Is Carl Lying?

[MBE]

I love this board ! People are so open to different views. I mean people willing to think the whole Brian and the five a--holes thing is false makes me quite happy. Brian is great, .but I think he never learned how to say "I don't want to talk about this so drop it". In other words Brian is not trying to fool anyone but trying to aviod a subject.  I also think his memory is great at  times and at others terrible. I think he pretends to remember things, or has been told about certain events falsely by hangers on who have motives. I think we all can guess who they are. While his book is tabloid fodder, Gaines did say in a radio or TV interview that The Beach Boys were ok but it was the people aound them who were really the ones causing trouble. As far as Brian being ill, he had problems as early as 1963. He was slowly putting on weight, he was missing shows, and already unhealthy as to how he viewed people like Spector etc. Drugs gave Brian brain damage and changed him from who he was before his dad died, but I just don't really see how someone as prolific as Brian was in 68-70 can be seen as any worse then he was in 66-7. Of course by 1974-5 he was in trouble but I think it was after Landy saw him that things got worse. I mean Brian in 1971 was in control enough to work only when he wanted to. He wasn't obese, he didn't need minders. Can you say that about Brian in 1977

[james666]

The Beach Boys went a year and a few months from the release of Pet Sounds to Smiley Smile. Back in those days, that was good for about two new albums. What if Brian never met Van Dyke Parks at that party, never asked him to write lyrics, and decided to stick with Love, Asher, himself, or somebody else. What if Brian continued to produce music a la Summer Days & Summer Nights, Pet Sounds, and even "Good Vibrations". You know, commercial, ground breaking, accessible, Beach Boys' sounding music. 

Isn't that close to what the Beach Boys achieved?  Wild Honey is filled with Wilson-Love songs in the classic style, let down in places by the homemade production.  Songs like "Let The Wind Blow" stand with their best work.  Listen again to the live version of "Aren't You Glad".  Then we have Friends with a proper Brian Wilson sound and more eccentric (but still great) compositions.  By the 1969-1970 era, songs such as "We're Together Again", "Do It Again", "Breakaway", "This Whole World", "All I Want To Do" (Sunflower), "Forever", "Cool Cool Water", "Slip On Through", "It's About Time", "Lady", "Sound Of Free", "Till I Die" and "Big Sur" (first version) were meeting your specifications exactly.  The group, especially Dennis and Carl, filled the void as Brian began to withdraw, but his guiding spirit is unmistakably there.  The work was not always released in the most commercially sensible way, but 1967-70 was a period of sustained brilliance that rivals everything that went before.  It's a pity that there were few sympathetic listeners.

[Sheriff John Stone]

The Beach Boys went a year and a few months from the release of Pet Sounds to Smiley Smile. Back in those days, that was good for about two new albums. What if Brian never met Van Dyke Parks at that party, never asked him to write lyrics, and decided to stick with Love, Asher, himself, or somebody else. What if Brian continued to produce music a la Summer Days & Summer Nights, Pet Sounds, and even "Good Vibrations". You know, commercial, ground breaking, accessible, Beach Boys' sounding music. 

Wild Honey is filled with Wilson-Love songs in the classic style, let down in places by the homemade production. 

The work was not always released in the most commercially sensible way, but 1967-70 was a period of sustained brilliance that rivals everything that went before.  It's a pity that there were few sympathetic listeners.

I think the homemade production WAS, as you state, a let down. It's personal taste, of course, but I think Brian's music suffered when he eased out of the Western/Sunset Sound/Wrecking Crew mode of recording and moved into the simpler, home studio style. While I can appreciate parts of Wild Honey and Friends, I still prefer the "full blown" BW productions. Do you think the listening public did too?

The period of 1967-70 certainly did contain some worthwhile music. But I think it's a stretch, even as a faithful diehard, to say it was SUSTAINED brilliance, rivaling everything before. Rivaling Today, Pet Sounds, Good Vibrations?

[Surfer Joe]

Besides agreeing with every word of that- "Darlin' " and "Breakaway" were about the only tracks of that later Capitol period that rose to the full heights of the earlier productions for me personally*- I don't think they ever got back to the level of All Summer Long- an underrated early plateau.

* O.K., throw in "I Went To Sleep" and "Time To Get Alone".  I like a lot of stuff off of those albums, and love some of it, but the "Salt Lake City" gloss of perfection is missing for me.

[james666]

I think the homemade production WAS, as you state, a let down. It's personal taste, of course, but I think Brian's music suffered when he eased out of the Western/Sunset Sound/Wrecking Crew mode of recording and moved into the simpler, home studio style. While I can appreciate parts of Wild Honey and Friends, I still prefer the "full blown" BW productions. Do you think the listening public did too?

