Feeling confused...who's the hero and who's the villain?

[Mike's Beard]

Whatever was said that Negrin couldn't hear is speculation.  What Brian told him afterwards wasn't.

Exactly, the outcome is not in dispute. What exactly was said, by whom and the nature of how it was argued is speculation as neither member of Redwood was in the booth at the time.

[Dancing Bear]

It wasn't exactly an unreasonable request though was it? "Hey Brian, remember that album of ours that just completely bombed and those flop singles? Maybe we should take those couple of tunes that are better then anything else we have lying around and make them into BB tunes?"

Brian could live off royalties in 1967 while Carl, Al, Dennis and Mike couldn't. They exposed their angle to Brian, who could have focused on the next Beach Boys album or told them to take a hike and become a independent producer. He chose the former. The end.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Thing is, though, Brian didn't know he could've just lived off the royalties back then, especially once the back catalogue was delted later on. After 1974, that's different, though.

[Fire Wind]

Is it true, though, that other members of The Beach Boys also circumvented Brian's original plans to produce a full album and offered Redwood a deal for a *single* on Brother, basically without involving Brian in this offer? That I'm not sure...

Don't know much about this band or other sources on this tale, but here's a quote from Hutton I saw in his interview on 'Darlin'' in Fifty Sides of the Beach Boys, so a fairly recent interview.

"According to Hutton, it was about other Beach Boys wanting both the Redwood songs and Brian's full attention.

"'He's giving away those hits like he did with Jan & Dean!' - I see their point," Hutton says.  "I get Mike Love saying, 'Hey, Danny, man, I know about this album thing you want to do.  What about a single or something?  We've got an album to do, man.  I don't know what you guys are doing.  We gotta get in this room.  We gotta start working.'""

[Cyncie]

LOL! Now we know why Brian resists being in a room alone with Mike

[Cam Mott]

Really Brothers Records as a label was sort of a pipedream anyway wasn't it. Even at the time Redwood was supposedly recording for Brothers weren't the Boys themselves already reverted to Capitol as their label? Was anything not Beach Boys released on Brother Records, Pickle Brothers or anybody?

[guitarfool2002]

Another aspect to consider:

On another recent thread, it was debated and discussed just how much of Wild Honey Brian actually produced, and how much of it was Carl or a "group effort". Some suggested Brian didn't do that much production work on the album, I suggested we can hear where he did more than others, and overall my point was Brian was still involved more than some were suggesting.

Ok - So let's assume for the discussion that Brian really didn't do that much on Wild Honey, as the suggestion was made. If that were the case, why would they need him to stop work with Redwood and take up producing Wild Honey?

It seems that if we take the notion that the Beach Boys coming into Heider's studio that day and essentially ending Brian's work on Redwood's album, then doesn't that also in a way dispute the claim that he didn't do as much production as Carl or anyone else on the record?

So why would they need him, then, to almost immediately quit Redwood and get back to working on Wild Honey, if as some claims suggest Carl was the one calling the production shots more than Brian?

[bgas]

Really Brothers Records as a label was sort of a pipedream anyway wasn't it. Even at the time Redwood was supposedly recording for Brothers weren't the Boys themselves already reverted to Capitol as their label? Was anything not Beach Boys released on Brother Records, Pickle Brothers or anybody?

The Flame

Another aspect to consider:

On another recent thread, it was debated and discussed just how much of Wild Honey Brian actually produced, and how much of it was Carl or a "group effort". Some suggested Brian didn't do that much production work on the album, I suggested we can hear where he did more than others, and overall my point was Brian was still involved more than some were suggesting.

Ok - So let's assume for the discussion that Brian really didn't do that much on Wild Honey, as the suggestion was made. If that were the case, why would they need him to stop work with Redwood and take up producing Wild Honey?

It seems that if we take the notion that the Beach Boys coming into Heider's studio that day and essentially ending Brian's work on Redwood's album, then doesn't that also in a way dispute the claim that he didn't do as much production as Carl or anyone else on the record?

So why would they need him, then, to almost immediately quit Redwood and get back to working on Wild Honey, if as some claims suggest Carl was the one calling the production shots more than Brian?

Perhaps as has been mentioned, they simply wanted to use the studio and didn't want Brian wasting all of their available time by recording someone else ( Redwood) ? 

[guitarfool2002]

Brian was cutting most if not all of the Redwood tracks at Wally Heider's, I believe. Or do you mean they just didn't want Brian booking time at Heider's for others instead of them?

[bgas]

Brian was cutting most if not all of the Redwood tracks at Wally Heider's, I believe. Or do you mean they just didn't want Brian booking time at Heider's for others instead of them?

