This Whole World

My next post was going to be about the Live In London album, but that's proven to be more work than I expected so let's postpone that for now and talk about "This Whole World."  The song was released on the Sunflower album in 1970 and as the B-side to "Slip On Through."  I believe this track would have been a strong single to kick off their tenure with Reprise Records.  What Brian was able to pull off in a mere 115 seconds is pretty astounding.

The song was recorded November 13, 1969 at Brian's home studio when he lived at 10452 Bellagio Road in Los Angeles.  According to Craig Slowinski, the musicians were: Jerry Cole (rhythm guitar), David Cohen (lead guitar), Carl (acoustic guitar), Jack Conrad (bass), Ray Pohlman (6-string bass), Dennis Dragon (drums), Gene Estes (chimes & glockenspiel), Daryl Dragon (electric harpsichord, tubular bells, celeste), Brian (piano).  In David Leaf's book, The Beach Boys, Daryl Dragon is quoted as saying "From a harmony standpoint, I've never heard a song like that since I've been in pop music. I've never heard a song go through that many changes and come back."  Timothy White called the song "the most ingenious of Brian's many mini-opuses."  

We have some quotes from the guys courtesy of the Summer 2020 Edition of Endless Summer Quarterly.  Al Jardine says, "That song is one of my favorites of all-time!  That's a monster Beach Boys song right there!  That's a favorite for all of us.  It's a wonderful expansive mood with lots of great harmonies and chord changes.  It's very, very Brian ... cutting edge."  Bruce said, "There is Brian 'magic' all over 'This Whole World.'"  In his autobiography, I Am Brian Wilson: A Memoir, Brian said "That song came from deep down in me, from the feeling I had that the whole world should be about love. When I wrote that song I wanted to capture that idea."

Brian would re-record "This Whole World" for the I Just Wasn't Made for These Times documentary and soundtrack that came out in 1995.  He also included it on his Live at the Roxy Theatre album from 2000.  Finally, an a cappella version was included on the 2013 Made In California box set.  A song like this deserves better than being included on a list of deep cuts, but it's there waiting to be discovered.  If you haven't played it in awhile, do so now.  It's only 2-minutes, so you'll likely hit 'repeat.'

On Tour: 1968 - Part 4

The next show on the docket is the second performance from December 1, 1968 at the London Palladium.  Listening to all of these recordings has been a very enjoyable experience.  The additional musicians really add to the songs and the Beach Boys are a well-oiled machine at this point.  It's the same short 11-song setlist from the earlier show, but the crowd doesn't seem to mind.  Everything is well-received, especially "Do It Again" and the songs from Pet Sounds.  After "Do It Again," Mike says "we're never gonna be able to go home if you keep this up.  My goodness!  Gonna have to establish residence."  The show is a little sloppier than the first show.  There are some drumming mishaps in "Darlin'" and after Mike disappears in the first chorus of "All I Want To Do" he says, "This is a new song, we haven't quite gotten it."  Mike says Brian is not on tour because he's pregnant.  There goes Mike with his pregnant talk again.  Brian's wife would soon become pregnant, but that's neither here nor there. 

Before we get to the final show of this On Tour release, we are given "God Only Knows" and "Good Vibrations" from the soundcheck at the Finsbury Park Astoria in London on December 8th.  The first thing we hear is Carl telling somebody the setlist.  He doesn't provide the entire list, however, saying "I'll give you the rest later because we may change the end of the show a little bit."  Despite being a soundcheck, Carl doesn't phone it in.  It's a very good performance marred slightly by some talking.  This rendition of "Good Vibrations" was released in 1998 on Endless Harmony but mixed differently and edited in several spots.  The most obvious change is that we hear Carl sing "softly smile, I know she must be kind, yeah" and Mike chimes in "oh yeah."  Mike is missing on the EH release.  In fact, the word "kind" on EH seems to have been flown-in from somewhere else as it's not the slower way Carl sang it in the rehearsal.  Also, the four loud drum beats after "She goes with me to a blossom world" heard on On Tour have been removed for EH.  The drums after "what an elation" are also different on both versions.  There is a bang of some sort right before "Gotta keep those lovin' good..." that was edited out of the On Tour version.  I'm not sure why they messed with a rehearsal so much.  When lining up the tracks to compare, they often went out of sync.  Starting in the first chorus, the EH version runs slightly faster than On Tour: 1968.  