But wasn't it the quest for studio perfection in the Smile period that brought Brian to creative breakdown in the first place?  I think Brian was suffering from a lack of discipline, but it wasn't limited to the home studio.  In the professional studio he eventually had too much freedom to rework obsessively and become unable to make decisions.  Did the listening public prefer the full blown stuff?  Probably it did, but a rawer style was becoming fashionable in the late 60s  e.g. Music From Big Pink, John Wesley Harding, White Album.   The Beach Boys might have been able to sell Wild Honey as their "Big Pink" with better PR.  I think Friends is a pretty damn good production.  It's instrumentally sparse in places, but it has all of the old vocal warmth.

The period of 1967-70 certainly did contain some worthwhile music. But I think it's a stretch, even as a faithful diehard, to say it was SUSTAINED brilliance, rivaling everything before. Rivaling Today, Pet Sounds, Good Vibrations?

The band never released another album as consistently good as Pet Sounds before or after 1966.  Sunflower comes quite close and I would say it's a better album song for song than Today or Summer Days.  For me, the frequency and magnitude of the highpoints are comparable in both eras.

[endofposts]

Pet Sounds didn't sell that well, and it hurt Brian deeply, according to his mother, Marilyn, and others around him.  Since the lack of success of PS didn't sink in until Smile was already under way, don't you think that had some influence on how that album proceeded in the end?

You also can't dismiss the influence of the Monkees controversy.  There was a big hoo-ha when it was revealed that the Monkees didn't play on their own records.  It seems stupid now, but apparently is was important then, especially since all acts were compared to the Beatles.  The direction the Beach Boys went in was a good approach for the times, and I don't think Brian's earlier approach would have gotten them more airplay when it would sound incongruous next to what was being played on the radio 1967  and beyond.

I think the Beach Boys were concerned about Brian's overall self-indulgence and lack of discipline in the studio, starting with the sessions for "Good Vibrations."  There really was no reason GV to have tracked that many sessions, and when you listen to the outtakes, it becomes apparent that Brian seemed to be trying to do variations on a theme, most of which were never intended to make it onto the final record.  Smile has bits that are similarly experimental.  Brian wanted to stretch and perhaps attempt to make serious music, but it seemed more for his own thing and not clearly meant just to make a chart-bound Beach Boys record.  He was very prolific and efficient prior to that, with some experimentation and variations, but not on the scale of Smile and "Good Vibrations."  The Beach Boys didn't necessarily have faith in "Good Vibrations" in any form; even Brian had some doubts about it.  It probably was considered a lucky fluke that it was such a huge hit.  "Heroes and Villains" is actually a fairly good, stylistically consistent follow-up to GV, but it just didn't get the airplay, never got very high even in the home market of LA, and fell off quickly.  That was probably the nail in the coffin for Brian's ever being that ambitious again, and IMO, it was dictated more by the changing marketplace than what Brian and the Beach Boys were doing.  They were getting too old for bubblegum (and replaced by new acts with new approaches for the Top 40 kids' market), and were considered poison by the older, hipper fans.  Even the Doors were quickly considered too bubblegum and sell-out for the dopehead hipsters, but too old for the younger kids.

[Lorenschwartz]

Pet Sounds didn't sell that well, and it hurt Brian deeply, according to his mother, Marilyn, and others around him.  Since the lack of success of PS didn't sink in until Smile was already under way, don't you think that had some influence on how that album proceeded in the end?

You also can't dismiss the influence of the Monkees controversy.  There was a big hoo-ha when it was revealed that the Monkees didn't play on their own records.  It seems stupid now, but apparently is was important then, especially since all acts were compared to the Beatles.  The direction the Beach Boys went in was a good approach for the times, and I don't think Brian's earlier approach would have gotten them more airplay when it would sound incongruous next to what was being played on the radio 1967  and beyond.

I think the Beach Boys were concerned about Brian's overall self-indulgence and lack of discipline in the studio, starting with the sessions for "Good Vibrations."  There really was no reason GV to have tracked that many sessions, and when you listen to the outtakes, it becomes apparent that Brian seemed to be trying to do variations on a theme, most of which were never intended to make it onto the final record.  Smile has bits that are similarly experimental.  Brian wanted to stretch and perhaps attempt to make serious music, but it seemed more for his own thing and not clearly meant just to make a chart-bound Beach Boys record.  He was very prolific and efficient prior to that, with some experimentation and variations, but not on the scale of Smile and "Good Vibrations."  The Beach Boys didn't necessarily have faith in "Good Vibrations" in any form; even Brian had some doubts about it.  It probably was considered a lucky fluke that it was such a huge hit.  "Heroes and Villains" is actually a fairly good, stylistically consistent follow-up to GV, but it just didn't get the airplay, never got very high even in the home market of LA, and fell off quickly.  That was probably the nail in the coffin for Brian's ever being that ambitious again, and IMO, it was dictated more by the changing marketplace than what Brian and the Beach Boys were doing.  They were getting too old for bubblegum (and replaced by new acts with new approaches for the Top 40 kids' market), and were considered poison by the older, hipper fans.  Even the Doors were quickly considered too bubblegum and sell-out for the dopehead hipsters, but too old for the younger kids.

