Dennis Wilson "Bambu"
(Unreleased Album, Recorded 1977-1978)
Track Listing on 2008 CD Release: Under The Moonlihgt/It's Not Too Late/School Girl/Love Remember Me/Love Surrounds Me/Wild Situation/Common/Are You Real?/He's A Bum/Cocktails/I Love You/Constant Companion/Time For Bed/Album Tag Song/All Alone/Piano Variations
"He's a man in love with life - sometimes,s just keep him away from the bottle"
Dennis Wilson was never going to keep it together for long. You can tell that from the pained lyrics on 'Pacific Ocean Blues' alone: for every keep-it-together message to the self and a plea to Denni's maker to keep him on the straight and narrow there's another song about drinking and another where Dennis pleads to the audience to tell him straight, 'what's wrong with me?' The two forces kept duelling within Dennis across the rest of 1977 until, finally, in a neat repeat of his brother's two acclaimed masterpieces, he simply caved in - his boozing delaying session after session until he simply ran out of money and friends cand couldn't keep his second album afloat anymore. But although Dennis lost the battle (finally succumbing to his demons six years later) he still won the war: the unfinished 'Bambu' doesn't have the consistency of the first solo album or the sheer shock excellence in its favour, but this even wilder rollercoaster ride of emotions is still as powerful and emotional as any album in my collection, 'Smile' included. Who knows what Dennis might have done to round off 'Bambu' : with fifteen songs to choose from (plus four leftover from the previous session) there's easily another great 12 track album in there somwhere.
When 'Pacific Ocean Blues' came out the few critics who 'got' the album compared it to 'Pet Sounds': there's that same mixture of bravado and vulnerability, that emotional patchwork quilt of feelings felt during the past ten years of heavy living and the sense that the listener might recognise a few of them (though not me of course: the only Tony Asher lyric I identify with is the more 'Smile'-like 'I Just Wasn't Made For These Times'). In that case 'Bambu' is 'Smile' - a dangerous, daring project that's far less instantly accessible and quite unlike any other recording Dennis ever made, as fully stretched to it's limits as music can be when it's main writer and singer is falling apart more and more by the session. At the same time, it's also an inherently pretty album: like 'Smile' our emotions are exhaustingly pulled back and forth, between right and wrong, between the dark and the light and - like 'Smile' too - because we never heard a 'final' running order, we never know which side 'won'.
James William Guercio - the president of Caribou who'd taken a chance on Dennis and adored the first album - did the best he can with the world's first legal issue of the project on CD in 2008. Without any notes from Dennis (who may not have thought things through that far) we don't know how this album would have held together, but I can't think of a better running order for this record: it starts off jubilant and full of the party spirit, segues down some sacry unfinished instrumentals that sound like the depths of hell and ends up the other side, the singer having taken one drink too many (the aptly titled 'Time For Bed') and back on his own again, nursing his wounds. Fascinatingly it's the two most pained songs from these sessions - 'Love Surrounds Me' and 'All Alone' - that The Beach Boys purloined for their group projects ('L A Light Album' and 'Endless Harmony' respectively) which has given 'Bambu' the rather unfortunate reputation as a melancholy, depressing record. In truth it isn't: it's an absolute bipolar seesaw between the exhilerating highs and crashing lows of life, as seen through the eyes of someone who knows that he'll be stuck in the cyle forevermore. For every sobbing broken heart and frightened weep of fragility there's another song preening it's feathers and chatting up the pretty girls (especially if they're underage - thankfully this album entered the shops a few years before the Jimmy Saville scandal broke or it might have been viewed rather differently).
Like 'Pacific Ocean Blues' this sprawling collection of emotions comes with arrangements that are highly suited to their topics. For the most part Dennis is again alone at the piano, sometimes surrounded by just strings, sometimes a funky rock and roll band, more often than not on his own. Some of the sounds and textures he creates on this album is remarkable: the mix of thundering piano chords, held synth string notes and whalloped percussion on the 'Album Tag Song' is extraordinary, even for someone who'd once particpated in the 'Smile' sessions. Dennis again writes with a whole group of collaborators: Greg Jakobson (who'd been writing with Dennis on and off since 1969 B-side 'Celebrate The News'), Geoffrey Cushing-Murray (more usually Carl's writing partner, who ends up penning more songs on 'L A Light Album' than any of the band) and The Beach Boys' occasional pianist Carli Munoz, who writes four tracks including the two songs that bookend the album (and have Dennis at his highest and lowest respectively). The other key player on this album is brother Carl, who has even more to do than on 'Pacific Ocean Blues', playing the role of Dennis' conscience on 'It's Not Too Late' and egging him on to another drink on 'Real Wild Siatuation' although the pair don't write together this time around (Carl, who was used to joining in with his brother's binges, began to worry about the health of all three Wilsons as 1977 turned into 1978 and figured he would be a better influence if he asbtained and stayed away, which makes Munoz's haunting 'It's Not Too Late' particularly eerie - the song wasn't written about Dennis at all). Perhaps the person who deserves the greatest priase for this record, though, is engineer Tom Murphy: when first Carl, then Jakobson, then MUnoz all drifted away after one scare too many during their wild ride with Dennis the engineer stayed faithful, making up for the loss of Dennis' own studio by setting own up in his house so Dennis could continue with the LP (with the mixing done in the kitchen!) Despite - or perhaps because - of the unusual surroundings 'Bambu' has a remarkable sound, quite unlike any other album I've ever heard: its sort of a Brian Wilson production merged with Phil Spector and a touch of George Martin thrown in: elbaroate and echoey, but also very precise and clear.
The album's real star, though, is Dennis. I'd love to know what comments fans did write in with after the drummer invited them to give their comments in the sleevenotes of his first LP - but on this album's session tapes the answer seems to be for Dennis to go even deeper into his pysche, to leave his voice even morer ravged and vulnerable and to mix even more the raw roar of the sea and the tranquil beauty of the musical waters in his vocals. We've already seen, across the book, what a deeply senitive soul lay hidden under that rough and tough exterior, but what's interesting about this album is that we get 'more' of both sides of Dennis: that suit of armour he wore so readily as much a part of this album as his breaking heart. A tough guy whose tough enough to cry: that's the sound of Dennis Wilson on 'Bambu', his vocals so 'real' for lack of a better word that every single sentence on this album sounds as if it's been 'lived', even when Dennis is singing the work of someone else. 'Bambu' isn't perfect: 'Under The Moonshine' is a little ordinary, 'I Love You' doesn't share the rest of the album';s beauty and intelligence and 'Comon' takes a full elongated minute up to set up the moment when the track truly finds its wings and flies. But everything else here is prime Dennis Wilson and every bit as good as the first LP: a truly essential release for any Beach Boys fan who thought there was more to the band's drummer than just his sex symbol looks.
