Carol Kaye's BS

[JK]

Yes, that they were sometimes written incorrectly

She also brought up the subject in Beautiful Dreamer (I believe) and below (my italics):

"Brian brought in the hand-written charts and the charts were NOT copied
by some copyist as was usual in those days by that time (from about 1964
on)....the notes were on the wrong sides of the stem sometimes, sharps
and flats on wrong side, and the charts were writtin [sic] in sharp keys
instead of the usual flat keys (F# for instance instead of Gb) -- this
all belied a very crude and illiterate way of writing.  Sometimes the
charts were so badly written, we'd have to re-write them over, no
problem....we admired Brian so much we'd quickly do it and not say a
word about it....."

[Source]

[Andrew G. Doe]

Inferring Brian is barely literate strikes me as a most... odd way of expressing your admiration for your (temporary) employer. Especially coming from someone whose own posts are hardly tiny gems of grammatical perfection.

[Smilin Ed H]

"This all belied a very crude and illiterate way of writing." "Revealed," Carol, not "belied."

[Emily]

I found it for the most part flattering to Brian. I'm thinking by illiterate she meant not educated in the transcription of music, which is probably correct.
What caught my eye is that she miked her bidet (?!)

[The LEGENDARY OSD]

Inferring Brian is barely literate strikes me as a most... odd way of expressing your admiration for your (temporary) employer. Especially coming from someone whose own posts are hardly tiny gems of grammatical perfection.

:Board gumshoe on overzealous patrol once again. When and where will the rudester strike again?  

[JK]

What caught my eye is that she miked her bidet (?!)

Perhaps John Cage had been a guest at one of Carol's "rare dinner hangout parties" and suggested it. 

[Cam Mott]

What caught my eye is that she miked her bidet (?!)

Who hasn't?

[Smilin Ed H]

What caught my eye is that she miked her bidet (?!)

Who hasn't?

The outtakes went down well

[mojoman3061]

I found it for the most part flattering to Brian. I'm thinking by illiterate she meant not educated in the transcription of music, which is probably correct.

That's exactly what she meant.

I was a music major in another life (classically trained on the double bass).  There are rules about how sharps and flats are written, what side of the note the stem goes on, etc.  Music, especially hand-copied music, is actually easier to read when these are adhered to.  My impression is that Brian probably wrote his charts out very fast at the last minute.  A copyist would have corrected whatever errors Brian made.

Whatever Carol Kaye's faults, she has never put down Brian Wilson as a musician.

[37!ws]

But it doesn't explain the thirty-year (at least) history of fraudulently claiming many other people's work. Jamerson is just the most famous -- she also claims, for example, to have played on many Monkees hits, when she played on precisely two Monkees album tracks, widely considered the two worst tracks they ever recorded.

She played on "She's Movin' In With Rico"!!?

[37!ws]

I know I've commented on my own observations, but just to sum it up, here's what I've seen from Carol:

- Shaming someone from posting a YouTube link on Facebook of the "Good Vibrations" session film that came out a few years ago, asking the poster how he could post a "phony tape," saying how it's fake, it's staged, the film doesn't represent what went down during recording sessions....seriously, the woman RANTED about how phony the film was. (Wonder if it's because she wasn't in it.)

- Saying some really nasty things about Melinda recently in a thread about L&M (really, someone needs to tell her and VDP that the movie IS NOT ABOUT THEM)

- Speaking of L&M...ranted about how she was portrayed as a "bimbo" and she never said anything to Brian about songs having different bass lines in different keys. (Oh...and she hadn't even seen the movie yet.) And how insulted she was that she was portrayed in the movie as wearing a fire hat during the "Fire" session. Funny thing: she highly praised the actress who played her in the An American Family made-for-TV movie. I don't remember if it was Probyn or Scott Bennett who posted a thread on Facebook. He's FB friends with both actresses who played Carol Kaye -- the one from L&M and the one from AAF -- and the AAF actress pubilcly complimented the L&M actress (sorry, don't remember their names, too lazy to IMDB them) when other people were talking about Carol's complaints about the movie.

- And years ago -- before she became REALLY crazy -- I was browsing her web site, and in the FAQ she recommended Spectra-Flex cables, so I bought a few of those that I still use to this day for my guitars and bass. (They are quite reliable indeed.) I had NEVER HEARD OF THIS BRAND before seeing her web site. I mentioned online once (don't remember where, but it wasn't Facebook) that I used Spectra-Flex based on the recommendation on her web site, and she chimed in and went on and on about how she NEVER recommended those cables and never would, they're terrible, and mentioned another brand that she said was excellent. (Don't remember that brand.)

