start BBtoday posted the following...

All right. Here's what this comes down to.

The insiders making everyone play the guessing game comes across as, for lack of a better term, douchey. Call that trolling if you want. I don't care. I can go back to not posting in here for months at a time.

As some background, I'm a journalist. There's plenty of things I know about my subject of expertise that I can't report publicly. Do I go into forums and make people guess what I know and don't know and then not tell them what is and isn't true? No, that would be extremely bizarre and narcissistic behavior.

Say what you know. Don't say what you can't. This doesn't seem that hard."

Isn't that EXACTLY what we have been doing?? Say things we KNOW, and don't say things we CAN'T. And It is fucking hard because when we follow that code to try and inform people as best we can we get blowback from mental giants like you who can't seem to understand that this is only being done to support the project as it was created by the team that was hired to create it. No one, let me repeat NO ONE is MAKING you play a guessing game. In fact we have suggested that you don't because it's not helpful to the cause of getting the full box released in it's best form. But guessing is human nature, and when the guess is significantly wrong some of us have tried to steer things back toward a factual realm. Again a very very hard thing to do when geniuses like yourself divert the fundamentals into a distorted masturbation of obfuscation and inflated self. Howie has tried his best. Juggling an incredibly volatile and fragile situation out of pure love for the music. He shares what he can to enlighten some anxious fans. He gets called "Douchey" by YOU for doing that. Nice job man. You get the lets sh*t all over the best source we have award. Wear it proudly.

Thank you Hey Jude for clearing up the trifecta of cluelessness that several posts presented. I seriously don't know how you have the patience to deal with constant herding of the "unaware yet adamant" attitudes and expressions into the the direction of correctness and factual. Howie and I are reading some of the posts by people unwilling to accept a direct line to the inside and wondering is it even worth it. Hey Jude gets my respect for doing his best to guide people towards the truth. It's a very hard job and we appreciate it. I will say one thing, people keep citing "you said content had nothing to do with it" or Made in California or why is it being blocked etc... Take this in, the situation evolved from one place to another. You should have had the box months ago, it was blocked. That is history. Now is a DIFFERENT time in history. If you do end up getting the set, it may be missing things that were in the version that was blocked. Why is that? Because there are people who have expressed that they possibly would like to change it. The people who would like to change it are NOT the people who put together the box that you should have had months ago that was blocked. They wanted to give you something great and wonderful and inclusive. They worked hard on it and delivered. We are appalled that anyone would f*** with the formula they put together, but it's a real possibility and that is a bulletin directly from the inside. Not speculation. But as of now, i guess we're all in "we'll see" mode as things are still fluid as far as i know.

As far as I can tell there is no evidence that Mike has a problem with Dennis material.

This would only be true if there was no "evidence" that is not widely known to the public. I doubt many here would think that's the case.

Damn, I wish I would have known about this when it came out! Does anyone know where I can still listen to it? I've been trying to access it for a few days, but all the links on the site appear broken for me. I tried turning my ad blockers off and different browsers but I can't seem to get it.

I looked on their SoundCloud, but it only goes back so far and I don't see the Paranormal episode at all. Each time, the top of the page plays a random episode that doesn't have anything to do with the Stebbins episode. It played a 2016 rerun last night about Shadow People and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), which while that was really cool, it's not the 2019 BB and the Paranormal ep I'm looking for.

Big fan of Coast to Coast, Art Bell, Midnight in the Desert, etc., but I never thought it'd mix with the Beach Boys. Sorry to bump an old thread guys, checked the search but didn't see any other thread about it. Hoping maybe someone saved it...

First off I didn't even save a file of the show so I can't be helpful there. Honestly I don't think it was a very good match unfortunately. The producer who booked me seemed to understand that there was a lot of darkness and occult/spiritual related aspects deep within the Beach Boys story but once I was on the air it was obvious that the host did not know any of this stuff. His view of the Beach Boys was the typical fun, sun, innocence, positivity perspective, and when I attempted to relate that there was plenty of darkness and weirdness in both their story and their music he seemed to not quite get it. It was hard for me to turn that around in the time slot, and also the fact that the host was a pretty dominating presence so he wasn't really deferring to my perspective, but kept relating that the group was a positive counter to all the bad things about the 60's etc... I had David Marks phone in to talk about his mom (a known psychic and huge influence on Brian's spiritual outlook) but it seemed the host was more interested in asking Dave about the standard stuff instead of the weird stuff. So the show kept diverting to a typical Beach Boys interview about how cool, and fun they were, instead of how strange and dark they were. It was ok I guess but not at all what I was thinking going in. I barely got to scratch the surface on all the trippy shadowy paranormal and even scary stuff in their story. Even relating that their most celebrated album Pet Sounds was a mostly sad, searching and melancholy work of art was met with seeming bewilderment. So too bad.

