While McCartney has always had a complex about a romanticized/martyred Lennon, I think in this case it was a valid complaint, even if McCartney was making it more out of defensiveness than historical accuracy. There are things in such movies that clearly would be nitpicking (wrong model or make of a vintage car), but having Lennon sing a song that, especially in more recent times reading Lewisohn's biography on the group, was clearly an integral part of the Beatles' early years and their fanbase and McCartney's development as a vocalist, is a pretty lame movie as a filmmaker.

A closer comparison would be if a Beach Boys movie depicted Brian singing the lead on "Surfin'" or Mike writing "Surfer Girl."

OK - but my point is not that it is acceptable or unacceptable in Backbeat or to compare errors on some kind of scale. The poster above suggested that they would never get a fact wrong in a Beatles biopic since people would care a lot more to get things right for The Beatles than they would for the forever-slighted Beach Boys, when in reality there are glaring errors in Beatles biopics.

"Backbeat" was not officially endorsed by the living Beatles or EMI in any way.  They didn't even have the rights to use any Beatles songs and depicted the only era of the group where it would be possible to use only cover songs.  I think comparing the accuracy of that film to "Love And Mercy" is suspect.

I really think a Beatles biopic with the full weight of EMI, Ringo/Paul behind it would probably strive for little details and minutiae like this to be correct, especially when referencing iconic album covers and filmed/photographed appearances.

Imagine a Beatles movie where they replicated the Rubber Soul photoshoot and they were all posed differently or any aspect of it was off.  Do you think that would fly? 

Or imagine a movie where it shows that John sang Long Tall Sally rather than Paul...oh wait, that actually happened and it flew quite easily.

It didn't fly with everyone:

"One of my annoyances about the film Backbeat is that they've actually taken my rock 'n' rollness off me. They give John the song "Long Tall Sally" to sing and he never sang it in his life. But now it's set in cement. It's like the Buddy Holly and Glenn Miller stories. The Buddy Holly Story does not even mention Norman Petty, and The Glenn Miller Story is a sugarcoated version of his life. Now Backbeat has done the same thing to the story of the Beatles."
-Paul McCartney

@ Ebb and Flow

I get fed up with these criticisms because they are downright pointless at the moment. Take VDPs hair: as I said above, no one has any idea if the hairdressers had done their job yet. You complained that the guys weren't posing on the woodie correctly - when you have no idea if the cameras were rolling or not. You claim "it wouldn't have been that difficult to get it right" (regarding the woodie) yet you have no idea what the budget, availability, timing was like for this project.

I really doubt it was a question of budget.  I can't imagine a yellow model A ford truck being any more or less expensive to rent for a day than the woodie they ended up using, though I'm not an expert in such things.  It's really a question of whether they cared enough to match the vehicle on the cover or not, which they clearly didn't.  I also think they might have thought a stereotypical woodie station wagon matched the Beach Boys early image more than reality.  And yes, I'm going to assume cameras were rolling when a bunch of dudes are posing for the cameras in costume.  Why wouldn't I?  It's not even really possible to pose the same way on that vehicle, which they probably found out on set.

I still think there's a difference between something like somebody's haircut and a scene that is specifically referencing a piece of visual iconography like an album cover.  Imagine a Beatles movie where they replicated the Rubber Soul photoshoot and they were all posed differently or any aspect of it was off.  Do you think that would fly?  Maybe The Beach Boys aren't deemed important enough to warrant that sort of attention to detail?

Again, I don't think the inaccuracies will have any bearing on the overall quality of the film, but I also don't think it's something that should be brushed aside as just something movies do.  Usually when movies are tasked to recreate certain moments that are based on a photograph or something iconographic they stick to the details.

I guess we can go back to discussing how a movie very few of us have seen is going to be nominated for best picture.

[So it's a shame that the haircut - presumably the easiest bit of period detailing to get right - is so not 60s looking.]

Ok, ok I sound mental. I don't usually get hung up on these things but that haircut looks too X Factor to me. I agree it's a great piece of casting as the actor is the spit of a young VDP. So it's a shame that the haircut - presumably the easiest bit of period detailing to get right - is so not 60s looking. 

