I do have an interview with Mike about his feelings about Carl's departure-but I have to look for it. I'll post something later on this.

That app was I think Mike's first show without the BBs (of course he'd do tons after that). He was a bit nervous and told an interviewer that the best part of the show was the glass of wine Dylan gave him backstage when he came off.  He noted that he hesitated before taking it-because he'd basically sworn off drinking for quite awhile as he got more into TM. He said he was probably the only person that hesitated to accept anything from Bob Dylan.  The footage of Mike from this show was used by News shows in late 74 when they were reporting on the surprise success of Endless Summer and the nostalgia revival.  I must admit that I left it out of my first TV article for ESQ.

Funny thing about Murry is that despite being such a pain to be around (he made the first Australian tour a real drag allegedly) they allowed him to tag along on later important trips.  Murry was with them in Paris in Nov 66 (he ran the press conference that the BBs chose to skip) and in Australia in Apr-May 1970 (He even gave interviews to Sydney papers!).  Not a shy man that is for sure.

I am surprised you didn't about that-since the footage in American Band-shows Mike dedicating the song to him.  We have updated concert info on that tour in Bellagio Gigs/sessions 1969 http://www.esquarterly.com/bellagio/gigs.html  -There were a number of errors by Keith Badman in his book, but we have fixed them in our listings.  There was of course no Budapest show by the way.

Don't forget-Alex and the Box Tops played a number of shows with the BBs in 67-69.  I have a photo of Alex with Dennis and Carl from Newfoundland August 1968.

while the book has many errors and there is a lot of stuff that may be exploitive in it.  There is a lot of factual info in there.  It's clear that he intermixes tours in his memory.  For example he is talking about the Aug 68 tour and then suddenly veers off into the August 66 tour.  But he clearly had notes about certain tours-notably the Oct 68 tour-that no one else has volunteered.  I was unaware of the Oct 18 1968 Knoxville show but sure enough I confirmed it from the local newspaper-his info for that tour is far more correct than Keith Badman's.  Probably because he was on that tour without Duryea and had to keep accurate box office notes.  He also provides important info on the May 69 tour (again there is a problem with his memory-he says he quit in April 69 but he was on the May 2-4 1969 tour).  Indeed in NME Mike discussed how he missed a show because he was in India and sure enough Lloyd supplies the show-May 2 1969 in Norman.  That Lloyd was indeed on that tour is confirmed by an article I have from Omaha for May 4-in which he is interviewed backstage.  So-when he was actually road manager-without Duryea he has accurate notes-but clearly in April 68 he was not keeping them.

The Queen reference is in Richard Cromelin's piece for Sounds, Aug 7 1976:  Brian says "Like for instance there's a group called Queen.  They made a record, 'Bohemian Rhapsody' which to me was a fulfillment and an answer to a teenage prayer, of artistic music...I studied the record.  I became very familiar with it, and I'm very very fond of it and I'm scared of it at the same time.  Oh, it's the most competitive thing that's come along in ages! It's just totally amazing what people do when they lose their noggins, when they lose their heads and they go in there and freak...That's what Queen did.  They had enough of what was happening, and by God they went in and did their thing and stomped! And I appreciate that and I'm very fond of it."   Clearly in 1975 Brian was doing very little and probably listened to Rodney , Jim Pewter and other DJ's every day.  By the way-I had the privilege of interviewing Chip Rachlin for my book and he told me that he took Dennis to see Queen in 1975 or 76 and that Dennis insisted on going backstage afterwards and meeting them.

While obviously Brian has been through a lot since the mid 70s-interviews from 73 and 74 show that he was pretty up back then on al lot of the music that was going on. I don't think he is (or at least was back then) as myopic as the legends suggest. He knew about plenty of non Phil Spector music back then.  For example in one interview he suggests that he was up on the music of the Fifth Dimension, the Buckinghams and the Four Tops.  He played Curtis Mayfield records from his collection for Richard Williams of Melody Maker.  He also played Twilight Time by the Platters for him and gushed about "I'm So Young" by the Students (which he covered of course)-of which he said "that record took me through senior year in high school."  I am assuming that it was his decision to cover "The Letter" by the Box Tops since he took the lead. He covered "Gimme Some Lovin" by Spencer Davis in the 70s and expressed admiration for that group too.  He is fond of Three Dog Night as well of course and he once gushed about how much he loved Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.