Finally, on December 8, 1968, the Beach Boys played two shows at the aforementioned Finsbury Park Astoria.  The first show that day is presented here as the last concert in this collection.  Word was going around at the time of this release that the second show that day wasn't included because it makes up the Live In London album.  I will show in my next post how that is not the case.  Though it includes some of Mike's most nauseating banter yet, this is another good show by the guys.  Compared to a week earlier, "Aren't You Glad" and "Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring" are in the lineup and "All I Want To Do" is dropped.  I think the only downside to these London shows, not counting their brevity, is how Dennis lost his moment with "Little Bird" and Al's lone lead, "Help Me, Rhonda," is also absent.  These are very much Carl and Mike shows.  The medley of five early hits was dropped as well, possibly as an effort to appear more hip, though I'm sure the crowd would have loved them just as much as they seemed to love "Barbara Ann" here.

On Tour: 1968 - Part 3

The last US show featured in this collection comes from the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, AZ on July 16, 1968.  The first thing we hear are the last five seconds of "Help Me, Rhonda," so that song and "Darlin'" are missing this time around.  Mike tells us for about the third show now that "California Girls" used to be called "California Girls Are All Pregnant."  The context to that joke has probably been lost to time.  This show is notable for the inclusion of "I Get Around" which wasn't part of their setlist at the time.  Mike introduces it as a request and it takes the place of "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring."  Like the previous shows, the new songs seem to stick out when it comes to energy and quality of performance.  I get the feeling they enjoy taking a break from the hits to play "Friends," "Little Bird," and "Do It Again."

The Beach Boys started their sold-out British Tour with two shows at the London Palladium on December 1, 1968.  This next recording is the first concert from that day.  The setlist is trimmed down to only 11 selections with songs like "Friends," "Little Bird," "Surfer Girl" and the medley of five early hits being shown the door.  Bob Farmer wrote a glowing review of the shows in Disc & Music Echo, mentioning how polished the performance was and how the band "were a brilliant and faithful reproduction of all we've come to expect of them on record."  He goes on to say, "If there was any doubt about the on-stage ability of this recording ensemble, forget it.  In fact, don't dare suggest it."  This was a time when their popularity was certainly waning in the US, but Britain was very friendly and open to our guys.  The addition of "Bluebirds Over the Mountain" and the guts to end the show with a song that was unreleased at the time ("All I Want To Do") shows a band with great confidence that they can not only survive these years with Brian taking a more part-time role, but could also grow and evolve on their own.  

As recently as 2001, in the liner notes to the Concert/Live In London twofer CD reissue, these December 1st shows were said to be the source of the Live In London album released in the UK in 1970 and in the US in 1976 under the name Beach Boys '69 (The Beach Boys In London).  This is not the case as we will see in the next and final entry.

On Tour: 1968 - Part 2

The next concert on this set comes from the McElroy Auditorium in Waterloo, Iowa on July 10, 1968.  This recording begins after "Darlin'" has started but before the vocals occur.  There is not much to say about this particular show.  It is well-performed and a very good soundboard recording.  Mike repeats some of his dialogue from the previous concerts, but even he isn't as talkative as usual.  He introduces the medley as a "Beach Boys mudley of oldies but moldies," which is funny as these songs are not that old and he would still be performing them 50 years later.  Twice at the end of "California Girls" the lyric is changed to "I wish you all could be California girls."  The list of songs performed is the same as before except "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring" is not included.  I don't know if it was dropped that night or edited out of the recording here.  Overall, it's a fine show and a better performance than Fargo.

We catch up with the guys three days later at the Pershing Municipal Auditorium in Lincoln, Nebraska.  Like Iowa, this is another quality show.  Mike is more talkative on this date and gets the audience to laugh a couple times.  The first time is right before "Surfer Girl" where the song is often announced as the first slow song they ever wrote.  Mike says, "Wish we'd turn off these laser beams up there.  They're beginning to sterilize us here.  I'm not taking any chances on this one."  "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring" returns tonight and Mike introduces it by saying "we'd like to do this song a capella, which means naked."  There is no band instrumental on this show and there does seem to be a few edits between songs for whatever reason.  I think the horn section was a nice addition to this tour.  It really helps fill in the backing and moves songs like "California Girls" and "Sloop John B" slightly closer to their studio versions.  New songs like "Friends" and "Little Bird" really stand out in these shows.

On Tour: 1968 - Part 1

This is the first post in a four-part series on the digital-only live release On Tour: 1968.  On December 14, 2018, the band put out this 114-track set consisting of eight concerts from a very productive, though commercially underwhelming, period.  It's one of my favorite years in the history of the group.

The first five shows come from their July 1968 US tour and the last three are from London that December.  The band augmented their sound by bringing some extra musicians with them.  There are no liner notes with this set, but digging around the Internet suggests we have Daryl Dragon on organ, Ed Carter on occasional bass and lead guitar (in the fall), possibly John Guerin on drums for two songs in the summer shows, Mike Kowalski with some percussion (in the fall), and a horn section of unknowns.  These guys really flesh out the sound and add a lot to the performances.

