Believe me, I've been hanging on every word you've posted.  Thank you so much.  And I'd love to see the PDF, too.  I'll PM as requested.


         Love and merci,   Dan Lega

    For you people who say there is something almost criminal in what is being done to Brian, that there are mean people who are forcing him to do things he doesn't want to do, please let me know how you know it is best for Brian to do nothing.  Please, give me your professional expertise on how Brian sitting on his ass and doing nothing is better for Brian than what Melinda and David Leaf have gotten Brian to do.  At least give me some examples of people who have sat on their ass and done nothing and were much the better for it, as compared to when they were being socially and financially constructive. 

     (And are you telling me that never once in your life have you been scared to do something but did it anyway and found out afterward that you were really glad you did it -- or were at least you glad you tried it?)

    So, please, tell me how you KNOW that Brian would be better off if he had retired ten years ago.  Please describe to me the horrible consequences that have taken place because Brian has been pushed to be active these past ten years.  Once you do that you might have a point.  As it is, your point is ridiculous and pitiful. 

    Just so you know, this is what your whining comes across as... "Oh, Brian has given us so much already he shouldn't be made into a trained monkey and forced to perform for us!"   Well, if that's all the brain capacity that Brian has left, then yes, I would probably agree with you that he shouldn't be made to perform.  However, first you've got to prove to me that Brian has that much brain damage.  And if you can't prove to me that Brian is as brain damaged as that, then as I said above, you have to prove to me a productive human being is worse off than an unproductive one.  Especially one who is productive doing what he loves the most, which in this case is writing, recording, and performing music.

     As for people who are intimating that David Leaf and Melinda are doing who knows what to Brian (Chinese water torture?  Locking him in a cage?  Making him eat his vegetables?) I just think that is sick.  Either say what you know and back it up with evidence or keep your trap shut, I say.  How exactly are unfounded *secret* rumors supposed to help us?!?!


           Love and merci,   Dan Lega

It's only $17.13 at Amazon.com.  I don't know how much postage and handling is, though.


Love and merci,   Dan Lega

    I just ordered the new "Pet Sounds" 40th Anniversary CD -- but now I'm reading that the CD has a credit for the Joe Gastwirt(SP?) 2000 Mono mix instead of a brand new mono mix from the recently discovered master; there's a drop-out in Sloop John B in the mono master that doesn't appear on any other CD's; and there are problems with some of the video transfers.  (For more info, see the other topic about it on this board.)  Any comment on these comments, Mark?


       Love and merci,   Dan Lega

     I must have payed about the same price when it first came out -- and as far as I remember mine did not have a replica booklet in it!  Looks like a great deal to me.


             Love and merci,   Dan Lega

     So I finished Peter's book.  The best parts were the "Brian in high school" stories, and what seemed to me to be new info from David Sandler, Stan Love, and Andy Paley.  Am I right that these guys were all interviewed newly for this book?

     I'd have to guess that Cam and his cohorts are not going to like this book in the least, though.  Mike Love seems to be painted as the "villain" of the story just as much, or more, than he was in David Leaf's book.  Now this doesn't bother me in the least, as I think Mike has made some really stupid choices through the years.  But I don't think it's going to sit well with some members of this board.

      Anyway, it's a very nice addition to the growing Beach Boys bookshelf.  I'm eagerly awaiting the David Marks book now.  Hopefully both of these books will sell quite well and open the gates up for even more books about our favorite band!


                 Love and merci,   Dan Lega


 

   Where did you read that the first contact was made by Frank's lawyer?  No one said that.  In fact, Mark said Frank and he were working together and produced a T-shirt before complications set in.


          Love and merci,   Dan Lega

     Just a little more on Frank Holmes and the deal that fell through.  (Where is the archive with all this stuff for new folks to go through?!)

     Management (essentially Melinda, I believe) kept asking Frank what dollar amount he thought he should get if they used his art.  Frank then asked how and how much they were going to use his art?  Was this a license for all time or a one time use in the program booklet?  Management came back and only asked how money he needed.  Frank asked again for clarification of how and how much they were going to use his art.  Management again asked only how much he needed.  Well, Frank threw out a ball park number -- which was equivalent to what it was costing for them to pay wages and costs of one member of the band for a month and a half.  Frank thought if they didn't like that number that they would then finally come in and discuss his questions and try to see if they could out a mutually agreeable deal.  However, management just flatly refused his offer.  No discussion whatsoever.  Just a "We think that's way too much money to ask.  Goodbye."

      ... and that was that.