Speaking of the Hawaii concert from 67-I have an interview with Brian from the Honolulu Advertiser from August 24 1967-when they were rehearsing. He says that they are planning on calling the album "Lei'd in Hawaii"-so it is straight from the horse's mouth-not some later name.  Also-while Brian played a lot of organ-if you listen to the show-it is clear that he is at the front of the stage-introducing songs on a bunch of numbers-and this is proven by taking a look at American Band-at the end of the God Only Knows segment there is a brief bit of extra footage from the shows that is seen-and Brian was clearly on bass for some numbers.

The photos that appeared in Rave in 68 are from the BBs short trip to the UK in Dec 1967-after playing the Unicef benefit.  The striped shirt shot-with them being interviewed is from Cleveland Oct 7 1967-last tour in stripes by the way.  Bruce sported a stache off and on from fall 67 to 1972.  He had one in Sept 68 when they played at Purdue but had shaved it off by the time they filmed the I Can Hear Music promo in early Oct 68. Then again by 1970-through 72 off and on.

Personally- I love the tapes from Chicago-March 1965. Brian joined them and was in excellent form. The version of "Don't Worry Baby" from this show-absolutely destroys that sorry,out of tune, outtake (from Aug 1964) released as a bonus on the Concert LP CD.  The band had great energy and just played really well.   Of course I have heard that-as with all the tapes the BBs ever recorded for live release-some monkey business went on in the studio afterwards to "fix" it-but I can't tell if that is true on the tape I heard.

The tour without Mike was 1970: Feb 26 (Spokane), Feb 27 Vancouver, Feb 28 Seattle and Mar 1 Portland.  A tape exists of the Seattle show-which I have heard-it is pretty good in my opinion-Brian takes the lead on some songs-far more involved in the show than he'd be in the late 70s.  His falsetto still sounds good.  Keith Badman made a hash of that tour in his book (he wrote that the tour was delayed till late March-but the ads and reviews that exist don't bear that out at all-he clearly had some erroneous info). The Seattle Times reviewed the Feb 28 show in the March 2 1970 paper and said the BBs harmonies sounded sloppy-though the reviewer said that this was not Brian's fault-but more to do with the whole group-however I think, based on the tape, the harmony sounded good.  Carlin wrote a nice bit about the tour-though unfortunately he mistakenly assumed that the first show was Seattle-when that was actually the third night.   By the way-I have an article from the California papers that shows that Mike was briefly arrested on Feb 20 1970-six days before the tour-for refusing to stop after a minor traffic violation and forcing police to give chase-lends credibility to the story in Gaines.

As far as I can tell-Brian ran out of time on Smile-due to a large number of factors-and that the BBs convinced him that they had to get a product out quickly as over a year had passed since Pet Sounds.  So they hastily recorded Smiley Smile to get some product out, however Brian still believed in Heroes and wanted to finish it.  I believe that he thought he had a great single-and it is pretty damn good-but I think that he over thought the thing-which many musicians do when they have too much time to play with it-it was better in Feb 67 than it was by July 67.  I think Smiley Smile other than Heroes was less about art and more about getting something in the shops.  Bruce's virtual absence-suggests that it may also have been an attempt by the group to rebuild a slightly damaged relationship with the head BB-after arguments over the previous year.  Hence-Brian's also agreeing to play Hawaii-to get back some BB spirit and the "straight" BBs decision to get a little crazy that summer-to bring the band closer together

Lets face facts-BW has released so much good stuff in the past 8 years-and many fans still complain about every aspect of them.  If BW produced Pet Sounds II tomorrow-there are a lot of grumpy people that would complain about it.  It's like the BBs in the early 70s-putting out great stuff but nobody was listening.

well-I think Jerry was already getting friendly with the BBs in 1978 and he was married to Myrna then-so mayabe they thanked Carl as a friend-but let us know if he is on the album

You are correct sir 

That is true of a lot of BB music-out of step with the times it was released but great today.  I mean-I like the Friends album-but I also am sharp enough to recognize that it was not a commercial release in early 1968.  Did not help the 1968 Beach Boys at all.  I actually really like Wild Honey as well-but in the fall of 67 the world wanted a much more dynamic statement from Brian.  Really-I think that if Brian had gotten a 4 minute single version of "Can't wait Too Long" together in the fall of 67-it might have been the right release.

