Brian in 1977

[Joel Goldenberg]

How was CBS reacting to their band which they had given a pretty lucrative album deal simply not recording or releasing anything for several years? And again, was there a specific reason or was it a whole mess of reasons?

CBS was probably too busy going after Boston for their even longer no-album gap.

[Joel Goldenberg]

Carl had been rejecting Brian's work for a minute by that point....Carl had  to finish up Love You when Brian apparently lost interest.

I read somewhere that Brian told a sound engineer, around the time of Love You, that he felt that he lost his flame. That when he was young he had a flame, an ability to make music easily and he didnt have it anymore. I always thought that to be very telling about why he took a backseat on production on so many songs and let the others give it a try.

I believe that was during the 15BO sessions, perhaps from Peter Ames Carlin's book.

[37!ws]

Good Timin' aside (and that was from 1974 anyway), I couldn't stand his vocals on LA Light, but part of it was because the songs were quite frankly boring as hell.

I once literally fell asleep while listening to Full Sail. 

Wow.  I love that song (except the line "Frisco Bay".  It's "San Francisco", buddy).

Tell that to Otis.

I'm pretty sure they were both talking about that bay in Texas.

[Steve Latshaw]

<<After Keepin The Summer Alive in 1980, especially the years 1981-83 up to Dennis passing, the Beach Boys had no new studio albums. Obviously Carl did his solo record, but beyond that I'm curious of the reasons why there was such an obvious drop-off in the recording area. From 15BO onward to KTSA, the band had at least been consistent with releasing something every year...success of those releases notwithstanding.

How was CBS reacting to their band which they had given a pretty lucrative album deal simply not recording or releasing anything for several years? And again, was there a specific reason or was it a whole mess of reasons?>>

I remember hearing through those in the know that CBS was pretty anxious for new material by 1982.  At May/June live shows Al was pushing Runaway as the next single; their live cover was submitted to CBS, as everyone knows, but turned down as CBS wanted original material.  At one show I attended he also mentioned the Beach Boys as having cut a new version of California Dreaming (no doubt the version on Mikes Rock & Roll collection the following year).

The most interesting thing I heard in 1982... from insiders... was a plan to produce a new Beach Boys album with all guest producers.  One of those mentioned was Lindsay Buckingham.  By '83, that idea had been tabled, allegedly because Buckingham wanted to produce the entire album.

[Ian]

I think it was because Brian wasn't in condition to take part and the record company wanted him to be involved in any bb album they'd release

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Carl had been rejecting Brian's work for a minute by that point....Carl had  to finish up Love You when Brian apparently lost interest.

I read somewhere that Brian told a sound engineer, around the time of Love You, that he felt that he lost his flame. That when he was young he had a flame, an ability to make music easily and he didnt have it anymore. I always thought that to be very telling about why he took a backseat on production on so many songs and let the others give it a try.

I believe that was during the 15BO sessions, perhaps from Peter Ames Carlin's book.

Yup...he was talking to Earl Mankey.

[Custom Machine]

The most interesting thing I heard in 1982... from insiders... was a plan to produce a new Beach Boys album with all guest producers.  One of those mentioned was Lindsay Buckingham.  By '83, that idea had been tabled, allegedly because Buckingham wanted to produce the entire album.

Too bad he didn't.

[Disney Boy (1985)]

Agree that BB 85 contains some of Carl's very finest vocal work.

His vocals on Adult/Child - and some of Love You - are his absolute nadir however; I can barely listen to Everybody Wants To Live, he's slurry and sounds like he's off his face and not in an entertainingly amusing way, he just sounds awful. Listen to his vocal in the third verse - the guy is piddled, or worse.

[Andrew G. Doe]

And yet... even strung out in No-Man's Land, Carl still sounds better than almost anyone else.

[Andrew G. Doe]

The most interesting thing I heard in 1982... from insiders... was a plan to produce a new Beach Boys album with all guest producers.  One of those mentioned was Lindsay Buckingham.  By '83, that idea had been tabled, allegedly because Buckingham wanted to produce the entire album.

True, dat. The names Val Garay and Barry Gibb were also mentioned.

