Dennis Wilson and the Beach Boys

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 went for a swim off the pier at the Marina Del Rey, heavily intoxicated.  He drowned.  Sorry, no exotic drugs, no strippers, no vomit, no CIA or Mafia angle, no deranged fan, just a mundane end to a far-less-than mundane life.  Add him to Steve Clark and Bon Scott on the list of untimely deaths due to alcohol.  

The Beach Boys - Don't Worry Baby

One of my favorite Beach Boys songs - also a favorite of Keith Moon (the Who).

Beatles vs. KISS

Yet again, a concert provides inspiration for a blog entry, in this case the Paul Stanley concert at the Ram’s Head Live in Baltimore last night. Paul Stanley is the rhythm guitarist/singer for KISS, and is touring for a solo album, using the house band of the "Supernova" TV show as his backup band. This particular comparison may evoke protests from Liverpool or Detroit/NYC, but I’ve long noticed that the two bands share some amazing similiarities.

 Both bands feature 4 guys from the lower rungs of society in large cities: the Beatles from Liverpool and KISS from New York City.

 They both have the same format: rhythm guitarist/singer/songwriter (John Lennon/Paul Stanley), bassist/singer/songwriter (Paul McCartney/Gene Simmons), lead guitarist (George Harrison/Ace Frehley), and drummer (Ringo Starr/Peter Criss). In each band the rhythm guitarist & bassist share the majority of the songwriting and talent (Lennon-McCartney & Simmons-Stanley), but the lead guitarist and drummer also sing and contribute musically, albeit far less than the other two. George Harrison and Ace Frehley both contributed about 25% of the material, and Ringo Starr and Peter Criss managed to sneak in about 10%. A major difference is that Harrison and Starr were talented and hardworking, and actually resented not having more input, whereas Frehley and Criss – if Simmons and Stanley are accurate – were content to do the minimum amount of work and mooch off the other two.

 The Beatles and KISS also started out with a gimmick: in the Beatles’ case it was the matching outfits, which they continued wearing through 1966 on stage. Combined with the haircuts and boots, this set them off from most other bands and established the precedent for the rest of the so-called British Invasion bands, including the Rolling Stones. In KISS’ case, it was the makeup and elaborate stage costumes, which they continued wearing until the 80s, after Ace Frehley and Peter Criss had left the band.

Among the core pair, there were also the "outspoken, I don't care who I piss off" John Lennon and Gene Simmons, and the "someone has to be polite and diplomatic" Pauls, Stanley and McCartney.  

 Of course, there are major differences. The largest one is the talent and development. Anyone can tell the difference between Please Please Me and Abbey Road. There is far less perceptible difference between the debut KISS album and Dynasty or Unmasked. Even in the 80s with Bruce Kulick, the formula never changed that much – why mess with what works...with the obvious exception of taking off the makeup, of course. The Beatles started off trying to be commercially successful, but around Revolver and Sgt Pepper they decided to make art and music for its own sake, rather than sell millions of albums or tour around the world. It certainly didn’t hurt, though, that this material was actually light years better than the earlier work and actually became the vanguard for popular music throughout the late 60s. KISS was, from day one until today, primarily dedicated to making money for the band, whether through selling albums, touring, or merchandising, which Gene Simmons has never been shy about admitting. They have no pretenses about being artists, poets, or anything more than musicians and showmen who give the audience its money’s worth. Whereas the Beatles quit touring in 1966 to focus on making albums, much of which involved elaborate studio innovations unreproducable on stage, KISS prided themselves on being a live band, and indeed the album ALIVE! put them on the map when the three studio albums they had at that point had flopped commercially. Clearly the Beatles were versatile and competent musicians, but even drunk-miss-the-plane Ace Frehley runs rings around George Harrison.

 Yet compare Sgt Pepper – a ground-breaking album – with any of KISS’ work. We get the Spinal Tap moment in the 80s when KISS unveiled their concept album, Music From The Elder, to a stunned record company. Sure, they had Bob "Destroyer" Ezrin helping, but what did they expect – KISS: The Wall? The band, with Ezrin, were proud, "look at it! listen to it!" and the record company was, "What the f**k????" Maybe you should stick with what you know..."Love Gun", "Lick it Up", "Uhh! All Night". Sure enough, they got the point.

 Other bands commonly compared to the Beatles are the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys. The Stones, though, only have one singer, Mick Jagger, and are essentially a rock band, nothing more. Granted, they were in direct competition with the Beatles and even tried to emulate them to some extent, but never changed their basic nature over all these years. The Beach Boys are a closer relative. More of the band members sing, they had the matching outfits thing, but most importantly, with Pet Sounds and Brian Wilson they had a real song-writing focus and a very real competition with the Beatles. Sgt Pepper was a response to Pet Sounds, which itself was a response to Rubber Soul. Brian Wilson stopped touring to make albums, but his nervous breakdown after Pet Sounds made his artistic contribution much less than it should have been; who knows what might have happened if Smile materialized instead of Smiley Smile. The rest of the band had to step into his shoes, and their late 60s work bears the same resemblence (??) to the early 60s material as the Beatles’ does. All the same, nothing KISS did compares in quality or impact with Pet Sounds, though again, they never pretended or attempted to be "songwriters" or artists in the same sense as the Beatles or Beach Boys.

 Finally, an exhaustive comparison of the Beatles with other bands wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Pink Floyd. Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd recorded Piper at the Gates of Dawn at Abbey Road Studios...across the hall and at the same time the Beatles were recording Sgt Pepper. After a few heavy psychedelic albums, Waters took over and Floyd began making monumental albums, notably Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall (the latter produced by... Bob Ezrin!). But Pink Floyd, unlike the Beatles, never shied away from touring despite being heavily active in the studio: when recording, as much as they tried to innovate and push the envelope, they avoided doing anything they could not reproduce on stage. In fact, with their quadraphonic sound set up (with speakers set up in the back of the concert hall) Floyd have more in common with the Grateful Dead – sharing the distinction of being the house band at the London Underground acid parties as the Dead were for Ken Kesey’s California "Acid Tests" – factoring in the Beatles’ major contribution to 1967’s social and musical revolution... Sgt Pepper! So it all gets mixed up in one big mutually influencial stew, a psychedelic melting pot of electric Kool-Aid. One last nugget: Paul McCartney’s longtime girlfriend, Jane Asher, married Gerald Scarfe, the animator for Pink Floyd: The Wall.