or something, and I think attempts to square up the dreck with the good stuff will be laughable if not harmful to the overall plan. It would be like introducing the music of Brian Wilson to someone by playing "Smart Girls". It's ridiculous and does not represent the man's music overall. You can't try to force it into the same bag without coming off as trying to sell the Brooklyn Bridge.

And again I think one of the key issues in making a cohesive brand identity is to limit how many different entities are either labeled or sold as "The Beach Boys" no matter what licenses are available. It doesn't make sense to cause the confusion where people watching a PBS holiday concert see Mike Love and Mark McGrath performing at a Beach Boys concert, billed as The Beach Boys, doing a Beach Boys classic from 1968, and it's a Mike Love solo project being promoted. That is not the way to market a cohesive brand when people are hearing a Beach Boys classic at a show billed as The Beach Boys but it isn't a Beach Boys project. Hell, even one of the articles I just saw and clicked on this past week was news about the Beach Boys, and the lead photo on the story page was Mark McGrath and John Stamos at one of Mike's drive-in gigs or something - not a Beach Boy in sight!

That can't happen if cohesiveness is the goal.

At some point, I think it would be a very good thing if your points above were echoed in some sort of official documentary by some music historians, or perhaps even by members of the band themselves. Not some homemade fan documentary, but something on the level of the Duplass brothers. Maybe some sort of reassessment of the band and a more honest take on their career will come about as a result either directly or indirectly of this new deal.

There needs to be a bit of a reckoning of coming to terms with not only the different sides of the band, but  admitting that some of the output was objectively awful. And getting into the deeps schisms of identity. I think it's a good first step that Irving Azoff spoke about the brand falling from the heights of Mount Rushmore, because that does actually admit that they fell from grace - and that is a completely accurate statement and a tragic one. The reasons are complex but I hope there can be some honesty in approaching those reasons without whitewashing, even if it means some members don't wind up looking all that great in the process. In fact, it's objectively necessary for that to be the case in order for there to be any honesty in the story.

Somebody earlier in this thread mentioned how the band/brand has never really been truly honest and that there's always been historical whitewashing of stuff in order to appease the egos of certain members of the band, in my view namely Mike. I hope that at some point there can be a proper in-depth documentary that talks real talk about some of the mistakes that the band has made over the years, and how ego and greed got in the way of art.

I know the goal of this type of massive monetary deal is not to "bring honesty" to the brand, but it's to monetize the brand. But I think somewhere along the line a balance can be struck, although I'm not sure if any of that is going to be in the lifetimes of the members of the band. It may be quite a long while before any real, objective documentary or book gets into the nitty-gritty of these issues that befell the band at the cost of not only great music, but at the cost of the mental health and physical health of the band members.

I think for fans to realize and understand the complexity of this band, and in order to grasp the full story and gain a greater appreciation for the great music that they made, an examination of why they took as many wrong turns as they took is just as important from a historical perspective. There's plenty of brand damage to be undone and to be unraveled.

The one thought that keeps crossing my mind, is why couldn't this have happened one year earlier before Mike inflicted so much damage on the brand in the year 2020? It's almost like they had to fall to this level of unprecedented dysfunction with the trophy hunting show and all of the Trump garbage in order to get them to realize how this was jeopardizing the brand. Or maybe the timing was just coincidental.

It's just pretty funny how most everybody, including myself, is happy at the idea that harebrained ideas like those shows probably won't continue to happen going forward under the brand name, yet for this restriction to happen mere months after a bunch of that awful negative stuff really makes me wish the timing could've been different. I still think that Mike crapped in the soup with regards to a potential forthcoming 60th anniversary reunion with his antics in 2020,  but that said I am trying to remain remain hopeful that this giant deal will effectively amount to damage control so that such things don't get any worse. And I am very excited for what this might bring with regards to future vault releases, first and foremost.

I've often thought that the last great way to reissue albums like Pet Sounds (which have been reissued a comically large amount of times) would be to release all of the discrete layers that are available. Multitrack sessions with each layer of overdubs in existence sitting in its own individual track, for fans to either "roll their own" version of songs, do remixes, or mainly just for study purposes to be able to marvel with wonder at the minutia that's been hiding buried deep in the mixes for decades.

