Beach Boys. This was the first band I ever got into, thanks to my cousin persuading my parents to buy us Endless Summer from the PX. It served as my baseline for music, and also the soundtrack to my first romance, with Courtney (now long lost – let’s get Matt Dillon to track her down). No matter what raunchy, obnoxious, noisy thrash trash I listen to (Metallica, Judas Priest, etc.) these days, I will always love this band. As James Hetfield said, “you can’t be an angry, pissed off SOB all the time.”
Endless Summer. This is their compilation, which takes us right up to, but not including, Pet Sounds. You can hear how the songs progress from “moon-June” simple stuff about love and surfing, and gradually develop a harder edge (“Girl Don’t Tell Me” being the best example). The Beatles did the same: they had to do “I Want To Hold Your Hand” before they could master “For No One”. Although “409” isn’t included, it does have “Little Deuce Coupe”, “Shut Down” (fuel-injected Stingray vs. Dodge 413), and “Fun, Fun, Fun”, the car songs, and “Catch A Wave”, “Surfin’ Safari”, “Surfer Girl”, and “Surfin’ USA”. The softer, melancholy melodies are here, “In My Room” and “Warmth of the Sun”. The peppy ones like “Help Me Rhonda” and “Wendy”, and of course “I Get Around” are here too. As a bonus, the CD has “Good Vibrations”, sparing you the need to get Smiley Smile, or the recently released Smile. In addition to having this album on long abused, warped, scratched and melted vinyl, I have it on 8-track, cassette, and CD. Overall what this album gives you is the best of the Beach Boys’ material before Pet Sounds.
Pet Sounds. This is the magnus opus, the Beach Boys’ Sgt Pepper and Dark Side. Brian Wilson finally casts aside the car and surfing songs and looks inward for an entire album of masterpieces. In fact, it was this album, itself a response to Revolver, which inspired the Beatles to write Sgt Pepper. When America had turned its back on the Beach Boys as squares, the UK still loved them as hip, thanks to this album. “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” starts it off, “Sloop John B” picks up the tempo mid-album, and “Caroline, No” finishes the album off on a suitably melancholy note (train whistle). When I got this album, I listened to it nonstop for days. The most recent version has the entire album in mono, then stereo, and adds “Hang On To Your Ego”, which is “I Know There’s An Answer” with a different chorus. Do yourself a favor: drop whatever you’re doing and listen to this album. NOW.
Post-Pet Sounds. Brian Wilson was supposed to follow up Pet Sounds with Smile, but due to various problems – issues with Capital Records and immense pressure to follow up the perfect album with something even MORE perfect (???) – Wilson couldn’t handle it, and we got Smiley-Smile instead. Although it contains “Good Vibrations”, the rest of the album is pretty much complete crap – including the insanely idiotic “Vegetables”, an accidental novelty song. It took Brian Wilson until 2004 to complete Smile, which includes “Heroes and Villains” and various other tracks which had ended up scattered piecemeal on later Beach Boys albums. To my ears it still sucks, only marginally less toilet-worthy than Smiley-Smile.
The subsequent albums, Wild Honey, Friends, 20/20, Sunflower, Surf’s Up, are not bad. None of the come close to the excellence of Pet Sounds, and none are remotely as bad as Smiley-Smile. Since Brian had locked himself in his room with an ongoing nervous breakdown, the rest of the band had to step forward and take a more active creative role in making the band’s music. Inevitably the results would fall short of Pet Sounds, but they still sound decent and respectable.
It’s easy to write off the Beach Boys as lightweights. None other than the genius of the guitar himself, Jimi Hendrix, dismissed them as “a psychedelic barbershop quartet.” But consider the following:
1. The Beatles were in serious competition with them. The Beatles, and George Martin, considered Pet Sounds to be a masterpiece, that the bar they raised with Rubber Soul and Revolver had been raised, and thus a response from them was thereby necessary – which we know was Sgt. Pepper. If there was no Pet Sounds, there may well have never been a Sgt. Pepper.
2. The Grateful Dead did a show with the Beach Boys at the Fillmore East in April 1971. It’s hard to imagine a cooler band than the Dead – so why would they deign to allow the Beach Boys not only to share the stage with them, but also play “Good Vibrations” and “I Get Around”?
3. Keith Moon of the Who was a huge Beach Boys fan. “Don’t Worry Baby” was his favorite song. The Who covered “Barbara Ann” – although the Beach Boys didn’t write it, they certainly made it famous.
4. Cozy Powell of Rainbow was also a Beach Boys fan, and David Gilmour played Beach Boys covers in France with his pre-Pink Floyd band, Joker’s Wild.
5. Pet Sounds guaranteed the band’s reputation in England. It showed they could move beyond “moon-june” songs about puppy love, surfing, and cars, and write some serious music. Unfortunately they weren’t able to top it, but consider this: Pink Floyd have never been able to top Dark Side of the Moon, but no one considers them failures for that reason.
At this point it’s time to change the focus....
Dennis Wilson. Brian Wilson gets most, if not all, of the credit and attention as the creative genius behind the Beach Boys’ music. As a result, Dennis was all but forgotten, except by the female fans, for whom he was the favorite. But without Dennis, Brian would have had nothing to write about – at least to start out.
Cars & Surfing. Dennis was the one who actually worked on cars and did the surfing – the others just sang about it. He was the one who really “walked the walk”, not just talked the talk.
Charles Manson. Dennis was his roommate briefly, until Manson and his followers basically took over and Dennis was forced to move out. The classic anecdote is that Manson pulled a knife on Dennis, threatening to kill him, and Dennis simply replied, “Do it.” Dennis had the Beach Boys cover one of Manson’s songs, “Cease to Exist”, as “Never Learn Not To Love”. The original Manson version (on the Lie album) is stripped down and bare. The Beach Boys version is far superior. It appeared on 20/20 and as a single, and flopped as the latter. Manson refused to accept this for what it was: proof that his material had (as Frank Zappa might put it) “no commercial potential.”
Two Lane Blacktop. Mentioned earlier, this is Dennis’ sole movie role, opposite James Taylor. Dennis was the “mechanic”, always talking about replacing the jets in the ’55 Chevy’s dual Holleys. He really didn’t have to do much more than that. Although I obviously like Dennis Wilson, plus his hands-on deal with the car, the movie isn’t all that great. It doesn’t have much of a plot (if any), nothing much happens, and it ends abruptly. It’s the perfect movie to watch once for the sake of seeing it, and to ignore after that.
Pacific Ocean Blue. This is his 1978 solo album, tacked on with Bambu, his subsequent – and never-released – follow-up. It’s not bad, but it is very much mellow and easy listening. I’d say it makes great listening when you want to relax and enjoy yourself, to unwind, or sit on the beach and drink Coronas and throw your office pager into the water. Somewhat reminiscent of Jimmy Buffett, but somewhat more serious and introspective.
Death. On December 28, 1983, Wilson
I saw the movie, "Two Lane Blacktop" twice. The first time, I watched it because nothing else was on, the second time was to try and figure out what I messed / misunderstood the first time (you see, I kept looking for a point / plot in the movie). I'm thinking a third time isn't going to help. Glad to hear it didn't make your top ten movie list, either. :-)
ReplyDeleteOh, and until I read your blog, I didn't know Dennis Wilson was the mechanic ...
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