I missed that, I guess, but definitely they wanted BRian's time to be spent with the BBs, whether he was producing or simply taking part

[guitarfool2002]

Or they just didn't want him working with anyone else, or giving good ideas to anyone else but "the family", yet Brother was partially set up for the band members to do just that - work with outside artists. Keep in mind Brian was still doing Honeys sessions in 1967, right? Some of the studio photos originally thought to be Smile sessions were actually shot at Honeys sessions, some of those showing Brian with his custom Hawaiian shirts circa '67.

I guess Brian working on Honeys sessions wasn't as big of a deal for Carl and Mike? 

I forgot to add that the Wild Honey tracks, at least I think a majority of them were cut at the home studio which was still in flux, although Jim Lockert eventually final-mixed the record piecemeal at Heider's as he had done with Smiley Smile, at least according to what he said. So having Brian working at Heider's should not have affected Carl, if he were producing as much as suggested, from working at the home studio as they had been doing.

[bgas]

Or they just didn't want him working with anyone else, or giving good ideas to anyone else but "the family", yet Brother was partially set up for the band members to do just that - work with outside artists. Keep in mind Brian was still doing Honeys sessions in 1967, right? Some of the studio photos originally thought to be Smile sessions were actually shot at Honeys sessions, some of those showing Brian with his custom Hawaiian shirts circa '67.

I guess Brian working on Honeys sessions wasn't as big of a deal for Carl and Mike? 

I forgot to add that the Wild Honey tracks, at least I think a majority of them were cut at the home studio which was still in flux, although Jim Lockert eventually final-mixed the record piecemeal at Heider's as he had done with Smiley Smile, at least according to what he said. So having Brian working at Heider's should not have affected Carl, if he were producing as much as suggested, from working at the home studio as they had been doing.

Makes some sense, but, perhaps Carl's producing felt better knowing Brian was nearby and not across town working with Redwood? maybe just feeling they wanted to get Brian thinking more about BBs / less about Redwood. 

 Brother set up for working with other artists, ties neatly in with  that wonky country/pop singer acetate  that was supposed to be delivered to Carl at Brother; tho what the thought process was there , is beyond me. 

[guitarfool2002]

I'd say that thought process is exactly in step with the original plans for Brother - It wasn't just Brian, but also Carl, Mike, Dennis, whoever else...if they heard an artist that interested them, Brother was set up so they could bring them in and cut records, or even demo them. I'm sure they were also scouting for and soliciting new artists and demos, which explains that acetate to a degree. We could go to the extreme and bring up Charles Manson, where Dennis heard his music, Mike was hanging around the Manson clan too and heard his music, so they (mostly Dennis but who knows) had him come in to record some demos.

And this is speculation, but I think those two almost out-of-place Smile recordings where Carl produced Tune X and Dennis did I Don't Know were, at least in my opinion, attempts at them learning the ropes so they could work with artists on their own, producing under the Brother umbrella which was at the time those were recorded very much a plan in motion.

[bgas]

oops

[guitarfool2002]

Which artists did Mike bring in? I know the famous ones were more 70's, like Craig Vincent Smith, but did he have anyone come in back in 67?

Brother was put on hold, but consider too the Capitol issues and the shopping for a new contract which led to Reprise, then Brother came back into existence. I'd like to read up more on the details of all that, I'm not really up on the full backstory and all of that to explain how and why that happened between '67 and '69/'70. Only thing I know is Nick Grillo took over after David Anderle's departure, and Grillo finalized the Brother deal with Capitol. Then Brother all but fell asleep for a few years, didn't it?

[Jim V.]

Really Brothers Records as a label was sort of a pipedream anyway wasn't it. Even at the time Redwood was supposedly recording for Brothers weren't the Boys themselves already reverted to Capitol as their label? Was anything not Beach Boys released on Brother Records, Pickle Brothers or anybody?

You think that for as long as you've been a fan, you'd know the name of the label is Brother Records, not "Brothers".

[guitarfool2002]

Could look this up but just thinking out loud...That cover of Let The Wind Blow - was it a female singer named "Amy" or was the track labeled "Amy Vocal"? - was that one of Mike's outside-artist projects for Brother? I don't know what else they/Mike did with Craig Smith, either, or if anything, or whether they just had him in recording and Mike's voice is on that session tape? I'd say Carl bringing in The Flame probably produced the best results all around, obviously.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Yeah...what WAS the deal with 'Amy'...or the kid on that 'Oh Yeah'  track?

[Jason Penick]

Which artists did Mike bring in? I know the famous ones were more 70's, like Craig Vincent Smith, but did he have anyone come in back in 67?

Mike brought in the Pickle Brothers.

[guitarfool2002]

A few thoughts on the notion of Brother Records being a "pipedream". I disagree. And the results since it was formed in 1967 prove it was in fact successful. Consider again Apple Records - everyone knows it was a complete mess, a sham of a business, money flowing out of every possible window...yet look what it turned into. Eventually it got reshaped, reinvented, put under the stewardship of people like Neil Aspinall who not only knew the business but also had the band's interests and legacy in mind.