We start things off with a show at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago on July 5, 1968.  The Beach Boys released their Friends album two weeks earlier, Dennis Wilson had a gang of unsavory characters living at his house, and Brian and the guys had been working on some beautiful recordings the world wouldn't hear for over 20 years with names such as "We're Together Again," "Old Man River," and "Walk On By."  This 43-minute recording starts in the middle of "Darlin'" from Wild Honey.  They play the usual songs like "Help Me, Rhonda," "California Girls," and "Surfer Girl" before playing both sides of their three-month-old single: "Friends" b/w "Little Bird."  Mike introduces "Friends" saying "we're going to do a song of ours, a bomb of ours."  They pull off an excellent performance and it sounds like it was very well-received by the crowd.  "Little Bird" is next featuring Dennis on lead.  These songs are not common occurrences in Beach Boys setlists so it's cool hearing them when they were new.  The guys run through the same medley of five early hits they were doing in 1966 and nobody even tries doing the falsetto parts.

Another highlight is hearing both sides of their soon-to-be-released single: "Do It Again" b/w "Wake The World."  The horns take the place of the high vocal parts in "Do It Again."  Afterwards Mike had a funny comment where he said, "Anybody heard it lately?  Not counting just now."  This is likely about lack of radio support, though the song would go to #1 in the UK.  "God Only Knows" and "Good Vibrations" are nicely executed and appreciated by the audience before launching into "Barbara Ann."  Mike then says "I'm going to introduce Ernie and the band," but unfortunately doesn't.  Ernie Small was considered a "touring bandleader" at the time.  Mike closed with "they're going to demonstrate to you their abilities on their own for a few minutes here and we'll be back shortly."  The band then plays us out.  I'm unaware if the Beach Boys came back on stage.  This is where the Chicago recording ends.

The second show in this collection is from three days later, July 8th, at the Memorial Auditorium in Fargo, North Dakota.  I'm assuming the show started with "Darlin'," though it's not included here.  We begin with Al singing "Help Me, Rhonda" and the setlist is nearly the same as Chicago.  The only changes are that the band instrumental takes place after "Wake The World," "God Only Knows" is played after "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring" instead of before, and "Johnny B. Goode" is featured at the end.  The horn section does a great job on "Little Bird" and the intro to "California Girls."  The Chicago performance was much better than this Fargo show (the second of two that day).  "Surfer Girl" is very weak vocally, there's some goofing around during "Friends," and many cues are missed in the medley.  The beginning of "Johnny B. Goode" is butchered and there seems to be odd guitar problems throughout that song.

Our Car Club

One early Beach Boys song that doesn't seem to get a lot of love is "Our Car Club" from the Surfer Girl album.  I'm not going to make the case that it's some great songwriting achievement, but it sounds really good and I like it!  The lyrics would be seen as super corny today, but in the pre-Beatles world this probably passed for "cool."  I'm assuming Mike wrote most of, if not all, the lyrics, but some of them are very Brian.

"I've been cruisin' 'round the town now with the guys for quite awhile," Mike begins.  "We've been thinkin' 'bout starting up a club that shows some class and style," Brian continues.  Everyone then chimes in with "And we'll get the finest cars!"  It's an early song in the line of "Little Deuce Coupe" or "I Get Around" where we find the guys bragging about their hipness.  In this case there's just something so charming and innocent about it.  "We'll get the roughest and the toughest initiation we can find / And if you want to try to get in we'll really put you through the grind."  These guys look too clean-cut for anyone to take that seriously.

The song has a sophisticated arrangement and is the first time drummer Hal Blaine appeared on a Beach Boys recording.  According to Jon Stebbins in The Beach Boys FAQ, Steve Douglas and Jay Migliori both play saxophone on the track.  We don't know exactly when it was recorded.  The CD liner notes say July 16, 1963, but they ascribe that date to ten songs on the album and that's not realistic.  Unfortunately it seems the documentation has been lost.  I think the song is more powerful in its stereo mix versus the mono.  The vocals are louder in stereo and Hal's drums sound quite aggressive compared to other tracks on the album.

My favorite part of the song is Brian's voice.  I've heard some say that their favorite singer could sing the phone book and they'd love it.  I guess I'm the same with Brian.  Twice in the song he chimes in with: "We'll set a meet and get a sponsor and collect some dues / and you can bet that we'll have our jackets on wherever we cruise."  I don't want to belittle it by calling it cute, but I find it very sweet.  This is right before the Beatles showed up and redefined what "cool" is.  It takes me back to the world of The Mickey Mouse Club or a town like Mayfield, where the Cleavers lived.  In a very good way.