We'll stick with the CD running order for our track-by-track rundown, but bear in mind that the 'finished' LP might have looked entirely different had it been released in 1978. 'Under The Moonlight' is a bright and breezy Munos song thatsounds underdevloped, lasting a single jazzy verse that's extended thanks to lots of repeats and a lot of instryumental work. Munoz seems to be writing about his role in the Beach Boys here: on the stage and enjoying the adoration of fans but not really a part of the band; the lyrics no doubt chimed with Dennis, who'd always felt like he was only a part of the band because his mum Audree made Brian include him in his plans. Sadly the track never quite gels and - for the only time on these two albums - Dennis sounds as if he's acting, not living and breathing the song.
'It's Not Too Late', however, is a gorgeous Munoz ballad that must have chimed even more with Dennis' way of thinking, six marriages into his life and wondering whether he's just made the biggest mistake of his life. Dennis' narrator pleads that a couple who seem to be goig their separate ways can 'wake up and live again'. The hint is that he's too much of a womaniser and rogue to ever truly act on what he says - and yet he still means it with every word he sings. Carl's vocal in the chorus (simply singing 'no no no it won't be long...' over and over) is tremendously moving: while the words simply reflect what Dennis has been singing, the second higher voice suggests the girl telling herself not to fall into his trap (because it 'won't be long' before he does something to hurt her) as well of course as sounding like the now sober Carl sadly turning his back on his brother and pleading with him to mend his ways. Despite being slower than almost every song in this book, 'It's Not Too Late' has such a hauntingly beautioful melody and so many twists and turns in the arrangement that it's never boring. The irony is, this song so knows it's too late for rescue but it dreams of it all the same. A small triumph.
'School Girl' is the night out after the night before, Dennis now back in full party mode and out on the pull with his friends. Wilson struts away to an impressive collage of sounds: all the tired elements of disco are here (strings, synths and a danceable backing track) but this backing couldn't be anything less like disco: it's powerfully, almost painfully funky and raw, despute so much going on. Dennis pleads with a school girl to elope with him, tells her that she's been under her daddy's rules for too long and that they'll meet up after 'final class'. Rather than sounding lecherous, though, Dennis sounds sad and desperate, convinced that surely someone this naive will believe him but secretly hating himself for what he's doing (the nearest comparable song to this is the Rolling Stones' 'Stray Cat Blues' and this song has nothing like the same wide-eyed leer and menace). It could be too that this song is a 'sort of' wish fulfilment: ruled by the rod of iron and never allowed outside his house lat at night, this song could be more about what Dennis wishes someone had said to him: that a partying rock star girl had taken him away from home and shown him that it's alright to party. The mood in the song cleverly turns sombre shade by shade before ending up with a song where the pitching has become so awkward that there's a really edgy tension in the room, with Denni's vocal suddenly not sounding half as powerful as it did when he strutted his way into the room.
'Love Remember Me' is a sweet little number that starts out quiet and sad with a truly exceptional melody (rising and falling on every sylllable of the title phrase) and some lovely Brian Wilson-esque chillike philosophy ('People live, people die, people laugh, people cry') And then the stars shine out from the darkness as a choir comes out of nowhere and sweetly intones behind Denni's party vocal that 'love comes tumbling down on you', while a guitar riff descends like raindrops glistening in the wind. Dennis clearly had his ex-wife Karen Lamm in mind for this one, opening with the lines that both of them 'ran away' before forgiving any infidelities with the remark 'it's wonderful that the people outside still love to play'. Dennis clearly thinks that his love runs deeper than anything anyone else could possibly offer - and on the evidence of this gossamer emotionally exhausting song I'm not going to argue with him there.
Next up, a contradiction: 'Love Surrounds Me' - the last song had Dennis never feeling more loved even though he was on his own; this time Dennis is surrounded by hangers on but it's him whose missing the deep love he used to enjoy. The original mix for the song that was included on 'L A Light Album' loses out in the sense that the vocal is unfinished and that Carl hasn't yet had time to overdub his 'response' harmonies. However without the sweetness of that finished version (all those whooping Beach Boys harmonies and so on) 'Love Surrounds Me' sounds even more 'real' and desperate, a real cry from the heart.I have to say, though, that I'm surprised it was this song that was chosen: while a very good song it's far from the best on this album; perhaps Carl picked it deliberately because he knew where his contribution to it would fit?
'Wild Situation' is, like 'Dreamer', a hymn with an edge: Dennis praises God for the wildness in his life and the girl whose promised to show him the 'promised land' without moving out of their bed, but recognises that the wildness is quickly becoming a double-edged sword. Goodness knows if things are too wild for Dennis then they've got to be pretty wild: the girl in the song doesn't even allow herself to be chatted up anymore; she simply 'takes off her clothes and heads in my direction'. Dennis' vocal is neatly caught somewhere between ecstaty, enjoyment, surprise and shock.
'Common' is a 'Smile'-like instrumental that makes the most of its peculiar noises, chords and textures (the song opens with a growl somewhere close to a wolf haunting it's prey). The song really starts to build when a series of twinkling one-two-three triple-time piano chords roll the song into prettier skies, the sudden lack of percussion making the song sound as if the stabilisers have been removed and the piece is truly soaring unaided, gliding on it's wings. The effect is quite lovely, eventually fading out into a spooky organ part that's not unlike the part played on Dennis' first ever recorded song 'Be Still'. An exhilerating ride.
'Are You Real?' is simply extraordinary. Dennis' narrator is having a real live conversation with 'his' God but isn't sure whether his vision is a real religious intervemtion or simply a haluciantion fuelled by booze. 'Are you my vision?' he asks, 'Can I believe in what I see?' before pelading with whatever it is he's seen not to 'run away'. The song then segues into a fitful piano-and-string based chase around his inner psyche, haunted by the revelations of what he's just seen but which is clearly too dramatic to ever be put into words. Like the best chase music, the track spins on getting more and more out of control in an attempt to either rush towards or escape from the vision. And what happens? The song trips over its big feet, suddenly being cut off mid-note. Was this always the intention? Or was this simply a clever way of the Legacy re-issue compilers making the most out of a track that would otherwise simply have broken down? Either way its a remarkable moment: just what did Dennis see that night?