Apple Corp. is worth a fortune. Was it a rough if not disastrous first five years or so in business? Of course. But look at where Apple Corp. stands in 2014.

Consider Brother Records in 1967. Rocky start, not much motivation after the initial plans were drawn up and the deal signed, in fact the whole "company" and name basically went on hiatus for several years as the band changed labels and contracts, only to be revived and revisited. Now, it is still in existence as BRI, more or less, and BRI is as far as I think we know a profitable and valuable business interest.

We forget in 2014 that starting a company from scratch no matter how much investment capital one may have is at least a 5 year proposition before the company shows a profit, unless it's a stroke of luck. The whole dot-com and internet startup business debacle/sham made people think the model was reversed so the "founders" of a dot-com struck it rich and cashed out before a single successful year was in the company books...it didn't even matter. Score early, score big, get the hell out of the business. Remember pets.com? Solyndra? The founders and owners lived like kings. The companies were sh*t and they knew they would fail...it didn't matter. They got big profits on an IPO, sold snake oil, and cashed in.

BRI/Brother and Apple Records...They were a near-disaster, but with the usual reworking, reshaping, revamping that any business may go through before finding its groove, look at where they are today.

Hardly a pipedream when you consider the template suggested by Brian, David Anderle, and others is still a viable company almost 50 years later. Not in the same way, but how many companies are? How many companies last 50 years, period?

[Cam Mott]

I agree that BRI is a successful and on going corporation but as a label BRI had like 3 or 4 records altogether. It wasn't really producing much of anything as a record label. It had only one non-BB release I guess. To me, as a label that would release records of outside artists and non-group project it was a pipedream.

The corporation was formed January 11 1967 and by October they weren't even releasing their own recordings on their own label.

Since they all wanted it to happen and made plans apparently, makes me wonder if the label being a mostly pipedream must have been something beyond their control, like the terms of a settlement, or cash flow, or something.

[guitarfool2002]

I don't think cash flow was an issue for 1967 and 1968. They had a banner year in 1966, especially towards the latter half of that year, which ended in them having the #1 record, winning that poll over the Beatles, and coming back from a successful European tour that saw them all but welcomed as heroes in the UK. With the money they'd receive from these events in late '66, it wouldn't actually reach their accounts in some cases until well into 1967 via record sales, tour profits, new offers to perform, etc. So they were set for 1967 based on income they had made in the previous years.

Keep in mind, too, that at this same time and into 1968 they had Grillo burning off some of that money by investing in various deals like that Alameda area land purchase strictly for an investment (ultimately it didn't go so well), dropping who knows how much into the Maharishi tour debacle, and were actively outfitting Brian's house with a working professional recording studio so they wouldn't need to worry about booking outside facilities. They were still set throughout 1968, it would seem.

Then, into 1969-70, some of the bills started to come due, some of the investments soured, and it coincided with them not being able to sustain the sales and popularity that had filled their coffers previously. Capitol was out, they needed a new deal, and again some of the bills were coming in. Murry sold Sea Of Tunes and pocketed the money...Manson and the family leeched off Dennis and that hit his wallet, they were still touring but to less paying customers, etc. That's when it got bad. That's when Brian did on a larger scale what he used to do at Radiant Radish by putting his own money into the cash register when things got tight financially to keep things solvent.

Whatever was planned and set up through Brother Records in 1967 was also looking ahead to the future - unfortunately the immediate future wasn't paying off as it had before, and like most businesses starting up it was a period of very lean years. That doesn't mean it was a pipe dream from its inception, and eventually what was set up for the business plan did start happening.

Apple on the other hand came right out of the gate with their "outside artists", the first batch of Apple releases were pretty successful including the Beatles' own singles, then that side of it dropped off. And the poor business practices nearly sunk the entire corporation, obviously, until they restructured the whole thing, the Beatles were over as a band, and it started to make money under the right hands.

Brother Records morphed into BRI, things got better over the years, and again it is now firmly in place as a corporation. Was it the multimedia juggernaut originally planned? No, but neither was Apple. They both had to change and adapt, and work through the usual growing pains to become what they eventually did, which are successful companies that started out as a record label.

I still don't see the pipe dream aspect if it did in fact develop over time into a successful player in the music business.

[Cam Mott]

OK but to me a record label that only released 4 records in 47 years is a pipedream of a record label. We will just disagree.

Maybe it wasn't cash flow, but still feel was something not in their control that kept them from making their record label aspirations a reality.

Edit: You mentioned Nick Grillo, maybe he had some sort of advice against it for some reason. I got ahold of Nick a long time ago and at the time he was not interested but referred me to the book H&V (title?) and said that what is attributed about him there is accurate. Does it say anything about it?

