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Family band
Everybody says is a masterpiece, but when Brian went
missing in 1967, Carl and Dennis made some great music without him.
Is anybody listening?
By Will York
Pet Sounds
PET SOUNDS,
Pet Sounds, Pet Sounds. Whenever people talk about the Beach
Boys, they always start with Pet Sounds. How many times have
we been told that Pet Sounds is an undisputed pop masterpiece
– a landmark moment of studio wizardry, a definitive statement
on melancholy and lost love?
Enough, already. I've
heard it before. And we know about Smile, the legendary lost
album. And all of the hit singles – "Little Deuce Coupe,"
"I Get Around," "In My Room," and "Help
Me, Rhonda" – although it took me a while to admit they
were amazing songs, even if they've been played to death on oldies
radio.
But what about the six-year
period from Wild Honey, in 1967, through Holland,
in 1973, during which the Beach Boys didn't make a bad album? No
one ever talks about those years, or the six or so years after Holland,
when, even though their albums weren't always so hot, they made
plenty of intriguing, occasionally brilliant music, some of which
has still not officially seen the light of day.
The Beach Boys' descent
from a living, breathing, creative band to a self-parodying nostalgia
act didn't happen overnight, although you'd never know it from the
way their music has been repackaged. Check out the latest
greatest-hits compilation Sounds of Summer: The Very Best of
the Beach Boys – you won't find anything from the four
albums they released during the period from Sunflower through
Holland – not even the great 1973 single "Sail
On, Sailor." It opts instead for good-time oldies covers "Rock
and Roll Music" and "Come Go with Me," and lame,
overproduced '80s fare such as "Getcha Back" and "Kokomo."
The same goes for the recently issued live album, Good Timin':
Live at Knebworth, England 1980, which ignores even "Good
Timin'," one of the few highlights of the band's waning days.
It's a cruel world
I want to go on record
that I've listened to Pet Sounds hundreds of times and love
it. It's one of the albums I put on when I get sick, and it makes
me feel better, OK? But it's not my favorite Beach Boys album, and
for all its importance, it's only one part of the band's story,
not the whole thing. You've got to wonder about the people who always
vote for Pet Sounds on all-time-top-album polls. Did they
listen to the record or to the critics? Could they name even one
song on Surf's Up, or Holland, or Love You?
I couldn't, not for a
long time, and my only excuse is that I followed the road that was
there to travel. I bought Pet Sounds in 1993 and didn't check
out the rest of the catalog until last year – thanks to a Mimicry
Records release called Forget about the Girl by Beach Boys-worshipping,
Santa Cruz pseudo-boy band I.S.S. I loved the sound of those vocal
harmonies – they'd studied Brian Wilson. I had to find
more of the real thing, so I bought a couple of remastered two-on-one
CD reissues, Smiley Smile/Wild Honey and Sunflower/Surf's
Up.
Even the liner notes
to Smiley Smile and Wild Honey describe the albums
as disappointments. But how many psych pop bands, ever, could come
up with a tune like "Little Pad," from Smiley Smile,
which was, according to the liner notes, just a throwaway track?
The album may not have been what Wilson had in mind for Smile,
nor is it as fully realized as Pet Sounds, but to dismiss
it like that is unbelievable.
The same goes for Wild
Honey: the production was nothing fancy, but how many folks
could pull off a love song as natural and heartfelt as "Aren't
You Glad"? A week later I got the Friends/20-20 CD –
not as good, but still, I found "I Can Hear Music," "Break
Away," and "Do It Again." Damn, those were some great
singles, and all from a band supposedly fading into irrelevance.
What can you say except it's a cruel world?
Wilson may have been
the resident genius, but the post-Pet Sounds Beach
Boys prove he wasn't the only talented songwriter or producer in
the band. You can hear what the band went through when he abandoned
them for the seclusion of his bedroom: struggling for hits, dealing
with an image as social and political dinosaurs. And you can hear
how they stepped up, particularly Carl and Dennis Wilson.
