I hope this was an off night for Mike, and not the new normal with his voice. I think the group still sounded *ok* when Stamos wasn't drumming. Just understandably rusty. Perhaps the monitoring was poor. But Timmy's keys and Keith's bass sounded wonderful. The vocals were shaky overall, but I think Ike, Totten, and Bruce did well. I think Bruce rocked on Do You Wanna Dance. Mike's voice had me worried. Between the video of his movements and audio of his singing, it's the first time Mike has really seemed his age to me. My dad and I always leave the Mike & Bruce shows talking about what a force of nature Mike is. That he can bring such energy, walking around the stage, sounding, for the most part, almost identical to his voice in the golden era. An absolute professional. Akin to Mccartney or Jagger. That may not be what went on the 98-99 let's say when it was a free for all, but in the time I've been seeing BB shows (2014-today) Mike has always had great energy and voice. But this most recent show, and to an extent, some of the shows leading up to it, Mike's voice sounds so shaky. Makes me wonder what's going on. I guess its pretty similar to McCartney's shaky live tone of the last few years.

The only common compilations on CD that I'm aware of that feature Jan's MONO mixes are Gotta Take That One Last Ride (1974) and The Complete Liberty Singles, but neither contain all of Jan and Brian's collaborations. They both feature the obvious hits like Surf City, Ride The Wild Surf, Drag City, Sidewalk Surfin.... but they both exclude album cuts they wrote together like Surfin Wild and Move Out Little Mustang.

As a fellow J&D fan, I've been searching high and low for the mono mixes in a a digital space. The Complete Liberty Singles + vinyl rips I can come across, or create myself, have been my best solution. The recently released "Ba-Ba-B-B-Ba-Ba" compilation features the R&B pre-Surf stuff in mono.

Very exciting!

who is this playing rhythm guitar, behind Mike and in front of Randell?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8rzziDj2jA

Thank you so much! So excited to check these out.

Does anyone still have these? I can't get the link to work.

It was so fun to talk about this era! Let us know what you'd like us to talk about next 

Hang10Ben

I was fortunate enough to see the group with Totten, Ike, Christian, and Foskett (and Stamos if he counts) all playing guitar. Great big rock and roll sound. Perfect for the surf/hot rod numbers, and especially those wall of sound arrangements with the layered guitars.

Pretty much a given that ‘Drive In’ will make the set lists for these shows., surely.

i hope so, it would be very cool to hear that resurrected

Man, that brings me so much joy to know you're getting a kick out of them! More episodes are on the way 

We'd love any suggestions!

I'm thrilled and honored to be apart of this podcast!

Yes, Ike seems to be, due to unfortunate circumstances, Jeff's permanent replacement on falsetto/rhythm guitar. We also have Christian playing rhythm too. Jeff seems to fill in when he can, or wants to, playing guitar throughout the show. When I saw the BBs in 2019, the band featured Ike, Totten, Christian, Foskett, and Stamos playing guitars! Definitively gave the group a great rocking edge that night! I spotted Stamos playing a few wrong chords during the show, so assumed his guitar was completely inaudible, but I heard it clearly on Forever, so perhaps his guitar playing is a similar deal to Bruce's keys being featured on Disney Girls

http://www.malibutimes.com/malibu_life/article_9e47429c-ee33-11ea-8b72-3f16516352c2.html


78 and still surfing!

http://www.malibutimes.com/malibu_life/article_9e47429c-ee33-11ea-8b72-3f16516352c2.html


78 and still surfing!

in my opinion, the complexity of Brian and the BBs' music and arrangements are evident as early as the pre-Capitol sessions. That version of Surfer Girl is magical, very innovative harmonies.

Mike's little speech in between his new single and GV was very moving.

This interview this is sourced from is one of Bruce’s best ever. Absolutely wonderful.


So cool to hear about him playing on Moon Dawg!

I couldn’t agree more with what he said about there almost being a necessity for two BB bands, to cater to different crowds and provide different, yet complimentary, experiences. Seeing each band makes you appreciate the other. They both are excellent.

A 60th reunion seems to be in the works, even though, unsurprisingly, Bruce doesn’t seem to be one of the key people coordinating it. I think he’s just along for the ride with whatever Mike wants to do, he’s made that clear over the years... yet, hearing him say “sign me up” when talking about the BW band certainly makes me wonder about an alternate dimension where Bruce went w/ Brian instead of Mike...