I actually think these historically inaccurate stylings are deliberate. To make the characters more relatable to a modern audience maybe and I can cope with things that are deliberate rather than lazy. I know I still sound mental, obsessing over this haircut, but there you go. Very much still looking forward to the film though.

This isn't even a still from the movie. This photo could've been taken before a scene was shot (before the hairdresser did his/her job).

Regardless, I think his hair looks fine. Judging from the stills, the makers of the film were anything but lazy when it comes to accuracy (apart from the lack of a certain yellow truck that certain people here freaked-the-f*** out about). I think we were absolutely blessed to get such detail-oriented filmmakers to be apart of this project.

I was actually the one who first brought it up, and I'm pretty sure nobody here "freaked-f*** out about it".  It's an inaccuracy in a Hollywood production, and it was one of the only things that was actually leaked from the shoot.  I'm curious to see how it looks in the final film, but I still think it's kind of strange on their part to (deliberately?) change an aspect of the iconography from their first album cover, when it wouldn't have been that difficult to get it right.  If you want to call that "ridiculous nitpicking", or "freaking-the-f*** out" I guess that's your call.

Agreed - that 10 second iphone-recorded beach shot turned into probably 10 pages of ridiculous nitpicking. I can't imagine what this place will be like when the actual movie is released

What does the fact that there was a video recorded on an iphone have to do with anything?  There were also stills of them posing on the same car shot with a DSLR.  Whatever device a photo is captured on, it doesn't change the fact that the woodie used in the film to represent the Surfin' Safari covershoot isn't the same as the original cover.

I am looking forward to the film BTW.  Just wish people here could be more open-minded about any criticism levied at the film.  If the worst we can say about it is that they messed up a few of the details, it shouldn't be too bad of a movie.

In Ian MacDonald's book 'Revolution in the Head' he claims that The Beatles deliberately avoided fade-out endings (especially on their early records). However, when thinking about endings I realised that 'Our Prayer' and 'Girl Don't Tell Me' were the only BB songs I could immediately think of that don't fade out, any reason why Brian/the band used Fade-Outs so often?

Sorry, I know it's a pretty off the wall question

Brian nearly always let takes "break down" (both instrumentally and vocally) and never seemed to have any desire for the group or the studio musicians he worked with to create a cold ending.

IMO Girl Don't Tell Me is a nod to The Beatles. It is a very slight musical rewrite of Ticket To Ride and one of the few BB songs (besides the Party! album) to feature an acoustic guitar, overall the production is very Beatley.  The cold ending was probably deliberately done to sound more like a Beatles song.

Excellent review in Hollywood Reporter:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/love-mercy-toronto-review-730952

We meet Dano's version of Wilson just as he's asking for permission to stay home while the band tours in Japan. "I can take us further ... at home," he insists, saying he has ideas for intricately produced music that will make the Beatles' just-released Revolver sound like an also-ran

Probably because it WAS, released nearly three months after Pet Sounds.

The bleed through on Little St. Nick is there because they used the celesta/sleighbell track from the single version, which has "ghost" vocal leakage because it was overdubbed after the vocals had been recorded.

Pretty sure I had the same "Do It Again" tape as a youngster in the late 80's.  I listened to one BB tape in particular on my walkman frequently and remember This Car of Mine, Wendy, The Little Girl I Once Knew and the Live Graduation Day being in the track listing, so this comp must be it.

Oh, I forgot that this mix originated on Made In The USA.

I haven't seen the Big Chill in forever and don't remember what version is heard on that (probably duophonic).  But the alternate version heard on Made In The USA/Still Cruisin' was used in place of the single version because the master for the album/single version had been damaged (possibly lost as well).  Here's a thread about it:

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,2452.0.html

I think because Made In The USA was one of the first BB CD's, it took a while for this mix to get replaced by the "real" version.  I remember it was also used on The Wonder Years and other TV shows/movies.

It's the version from Still Cruisin'.

I like "He Come Down".  It's like a proto version of "That Same Song".  I definitely like it more than the Ricky/Blondie stuff, which is basically "The Flame: Feat. The Beach Boys".