Great points...i like the way you wove the BB's contemporaries into the mix. Very good insight to bring in the true history. Nothing like facts, to make a point.

[Wilsonista]

Except for one thing.....

Pet Sounds DID sell in 1966 and (if Capitol hadn't f***ed the band over) was on tap to be their best selling studio album!

How does one know?

First of all, Pet Sounds was finally certified gold in February 2000 thanks to a subpoena from Melinda Wilson to Capitol Records forcing an audit of all of the sales of Pet Sounds from '66 to 2000.

However, by the time that Brian was given his Gold album after the Roxy shows, Pet Sounds was already certified PLATINUM! ow's that posible? Simple, the Capitol bean counters had found unreported record sales - from 1966. Pet Sounds DID sell enough to have gone gold in '66, it WASN'T a "flop" (how can a Top Ten album be called a "flop"?), and it was on track to be a HUGE album for the BB. So can we stop repeating the myth that Pet Sounds "just didn't sell"?

Thank you!

[Lorenschwartz]

Except for one thing.....

Pet Sounds DID sell in 1966 and (if Capitol hadn't fodaed the band over) was on tap to be their best selling studio album!

How does one know?

First of all, Pet Sounds was finally certified gold in February 2000 thanks to a subpoena from Melinda Wilson to Capitol Records forcing an audit of all of the sales of Pet Sounds from '66 to 2000.

However, by the time that Brian was given his Gold album after the Roxy shows, Pet Sounds was already certified PLATINUM! ow's that posible? Simple, the Capitol bean counters had found unreported record sales - from 1966. Pet Sounds DID sell enough to have gone gold in '66, it WASN'T a "flop" (how can a Top Ten album be called a "flop"?), and it was on track to be a HUGE album for the BB. So can we stop repeating the myth that Pet Sounds "just didn't sell"?

Thank you!

Alright!!! Alright!!!
                   The Pet Sounds Conspiracy, i knew it,man...................................this stuff'll Kill Ya

[Aegir]

That's INSANE!

[endofposts]

Except for one thing.....

Pet Sounds DID sell in 1966 and (if Capitol hadn't fodaed the band over) was on tap to be their best selling studio album!

How does one know?

First of all, Pet Sounds was finally certified gold in February 2000 thanks to a subpoena from Melinda Wilson to Capitol Records forcing an audit of all of the sales of Pet Sounds from '66 to 2000.

However, by the time that Brian was given his Gold album after the Roxy shows, Pet Sounds was already certified PLATINUM! ow's that posible? Simple, the Capitol bean counters had found unreported record sales - from 1966. Pet Sounds DID sell enough to have gone gold in '66, it WASN'T a "flop" (how can a Top Ten album be called a "flop"?), and it was on track to be a HUGE album for the BB. So can we stop repeating the myth that Pet Sounds "just didn't sell"?

Thank you!

But did Brian think it sold all that well back in 1966?  No.  Did he have to face the reality then that Capitol was pushing a greatest hits collection at the expense of promoting PS?  Yes.  Did his first attempt at a solo release not do very well (Caroline, No)?  Yes.  Did his own mom and his first wife say he was devastated by the weaker showing of PS, relative to earlier BB releases?  Yes.   Other music acts would have been glad to have a "bomb" like PS on their hands, but it wasn't good enough for the expectations that Brian had built.  He also faced resistance from Capitol prior to the album being released.  Brian had a lot of reasons to be a bit less confident during the time Smile was being created.  The fact that PS has done well in back catalog sales and his current wife had sales audited to vindicate her husband wasn't a whole lot of help to Brian in 1966/67.

[Daniel S.]

How many copies did Pet Sounds sell in its first year of release? Approximately. More than 500,000 copies?

[Sheriff John Stone]

Brian also lost confidence in his ability to compete in the marketplace and have hit records.  No matter what approach he took post-PS, that would have been true.  The Beach Boys were fading, and would have even if Brian came up with something more readily accessible than "Smile."   

These were 1966 Brian Wilson-produced singles along with their peak chart positions:

Barbara Ann            - peaked at #2
Sloop John B            - peaked at #3
Wouldn't It Be Nice  - peaked at #8
Good Vibrations       - peaked at #1

Pet Sounds (album) - peaked at #10

First, I would consider all of these HIT RECORDS. Second, it proves that Brian COULD/DID COMPETE in the marketplace in 1966. Third, it DOES NOT SHOW that he/they were fading. And four, if Brian lost confidence based on the listening public's acceptance of the above music, then there really was nothing that could be done for Brian's "condition", because, based on the competition in 1966, you couldn't do much better than that.

