Brian's favorite color is cheese pizza.

I thought it was "Norbit."

I think your biggest omission is Let Him Run Wild. But you have We'll Run Away on it, so you earn points for that. 

Besides the ones mentioned in the Rolling Stone article, I would add:

We'll Run Away
Girls on the Beach
Kiss Me Baby
Let the Wind Blow
Here Comes the Night (Wild Honey version)
Be With Me
Breakaway
Slip On Through
Long Promised Road
Funky Pretty
Angel Come Home

There's a shot of the cover in this video, where Carl screws something up and Dennis says, "Haven't you read your own guitar book, Carl?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFEAoF7RC7Y

Speaking of guys who look like the Wilson brothers, a guy who looks a lot like Carl sings Dennis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9Jat35zBxc

Is is true that Carl wanted to have Landy treat Dennis, and was going to stage an intervention after the new year, to spare Audree the pain of a painfully ugly scene during the holiday season?

I'm sure it's a real long shot, but how great would have it have been if Landy got Dennis clean, but Dennis saw what Landy really was and got a sober Brian away from him?

It was a complicated relationship, but the love was there.

I think the Carl-Dennis is the easiest Wilson brothers relationship to figure out. It seemed like they were always there for each other. Even when Carl was completely wasted during the "Surfer Girl" intro in Australia, he told the crowd about "Pacific Ocean Blue" -- which he did a lot of work on even though contractually he wasn't supposed to.

And Dennis, even before his voice was shot, gave Carl a lot of his songs to sing.

This interview footage from the "American Band" premiere is poignant, as Carl mentions watching Dennis deteriorate is the most painful thing, but how much he enjoyed seeing him in the film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IRvtmBz9ng

And Carl was behind the idea that the Beach Boys would play for any rehab Dennis wanted, and would buy back his boat if he stuck with it.

Plus, apparently Carl was the one behind getting some additional Dennis songs in the first box set.

It's amazing that Fourth of July was a "scratch" vocal from Carl. Most singers could try 50 takes and not have one that good.

Even if you didn't watch "Mad Men," you may know about this scene from being Brian/Beach Boys nuts, but this was a great use of a BB track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpWlKCfSPcU

I think the fact that he sang on "I'll Bet He's Nice" and "End of the Show" and came to the "Love You" release party (and took photos smiling with the Wilson brothers) shows there was never truly bad blood in the separation.

It was a great film. I loved Carl singing Gold Only Knows with Brian playing piano and Audree with them.

That's very sad his wife died so young. It was a nice tribute David penned for her obituary.

Two things:

1. Tell the Capitol suits to give the album time. It's not going to be an out-of-the-box smash like their other releases. Keep promoting it and do NOT put out a best-of to undercut things (as Ang Jones mentioned).

2. Closely related to No. 1: Don't put God Only Knows as a B-side to Wouldn't It Be Nice. In the theme of  the album being a "grower" and not a smash, let Wouldn't It Be Nice have its run on the charts, pushing the album up, then put God Only Knows out on its own (with heavy promotion) to keep the album sales going.

I think one reason why Carl may have been slow to act was that Landy was smart to not let Carl and the other guys see the things that Melinda and Gloria saw. Gloria, especially, probably saw Brian and his lowest, most doped-up and most mind-controlled by Landy.

My guess is that the bad doctor had Brian at very high levels of medication but would cut back on them whenever Brian was going to be around Carl and the Beach Boys. People talk about how completely out of it Brian would be, and how his eyes would roll back in his head. But when Brian was shooting the video for Rock and Roll to the Rescue he was energetic and, in the video, even hammy.

When they shot the campfire scenes in 1989, Brian was showing some signs of dyskinisia (which legitimate medication can cause in some cases) but otherwise was very good. For example, beginning in this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZylusEw-68

at 1:08:50, he tells the story of writing Surfer Girl, leads the singing of a very nice rendition. And then at the end with all the good feeling around the campfire, he smiles at Mike and says, happily and without any slurring. "Our theme song."

If I saw that guy, I wouldn't thing he was horribly unhappy, being brainwashed or was ready to jump off a boat.

Landy was evil and smart, which made him really dangerous.

Note: While giving Carl and the Beach Boys and the rest of the family more of a pass than some others in the threat, I am NOT trying to diminish the actions of Melinda and Gloria. They are definitely heroes in this story.