The real truth is that
the Beach Boys' image was the problem, not their music. David Leaf
writes in his liner notes to Smiley Smile/Wild Honey, "The
'counter-culture' rejected the Beach Boys out of hand.... The climate
was such that the Beach Boys were 'out of touch.' In those charged
times, what that meant was that if they weren't perceived as cool
then their music couldn't be either."
Talk about uncool –
my favorite album from those days is the redheaded stepchild known
as Carl and the Passions: So Tough. It's generally ignored
by band historians and critics (as well as record buyers), and The
Nearest Faraway Place, Timothy White's 392-page Beach Boys history,
mentions it only as their "worst-selling album" from their
Warner Bros. era.
It was released at a
time when Brian Wilson's involvement had reached a new low (he cowrote
just three of the eight songs, none of which were hits). Throw in
the unwieldy title (Carl and the Passions was an early band-name
proposal before they went with the Beach Boys); the tacky album
cover, which looks straight out of the '50s; and the sudden, prominent
addition of two black South African musicians, drummer Ricky Fataar
and guitarist-vocalist Blondie Chaplin, and it's no wonder people
were confused.
On top of that, only
the song "Marcella" has anything in common with the typical
"Beach Boys sound." There are weepy pedal steel guitars,
saloon-style pianos, and touches of then-popular SoCal roots rock
à la Little Feat, but only scant traces of their typical
sunny harmonies. Still, these guys sing like birdies; there are
some great songs, and I love 'em all, especially "He Come Down,"
with its churchy piano, hand claps, gospel vocals, and lyrics about
the Bible and the maharishi, and I don't care if the subject sounds
ridiculous. I hear the band sounding like a sanctified church choir
while belting out Mike Love's sacrilegious, mysticism-damaged lyrics,
and it gets me every time. Was there anything this band couldn't
do musically – and was there anything they could do right
in their quest to fit in and be relevant?
The public didn't want
to hear them go through that identity crisis though. Nor did they
want to hear songs like Chaplin's "Hold On, Dear Brother"
– a beautiful slow waltz that sounds like the Band fronted
by a soul singer – or Dennis Wilson's depressive, lavishly
arranged love ballads. Nothing changed the public's view of these
supposedly past-their-prime Beach Boys – not their new musical
directions, their drug use, or their beards; not Love's Indian guru
(one whom the Beatles had ditched years earlier, suspecting he was
a fraud); not even the Manson family, who at one point had moved
in with Dennis and held orgies in his living room. The Beach Boys
were prisoners of their past, of the matching striped shirts and
huge surf hits that defined their wholesome, all-American image.
Maybe people were right
to consider them unhip. Judging by the rare political statement
such as Love's "Student Demonstration Time" – which
warns that "next time there's a riot, well, you best stay out
of sight" – the band's politics weren't made for those
times. Thirty years later, though, we can hear the Beach Boys in
a different context, without the cultural and social implications.
And unlike their earlier hits, the Beach Boys' recordings from the
late '60s and early '70s don't have much baggage, because no one
paid any attention to them. Listen and you'll find out how well
the music stands the test of time, much better then what the people
who won't shut up about Pet Sounds swear defines the era.
'Sunflower' dies
One of the most underrated
songs in the Beach Boys' catalog is "Break Away," the
last single they recorded for Capitol Records. It reached number
63 on the Billboard charts in 1969, making it another one of their
late-decade "disappointments." It's a sort of motivational
song Brian Wilson wrote during that down time in his life, trying
to convince himself that things would get better. "And I can
break away to the better life / Where the shackles never hold me
down / I'm gonna make a way for each happy day / As my life turns
around," Al Jardine sings on the chorus. What makes this song
so poignant is how nonprophetic its lyrics turned out to be –
both for Wilson and for the rest of the band – and how the
sad undercurrent in the music indicates that, deep down, they knew
things were going to be rough for a while.