'He's A Bum' is another great song, a slab of autobiography from a man who knows he's on the way out. Dennis wrote the song after a girlfriend's parting shot that the drummer was a 'bum', more at home with the buskers and homeless than the posing rock stars who courted him. Dennis cleasrly agrees, calling himself a 'hot dog' and a 'sinner' for good measure. Really, this is Dennis' theme song witht he narrator a walking contradiction, 'a man in love with life who worries about God every single night' and healing the world with cries of 'it's alright, you don't have to be afraid' that he only half-believes himself. What's more Dennis is deeply self-aware of what's happening to him: 'Some people say he lost his way' he sighs without having the heart to correct them before adding a new, world-weary philosophy, that 'everybody lives alone'. Another great song with a terrifc catchy melody this song manages to be both earthly and spiritual: two realms Dennis rarely explored as well as here.
'Cocktails' treads the same path as 'Common', a dreamy piano track with Dennis rasping rather than singing his words over the top. 'If I was a waterfall I'd float into you' Dennis sighs, 'If love had its way I'd build you a smile'. Knowing Dennis thissong is probably about one girl or another (Kren Lamm again?) but the few lyrics here could just as easily work for brother Brian, his younger brother promising to make another 'Smile' to keep the pressure off him. Alas unlike most of the other songs on this album, though, the low key mood doesn't really work.
'I Love You' is also a tad ordinary, a simple song where Dennis is so overhwlemed by feelings of love that that's about all he can get into words, the song jerking with each sudden burst of 'I Love You' spirnkled throughout the song. A surprise choir swell up from nowhere by the end of the song but despite some nice treatment with echo this track doesn't make much of an impact.
'Constant Companion' is the song from the album with 'hit single' written all over it - the true follow-up to the catchy 'Rainbow'. Dennis vows that despite his wayward ways he'll be a girls' ever vigilant companion, always at her side. Like the rest of the album, though, there's a deeper sub-plot to this: Dennis feels that 'being free, living free is what we all are here for' - and can't seem to quantify that with the idea of being at someone's side forever even though he still pledges to be there. The third verse then twists things completely: his girlfriend has children, they're going off 'to war' accompanied by 'the sound of thunder'; afraid of losing her too Dennis then vows that they will meet in the next life, and then the next: because who else could possibly compete? He knows 'the secrets to your soul'. A Nicely perky melody and some great horn parts makes this the catchiest song on the album without sacrificing any of the deep thinking.
'Time For Bed', the last song recorded for the album - and the last of any made by Dennis, give or take a bit of tinkering on 'L A Light Album' - is fascinating. The song struts with the same good time rhythms as 'Got To Know The Woman' but its clear that this is a narrator well out of control who didn't know when to stop. 'Marijuana, beer and wine are for me, don't care about my momma and my dad!' screams Dennis in the middle eight before promising to steal a car and 'cruise around, running round the ugly town - just for kicks! - as the world goes mad!' A deliberately ugly song, this taste of what Dennis must have been like in one of his uncontrollable moments is as compulsive as the car crash you know is going to happen if the narrator gets his way: much as you scream 'no' and try to look away this song's hypnotic grooves have too much of a spell on you. Intense.
The 'Album Tag Song' would presumably have gone by a different name had Dennis actually finished this album. A rocking, rolling series of piano chords, this song veers from yet more extremes, with a delightful quiet middle passage ('I Feel Only Love For You' each sylllable taking an age to speak out loud) and a roaring powerhouse of turbulent bass piano chords and an other-wordly synthesiser, used the way synthesisers should always have been played.
The last actual song on the album is 'All Alone', a final Munoz song first heard on The Beach Boys compilation 'Endless Harmony'. Dennis has never sounded more wretched or sad, angrily spitting out the lyrics about broken promises and misplaced trust as if kicking himself in song. 'If I could have my chance again I'd never do you wrong' he pleads before realising that his words have come too late: with only 'sadness and the love you left behind' Dennis is finally alone: his friends, his band, his wives and his girlcfriends haveing all walked out on him. The words may be Munoz' but Dennis clearly lives the song, his breaking voice in the middle eight before a sax solo finally cuts in and blooms into a kind of inverted rusty squeking promise of happiness, is one of the most exhilerating moments in this book.
That just leaves 'Piano Variations', a track that almost certainly wouldn't have made the album but has been included here as part of the album sessions. The track notes state that this is Dennis playing through his chords for 'Thoughts Of You', the turbulent ballad from his first album, but the chords do't sound that similar to me. This piece is still enjoyable in it's own right though, a gorgeous swirl of melody and pattern that acts as a sweet healing coda to the album and proves once and for all just how wonderfully naturally melodic Dennis was.
In case you're wondering what happened to 'Baby Blue', the other Dennis Wilson classic of the period released on 'L A Light Album', opinions differ as to just how much a part of this album's sessions that song was. The track certainly sounds as if it belongs to this album's early sessions, with Dennis and Carl trading lines over one of the most sumptuous melodies ever recorded - perhaps Legacy simply figured that enough people owned it on 'L A Light' to re-use it here? If so then that's a shame - 'Baby Blue' can never be heard by enough fans, with Dennis at his dreamiest best.
Ultimately 'Bambu' is aptly named: it's tough and brittle like the plant but also, while entirely natural, takes it's fuel from artificial substances (the unusual album title spelling was taken after a brand of roll-your-own cigarettes). This is the sound of an artist who knows he hasn't got long for the world and still has so much to say - if only that self-destructive streak didn't keep getting in the way. Like 'Pacific Ocean Blues' what we have left of 'Bambu' suggests it would have been another triumph. Would it have reversed Dennis' dwindling fortunes? Probably not - even with the boost from releasing this record the drummer probably wouldn't have got his act together for a volume three. But it would have allowed his faithful fans the chance to get to know the true genius of the middle Wilson brother an awful lot earlier. A very big deep heartfelt thankyou to everyone at Legacy who finally released this projects on CD, with some excellent packaging and inteiguing bonus tracks, all of which restore Dennis' reputation right back up there where he eblongs with his two brothers and whose double-disc set is my tip for the single best Alan's Album Archives release of the past ten years.