The Add Some Music re-record sounds promising. Sounds like Mike, Bruce, Al, and David are involved (or to be). Wilson Phillips playing increases makes me actually think they’ll get Brian along for the ride. And for a nonprofit? That’d be neat.

Bruce had a lot of really neat things to say in this interview. He was extremely complimentary - off the top of my head shouting out Brian, Mike, Al, Blondie, Carl, Dennis, David, Christian Love, Scott Totten, and others with nothing but nice things to say.


It’s hard to remember how many Surf staples Bruce was involved with! Even he can’t remember always 😂 It’s only when you dig and listen to these interviews that you learn how many classic Surf songs Bruce was apart of. Mind blowing.

If it's something he'd like to do--- a home recorded album like Smiley, Friends, Wild Honey ---   that would be amazing.

I wouldn't be opposed to electric instruments. I'd be cool with as many or as little instruments as he'd want. Could be bare voice/piano. Or a whole little group thing, like the albums mentioned above, or even those home studio recorded holiday stuff he's done over the years. That vibe.

While I'm a fan of overproduction in general, the idea of BW playing whatever he wants at home, with musicians like Al and others contributing any needed instruments or voices- either at Bri's place, or in their own home studio for safety reasons (like Mike's single)

Honestly, Totten could probably handle the project beautifully. His productions showcase Mike's natural voice, for the most part, and I feel he'd do the same for Brian. They'd make a wonderful team. Too bad politics, or any of that stuff would/could get in the way....

It'd be cool to have Bri play his favorites... BB stuff like Salt Lake City, Shortenin Bread, Night Was So Young... other artists' stuff like Be My Baby & other Spector, Let It Be & other Beatles, Four Freshman,Row Your Boat, Gershwin,  Rock N Roll Oldies, whatever....

If it's something he didn't want/or have the energy to do, I wouldn't press him, but if he was inclined to do it, I think a project like that would be wonderful

Sorry for the late reply, didn't expect my comment to stir such a reaction.

As someone who spends many hours each day pitch correcting vocals, I can confidently say that NPP is filled to the brim with autotune.

You'd have an easier time finding a vocal part that hasn't been processed.

This Beautiful Day and The Right Time are the songs that came to mind when I was typing my first response, and in revisiting those tracks now, I feel the same. at 52 seconds in The Right Time, when Al sings "So many times we been fooled again" his voice has an unnatural stability, and lack of vibrato- that's a digital artifact of autotune.

It might not be the T Pain esque sound from UTL, but it's there. Al is a tremendous, tremendous singer, but even he can't hit notes with so much precision, with no vibrato. The lead lines on The Right Time are very  locked in, the voices don't have that natural trail.

And just because I'd be willing to bet nearly anything that these tracks are pitch corrected, doesn't mean I don't enjoy them. I enjoy the C50 CD as well. I can dislike the autotune, but enjoy other things about the performances.


And I wasn't meaning to say Mike's solo albums are on par with stuff like TLOS, I said *Most of recent solo efforts* ... So I was thinking more Disney, NPP, ....

I understand why the autotune is a turnoff, but I'm genuinely shocked most BBs fans don't dig UTL as much as I do... I think Crescent Moon, Ram Raj, All The Love In Paris, and Too Cruel are phenomenal.

Also, are we really going to read so much into me writing Love-Wilson, vs Wilson-Love? I was typing quickly, and didn't know people read  anything into that.... In fact, I used to have a songwriting parntership, where my co-writer went nuts if his name didn't go first, I thought he was the only one read who read so much into that stuff... I don't think it makes a very big difference whether you say I Want To Hold Your Hand was written by Lennon-McCartney or McCartney-Lennon... Same as Fun, Fun, Fun or WOTS being Wilson-Love or Love-Wilson... Co-writing is co-writing. I didn't know it made you Mike-centric so put his name first. I don't think I'm Bacharach-centric, for saying Bacharach-David.

I'd be okay with the amount of vocal processing found 12 Sides... You know it's there, which is fine he's almost 80, but it's not overly noticeable like on NPP, C50 Live, or UTL.

That said, seeing these guys live, or even watching live clips, it's obvious they don't need it.

But working in the studio everyday, as sad is it sounds, time is money, and often people are willing to save time (therefore their money) by having an engineer simply fix a bad note.