[guitarfool2002]

OK but to me a record label that only released 4 records in 47 years is a pipedream of a record label. We will just disagree.

Maybe it wasn't cash flow, but still feel was something not in their control that kept them from making their record label aspirations a reality.

Edit: You mentioned Nick Grillo, maybe he had some sort of advice against it for some reason. I got ahold of Nick a long time ago and at the time he was not interested but referred me to the book H&V (title?) and said that what is attributed about him there is accurate. Does it say anything about it?

Yes. It's on Google Books, and clicking this link takes you to the available pages/passages mentioning Grillo:

http://books.google.com/books?id=spwdCTYbJP4C&q=grillo#v=snippet&q=grillo&f=false

Enlightening stuff. Mentions Brother, mentions the land deal in Simi Valley, mentions Brian *and* Grillo putting tens of thousands of dollars of their own money into the band's coffers, including Brian taking out a second mortgage to keep the band's finances afloat, mentions Mike demanding money from Capitol in the form of royalty advances to finance his film about the Maharishi to the point of Mike writing to Alan Livingston personally demanding the loan, mentions how much the Maharishi tour debacle cost them, mentions how they couldn't get a record deal in '69, mentions how Capitol deleted the entire Beach Boys catalog in response to another lawsuit later in the 60's which cut the band's income considerably since no one could buy their albums, mentions how Murry screwed everyone with the Sea Of Tunes deal - pocketing the one-time cash payment and not distributing it - in light of another offer to sell which would have allowed the band to keep half of Sea Of Tunes interest for income, mentions how Mike was one of the main supporters of Brother Records for business reasons as he trusted Anderle and it was set up so the individual band members could work with outside artists without Brian's involvement...

That last one, make note of that... 

And Grillo basically spells out the specifics of how and why the band's finances shrunk to the point of near-bankruptcy, which is basically what I outlined as bills came due while revenue sources shrunk...which led to Grillo himself putting a decent sum of money into the BB's bank, as did Brian, then Grillo was one who got the finger pointed at him by various band members, and Jack Reiley and Stan Love and was basically fired over the phone, after being confronted repeatedly when things got really tight with money over how much he was getting. Yet the band still owed him quite a large sum from what Grillo put into their coffers which was a loan basically, and back payments he was due for his services.

So that's a summary, definitely read the link to the book. If Grillo says it's accurate, there is some pretty negative stuff to be found in that account of the "lean years", 68-71.

[guitarfool2002]

I'd definitely recommend reading what Grillo said, it adds a few elements to the 1968-69 time period that could help explain just how and why things got so bad financially, besides the obvious.

Consider Capitol as a player in all of this. It doesn't get talked about much that they deleted the Beach Boys catalog, which again meant not only could people not buy the back catalog of albums, but Capitol was basically taking a financial hit as well because that meant the albums were not making money for them. And The Beach Boys therefore could not collect payments on them either. It was asked earlier whether Capitol would be willing to take a financial hit post-lawsuit by possibly not giving the full weight of marketing and distribution to a band who had cost them potentially millions of dollars through a lawsuit, then again for another lawsuit. And if they went so far as to delete the entire catalog, I'd say there was bad blood for sure.

Grillo also mentions Mike asking for money to fund his Maharishi film project, which also led to Mike essentially asking the head of Capitol for a loan on future royalties, and that may have also caused tension because it would seem you didn't go to Livingston basically begging for money in this way.

Keep in mind, the Beatles had a major issue with the Maharishi as well regarding money. The Maharishi was doing some things the Beatles didn't like, nor did they agree with, regarding using their image and fame to try building his TM empire through the media. He had a full broadcast studio, radio-TV-etc, and at one point several Beatles basically made a special trip to meet him to tell him basically "cut the crap" and stop using them and their money.

Another facet: Maharishi at one point asked for the Beatles to sign over their royalties to him and his multimedia organization. A ridiculous request.

Consider though, that in light of this rejection by The Beatles which may have been one of several similar requests to "use" them to promote TM, the tour with the Beach Boys happened soon after. If you take Grillo's word, Mike was advised against this...I have audio of Lennon and McCartney saying they were also advising the Maharishi against this, but the tour went ahead. And it cost at least over a half million dollars of the band's money, and was a total flop as we all know.

Could the Beach Boys tour promoting TM have been one part of a bigger plan the Maharishi was perhaps suggesting for the band to be the vehicle to spread his message? We know he asked the Beatles for similar things including a flat out request for their royalty profits, I'm wondering if he similarly asked the Beach Boys through Mike or anyone else for comparable things after the Beatles said no.

1968-69 it appeared that the Beach Boys in general were simply bleeding money and not getting anything back. And Capitol seems to have basically washed their hands of the band, the part about them deleting the back catalog might shed more light on just how strained the relationship was amidst several lawsuits.