Mess of Help and Marcella are awesome, the rest of it leaves me cold.  It's definitely the least consistent BB album.

Surfer Moon still doesn't exist in true stereo, only in mono and duophonic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT2pTH11-oc

That ain't duophonic, at least in the Capitol sense.  There's distinct stereo information there.  Duophonic would be taking a mono mix and adding a fractional delay to simulate stereo.  With Surfer Moon the mono backing track was reprocessed into fake stereo using EQ.  So you have low end EQ on left, high end EQ on the right, vocals in the center.  Not 100% true stereo, but also not entirely fake either.

I'm guessing they weren't satisfied with the raw stereo session master (heard on SOT Vol. 03) because it starts with Brian's lead vocal hard panned to the right.  Though they went on to release a few stereo mixes like that on Shut Down Vol. 2 only months later...so maybe not.

I love Mad Men but I do find it disappointing that the only nod to surf culture/music in the show was a brief scene in season 4 where Don is in California at a bar.  Staged in a very cheesy way and with Jan and Dean's "Sidewalk Surfin" played instead of something like Dick Dale or The Beach Boys.

I get that the show is set in Manhattan and the Beach Boys may not have fit stylistically/thematically but it does feel like certain aspects of 60's culture were glossed over or unexplored.  Also, could have just been cost prohibitive like KittyKat said.  Sucks that it costs so much to license music.

So were these CD's compiled by someone other than Boyd/Linnet?  Does it contain material or higher quality sources previously unknown to them?  Perhaps they were compiled by Andrew Sandoval circa Endless Harmony.

It makes me physically ill that dreck like "Goin To The Beach" was officially released before the material on these discs.  I wish they'd just put this stuff on iTunes already.

Let's do an exercise here, just for fun. I'll post another photo taken on the set and anyone who knows the story behind it and wants to comment can feel free to post any analysis, interpretation, or even assumption about what's being shown and how it relates to the film's overall quality. Keep in mind the film is still being worked on and finalized, I believe the Hollywood folks call it "post"? I'm not sure, please correct if needed.

Here goes nuttin':

I'll bite.  

Of all the songs on Pet Sounds to depict a session from on film they choose the title track, an instrumental that beyond the familiarity of the title is not exactly well known in their oeuvre.  "Wouldn't It Be Nice" or "God Only Knows" would have been much better choices and more familiar to people who aren't even familiar with Pet Sounds or the group in general.  Everybody has heard those songs and the sessions actually contain interesting moments that would be easy to dramatize.  

The "Run James Run" session is probably the least interesting from PS, however great the final track may be.  There's only about a minute of session chatter, it was recorded in 3 takes, used a fairly small personnel of musicians and IIRC nearly all of the tracks were separate overdubs.  Which means there are almost bound to be inaccuracies with how the session is depicted in the film.  Hopefully other, more iconic/interesting sessions from Pet Sounds are seen in the final film.

If you're talking about the overly cheerful voice calling the takes out on the talkback mic, that's not Brian.  According to c-man's sessionography in the SMiLE book Brian was playing temple blocks the 1st day's session and piano on the 2nd day.  I don't think it's ever been confirmed who that guy calling the takes out is.

It's definitely not a woodie, just a prewar Ford or Chevy pickup (not sure of the exact make or model year, trucks from that era tend to look pretty similar) rented for the shoot.  It was common for kids in 1962 to turn them into hot rods, which tied into the Beach Boys car subject matter more than the surfing aspect.

My vision is fine, I just find it boring to A/B the movie attributes with the real thing when watching shaky clip done on el cheapo cellphone. Bad quality really distracts your attention, I've noticed. Plus it's super short.

If you choose to decide to not care about the inaccuracy that's fine.  But it's another thing to say that the judgement can't be made from the video in question, regardless of what it was shot on.  It's clearly a different vehicle, different poses etc.  I think people want the movie to be good, and I understand that desire.  But choosing to ignore glaring inaccuracies and writing them up as some sort of limitation of cellphone video recording capabilities?  That's a new one on me.

[Today!]

I've been checking out the words to "I'm So Young" and there's a puzzle in the line following after "Pretty soon now, I'll go to sea". (The internet is singularly unhelpful on this score.)

