Posted on 02/02/2011 1:15:27 AM PST by sushiman
Today, Al Jardine notified his legion of Facebook followers, that he and fellow founding member Brian Wilson had been invited by Mike Love to join Love on stage for the upcoming Ronald Reagan tribute concert.
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
With all due respect, I think you surfed with Dennis Wilson. Dennis was the only Beach Boy who ever surfed and the only Beach Boy who cared for the water. He was often out surfing or on his motorbike when Brian Wilson was in the studio recording many or all of the vocal parts for the other Beach Boys on early albums. Carl's justified reputation was that he was lazy.
Dennis played the drums and Carl, the guitar. At least, they played them on stage. For most studio work. Even before Pet Sounds it had reached the point, when father Murray Wilson had been removed as producer and manager, Brian Wilson was using Hollywood's best session musicians in the studio.
Brian Wilson is a still a schizo.
Yep. But if Murray Wilson had been my father, I'd probably be a schizo as well. Read "Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson" by Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall and Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson.
I've seen them in concert four times, once (1990?) in an unannounced three+-hour show that was a practice session before starting a world tour, in a place called Center Stage in Atlanta. It only seats a few hundred, at best. Really intimate. The Beach Boys were pulling young women and little girls (remember, girls knew the songs because of Full House) on stage to dance, and they must have pulled a dozen people on stage to help them sing "Help Me, Rhonda." Mike Love came into the audience to sing. Dennis Wilson had already died, but Carl Was still alive. Bruce Johnston played the keyboards. Brian was not present. The last time I saw Brian was in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1982 or '83. He played for part of the concert. At one point, he was playing a white baby grand piano, when he stopped, stood up, and began to wander around the stage. Somebody came from back stage and gently took his hand, and led him backstage. We never saw him again.
I saw the same pathetic performance of the last Jan and Dean concert. Poor Dean had to carry Jan who was still messed up from his auto accident. Jan mumbled throughout the songs.
Jan Berry not only had massive brain damage and partial paralysis, but was on large amounts of medication, including anti-seizure medications. I saw Jan and Dean (Torrence) perform in 1983 in a small, 100-person, club. Jan started slurring his words too badly and the lead guitarist began to sing in his place. He and Dean continued to tour summers through 2003, and Jan died during the off-season before the 2004 tour began.
Last summer, I read "When We Get To Surf City," by Bob Greene. The guy was a writer who could barely play a guitar, and he wanted to write about being on stage with Jan and Dean. They auditioned him and invited him to play one night at a county fair. He ended up playing with the band on-and-off over several years. It's a fascinating look at making a living 30+ years after your last hit record. It's also a poignant story of how Dean Torrence took care of Jan Berry and his disability.
Thank you for your quite enjoyable post. Good read.
And I too, was a SM.
If you would like to see some depressing pictures of past rock stars...
http://www.nbcwashington.com/entertainment/music/NATLRock-Stars-Then-and-Now-97329329.html
Thanks for your service to Scouting.
I mistakenly spelled Murry Wilson's first name as "Murray." Also, I didn't mean to make it sound as if Carl Wilson did nothing. I'm a fan of Carl - I have a Rickenbacker Carl Wilson 360-6 model.
The "unannounced" concert was a strange thing. A friend called me and asked me if I was going to the Beach Boys concert at Center Stage that night. I laughed, because (a) I KNEW the Beach Boys weren't playing in Atlanta, and (b) Center Stage was an intimate venue for groups just starting out (a couple of hundred seats), and seating was usually 'first come, first-served'. He told me that the Beach Boys were about to start a World Tour and were playing two 'warm up' or 'rehearsal' concerts, one in Atlanta, one in North Carolina, to see how the crowd reacted to different songs and to practice in front of an audience. I called Center Stage and they confirmed that the Beach Boys were playing that night, but that you had to buy tickets at the box office.