- A friend of mine took private lessons with her a few years ago. He told me she actually produced documentation proving that she played on "Surfin' USA." I consulted with an expert that I have very high respect for but a lot of people here don't and said, "What do you make of that?" Said expert said, "I'll bet she did. It was probably for The Hot Doggers' version."

Now...on that last point....all these Beach Boys songs she claims to have played on -- well, and NON-Beach Boys songs as well, come to think of it -- there are AFM sheets proving she was NOT THERE. If she did indeed play on those sessions, then why the heck didn't she make damn sure that her union rep (Hal Blaine, no?) had her time logged on these sheets?? Didn't AFM use these sheets to determine pension fundage??? If she's indeed correct and we're all wrong, then man, she's probably owed a TON of money that she's not getting that she needs to investigate.

[lukpac]

Looking on her site now, I see this:

"Frank Wilson 1965 Motown "Do I Love You" MP3 (with Carol Kaye bass, Earl Palmer drums, cut in Hollywood) This recording auctioned at record $41, 700, is UK soul hit.

Frank Wilson recent phone interview.

Carol was 1 of 9 bass players recording in Hollywood for Motown 1963 through 1968-69, as verified by Motown producers Frank Wilson, Hal Davis, and also by Pres. of Jobete, Lester Sill, others."

It's unclear to me what "This recording auctioned at record $41, 700" is supposed to mean, but I find it interesting that rather than post a well-known hit that she claims she played on (such as I Was Made To Love Her), she posts something that most people have probably never heard of.

FYI, I didn't see anything in the FAQ about Spectra-Flex cables, but you can view the archives here:

http://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.carolkaye.com/www/library/faq.htm

That is, unless there was previously a different URL.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

It's unclear to me what "This recording auctioned at record $41, 700" is supposed to mean, but I find it interesting that rather than post a well-known hit that she claims she played on (such as I Was Made To Love Her), she posts something that most people have probably never heard of.

To be fair to Do I Love You, it's a great song and it is perhaps one of the most significant tracks for Mod culture enthusiasts where it plays a pretty big role in the mythology. The amount it received in the auction is a world record and its rarity as a disc makes it a highly sought after commodity, which is why the quote mentions it. So it has that going for it.

[37!ws]

FYI, I didn't see anything in the FAQ about Spectra-Flex cables, but you can view the archives here:

http://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.carolkaye.com/www/library/faq.htm

That is, unless there was previously a different URL.

This was definitely in the late '90s when I saw the FAQ; the Wayback Machine's archive of her site doesn't go that far back.

[lukpac]

This was definitely in the late '90s when I saw the FAQ; the Wayback Machine's archive of her site doesn't go that far back.

The archive of her site goes back to 1997:

http://web.archive.org/web/19970101000000*/https://www.carolkaye.com/

The FAQ first shows up on her page sometime in mid-1999 (link down the page on the right):

http://web.archive.org/web/19991012111716/http://carolkaye.com/

Unfortunately the Wayback Machine doesn't have anything from the original URL (http://carolkaye.com/faq.htm) other than a 404.

The earliest version I can find is from from December 2000:

http://web.archive.org/web/20001213063200/http://carolkaye.com/pages/faq.html

No mention of cables though.

Still digging.

[chris.metcalfe]

With all due respect etc etc, and departing from the BB's history for the moment, she did recently imply that session musicians played every note on the Buffalo Springfield's records, which is clearly complete balderdash, according to my ears and to the line-up notes on the Springfield box set. It does put people's backs up, whatever the memory problems and chauvinistic environment.

[AndrewHickey]

With all due respect etc etc, and departing from the BB's history for the moment, she did recently imply that session musicians played every note on the Buffalo Springfield's records, which is clearly complete balderdash, according to my ears and to the line-up notes on the Springfield box set. It does put people's backs up, whatever the memory problems and chauvinistic environment.

She does have a problem distinguishing between "I played on one song by this band" (in this case Expecting To Fly, which was originally cut for a Neil Young solo project before becoming a Springfield track) and "I played on everything by this band", doesn't she?

[lukpac]

With all due respect etc etc, and departing from the BB's history for the moment, she did recently imply that session musicians played every note on the Buffalo Springfield's records, which is clearly complete balderdash, according to my ears and to the line-up notes on the Springfield box set. It does put people's backs up, whatever the memory problems and chauvinistic environment.

Where did she state that?