[Solo]

I'm reading all of this as the Dennis Solo material is fairly safe, but not so much the Dennis Wilson Beach Boys material if that makes sense.

No that makes no sense, and if it did it's still wrong.

Great to hear from Jon and Howie this Sunday, albeit concerning. How anyone can question the past records and judgement of Alan Boyd, Mark L, Howie and Jon (not sure the level of involvement from Jon on this particular set) is be strange to me at least.

I'm just a fan advocating for my friends hard work which I know cannot be improved upon by anyone else. As always I remain independent of the machine.

What Howie is communicating is that the set which has been meticulously curated by the right people is in danger of being revamped by what are potentially the "wrong people" (my words not his), and the Dennis Wilson material is a great example of what could be lost should this revamp occur. By sharing that the DW "solo" material is indeed included in the submitted version of the set he's revealing how truly comprehensive it would be if left as is. The alarm is that it may not be left as is.

[POOPS/HUBBA HUBBA]

The amount of unreleased and alternate material assembled is major -- beautiful work from ALL members of the group. Everyone shines on this thing. It's Abbey Road-Beach Boys -- and would ABSOLUTELY be lauded for being just that.

The current assembly features a good 25 minutes of Dennis Wilson's POOPS/HUBBA HUBBA material -- to lose that would truly be a sin (and, obviously, a colossal sales deterrent.)
I know from my liners alone -- drawing from both new interviews and others culled from chats with the band on this material over the past 15 years -- the story of this era breathes new life into the brand.

Knowing from you all what EVERYBODY wants from this collection -- I really can't see how this set could be improved, if altered.

"...to lose that would truly be a sin..."

"...I really can't see how this set could be improved, if altered."

This is painful. A fucking tragedy. Especially if the set is taken in a less expansive direction from the one already submitted for release. Just the thought of altering that, lessening that, denying it's exposure would be a very sad result. Perhaps a bunt instead of a grand slam. Thanks for always battling for what's good for the Beach Boys Howie.

CD, all great points...especially about this being the first post Capitol years release.

It was shared on the EH forum that someone from supedeluxeedition wrote:

"ok phil and everyone. here is the lowdown on why its being delayed/ canceled. there seems to be issues of legality and the final song selection =.the reason being that there were so many different writers of songs at that time.sooo we well have to wait…… and wait …. and wait."

Though as was pointed out, the "final song selection" problem would go against what Howie said about the track listing being already completed. So who knows.

Howie knows. You do not have to wonder about that. No speculation needed. All the other "maybe it's this, or maybe it's that" chatter is useless. Take what Howie said as direct and solid information.

I find it amazing reading through this thread that so many people have learned nothing about this band's fatal flaw...which historically is of course themselves. And definitely not all of them. Howie laid it all out for you in big flashing letters, but some people are still stumbling around, confused, wondering if it's Covid-19, or marketing, or the label that's holding this up. Jesus, c'mon people. Look at the f'n history of this band. Read Howie's posts because he knows everything. He can't name names because he's a professional with bridges intact and trying his best to keep them that way. This box could have been released months ago. It could have a solid release date right now. It's ready. We want it. The label wants it. But that can't happen because the circular firing squad is doing their thing ...again. It's often a one or two man circular firing squad BTW. People have written chapters in book's about it. Maybe this will get worked out, it doesn't look great right now. But if you wonder why? Look at the history of the band, the answer is obvious. Finding a way to f*** up a beautiful thing. It's in the DNA of the Beach Boys.

Al played a modest amount from Sunflower to Holland, didn't he? Not that I can think of much outside of his own songs but he seemed more active instrumentally. Then of course Come Go With Me, and later MIU. It's pretty strange that Carl and Dennis were playing all over 15 Big Ones and Love You but Al basically only turned up for vocals, and in the case of 15BO quite a bit more than them on that end.

I think that's likely due to proximity - Al lived in Big Sur by then, whereas Dennis and Carl were still in the L.A. area. I'm guessing Al was in town whenever needed for vocal sessions, but didn't worry abut being there for the instrumental tracking, unless it was his song.

Very interesting. During the period when the band owned Brother Studio, where exactly in town was everyone living? I'm wondering how many minutes it would've taken them to get there if they had the inclination to record on a whim. Did Dennis actually have a residence in Santa Monica or nearby? And how about the others?

