The sad, crazy adventures of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys

[Isaac Sauvage]

oh well, i finished the book. carlin really takes it to love at the end, albeit in a velvety-glove, damning-by-arched-eyebrow kind of way. but it's pretty clear he thinks mike is full of it. i'm with you on that one now, bill.

i noticed the author came up with the same point that i had made earlier-- if love and whoever else hadn't been so intolerant and full of themselves, brian probably would have made it through smile in 1967 without getting wrecked, and may well have continued further in that direction. we'll never know.

i think van dyke parks also deserves a lot of credit for those wonderful lyrics, too. love couldn't make head nor tail of them at the time and it made him belligerent. fast forward to modern times and he seems to own almost the exact same attitude-- the lyrics were 'too weird' and it was a 'fortunate thing that the plug got pulled on smile'... not to mention he seems completely oblivious to how much of a ruthless, litigious bully he became in the mid-60's and still is today, it seems like.

he completely missed and/or ignored the memo that "brian wilson IS the beach boys... the rest of us are just his messengers." --dennis in 1970

i also find it quite impressive that brian was able to work with so many other song-writers interchangeably. most often they did more of the lyrics and he wrote most of the music. but mike was one of his early collaborators, and almost certainly couldn't handle the fact that brian moved on artistically and in his partnerships. yet with the imperatives of murry and the nature of the family business, brian was also in no position to re-form the band as he did many years later, to glorious effect.

mike love clearly failed to grasp that brian was the far more talented musician. in fact, the book said that around the mid-60's brian was being all but heralded as the nation's top musician. professional musicians would apparently come in to work on a session, see this tall, baby-faced kid in charge... roll their eyes internally... and then get their mind blown by how inventive and ingenious the young dude was.

...

welp... not sure what there is left to say. this was the first book i read completely on tablet and it was quite fun for the most part. thanks for joining in the discussion, guys...!

so then... what's next?

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

btw i just randomly came across this article about andy summers' new documentary based on his memoir. he calls sting an 'egomaniac and not a team player... altho both things wound up helping at the same time.'

one thing that seems clear based on what happened with the instrumental "behind my camel," not to mention sting's solo work, is that the police's sound had a lot more summers in it than was obvious from the track credits.

 

[sleepy]

This is just my take on it. Smile is about the organic process of creating tunes. The bits and pieces are like hearing the accidental harmonics on the morning breeze, or from the wind chimes in the window and turning those random bits into recordings.
It is the accidental process of conversion, but by a person with a musical ear.

Corporal Klinger is a mockumentary about bleeding in the sheep. It has a lot in common with the verboten Butcher cover, and how some people waste their entire life following the band. Other efforts with the same theme are "Tommy", "Sympathy for the Devil" (who owns you?), and The Kinks' "Rock and Roll Fantasy", and Lennon's "God".
"God" is very close to the concept of "Corporal Klinger", but cut to the quick as a single tune.

Is Burt Bacharah alright? I mean, the early singles with Dionne?

 

[LeeVanCleef]

Mike is quite the paradox. He really seems to have an above-average asshole quotient. It's one thing to be jealous when your musical partner leaves you in the dust. It's something completely different when you're putting the spurs to said former musical partner because he's not working fast enough to suit your own career goals. That's like breathtakingly bad behavior.
Man, I pretty much have forgotten what a paper-based book looks like. Except when I have to dust our "library" (the spare bedroom that gets the most crap thrown on the floor). I pretty much gave up on 'em once I got the Kindle and
A. Grandpa found he could make the font bigger
B. Grandpa found out his equally-ancient friend Usenet was shootin' books out like nobody's business.
Yeah, I read that Sting story as well. Turns out he's a self-absorbed asshole... who saw that coming? My dislike for Gordon goes deeper than that, though. I've always hated the rhyming scheme he'd use in most of his songs. You know that whole 'shake and cough/just like the/old man in/that book by Nabokov. It's stilted, it's forced and it looks like he wrote it when he was 14.
@arne. Love Burt Bacharach, really don't care for Dionne Warwick. I was working at a Musicland when "That's What Friends Are For" came out. Hey, look... I wrote those words without rolling into a fetal position and screaming! That's a first! i wonder if I could do that for "You Give Love a BaaaaaaAAAAUUUUGGHHHH! AUUUUGGGHHHH!

 

[LeeVanCleef]

Corporal Klinger is a mockumentary about bleeding in the sheep. It has a lot in common with the verboten Butcher cover, and how some people waste their entire life following the band. Other efforts with the same theme are "Tommy", "Sympathy for the Devil" (who owns you?), and The Kinks' "Rock and Roll Fantasy", and Lennon's "God".