"Adult Child"
(Unreleased Album, 1977)
Period Recordings: Life Is For The Living/Hey Little Tomboy/Deep Purple/It's Over Now/Everybody Wants To Live/Shortenin' Bread/Lines/On Broadway/It's Trying To Say/Still I Dream Of It
Earlier Recordings Under Consideration For The Album: H.E.L.P. Is On The Way/Games Two Can Play/I Just Got My Pay (see '1970 Recordings' for reviews of these)
"A band in freefall but don't panic - H.E.L.P. is on the way"
The planned second Beach Boys album of 1977 - which also turned out to be the last album sessions to feature a fully focussed Brian Wilson until as late as 2012 - would have split fan opinion even more than 'Beach Boys Love You' on release. Like that album Brian is in childlike, playful mood throughout and his songs verge even more on the fringes of the socially acceptable ('Hey Little Tomboy' - easily the weakest song here and unforgivably the only one resurrected for the band's next album - sounds even more sexist and irritating here). However at his best he can still conjure up a truly heartbreaking song: 'Still I Dream Of It' (another track here to find an official release, on the '30 Years Of Good Vibrations' set, with an even more haunting demo appearing on 'I Just Wasn't Made For These Times') is a candidate for the best Brian Wilson song of the second half of the 1970s.
The biggest difference between this and 'Love You', however, is the sound. Taking the criticism of the synthesiser-heavy predecessor to heart, Brian embark son his one and only 'big band' album, one where he, Carl and Dennis do their best to unleash their inner Sinatras. Alas the move rather backfires: the earlier, purer Brian would have out-sung the rat packers anyday but here, after that many cigarettes and drugs prematurely aging his vocal chords, he doesn't even sound as good as Sinatra did on his 58th comeback (what's worse Brian seems to know, actually giggling when his voice breaks during the torturous 'Purple Haze'). This does, however, have the effect of making the title the cleverest on a Beach Boys project since 'Smile': the songs are childlike, but the arrangements are all 'grown up' - the sort of things the band's fans' parents would have bought, with the combination of the silliness ('Shortenin' Bread' for instance) and cultured arrangements somehow very fitting in the pantheon of Brian Wilson sounds down the years. However the end effect is of another album that seems to be doing its best to throw the Beach Boys out with the bathwater; sacrificing everything that made the band great as well as everything that's holding them back. On the plus side, though, 'Adult Child' is a real 'band' recording rather just Brian: as planned Carl would have got three vocals, Dennis one, Mike one, Al one and Brian the rest, with Dr Landy's therapy the first time round still sounding as if it's doing him good.
The theme that runs throughout the album - especially in the three 'Sunflower' outtakes' revived for the project in the same way that 'Good Time' has been for 'Love You' - is health, even though the band were all far from healthy. Despite being as overweight as he'd ever been, Brian still had a fascination with health foods and exercise (see 'Vegetables' from 'Smile', inspired by Brian's friends opening up a health food store named 'The Radiant Radish', which sadly closed in 1971), although while his 1970 songs sound like a determined effort to get fit ('seems lately eating sugar and fat is getting obvious that's not where it's at'), the 1976 songs sound like a memory, an effort taking place in the mind not the body (fitness is such a Brian Wilson concern I'm amazed he didn't release a concept album about in the late 1980s when he really did shed the pounds and proved how serious he was). These songs make much more sense if you imagine them being composed while out jogging - a lot of them share the same quick-but-gentle rhythms. Even the 'new' songs though feature some notable lyrics about wanting a better, healthier lifestyle: 'Life Is For The Living' vows to give up soft drugs, ''Everybody Wants To Live' vows to give up smoking; 'Lines' seems like a drug song ('lines of cocaine?') but is actually a typically Brian song about nothing in particular, spotted while out on his morning jog (whether real or imaginary, though, is unknown). 'It's Trying To Say' is the one and only Beach Boys song ever to be about baseball - well, sort of, as knowing that a new season is about to start seems to be the extent of Brian's knowledge about the sport in the lyrics. Even the cover of 'On Broadway' is about vowing to make life better when you've hit rock bottom and clearly hit a chord. The shame, then, is that we know now that this was a false dawn for Brian: he didn't get healthier, he got worse and whatever the problems he has with Dr Landy both here and later in the 1980s, his body if not his mind was all the worse for it.
So why did the album get shelved? Well, Warner Brothers simply wasn't prepared to release a third album that they considered sub-standard, with Brian not so much 'back' as working through his demons on record company time. Unlike 'Love You' the rest of the band weren't in much better condition either: Dennis sounds far more wasted than he does on his solo album and even Carl and Al, unusually, sound past their best (that could be something to do with the quality of the bootleg, mind, but then again... )Yet again there's no obvious 'hit single' here - and yet again sales would no doubt have fallen, with critics again divided between 'ha ha' 'what the?' and 'yippee'. However you have to question why they decided to put the gormless 'MIU Album' out instead of this one: that record, surely, was far more damaging to the band's reputation than this record would have been and the fact that the abominable 'Hey Little Tomboy' was the only song thought worthy of immediate rescue shows how little critical nous really was on display.
My thoughts? 'Adult Child' is another mixed bag of a Beach Boys album, no better and no worse than the records around it, with nearly every track featuring the best and worst of Brian in this era. Intended opener 'Life Is For The Living' has a great opening couplet ('Don't sit around on your ass smoking grass, that stuff went out a long time ago!') and it's great to hear Carl and Brian trading verses like the old days. But the track tries too hard to swing and neither brother is at their best. The melody is typically rounded but Brian's lyrics ('you run and you swim, add some gym') make a mundane subject sound even more mundane. I've also never heard anyone this genuinely excited to be doing their exercises, which makes you wonder how early on the Dr Landy brainwashing started...
The original version of 'Hey Little Tomboy' is the same up to the first half: Mike sings lead and Brian chimes in with both a falsetto and a gruff bass part before Carl joins in with that sexist chorus 'gonna turn you into a girl!' The song's middle eight, though is very different: instead of just the 'hey little hey little tomboys' we get all sorts of unconvincing speech over the top (sample: 'fine little thing' 'you're looking ok' 'I'd check her out a couple of times' 'we'll try a little bit of lipstick, see what it looks like' 'let's shave your legs now for the first time!') that makes even 'Cassius Love v Sonny Wilson' sound like the height of natural. Normally my love for Brian would overcome everything, but really - I hoped Marilyn slapped him when he played this back to her. The worst of it is, like 'MIU', 'Tomboy' contains the single best melody of either project: typically Brian in the way it navigates some tricky chords with real aplomb and with plenty of room for some gorgeous block harmonies.