Dennis lived on his yacht the Harmony in Marina Del Rey for much of that period, just minutes from Santa Monica. He also had residences in Malibu and Venice that overlapped that period. But you could say he virtually lived in the studio on and off as well.

The two-fer liners are full of errors giving Beach Boys fans loads of incorrect factoids to throw them off of actual understanding of the history of the band. Don't know why but it seems not much fact checking was done as part of the editing process. Shabby and yes weird. I was asked to write liners for one of the late '70's two-fers and when the late Paul Atkinson of Capitol called me to offer the job I said sure as long as I can write that one of them was a mostly crap album. He laughed, said I was right, and I didn't get the job.

Rich girl from the wealthy tourist enclave of Lake Placid, NY who used daddy's NYC connections to get a record deal...

So hard to respect any artist who used daddy's connections to get a record deal, oh wait...

Two things I can confirm. Kim Fowley definitely had a Rolls Royce. He had a driver. He came to my apartment in Century City in 1979 to inquire about my band The Point after he'd heard our demo tape. Came in a Rolls. He also produced Helen Reddy sessions at Brother and told me Dennis treated him wonderfully during that time.

Dennis knew about Chez Jays long before the POB sessions. Jay told me stories about Dennis being in there in the late '60's, maybe even earlier. I'm thinking he said he met Dennis around the time the TAMI Show was being filmed nearby at the Santa Monica Civic. Some of them came over to Chez Jays while that shoot was in progress. That was 1964.

Fascinating info, Jon. Thanks for chiming in. It makes sense to think of Denny (and maybe some of the others) going over to Chez Jays during The TAMI Show, since it's located literally walking distance from The Santa Monica Civic Center, where The TAMI Show was filmed.

And my understanding is that The TAMI Show was shot on 2 separate (possibly consecutive?) evenings, with the best performances from both shows edited together into 1 film. My mom was in the TAMI audience after a TAMI audience recruiter dropped by Santa Monica High School to get students for their audience, but unfortunately she doesn't recall any of those details - James Brown and Mick Jagger's swagger being the main things that stick in her memory all these years later. Funny enough, to bring back the Kim Fowley discussion, my mom was briefly roommates at UCLA in 1965 or 1966 with Kim Fowley's sister, Gretchen. Back then, it seemed one could just randomly witness or be tangentially connected to all sorts of LA music scene happenings purely by chance.

The only possible hitch with that idea of Denny visiting Chez Jay during TAMI is that Denny was still 19 (almost 20) when TAMI was filmed, and although he wasn't yet of legal drinking age, I have a feeling that they weren't exactly ID-ing slightly underage celeb rock stars with a bouncer at the door, the way many/most establishments might today. And that's just a guess, mind you - I actually have no idea, if in 1964, the band members were ID'd and turned away from bars before they were 21 - hard to say how things worked back in those days. Denny wasn't legal drinking age until Dec. 4, 1965, and Carl not until December 21, 1967, which was many, many years into their fame. Obviously those legal technicalities didn't stop them from underage drinking in general, I just wonder if they sometimes had ID-related obstacles at bars here and there.

If Denny indeed came to Chez Jay during TAMI's filming, it's crazy to think of him possibly being there in a striped shirt. It's remarkable that this timeline would make Chez Jay a place that Denny frequented for nearly 20 years.

Interesting about your mom and your sister! It's amazing how so many things are connected as you said. L.A. is still that way, everyone is somehow in the business, and if they aren't, their family or friends are.

I think Jay was saying the TAMI cast came over to eat, not drink. Remember Chez Jay's is a restaurant, they serve lunch too, and back then one of the few food places that was so close to the Civic.

Two things I can confirm. Kim Fowley definitely had a Rolls Royce. He had a driver. He came to my apartment in Century City in 1979 to inquire about my band The Point after he'd heard our demo tape. Came in a Rolls. He also produced Helen Reddy sessions at Brother and told me Dennis treated him wonderfully during that time.

I had been to Brother a few times starting in late '77. Soon after your run in with Kim he sought out my project, By that time his lifestyle was back to down and dirty. He lived off Hayworth, north of Sunset, in a regular 2 bedroom apt. He had no car.  Jo Jo Clark, a wanna be John Fogerty/Tony Joe White,  was his driver.
Kim was not good with money. At all. Ralph Peer II bailed him out regularly. I did, too, once, a few years later, by offering him my barren laundry room to stay in.  At the time you met him, he may have been riding high on Kiss money. The Helen Reddy advance wasn't too shabby, either.

The other project Kim & Earle did at Brother was The Quick (Great Buildings, Danny Wilde, The Rembrandts), for Mercury.