            Love and merci,   Dan Lega

      Whether you think some of their other songs are lecherous or not, I still defy anyone to show me one line in "I Wanna Pick You Up", other than the opening line, that even comes close to something that hasn't been done innocently with babies for generation upon generation upon generation.  "Pat her on the butt"?  Please tell me one time you haven't held a baby and didn't pat him or her on the butt!

      Okay, I admit, I totally forgot about Brian saying the song was about someone wanting to treat his girlfriend like a little baby.  That is really weird.  Still, I defy you to show one instance in this song (again, other than the jokey opening line) that gives any impression of the sort.  I'm not talking about inferences you want to pull from other songs, I'm talking about this song only.  But why would Brian give such a weird explanation as this?  I don't rightfully know.  Perhaps because he was embarassed about writing a cute little song about a baby and thought that something as innocent as that would not sell to teenagers?  That's the only "rational" explanation I can come up with, otherwise, I really don't have the foggiest clue.  But remember, Brian is known for the "put on".  Also, he's lied about so many things over the years, and what was that weird answer he gave to what constitutes "The Elements" in SMiLE -- something like "H&V" is earth and "Good Vibrations" is air, etc.  Brian doesn't always answer every question truthfully.   

      Someone said something about "don't defend Brian with 'Oh, that's just Brian'".  I guess I am defending him, but I'm not defending him from being a lecherous old man or a child molester, because first you have to prove to me that there is evidence that Brian in his thirties was a lecherous old man or a child molester.  If there was any evidence he did these things I would not defend him.  Just as no one defends him being out of his mind and offering hard drugs to his children.  You can say Brian is lecherous because he wrote songs about teenage girls when he was in his thirties.  However, that is not really enough evidence.  As far as we know he never did anything with teenagers when he was that age, so I don't have to defend him from being a true lech.  Also, if you look carefully as songs such as "Roller Skating Child", "Let Us Go On This Way", and, yes, even "Hey Little Tomboy" you'll find that they were most likely written in the voice of a teenaged male.  There's not a single line is any of those songs that suggest that the protaganist is a much older male.  Therefore, I don't even have to defend him for writing numerous lecherous songs because in my view he didn't.  Okay, now we get to "Lazy Lizzie".  I'll admit, this does seem to be a song with strictly lecherous overtones, but it's the only one you can make an airtight case for.  And since we have no evidence that Brian really was lecherous, then I don't see why you need to condemn the man and all his other songs for one song that is a bit unsettling and unpleasant.   

       
             Love and merci,   Dan Lega

    Sorry, but I think it says much more about you than about the Beach Boys to say you find some weird sexual vibe in "I Wanna Pick You Up". 

    Even if some of the other songs have a vaguely lecherous feel (which I don't think they do,) I still don't see how anything other than the obviously jokey title has anything even remotely sexual in it.  As for "Rolling Skating Child" and "Let Us Go This Way" being lecherous, yes, the songs were written by a guy in his mid 30's, but I think it's plainly clear that Brian wrote from the viewpoint of male teenager, not a 35 year old guy.  I don't find the songs lecherous at all.


           Love and merci,    Dan Lega

     I'm a little more than halfway through the book.  It's definitely a good read and I'll have more to say later on, but I just read Peter's description of "I'm Wanna Pick You Up" and I have to say I was really upset by it.  Yes, I've read a few other people write essentially the same thing on the internet, but it didn't disturb me as much as seeing it in print in a real book.  Peter, I don't have any idea how you come up with your disturbing ideas about the song.  The second line of the song goes, "Cribs and cradles and bottles and toys, are part of joys they bring".  Now from there, how anyone could misinterpret the rest of song, which perfectly describes all things that parents do with children, into being some extremely weird sexual song is way beyond my comprehension.  The song is without a doubt nothing more than a story about a dad and his baby girl, albeit with a double entendre jokey title and first line.  This song has never done anything but bring joy to me.  However, your description of it makes me shudder.

       Love and merci,   Dan Lega

Call me the devil's advocate, but I do really think that Mike puts in extra time to perform these songs 1) To cater to the hardcore fans, and 2) Because he really loves the music.  Like I said earlier, he could easily EASILY do a 90-minute show every night.  They did that during most of the 90's when the Beach Boys were still together!!  But he takes the time and makes the effort to include little gems here and there when he clearly doesn't have to.

     Excuse me, Eric, but Mike did practically the same hour or hour and fifteen minute hits only show since the very early 80's!   I, too, am very happy to see his new set lists these past couple of years.  However, it's probably going to be a long time before I forgive him for 20+ years of very boring same-old-same-old set lists.  (And why they've been doing "Duke Of Earl" for about 10 years straight now I'll never know!  If Mike feels he's got to perform some old Doo-Wop song, then why not do a different one every year?)