'Deep Purple' is the most 'big band' song on the album, featuring Brian doing his best to croon his way through a gentle lyric that re-creates the same feeling of peace and serenity as 'Aren't You Glad?' He's clearly been playing too many rat pack albums as the arrangement features every cliché of the genre ever made. Alas Brian's voice is long shot and even he seems to realise the futility of trying to keep going (would he have got someone else to sing it for the proper record? Then again, given some of the vocals that did come out on 'Beach Boys Love You' perhaps not).
'It's Over Now', as released per the '30 Years box set', is another Sinatra-esque crooner song, but one that cuts deeper than the last track. Carl sings lead but even though he's more together than Brian he's not comfortable with the style of the song and the track sounds very much as if it's running slow even though it isn't. The lyrics are all about loss and emptiness, the narrator realising his grief as he watches it 'fade away' with another reference to colour (this times blue and orange rather than purple) before finding his own consolation: that someone's been there before him ('I'll put a Frank Sinatra album on and cry my blues away...') Weirdly, Marilyn makes her second cameo on a Beach Boys album, this time singing as her brother-in-law Carl's romantic interest: the result is even weirder than on 'Let's Put Our Hearts Together'.
'Everybody Wants To Live' is a pick-yourself-up song with Carl on lead, vowing to give up a whole lot of things starting with cigarettes (with the memorable opening line that 'a cigarette butt when you drop it in the water goes 'psst', but the trick is you shouldn't laugh') while his more wayward brother sing loose harmonies together in the background. The most revealing song of the sessions sounds like a really stiff talking to from Brian to himself, that laughing his way through his problems labels him as a 'coward', afraid to tackle life's deeper subjects. The end result is one of the better songs on the album, with a better use of synths than most tracks from 'Love You' and the feeling that this is an AA meeting set to music (a bit like an AAA meeting but with people trying to give up booze, not Spice Girls albums!)
The first version of 'Shortenin' Bread' is a little funkier than the version on 'L A Light' although the two arrangements are similar enough to be identical. You wonder why the band bothered re-recording it actually: the take has already been nailed here and Carl sounds much more 'on it' too with some ad libs that suggest he's having fun, although stealing the show as per the finished version is Brian, now tackling the 'comedy bass part' Mike once used to handle.
'Lines' is the most Brian Wilson like song on the album, half resentful, half proud of his 'nine times round the block' starting at '7.30'. After the 'lines' round the block Brian then ahs the day off, goes to see a movie he doesn't like much ('there's a scene with these two oh so thrown together loves') which inspires a sudden rocking middle eight from Carl that comes out of nowhere. The result is a kind of up-dated 'Busy Doin' Nothin', a song that tells us little about Brian's world but has fun filling us in on his nothing days along the way. No other writer would get away with it and this isn't one of Brian's better 'nothing' songs, but it nearly works: to be fair a finished version might have got closer still.
The Al Jardine-led cover of 'On Broadway' is a real surprise. Everyone who is everyone has covered Mann and Weil's song of ruined stardom and hurt surprise at the nastiness of a world that promises so much love from the outside: The Beach Boys' version is only a smidgeon away from Neil Young's feedback drenched attack on his 'Freedom' album of 1989. Al does a good job of the vocal, sounding both fed up and resilient all at the same time, while Brian's intriguing backing track is quite unlike anything else in the Beach Boys oeuvre: a mixture of plodding saxophones, block chord pianos and strings holding a single note throughout the song. I'm still not quite sure if I like it or not but the effect is certainly striking.
'It's Trying To Say' is a happy, bouncy song for Dennis to sing, although the lyrics are pure Brian: this song never actually gets around to telling us what it's trying to say at all! Dennis promises to tell us, but gets easily distracted, what with the baseball season coming up ('a swing and the ball goes sailing out in the crowd, run the third, save the homes and the fans starts screaming loud, baseball's on!) What we end up with then is a chirpy song that offers us absolutely no reason to be chirpy - at least, that's what we're trying to say to you!
Finally, 'Still I Dream Of It' is a truly gorgeous song: Brian is back on the vocal, dreaming of food, 'The day's been hard and I'm so tired, I feel like eating now'. That's just a front though: what really 'haunts me so, like a dream linked to all the stars above' is how lonely he is: uprooted from his loved ones, 'like a tree that's just been planted' (is this the early days of the Landy therapy taking Brian from his house?) Brian even adds a rare line about his guilt over his recent behaviour: 'I made mistakes today, will I ever learn the lessons that all come my way?' The arrangement is as rat packy as a lot of the other songs on this album yet far more suitable too, the straining at their leash along with Brian's tear-stained vocal. Easily the album classic, thank goodness the band saw sense and released this song on their 1993 box set!
And so ends one of the weirder albums in The Beach Boys canon. Alas Brian took the rejection of it hard and doesn't really appear in any real capacity in this book again until a decade's time; the loss if both this book's and music in general, but against all the odds that story will have a happy ending yet...
"Ten Years Of Harmony"
(Brother Records, December 7th 1981)
Add Some Music To Your Day/Roller Skating Child/Disney Girls/It's A Beautiful Day/California Saga: California/Wontcha Come Out Tonight?/Marcella//Rock 'n' Roll Music/Goin' On/It's OK/Cool Cool Water/San Miguel/School Day (Ring! Ring! Goes The Bell)/Good Timin'/Sail On Sailor//Darlin' (Live Version)/Lady Lynda/Sea Cruise/The Trader/This Whole World/Don't Go Near The Water/Surf's Up//Come Go With Me/Deirdre/She's Got Rhythm/River Song (Dennis Wilson solo)/Long Promised Road/Feel Flows/Til' I Die
I have a mighty soft spot for this compilation, which took on the difficult task of trying to make sense out of the Beach Boys' fractured 1970s catalogue - it was my introduction to almost all the band's 1970s catalogue aside from a battered copy of 'L.A. Light'. At the time of this release in 1981 the band looked as if they were over - Brian had retreated back to bed, seemingly for good, Dennis was absent for longer and longer periods and the tug-of-war power struggles between Mike and Al on one hand and Carl on the other had resulted in three albums that had all failed to sell. As well as giving the band breathing room before having to make another album (which appeared in 1985), 'Ten Years Of Harmony' was intended to celebrate the band's 20th anniversary but in particular their time on the 'Brother Records' label and skilfully navigated a sea of contractual problems which allowed the band to release material published on both Warner Brothers and Caribou. As a result this set covers an awful lot of ground (nine studio albums and one live record, plus the single from Dennis' acclaimed 'Pacific Ocean Blues' album), but the sensible decision to make this a double album means that there's space for some of the 'real' album highlights rather than just the material deemed to be 'hits' (in as much as the band had any hits in this period - the Capitol catalogue is so rich with gems every single song on the '20 Golden Greats' compilation went top ten somewhere in the UK or USA, by comparison this album contains just one UK top ten hit 'Lady Lynda' and just one top ten US hit 'Rock and Roll Music').