Best of the Beach Boys

You can't read about Best of the Beach Boys without being reminded it was rushed out by Capitol Records six weeks after the release of Pet Sounds.  Even though that album went to #10 in the charts, it didn't sell as well as anyone hoped it would.  Brian was said to be very hurt by this compilation showing up and being so heavily promoted over the album he had labored over.  Bruce Eder puts it well in his review at AllMusic: "On some level, he must've felt like a child actor or teenage star whose management and producers didn't want him to mature -- and was forced to compete, in effect, with a younger version of himself."  For the label to abandon their proven hit makers so quickly is sad, but it also goes to show you the pressure they were always under to deliver the goods.  Brian won back Capitol's favor a few months later when "Good Vibrations" topped the charts, but then Smile happened.

Looking at the album itself, you find a pretty nice 12-track sampler of what the Beach Boys were all about.  The 28-minute program consists of: "Surfin' U.S.A.," "Catch a Wave," "Surfer Girl," "Little Deuce Coupe," "In My Room," "Little Honda," "Fun, Fun, Fun," "The Warmth of the Sun," "Louie, Louie," "Kiss Me Baby," "You're So Good To Me," and "Wendy."  The cover of "Louie, Louie" is a bizarre inclusion as nobody would consider that a standout track in any way.  There were some obvious hits not included for whatever reason such as the #1 hit "I Get Around" and "California Girls."  

Four months after the appearance of this collection in the United States, the UK version was released with a very different set of songs.  You get two more cuts, so five more minutes, and the peculiar omissions from the US version are included.  The UK version dropped "Catch a Wave," "Surfer Girl," "Little Honda," "The Warmth of the Sun," "Louie, Louie," "Kiss Me Baby," and "Wendy."  It added "Surfin' Safari," "I Get Around," "All Summer Long," "Do You Wanna Dance," "Help Me Rhonda," "California Girls," "Barbara Ann," "Sloop John B," and "God Only Knows."

According to the January 7, 1967 issue of Billboard, the UK LP was originally compiled by EMI as a DJ sampler.  EMI's album is more respectful to the band and more well-rounded than what Capitol came up with.  There are still ways to improve it, but it's a satisfying spin.  In the UK, the Beach Boys popularity was at an all-time high at this point.  As Capitol kept embracing their older material, the bands new recordings would sell less and less stateside.  Capitol would follow up with a Vol. 2 and Vol. 3.  In both cases, EMI would improve on their tracklistings, just like they did here.  I've got to hand it to the UK for looking out for our boys.

Michigan 1966

One thing I like to do when listening to recordings of concerts is to put the event into some context.  It's easy to just enjoy the performance, but it's fascinating for me to think about what was going on behind the scenes before, during, and after these little snapshots in time.  I don't know of many shows in the history of the Beach Boys that are as intriguing as their visit to Michigan in October 1966.  Fortunately for us, the shows were professionally recorded for potential release.  Now just because something was seemingly well documented doesn't mean there isn't some confusing and conflicting information out there.  Let's take a look.

I'd first like to mention the release history of this material.  The Beach Boys performed two shows on Saturday October 22, 1966 at the Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, MI.  In 1993, "Good Vibrations" from the 2nd show was released on the box set Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of The Beach Boys.  The five-song medley of hits from the 1st show was released on the Endless Harmony collection in 1998.  In 2016, "Wouldn't It Be Nice," "Sloop John B" and "God Only Knows" from the 1st show were released on the Pet Sounds: 50th Anniversary box set.  Finally, both shows were released on the digital-only Graduation Day 1966 (with rather misleading artwork).  There seems to be a few edits between tracks, but all the songs are there.

Regarding the venue, the Endless Harmony and Graduation Day releases simply say "Live at the University of Michigan." The 50th anniversary Pet Sounds box lists the tracks as from Eastern Michigan University, which is a completely different school.  Rolling Stone's website said the shows happened at the non-existent Hills Auditorium.  In his book, Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall and Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson, Peter Ames Carlin says the shows took place "in the gym at the University of Michigan" (p. 107).  The Hill is no gym.  It's actually a beautiful place to see a show and totals over 3500 seats with a main floor, mezzanine, and balcony.  I've been to a handful of shows at this venue and I was lucky enough to stand on the stage myself a few years back. You can get really close to the performers and the acoustics are wonderful.

