[could]

Do you even like this group?

Hence, the screen name. 

Really?!?!?!?     I thought he was referring to Mike Smith of the Dave Clark 5.  Now there was a MIKE who really could sing leads.    Well... ... ...he could.

Mike Smith was the greatest!! also.

I think that's what tribute bands are for??  And no, I don't favor the group or their heirs putting an official tribute band on the road, and further don't especially want to see such a group with folks like Matt Jardine and Christian Love in it.  Not as any kind of quasi-Beach Boys unit.   Just seems kinda lame to me.  If they want to go out as the Endless Summer Band, featuring Matt Jardine or whomever or some such, that I be cool with.  Heck remember all the stink when Michael Clarke went out with his Byrds-like group??  And he was an actual Byrd!

Don't know if Bruce did that arrangement or not, but he certainly would have been capable of it.  Not that it is that complex anyway.....

I saw this cd at the mall the other day for $15.00(it was on sale). Was that a good deal?

Not especially at this price.  However, I have heard the CD and the first disc is very good.  Disc of outtakes are somewhat meh, though.  Good songs on the CD....but Elvis could sing the phone book as far as that goes and make it entertaining.  Such a dramatic voice!

Read both Mike's and Bri's books at B&N.  You can literally read them in about a half an hour each, if you skip the parts which are merely re-hashes of stuff you (and most other semi-serious BB fans) already know.  Mike's book is more of a history and more self-serving in its outlook.  Bri's book skips around a lot and is kind of annoying in that regard, plus somewhat self-serving in its outlook.  Favorite part was where he changed his compliment of Henley's songs from "great" to "good".  I recommend either reading them in the bookstore or getting them from the library, they are that inessential.  Mildly entertaining at best.

I wouldn't pick Beatles because of their limited catalog and also its irritating over-exposure, though much of the Boys work is terribly over-exposed.  Also find their later stuff to be pretty weedy.  But yes, the Boys wear remarkably well in general....Never especially a big fan, but Zappa/Mothers a lot of music to plough through, maybe a good desert island pick as you would have plenty of time on your hands.

Looking at photos of him the last couple of years, I'm pretty sure he is at least technically obese.  Maybe his legs are shot and he can't walk/run enough to stay in shape or perhaps just eats too much.  Wish for his health he could get in better shape!  I'm 64 and in better shape now than when I was 40, so it doesn't necessarily have to be age related decline, but yes, impairing injuries (back, legs)....can be next to impossible to overcome at a certain age....

I like The Smile Sessions. Brian presents Smile singing with great band but they're not substitute for the BBs imo. I like those vintage vocals.

I found BWPS to be almost totally unlistenable.  I took it for what it was, a Hail Mary attempt to save a foundering solo career.  In that respect, it worked fairly well.  It didn't touch Smile either instrumentally or vocally....

Regardless of its merits or lack thereof, SIP was not gonna sell based upon its distribution alone.  Very minor label.  SIP always gets blamed for bankrupting that label, but it must have been very weak to start with if that happened.  I had never heard of it before and right now, can't remember its name.  Take the weakest stuff off and replace it with three or four more good tunes, and it would at least been serviceable though.  Too many re-makes too.  Entire group, including Brian, were in a bad place back then....

Maybe he can just re-record some old BBs tunes and put them out.  He's done it before.  Yawn....

Brian probably is medicated, he's got documented mental issues.  Don't know why anyone would be surprised by that assertion.

Clearly no commercial potential for a BB's Mono box, or it surely would have been done by this late date.

I seriously want to punch that paparazzi d-bag.

Well, it's publicity and as Brian himself noted, "there's no such thing as bad publicity".  Career Uber Alles in Beach Boys Land, no?

I doubt if there is anything seriously wrong with him, he looks fine in his expressions in the photos, does not appear to be ill.  Probably just prefers sitting to walking.

It is rather unfortunate though that he has not maintained the very high physical fitness level he once enjoyed at one time as a result of the Landy regimen.  No I'm not defending Landy in general, just noting that the physical fitness aspects that he was pushing at one time appeared to do Bri a world of good.  Seems once he was out of his clutches, it was back to steak and potatoes, cheeseburgers, etc.

Actually ran into a friend today who has a bad backache going, and she stated that she feels best on her feet, not sitting down, so perhaps the "wheelchair for a bad back" scenario may not be true.

You know, this thread has turned into something a little pathetic.  The author of Mike's book is nice enough to do an interview and all the thanks he gets around here is mostly Mike-hatred and by extension hatred of himself by many on this board.  Sad....

I find it generally very odd that someone of Bruce's songwriting ability has apparently written so few tunes in the last several decades.  He doesn't seem to have any personal demons that might impede his efforts.  Maybe he is just too rich to be motivated?  Didn't he move to Nashville at some point in the nineties to attempt to sell some songs there?  No luck was had, one supposes.

I think the Smile mono sounds weak, muddy.

Unless Brian uses some old tracks and knocks out the "rock and roll" oldie recordings really quickly, I would imagine it's not too likely we'd get a new album before he goes back out on the road in March of next year.

They'd have to finish recording, mix, master, get a record deal (or maybe they have an ongoing one with Capitol; I can't remember), get the thing on the release schedule, manufactured, etc. It's not impossible, but given the gestation period for most of his albums, I think going from nothing to an album in the stores in only three or four months is unlikely.

Plus, I'd imagine he might want to focus any tour behind a new album, so another PS leg might not be the place he'd want to do that anyway. I'm guessing third or fourth quarter of 2017 for any new studio album.

