Brian's Book Discussion Thread.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Something interesting..Brian admits that his 1976 vocals were put on!!! He had laryngitis so he had to sing different.

At first I thought that was BS,  but then it occurred to me...makes sense. If he was using coke and chain smoking with laryngitis,  his voice wouldn't ever heal.  Especially if he was touring on top of that .  Would definitely explain why he sounded so much better on MIU and during that tour.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Anybody else have a chance to read it yet?

[JimC1702]

I'm 85 pages in.  It's fascinating!   

[the captain]

I'm 238 pages in, and my main comment so far is that Ben Greenman seems to have done a fabulous job of retaining Brian's voice. I understand--and, it being the typical method of celeb-autobiographies, am not surprised--that the book was "written" by Greenman interviewing / talking to Brian on tape, and then him transcribing and writing from that. But while there are moments of too-cute prose, there are a fuckload of Brianisms. It's fabulous. I've been laughing out loud so much.

There are also some little things that I'm not quite sure who said, but that are cool. For example, in talking about how he got "God Only Knows" arranged and recorded properly, there is a line along the lines of "the devil is in the details, but the details are in God. You know?"

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

The Carol Mountain story ...ends it with "That never happened". Facetious Brian is hilarious

[Ian]

In a 1995 interview with Steve roesser that is available on audio the interviewer complemented Brian on his singing on orange crate art and asked Brian if he felt he sang as well as in the 1960s. Brian said no and commented that he felt his voice had lost "that special sweetness." He blamed it on 10 years of cigarettes and then 4 more years after quitting. In the interview he said he'd quit only months ago. So the initial 10 years probably started in 1972 and was ended by Landy. He seems to have started again in late 1991 when the Landy regime ended and quit for good in 1995. So he may have had laryngitis in 1976 but four years of cigarettes had already taken a toll on that magical voice

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Oh yeah, no doubt. I do think it was a combination of things, but it's crazy how much better he sounded in late 77-early 78.  And even when it got worse again, it never quite sounded like it did in 1976.

[the captain]

The Carol Mountain story ...ends it with "That never happened". Facetious Brian is hilarious

I've been emailing the best of them to a friend as I come across them. That's one I sent. I laughed so hard.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

When more people have read the book, I'm gonna revive the "Brianisms Appreciation Thread" and put that in there

[the captain]

25 percent better.

[the professor]

Yeah, it's "different" for sure. Since BW changes his stories and his emotional reactions, printing a book of what he said (and meant) is impossible. One could re-write such a book every day. So for those who were "waiting to see what BW says" to settle some issues and reveal the truth about things ML lied about, well, let that go because there is very little detailed discursive history. It's more a set of emotional reactions to things remembered in the past. . .somewhat Proustian perhaps. At one point B tells the story of the first record and , rather like a Deconstructionist, argues that he feels like the story is being told to him rather than that he is telling it. All this is delightful and very Brian, and obviously very Derridean. So all in all the books reveals how BW could very well be feeling about particular topics at some one point in time when interviewed.  One can read it for the free play of his mind at work but surely not as a historical source, which I imagine it it not really intended to be.  BW's feelings and impressions are of historical value in themselves. The history recorded here is personal, impressionistic, and perhaps ML's is the same, though that book proceeded rationally and chronologically.  What I prefer about Mike's book is the thematic coherence--how he and his co-writer weave the themes of the "switchblade and the butterfly" throughout the book.

But I like anything that makes me feel closer to what the BB think is important to know about them.

Anybody else have a chance to read it yet?

[thorgil]

The switchblade and the butterfly? OMG.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

FedEx Pizza!!!

[Pretty Funky]

About 2/3 through and really enjoying this. I was thinking that he is giving detailed answers to all those questions he always gives yes/no or minimal answers to in interviews. From now on he could virtually stop giving interviews and just say "read my book" instead.

[Emdeeh]

Finally landing on my doorstep today -- Brian Wilson's own autobiography. I don't consider the Gold book to be an AUTObio of any sort, so this is Brian's FIRST as far as I'm concerned. Looking forward to digging into it shortly.

[urbanite]

What is the Carol Mountain story?

[Matt Bielewicz]

Wow; this is a really good book IMO - I speed-read through most of it yesterday. Having read a lot of Brian interviews over the years, I think the book does a really good job of capturing his 'voice'. That's fine work by the Ben Greenman guy, and not to be underestimated as a difficult task — as we all know here, Brian is not the easiest of interviewees.