Usually I hate compilations that cover a lot of ground hap-hazardly instead of in chronological order, but actually sequencing is one of this album's strengths. All of the four sides end on a song and performance so thrilling they simply beg you to turn the record over and start again: 'Marcella' 'Sail On Sailor' 'Surf's Up' ''Til I Die'. We've already debated in depth the merits of the critically acclaimed but poorest-seller 'Sunflower' versus the comparatively high sales of follow-up 'Surf's Up; thankfully the set leans towards the 'Sunflower' spectrum whilst keeping the 'Smile' era title track of the latter. The set is also generous towards the 'L.A.Light' and 'Keepin' The Summer Alive' albums and is skimpy on the '15 Big Ones' period - which is fair enough in my own personal appraisal of the band. All the band are well and evenly catered for too - even Bruce gets two songs on the album even though debate within the band about whether he'd rejoined in enough time to be 'allowed' into the band meant he wasn't included in the sequence of photos on the inner gatefold sleeve. Talking of packaging, 'Harmony' is pretty good there too, with full lyric sheets and a series of photographs, mainly from the 'Sunflower' era, most of them unseen: in the days before box sets and CD booklets, this was about all you could ask for. Shame about the boring cover, though, with the band's outstretched-arms-on-horse logo emblazoned on a white background (you wouldn't know from the cover what a colourful compilation this really is, with 'Surf's Up' alone coming in a whole cast of colours).
As a bonus for collectors there are oodles of rarities here too. 'It's A Beautiful Day' is a sunny Mike Love/Al Jardine song from the 'L.A. Light' sessions and included in the soundtrack of the film 'Americathon' (nope, I've not seen it either but I imagine its full of 'people everywhere having fun fun fun'). While not quite up to that album's other strong Jardine compositions, its far too good to be 'lost' on a dud movie. 'San Miguel', a Dennis Wilson song with Carl on lead, is actually the earliest recording here, dating from the first week of sessions for 'Sunflower' and abandoned when the original running order for that album was rejected. Like much of that album it has a kind of quiet understated brilliance to it, with the feeling that nobody is trying too hard but they're skilled enough to make it sound perfect anyway. 'Sea Cruise', meanwhile, is a Dennis Wilson choice of cover (first sung by Frankie Ford) from the '15 Big Ones' period that never made it to the final running order and this time is actually better than almost everything on that album (perhaps the band should have waited a year and made it '16 Big Ones'?!) Oo-wee baby, indeed. Best of all, the album sensibly includes 'River Song', the opener killer track from Dennis' album 'Pacific Ocean Blues' which did a great deal to highlight the album's brilliance during the many years that album was out of print. A guesting Carl makes the song sound like a Beach Boys track anyway. Real collectors will also be intrigued to learn that the album is the easiest way of finding four rare mixes on CD: the 'single' versions of 'California' 'Rock and Roll Music' 'Cool Cool Water' and 'School Day'. Interestingly the original LP included the 'proper' version of 'Come Go With Me' from 'MIU' in 1978, but whether by design or accident this was replaced on CD with a version from two years earlier, cut during sessions for '15 Big Ones'. That's doubly odd given that this was the song chosen to 'promote' the compilation despite then being three years old: given the fact that a disillusioned Beach Boys didn't want to promote it the single's American chart peak of #18 is super impressive (the best they'd done there in five years, discounting 'The Beach Boys Medley').
All in all this is the best compilations out there for anyone who wants to hear more than just The Beach Boys' hits. Unfortunately there's just two problems with 'Ten Years Of Harmony': the first is that this album has been long since deleted and although out on CD in the 1990s has since frustratingly been replaced by the far inferior compilation 'Greatest Hits Volume Three: Best Of The Brother Years' in 2000 (seriously, you took out 'The Trader' and 'Feel Flows' in favour of 'Peggy Sue' and 'Honkin' Down The Gosh Darn Highway'?!') Oh and by the time the band actually got around to releasing this album after months of negotiating the deadline had passed: this album covering the years 1970-1981 should by rights have been titled 'Eleven Years Of Harmony' but I guess the band didn't think that title was catchy enough. I leave it up to you, dear reader, to debate whether the band were right about the 'harmony' bit too, given the many band ructions taking place in this period...
Mike Love "Looking Back With Love"
(Boardwalk Records, October 8th 1981)
Looking Back With Love/On and On and On/Runnin' Around The World/Over and Over/Rockin' The Man In The Boat//Calendar Girl/Be My Baby/One Good Reason/Teach Me Tonight/Paradise Found
"Good vibrations, assasinations..." It was the best of albums it was the worst of albums...
Wrongly billed as the first Beach Boys solo album in the press and in a sticker on the front of the album (that was Dennis' 'Pacific Ocean Blues' if you've skipped that page, closely followed by Blondie and then Carl, with questioj marks over Bruce's trio - assuming for the moment that all these do 'count' then this is actually the 7th solo Beach Boy LP!), 'Looking Back With Love' was treated with a lot of derision when it came out. Poppier even than 'MIU' and 'Keepin' The Summer Alive', it was released when The Beach Boys were at an all-time low and looked as if they'd never make another album together again. You sense that a lot of critics simply took one look at the cover (Mike sitting in front of a beach scene) , read the song titles on the back and didn't even bother to play it. If that's true then it's a shame.
The biggest talking point for fans today is that back in the days before Brian Wilson made his own LPs he both produced and arranged Mike's version of one of his all time favourite songs: Phil Spector's 'Be My Baby'. It's a good version too - easily beating most of the disinterested 1950s covers on the '15 Big Ones' album - and oddly perhaps Brian still hasn't done the obvious and recorded any Spector covers by himself yet despite making full records of Gershwin and even Disney songs (nope, I didn't see that last one coming either). What's more it 'sounds' like a Brian Wilson production in a way that his recent alleged 'productions' on 'LA Light' and 'Summer Alive' really hadn't. That one cover alone makes 'Looking Back In Love' invaluable for fans, although it would be unfair to claim that this is the only reason for buying this album.