Still, when the '70s
began, the Beach Boys charged out of the gates with a new
record, Sunflower, on a new label, Warner Bros. The result
was one of their most optimistic-sounding records in a long time
– a hopeful new beginning and, from the sound of it, a sign
of good things to come. Dennis Wilson delivered three great new
songs – including one, "It's about Time," that seems
like an ode to brother Brian's recovery – while Brian cowrote
three – "This Whole World," "All I Wanna Do,"
and "Cool, Cool Water" (actually a reworked Smile
leftover) – that are as good as anything on Pet Sounds.
If Sunflower had
done well, it might have spelled a new beginning for the band. It
didn't, ushering in an era in which they tried one new, seemingly
last-gasp approach after another, beginning with the schizophrenic
(but still very enjoyable) Surf's Up in 1971 and continuing
well beyond the rootsy Carl and the Passions.
Surf's Up is the
album that introduced the band's new "socially conscious"
angle, under the direction of recently hired manager Jack Rieley.
This explains the addition of pro-environment songs such as the
nearly trite "Don't Go Near the Water" and the minimal,
bizarrely morbid "A Day in the Life of a Tree." It could
have all been a mess, but somehow the former song, together with
the title track and Brian Wilson's " 'Til I Die" (it begins,
"I'm a cork on the ocean / Floating over the raging seas"),
gave the album a unified theme that addressed the band's predicament.
The ocean, once a place for fun, was now "raging" full
of pollution and tidal waves. (Rieley was roundly criticized for
being a lousy manager, but he knew how to work a metaphor.)
Surf's Up is also
notable for including Carl Wilson's first two recorded originals,
one of which, "Long Promised Road," uses a chorus similar
to the one in "Break Away." "Knock down all the roadblocks
stumbling me / Throw off all the shackles that are binding me down,"
he sings triumphantly. Still, you get the sense that even Carl –
supposedly the stable, level-headed brother in this dysfunctional
family band – knew it was an exercise in wish fulfillment.
The early '70s were rough
on the Beach Boys, but the grip they maintained through Holland
eventually broke with 15 Big Ones in 1976. No doubt influenced
by the huge sales of the sun-and-fun greatest-hits compilations
Endless Summer (1974) and Spirit of America (1975),
15 Big Ones could be called the beginning of the end, part
two. That is, if Smile's collapse signaled the demise of
the Beach Boys' great Brian Wilson-led era, then this collection
of oldies covers and rejects from earlier Beach Boys albums is the
one that set them on course for the not-so-enchanted isle of Kokomo.
Which is sad, because 15 Big Ones (the title must have been
a misprint, as there are at most four or five "big ones"
surrounded by a bunch of stinkers) was actually billed as Wilson's
comeback. Still, the public rewarded them by making their so-so
cover of Chuck Berry's "Rock and Roll Music" the band's
biggest hit since "Good Vibrations," which only encouraged
the commercial instincts of Love and his ally Jardine.
The best thing about
15 Big Ones is that it no doubt made Warner Bros. desperate
for anything Brian Wilson had a hand in. (Or almost anything: it
still managed to reject his big band-flavored album Adult Child.
See "Ocean Blues," below).
Which leads us to Love You, the Boys' last good album. (It's
also their biggest "cult classic" of the era, surpassing
Surf's Up and Carl and the Passions.)
Love You was originally
supposed to be a Brian Wilson solo album – he wrote all of
the songs and most of the lyrics – and you can tell, as this
is the most "Brian" of any Beach Boys album since 1968's
quiet but creepy Friends. It sounds like a collection
of spare demos, with goofy songs like "Roller-Skating Child"
and "Solar System" on Side A, and then a string of heartbreaking
ballads on Side B. The complicated arrangements and studio wizardry
of the Pet Sounds and Smile days are barely evident,
but its charm is its casual feel. And unlike Love's transparent
attempts at rewriting the band's old surf hits, this is still honest,
heartfelt music – so much so that it makes some folks uncomfortable
and forces them to snicker at it. Trust me: those folks aren't your
friends.
I could go on, but marching
through any more of the band's catalog, including mostly dismal
albums like M.I.U. and L.A., requires more patience
and morbid curiosity than anybody reading a free weekly should be
expected to have. Anyone can fall for Pet Sounds, but if
you'll stand up for Carl and the Passions, get in touch with
me and we can talk.