[smilethebeachboysloveyou]

His vocals on Adult/Child - and some of Love You - are his absolute nadir however; I can barely listen to Everybody Wants To Live, he's slurry and sounds like he's off his face and not in an entertainingly amusing way, he just sounds awful. Listen to his vocal in the third verse - the guy is piddled, or worse.

True, but I find it difficult to imagine a sober man singing those lyrics.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Don't know, but it's one of my favorite unreleased songs!

[RBennett123]

And yet... even strung out in No-Man's Land, Carl still sounds better than almost anyone else.

This X 1,000,000,000

[phirnis]

With regards to the situation in 1977 I find this particular interview quite telling (the 2nd part after Surfin' USA in particular):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSLclEJ0IAQ

Obviously he lacked self-confidence and also he found it difficult to come up with subject matter/conceptual frameworks for new material.

For the Love You and Adult Child projects he had written about the stuff he went through at the time and hardly anyone cared. So why bother?

[Mr. Cohen]

Did Brian actually lose interest in the Love You songs, or did he feel that he finished them and that they were fine the way he left them? Obviously "somebody" felt that the songs needed something a little extra. Was it just Carl or was it a consensus? When it was decided that Carl would add some things (mostly guitar parts), was Brian OK with it? I always thought that he was because Carl ultimately got a credit, instead of hiding his and others' contributions which later became commonplace.

If you match up the timelines, it looks like Brian gave up on Love You as soon as Landy was moved out of the picture. Sessions for Love You stopped in mid-November '76. According to the LA Times obit for Landy, he was fired in early December '76. So probably the second people started to tell Brian that Landy's time was up, Brian stopped working on the album.

It could be that Brian needed someone like Murry to spur him on, to keep his confidence up - a la Landy. It could also be that he was stung for a bit by Landy's opportunism. Or it could all be a coincidence, and Brian gave on up on Love You for different reasons. Regardless, Carl came in, polished Love You up, and perhaps Brian thought, "Hey, this stuff wasn't half-bad." Brian hits the studio to record his big band tracks, only to have members of the group give him a supreme WTF! reaction. And that about did Brian in, along with the label rejecting "Roller Skating Child" and the Love You album from a promotional standpoint. He finally handed in his ticket to the Mike Love Show, and the rest is history.

[Jim V.]

I gotta say first off that "Roller Skating Child" should've been the single. I know that "Honkin' Down the Highway" wasn't a horrible choice either and that tanked, but I just feel that "Roller Skating Child" was such a rockin' little record that I'd want my jockey to play, with a Mike Love lead, and pretty great vocals all around (well maybe not Brian's).

I think it was because Brian wasn't in condition to take part and the record company wanted him to be involved in any bb album they'd release

I don't know about that Ian. Recordings and sessions listed from this era say otherwise. At the very least they already had some newly recorded Brian stuff in the can, such as "Stevie" (produced by Dennis) and "Sweetie". Also, I know "I'm a Man" (an original tune, not Steve Winwood's or Bo Diddley's) was talked about. I also see there were some "Brian Wilson" sessions around these times, but as he did not seem to want to go solo at this point I'm assuming these were really just Beach Boys sessions.

[Disney Boy (1985)]

His vocals on Adult/Child - and some of Love You - are his absolute nadir however; I can barely listen to Everybody Wants To Live, he's slurry and sounds like he's off his face and not in an entertainingly amusing way, he just sounds awful. Listen to his vocal in the third verse - the guy is piddled, or worse.

True, but I find it difficult to imagine a sober man singing those lyrics.

Quite possibly the most annoying lyrics in the entire BB's cataloge: 'The cigarette butt when you throw it in the water goes fsssshhh/But the trick is you shouldn't laugh/Coz if you start laughing you're just a coward...'

Huh?

[bgas]

His vocals on Adult/Child - and some of Love You - are his absolute nadir however; I can barely listen to Everybody Wants To Live, he's slurry and sounds like he's off his face and not in an entertainingly amusing way, he just sounds awful. Listen to his vocal in the third verse - the guy is piddled, or worse.

True, but I find it difficult to imagine a sober man singing those lyrics.

