I guess I was wondering after Redwood. When I tried looking up Hutton, I found a funny anecdote from a fairly recent article ( http://irishecho.com/2011/02/spreading-the-joy-danny-hutton-and-his-band-three-dog-night-2/ ):

“I’m stunned by my kids,” Hutton exclaimed. “The 16-year-old plays drums and pushes a 24-piece jazz band at Hamilton High. They played on the Sunset Strip when they were 13. Brian Wilson comes over and jams with them. I think they’re incredible.”

It's so Beach Boys to leave it off though, I guess. I still can't imagine Brian insisting on putting all those half-baked covers on 15 Big Ones, and the rest of the group knows he's sitting on "Good Timin'", "California Feelin'", and the heralded "Just An Imitation". Or that instead of doing weird covers of oldies, he could've done weird covers of songs he'd never released, like "We're Together Again" or "Where Is She?". The arguments they must've had...

I've always wondered this. Brian and Danny Hutton always hung out. Marilyn would sometimes tell people they were writing songs together. There's this a weird story from Ray Kennedy about "Sail On Sailor": Danny Hutton, one of the original singers of Three Dog Night, called me in 1970 when I was singing with Jeff Beck and said, "Hey, we need a hit song." So I went over to his house, and Brian was there in a little room with a piano and they stuck me in that room with Brian. We were there for three days and ended up writing "Sail on Sailor," which was originally intended for Three Dog. We went in and cut the basic tracks with Three Dog Night; we hadn't slept in about a week. Then Brian got up with a razor blade and cut the tapes and said, "Only Ray Kennedy or Van Dyke Parks can do this song." And he left. We all stood there looking at each other going, "What?"

And we know all about the Redwood project, and how the other BBs purportedly disapproved of it.

To me, I find it tough to imagine that Brian never helped Danny out with some chords or a melody. It almost sounds improbable to suggest it never happened. I can just see Brian in my head agreeing to work on a chord sequence in exchange for a big mountain of cocaine. But who knows? Any rumors or hard evidence that Brian helped out Three Dog Night with a song?

They didn't put the song on the album because Holland was rejected for not having a potential hit single. I don't know why "We Got Love" was targeted, but it was the decision.

You're missing my point. Holland only has 9 songs. There was room for "We Got Love" AND "Sail On Sailor". I don't get why it was an either/or decision.

I still don't know why they didn't put the song on the album. Was it hurt feelings over the record wanting another Brian song no matter what? I honestly think "Funky Pretty" would've made a cooler single than "Sail On Sailor" anyway.

It's a trap! You arrive at the venue and get ushered into a meet & greet with Mike Love's beloved pup, Wrinkles.

Didn't Al Jardine strive relentlessly to help him do that and smash the oil cartels? He was pushing "Run, James, Run" a lot in interviews last year and vaguely calling it some sort of eco-friendly car song.

All I heard about was a song about wheatgrass juice.

Wheatin', so wheatin' me
Have some wheatgrass juice
(Drink a little wheat wheat wheat grass, drink a little)
(Grass wheatin' me)

Have some wheatgrass juice
(Drink a little wheat wheat wheat grass, drink a little)
Have some grass

Wheat wheat wheat wheat wheat
Now now now now now

Wheatin', so wheatin' me
(Drink a little wheat wheat wheat grass, drink a little)

When Mike Love's got you down
Here's what you oughta
Get yourself some fresh wheatgrass juice
(The wheatgrass wheatin' me)
Wheatgrass juice

In a cafe or in the booth
Wheatgrass juice is the truth
From urban farms on down to the store
Wheatgrass keeps on wheatin' more
When ol' Joe is playin' steel guitar
I keep on dreamin' 'bout a wheatgrass bar

When I'm just too tired to move
Wheatgrass juice is such a groove
In a shady spot when I'm layin' down
Only thing movin' are the ants on the ground

Wheatgrass juice keeps on wheatin' me
Wheatgrass juice keeps on wheatin' me

We all know Brian is a champion of the automobile. From "Little Deuce Coupe" to "In My Car" and "Desert Drive", the man loves burning through fossil fuels like there's no tomorrow. As we know, America's addiction to oil has "fueled" unrest throughout the world. Frankly, the man needs to realign his priorities.