Beach Boys
perform Sept. 5, 7:30 p.m., Mountain Winery, 14831 Pierce Rd., Saratoga.
$35-$65. (415) 421-TIXS.
Ocean blues
A compact guide to the Beach Boys in the '70s
Adult Child
(1976-77) For all the talk about the unreleased Smile, there
is relatively little mentioned about this kooky but lovable mid-'70s
album, which was submitted to (and rejected by) Warner Bros. after
15 Big Ones and before Love You. I spent months tracking
this down, finally landing a mediocre-sounding vinyl bootleg with
horrible cover art for $30, and it's worth every penny. Emotionally,
this runs the gamut, juxtaposing positive, physical fitness-themed
songs such as "Life Is for the Living" and the jaw-dropping
"H.E.L.P. Is on the Way" (actually a leftover from the
Sunflower era) with some of the saddest, loneliest tunes
Brian Wilson ever wrote, the Frank Sinatra-styled big-band ballads
"It's Over Now" and "Still I Dream of It." There's
even a song about baseball ("It's Trying to Say"). Carl
and Dennis Wilson pitch in with vocals on a few of the songs, and
there are a few covers – "Deep Purple," "On
Broadway," and "Shortenin' Bread" – but like
Love You (and Pet Sounds), this is essentially pure
Brian. Someone, please release this.
Pacific Ocean Blue
(1977) The hardest-living Beach Boy, drummer Dennis Wilson was the
one responsible for their hardest-rocking songs as well as their
most sensitive, glacially paced ballads. Those extremes are on hand
here on his lone solo album, along with plenty of in-between material
– like "Pacific Ocean Blues," a funky, environmentally
conscious song with lyrics by Mike Love, his nemesis in the band.
Listen to "River Song," the laid-back California soul-rock
masterpiece that opens this album, then compare it to some of the
infantile crapola that was coming out of the Beach Boys camp on
albums like 15 Big Ones and M.I.U., and it should
be easy to see why Dennis was so bitter and resentful toward the
oldies-minded Love during that time. Unlike Brian's albums from
this era, Pacific Ocean Blue doesn't have the mark of a "tormented
genius," but rather that of a really honest, emotionally vulnerable
guy who you'd still want to sit down and have a beer with (only
Dennis probably would have had more than just beer in mind). The
album sold more than 100,000 copies but is currently near impossible
to find. When will it be rereleased?
Landlocked
This one isn't really an album, although there are several bootlegs
under the name. Landlocked was the early working title for
Surf's Up – another telling sign of how the band felt
about their place in the music industry at the time – and while
only a few of the songs made it onto that album, most of them trickled
out onto later '70s albums (15 Big Ones, Love You) and, much
later, the Good Vibrations box set. Two of them, though,
are absolute musts: "When Girls Get Together," a loving,
slightly more grown-up ode to women than "California Girls"
that was later released on 1980's Keepin' the Summer Alive;
and "Soulful Old Man Sunshine," a jazzy, incredibly upbeat
number that you can find in a legit version on the Endless Harmony
soundtrack. They're both worth it.
• • •
Don't sit around on
your ass, smoking grass / That stuff went out a long time ago.
"Life Is for
the Living," Adult Child
Transcendental Meditation
should be part of your time / It's simple, as easy as makin' this
rhyme.
"TM Song,"
15 Big Ones
Trees like me weren't
meant to live / When all this Earth can give / Is pollution and
slow death.
"A Day in the
Life of a Tree," Surf's Up
I'm convinced of it
/ The hypnosis of our minds can take us far away.
"Still I Dream
of It," Adult Child
Doughy lumps, stomach
pumps, enemas too / That's what you get when you eat that way.
"H.E.L.P. Is
on the Way," Adult Child
Pat, pat, pat, pat,
pat her on her butt, butt / She's going to sleep, be quiet.
"I Wanna Pick
You Up," Love You
Ed McMahon comes on
and says, 'Here's Johnny!' / Every night at eleven thirty, he's
so funny.
"Johnny Carson,"
Love You
W.Y.
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