Your favorite BEACH BOYS LP besides PET SOUNDS

Excellent post, tubegroover! We must be about the same age---I'm 65. In the 60's I lived in Cupertino, just over the mountains from Santa Cruz, the beach town mentioned in "Surfin' U.S.A." The Beach Boys were HUGE amongst my friends and I, and remained that way even after The Beatles conquered the rest of America. I wasn't completely sold on TB when they did their first U.S. tour in '64, passing on the chance to see them at The Cow Palace in S. San Francisco. I went the following year, and was rather underwhelmed (The Beatles were not imo a very good live Band).

By the time Pet Sounds came out, I had really gotten into bands like The Kinks, Animals, Yardbirds, etc---tougher, R & B influenced guys. The Beach Boys got left behind, sounding altogether too "boyish". All Summer Long was the last Beach Boys album I heard until Smiley Smile blew my little teenage mind. It was only after hearing SS that I finally heard Pet Sounds, and though I liked it, I liked SS much more. The odd chord changes, the primal chanting and spooky, otherworldly harmonies, the surrealistic lyrics of Van Dyke Parks---it should have fit right in with the psychedelic music popular in '67. But by then The Beach Boys were considered passe', no longer relevant. I could not get most of my fellow musicians to give SS a listen. Contrary to the common wisdom, hippies did NOT have open minds. Capitol Records didn't help the situation, still promoting them as a surf band. Great, just as Jimi Hendrix was declaring "you'll never have to hear surf music again" on his first album!

I like Pet Sounds now, but I love Smile. It would have changed Pop music history, and be considered one of it's crowning achievements. It's never being completed is as tragic as if any other masterpiece were destroyed. Brian's contributions to the BB albums that followed it were minimal, but there are some great songs scattered amongst them, "Surf's Up", "Til I Die", "Marcella", and "Sail On, Sailor" being a few. 

The Beach Boys are a very special Group to me, as not only did I already love them ("All Summer Long" in particular), they were the first I saw live (in the Summer of '64). But Brian Wilson is even more so, being the greatest songwriter of his generation imo (Paul McCartney may agree, as he names "God Only Knows" as his favorite song of all time. I'm not a big fan of Paul's, but on that we agree). When TBB started making them in '61-'62, albums were just a hit single or two with lots of filler. Not just BB albums, ALL Rock n' Roll albums. One of the reasons Pet Sounds is considered as important as it is, is because it was the first Rock n' Roll album conceived and created AS an album---every song was an "A", no filler. I have never liked it as much as I am "supposed" to, but it was hearing Pet Sounds that inspired McCartney to also do an all "A" song album, Rubber Soul.

And it was hearing Rubber Soul that inspired Brian, being a competitive kinda guy, to create "Smile", the first Rock n' Roll "concept" album. Recording commenced in '66, but the album was never completed (for reasons too complicated to go into here). "Smiley Smile" was released in its place, and was a huge disappointment to all. Brian went into seclusion, not fully reappearing for many years.

The Beach Boys (basically without Brian) subsequently recorded and released a few more spotty albums, but it wasn't until they left Capitol Records (who were still promoting them as "The Number One Surf Band In The World!", this at the height of the psychedelic/hippie era. Surf---how cool ;-) and signed with Reprise Records (a Warner Brothers label) that they came roaring back with "Sunflower", a great album. As is "Surf's Up". Those two, I agree fjn04, are probably their best. But the "Smile" recordings were finally assembled into their somewhat originally-conceived form and released a few years back, and the double-CD "Smile" album is an essential album for Brian Wilson, at least, fans. It is quite amazing.

Definitely fjn04. Smiley Smile was put together by Carl Wilson after Brian crashed and burned, the end result of constant questioning and resistance from Mike Love (who didn't at all understand Smile, musically or lyrically---he demanded Van Dyke Parks explain the meaning of those in "Surf's Up", and wanted to "stick to the formula"---he liked the lifestyle The Beach Boys afforded him) and pressure from Capitol Records for "product". Plus, Brian was taking a lot of drugs, LSD and Cocaine mostly, and becoming increasingly unhinged, getting paranoid (he thought his house and studio had been "bugged" by Phil Spector, to steal his ideas) and seeing "numbers" in everything---he believed in Numerology, and thought he was being "spoken to". He was also losing his self-confidence, becoming paralyzed with self-doubt. Not a pretty picture, is it?