In the meantime, a Blu-ray of a full PS tour show would be awesome......

I think if he actually does this album, he should use the quick and dirty route.  Its just rock and roll, and I think he needs to record something kinda rough sounding, more in the vein of Love You in having that spontaneous "just knocked it off in an hour or so" type of feel.

I'm not really sure, but I don't think a BW album is much of a money making proposition anymore anyway, so he should just knock it out, have fun with it, be spontaneous and maybe we will get a minor gem out of it.  I actually liked the last studio effort, but he needs to do something different for the next one.  This approach would likely garner more attention for him.

At the high school dance, this was one where you held the girl close and danced nice and slow.

If it had actually been played at any high school dance.  I'm guessing not.

Ugh, hope this is not really true.  Who needs an album of rock and roll covers from Bri at this late date?  I will believe it when I see it.

I heard a live broadcast of the Skeletons (aka The Morells) doing a cover of All I Want to Do.  Of course this was about thirty years ago.  Supposedly a group member was a big Denny fan.

I'd say HCTN actually is one of the few songs that attempts to be lively on the entire album.  The other songs, with the exception of Shortenin' Bread, tend to be real snoozers....ok, some of those snoozers I like (the Denny songs, Angel Come Home and Good Timin'), but the Carl songs are mediocre and to me the most wretched moment on the album is the Jesu Joy of Mans Desiring intro to Lady Lynda.  This musical mashup of Lynda and Jesus just never seemed quite, well, appropriate to me.

I do remember the long version of HCTN did in fact chart on Billboard's disco singles club chart or some such denomination, and rather highly at that.  The 45 steamed up the charts rather quickly also, before stalling out in the low forties....I heard the song often on top 40 WHB when it was released.  Also heard "What You Do to Me" (C. Wilson single!) on that station when it was released as well as Mommy and Daddy by the Monkees.

I do wonder sometimes if the HCTN 45 did not stall out mainly because of the musical conservatism of many of the BB's fans of that time period.  (Reportedly there was lots of negative reaction regarding the single from BB's fans and doubtless several of those folks who may have purchased the single but did not hurt the single's progress on the charts).   Kind of hard for a song to be a hit when the group's own fan base is bashing it mercilessly!  Also it seems to me that perhaps its failure tangentially is related to the thread on here about Pet Sounds and racism.  Well, you know I hate to be a downer, but disco music was highly associated with urban gay and black subcultures and it is not something that may have been the cuppa tea of many BB's fans, just as the utter hatred of disco and rap by some whites has been sometimes, rightly or wrongly, attributed to prejudice.

Indeed, I think the inherent musical conservatisim of the BB's core audience may in fact be what sunk the group when they attempted to progress after (and during Pet Sounds).  I think I feel this way since I, as a then hard core BBs fan, loved Smiley Smile, loved Friends, Wild Honey, 20/20, etc.  I could only attribute their relative failures to the inability of the group's fan base in general to accept the new sounds and the change in the group's appearance.  At least where I lived, in conservative outstate Missouri, the big top forty stations in the state, WHB in KC and KXOK in St. Louis always played their singles up through Breakaway, at least upon release.  One can only surmise that while the records were played at least some, and in the stores, BB fans were not flocking to buy them.  Maybe the fault was not in the stars, but in the fan base itself, in large part.

I also remember running into a guy in college who had seen the "integrated" Blondie/Rickey BBs and commenting that while it was a very good show, he did not know why they had to add those black guys to the group!  In not perhaps such genteel lingo, if you get my drift.

Bruce himself thought the song should win "some sort of Grammy for vocal arrangements" in an interview in the Time Barrier Express at the time.  I think the background vocals are pretty amazing, though as others have mentioned, the Carl vocal not one of his best and the disco arrangement rather leaden.

But maybe the fan base had simply drifted away to other sounds....I remembered arguing with a kid in high school who was cooler, Grand Funk or the Boys?  Sadly the prevailing opinion at my h.s. was that the Funk were way cooler than the fading rock group revival.  Though now I appreciate Grand Funk also!

It is curious how long they hung onto to these shirts.  "Hang on to Your Shirt-Ohs".  The thought comes to mind, maybe they really just liked them a lot and enjoyed going to Penney's occasionally to buy a new batch!  I mean polka dots shirts were very popular for awhile there in the mid-sixties, would they have stuck with the dots had they started out with them?

I do not however remember them being contemporaneously being put down by fans for their striped shirts.  Didn't seem to me to be that big an issue at the time.  And they pretty successfully transitioned out of the surf and hot rod music on the charts and I really don't remember them being put down for that much either.

I think the key thing that happened was the lawsuit with Capitol, the loss of corporate support from them (quite understandable considering the lawsuit, the non-deliverance of product timely, fighting with them over releases, etc) and probable lack of promotion from Capitol regarding their new releases.  And of course, the outstanding non-commerciality of Smiley Smile and Friends.  I think if somehow 20/20 could have been the immediate follow up to Wild Honey, and received some support, it may have helped them out quite a bit.

Of course I do love both Smiley and Friends....but just noting those releases seriously damaged them as a commercial entity!

I think the clothes and the surf/hot rod music became convenient excuses for explaining their waning commercial fortunes well after the fact.  Heck, look at the goofy outfits (collarless jackets, not a good look) and all the Motown covers the Beatles wore/did and no one held that against them. 

I thought it was a pretty good list, I believe he's coming from the view of the casual fan, lots of these are under-rated or unknown to the casual fan.  But Pisces Brother or whatever the hell it is called isn't really a BB's tune, should not have been included.

Really not a seventies tune either.