There are some nice insights into SMiLE - many more than I thought there would be. I thought Brian would be as vague about that as 'he' was in the Todd Gold book. I mean, there are no game-changing revelations that will shock anyone here who has closely followed the SMiLE saga for decades. But there is some good detail about the general ethos behind the project, what Brian thought he was trying to get across with it in 1966-7, and how he thinks it fell apart. What is there is more about his emotional approach to creating the music for that album, not the nuts and bolts of what track was planned to go where or how the sections were supposed to connect. I would have loved that kind of detail too, but what is there is on the subject is fascinating nonetheless, and I don't think I've ever read Brian giving that much detail about the project. It's kind of like the kind of stuff you might have hoped he would say in an interview about SMiLE one day, if he was on good form, the interviewer struck a chord with him, and they ended up getting into the details. As we all know, it's really hard to reach that level with Brian - I think I've only ever read maybe 10 interviews by him where he really opens up on a subject or on the detail of an album. I always hoped that one day that would happen in an interview about SMiLE - even in the promo interviews he did in 2004 and 2011 about the album, he stayed quite 'surface', I thought. I reckon the stuff in this book is as much detail as we'll ever get direct from Brian on the subject of he sees SMiLE, how he saw it back then in the 60s, in 2004 when he and Van Dyke finished it, and now.

Of course, the book isn't just about SMiLE (that's just what I was really interested to read about, I guess...); I'd say Brian is equally forthcoming about the emotions and creativity he was feeling in other fascinating periods of his songwriting history. In fact, that kind of sums up what I think about the book. Imagine a really long, amazing interview with Brian where he gets on well with the interviewer and is having a good Brian day, really firing on all cylinders. And that's what I found reading this to be like.

Oh, and he's funny as all hell at times, as well. But that has already been noted here!

PS Like I said, I speed-read it yesterday and I'm sure I will circle back and pick up more details on further readings, but a couple of points did stick in my mind. One really quite detailed SMiLE anecdote absolutely baffled me. Brian talks about using the Eltro speed/pitch-shifter on Smiley Smile at one point. There was a thread about this device on here years back - it was basically an analogue machine that allowed you to change the length of a recording without changing the pitch, which is easy as anything now with digital recording and processing technology, but was quite a technical challenge back in the all-analogue 60s. As I understand it, the machine was a bit of a clunky old beast and was used to create the weird effects on the Boys' voices on the 'What A Blow' section of 'She's Going Bald'. I was delighted to see the man himself confirm that they used an Eltro... but the way he talks about it, he makes it sound as though they needed to recreate the effect of it for SMiLE in 2004. He mentions that 'She's Going Bald' was known as 'He Gives Speeches' during the SMiLE period specifically, so it's pretty clear what he's talking about.

...except, of course, as we ALL know... neither 'He Gives Speeches', nor 'She's Going Bald', nor anything like EITHER composition, made it IN to SMiLE in 2004, either in the live stage performances, or in the recorded album. The only place He Gives Speeches appears at all is, as we would expect, on the SMiLE Sessions box set... and of course there it's the historical late summer 1966 recording, for which nothing needed to be recreated at all!

It's really confusing. There's so much good detail there... but it's about something (a 2004 version of HGS, I guess) that, as far as we know, didn't actually happen. Or if it did, it has never seen the light of day. Or made it into any of the live versions of SMiLE. In Summer 2004, Darian went as far as to say, specifically in response to a question about He Gives Speeches, that that was one of the sections Brian didn't want to include, and that it would forever remain one of the 'out-take' sections of the project that never made it into a finished version. But here's Brian talking about it in detail as if it's something we all know and have in our record collections...

All of which leaves me thinking... what the *hell* was Brian talking about there? (Not the first time I've wondered that, mind...!)

[the captain]

Re the Carol Mountain story:

Brian meets up with Carol again once he's famous and in the Beach Boys.

"Before I left I put my hand on her leg. It wasn't completely innocent--it was still a great leg--but it was mostly innocent. Later that year I was on the road with the band, staying at a hotel somewhere, and I got a note ... It was a message from her husband. 'If you ever touch my wife again, I'll blow your head off!' That never happened."

[You Kane, You Commanded, You Conquered]

Well, I've placed my order. Looking forward to reading it, love me some Brianisms.

[wbarnes4393]

I liked this anecdote, about him and Mike Love:

"The day Mike came to dinner and I was working on That Lucky Old Sun, we went out to the car.  I had written a song called “Mexican Girl,” which is probably the best song ever written about a Mexican girl.  I played it for Mike and asked him if he would want to work on the lyrics.  “I could make it twenty-five percent better, but I don’t want to,” he said.  “If we do anything, I want to start from scratch.”  There were times that would have made me sad or angry, but in the car it only made me laugh a little.  Mike was Mike.  You can’t wallow in the mire."

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Wow; this is a really good book IMO - I speed-read through most of it yesterday. Having read a lot of Brian interviews over the years, I think the book does a really good job of capturing his 'voice'. That's fine work by the Ben Greenman guy, and not to be underestimated as a difficult task — as we all know here, Brian is not the easiest of interviewees.

