Smiley Smile Dot Net

Brian Wilson, Beach Boys, and more






Brian Forgets Pacific Ocean Blue?

Pitchfork: I was also curious, did you follow along this year with the reissue of Dennis Wilson's album--

BW: No, I haven't heard it yet.

Pitchfork: Yeah, Pacific Ocean Blue was reissued this year to critical acclaim. A lot of people were going back to it after a long time. I didn't know if you had been following...

BW: Yeah. That was the early-- I never heard that album, you know?

Pitchfork: That wasn't something that, back then, you would have--

BW: No. I didn't even know he made an album.

 blog it
09.14.2008 • Brian Wilson, Dennis Wilson • 1 feedback » • PermalinkPermalink

Why Pacific Ocean Blue Was Finally Reissued

Jim Guercio explains what finally brought POB back.

Carl Wilson died of brain and lung cancer in 1998. Three years ago, at the wedding of Carl's son Justyn, Guercio made the decision to bring the music of Justyn's Uncle Dennis back into the public eye.
"I felt it was important to his children and to his family," said Guercio, who bankrolled the project as well. "From that day on, it was, 'Forget business. We're going to figure this out.' "
It wasn't a simple process, said Billy Hinsche, longtime Beach Boys sideman and a Wilson in-law who sang on both "POB" and "Bambu."
"Just getting 'Pacific Ocean Blue' re-released was very complicated. [One question was] who owns it? There are four different record companies on the cover."
 blog it
07.21.2008 • Dennis Wilson • Send feedback » • PermalinkPermalink

Stan Love and the Pacific Ocean Blue Tour

Is this why the Pacific Ocean Blue tour was canceled?

The album was widely praised by critics and Dennis hoped to launch a brief tour to keep the momentum going. It never happened. "We even had tour T-shirts printed," Jacobson says. "I don't know this for a fact, but many people swear that Stan Love, who was managing the group at the time, told Dennis that if he took POB on the road he wouldn't be a Beach Boy anymore. Whatever the reason, it threw Dennis into a tailspin." Dennis poured himself back into his music and planned to release Bambu, a follow-up based around songs cut for his debut. "The next album is 100 times better than Pacific Ocean Blue," Dennis told an interviewer in September 1977. "I have more confidence now that I've completed one project." Bambu remained unfinished, as Dennis' spiraling addictions kept him out of the recording studio. On December 28th, 1983 he drowned while swimming in the Pacific Ocean.

 blog it
07.21.2008 • Dennis Wilson • 1 feedback » • PermalinkPermalink

Pacific Ocean Blue Racks Up Impressive Sales More Than 30 Years After Its Original Debut

PR NEWSWIRE, NEW YORK, June 25 --Pacific Ocean Blue: Legacy Edition (Caribou/Epic/Legacy), the 30th anniversary reissue of the long-out-of-print musical masterpiece from the Beach Boys' Dennis Wilson, is blowing up both in the States and worldwide following its US release last Tuesday, June 17, 2008.

Pacific Ocean Blue: Legacy Edition -- a two-CD collection featuring the original album in its entirety as well as bonus tracks and the first official release of songs from Bambu, Wilson's intended follow-up -- was the # 4 rock release for Amazon.com on the day of release. The album is already a top-seller in the UK and Europe having debuted at # 16 on the UK Album Chart, # 67 in the Netherlands, # 71 in Ireland, and rocketing to #5 in Norway. These feats are all the more remarkable considering that Pacific Ocean Blue was originally released more than 30 years ago and that these are current, not catalog charts.

Read more »

06.25.2008 • Dennis Wilson • 2 feedbacks » • PermalinkPermalink

Hal Blaine On PACIFIC OCEAN BLUE

Hal Blaine discusses what it was like to work with Dennis Wilson on PACIFIC OCEAN BLUE.

Blaine is credited with playing drums on 5,061 songs. When Dennis Wilson asked him in 1977 to play on what became Pacific Ocean Blue, the first solo album by a Beach Boy must have been just another session to him. After all, Blaine had drummed on many Beach Boys songs before and so being asked to drum on Dennis's album wasn't unusual. Although Wilson was the Beach Boys' nominal drummer, and played drums in their live appearances, Blaine had more finesse and worked faster in the studio.

"Dennis was rarely around when we were making Beach Boys records," Blaine remembers. "He was the only surfer in The Beach Boys . He loved the ocean, he loved his motorcycles, he loved racing. So, he loved having me drum."

"It was different," Blaine recalls the sessions. "This one was much more sophisticated. Dennis was very sophisticated unknown to many people. To them, he was the ultimate Beach Boy. But he was a pianist as well and he had a feeling."

Although the rawness of Pacific Ocean Blue was a surprise, it wasn't to Blaine.

"I had known Dennis for a lot of years before we did Pacific Ocean Blue," the drummer says. "We had our boats side by side at Marina del Rey. So, I was very comfortable doing the sessions."

Before he died, age 39, in 1983, Dennis Wilson was alcoholic, drug-addicted, and forever tainted by a brief association with Charles Manson. Pacific Ocean Blue is the legacy that suggests there was a soul much more complex than the bare facts might indicate.

"He was a very nice man," Blaine volunteers. "A lot of people don't know how generous he could be."

06.22.2008 • Dennis Wilson • Send feedback » • PermalinkPermalink

:: Next >>