           Love and merci,   Dan Lega

Yeah, but if they're going to get back together to do "Pet Sounds", they may as well do "SMiLE", too.  Maybe if Mike saw how much a live audience dug "SMiLE" he'd finally change his mind about the project!   


Love and merci,   Dan Lega

The "correct"  master is the one that has been on the album since 1966 .

     Okay, if you want to get into semantics, I guess I should have said the "original speed" version.  That's the version I prefer.


          Love and merci,   Dan Lega

     Any chance the new Anniversary Edition of Pet Sounds will have "Caroline, No" at the correct speed, and not the speed at which Murry thought it should be?  (That is, a new mix from the new original master slowed down to it's correct speed?)  It probably doesn't bother most people, but I really don't like the speeded up version of the song any more, because I can tell Brian doesn't sound like he really should.  Thanks.


          Love and merci,   Dan Lega

The version you want is available on the PS boxset. We wouldn't alter the mix on the the regular version of the album after 40 years.

Mark

      Yes, the correct speed version is on the boxset.  I was just hoping that since you've now found the true mono master that you would also put "Caroline, No" on the new disc at the correct speed.  That way we would have the best sounding mono master along with the best sounding mono correct speed version of "Caroline, NO" all on one disc.  I didn't expect that you would get rid of the speeded up version, it just would have been nice to have the correct speed version as an extra cut, thereby having both versions on the same disc so we could easily choose between one or the other all in the best possible sound.

                Love and merci,   Dan Lega

     Any chance the new Anniversary Edition of Pet Sounds will have "Caroline, No" at the correct speed, and not the speed at which Murry thought it should be?  (That is, a new mix from the new original master slowed down to it's correct speed?)  It probably doesn't bother most people, but I really don't like the speeded up version of the song any more, because I can tell Brian doesn't sound like he really should.  Thanks.


          Love and merci,   Dan Lega

"It's no big deal, but Wild Honey came after Smiley Smile, so Wild Honey would have been their latest release"

Only Wild Honey hadn't been released yet - they introduce the songs as from their forthcoming album to be in the stores before Christmas.

     Oh, well that makes sense, then.  Thanks for clarifying!

              Love and merci,   Dan Lega

The recent boot A Vocal Element with shows from Nov-Dec 1967 show the live band doing album tracks from Wild Honey as well as Pet Sounds material, and doing it pretty well.  Interestingly, no tracks from their most recent release, Smiley Smile, other than Good Vibrations.  No Heroes!

   It's no big deal, but Wild Honey came after Smiley Smile, so Wild Honey would have been their latest release.


          Love and merci,   Dan Lega

[finally]

My copy finally showed up in the mail today. I preordered the book from Amazon back in April -- after this experience, I won't be preordering anything from them again.

    That is terrible, Emdeeh.  I ordered mine from Amazon on Tuesday of last week and it arrived just a few days later -- on Friday!  And this was with free shipping.  It doesn't make any sense that it took so long to get your copy out.

          Love and merci,   Dan Lega

The Good Vibrations video is from a 1970 New Orleans TV show that the color Cottonfields clip also dates from.

Thanks for this info.  Do you know more about it?  Such as... was it produced and shown only in New Orleans?  Was it a show only about the Beach Boys or did it have videos and music from other bands?  Where can we view the color Cottonfields clip?  (Because for some reason I'm not remembering that at all.)  Thanks.


        Love and merci,   Dan Lega

     I love musicals, but jukebox musicals usually don't work.  And besides, this possible musical sounds fake.  Why use the names Charlie and Dennis?  It obviously brings to mind Charles Manson and Dennis Wilson, which is not a good association.  And what kind of musical uses canned music?  Usually musicals have the actors singing their songs.  If this is for real, good luck.  But it doesn't sound like something I'd rush out to see unless it were really cheap.  I'd have to think long and hard about paying Broadway prices for a show like this.


        Love and merci,   Dan Lega

I believe that over 95% of Brian's contribution (I'll leave 5% for "That sounds great" and "Could I hear that part again") - whether it be for the live presentation or the recording of the CD - was simply an exercise in karaoke.

Brian did ALL of his work on SMiLE in 1966-67; he never re-visited it again for any length of time. 2004's BWPS was the work of Darian Sahanaja, Jeff Foskett, and some Van Dyke Parks.

The way Brian's promotional team made it appear that Brian "finished" SMiLE was the best "Brian Is Back" campaign yet. And, in my view, it rendered the project a fraud.