Should be noted that Bruce mentioned in a 1972 interview that he was working on a song called "Endless Harmony" so that song had a really long gestation period-similar to some of Al's songs (actually it seems to take him twenty to thirty years to complete things)...though of course it took even longer to finish Smile.....nevermind.

At the end there-just to correct the quote-he said "it got all screwed up" not "I got all screwed up"

Thought I'd initiate a little conversation.  In 1988 Brian gave one of his most interesting interviews to Pulse Magazine (put out by the now defunct Tower Records).  Here is an excerpt-what do you think?
"There are so many mixed feelings in the Beach Boys that I can't handle it.  I don't like it.  I don't like the way it feels, so I just canned it and said that I don't want to do very many shows with them.  I stopped worrying about Mike Love and Carl Wilson and those guys and started worrying about myself.  If there's a fight, that would be very discomforting, but if there is, there is. 
When I show up to a concert, I feel their resentment.  I feel like they think 'Oh he gets to come out whenever he wants to but we have to work all year.' Little do they know I'm under just as much pressure as they are.  I think the Beach Boys are playing fear games with me.  They write letters to Gene and other people saying, 'We don't think Brian should get a share (of concert income) because he's not on the road.'  It makes me feared out.  They know it's going to fear me out when they do that because their touring is my only source of income. 
If it's going to come to those kind of games, I'll bow out entirely.  I will not participate in a group that plays games like that.  If they tell me to my face they want to do something with me (that's one thing), but if it's through letters to Gene and other people, I won't do it. I'd rather just go in and do my second album and f.... off with the Beach Boys.  It's not worth it to me to go through that much s..... 
The Beach Boys probably feel a little shackled too, when every night they've got to do '409' and 'Shut Down' and 'Surfin Safari.'  They have to do all those songs and they hate it, but that's what made them famous so they've got to do it.  I think the guys would much rather do some of the album cuts that we've done over the years, but they do those stupid old songs that sound for s....  They sound real stupid."
Brian then told the interviewer that the BBs shelved a great commercial song called "Boys, Girls" in the late 70s due to group tensions.  "It was a real commercial little song, but we threw it in the can.  We never did anything with it.  Why not?  I don't know.  Everyone just got crazy.  I got all screwed up. We sort of felt sour grapes about what was happening with us.  The LA (Light Album) didn't sell and it had a f....in'  great couple of songs on it.  We were looking for a big record with that one.  That set us back a little bit when that album bombed."

Anyways-I don't necessarily agree with all Brian says-but it has to be admitted its a very lucid and surprisisingly verbose and interesting interview.  Certainly far more frank, open and verbose than he has been in most interviews the last ten years or so.

I have to admit-obviously I am a huge BB fan-but that is one of the few songs that I can't stand to hear anymore.  Not that it wasn't good in its time-but I don't think they should perform it anymore.  It hasn't aged well.  But obviously they will keep on doing it.

I think Alan Boyd once stated that the song actually is on a Friends era reel and hence is not from 1967.  The interview with Brian from 67 where he mentions recording a song for the B side of Heroes-gives no title for the song and I think that over the years some BB scholars just assumed that "Little Red Book" was the song in question-but as it turns out it wasn't.

Yeah -I'd like to see that.  One would hope that maybe the BBs have a copy of that in the tape vault-but you never know.  I'm sure that if they knew then how valuable all that stuff was-they'd have made sure they had a tape of every TV show for their vaults-but I don't think they really cared that much at the time.

I think it is interesting about the difference between the casual and die hard fan.  I must admit that as time goes by-I  listen to MIU more than I used to.  My brain tells me that "Matchpoint of Our Love" is slight but emotionally I am drawn to a late 70s song with a pretty decent BW vocal.  So I guess I am listening more because as a fan-I know that BW had recovered his vocal chops to some extent by late 77 but that by 1979 he was again smoking too much and less interested in singing a solo.  So-MIU is the only chance to hear BW sing some solos in a decent voice in the late 70s-What I mean is-that if I wasn't a fan-it would just be a banal song-but my knowledge of BB history gives it more weight.

I think that was on Youtube at one point but it is gone now-though you can see them performing on the Easter Seals Telethon.