This week in BB History May 1-8

[Ian]

May 4 1962-The BBs played at the Women’s Club in Inglewood, CA.  May 8, 1962-Nik Venet signed the BBs to Capitol and Capitol legal to generate a contract.   May 1 1963-The BBs played at the Sports Center Roller Rink in Wichita, KS on their first real U.S. tour.  They played at Excelsior Amusement Park and at Big Reggie’s Danceland (next door) in Excelsior, MN on May 3 and at the Armory in Duluth, MN on May 4.  The tour concluded at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, where Buddy Holly had played his last show four years earlier.  According to David Marks, all the BBs were very aware of this when they played there.

May 6 1964-The BBs recorded the tracks for All Summer Long (which apparently took 43 takes) and Do You Remember.  The next day they recorded vocals for All Summer Long.  On May 8 they traveled to Reno to play at the Centennial Coliseum.  The newspaper reported that, “Kids went wild… They danced in the aisles, atop chairs and even on the stage with the Beach Boys.”

May 3 1965 the BBs worked on Then I Kissed Her.  The next day they recorded the track for Sandy, She Needs Me. This may have been Bruce’s first session.  May 5 1965-the BBs recorded a version of Graduation Day-probably as preparation to sing it on the Ed Sullivan Show, which they were booked to appear on May 16.  Ultimately they were bumped from the show.  They may have also worked on Amusement Parks USA and added background vocals for Sandy She Needs Me.  I assume that this was supposed to be a Brian sung ballad.  If so he didn’t add his lead vocal until 1976, when it was changed to Sherri She Needs Me.   On May 7 1965 the BBs (with Glen Campbell not Bruce) played a legendary show at Legion Field in Birmingham, AL with The Rolling Stones, Righteous Brothers, Marty Robbins, Sonny James, Cannibal and the Headhunters, Skeeter Davis and Bill Reeves.  Ron Swallow told me that Dennis and Mick almost got into a fight backstage, as Dennis was offended by Mick’s odor (it was very hot and he had no deodorant).

May 1 1966 the BBs played in Worcester, MA with the Lost.  The next day they appeared at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA.  Backstage they watched their appearance on the Andy Williams TV Show that aired that night (It had been taped over six months before).  The BBs flew to Scranton, PA for a concert on May 4 but their road manager Dick Duryea was unhappy with the security setup and refused to let the BBs take the stage.  The promoter later sued the band.  While this was taking place, Brian was holding a session at Western for Good Vibrations.

On May 5 1966 the BBs played in Hartford, CT with The Lost and Barry Goldberg Blues Band. Later that night Mike and Al did an on air interview with Dickie Robinson of WDC Hartford, which has been booted.  In the interview they’d just received a copy of Pet Sounds from Capitol and were hearing the actual mastered LP for the first time. The next day the BBs played at MIT in Cambridge, MA and then headed to Walpole, MA to play the Four Seasons Arena that night.  They performed at Providence College in Rhode Island on May 7 and at Nassau Community College in Garden City, NY on May 8.  During this tour the BBs played the Lovin’ Spoonful song Daydream for laughs.  It was raining at this outdoor show and Mike changed the words to “What a day for a rainstorm.”

May 1 1967-Carl was in court in LA over his draft status and the BBs flew to Ireland without him.  They actually had difficulty even getting there as their chartered flight got canceled. Luckily, Aer Lingus agreed to pick them up in Boston.  The BBs were there to play shows in Dublin and Belfast with Derek Billy and the Freshmen, the Vampires, the Strangers and Joe Cahill.   Carl got clearance from the court to go to Europe and then had to fly with his wife on a special chartered flight (they were the only passengers) from LA to Dublin. 

Unfortunately the plane had to make a stop in Newfoundland and the BBs were forced to play the first of two Dublin shows without him.  This wouldn’t have been so bad if all the major British music magazines hadn't sent reporters to review the gig.  It was by all accounts a really bad show.  The BBs assumed Carl would make it there and had not bothered to rehearse for the possibility that he wouldn’t make it.  So they performed very badly.  Bruce went up to the mic to take Carl’s lead on God only Knows but forgot the words.  The audience really booed and some demanded money back.  Luckily Carl made it in time for the second show but literally raced after the others had taken the stage still in his street clothes (which by 1967 were a lot hipper then the striped shirts they were still wearing).

