Question:After 25 years what’s the best way for the band to stay together.

Brian:  Well just don’t hang out together. 

2.30 mark.

https://youtu.be/fa59eqdprF8

Wheeling Moon?

Great to hear him dealing with things in a positive way.  I have to admit I was a bit surprised at how archaic his previous attitudes towards mental illness were.  After all, he is a close relative of one of the most well-known mental health advocacy stories out there.

Great article. I wondered, as I read, how much he had heard growing up about Brian's mental health issues. Maybe very little, or maybe it was not taken seriously and blamed on drugs instead. We've seen what his Uncle Mike's attitude is.

I'm glad he's getting help.

"When somebody in your family suffers from a mental illness, sometimes it's gone past the opportunity to have a normal relationship," he says. "I mean, there may be a feeling that, ideally, you would like to see peace in the family. And I have nothing but sympathy for Brian. But when you say 'peace,' that would presuppose everything is peaceful. Well, when somebody has chosen a path or direction in life that has led to some pretty unhappy situations, everything isn't all right."

This is why I've said before that Mike needs  to go to therapy. Obviously he has never sorted out his relationship with Brian, nor why he resents him. More than that, he isn't even sure whether to blame the mental illness or the path Brian *chose* (since mental illness is not a choice). And maybe if he dealt with that, with his resentment about Brian, Dennis, Murry, etc., he could get a grip and control his anger in interviews, and stop sabotaging his relationships with his words.

I'm a fan of Rufus Wainwright, whose relationship with his dad, Loudon Wainwright, has been rocky. He has said that in the beginning of his career he made the mistake of using interviews as therapy, or opportunities to vent his anger and frustration. But he learned that it wasn't the time or place, and that it would only fan the fire, making his relationship with his dad more difficult. He learned that sometime in his 20s. Well, Mike Love is 76 years old. It's time to get some help dealing with his anger and resentment. It's been said over and over, but the TM isn't working.

Yes, there could have been any number of reasons why Melinda or Brian's management sent that email. Maybe Brian wasn't feeling well (physically or mentally) and was refusing to do any more shows, so someone sent the email. (Then Brian later felt better and changed his mind.) Maybe there was an argument or incident between Brian's camp and Mike's camp that led Brian's camp to decide they'd had enough. Why assume it was Melinda playing games? Maybe it was, but there's a possibility it wasn't. 

If we're to believe Mike, he got that email out of the blue. The weird thing is, why, upon receiving it, he didn't follow up and ask what the problem was, rather than go ahead and book shows without Brian? If my estranged cousin makes dinner plans with me and abruptly sends an email saying "Not going," I would reply to ask if everything is OK, especially if my cousin has health problems and a history of not wanting to go out to dinner! I don't just say to myself, "OK, I'll find someone else to have dinner with."

If you're going to tour with Brian Wilson (even taking Melinda out of the equation), you have to expect some unpredictability. That's why I think there's some context to that email that Mike's not revealing. Maybe, as some are speculating, "No more shows for Wilson" was in reply to an email from Mike's camp.

I'm guessing that based upon Brian's recollection and Fred Morgan's quote, that what he submitted in high school was a prototype of what became a surfing song later on, perhaps a partial musical phrase that wasn't a fully-formed song.

Are you saying his F should have been changed to an incomplete? 

That's cute. I only saw the photo of him walking away before.



@HHSCougars
 9h9 hours ago
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Guess who dropped by HHS to appeal that grade Fred Morgan gave to him? Dr. Landesfeind signed the grade change! @BrianWilsonLive now has an A on that assignment! @beachboyslegacy  #OnceACougarAlwaysACougar

On Brian's Instagram there's a photo of him at Hawthorne HS (walking away from the building), being filmed. Does anyone know the story behind this? I was hoping maybe they were making a documentary or something.

Thanks for the recommendations.

I'll disagree about "Screw It, We're Gonna Talk About the Beatles." I LIKE it because it's not nerdy and wonky. It's just a casual conversation. I listen to podcasts while I cook, and sometimes I'm just looking for something fun. In fact, I learned about it via a recommendation review. It received praise because it doesn't take itself too seriously.
That said, I'm looking forward to checking out some other Beatles podcasts...and some of the Beach Boys podcasts here.