In his song "H.E.L.P. Is On the Way", it says, and I quote: "Your education creates much benefit and peace." Now I'd argue that the Western educational system is diametrically opposed to peaceful living. Its doctrines of environmental exploitation and materialistic aspiration, in fact,  encourage war. So why would Brian endorse such a message?

Steve Latshaw?

With the same arrangement, recorded in a professional studio, Brian plucking a grand piano instead of that old upright, IMHO Darlin' would have sounded as great as Brians 1965-65 productions.

That would've been better, yes. But after listening to James Jamerson's Motown work, I can't help but feel that Brian's pretty rudimentary piano playing on the song held it back. I don't actually know who plays bass on "Darlin'", but it's in Jamerson's style (at least in the verse, when the bass mercifully has a little freedom), and to my ears it sounds restrained by Brian's own bass notes.

I agree with this on the song, but not on the album. I recently bought the new vinyl print of the Friends album, heard it with kind of fresh ears, and found that most of the album has production value on the backing tracks on the level of the Party album. Just compare the bass playing with SD/SN or Pet Sounds, you might get what I mean.

I agree that Friends wasn't as good of a production as Pet Sounds or even SD/SN. BUT it's way better than Wild Honey. The production sounds competent and professional.

I would be more inclined to compare "Wild Honey" to McCartney's first solo album than I would compare "Do It Again" to the Stones.

I get what you're saying. My point was just that "Do It Again" should've rocked more. The songwriting was right on with that song, but it sounds lo-fi compared to what the Stones were pumping out. I believe I actually got into a long discussion on here with Desper about this. Even listening to the mono version of "Honky Tonk Women", it really pops out of the speakers in comparison. Brian was going for a Spectorish vibe, perhaps (I don't know), but that time had long since passed. And personally, I don't think "Do It Again" sounds as good on my speakers as "Help Me Rhonda". It just isn't what you expect from the Beach Boys.

The Beach Boys squandered the public's ears. Pet Sounds was a big image change that the public wasn't completely ready for, but then "Good Vibrations" won America over. Then BBs squandered that by releasing THREE noncommercial albums. Smiley Smile was way too weird for a pop group. Wild Honey was half-assed. Listen to "Darlin'". A great song at heart, but basing the arrangement around Brian's basic piano pluncking? And why do the horns during the second verse so weak and neutered? It just doesn't make sense, really. Brian finally gets his production act together for Friends, but the songs are proto-Love You in nature. I adore Friends, but I can easily see how it wasn't a hit. In a sense it was a really bold, risky move.

And really, 20/20 is just a mess, too, for that matter. "Do It Again", like "Darlin'", was at least a step in the right direction. People wanted awesome songs about love from the Beach Boys, but Brian increasingly wanted to write about world peace, being friends, and birds or water. And he wasn't arranging like before, either. He was really leaning on his piano as an easy crutch and the group wasn't getting the same sound quality on his recordings as they did in the group's heyday. I listen to "Do It Again" and wonder why it doesn't sound as awesome as what the Stones were doing. Compare it to "Honky Tonk Woman".

Really, only a couple BB songs did dramatically better in the UK. I think, probably, their was no negative stigma about the surf image in the UK to overcome. They looked at it as fun exotica, not representative of a lame, outdated lifestyle.

wrong topic

MIKE LOVE: "This was Mick two months after I called him chickenshit. It'd be another year before he'd feel safe from me."

MIKE LOVE: "We're all crying here because we realized it had been two years since Brian's last truly dynamic production. About two decades later I'd write 'Kokomo' without Brian, which brought the group back to the stature it enjoyed before Brian had permanently stepped back from his leadership position."

[two decades]

From Mike's bio:

Brian's a weird character. There's a lot of difficulty pinning down his actual age. See, he was born in 1942. It's firmly established that by 1968, he was 26. But then something funny happens.

