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That is Mike's wife Jackie next to him....to our right looking at the photo

Wow she's hot. Mike stays winning!

So, yes, Joe Thomas wrote the outro to Sunshine, but Brian Wilson brought him to the place where he could create that.

Yeah, I don't know about that... I think what brought Joe Thomas to the place where he could create that was that Brian Wilson wasn't writing the material needed for the album.

Honestly, I just assume that Scott Bennett wrote all of the music on the album; that way, I can only be pleasantly surprised if it turns out Brian actually wrote some of it.

Surely nobody can disagree with me that this is the highest point of Brian's solo career.

Seriously, what a brilliant ending to an album that seems to be getting better with time.

He ROCKS OUT on "Goin home", we need that Rock n Roll album.

TLOS is by far my favorite Brian Wilson solo record. It's the best thing he's done since The BB Love You. I don't know how much of the songwriting is actually his, but in any case, it's a great late-era record.

Sunshine Tomorrow debuted at 145 in the US.  50 Big Ones also made a reappearance at 142.

Yikes that's bad, even taking into account this is an archival release. How many copies do you need to sell these days to make it to 145? A thousand?

Let's hope it doesn't derail similar release in the future. It's one of the most revelatory and enjoyable sets of this kind I've ever listened to.

Why is this thread now about President Trump and snowflakes??

Not that it should matter, but I'm forty and I've been a lurker/member on these BB boards since the days of the old Smile Shop.

Bottom line on ML's speech: there are TWO speeches that I've ever found memorable and worth listening to over the years at the RRHOF. One is Mike's speech. The other is Alex Lifeson's. So Mike has my respect for at least trying to make a point instead of spouting platitudes, and I salute him for causing a scene at an event that's dedicated to rock n' roll, the ultimate scene-causing, ruckus-rising music.

I expect my rock stars to shoot off the mouth about stuff, scandalize the bourgeois bien pensants (like with that picture with President Trump)

Nothing says rebellion like a photo-op with a radical right-wing billionaire.

You're being sarcastic, but for anybody in the arts and culture field to openly support President Trump is actually the epitome of rebelliousness.

But back on that HOF speech, no matter what the opinions in 2017 may be, it's there on video above for all to watch and to me it doesn't come off 29 years later as much more than a guy making an ass out of himself in spite of his bandmates who wisely got the hell out of there and away from Mike, whatever opinions of the event itself may be. CD is onto something in his post about it.

That speech was entertainment. It's still got us talking all these years later. It was the punk rock thing to do. It was Keith Moon driving his car into the hotel swimming pool and getting the whole band banned.

If you guys would rather get the excruciating platitudes that make up 99,9 % of all speeches at the HoF, then we have a different idea of what should be expected of rock n' roll.

Two questions for you, kreen:

- So you're not bothered by the fact that Mike is a hypocrite who did the exact same thing as Paul in 2005 when he was a no-show for Hawthorne?  That's ok and cool?

- Does that mean that if a fan goes to the Hawthorne monument and holds a press conference to discuss the finer points of why Mike is pathetic for not showing up at the dedication, that the fan who does this is being "punk rock" and should be patted on the back for making "entertainment"?

I don't care ML wasn't at that dedication, and as for that second question, I wouldn't care either way

Mike Love is a guy with a high school education, and he improvised his RRHOF speech without reading from any prepared notes. So obviously we were not going to get the Gettysburg Address. The BB had gone through years where they were out of favor commercially speaking, so this was a chance for ML, out of cockiness, to rub the other acts' faces in their inability to show up at the event or continue to perform. This was basically, "you guys think you're so hot, but you can't do what we do".

But back on that HOF speech, no matter what the opinions in 2017 may be, it's there on video above for all to watch and to me it doesn't come off 29 years later as much more than a guy making an ass out of himself in spite of his bandmates who wisely got the hell out of there and away from Mike, whatever opinions of the event itself may be. CD is onto something in his post about it.

That speech was entertainment. It's still got us talking all these years later. It was the punk rock thing to do. It was Keith Moon driving his car into the hotel swimming pool and getting the whole band banned.

If you guys would rather get the excruciating platitudes that make up 99,9 % of all speeches at the HoF, then we have a different idea of what should be expected of rock n' roll.

I expect my rock stars to shoot off the mouth about stuff, scandalize the bourgeois bien pensants (like with that picture with President Trump) and not give a crap what people think. In that respect, Mike Love and Bruce Johnston fit the bill perfectly.