The May 3 1967 shows in Belfast were well received and the band received an award as “Ireland’s Favorite World Group.” The next day they were in London to start a series of gigs with Helen Shapiro, Simon Dupree and the Big Sound, Peter Jay and the New Jaywalkers, The Marionettes and the Nite People.  They played the Hammersmith Odeon on May 4 and the Finsbury Park Astoria on May 5. The British music press really took out the knives on this tour. The influential Melody Maker was pretty savage: “Maybe it is the polished perfection and the wealth of sound and orchestration that one is used to on their records that makes the live Beach Boys seem so comparably amateurish-floundering weakly as though their umbilical cord to Brian Wilson had been severed.”

The BBs then headed to Birmingham for two shows before returning to London to appear at the NME Poll Winners Show in London with Cream, Dusty Springfield, Georgie Fame, The Move, Small Faces, Cliff Richards, Spencer Davis Group, Cat Stevens, the Troggs and others.  I have not seen many photos of this occasion-anyone got any?   The BBs were there to pick up their award as “World’s Top Vocal Group.”

May 2 1968-The BBs were in New York to start their tour with Maharishi.  They appeared that night on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. They sang Their Hearts Were Full of Spring and Friends-an audiotape of this exists, though actual the footage was erased by NBC TV.  That same night a taped interview with the BBs appeared on the Les Crane Show.  It's a shame that this has been lost, as the BBs apparently talked at length about meditation and Maharishi and took questions from the audience.  The next day they appeared with Maharishi at the Washington DC Coliseum and the Baltimore Civic Center.  The tour immediately hit trouble. According to a Georgetown University reviewer, “whole sections (of the Coliseum) were abandoned and those who actually paid the $5.50 top (price) felt cheated since you could sit where you liked in the one-third full auditorium.” The Baltimore show also had low attendance and the BBs got real annoyed when the crowd heckled Maharishi. Bruce told a reporter the audience was “vulgar.”

The BBs were supposed to play a show at the Singer Center the next day but the turnout was so low that the show was abandoned.  Instead they went to play at Iona College and then another low-attendance show at the Philadelphia Spectrum. About 3,000 attended the show in Hartford but by then Maharishi and the BBs had decided to call it quits and a show in Providence was canceled.  The BBs had self promoted the tour and lost a bundle due to many canceled dates.  That same week (on May 9) a BBs app on the Mike Douglas TV Show aired.  The BBs sang Friends and Little Bird (audio exists of this but no footage). It’s interesting that on each Mike Douglas TV show they appeared on in the 60s they did one song of Dennis’.

May 2 1969-The BBs played the University of Oklahoma without Mike-who’d taken a second trip to India and got snowed in. Billy Hinsche was tagging along on this tour and played with them instead.  Mike was back in time for the shows the next day in Omaha. Prior to the evening show, the BBs played an afternoon benefit for children from local hospitals.  The BBs did a lot of this at this time, partly because they were altruistic but also to aid Carl in his draft case, which was dragging on. The short tour ended in St Louis, where the BBs played again played an afternoon show at a hospital for crippled children before their evening show.

May 1970 the BBs were on their second tour down under and played in Surfers Paradise on May 2. The concert was filmed as part of an odd TV special, produced by the BBC, which the BBs agreed to take part in. The show was planned as a comedic bicentennial celebration of Captain Cook’s landing at Botany Bay. The BBs were members of Cook’s crew.  Further filming took place in Sydney the following week, but it never aired, with the exception of a small excerpt which shows them dressed in pirate costumes riding in a car being chased by Captain Cook (played by Dave Allenby), while a live version of “I Get Around” plays on the soundtrack.  They allegedly hated the finished product and prevented its release. That week in Sydney the BBs were playing at the Silver Spade, a sort of cabaret venue in a hotel.  Fred Vail told me that they were real resistant to doing this as they thought these Vegas like venues were not for a hip rock band at all.  But the money was good and they were going through real hard times financially.