I started listening to a podcast called "Screw It, Let's Just Talk About the Beatles," which features a group of Beatles fans sitting around talking about one Beatles album per episode and later gets into various other Beatles topics. It's not particularly nerdy, in that they don't talk about demos or different takes. They just have informal discussions about each topic, like they're sitting around having a drink and a chat. I've tried other Beatles podcasts that become monotonous after a while...just different ways of saying how great they were. This one is relatively light and fun...even funny.

I wonder if there are any Beach Boys podcasts worth hearing? I know Beach Boys podcasts exist; I'm just looking for recommendations.

I think "us" works because many, many people DO love Dennis's work. Perhaps you're not part of that "us," but it is an "us."

What a beautiful story, plus visual aids to make it even more vivid. Thank you for that. I love this thread.

I wasn't there, but the 60s seemed to be an era when fans didn't care if one band member was absent from a major album cover (or did they?), so I can't imagine them trying to figure out who was singing what.

I can't bring myself to dislike Noel Gallagher. He's been putting down the Beach Boys, along with a bunch of other bands, for years. Decades. But in this case, he counted himself as overrated, along with Brian.

If you've ever seen him interviewed, he's never speaking with anger or bitterness-- at least not as far as I can tell. He's very dry. He knows people love asking him, "What's your opinion of so-and-so" because he always gives a blunt, and sometimes hilarious, answer. To me, his dislike of Brian is the same as other people's. We all know people who think the Beach Boys are corny surfing music and don't listen enough to really hear the complexity or explore the deep cuts. Noel is probably one of those. But he's also more broad minded than his brother, who seems to love straight up rock and roll and nothing else. Noel likes Bacharach. I bet if someone sat him down and played him some of Brian's late 60s/early 70s stuff, he'd admit that it's good, if not great.

By the way, the Gallagher brothers' rivalry is more entertaining than Brian and Mike's. Liam called Noel a "potato," which is hilarious, for some reason. Noel has said Liam is "a man with a fork in a world full of soup."

I'd heard (earlier this year, I think) that he had dementia, the same form that he watched overtake his mother. He had such a hard road ahead of him. At least I'm glad he doesn't have to go through that anymore, but 67 is way too young.

I love that movie..very underrated...

I liked it but thought some of the jokes could have been better. But the Beatles scene, with the terrible accents, is worth seeing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6frgnqTo1eM

I wonder if VDP's attitude towards Brian these days goes back to OCA? I recall an interview where VDP talked about touring with BW in support of the album. Is Van Dyke bitter because that didn't happen?

He seemed fine with Brian in 2004, when BWPS came out, and he worked on TLOS too. I share others' suspicions that his current gripe is related to the Smile Sessions. He didn't write any of the liner notes. Perhaps he wasn't asked?

Van Dyke's feelings and experiences are shared by others who have worked with BW. They haven't necessarily shared publicized them as widely as Mr. Parks, but that doesn't make those feelings and experiences less real. An insider once told me that a "black cloud" seemed to follow Brian's collaborators.

Oddly, Tony Asher seems to one of those who remain positive about his experience working with Brian and the Beach Boys, unless I'm missing something. He worked on a one-off project that turned out to be enormously revered, and yet aside from major BBs fans, I'll bet a lot of people who sing along to God Only Knows have no idea who wrote those lyrics. And I assume (big assumption) that he had the same deal with Brian with regards to royalties as VDP had, given that one project came after the other. Yet, aside from expressing mild annoyance that his GV lyrics were replaced, and that Mike eventually got partial credit for WIBN (and swearing Mike had nothing to do with it), Asher seems to view his experience with fondness. I wonder if that's because he had a regular job for years (instead of being a freelance musician trying to make ends meet). Or it could just that he and VDP have different personalities, and he's less sensitive.

By the way, I thought VPD marveled that Brian wanted to go 50/50 on songwriting credits. Wouldn't that mean that VDP collects half the songwriting royalties for every recording of a song or songs from Smile? Or might the terms have been changed by the time he signed the agreement?