As you very well may know, he started taking hallucinogens. LSD, mainly, fed to him by his stoned out fan club. That set him back, I'd estimate, two decades. So now he's spiritually 7 years old by 1969. Granted, he was a darn talented 7 year old. Sure, most of the time he was writing songs about trees, stars, or dying, but he did write "Add Some Music to Your Day" with me, and I believe "It's OK" was from around then. "It's OK" was his highest charting original song in the 1970s, and I believe my positive lyrics had a lot to do with that.

Anyway, by 1973 he was now 11. Almost a teenager again. I thought, great, maybe Brian can write some great teen hits with his partners in the band again.

Nope. Instead, he retreats to his bedroom and loses probably a half-decade of age through drugs. So he should've been 14 in 1976, but the f*cker is actually 9 now. So he writes songs about roller skating and being stuck in class. Not good, man. I tried to save "Roller Skating Child" with a bridge about ESP people could relate to, but I'm not a miracle worker. I'm just Mike Love.

Mercifully we were able to get Brian aging properly again, until about 1981, when he was 14 yet again. Of course he starts abusing hard drugs, and then his therapist Eugene Landy comes in around 1983 for the second time. Landy keeps Brian in age "stasis" by managing all of Brian's affairs and, basically, thinking for him. When we finally gave Landy the boot with the help of my cousin Carl Wilson, it was 1992, after I'd recorded "Kokomo" without Brian. Brian's still 14, mind you, but he has the body of a 50 year old! It was a really strange situation.

As luck would have it, Brian has aged more or less normally since then. We celebrated his 18th birthday in 1996 and considered recording with him as a result. Ultimately, we decided to wait until he was 34. We just didn't feel like young adult Brian was a good fit. We wanted to wait until he got past his previous high water mark of 26.

But by golly, he did, and I'm really proud of him, in the way a dad might be proud of his son.

BTW, listening to "Happy Days" now, that's probably one of Brian's best vocals from the '80s on. About 1:30 in, there's an amazing falsetto part in the background. Was that really Brian?

Phirnis, are you forgetting about "Happy Days"?

Check out Bruce's face when Mike cuts in.

Yep. He knew the interviewer had tossed a live grenade out there and he was trying to catch it. He knows it doesn't do the group's public image any good to have Mike & Brian squabbling on air.

[two decades]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k1_NcgFOZs#t=9m19s

Mike cuts in on Bruce when Bruce doesn't make it 100% clear that Brian is a has-been that had nothing to do with "Kokomo".  Mike's comments drip with sarcasm and anger.

Here he is referring to when Brian stepped down from the helm of the Beach Boys: "Just lately, you know, since about 196-... what is it, 8 or 9? When he started getting heavily into hallucinogenic drugs, it kinda set him back about two decades." His tone of voice is un-be-liev-able. Vicious.

Eh, it's an alright album.

Here's my dream "It's OK" (a funny name for an album, BTW):

1. Ding Dang
2. Rock & Roll Music
3. It's OK
4. California Feelin'
5. Had to Phone Ya
6. Back Home

7. Good Timin'
8. Pacific Ocean Blue
9. Rainbows
10. 10,000 Years Ago (DISCO MIX)
11. Just Once in My Life
12. TM Song

Sure to sell a million copies...

This is some heavy, punky garage rock. It's brimming with fuzzy distortion. And wouldn't you know it, Bruce actually has a wonderful sense of humor on the album. Not only is "Jersey Channel Islands - Part 7" a hilarious name for a song, it's a downright vicious surf groove with wicked horns. 

Where the hell did he come up with the idea for "Hot Pastrami, Mashed Potatoes, Come On To Rincon?" It's downright Ramones-like, with its repetitive "baby do it again" riff.

Bruce could play this stuff live now and front a cult band. In my hometown of Detroit, there's a band called The Amino Acids that packs shows with this exact same kind of music.

The hits keep coming.

"Makaha at Midnight" is wonderfully trippy and a nice slow dance song.

"Surfin's Here to Stay" and "Surfin' Round the World" are more Ramones style songs.

If you haven't heard the album, it's available on Spotify.

Shaffer was probably like, "Brian, I really love 'Little Old Lady From Pasadena.'" And Brian's like, "Oh yeah? Then I've got a great riff for you."

I'm sorry. Brian Wilson 10/10.