One peculiar thing about these shows is that they took place at all.  They were their first concerts in three weeks and the guys then flew to Europe for a few weeks of shows.  Maybe things were different in the 1960s when it comes to touring musicians, but the idea of playing a few random shows in Michigan before embarking on a European tour seems unusual to me.  The shows took place five months after the release of Pet Sounds and two weeks after "Good Vibrations" hit the airwaves.  In the three weeks before these shows, Brian and the guys were in the studio working on what would become the legendary lost Smile album.  This is an incredible period of transition for the band. These shows in Michigan took place in the middle of what is arguably their most interesting and important period, with Brian at the height of his powers and right before things came crashing down.  Here we have the guys on stage singing "Surfin' U.S.A." and "Little Deuce Coupe" where a few days earlier Brian was working on "Do You Like Worms," "Heroes and Villains," and "Cabin Essence."

Brian actually took a break from the Smile sessions to travel to Michigan and help the guys rehearse "Good Vibrations" for live performance.  It's a complex song and, like the highly produced Wrecking Crew Pet Sounds material, isn't easily adapted to their basic setup.  In Keith Badman's book The Beach Boys, he says Brian went to "oversee a lengthy and arduous day-long rehearsal for the song" (p. 153).  In the 2nd show, however, Mike Love commented that there were five hours between the shows that day, so they likely didn't spend all day working on this song.  What is awesome is that there is actually a picture of Brian on stage in the Hill Auditorium during those rehearsals!  I had never seen that picture until recently and I was floored that it exists.  What a piece of music history at such an important time!

Two more things that are often mentioned regarding these shows are Brian's appearance on stage and the first performance of "Good Vibrations."  First, if you didn't know already, Brian wasn't an acting touring member of the group.  Bruce Johnston had taken his place, if someone could actually take Brian's place, a year earlier.  Brian basically stayed at home creating marvelous recordings while the other guys toured the world.  There is no mention of Brian during the 1st show, but right before "Johnny B. Goode," the last song of the 2nd show, the guys ask Brian to peak his head out and wave to the crowd.  Carlin says he joined the band on stage for "Barbara Ann" (p. 108), but that's not true as that song was performed before Brian's presence was announced.  Badman says "Brian is coaxed into jumping up on stage to sing 'Johnny B. Goode' as an encore" (p. 153).  If Brian actually did perform with the guys, there doesn't seem to be any audio evidence of that.  It sounds like Mike and Carl sharing the lead, but I suppose it's possible.

Were these shows on October 22, 1966 the first ever public performances of "Good Vibrations" as has often been claimed?  It makes sense as they are the first shows since it was released and Brian traveled to Michigan to oversee it, but before each performance of the song that day, Mike says something interesting.  Before "Good Vibrations" in the 1st show, Mike says "we've done this one time before in front of people." When it comes to show #2 of the day, Mike says "it's the second night we've tried it."  Even though it isn't mentioned nearly anywhere, there seems to have been a show the night before at the Jenison Field House in East Lansing, MI, which is an hour from Ann Arbor.  Mike mentions the Beach Boys being picketed "last night" and I have seen posts online that suggest this show did happen.  One problem is that the East Lansing show wasn't recorded so we don't know if they played "Good Vibrations" or not, but it's possible to conclude they did given Mike's comments from the stage in Ann Arbor.  The best we can say with any certainty is that the first public performance of "Good Vibrations" was in Michigan on either October 21 or 22, 1966.

One reason the Beatles gave for quitting touring was the inability to duplicate their increasingly complicated studio recordings on stage.  You have to hand it to the Beach Boys for at least trying.  Six guys on stage with guitar, bass, and drums could not possibly come close to Brian's productions featuring a dozen musicians and meticulously multi-tracked group harmonies.  Given the circumstances I think they did fairly well.  The drumming provided by Dennis is strong, Bruce's voice is quite weak, but Carl and Al seem very capable of doing what they need to do.  The guys seem to goof around a lot and have a very casual attitude about things.  Sometimes they will call attention to their own mistakes and make light of their music.  I can only imagine how frustrating it could be for Brian to work with them in the studio, especially if they aren't as excited about the material as he is.  

Still, I think the live performances at this time are the best they could be given the circumstances.  If the audience is put off by the stripped down arrangements of "Good Vibrations" and the songs from Pet Sounds, you wouldn't know it.  Everything they do seems well received.  One thing I've never understood is why the crowd is so quiet at these shows.  Their concerts from 1964 and 1965 have constant screams and overwhelming fan enthusiasm like you would hear at a Beatles show. Suddenly in 1966 you can hear a pin drop.  The same is noticeable on the shows from 1967 and 1968 they have released.  I wonder what changed.  Late 1966 finds the Beach Boys at the height of their popularity.  "Wouldn't It Be Nice" and "Sloop John B" were on the radio that summer, "Good Vibrations" was a brand new #1 sensation, and you hear no response when these songs are announced.  The applause afterward, however, is strong.  It's just very different from how concerts were and what they would become.