May 1 1971 the BBs, on their “comeback” tour, played at the May Day Rally in DC-silent footage of this exists.  The next day they were at the Paris Cinema in Worcester, MA. As I relate in my book, Carl called promoter Chip Rachlin to complain about this venue-a pornographic theater! The BBs were at CW Post College in Brookville, NY on May 4 and SUNY New Paltz on May 6 With Happy Traum). They played the Spectrum in Philadelphia with Boz Scaggs and Taj Mahal on May 7.  Around this time they taped their third appearance on the David Frost TV Show in NY-they played Forever, Lady and Vegetables. Unfortunately this footage is gone but an audiotape exists.  Dennis discussed Two Lane Blacktop, which was soon to be released.

May 7 1972 the BBs began a European tour with Ricky and Blondie in Saarbrüücken. One year later, on May 6 1973 the BBs played at Farleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. They played at Queens College in NY on May 7, 1973.  May 1 1975 the BBs played a warm up show in Austin, TX to get ready for the “Beachago” tour that started the next day in Houston and then continued onto to the Cotton Bowl in Dallas on May 3.  If reviewers can be trusted, it took the BBs a bit of time to get in gear and these Texas shows were beset by technical problems. However the crowd still loved it. The BBs played a non-Beachago show in Oklahoma City on May 4 1975 with Flo and Eddie and the Turtles.  May 8 1976-Brian and the BBs were in the studio working on Everyone’s In Love With You and Short Skirts. 

May 1 1978-Dennis did some work on Baby Blue and Mexico for Bambu.  Baby Blue, of course, ended up on LA Light. May 6 1978-Mike and Brian appeared with Celebration on American Bandstand to sing the Almost Summer soundtrack songs-Cruisin’ and Almost Summer. This was probably taped in April, as that very day Mike was at Shaw Park, near Marietta, GA-performing a Celebration show with Dean Torrence and Ed Carter.

May 2 1980-the BBs did some recording at Waves Studio in Santa Barbara. On this say they worked on Why Don’t They Let Us Fall in Love.  Mike worked on his song Bucks on May 3.  That week they also worked on covers of the Spector songs-Be My Baby and River Deep Mountain High, as well as Greenback Dollar, Brian’s I’m A Man and Mike’s Children of the Night.  May 1 and 2 1981 the BBs embarked on an east coast tour with four shows at Valley Forge Music Fair, minus Carl, who’d left the band.  The band was inconsistent without him but not every show was poorly received, a reviewer stated that in Pittsburgh on May 3 the BBs “put on a wonderful show-it was fun, lively, sung beautifully and paced perfectly.” The BBs played in Hershey, PA on May 4 and then headed to Florida for shows in Fort Myers, Lakeland and Sunrise on May 6-9.

Carl was back for good on May 2, 1982 when the BBs played a stadium post-baseball game show in San Diego.  This was to become an increasingly big part of the BBs touring in the 80s and 90s. Brian wasn’t in great shape at that time but by May 7 1983, when the BBs played in Santa Barbara he was in much better shape after losing a lot of weight.  He also played with the BBs at San Diego the next day.  May 7 1984 the BBs played a benefit show at Radio City Music Hall.  May 3 and 4 1985 the BBs were in Arizona.  Mike missed one of these shows.  May 3-7 1986 the BBs played a short Canadian tour including shows in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.  A similar tour took place in May 1987, taking in Calgary, Regina, Winnipeg, Green Bay, WI, Sudberry and Hamilton, Ontario.

May 1-4 1990 the BBs played shows in San Diego, Phoenix and Hemet, CA.  On May 5 and 6 1990 they were at the Circle Star Theatre in San Carlos.   Brian joined them and he sang In My Room, Surfer Girl and Wouldn’t It Be Nice at these shows.  That same week a Mike Love guest app on Full House aired (this was taped on March 2). Think I’ll stop there.

[JK]

Much appreciated, Ian. LOL at the incident between Dennis and Mick on May 7, '65.