I would disagree on Sympathy. I think It's Only Rock'n'Roll comes closer to what you're talking about. I think I was about 16 when I actually listened to the lyrics of that one. "If I could stick a knife in my heart Suicide right on the stage would it be enough for your teenage lust? Would it help to ease your pain?" Because that's what those fans you're talking about want. Blood. Or, if you're AJ Weberman, you'll settle for Dylan's garbage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._J._Weberman

 

[sleepy]

No way man. "That's What Friends Are For" might as well be Mikey's theme song. Besides, that was a throwaway tune for charity, like "We are the World". I had some distant input about doing something like that. I deeply regret it now. There is a local joke about "doing it for charity", but as a pun for "Jerry taking it to the bank hisself", the local actor/singer who is officially dead and has been for over 25 years. It's a cult thing. "Jerry" is still cutting records tomorrow. He was on the GRAMMYS this year. Different Chaney get-up too.
Besides. The song. It sucks. Like "Ebony and Ivory". It sucks. It came out after the hazings started, and 9 years before Dionne shifted to hosting "The Psychic Friend's Network". A real telepathic kick-in-the-pants thanks to Howard Hughes' crappy weapons division and the abuses of ultrasonic frequencies stimulating phosphorus in the nervous system. Often simulcast from Hughes' RKO-owned K-RTH FM in the 70's.
Did you ever see her "Psychic" infomercials in the 90's? Maybe that was only local Hughes voodoo?

But I mean the early singles. "Walk On By", "Anyone Who Had a Heart", "Don't Make Me Over", or the later "What's New, Pussycat?" and "Raindrops...".
Yeah...

 

[sleepy]

And yeah, I agree. "It's Only Rock and Roll" is close to that theme. But I referenced "Devil" due to the potential ownership of the spellbouind listener.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

yea i meant to get enrolled in usenet a couple years ago, but dragged my heels and pretty much made do with the download sites. so what are you reading these days?

one thing that seems to go together with summers' comments is a big story i remember a couple years ago in which a maid (i think a latina immigrant) claims she was abused and underpaid by her boss trudy stiles... sting's wife. i forget if that was back in england or here in the states. anyway the wife also sounded like an imperious, callous egomaniac to match her husband, perhaps.

too bad for me, i guess. i really like the police's fabulous music and sting's unique vocals. oh well... it's another common story when it comes to those with talent. not really that surprising.

 

[sleepy]

It was probably here. The history of The Police coming from England is a fabrication.
Sting's been around here.
And I forgot. I think that "Friends" song is likely a Carole Bayer Sager tune, with little or no Bacharah. He probably only did the arrangement. It sounds like hers. Like a Marilyn and Alan Bergman piece. La-la-boring.

As charity tunes go, I was happiest with "Do They Know It's Christmas?".
I had been ademant about offering an A-Song for charity back in '80-'81, not fluff.

 

[sleepy]

Apparently Brian has been known to do what Jay Leno does. He goes to Bob's Big Boy on Car Night, Fridays. Just a reference here:

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/aug/30/home/la-hm-erskine-20130831

Beach Boys in Burbank, early-mid 60's. From a page dedicated to my old high school (10th grade only. Then we got the hell out of there)
Also of note is that Bill Wyman was spending some kind of time in the local area. She wasn't in the U.K.:

http://bhsclass67.blogspot.com/2010/01/beach-boys-in-burbank.html

A Newsweek article from 2012 about the following (YouTube) tune:

http://www.newsweek.com/beach-boys-crazy-summer-64955

Great! Great! Great! Brian and The Band! A completely new tune to me.

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[sleepy]

...Near Warner Bros.!? No!!!
Maybe I should be calling him "Uncle Mike"...

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

yeah i believe that just came out a year or two ago on their 1st album of new material in a long time. a nice song in the wilson - love vein... altho that style has hardly advanced in 50 years.

i'm thinking the biggest tragedy of the beach boys is that brian (and possibly dennis) should have gotten out long ago and left the others to recycle the same old stuff as was their wont. actually brian tried for a long time to do just that, but a combination of his own emotional fragility and ppl manipulating him prevented that from ever happening cleanly. but it all goes back murry, really.

 

[sleepy]

So, the President of the Burbank Beach Boys Fan Club was dating Bill Wyman.
Are there any stories about BB hanging around The Stones?

Side note: My psycho-clown ex-school buddy's sister was the President of the Los Angeles The Loving Spoonfuls Fan Club in '66, but I don't remember seeing Bill Wyman around her...

 

[sleepy]

I wouldn't call it "people manipulating Brian". It's like I said about being deprived of the piano. Those in control by their continued success or by their executive status simply deprive. Their imperial behavior simply shuts you out, by finance or by authority.