It really feels like multitrack sessions are the unchartered territory which would finally offer fans (for a price) something truly new, it's the only way to get blood from a stone at this point for albums that have been remixed/reissued 3, 4, 5 times over. I'd definitely pay to own sessions for BBs albums. That said, I could also imagine later albums might have less flattering vocal bits, etc that the band might not want heard in isolation, but I hope they can just get over that fear in exchange for money.

I want to purchase some sweet, sweet Love You multitracks.

I do wonder if this will lead to all of the lesser music that has previously been officially released (but is now out of print) to become digitally available. Like Summer in Paradise, all the obscure Radio Shack compilations, Looking Back With Love, Stars & Stripes, that kind of stuff. Plus the halfway decent Still Cruisin'.

I have assumed that these were mostly out of print due to some (Mike mainly) being embarrassed, after all, SIP was omitted from some career spanning retrospective (was this on a website? I can't recall), almost as if it was a concerted effort to put horse blinders on the public. Maybe all that stuff will become available now, should be interesting.

Also it's interesting to think of the effect this megadeal will have on the market value of BBs items such as vinyl rarities, collectables, etc. I tend to think some stuff will go up, while probably a good deal of others will go down, since surely this will make some previously unavailable items now newly more easily obtainable, be it repurposed vintage BBs clothing designs (I'd love to see the ultra rare Smiley Smile LP official sweatshirt, which was advertised back in 1967 in the BBs fanclub as I recall, be reprinted), or newly digitally available old tracks that have been hard to find for decades.

If they're smart, they'll do official reprints of all sorts of old band t-shirts that were at one point for sale. I'm sure there's a market for even stuff like the Brian Wilson "Delicious" shirt that he wore in 1979, after all there are sellers who have recreated such obscure designs and I'm sure are selling some product. I guess the cottage industry of those types of items may wither away if identical official designs are released. Or how about doing a run of psychedelic polyester shirts that are based on the identical design that Brian, say, wore in some famous photos from the Smile sessions? I might be down to buy one. Many possibilities.

This new version of BRI (what will it be called?) should take fan requests for such items in an official capacity. There's money to be made, the super fan nerds will buy cool stuff like this if it's made right and marketed right.

Plus I could see a bunch of really cool and rare Youtube material getting taken down unfortunately, so I hope people are finding ways to save and back up stuff in advance.

All of this is extremely interesting - I'm tentatively positive.

An aspect of this hinted at in the articles is the 'brand' continuing after all these guys are gone - hopefully a loooong time into the future. But how would people feel about the Beach Boys touring in, say, 10-20-30-40 years from now without any original members on stage? Sort of like what has been going on for decades with the Drifters, the Glenn Miller Orchestra and similar log-gone acts. Personally, I wouldn't mind if it was pulled off in a tasteful manner but I'm sure there are many differing opinions about such a scenario.

If that happens, they had better not call that touring entity "the Beach Boys", but rather call it "the Beach Boys experience" or something of that nature. It would essentially be a cover band, no harm in that as long as it's not pretending to be the real thing.

If only this had happened in 1961...

I was thinking that it's kinda sad that it's at this late date in the band's career that they (seemingly) figured out how to do things right about this stuff. Better late than never, I suppose.

It's really quite fascinating to think about the reasons for why this didn't happen sooner. I guess mismanagement/dysfunction runs deep in the roots of this band, but maybe it's because either they didn't really seek something like this out themselves, or maybe the right person and right deal just rarely came along to make an offer to them.

Jack Rieley apparently gave the band a really great pitch, and found a way to appeal to the differing factions at the time. What he said must've sounded logical and convincing. Plus, the band were probably pretty desperate to course correct at that point due to their popularity in being in free fall.

I have to think that Azoff must've figured out the way (obviously, money and deep pockets talk, but still it must've been pitched with wisdom, grace, and forethought on how to appeal to all the band members/wives, etc.) to convince them that this was the right thing to do. I mean, they only really had to cede a level of control in order to cash in, and cash in big.

I am guessing that Mike and the others saw their contemporaries selling their catalogs lately for big bucks, so maybe that laid the groundwork a bit for The BB members to think that if Bob Dylan, etc. bit on similar deals, that it would be wise to follow suit, much like corporations doing copycat moves once it seems that other corporations who have their sh*t better together have done similar moves first.

But really, maybe it ultimately was (as I mentioned before) more a matter of the desperation to have income coming in during pandemic times, to make the members (and any stubborn holdouts) realize that this is a wise route to go. Maybe they had to have their income drop off to a point where they HAD to figure out a plan B.