There are some nice insights into SMiLE - many more than I thought there would be. I thought Brian would be as vague about that as 'he' was in the Todd Gold book. I mean, there are no game-changing revelations that will shock anyone here who has closely followed the SMiLE saga for decades. But there is some good detail about the general ethos behind the project, what Brian thought he was trying to get across with it in 1966-7, and how he thinks it fell apart. What is there is more about his emotional approach to creating the music for that album, not the nuts and bolts of what track was planned to go where or how the sections were supposed to connect. I would have loved that kind of detail too, but what is there is on the subject is fascinating nonetheless, and I don't think I've ever read Brian giving that much detail about the project. It's kind of like the kind of stuff you might have hoped he would say in an interview about SMiLE one day, if he was on good form, the interviewer struck a chord with him, and they ended up getting into the details. As we all know, it's really hard to reach that level with Brian - I think I've only ever read maybe 10 interviews by him where he really opens up on a subject or on the detail of an album. I always hoped that one day that would happen in an interview about SMiLE - even in the promo interviews he did in 2004 and 2011 about the album, he stayed quite 'surface', I thought. I reckon the stuff in this book is as much detail as we'll ever get direct from Brian on the subject of he sees SMiLE, how he saw it back then in the 60s, in 2004 when he and Van Dyke finished it, and now.

Of course, the book isn't just about SMiLE (that's just what I was really interested to read about, I guess...); I'd say Brian is equally forthcoming about the emotions and creativity he was feeling in other fascinating periods of his songwriting history. In fact, that kind of sums up what I think about the book. Imagine a really long, amazing interview with Brian where he gets on well with the interviewer and is having a good Brian day, really firing on all cylinders. And that's what I found reading this to be like.

Oh, and he's funny as all hell at times, as well. But that has already been noted here!

PS Like I said, I speed-read it yesterday and I'm sure I will circle back and pick up more details on further readings, but a couple of points did stick in my mind. One really quite detailed SMiLE anecdote absolutely baffled me. Brian talks about using the Eltro speed/pitch-shifter on Smiley Smile at one point. There was a thread about this device on here years back - it was basically an analogue machine that allowed you to change the length of a recording without changing the pitch, which is easy as anything now with digital recording and processing technology, but was quite a technical challenge back in the all-analogue 60s. As I understand it, the machine was a bit of a clunky old beast and was used to create the weird effects on the Boys' voices on the 'What A Blow' section of 'She's Going Bald'. I was delighted to see the man himself confirm that they used an Eltro... but the way he talks about it, he makes it sound as though they needed to recreate the effect of it for SMiLE in 2004. He mentions that 'She's Going Bald' was known as 'He Gives Speeches' during the SMiLE period specifically, so it's pretty clear what he's talking about.

...except, of course, as we ALL know... neither 'He Gives Speeches', nor 'She's Going Bald', nor anything like EITHER composition, made it IN to SMiLE in 2004, either in the live stage performances, or in the recorded album. The only place He Gives Speeches appears at all is, as we would expect, on the SMiLE Sessions box set... and of course there it's the historical late summer 1966 recording, for which nothing needed to be recreated at all!

It's really confusing. There's so much good detail there... but it's about something (a 2004 version of HGS, I guess) that, as far as we know, didn't actually happen. Or if it did, it has never seen the light of day. Or made it into any of the live versions of SMiLE. In Summer 2004, Darian went as far as to say, specifically in response to a question about He Gives Speeches, that that was one of the sections Brian didn't want to include, and that it would forever remain one of the 'out-take' sections of the project that never made it into a finished version. But here's Brian talking about it in detail as if it's something we all know and have in our record collections...

All of which leaves me thinking... what the *hell* was Brian talking about there? (Not the first time I've wondered that, mind...!)

I was wondering about that too!

[the captain]

I liked this anecdote, about him and Mike Love:

"The day Mike came to dinner and I was working on That Lucky Old Sun, we went out to the car.  I had written a song called “Mexican Girl,” which is probably the best song ever written about a Mexican girl.  I played it for Mike and asked him if he would want to work on the lyrics.  “I could make it twenty-five percent better, but I don’t want to,” he said.  “If we do anything, I want to start from scratch.”  There were times that would have made me sad or angry, but in the car it only made me laugh a little.  Mike was Mike.  You can’t wallow in the mire."

Have you finished the book yet? If not, you're not yet to the payoff / punchline. 

[wbarnes4393]

Just finished -- are you talking about the "that's a 70s idea" comment?

[the captain]

Just finished -- are you talking about the "that's a 70s idea" comment?

Nope, his follow-up to the "Mexican Girl" anecdote when he discusses "Spring Vacation":

"We had a piece of a song and Mike finished it up and turned it into "Spring Vacation." His new lyrics were great. They made the song at least 25 percent better."

I took that as a funny little dig.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Yeah, I about sh*t laughing.

The FedEx pizza thing is still my favorite.