Quite possibly the most annoying lyrics in the entire BB's cataloge: 'The cigarette butt when you throw it in the water goes fsssshhh/But the trick is you shouldn't laugh/Coz if you start laughing you're just a coward...'

Huh?

You ever throw a cig butt in the toilet?  it goes ssssst....   but the trick of the trick... 
what's so hard to understand about that? 

[NHC]

Good Timin' aside (and that was from 1974 anyway), I couldn't stand his vocals on LA Light, but part of it was because the songs were quite frankly boring as hell.

I once literally fell asleep while listening to Full Sail. 

Wow.  I love that song (except the line "Frisco Bay".  It's "San Francisco", buddy).

Tell that to Otis.

I tried.  He said something about a short walk off a dock or something like that. Maybe that's how Brian Wilson came up with that line about another bucket of sand, another walk on the pier.

[NHC]

Good Timin' aside (and that was from 1974 anyway), I couldn't stand his vocals on LA Light, but part of it was because the songs were quite frankly boring as hell.

I once literally fell asleep while listening to Full Sail. 

Wow.  I love that song (except the line "Frisco Bay".  It's "San Francisco", buddy).

Tell that to Otis.

I'm pretty sure they were both talking about that bay in Texas.

Right. When we first moved to SE Texas from Northern California in 2003, somebody in my office made a comment about Frisco and I got all hot and bothered until I figured out he was talking about a town in Texas. Closest water is Lewisville Lake, though. At least he wasn't a Dodgers fan.

[adamghost]

There was actually quite a lot of recording in the '80-'81 era -- that's where "Be My Baby" comes from, "Why Don't They Let Us Fall In Love" -- but the tracks just weren't that great.  "Let Us Fall In Love" is kind of what a lot of it sounded like, and that's one of the  better ones, I believe.

[Disney Boy (1985)]

His vocals on Adult/Child - and some of Love You - are his absolute nadir however; I can barely listen to Everybody Wants To Live, he's slurry and sounds like he's off his face and not in an entertainingly amusing way, he just sounds awful. Listen to his vocal in the third verse - the guy is piddled, or worse.

True, but I find it difficult to imagine a sober man singing those lyrics.

Quite possibly the most annoying lyrics in the entire BB's cataloge: 'The cigarette butt when you throw it in the water goes fsssshhh/But the trick is you shouldn't laugh/Coz if you start laughing you're just a coward...'

Huh?

You ever throw a cig butt in the toilet?  it goes ssssst....   but the trick of the trick...  
what's so hard to understand about that?  

Double huh?

Yeah I get that a cigarette butt would be extinguished when thrown in water, but a) so what? What kind of a lyric is that?, b) Why on earth would a cigarette butt being extinguished be a cause of amusement?, and c) If, for some strange reason, I were to laugh at such a thing, why would it make me a coward to do so?

Am I missing something?

[Jay]

I know I can probably research and find some answers to this, but I'm curious since this discussion went beyond 1977 and into the CBS era.

After Keepin The Summer Alive in 1980, especially the years 1981-83 up to Dennis passing, the Beach Boys had no new studio albums. Obviously Carl did his solo record, but beyond that I'm curious of the reasons why there was such an obvious drop-off in the recording area. From 15BO onward to KTSA, the band had at least been consistent with releasing something every year...success of those releases notwithstanding.

How was CBS reacting to their band which they had given a pretty lucrative album deal simply not recording or releasing anything for several years? And again, was there a specific reason or was it a whole mess of reasons?

My guess is that it was a combination of being to concerned with the mental and physical state of Brian and Dennis, as well as the lack of participation from Carl during the majority of 1981 and 1982. Don't forget, the band as a concert attraction during that period was decidedly sub-par and chaotic(to put it kindly). I really can't see that formation of the group(With Adrian Baker in place of Carl) being all that productive in the studio. That being said, I would love to someday being able to hear the unreleased Sweetie from I believe 1981.

[phirnis]

They probably should have released Stevie as a one-off single.

Or wait, they could've finished Goin' to the Beach, right?

[Jay]

Am I the only person here who actually likes Goin' To The Beach?