The concert had been advertised by word of mouth starting that morning. I rushed to Center Stage and bought tickets for Mrs. Scoutmaster, son (6), daughter (4) (both huge Beach Boys fans from watching Full House and from riding in Scoutmaster's car), and Scoutmaster. We sat perhaps twenty feet from the stage. The concert lasted around 3-1/2 hours. People from the audience were invited to sing and dance on stage. Mike Love came into the audience and sometimes brought out a wireless mic along with his headphone mic, and he'd stick it in someone's face. It spoiled those two kids on other concerts for life (well, except for one VIP Backstreet Boys experience that I lucked into for middle daughter), as you may imagine. Their next concert, later in life, was "WAIT! You mean you have to sit more than twenty feet from the stage? And the concert doesn't last that long? And you don't get to go on stage and sing and dance with the artist? And you call THAT a 'concert'?"
As an undergraduate student from 1974-78, I drove my fraternity brothers crazy by constantly playing Endless Summer and other Beach Boys albums (and eight tracks) constantly at a time when the Eagles, Boz Scaggs, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Linda Ronstadt, or Boston would have been the more obvious choices. And the fact that I wore Hawaiian shirts year-'round didn't help matters.
OT, but found this on the ‘rock stars then and now’ video page:
Finally, some good news for Katie Holmes and “The Kennedys.”
After several networks, including Showtime, DirectTV, and The History Channel, declined to air the 8-part mini-series in a dragged-out game of “not it,” it looked as though the series - which stars Holmes as Jackie and Greg Kinnear as JFK - was going to be shelved for good.
Enter the Reelz Channel.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Reelz has picked up the series and will air Part 1 on April 3rd.
The Yardbirds and the Byrds were, in my opinion, the greatest bands...both from the same mid to late 60’s era.
God Bless all involved who are paying tribute to not only our last great president, but..IMO, our last President period.
“Mick Jagger and Linda Ronstadt have to be two of the worse looking. Bret Michaels still looks pretty good.”
Jagger happens to be 20 years older than Michaels.
Jagger is a 68 year old man, and most of us can only wish to be as active as he apparently is, when we reach that age.
He doesn’t need the money.
As a fan of the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean, I enjoyed your posts this morning!
Glad you enjoyed it.
December 1965 and 1966 were pivotal in changing the Beach Boys. Brian heard the American version of the Beatles' "Rubber Soul" and it inspired him to (as he told his wife, Marilyn) "make the greatest album . . . [t]he greatest rock album ever made!" With that, he disappeared into his home with a jingle-writer named Tony Asher, ditching his normal collaborator and fellow Beach Boy, Mike Love. Mike had his pulse on the All-American teenager and songs about cars ("Little Deuce Coupe", "409", "Fun, Fun, Fun") and surfing (you name it). He was NOT into the drug scene that Brian had fallen into.
Asher helped Brian finish some songs he had been working on for years ("Caroline, No") and write some new classics ("God Only Knows" - a song, which Paul McCartney said was "the greatest song ever written"). The result was the album "Pet Sounds." Mike Love collaborated with Asher and Brian Wilson on "Wouldn't It Be Nice", but that's it. Brian was talked into putting "Sloop John B" on the album - a traditional song that the Wilson brothers had sung for years in different arrangements by Brian. Most of the instrumentals in "Pet Sounds" were performed by the best studio musicians in Hollywood, and Brian. The other Wilson Brothers and Al Jardine didn't play much, if at all, on the album (Mike Love was only a vocalist anyway).
Although Rolling Stone magazine ranks "Pet Sounds" as the second-greatest album of all-time, it (the eleventh Beach Boys album) was a flop in the U.S. by Beach Boys standards. In Europe, it was critically acclaimed. While it was inspired by the Beatles' Rubber Soul, the Beatles thought "Pet Sounds" was masterpiece and Brian Wilson was a genius. "Pet Sounds", in turn, inspired "Sgt. Pepper's . . ."
From "Pet Sounds", Brian wrote a masterpiece - "Good Vibrations." The theremin, the harmonies, the use of a bass harmonica instead of a bass guitar - musically, the piece was his Rhapsody in Blue. Forget about the fact that it was popular music. Those in the music industry who hadn't realized his genius before then (and they were few), realized it at that point.