A Van Dyke Parks memoir would be a fascinating read, and not only for his perspective on the Smile experience. I bet he has some stories to tell.

How accurate is this?

https://famouskin.com/famous-kin-menu.php?name=40427+brian+wilson

This is a bit much. Well... I suppose if he IS a direct descendant of King Edward I, and all those other people are also direct descendants, then this would make sense. Not that I know much about genealogy. Maybe Brian should go on Finding Your Roots. If not him, then Carnie.

I never said I'd write them like headlines, although good headlines do share some qualities that would also benefit thread titles.  In essence, a good headline is one that conveys the gist of a piece in the shortest intelligible string of words. So less is definitely more... unless that less lacks context. "VDP on Twitter" tells me absolutely nothing about the conversation I'm clicking into, and as an editor, this annoys me. No offense.

I don't lose any sleep about Amy B's thread titles, and I don't particularly care if others don't find them annoying. I mentioned it, but in passing.  

I'm a writer and editor too. I guess i just have a different perspective. Out of curiosity, what would you call this thread?
Anyway, it's not a big deal. You clicked on it, so it worked. 

Finally clicked on this, another poorly named thread (sorry, I write newspaper headlines as a side gig), and once again found myself wondering what I'm missing about VDP.

I tend to create generic thread titles when I don't want to stir the pot. I wasn't sure WHAT to think about Van Dyke's tweet.
My other recent gem, "Interview with Mike," or whatever it was, was so written because I just wanted to post it without judgment. I'm not one to title a thread "Mike: Dennis Wanted to Join the Manson Family."

Twitter beefs and swipes are the territory of "stars" like Nicki Minaj and B-list rappers, not musicians of the caliber of a Van Dyke Parks. What's next, a "diss track" coming from Van Dyke?  

Aren't twitter beefs usually two-sided, though? I don't think anyone usually responds to Van Dyke. It's not like Brian gets on Twitter and starts returning the barbs.

My local advertising magazine has an interview with Mike. You can see the digital edition here-- the interview is on page 52.

https://issuu.com/wainscotmedia/docs/mreshl_oct_17_dig_edition

Ironically, it seems like what VDP is alluding to as far as what he'd *like* concerning Brian capitalizing on "Smile" is a *bit* like what Mike tried to argue in his mid-2000s "Smile" lawsuits. It sounds like, while VDP isn't actually arguing any legalities, that he'd like for "Smile" to be a kind of jointly-owned piece of work that he and Brian both reap financial rewards from when it's aired or used in any form. It's a bit like when Mike tried to claim all of the stuff including "Smile" was done under an implied partnership, etc.
I would assume VDP still collects his songwriting royalties checks. There's not much else, right? I would imagine in being invited back for the 2004 album that he made some coin off of that.

I'm sure this has been explained many times on this board, but can someone provide a simple breakdown of who gets what when music is made? There's an artist royalty (Beach Boys/Brian) and songwriter's royalty (Brian/Van Dyke). If Van Dyke already gets a songwriter's royalty for Smile, then he made money off the 2004 reissue AND the box set, right? Wouldn't he also get something when the song is used or performed anywhere?

Now...I know a lot of artists have complained that royalties are next to nothing, especially with downloads. The real money is in touring. So Van Dyke may not have made very much money from Smile. But what would be the rationale for lashing out against Brian for that? Is there anything Brian could do to cause Van Dyke to make more money?

It's interesting. A portion of his tweets are devoted to talking about himself and his own career, pointing out his achievements and his impressive childhood, as if he's saying, "Well, I should have been a bigger star, having been in a child prodigy, having known Einstein, having been in a movie with Grace Kelly as a kid, having been a composer from a young age, here's an artist I like, who I can't mention without saying what I did for his album... Since few people recognize all this, I'll point it out." He also makes a big point of being overly modest: "I'm just a beta male, I'll work with anyone, nothing is beneath me, I sweat bullets when I write music." It's a weird juxtaposition. Maybe the self-promotion is his way of drumming up work.

If, say, he didn't get any royalties from the latter-day Smile issues, I could see how he would be bitter.