Brian continued in the traditional record company vein instead of as an indie, and that's why others had the power to do that.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

according to the book, brian seemed to run in to or work with famous musicians fairly often. the bagge graphic novel i shared is a good way to get some quick sketches. no idea about the stones or wyman specifically.


i have to disagree about the manipulation stuff. murry, mike, landy and the group as a whole were unbelievably domineering when it came to using him. he was their meal ticket essentially, and they had no intention of fully letting him go... even tho they didn't want him to exercise his full powers, either. (again, i think it would help you to read the book)

the tragedy is that once brian had those song-writing credits, he didn't need the band in order to make a living. if he had been strong enough to do so, he could have broken away, formed a backing band, and gone on to make as many more pet sounds and smiles as he had in him... at his own pace, with lots more support and freedom.


edit: however i can certainly agree that manipulation is the nature of the game of the record business. not to mention, brian had certain self-destructive qualities (built in by murry) that required no external proddings to operate on their own. i'm talking about the external stuff, tho.

 

[sleepy]

Because the record companies know that they don't have the talent. So they use psychology often to control the genies.
Even when the record companies are staffed by former and current musicians and artists, they do it, and they do it to create a mass culture that can be bought and sold.
Which is why they fall on their faces when the listeners drop out on them. When the sound is irrelevant to the living.
The companies run on a near-political agenda and the kids will often nuke that shit.

As it stands, the best selling albums cannot sell more than 100 Million copies. At last count, there are more than 7 Billion people in the world. The business is much smaller than it would seem.

 

[sleepy]

And for an exact Personal example, consider this.
I woke up this morning and I went through my routine of checking the Yahoo! News front page. I clicked an article about somebody dissing The OSCARS > Sound of Music tribute.

I watched the video. I swear, I was looking right at my old man. His name was "Ray". But it was Steven Sondheim. I still have my old man's "death certificate" from '97. He "died in a Glendale Adventist hospital and passed on morphine". This was during the "Angel of Death" crisis at the same hospital. "A night nurse there was administering lethal doses of morphine to patients whom the nurse concluded needed to be put to sleep, out of mercy."
I state this in quotes because the story may have been fabricated.

Back in the early 70's, one of my tunes later appeared as the melody for "Send In the Clowns". I have been aware of this coincidence since before "my Father's death".
And in 1957, while doodling on my Aunt Beatrice's (Uncle Mike Warner's) piano, I made up a tune based on the C Scale which then became "Do-Re-Mi".
And I tried to play "Carol of the Bells" in '57 on my step-grandfather's piano after hearing it on tv. I Liked it, couldn't quite remember it, and so made up a new tune which was later used as the melody for "My Favorite Things". It was another coincidence...duh... But nobody told me.

When we visited Pennsylvania in '73 on the death of my Grandmother (my Mother's Mom; she and Grandpa owned the pump organ and the burning house), as we prepared to return to California, out of the blue, my cousin on my Father's side gave me a "The Sound of Music" songbook for piano. I had played no piano around her, though I mentioned studying basic piano in high school (I had no piano to practice on then. Only a guitar...The folks then bought a piano for my Sister).

And then my cat "Trooper" ( or "Trouper" depending on the drama queen interpreter...) was removed by them on OSCAR Sunday while I slept. But I didn't watch the show. Bummed out. And I didn't know about the "Sound of Music" tribute until I read about it on the Net the next day.

So what the Hell is all this shit about? Manipulation. They've been using my private output while holding me down and out with their dramas and their bullshit poverty, while outside family, Aunts and Uncles, owned 120 acre farms). If I leave, they stalk. If I refuse, they get rough about it. There is no exit unless I can get to the other side of the planet.

Trooper is still missing. I only care about Life. And Living. I work to live, not to work and suffer. Btw, they are also extremist recluses with issues, and too much of everybody else's money.

EDIT: One last note. In separate statements, both my Brother and "Jerry" in the biz, told me privately that "you can't get an acting job without being a member of SAG (the Screen Actor's Guild). But that you cannot become a member of SAG until you have worked as an actor. But my Brother wasn't in the biz at that time, or pretended not to be. And I wasn't going there At All with a severe speech impediment.
But they have been holding me to the same rule over song creation, and over the Hot Wheels account. Crooks? Recluses?

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

so there we go.

 

[sleepy]

But...their pretenses are 24/7. Like recluses. Like control freaks. They are Always On.
I am not interested in faking my life 24/7. Am I going to have to slip out like a Prince Harry? Always answerable to them? I disagree.