If Brian would've come up with something even remotely "accessible" in late 1966 or early 1967, I see no reason why it would not have been another big success...  

[jabba2]

In the American Band documentory Carl said "it didnt seem appropriate at the time" which is probably what he felt. It also shows Al with a weird expression on his face talking to Carl and both looked uncomfortable to me. They didnt seem to understand what was going on. Then Mike knods his head no, simulating smoking a joint while trying to dance along to "Fire" He also gives someone a look that seems to say "this sucks".

[endofposts]

Then maybe I'm just confused as to why Marilyn and Audree said that Brian was devastated by the "failure" of Pet Sounds. 

[Surfer Joe]

It's just another subjective thing, fm- or a matter of words.  Pet Sounds was obviously not a failure in 1966, whether based on the information they had then or the additional information we have now.  However, the response was disappointing to Brian.  It was a failure by some standard of his own,  probably processed through a personal nature that was steeped in severe depression.

The same is probably true for his perception of the response of the other band members to his work- his state of mind was such that he needed a lot of validation and support, so even a lukewarm or mixed response may have amounted to outright hostility in his own reality. Even a little heat was probably more than he could take. He was no longer equal to the pressure and no one around him seemed to know it.

[Rocker]

In the American Band documentory Carl said "it didnt seem appropriate at the time" which is probably what he felt. It also shows Al with a weird expression on his face talking to Carl and both looked uncomfortable to me. They didnt seem to understand what was going on. Then Mike knods his head no, simulating smoking a joint while trying to dance along to "Fire" He also gives someone a look that seems to say "this sucks".

This was not filmed at the fire-sessions, as I understand. Dennis probably filmed it, and those guys who did the documentary put "Fire" on it, because Brian wears that fire helmet, which he did not only during "Fire"...

[Cam Mott]

I think that under-promotion of PS by Capitol is another fallacy. In my experience you can find as many or more examples of ads for Pet Sounds than BoBB or any other BB album of the time including a 4 full page trade ad.  Has any one seen a four page gatefold trade ad for any other 1966 group or album?  Pet Sounds also had 3 of its songs [almost a quarter of the album] in heavy rotation on national radio.

[Chris Brown]

This was not filmed at the fire-sessions, as I understand. Dennis probably filmed it, and those guys who did the documentary put "Fire" on it, because Brian wears that fire helmet, which he did not only during "Fire"...

Which other sessions did Brian wear a fire hat?  I always thought that it was exclusively the sessions for Fire...maybe H&V intro session?

[jabba2]

double post

[jabba2]

In the American Band documentory Carl said "it didnt seem appropriate at the time" which is probably what he felt. It also shows Al with a weird expression on his face talking to Carl and both looked uncomfortable to me. They didnt seem to understand what was going on. Then Mike knods his head no, simulating smoking a joint while trying to dance along to "Fire" He also gives someone a look that seems to say "this sucks".

This was not filmed at the fire-sessions, as I understand. Dennis probably filmed it, and those guys who did the documentary put "Fire" on it, because Brian wears that fire helmet, which he did not only during "Fire"...

Why was Mike wearing a fire helmet too? Also Brian is seen closing his eyes and jamming to music whatever it is, but they appeared to be listening to some Smile track, judging by Mike's expressions. I also remember Brian saying he liked to space out when listening to Fire even though noone in the band liked it very much. That looks alot like what happens in this video.

[Mitchell]

I like Al's giving the finger in the video. That's classic Al.

[Rocker]

I am not sure, but that's what I heard. The Beach Boys weren't there for the Fire-Sessions, I believe they weren't even in town (maybe on tour?).
Brian did wear those helmets alot during the Smile-sessions. Dennis brought him some from Europe, when they were on tour here. He even used this "fire-thing" on the promo-video to "Good Vibrations".  The Fire-Session was the one where all the studio-musicians had to wear those helmets, but like I said, Brian ore them quite often. Again, this is what I have heard, I wasn't there, so....

[MBE]

These "sessions" were just for a video. They may have been recordng at the same time but it I think they are merely outtakes from the "Good Vibes" video which was aired in 1966 and recently found. Pet Sounds did do well and was promoted but Best Of The Beach Boys was released too early. The songs on the US version weren't well chosen compared to the UK one. One story is that Best Of The Beach Boys was sometimes sent by "accident" to stores who ordered "Pet Sounds". Frankly Captiol had a right to put out a hits LP, but they should of released so it wouldn't conflict with new product. At least the pictures on it were modern.

[Reverend Joshua Sloane]

If they sold them as a double package they would've got way more sales.

"COMPARE the old to the new. Hear your favorite hits and new songs from PET SOUNDS. Buy both today! and hear America's fastest evolving musical act sweeping up the world!".