Anyway, Carl described Smiley Smile as a bunt to Smile's home run. Carl used some of the Smile recordings, some unreleased material, and some newly-recorded Brian-less stuff, and pretty much just threw together an album. We will never have Smile as it was originally to be, as Brian fell apart before it was completed. By the way, three issues of the great music magazine Crawdaddy contain Paul Williams' (not the singer/songwriter, but the music critic) account of the Smile story as it was happening in 1967. Those three installments were included in Paul's book "Outlaw Blues", a must read.   

tubegroover---I also saw them on that 1972 tour, and you're right---they had become a very good live band by that point, much "heavier" than their 60's version. I couldn't get most of the musicians I knew to listen to Smiley Smile in '68, but they went over great with The Fillmore audience in '72. Of course, musician's are (generally) a snobby lot! Dennis' right (I think it was) arm was in a cast, and he played only some piano that night, on some songs just singing. Ricky played drums of course, and very well (he's a better drummer than Dennis). By the way, that's Ricky playing George Harrison in The Beatles parody movie The Rutles (done by Eric Idle of Monty Python and Neil Innes of The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. TBDDDB is the band playing in the basement scene in The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour movie).

As for Papa Doo Run Run---don't bother. That Mobile Fidelity album is the most lifeless, dead, boring version of The Beach Boys you can imagine. PDRR came out of Cupertino (both the original drummer Jim Shippey and The Chocolate Watchband---seen in the cult classic movie Riot on Sunset Strip---drummer Gary Andrijesavich played side-by-side in the Cupertino High School Marching Band!), and here's their story: In 1967 they were just another Cupertino Top 40 cover band (we had hundreds of them) named The Zu (later Goody Two Shoes), about average in talent. Jim got drafted, and The Zu invited me to audition for the job of Jim's replacement (I had been in a Group with Zu guitarist Mike McLemore in '65-6). I passed the audition (which took the form of a couple of live shows with them) and was invited to join, but declined. I was auditioning them too, and I was already in a far better Group, one whose set list included "Wild Honey" and "How She Boogalooed It", both from the Wild Honey album. How hip is THAT?! The Zu weren't the least bit Beach Boys fans, by the way. 

Skip ahead to 1974, when I was working in a 30's-40's-50's Jump Blues/Swing Band. Our booking agent calls with a gig opening for the now-named Papa Doo Run Run at a San Jose High School. We get to the auditorium, and here comes bassist Jim Rush, staring at and walking directly to me. We reach each other, and while the other PDRR members are exchanging greetings with me, Jim says: "So Eric, we're both playing old music now. Except we make a lot of money". !?!? Somewhere along the line, they had gotten a great response to Beach Boys/Jan & Dean material at their shows, and decided to work up a whole set of it. That went over so well (think back to the new music being offered in '74---oy!), they decided to specialize at it. They have been doing Corporate parties ever since, and making, yes, a lot of money. But they are still just average at best. In fact, at Beach Boys vocal music, below average. And Jim is in Cupertino/San Jose widely considered to be an obnoxious a-hole. Jim is no longer in PDRR, nor is Mike. Rhythm guitarist/lead vocalist Steve Dromensk, a heck of a swell guy, died a couple of years back

Last Beach Boys story: In 1981 I was doing a little show at a dive bar in Venice (California, of course), and the band's guitarist, knowing I was a Brian Wilson "nut" (I had been playing Smiley Smile, or trying to, to every musician I met from '68 onward), came over to me on a break and said "Hey, there's somebody here you want to meet". It was Dennis, sitting alone at a little table, having a drink. I complimented him on Pacific Ocean Blue, and he actually got embarrassed. He couldn't have been a nicer guy. 

Oh yeah, It's on Telarc, not Mobile Fidelity! I get those two mixed up. Though I am somewhat of an audiophile (tube electronics, Eminent Technology, Magneplanar, and Quad loudspeakers), even sonically I don't think it sounds very good. Though it's very clean (antiseptic might be a more fitting adjective), everything sounds "canned"---no ambiance, no "room sound", everything dead, muted, and isolated. Perhaps a result of being recorded digitally, but I don't know. It sounds like every part was added on separately, absolutely emotionless. I didn't think that was even possible with Beach Boys songs!

Dennis was always Brian's biggest fan. When I met him, he, I later found out, was living on his boat in the Venice Harbor. I don't think him being in that bar was unusual, as he had that puffy-faced look alcoholics get. But it did surprise, and kind of sadden, me to see him drinking alone.