Dennis on I Just Wasn't Made For These Times sounds intriguing.

Al probably deserved at least a verse of Sloop John B, since it was his idea to record it.

Al on California. I wonder who's decision it was to have Mike sing it. If it was Al's, it was very generous of him to let Mike sing it.

Dennis on Sail on Sailor.

Dennis should have at least sung the first section of each verse of Catch a Wave -- which I used to think was him until I heard it was Mike with a cold. When I heard "So take a lesson from a top-notch surfer boy" I thought that was Dennis.

With his love of the song, Brian should have sung Shortenin Bread.

https://youtu.be/gz6gK3q_mh0?t65s

Classic

Thanks for posting. For some reason I couldn't find it.

I think we should Al's ponytail in that clip to the comedy.

I've always found Brian's "humor" hang-up from the "Smile" era to be fascinating, because I've never heard anything from that time period that's actually funny. It's almost like a sci-fi character trying to grasp what "human humor" is or something. He was trying to tackle the concept more from a clinical academic point of view than actual do something that is funny.

I don't know if it's that or whether he and the people he was hanging out with were so stoned that everything struck them funny. Things like "Brian falls into a microphone" are completely lame. I think you'd HAVE to be stoned to laugh.

One thing that was actually funny was the clip with Brian at the piano with Carl and Al, where he asks Al to hold his nose so he can imitate Mike's nasal singing on "California Girls." It was great to see Brian and Carl laughing together.

Also, I never heard this, but I seem to remember reading about a radio interview from the '70s where the host asked all the guy to introduce themselves. When it came to Dennis, he said, "Hi, I'm Carl, and I love p*ssy."

Carl seemed like a wonderful man and he is missed. What an amazing voice.

I know I've mentioned this before, but if it did get to the point where Warners wanted to get something out to capitalize on the momentum from Endless Summer and Spirit of America, there were songs in the can that would have been perfect for 15 Big Ones.

San Miguel could have come out as is.
Soulful Old Man Sunshine needed a quick edit to fix Carl's "Shunshine" mistake.
Good Time came out a year later, on Love You where it was more out of character. If you're going to release it, put it on 15 Big Ones.

Replace any three covers except Rock and Roll Music (which should have been the version on Made in California) and Just Once in My Life and you've just a much stronger album and more Brian credit to reinforce the "Brian's Back" campaign.

Heck, have Al finish Loop De Loop and you can remove another cover.

Love You had some great tunes and could have been a classic with better production and vocals -- even if the lyrics were weak in a lot of spots.

The Night Was So Young is an amazing song as is, and could have been among the group's best if Carl's vocal had been up to his normal standards.

Thanks for your answer, Peter!

Peter, thanks for your great work to save Brian.

While on your site I read your very good piece on Adult Child. It reminded me of one of the greatest "what-ifs" in Brian's life: What if Dr. Steve Schwartz hadn't died in a rock-climbing accident?

Do you think Brian was truly on the road to good health working with Dr. Schwartz? And I know Brian had some hospitalizations in that time, but did he ever have a regular therapist between Dr. Schwartz and his second stint? If not, do you know why?

Black can be slimming, but it looks like Brian's dropped some weight. He looks great.

[The put GOK on the B side.]

I think Pet Sounds was probably well promoted.  It had 4 singles from it on the radio for thing.  There were full page ads to the trade including a 4 page fold out ad.  Anybody seen an ad even close to that for any album or group of the time?

Cam - I disagree. They got 4 singles, but that doesn't really relate to how as a whole themed body of work it was promoted.  The put GOK on the B side.  And then released Best of Vol. I, about 8 weeks later.   The singles got AM airplay and kept them on the charts, bridging the time till the release of GV but as far as a big promo push, I don't think so.  It never got the hype of Rubber Soul, and from the same company, coming out about six months prior to Pet Sounds, or Revolver afterwards.  Just saying'. 

   

I think "God Only Knows" as a B-side was a huge mistake. It should have been an A-side after WIBN. Pet Sounds, being such a departure, was going to be a slow builder in terms of sales. Having GOK as another, separate single could have kept the momentum building, got the album higher than its peak of No. 10, and MAYBE prevented the "Best Of," which really led to Brian and the group beginning to mistrust Capitol.