 

[sleepy]

That TWGMtR album charted at #3 Billboard, which sounds like why "Uncle Mike" may have become more assertive vs. Brian's directions.
"Uncle Mike" claims that Brian and Al were agreeing to being let out; that they were only together for the album promotion.

But that flies in the face of the fact that, as bands go, the band's main money comes from touring and Not the albums or the singles. This is also nothing new. Remember in the film "Jailhouse Rock" when Elvis is on cloud nine because he is going to earn 7 Cents per single?

In the other hand, a hot tour earns from touring and from souveniers and concessions. In Billions. Even after death, and then the passing often generates a buying frenzy. What do you suppose? Maybe no Brian and Al = lower salaries? A smart Brian and Al would put their interests in a touring contract, payable with or without their presence.
So I don't know what's up.

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[sleepy]

And Damn! I am Hating the new Firefox. I keep setting the search engine and FF keeps restoring back to fucking Yahoo! I searched for the above YouTube and Yahoo! nixed it, instead asserting it's own Yahoo video results...for Steely Dan and Everything but the BBs. Yahoo is censoring YouTube results.
Maybe I've caught a very bad bug??

Anyway, Yahoo is Ignoramus search engine. I installed Opera last night, but my quick links are still on FF.

EDIT: I just used Yahoo! to find "UPS Tracking". They hit me with a page for some useless third party program. It demanded an install just to track my shipment. No Way!
Yahoo! Hell...

It's Really Weird how most of the CBS and ABC Network-owned or associated websites are spambait dead rot sites with stupid add-on junk.. Not very professional...

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

should be no problem to export your links from FF in to opera or chrome or whatever. the main reason that i don't switch from FF on laptop is because i have my plugins configured just the way i want. not that i have major problems with FF, either.

it's moreso on android where browsers tend to be toy versions of themselves and you don't have basic functionality like that. kind of pain for me, since i do 50% of my browsing on tablet.

sleepy, you seem like a guy who would want to mess with "about:config" (type that in to the URL in FF). you can change just about any setting there at a core level.

...

brian was definitely earning loot from the tours without being present, and the boys were one of the hardest working tour groups starting around the mid-70's or so when they went through their big revival. things may have changed however when mike wrangled the name away.

the book said that every member of the core and extended band had sued each other at least once... with most suits being directed at brian.

 

[LeeVanCleef]

so what are you reading these days?

On the listening end, I'm in some sci-fi territory with Burning Paradise by Robert Charles Wilson. It's a pretty nifty idea, but Wilson really refuses to run with it, much like he did in Spin. Okay, so it's a world where there was no WWII, 2014 computers are stuck in the '70s, there are no jet airplanes so it's assumed that there's no space program... and that's about all we're told. I can guarantee if Stephen King had written it, we'd know the fate of Elvis and the Beatles!
On the reading side I just finished The United States of Paranoia, a fun little stroll down memory lane when men were men and the Illuminati controlled everything. HAHAHA! Just kidding. They still do.

 

[LeeVanCleef]

yea i meant to get enrolled in usenet a couple years ago, but dragged my heels and pretty much made do with the download sites.

You are missing out on quite a bit! I remember back in the day downloading everything in sight off the newsgroups and pining for that one hole in my life; why couldn't someone think of a way to make books downloadable? Thanks, Amazon! For me, usenet pays for itself 10 or 20 times over by the end of the month. Although I no longer download games or programs. It's sad, but that whole scene has turned into virus delivery systems. On the plus side... books!

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

oh well. fortunately with the rise of high-quality open-source and indy stuff, programs are not something i really need. even my local library system has tonnes of books available online, altho it's easy to get lazy and just look for epubs from browser download sites.

...

anyway, in quite a coincidental turn -i myself- am also reading a book by a robert wilson, a guy probably most famous for examining illuminati conspiracies. of course the guy is robert anton wilson and the book is cosmic trigger, volume 1.

the cover is too large to attach, so:
http://consciousworldart.com/wp-content/gallery/commissioned-works/comsictrigger1wp.jpg

he has a really healthy take on belief as i see it. he's willing to entertain anything under the sum but can only definitely say how he feels at any particular moment about it. there is no 'knowing' and nothing 'is.' he says that once you fall down the rabbit hole, either one or two things happens-- you become firmly paranoid or firmly agnostic. and not just as agnostic in terms of deity, but agnostic in terms of absolutely everything.

wow, i need more ppl in my life like this.

...

thanks for the summary of the SF book. i think i'm about in the mood to read some SF and was scanning the list of hugo-nominated books the other day. what would be perfect would be a series to fall in love with so i'd have a run of books to quench my thirst if need be. too bad i've already read so many, like foundation, rama, ender's game, dune, deathworld, etc.