As I mentioned before, these shows took place while Brian was still working on the Smile album.  As someone who has obsessed over this project and daydreamed about "what if's," it's unreal to put yourself back in time before its collapse, when Brian's curiosity and creativity refused to quit, and when a Smile album could truly be on the horizon.  When the guys return from Europe, they start hearing things like "Surf's Up" and "Vega-Tables" for the first time.  At the end of the year, however, Smile wasn't near completion as expected.  In early 1967 Brian would obsess over additional sections to "Heroes & Villains" and would keep adding more and more pieces to the puzzle to where things got so large, and he got so scattered, that he couldn't put it all together.  There was too much material, nobody to help him make sense out of it all, and not much support from the other guys.  Brian has always needed other people's enthusiasm to keep him going and he wasn't feeling that anymore.  His behavior started to get more bizarre and friends such as Smile collaborator Van Dyke Parks and others would begin leaving Brian's circle.

One more thing that took place the very day after these Ann Arbor concerts has been referred to as a turning point in this entire saga.  On the flight home, Brian radioed his wife and asked her to invite some of his friends and acquaintances to meet him at the airport when he returned to Los Angeles.  "They are told it is very important that they attend: Brian wants reassurance that he is loved," (Badman, p. 153).  Brian has a photographer take pictures of the group and he has one blown up and hung in his living room.  Keith Badman continues, "But within months it will be gone - and most of the people will no longer be his friends.  One by one, each will step out or be forced out of the picture."

Without getting too dramatic, because good work did continue to take place, this weekend could be seen as the moment it all went down.  I don't know if anything happened between him and the guys that made him call his wife from the plane.  It seems clear that nothing was the same after this and the Brian the guys encountered after their tour was in a worse way than the Brian they said goodbye to in Michigan.  Peter Ames Carlin writes, "the airport photograph would take on a symbolic importance, as if it marked the point at which Brian's astonishing creative arc leveled off, nosing slowly toward a descent" (p. 109).  Just months after the accomplishment of Pet Sounds and with "Good Vibrations" selling big, it's sobering to think how quickly things can change.

A happy postscript: On March 9, 1999, Brian would start his first ever solo tour with a show at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor.  The Michigan Theater isn't even half a mile away from the Hill Auditorium!  How fitting that this place became the spot of the rebirth of his career.

Little Bird

"Little Bird" was the first time a Dennis Wilson composition was released under the Beach Boys name.  Co-written with poet Steve Kalinich, the song was recorded February 29, 1968 at Brian's home studio in Bel Air, CA.  It was mixed a week later at Western Recorders in Hollywood.  A mono mix of the song came out as the b-side of the "Friends" single on April 8, 1968.  The stereo mix found a spot on the Friends album in June of that year. 

The song fades out before hitting the 2-minute mark, but a lot is packed into that short time. Jim Gordon played drums, Lyle Ritz was on bass, Al Vescovo rocked the banjo, and Igor Horoshevsky supplied the cello.  Brian is prominently heard on the "na na, na na na na" backing vocals.  One highlight of "Little Bird" are the harmonies at :47.  A cappella and backing track versions of the song were released on the digital-only Wake The World: The Friends Sessions in 2018.  

Brian clearly helped his brother with the production as his style is all over this track.  He likely deserved a writing credit since, according to Kalinich, Brian wrote the bridge.  The label of the single says "Arranged by Brian Wilson."  You can also hear a bit of a reference to the Smile track "Child Is Father Of The Man" at 1:24.  It's really magnificent how he worked that in.  Author David Leaf pointed out "the muted trumpet emulates the tune's title character."  It's a really cool track and an excellent production that makes you wish Brian and Dennis worked together more.  It was nice to see Brian add it to his live shows in 2013 (sung by David Marks) and 2019 (sung by Brian).

Where's my pretty bird

He must have flown away

If I keep singing

He'll come back someday

California Girls - Vocals Recorded 55 Years Ago Today

55 years ago today, the Beach Boys recorded their vocals for "California Girls."  The instrumental backing was recorded two months earlier on April 6th.  Brian didn't have a title or lyrics yet.  This session was also the first time Bruce Johnston sang with the guys in the studio.  The song was released on the album Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) a week before coming out as a single backed with "Let Him Run Wild."  "California Girls" peaked at #3 in the US and went on to become, arguably, their signature song; opening hundreds of concerts.  Let us revisit Brian's incredible vocal arrangement from Columbia Studio in Los Angeles: June 4th, 1965.