In the version by The Students it sounds to me like "Then mother's baby, Will have seen the last of me". What's that supposed to mean? Will the singer have grown up after being in the marines? It's an odd way of putting it. It is doo-wop of course...   

In both BB versions (the one on Today! and the flute'n'drum alternative version) Brian seems to be singing "Then mother's baby, Has seen the last of me". Just as odd. Am I hearing it right? Any other opinions on this?

I've always took it as being specifically about the girlfriend's parents (though the last verse implies just the mother) keeping the two of them apart and the girl caving into their decision.  "Mother's baby" is referring to the girlfriend, not the narrator.  When he "goes to sea" she will have seen the last of him.

While the lyrics may not be entirely clear, perhaps it was written out of personal experience?

I guarantee that 98% of people will not notice that it is the wrong vehicle, wrong pants, shirts or whatever else people have pointed out here.

I guess I have higher standards than most, but honestly, how many movies about the Beach Boys are going to get made in our lifetimes?  It seems like a miscalculation to me to have a "good enough" attitude when it comes to a movie like this.

It's not something that will affect the quality of the movie in any direct way and I do feel bad derailing the thread with it.  But I do think with something like recreating the photoshoot for an album cover for a movie, you have a certain responsibility as a director/set designer/prop guy to make it somewhat match reality.  Almost everything else in the film not directly tied to a photograph or recorded performance they have some leeway with.  Imagine if recreating the Pet Sounds photoshoot they replaced the llamas and goats with dogs and cats.  They're still animals, so good enough!  Llamas are too expensive to rent!

If they didn't have permission to recreate the cover exactly I guess that they did what they could.  I don't know.  But it does seem to me like maybe someone thought a woodie would better match what the image of the Beach Boys is "supposed to be" and not what it actually was.

[is]

But... is it "iconic" to anyone but us ?

It's safe to say that the "Surfin' Safari" cover is known to more people than all but two of the songs on that album.  It's the cover of their first album, I think maybe you underestimate its significance to their overall image.

Yeah, wrong truck but the pants and shirts are spot on and a little poetic license here isn't such a bad thing. These are The Beach Boys, that's a woodie. I've a sneaky feeling we'll find much more - and much worse - to weep and wail over than this.

I'm not "weeping and wailing" but I do think that some of the audience will probably see and recognize what they're referencing and notice something is slightly off about it.  It doesn't even look like they're even trying to pose the guys in the same way which makes me wonder what the point of it in the film is.  I will give them props for getting the wardrobe right, but that's about all that is right about it.

All I'm saying is, if they're not concerned with recreating aspects of visual iconography associated with the group they may not care about other, more important things and I think you're right, there will be worse things to complain about. 

Good news for the filmmakers, "Summer Dreams" will always be the worst Beach Boys bio flick.

It looks like that scene is attempting to replicate the photoshoot for the Surfin' Safari album cover, yet the woodie there looks nothing like the yellow truck seen on the cover.  I normally wouldn't care about something like this, but it does kind of bother me that they'd play fast and loose with the details of such an iconic image (possibly to suit what may be considered a more audience-friendly, stereotypical interpretation of that period).

Does anybody know how long Banana and Louie lived for? Were they still around during the seventies? (Yeah I know, terrible question...just wondering though).

I'm guessing they died in the late 70's, but I'm not sure how old they were circa 1966.

Makes sense they wouldn't have to pay for equipment after the Sullivan show. 

[Edit:]

The Beatles were first.  George Harrison bought the Rickenbacker model 360/12 when the Beatles first arrived in NYC in February '64 and subsequently made that sound famous in AHDN.  John got one soon afterward.  

I can't remember if it's been determined when Carl switched from a Fender Jaguar to Rickenbacker, but it was sometime in the summer of '64, following the release of AHDN.

Edit: this thread has a lot of good info on Carl's guitars
http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,14109.0.html

Am I correct in saying that the vocal masters for every US number 1 single are missing (except Kokomo)?  Pure coincidence?

What about Rhonda and I Get Around?, those master tapes exist!

They do technically exist but the final stage overdubs are missing due to the way they were recorded.