Though, if he's getting producers like Sam Hollander, budget must not be an issue for Mike. Hollander's gotta be one of the hottest producer/writers in the world right now, certainly in a pop/rock/ac lane. He and his team are very talented guys, I'm predicting they'll be involved.

So if budget isn't the issue, which it often isn't, sometimes artists just like to be pitched corrected so they can move on to the next thing. And it's not laziness. When you're in the studio, you're getting a million ideas a second. Ideas for overdubs, mix changes, arrangement, etc... and autotune can be used to "fix" a vocal in order to better delegate time... That, and,  Getting a perfect take- going over and over again, the way Mike would've done in 1966, might not be comfortable at his age.

I'm not saying autotune SHOULD be used, I'd prefer it not, but people make it a very black and white issue. There are dozens of reasons one might bring up autotune during a session. It's another tool in the arsenal, like EQ or compression. Although, the 'tool' was abused on UTL...


To be fair, if I was producing Mike and his guys, I *wouldn't* be reaching for the autotune for every note. In retrospect, that seems to have been a production choice of Michael Lloyd, because everything he's produced for Mike is autotuned to the bone, but the stuff produced by Totten, Hollander, and Paul Fauerso all sound natural. I also think Mike must have picked up on the negative reaction to Lloyd's production, because he produced the entirety of UTL, and only one track each on the following albums. I can't imagine it's coincidental. Of course, it's natural to change collaborators but in 2017, it seemed like Lloyd was Mike's "guy" , production wise, until the backlash, at which point Hollander (&co) and Totten jumped in. (Hell, for better or worse, I hear little to no autotune at all on Mike's most recent 2020, Totten produced single)

The Lloyd produced Little Saint Nick from Mike's Christmas album sounds straight from the UTL sessions. Same sound of the instruments, same vocalists. It's Ok from 12 Sides looks like it also originated from the UTL sessions, based on the credits (Foskett on guitar, Lloyd playing multiple instruments) --- it would've fit in with the other Love-Wilson hits on disc 2 --- but production/arrangement wise, to my ears, it sounds more Hollander than Lloyd. I wonder if his team may have revisited it during the mixing process, or if he did any overdubs and didn't receive a producer's credit. It just sounds way bigger and more lively than anything Lloyd produced for Mike prior... Interesting to note, that looking in the credits, John Stamos plays drums on this. Funny because usually when he plays, he gets a feature credit.  But this is definitely my favorite studio performance of his, I would've thought it was Cowsill. I must give credit where its due, and his drumming on Its Ok is fantastic. The tom tom fills remind me of Dennis' feel.

Looking forward to Mike's new project. I've been pleased with his last three albums, they're big improvements over Looking Back, and quite honestly, on par with most of Brian's recent efforts, and Al's album. I think we're quite lucky as fans to have new BB related music to constantly look forward to, over the last few years. Be it archival releases, NPP and Brian's subsequent live album & compilation, Mike's stuff.... I know it's a lot to ask of someone his age, and he's made it pretty clear he has no interest, but I'd love to see what Bruce could kick up. Even if it wasn't all originals, his main skills have always  been in the arranging/production era in my mind (Rip Chords, Bruce & Terry, Sunflower/Surf's Up stuff, etc) I was watching an interview from around 2006-8 a few days ago where an interviewer asked Bruce if he had any new music in the works, and all Bruce said was "Stay tuned." over and over. Was this a "I'm gonna make a Rock n Roll album"/"Never say never" phrase, just meant to keep the interview rolling, or did anything ever surface from this?

Cool video of Al playing a deeper cut!

Matt killin it on the timpani!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMgJossAIi8

I'd have loved to hear a studio version of Sister Golden Hair, the way they played it when Gerry filled in for Mike. Possibly with a Bruce or Al lead. Brian was on the record to have dug that song.

More completed Bacharach covers would've also been cool. It would've been cool to hear Brian in his Adult/Child crooner era do This Guy's In Love With You or Close To You.

And, as funny as this sounds, a cover of the MJ/Wings song "Girlfriend" would have been very cool... That falsetto lead could've been handled really well by Carl (with Bruce maybe helping out on those real high notes)

There's no way Brian is personally talking to people on Twitter.

Agreed that Roger Christian's lyrics are phenomenal. Combine them with a Mike Love lead and you've got magic!

Wow, this sounds wonderful . I can't wait!!!