I also have to think that the decades of fine work of Mark and Alan, Howie and Jon, etc. paved the way for this to happen, since they all have been and continue to be trailblazers in leaning into deep exploration of ridiculously untapped creative wells of music in the band's vaults. I can't think that the work those guys have done didn't help plant the seeds for someone with BIG bucks to come along and realize how much potential there really is.

The staggering greatness and obvious undervaluing of this band has been hiding in plain sight for a LONG while now.

Lost in all this is a nice little blurb in the RS article where Brian mentions (in addition to daily walks....which is a good sign re: his back) working with a vocal coach 3 times/week. That’s usually a good indicator some *current* activity is going to be taking place...

That is super news indeed

Maybe that’s why Mike was under his own name at mar lago.

I was thinking the exact same thing.

And as evidenced by the amount of news articles that stated The Beach Boys were playing that gig, the brand confusion of "Just Mike Love" vs. "The Beach Boys" is a real thing, and damage has been done.

Hopefully this new deal will go a good ways to try and repair things, they'll have a lot of work to do.

I’m also going to be negative here, sorry everyone. I don’t know as much as a lot of members here do, but what I do know is that Irving Azoff has too many artists already that are well-loved and he doesn’t do enough with them as it is. The only news about Journey recently is the band splitting in two - sound familiar? Don Henley and Irving Azoff refuse to put out any archival Eagles material, which would be a huge chunk of money for them. Bon Jovi hasn’t done anything of note after 2015/6 other than the reunion with Sambora at the R&RHOF. I had no problem with Mike selling some of his publishing to them, but the entire brand? That’s too risky in my opinion. Sure, the band mismanages everything as it is, so maybe a minority partner could have helped, but this is just too far in my opinion. I can’t read the RS article because of their new paywall, so does it break down the percentages of BRI now? I’m not surprised that Mike did this for the money, but I really am about Brian and Al (and a little about Justyn and Jonah).

The two positive things I will say is it would be nice to have some more merchandise and to bring back the SiriusXM channel. I appreciate some of these ideas, but I’m still very skeptical. Maybe when the guys pass away (which I don’t want to happen for a while), their children could have sold a bigger stake, but not yet IMO.

Azoff isn't "managing" the band in the way he does those other artists.

Iconic is essentially sort of taking on the Beach Boys/BRI the way they would the estate of Elvis or Prince or something. There may yet still be some areas where the band can create *new* material, but I doubt Iconic was betting on that when they cut this deal.

I don't think we'll see *less* product, including archival releases. We'd likely see *more*, because the whole point of buying into the BBs/BRI is to monetize it and capitalize on their investment. And also, and I can't emphasize this enough (and Al specifically mentions this as well in the interview surprisingly), cutting this deal has *removed* the roadblock of stuff getting bogged down in the Brian-Mike-Al-Carl's Estate voting bottlenecks. There is now one entity making the final decisions. Backroom politics and back-scratching aren't really at play any more.

I'm sure this is why the deal *had* to be for a majority stake. Why would any company pay a ton of money for a minority stake, where they'd still be beholden to the same politics and dysfunction that have been going on for decades?

It sounds like, stunningly, the band members *like* the idea of the decisions being taken out of their hands. Either way, they got a *s**t-ton* of money to do it.

And, for what it's worth, from what I'm hearing *right now* and what I've been hearing in recent weeks and months, things are *good*, and getting better in BB land. "Feel Flows" will hopefully just be the tip of the iceberg. Amend that with a million asterisks if you want, but I'm hearing *good* things right now.

I don't think it's impossible that we could end up looking back at this and thinking that they should have cut a deal like this 10 or 20 years ago.

Without spilling beans about specifics you can't divulge, would you say it's fair to surmise that this whole Azoff deal being negotiated during 2020 was only an element of, and not the sole reason, for the FF set being jeopardized last year?

I tend to think that the big bucks of this deal (and what must have been a convincing pitch to all BRI members) finally convinced Mike that it would be in his best financial longterm interest to put aside his limited vision for branding of the band that could have curtailed the full vision for FF.