Good To My Baby

To these ears, "Good To My Baby" is an overlooked gem in the Beach Boys catalog.  The band themselves passed it up for both of their career spanning box sets: Good Vibrations: 30 Years of the Beach Boys (1993) and Made in California (2013). 

Originally released on The Beach Boys Today! (1965), the song just exudes joy.  The bootleg Unsurpassed Masters Vol. 8 lets us hear Brian conducting his Wrecking Crew studio musicians (plus Carl on guitar) through a killer guitar-driven backing track that took 19 takes to complete in an awfully quick session on January 13, 1965.  In 2001 they finally showed the backing track some love by releasing it on Hawthorne, CA, a collection of rarities and alternate mixes.  They used the slate for take 17, but take 19 is what we get. This YouTube video uses that audio with a nice montage of pictures of some of those great session musicians.

"Good To My Baby" was originally credited to Brian Wilson alone, but Mike Love said he wrote the lyrics.  He sued Brian in 1992 to have his name added to a number of song credits and receive lost royalties.  This is one of the 35 songs to which a Mike Love composer credit was added.  The wonderful vocal arrangement was recorded on January 19, 1965.  Brian takes the first half of each verse and Mike handles the rest.  Carl, Al, and Dennis join in on the background harmonies.  Brian's voice is strong, confident and unmatched.

The lyrics in the verses aren't magnificent, but they do the job.  The words are a bit teeny-bopper compared to the melancholy on side two.  Mike didn't give himself the greatest lines, for example: "And when I give her my love it's between her and me."  The gold is in the chorus: "She's my girl and I'm good to my baby, she's my girl and I'm good to my baby, and I know she's happy with me."

This is one example where listening to the session tapes helped my appreciation of the song.  A lot of the production subtleties get buried in the original mono mixes and there are revelations to be had all over the place.  Imagine standing in that studio and hearing those guitars, pianos, organ, drums, congas, bass, tambourine, and saxophones.  For some reason I get a kick out of that saxophone that comes in the left channel at 1:56.  I never would have noticed that without the stereo mix and session tapes. It's just a great production all-around that is possibly overlooked because it's on an album full of great productions.

The Beach Boys on Sub Pop

This may be the first time I've ever used the term "double take," but that's exactly what I did when I came across this item.  In my first post I talked about being a fan of Nirvana and early 90s "alternative" music, so seeing a Beach Boys single on Sub Pop is plain awesome and a must-have collectible.

Clark Staub used to work for a Sub Pop distributor, but in 1996 he was the senior director of sales for Capitol Records. He approached Dave Rosencrans at Sub Pop and asked if they would be interested in doing a promotional single for the upcoming Pet Sounds Sessions box set slated for that May.  The labels' co-owner, Jonathan Poneman, said they purposely made it look like their original Singles Club singles with the black bar at the top.  "Part of the whole thing is that it's just cool, and its coolness should be evident to those who are Beach Boys aficionados," he said.

The box set was pulled at the last minute and delayed a year and a half.  There was talk that Mike Love wasn't happy with some of the liner notes and essays included.  Author Timothy White said the band had "misgivings about how Capitol envisioned it."  In the 18-months that followed, the 7" became a real hot item.  This release and a CD sampler of the box set became the only ways to get this material.  The record contains 3 tracks: "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" (stereo mix), "Wouldn't It Be Nice" (vocals only) and "Here Today" (stereo backing track). 

The Pet Sounds Sessions finally came out in November 1997 and the value of this 7" and the CD sampler plummeted.  It's still a cool little item, however, and obviously contains great music.  Jonathan Poneman said, "We don't anticipate, at this late date, converting people to Beach Boys fandom, and even if we did, they're signed to another label."  You can't blame him too much for not predicting the incredible impact the box would have.  Reissues don't usually completely change the way an artist is viewed, but this box, carrying the endorsements of nearly everyone who ever recorded a song, changed how a generation saw the Beach Boys.  It was the beginning of what I think had to be one of the best times ever to be a Beach Boys fan.

Becoming a Fan - Part 1

I never thought I would be a Beach Boys fan. I was big into the Beatles and Monkees from an early age, but the Beach Boys were never on my radar. When I was a teenager, the songs just seemed corny and simplistic. Of course, I wasn’t paying close attention. In the early 90s I got into Nirvana and that whole “alternative rock” scene. It was all about not selling out, a supposed sincerity, and being true to yourself; not your school. My main experience with the Beach Boys was “Kokomo” and appearances on Full House. Those shows are awkward. Our guys had some short shorts, Hawaiian shirts, pony tails, and baseball caps with their own band name on it. Band member Bruce Johnston once said, “On the ‘I wanna be cool level,’ how could you possibly connect the Beach Boys with that?”