I've always felt that Mike's speech at the R n' R Hall of Fame, for instance, was one of the most rock n' roll things to ever take place at that event.

What's funny is that for all we know, Brian Wilson is fine with stuff like the recent DIA remake. He's certainly fine with Mike touring as the Beach Boys, or he would withhold the licence. We all act like BW is this paragon of artistic integrity, when he's been part of a lot of dodgy projects over the years, from Spanish Kokomo and lame eighties videos to the country record and the pointless Disney album.

Brian virtually never overtly says a bad thing about another person's music. Plus, I can't see Brian making the effort to listen to an iota of what Mike would release after Mike repeatedly dissed Brian's recordings and voice.

The worst I can think of Brian saying is that Student Demonstration Time wasn't his bag and didn't feel "BBs" to him, or something to that effect. Saying Brian is "fine" with it is probably a gross oversimplification; things are surely somewhat more complicated than that. Brian's shown to take inaction as a course of measure for many, many things in his life because the alternative is far more stressful. At minimum Brian probably wasn't fine about it the day he felt like he was fired and the LA Times published his thoughts on it.

Brian has indeed been involved in some questionable endevours over the years, but at least he makes the effort to truly make sincere art as well quite often, to this day. And like clockwork, if Mike's around, Brian then has to deal with mimed shotgun blasts to the head and snarkiness as a response to Brian's sincere artistic statements; what a great thing a sensitive genius needs to deal with, right?

But see, we don't KNOW what Brian Wilson thinks about anything, because the man basically no longer gives interviews. Remember all of those crazy interviews from the sixties to the early nineties -- basically the pre-Melinda era -- where Brian Wilson, sometimes under the influence of some substance or other, would go into the craziest, most revealing, sometimes painfully honest stories and revelations about himself or his music? That man is gone. Now we have a creature of silence mixed with PR. Does he even KNOW Mike Love just released a new version of DIA? Has he even been told? Would he care anyway?

I love Summer's Gone, but Mike Love obviously thinks it's too depressing. But what does Brian Wilson think of Daybreaks Over the Ocean or the lyrics to Spring Vacation? Again, we don't know. So personally, not only do I find it more interesting to know Mike Love's opinion, I find it more normal and, well, HUMAN that he does have opinions and expresses them.

It's easy never to say anything douchy when you never say anything...

As for Kokomo, isn't it well established who wrote what? Mike Love contributed the "Aruba, Jamaica" section. It's obviously not the part that makes the song -- it's not one of the hooks -- but it's still a contribution. If Kokomo had been written by Brian Wilson it would be praised as the greatest comeback ever.

What's funny is that for all we know, Brian Wilson is fine with stuff like the recent DIA remake. He's certainly fine with Mike touring as the Beach Boys, or he would withhold the licence. We all act like BW is this paragon of artistic integrity, when he's been part of a lot of dodgy projects over the years, from Spanish Kokomo and lame eighties videos to the country record and the pointless Disney album.

Yes, "toxic" behavior is a thing.

Well then Brian Wilson can pick up the phone and call Mike Love and let him have it about his "toxicity" (such a silly word, "toxic": are we talking about people or nuclear waste?).

Both men perform to adoring crowds regularly so I think that Mike Love feels that, all things considered, he's a pretty popular guy.

We know this isn't gonna happen, but:

Giving an interview where he sincerely publicly apologizes for many, many instances of sh*tty behavior, acknowledges acting in a super toxic way for decades, and having massive ego problems, and how he is trying to get help for these things... this would help his image in the eyes of a number of people. It wouldn't change everything overnight, but it would help. 

Gee, is this what we want from our ROCK STARS now? "I'm so sorry for my "toxic" behavior, but I'm taking sensitivity classes now, and I'll be donating the proceeds of my next tour to Brian Wilson's favorite charity". I don't want such whimpering from anyone. They're all millionaires, they're all grown men, they're all people who have lived long lives where not everything they did was incredibly nice. Brian Wilson included.

We don't know any of those guys personally, and the reason BW comes off better in interviews is because he answers in monosyllables so we don't know what he's like in real life. Mike Love, as the lead singer and main lyricist of the Beach Boys, has given me and all of us here 50 years of entertainment, and I'm going to stand in moral judgement of him?

I say: Long live Mike Love! Long live Brian Wilson! Long live the Beach Boys!

And I'm sure you don't mean to come off as belittling to Brian when you say "not allowed" but really when you say something like that, it really is pretty disrespectful, especially after the great input that awesome people like Ray Lawlor have given us around here.