This is clearly not the greatest Beach Boys album ever made (this collection of sappy radio-friendly pop is actually the antithesis of 'Pacific Ocean Blues' and shows how far the band members had drifted apart by 1981 and isn't up to even Brian Wilson's growing collection of solo records). But then it doesn't pretend to be: this is a good time pop album with no thought to artistic integrity and deep fulfilment other than giving fans something to dance to and an aging fan-base the chance to imagine it was 1963 all over again. In its own small way, this album is far more enjoyable than 'MIU' because it's doing the same thing (turning the clock back to 1963) without having to give cameos to Carl and Dennis who clearly would rather be elsewhere and cope with an increasingly reluctant Brian Wilson.
What’s curious about this album, though, is that it isn’t as retro as either the title (one of many groan-inducing puns on Mike's name debated down the years - another is 'Mike Love Not War'!) or Mike’s habit of keeping the modern-day Beach Boys firmly rooted to their early 60s past implies – one song aside its actually an attempt to be ‘contemporary’, with cutting-edge (for the day) synths and disco songs that were still just about all the rage in the early 80s, even if some of the material dates from way further back than that. At its best this means that Mike becomes the only singer I've ever heard to successfully cover an Abba song and a nicely obscure one at that ('On and On and On', a song often said to have 'borrowed' its main riff from the Beach Boys' 'Do It Again'), one pop genius saluting another (well some of Abba is pop genius anyway, some of it is terrible - in truth their rock and pop's patchiest band). At its worst ('Calendar Girls') this record is a glaring mis-mash of styles, with songs that didn't sound too good the first time sounding ever more out of place in their new sterile settings. All that said - and I'll whisper this for fear of upsetting Beach Boys purists - I'd take this album over the similar 'MIU' any day: at least it has the good grace to try something different instead of coming up with the dumbest ever songs about teenage girls and having fun in the sun at the age of 40 (save for 'Calendar Girls' anyway). Talking of which, surprisingly Mike only co-writes one song for the album: 'Paradise Found', a not particularly distinguished original that would have fitted in fine on the 'Summer In Paradise' album. This means that, contrary to expectations, there are no overcooked car songs, no chatting up teenage girls and no transcendental meditation ballads! However at just 32 minutes this album seems over before it's begun - possibly another harkback to 1963 when all albums were this length! Still, not bad at all and another Beach Boys solo album long overdue a release on CD!
"Carl Wilson"
('Caribou, '1981')
Hold Me/Bright Lights/What You Gonna Do About Me?/The Right Lane//Hurry Love/Heaven/The Grammy/Seems So Long Ago
"I don't want to sound like I'm full of self pity, that's not the way I want it to be"
Carl's first solo album was unusual in that he actually took the step of leaving The Beach Boys to make it: Dennis had always been on the fringes of being in the band anyway and Mike had kind of done his during downtime from the band, but Carl clearly thoughyt he had a shot at solo success (or maybe he'd just had one too many band arguments by 1981?) The result surprised many, not necessarily with its quality but with how different it was to the Carl we'd known and loved. 'Carl Wilson' is a feisty record. It is, mainly speaking, a rocky record. There are virtually no harmony vocals (instead Carl sings most tracks with his writing partner Myrna Smith, who was at the time married to Carl's manager Jerry Schilling). Freed of his responsibilities as the Beach Boys' peacemaker, Carl seems to be doing his best to collapse his image here: he's in an angry mood and doesn't care who knows it.
The album makes more sense when you realise what Carl was going through when he made it. Carl had married Annie Hinsch in 1968 (at the young age of 22), the sister of the band's keyboard player, but the pair had split in 1979. A devestated Carl had a lot of things on his mind and a lot of grief pouring through him (it wasn't as if his career was giving him a break from the rows at home). A lot of these lyrics are about denial, about 'I've-got-feelings-too and trying to come to terms with an unhappy period in the singer's life. Unfortunately none of them quite measure up to the heartbreak of, say, 'Angel Come Home' or 'Livin' With A Heartbreak' (from the two Beach Boys relesed just before this one). The result is an uncomfortable album, harder edged than anything else in Carl's canon, with Myrna's more aggreessive tones turning that wonderful Carl Wiulson voice into a bark at times. This isn't a bad album - well not as bad as some criticvs made it out to be at the time anyway - but it's not a pleasant album; it's more something Carl whouls have got out of his system and kept quiet.
'The highlight of the entire record is the acerbic 'The Right Lane', a fascinating angry diatribe about 'trying to help a brother' who doesn't want to know; the narrator used to be pulled into bad ways on his behalf but has seen the light and changed his ways. Even given that the song is couched in such terms that it could just about be about brotherly rather than family love, surely this song is about Dennis who in the first few months of 1983 was becoming more and more self-destructive. Typically for this album Carl starts the song mad, gradually comes to understand the other's point of view and ends it simply sad. The similarly angry opener 'Hold Me' is the album's other highlight and rather sets the tone for the record: on paper it should be a love song, a track asking for support, but it's played in the aggressive 'You Need A mess Of Help To Stand Alone' style that quickly turns into lyrics about 'understanding' and 'letting me go to let me grow'. Ultimately, though, this is a confused record that simply repeats itself, as if unable to cope with the idea that what seemed to be a life-long relationship is over: which is understandable and every so often the trigger that creates good art. Here, though, you sense Carl is getting more out of this album than we ever could.
The follow-up record 'Youngblood' from a couple of years later, is much better incidentally - like this album, but less so if that makes any sense. Sadly fans who weren't around at the time have never really had the chance to hear this album, wich sank without trace and is still awaiting it's first CD release as late as 2014 (the time of writing). While not a lost classic to rival 'Smile' or 'Pacific Ocean Blues'/ 'Bambu' this record surely deserves a release sometime soon.