From there, Brian continued his journey waaaaaaaay out there into experimental music, before the Beatles ever did. The project was an album to be called "Smile." Brian's collaborative lyricist was Van Dyke Parks. Mike Love wanted the group to go back to singing about cars, and surfing, and teenage life - the things that had made the group successful. Mike also objected to all of the drug use (Brian may have used LSD only once, but the pot and hash use were constant). There was a major confrontation in the studio, when Mike demanded that Van Dyke explain what some of the lyrics meant. Van Dyke said he couldn't explain what they mean and, rather than face confrontation, walked off the project. Work on the album stopped in 1967; Brian called Van Dyke again in November 2003 to finish the project.
There's been a lot of love and a lot of conflict among the Beach Boys, beginning with physical and emotional abuse at the hands of the Wilson brothers' father, Murry (which may have led to Brian's loss of hearing in one ear), through the other members pressuring Brian to write, arrange, and produce so that they could put out records and perform to support wives and ex-wives, and buy bigger houses and more cars; through Brian's mental breakdown on a 1965 flight to Houston, after which he rarely performed on stage again; through the addition of on-again, off-again Beach Boy Mike Johnston; the alcohol-induced drowning death of Dennis, Carol's death to cancer.
In 2009, when the State of California erected a Historical Landmark at the intersection of West 119th and Kornblum streets in Hawthorne, California, near the Wilson's childhood home (which was razed to make way for a freeway), Mike was 3,000 miles away, playing a concert with the "Beach Boys." He was the only "Beach Boy" on stage. The other two living original Beach Boys, Brian Wilson and Al Jardine, were at the ceremony in Hawthorne. If the three perform together, it that's a good thing given history.
Last I heard, Brian was married and had adopted two children...Delaney and...can’t remember the other one’s name. Is he still married to the same gal, do you know? I know for a while, the Beach Boys were suing each other right and left. Really a shame.
I saw Dean Torrence on PBS not too long ago, helping to plug the TAMI Show DVD. He seems to be doing well.
As far as I could tell, he completely snapped out of that around 8 years ago (at the time he went to play for the Queen of England). My wife has been best friends with Barbara Wilson (ex-wife of Dennis Wilson) since they carpooled their kids together 40 years or so ago.
After that thing with the Queen, Brian completely changed and actually started to interact somewhat normally with her kids whenever that went to family things up at his house. Before that, he acted like he didn't know anyone or really where he was.
It's a pity. He seems like a gentle man, a genius, abused physically and emotionally by his father, pressured to reach a perfection that only he could hear.
He may be 'somewhat normal' now. I pray his is. For all the joy he has given others, he deserves some peace and joy himself.
“America’s band ! Yes !”
_____________
Don’t you remember when Reagan’s, Sec of the Interior Watts refused to allow The Beach Boys to play on the Mall for the 4th of July celebration. He embarassed the administration by calling the Beach Boys raunchy music. I guess, now, all is forgiven.
But the Beach Boys did play at Reagan’s 2nd inaugaral .
And I do remember Watts . Idjit .
One suit arose out of Brian finishing the album Smile and releasing it. The unfinished, partial album had been released as Smiley Smiles in 1967 after Van Dyke Parks walked out of the studio when Mike Love publicly and loudly confronted in the studio him over the meaning of the psychedelic lyrics, which Van Dyke couldn't explain.
Brian and Van Dyke started the album again in November 2003, re-working and re-recording the existing songs, and writing the missing parts of the intended album. It was released as Smile, in 2004, in three suites, as part of a 'symphony'.
The problem was that, in connection with publicity for the release of Smile, the British newspaper The Mail was permitted to give away a promotional CD for Smile that prominently used the words "Beach Boys" and included a couple of 1960s-era photographs of the band.
Mike Love filed a lawsuit, claiming "millions of collars in illicit profits", "unfair competition", and shameless appropriation of Mike Love's likeness and the Beach Boys trademark.
And the battle began.
True. Seemingly Ron and Nancy were big fans, despite Watts.
Are Brian and Mike going to perform onstage together? For real?
No you didn't. Carl played guitar and didn't surf.
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