Yeah, but come on. People can say what they want, but I'll form my own opinion about how much say Brian Wilson has over his own career. I see the tours, listen to the interviews, and listen to the solo CDs, and that gives me an impression that is pretty hard to shake...

East Meets West.  Other equally awful things (Problem Child) followed, but East Meets West was a new low at the time, and arguably the final descent into tribute band status.

East Meets West is great! A Bob Gaudio-Frankie Valli-Beach Boys collaboration: who could ask for more? And even Brian gets a great vocal hook at the end. So much talent on that record.

I guess where we differ is the idea of whether or not it's a truly disgraceful embarrassment or not.  And if you *don't* think it's a disgraceful embarrassment to both him and the brand, I'd like to know specifically what type of BBs or Mike release would qualify as such for you.

What would it take, if not this?  Honestly.  

Still waiting for kreen's reply on this...  

But the new DIA is such a low-key, barely-released-at-all single that it can have no impact on the brand. What it would take for me to be angry is if ML personally blocked something like ST from release -- and he didn't do that.

Brian put thought into his collaborations and either co-wrote with his "guest stars" and/or hand-picked vocalists for specific songs much in the same way he did back in the BB days.

Yeah, I'm not sure about this part...

Until then, good luck topping the charts with your buddies McGrath and Stamos.

This new version of DIA is just an attempt to capitalize on the Fourth of July appearance, it's about putting something out in case people who saw the show wanted to download a track they enjoyed. The choice of this particular song and the guest stars are not for hardcore BB fans, the kind who bought Sunshine Tomorrow, they're for the average people who watched the 4th of July program, and who had never heard any version of Do It Again before.

From this perspecive, this single was worth a try, and DIA is actually a good choice, since it's both catchy and relatively unknown to general audiences.

That much grating Autotune (beyond the myriad other issues) frankly negates everything good that could possibly be had from this atrocity. Especially coming from the singer who publicly dissed his former bandmate and blood relative for the same production choice (done WAY worse here).

Like seriously, I do not know how that ugly, ugly hypocrisy can NOT bug somebody. What kind of blinders does one have to put on for that hypocrisy to be okay, hunky dory?  

By your logic, Mike gargling with Listerine while singing the song should be released as a single just because average people haven't heard that before.

Where is the cutoff? What type of release would finally push the boundaries to be unacceptable for the brand, in your estimation? *Some* potential release, whether actual or made-up, must certainly qualify.  How about Mike re-recording Surf's Up with his own lead vocal, and trying to license his version to a phone sex line commercial on KDOC TV. Would that be okay too? (If it isn't obvious, this is a huge exaggeration, but I'm trying to see where your barometer would fall, because I cannot wrap my head around anyone defending this feces-esque DIA '17 release).

Don't get me wrong, I think this new version is crap, and I wouldn't pay five cents for it, but it's just product put out in the hope some 50-year-old guy in the Midwest will download it because "I liked that Beach Boys tune they did with Sugar Ray on the PBS show yesterday". As for the autotune, sadly that's the sound people expect now. It was applied incompetently, but this single is obviously a small-time operation. Somebody probably told Mike the song had better commercial prospects with autotune.

It's just old Mike trying to release something in the hope it might sell a little bit.

Until then, good luck topping the charts with your buddies McGrath and Stamos.

This new version of DIA is just an attempt to capitalize on the Fourth of July appearance, it's about putting something out in case people who saw the show wanted to download a track they enjoyed. The choice of this particular song and the guest stars are not for hardcore BB fans, the kind who bought Sunshine Tomorrow, they're for the average people who watched the 4th of July program, and who had never heard any version of Do It Again before.

From this perspecive, this single was worth a try, and DIA is actually a good choice, since it's both catchy and relatively unknown to general audiences.

Since we are on the topic of Redwood/Heider--despite a number of efforts from various posters to importune one of the moderators to just let it go (to little avail...)--I think we need to debunk a myth that keeps cropping up whenever the discussion of that event resurfaces.

What myth is that? The myth that Brother would have made a fortune with Redwood. This is a retrospective illusion that began with a questionable assertion by David Leaf back in the 1980s and seems to live in the minds of folks who need to add more drama and irony to the BB story.

There is NO evidence whatsoever that Brian Wilson would have been a commercially successful fit as producer for Redwood, and that the aborted efforts undertaken in 1967 were destined for huge chart success. Indeed, as a producer, Brian had no outside commercial success whatsoever. The assumption that Redwood (which underwent a series of stylistic changes in 1968 as they morphed into Three Dog Night) was going to storm the charts and make Brother a ton of money is just that--an unfounded and unprovable assumption.