     Look, when you say BWPS is "the *work* of Darian Sahanaja, Jeff Foskett, and some Van Dyke Parks" and that Brian's involvement was only 5% or less, and the project was a big fraud, then EVERYONE is going to think you mean that Jeff Foskett helped in the creation, e.g. sequencing and writing of new music and lyrics, for BWPS.   If you didn't mean that, then good.  But I don't see how you can write it like that and not expect it to be taken the wrong way. 

            Love and merci,   Dan Lega

I believe that over 95% of Brian's contribution (I'll leave 5% for "That sounds great" and "Could I hear that part again") - whether it be for the live presentation or the recording of the CD - was simply an exercise in karaoke.

Brian did ALL of his work on SMiLE in 1966-67; he never re-visited it again for any length of time. 2004's BWPS was the work of Darian Sahanaja, Jeff Foskett, and some Van Dyke Parks.

The way Brian's promotional team made it appear that Brian "finished" SMiLE was the best "Brian Is Back" campaign yet. And, in my view, it rendered the project a fraud.

    Your thinking that Jeff Foskett had anything to do with sequencing the new SMiLE just renders the rest of your observations moribund, also.  It may be true that Darian did it all, but I've never heard one bit of evidence that Jeff Foskett had made even the tiniest of contributions to SMiLE 2004.  Yes, he announced he was going to be helping with putting SMiLE together, but after that the only evidence we have is that Darian (and possibly Van Dyke) helped with the sequence, and that Jeff was totally out of the sequencing loop.  Jeff has never said he helped with the sequencing.

     But let's look a little more at Darian and Brian sequencing SMiLE.  Suppose Darian came up with an idea that certain songs might work together well, and then he and Brian agreed or disagreed.  Once they agreed, then they sat around and played with those songs in different sequences until Brian said he liked that or didn't like that.  Now, would that be Darian or Brian sequencing it?  To me it would be both.  Now if Darian just came in with a sequence and Brian just listened to it and said "okay", then, yeah, that would be as if Darian did all the sequencing.  But I don't think Darian worked that way.  I think he wanted to involve Brian in the best way that he could, and I think Brian was interested.  Obviously, you don't think Brian was interested at all.  But please don't say that Jeff Foskett sequenced it, there isn't one tiny tidbit of evidence for that scenario. 

As far as what did Brian do, I will say this: I'd bet my working kidney that he came up with the "hot as hell" lyric, which is probably something he came up with spur-of-the-moment. It doesn't sound like a VDP lyric at all; if it did, it'd be more like "the sun beats down on the clown as the unicorns sip from the azure sea" or some other kind of Lewis Caroll-ish bit.

There. I said that too.

      First we get Jeff Foskett helping with the sequencing and then we get Brian writing the "Hot as hell" lyric?  Whew!  Van Dyke has forthrightedly stated that he came up with the idea of putting a lyric in "Water", and that he himself wrote the lyric.  This info is not hard to find.

              Love and merci,   Dan Lega

[Smile]

Excellent question, and one to which everyone has their own preferred answer. I've a feeling the truth - whatever it may be, from "Brian did it all" to "Brian was just there for the cameras" (both manifestly untrue, of course) - will emerge in time. Applying the methods of Sherlock Holmes to the material of Brian Wilson is, at best, an exercise in frustration and driving down dead ends.

One thing that sould be writ large across the top of this, and every other page concerning this subject - from the go-get Darian has stated many times that the material performed live and on the CD was chosen because it would work best in a live context. This is a Smile, but not the Smile.

     I've only just now ventured to look at this topic, and I have no idea if I'll ever make it through more than these first few posts, especially seeing as how I just have to respond to the second post, which is by none other than my good friend Andrew!  Andrew, I'll admit that when Brian and Darian first started on this enterprise that the goal was to just cobble together a version that could be played live.  But from what I can see in the end product and from subsequent discussion and especially from the fact that Van Dyke Parks was brought in, I don't see any evidence that the SMiLE that was presented in concert is any less than a true attempt to FINISH the album!  Please show any other evidence that SMiLE 2004 might be watered down for a concert presentation only.  Were there parts that were left out because of the difficulty of playing?  If parts were left out, then why didn't they put them back into the CD version?  Sorry, Andrew, but this idea doesn't fly with me one bit.  As I said, it does look like they started it that way, but from all evidence I've seen is that the concept changed and they truly tried to finish SMiLE as best as they could.  Show me one part that was left out because you think it was too difficult to play or sing and maybe I'll change my mind.


           Love and merci,   Dan Lega

    I can't find this article on the Iceberg website.  You didn't make it up, did you?


                Love and merci,  Dan Lega