Kim told me Bruce stories. He also had stuff to say about Murry and Van Dyke Parks. None of it bad, really, it's just he had certain peculiar attitudes about people in his past.

For all I know the Rolls he arrived in when I met him could have been borrowed or rented. Just wanted to confirm that the one Debbie saw at Brother could have been his. Possible. In 79 Kim was working with Stiv Bators and recording his post Runaways girl group the Orchids. He had us come down to Kitchen Sync Studio and pitched us on writing songs for Stiv. Never worked out, but it was an interesting chapter in my life. I interviewed him in 99 for my Dennis book and he clearly remembered our band and the demo tape. He also shared about his history with Dennis , Bruce and the other Beach Boys. Liked Dennis a lot. Said this about Bruce "He knows how to join a Country Club."

John, my apologies for not suggesting you as someone who would know these things, and thanks for the info. Ironically, I wasn't especially involved at the time because I was very busy with, and loved my job at - yes - Bruce's country club - no kidding. I did house-sit at Dennis's home that he shared with Shawn at around that time near Zuma Beach in West Malibu. That was after he lived at Venice Beach (I think). I was never there. I was on Harmony once when Dennis caught me leaving an event where I had just left Brian because he had become impossible to deal with. Dennis yelled across the street to me, "Hey, Debbie, if I can get Brian to come with me to the boat, will you come take care of him?" As po'd as I obviously was, I said yes. Dennis gave me the directions to the boat where Brian had finally quieted down in the aft cabin. Dennis and friends were having a quiet party in the forward cabin while Brian and I just fell asleep - thank heavens. I got up the next morning and went to work. Such was life then.

Debbie thanks for sharing that story. Must have been so interesting being close to the Wilsons back then. I met Dennis in 78 and Brian in 79 and there were no other people like them. Child like spiritual souls. And Carl. It's almost like a holy trinity for me. Kim Fowley might be on the other end of that spectrum. But he was also really interesting. Hilarious that you worked at Bruce's Country Club. I almost fell over reading that!

Two things I can confirm. Kim Fowley definitely had a Rolls Royce. He had a driver. He came to my apartment in Century City in 1979 to inquire about my band The Point after he'd heard our demo tape. Came in a Rolls. He also produced Helen Reddy sessions at Brother and told me Dennis treated him wonderfully during that time.

I had been to Brother a few times starting in late '77. Soon after your run in with Kim he sought out my project, By that time his lifestyle was back to down and dirty. He lived off Hayworth, north of Sunset, in a regular 2 bedroom apt. He had no car.  Jo Jo Clark, a wanna be John Fogerty/Tony Joe White,  was his driver.
Kim was not good with money. At all. Ralph Peer II bailed him out regularly. I did, too, once, a few years later, by offering him my barren laundry room to stay in.  At the time you met him, he may have been riding high on Kiss money. The Helen Reddy advance wasn't too shabby, either.

The other project Kim & Earle did at Brother was The Quick (Great Buildings, Danny Wilde, The Rembrandts), for Mercury.

Kim told me Bruce stories. He also had stuff to say about Murry and Van Dyke Parks. None of it bad, really, it's just he had certain peculiar attitudes about people in his past.

For all I know the Rolls he arrived in when I met him could have been borrowed or rented. Just wanted to confirm that the one Debbie saw at Brother could have been his. Possible. In 79 Kim was working with Stiv Bators and recording his post Runaways girl group the Orchids. He had us come down to Kitchen Sync Studio and pitched us on writing songs for Stiv. Never worked out, but it was an interesting chapter in my life. I interviewed him in 99 for my Dennis book and he clearly remembered our band and the demo tape. He also shared about his history with Dennis , Bruce and the other Beach Boys. Liked Dennis a lot. Said this about Bruce "He knows how to join a Country Club."

Two things I can confirm. Kim Fowley definitely had a Rolls Royce. He had a driver. He came to my apartment in Century City in 1979 to inquire about my band The Point after he'd heard our demo tape. Came in a Rolls. He also produced Helen Reddy sessions at Brother and told me Dennis treated him wonderfully during that time.

Dennis knew about Chez Jays long before the POB sessions. Jay told me stories about Dennis being in there in the late '60's, maybe even earlier. I'm thinking he said he met Dennis around the time the TAMI Show was being filmed nearby at the Santa Monica Civic. Some of them came over to Chez Jays while that shoot was in progress. That was 1964.

It's worth noting that none of the still-living BBs command a super high price for autographs as far as I can tell. All of them have remained (relatively speaking) accessible to either get an in-person autograph or purchase one through official means.
 