I also have to wonder if this whole deal would never have happened had the pandemic not forced all the parties to be able to sit around with time to think stuff over, combined with their income being jeopardized, resulting in the perfect situation to receive (and respond positively to) a smartly-worded pitch from an outsider with deep pockets - who I'm assuming sounded like they knew the best way to monetize the brand for years to come. If so, it's an amazing batch of lemonade to come out of the lemons of this awful pandemic.

I hope that Irving Azoff becomes known as the 21st century Jack Rieley for the brand, and does as much to lift up the brand as Jack did back in the day.

I'll say this: The "circular firing squad" was a reference to actual members. There were roadblocks to "Feel Flows" being put up by *people*, not companies.

Thankfully, it appears a bunch of factors, including the simple passage of time, some shifts in power/leverage, and just perhaps some realization that more product is good for everybody, have dictated that "Feel Flows" is on the way to us, and more good things are in the offing.

Amen to that.

I’m also going to be negative here, sorry everyone. I don’t know as much as a lot of members here do, but what I do know is that Irving Azoff has too many artists already that are well-loved and he doesn’t do enough with them as it is. The only news about Journey recently is the band splitting in two - sound familiar? Don Henley and Irving Azoff refuse to put out any archival Eagles material, which would be a huge chunk of money for them. Bon Jovi hasn’t done anything of note after 2015/6 other than the reunion with Sambora at the R&RHOF. I had no problem with Mike selling some of his publishing to them, but the entire brand? That’s too risky in my opinion. Sure, the band mismanages everything as it is, so maybe a minority partner could have helped, but this is just too far in my opinion. I can’t read the RS article because of their new paywall, so does it break down the percentages of BRI now? I’m not surprised that Mike did this for the money, but I really am about Brian and Al (and a little about Justyn and Jonah).

The two positive things I will say is it would be nice to have some more merchandise and to bring back the SiriusXM channel. I appreciate some of these ideas, but I’m still very skeptical. Maybe when the guys pass away (which I don’t want to happen for a while), their children could have sold a bigger stake, but not yet IMO.

Azoff isn't "managing" the band in the way he does those other artists.

Iconic is essentially sort of taking on the Beach Boys/BRI the way they would the estate of Elvis or Prince or something. There may yet still be some areas where the band can create *new* material, but I doubt Iconic was betting on that when they cut this deal.

I don't think we'll see *less* product, including archival releases. We'd likely see *more*, because the whole point of buying into the BBs/BRI is to monetize it and capitalize on their investment. And also, and I can't emphasize this enough (and Al specifically mentions this as well in the interview surprisingly), cutting this deal has *removed* the roadblock of stuff getting bogged down in the Brian-Mike-Al-Carl's Estate voting bottlenecks. There is now one entity making the final decisions. Backroom politics and back-scratching aren't really at play any more.

I'm sure this is why the deal *had* to be for a majority stake. Why would any company pay a ton of money for a minority stake, where they'd still be beholden to the same politics and dysfunction that have been going on for decades?

It sounds like, stunningly, the band members *like* the idea of the decisions being taken out of their hands. Either way, they got a *s**t-ton* of money to do it.

And, for what it's worth, from what I'm hearing *right now* and what I've been hearing in recent weeks and months, things are *good*, and getting better in BB land. "Feel Flows" will hopefully just be the tip of the iceberg. Amend that with a million asterisks if you want, but I'm hearing *good* things right now.

I don't think it's impossible that we could end up looking back at this and thinking that they should have cut a deal like this 10 or 20 years ago.

Without spilling beans about specifics you can't divulge, would you say it's fair to surmise that this whole Azoff deal being negotiated during 2020 was only an element of, and not the sole reason, for the FF set being jeopardized last year?

I tend to think that the big bucks of this deal (and what must have been a convincing pitch to all BRI members) finally convinced Mike that it would be in his best financial longterm interest to put aside his limited vision for branding of the band that could have curtailed the full vision for FF.

I also have to wonder if this whole deal would never have happened had the pandemic not forced all the parties to be able to sit around with time to think stuff over, combined with their income being jeopardized, resulting in the perfect situation to receive (and respond positively to) a smartly-worded pitch from an outsider with deep pockets - who I'm assuming sounded like they knew the best way to monetize the brand for years to come. If so, it's an amazing batch of lemonade to come out of the lemons of this awful pandemic.

I hope that Irving Azoff becomes known as the 21st century Jack Rieley for the brand, and does as much to lift up the brand as Jack did back in the day.