I kept comparing them to the Beatles, who seemed to have much more control over their presentation. They didn’t change the words to their songs to be in commercials. They didn’t repackage their music to death. They didn’t wear striped shirts and tie themselves to things such as surfing and cars. They didn’t hang out with John Stamos. It seemed the Beach Boys had no shame and nothing was too cheesy to cash in on. I was judging a book by its cover and it wasn’t fair. Most artists I love from the 60s had a rough 80s (and sometimes 90s) and most of them didn’t have a Brian Epstein to keep them in check. We don’t know how some bands would have carried themselves when they were older had they never broken up. What does that have to do with the music anyways?

Elvis Presley is another one I didn’t have much respect for back then. That was mainly because he didn’t write any songs. I didn’t see how someone who just sang other people’s work could be all that important. I still struggle with that today with those singing competitions on TV where, in my opinion, everyone sounds somewhat similar as they work to put as much emotion into the songs as possible. I bring this up because I saw Andy Kaufmann do an impression of Elvis where he sang “I Beg of You.” I really enjoyed the song. I went to my parents record collection to see if they had it and found it on a four-album set called Worldwide 50 Gold Award Hits, Vol. 1. When listening to the songs one after another, I was very impressed. It was the first time I was truly listening to these songs as opposed to just hearing them in the background or on the radio. This would happen to me again with the Beach Boys and many other acts I originally dismissed for ignorant or superficial reasons.

Something was happening when my senior year of high school started in the fall of 1997. Suddenly the Beach Boys were being talked about everywhere. VH-1 ran a special on this album called Pet Sounds which was supposedly the greatest thing ever made. They were being spoken of in the most glowing terms possible by people like Paul McCartney, Elton John, Tom Petty, and Lindsey Buckingham. Their leader, Brian Wilson, who was pretty much MIA for a couple decades, was apparently this incredible genius. Are we talking about the same band here? Surfing songs? School spirit? If they were so great, what happened to them? What happened to Brian? I took to the Internet. I somehow found a guy who appreciated my interest and told me he’d send me a cassette of Pet Sounds. He thought I should hear the new stereo mix that was just released on a box set dedicated to the making of the album.

I don’t remember the guy's name, but he sent me the most important cassette I ever got. It was Thanksgiving break, so November 1997, and we were about to drive to Buffalo, NY for my cousin's wedding. I put the tape in, hit play, and laid on my bed. The bouncing guitars of “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” was followed by the bang of Hal Blaine’s drum. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older, then we wouldn’t have to wait so long / And wouldn’t it be nice to live together in the kind of world where we belong.” I jumped off the bed and stood there. I was beaming. As they were singing those lines, these accordions were blasting away and this awesome bass line played by Carol Kaye was demanding your attention. Then those classic Beach Boys harmonies kick in. It was sensory overload. This was one of the greatest things I’ve ever heard.

The five-hour drive through Canada to Buffalo found me in the back of my parents van, with my Walkman, playing this album over and over. British writer, Nik Cohn, said the album consisted of “sad songs about loneliness and heartache. Sad songs, even, about happiness.” I don’t think I ever really thought of it that way at the time. The music was so interesting and the lyrics by Brian and Tony Asher were insightful and relatable. Those vocals at the end of “You Still Believe In Me.” That theremin in “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times.” The instrumental section of “Here Today.” The round of voices at the end of “God Only Knows.” This is the same Beach Boys, right? That Brian Wilson guy thought this up?

The guy who made me the cassette didn’t just give me the 13-track album; he included some of the sessions from the box set too. I was listening to Brian conduct the musicians through “Sloop John B” and other songs, as well as hearing the backing tracks sans vocals. That alone gave me a whole new appreciation for the work and passion that went into the creation of these songs. Brian taught me to listen more closely to music, especially what was going on underneath the vocals. I went back and started digging into the Beatles catalog and all the music I thought I knew. I was hearing things I never noticed before. Very exciting things. I can’t describe them technically, but you know how they make you feel. It was like everything was new and there was so much to explore. Brian once said, “When you listen to Pet Sounds, use earphones in the dark and you can hear everything.” That is much easier to do with the clarity of the wonderful stereo mix. I started listening to music with headphones all the time and it opened up a new world; making you feel closer to these great creations in more ways than one.

This wraps up part one of my story of becoming a Beach Boys fan.

I will write part two at some point in the near future, but I want to get to some other posts first.