I wonder what the oddest BBs item that's autographed by a BB member would be. Like has Mike ever signed (or been asked to sign) a copy of POB? He did cowrite lyrics on a song there. Same with if Mike's ever been asked to sign Imagination, seeing as he wrote original lyrics for the BBs remakes.

I was sent a promo CD with "You're Welcome" on it circa 2002 (if memory serves) from the Carl Wilson Foundation after having attended one of their events; I assumed it was pretty rare, and I had Brian sign it at a GIOMH autograph signing, along with a DVD-Audio version of Pet Sounds.

I recall seeing clips of Dave being handed assorted BB albums he didn’t play on to sign during the C50 and thinking that’s not right. It was probably easier to sign them than not I guess.

Al has been signing copies of the Surfin USA LP for more than half a century, probably thousands of them, not to mention receiving gold record awards for it etc... David has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to signing stuff that's not right.

I believe that's Jason Raphalian.

I'm taking the subject of the Beach Boys in a slightly different direction tonight on Midnight In The Desert radio. If you're up late please check it out!
http://midnightinthedesert.com/jon-stebbins/

He had surgery last year for a lung issue. As of his text to me yesterday he's feeling OK. Brother Dave has a lot of competing health issues but he keeps battling back.

I don't see this song as Psychedelic but more of a Sunshine Pop song with tons of delay and a crunchy keyboard texture. Things on Smile, Smiley Smile, 20/20 and even GV's have more of a classic Psych vibe than All I Wanna Do. It is closer to what the Turtles were doing but with an added production gauze that makes it trippier than the composition really is. Take all that away and Mikes vocal is pretty straight, the song pretty simple. Give Carl credit for pulling together an interesting mix that takes it to an artistic level that is unique in the Beach Boys canon.

Yes, Jon, I think it's really largely about the sonic trippy textures as well as the mix. I adore the sound of how near the end of the fadeout, the lyrics "my moon and the stars shine nightly" start to get out of sync from the song (I see this as a trippy artistic decision, although I suppose it's possible it was just a goof that sounds cool). I guess it's more just very interesting sonic textures and a mixing/production gauze that is fascinating.

It seems there's a whole generation of musicians who are gradually growing to see this song as a forerunner to modern psychedelic bands like My Bloody Valentine, Tame Impala, Slowdive, etc, and I definitely see a through-line too. It's unbelievavbly modern-sounding in certain ways, and it's particularly peculiar/baffling that The BBs never ever did another song that remotely sounds like it, in my opinion.

It's like they just reached into the future and gifted the world with a forerunner to a modern sound for one brief moment, then went back to 1969 and kept making music that sounded totally different from it.

I agree that the track is warped in a really good way, probably happy semi-mistakes in over-wetting and over-delaying and creating a very cool sonic traffic jam that if you've taken acid is probably familiar. Glad they left it weird and didn't try to clean it up. There is such a happy euphoric feel that then devolves into uncertainty and semi-cacophony. BTW I do hear Brian in the vocal mix for sure. I guess I have difficulty with this being thought of as pioneering psychedelia due to the fact that the composition just isn't and the fact that it was released quite a few years after the psychedelic genre had been defined and perfected and even moved on from by those who did it best. All I Wanna Do is either post-psychedelia impressionistic residue, or as you said it's pioneering something else entirely, like maybe surrealist synthy bliss rock. Anyway, great track, and it fascinated me the second it hit my ears back in the 70's.

I don't see this song as Psychedelic but more of a Sunshine Pop song with tons of delay and a crunchy keyboard texture. Things on Smile, Smiley Smile, 20/20 and even GV's have more of a classic Psych vibe than All I Wanna Do. It is closer to what the Turtles were doing but with an added production gauze that makes it trippier than the composition really is. Take all that away and Mikes vocal is pretty straight, the song pretty simple. Give Carl credit for pulling together an interesting mix that takes it to an artistic level that is unique in the Beach Boys canon.

Nice tracklist but what an awful album cover

That image is the cover of the 1968 UK Tour Program.

Jon - side question: it's very cool that we're getting multiple live versions of Little Bird... Do you know if Be Still or Be With Me were ever performed live? Same with Never Learn Not to Love (other than the Mike Douglas TV show version)?

While my recollection of rare live setlist selections is a little rusty, I don't believe any of those tracks were ever performed live outside of the Mike Douglas TV show where they sang over the pre-recorded backing track.

My recollection is the same as yours.

Nice tracklist but what an awful album cover

That image is the cover of the 1968 UK Tour Program.