It's based on the fact that Three Dog Night became a huge success from 1969-76. Somehow there is an assumption that because Three Dog Night, with its yodel-y version of Nilsson's "One" serving as springboard for success on AM radio, hit it big in 1969 that we can backtrack to 1967 with "Darlin'" and take it to the bank that their version of the song would have been a bigger hit than the BBs.

And then there's the underlying situation with Brother itself. Capitol was distributing Brother, and everyone was just coming out of a protracted set of disputes that in no way helped the band when their 1967 Brother releases appeared ("H&V" by far the best at #12, but considered by most to be a significant setback at the time; SMILEY SMILE taking a bath despite having "Good Vibrations" included; "Gettin' Hungry" sinking without a trace, and curiously marketed by Brother as "Brian & Mike").  What makes us think that the BBs had a business operation in place that could have provided the necessary support to a Redwood single in the fall of 1967? What makes us think that Capitol was particularly motivated to aggressively market anything that came from the Brother imprimatur? After all, it was summarily abandoned with the release of WILD HONEY.

I remember the first time David Leaf broached the idea that the BBs had had a incredibly ironic lost opportunity. That part made sense, but the idea that Brian was necessarily the right producer for Redwood/Three Dog Night--particularly based on the recordings they made in subsequent years--seemed like a total stretch at the time (1984-85) and that is still the case today. It's an exercise in needless myth-mongering for those who have some need to augment Brian's resumé when such is hardly necessary. In David's case, he was in the middle of advocating for Brian at record labels during this time, rewriting his book to cement the idea that Brian would be much better off going out on his own (a point that's hard to dispute, save for the identity of his "mentor" at the time...), and was caught up in the need to justify and accentuate Brian's importance in the commercial world of rock music (already moving into its "terminal" state in the mid-80s thanks to all the newly emergent technology).

It's a natural outgrowth of the times and the situation in which David was operating. It's also bad history.

We've all heard Redwood's work on "Time to Get Alone." Those of you who see it as a ticket to instant glory are clearly deluding yourself. The song is a very poor fit for those singers, who were clearly meant to do something significantly different stylistically than what the BBs were doing. (To get a better idea of this, go over to YouTube and listen to a track called "Mo-Jo Woman," a 1966 MGM single from The Enemys that features Danny Hutton and Cory Wells--this should make it clear how much of a stylistic stretch is being made given the natural predilections of the singers.)

Redwood was on the leading edge of a whole bunch of glorified bar bands, some of whom contained highly exploitable raw talent that fit with the commercial niches opening up at the end of the 60s, while others benefited from canny production and became big names (the Doobie Brothers and Ted Templemann, originally from Harpers Bizarre). Three Dog Night hit a giant sweet spot in that transition into the 70s, and they were great live due to the performance chops of the singers, but there was really precious little connective tissue between them and Brian Wilson (aside from his friendship with Danny Hutton) and it's really not that hard to play Devil's advocate and claim that Mike Love unwittingly did them a big favor when he went all territorial on Brian at Heider's.

Does that mean that Mike did the right thing in that moment? Of course not. But sometimes bad actions wind up having fortunate results. It's part of the complexity of life--and why it's ill-advised to make sweeping retrospective analogies and references that further distort what is already a complicated and opaque story.

You're absolutely right, we can't know whether the BW-produced Redwood material would have been a hit. It's just more myth-making from BW hagiographer David Leaf. And if they HAD hit it big, maybe we wouldn't have any of the BB records we love from the late 60's and 70's.

Their most obvious BB pastiche is the song "No Surfing Today", which is great.

From the new album:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8Zoh-apWRE


Chuck Berry - Big Boys


It's ok. Nice to hear something new. I wonder if it's his son singing that one verse

Chorus ain't bad.

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I don't think Brian has read Mike's book.
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I don't even think Brian has read Brian's book.

I don't really like Bruce's cover of "Don't Worry Baby" from 1974, recorded for California Music, he changes the melody too much. Obviously because he couldn't sing in as high a register as Brian back then. Don't get me wrong, I like Bruce and have got his California Music on two CD's, but this cover just isn't any good, he takes too many liberties with my favorite Beach Boys song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vxwu9eHoLY

I love Curt Boettcher's California Music CD, but where can one find Bruce Johnston California Music tracks?