Sunshine Dream
(Capitol, June 1982)
I Can Hear Music/Here Today/Darlin'/Caroline, No/Aren't You Glad?/Good Vibrations//Wouldn't It Be Nice?/Friends/God Only Lnows/Vegetables/How She Boogalooed It/There's No Other (Like My Baby)//Heroes and Villains/All I Want To Do/Wild Honey/I'm Waiting For The Day/Cottonfields/Then I Kissed Her//Sloop John B/Be Here In The Morning/Bluebirds Over The Mountain/Keep An Eye On Summer/Do It Again/The Beach Boys Medley
Capitol's third Beach Boys double-album compilation has given up with the Beach Boys names and 'stolen' one from the Grateful Dead instead (the second half of the song known as 'Sugar Magnolia'). This time around the label has run out of pre 'Pet Sounds' songs to rummage through so they turn their attention to the lesser known years of 1966-69. As those of you who've read this book vaguely in order will already know, the late 1960s are a peak period for the band in every way except commercially. As a result there are some great moments within this set that all too often get overlooked by compilations such as 'Aren't You Glad?' 'Be Here In The Morning' and 'All I Want To Do' from 'Wild Honey' 'Friends' and '20/20' respectively. There's also more 'hits' than you might be expecting: 'Good Vibrations' - which most people were no doubting expecting to see on volume one - 'Darlin' 'Wouldn't It Be Nice?' 'Friends' 'Heroes and Villains' 'Then I Kissed Her' 'Sloop John B' and 'Do It Again'. Capitol also sneakily recycle a lot from the first volume courtesy of 'The Beach Boys Medley', a surprise top ten hit in 1981 that simply stuck half a dozen Beach Boys songs together with no regard for tempo, theme or bad editing. There are some true oddities here as well though: surely nobody in their right mind (and not that many people who weren't) would pick 'How She Boogalooed It' for a compilation (it sounded dated in 1967, never mind fifteen years later). And although 'There's No Other (Like MY Baby) is a far more sensible selection from 'Beach Boys Party' than 'Tell Me Why' on the album before - why bother adding a lone track from that lone 'unplugged' album anyway? It really doesn't fit. Still, the fact that Capitol can cobble together a third double album (that's 72 tracks in total) from a band, mess it up by not always adding the best material available to them and still have it coming out sounding as good as this shows what a great little band The Beach Boys were. The public didn't seem to think so though - unlike the last two, this set failed to chart and has yet to be released on CD.
Carl Wilson: "Youngblood"
(Caribou, 'February' 1983')
What More Can I Say?/She's Mine/Givin' You Up/One More Night Alone/Rockin' All Over The World/What You Do To Me//Youngblood/Of The Times/Too Early To Tell/If I Could Talk TO Love/Time
"I've been thinking about changing my life!"
More of the same from Carl, who still has plenty to get off his chest which can't be placed on a 'normal' Beach Boyc record. The mood is still downbeat but the songs are mainly uptempo still, with Carl writing and duetting with Myrna Smith - not always successfully. I'm not sure whether it's me slowly getting used to the style or the album's quality but I much prefer this second effort which still features flashes of the 'old' Carl amongst the chest-beating and aggro. The result is a still uneven record but one with quite a few moments worth rescuing this time around and one that takes a much more varied look at the same issues of trust, betrayal and anger. If this was an AA meeting, in fact, Carl went through anger on the last record and this time he's in denial: 'I can't believe that...' is a sentence that crops up a few times across this record, with Carl caught pretty neatly halfway between still being too hurt to speak and beginning to find some sort of reconciliation. 'Smile' it isn't, but some of these songs are moving and would have been welcome additions to Beach Boys albums of the period (had the band been in a state to make any). One other notable addition to this album: session pianist extraordinary Nicky Hopkins, whose played on numerous albums by The Kinks, The Beatyles, The Who and The Rolling Stones and now finally get to play on his only Beach Boys-related session.
Interestingly the two best songs on this record are ballads, unlike the harder edged debut album. The album highlight is clearly "Givin' You Up", a very painful song about seperation that boasts a lovely melody, a torch-waving stop-start chorus that manages to sound both proud and humbled (Carl's vulnerable voice meeting a noisy choir of voices head on) and some moving lyrics that seem caught between being sorry and being pleased at the recent past. This track makes the easy breezy 'Livin' With A Heartache' from 'Keepin' The Summer Alive' look like an empty Spice Girls song. The other highlight is ''One More Night Alone', the most Beach Boysy moment here, had nothing whatsoever to do with Carl: it was written by Beach Boy keyboadist Billy Hinsche and makes for interesting reading: a song about regretting falling out and fearing spending the night alone; once you learn that Billy's sister is Annie, Carl's ex-wife, the song makesa perfect sense and only someone as willing to forgive and forget as Carl would have allowed such a personal song to be on the record (the result is kind of like those last two Abba albums when the blokes write songs about their break-up that the girls sing).
Had the whole album been up to those two songs I'd be telling you all to buy buy buy! However the rest of the LP is nothing special: the poppy 'What You Do To Me' is spoilt by the next less than inpsired line ('...is like poetry'), 'Too Early To Tell' with Myrna on lead sounds like Starship (that's not a compliment, by the way), the possessive 'She's Mine' is the nastiest song Carl ever wrote and two generic cover songs ('Rockin' All Over The World' and 'Youngblood' itself) must rank as two of the lowest moments in this book. Compared to this 'Looking Back With Love' at least had dignity and ideas: you sense even Mike would draw the line at covering anything this obvious. Still, those two tracks alone mean that 'Youngblood' the album has more point and verve to it than any other album review I've ever seen has declared. Perhaps sensing that it was the better of the two albums, Caribou finally releaased it on CD in 2010. However the set didn't sell very well, which is probably why we're still waiting for the first album to be re-issued the same way.
"Beach Boys Rarities"
(Capitol, 'Sometime In 1983')
With A Little Help From My Friends*/The Letter*/I Was Made To Love Her (Alternate Version)/You're Welcome/The Lord's Prayer/Bluebirds Over The Mountain/Celebrate The News//Good Vibrations/Land Ahoy*/In My Room (German Language Version)/Cottonfields/All I Want To Do (Live)*/Auld Lang Syne (Japan CD Bonus Tracks: Medley: Good Vibrations-Help Me, Rhonda-I Get Around-Little Deuce Coupe/Medley: Surfer Girl-Girls On The Beach-The Ballad Of Ol' Betsy-We'll Run Away/Medley: Good Vibrations-Help Me, Rhonda-I Get Around-Shut Down)
* = recording released for the first time in any form
This fascinating little oddity is Capitol's latest money-spinner: locate the 12 rarest Beach Boys song in their back catalogue, stick them on a long-playing and voila - an instant must-have collector's item! However that thinking is flawed for a few reasons: one it annoyed the Beach Boys (then coming to the end of their contract with Caribou) so much it delayed any hope of getting the Beach Boys back on the label; it annoyed the heck out of collectors at the time who found out that half of the songs released on the album weren't actually that rare at all and it really annoys the heck out of modern day collectors who pay over the odds for this album because it includes a grand total of five songs that still can't be found anywhere else (except on bootleg). To be fair in 1983 it must have seemed like Christmas to have this album suddenly appear - it's just that the band have done things 'properly' since then and most of these songs have appeared on CDs as bonus tracks in the years since. You do get a simply brilliant cover though (a group of beach-goers discovering these master tapes 'buried' in the sand!) and five songs that are still if not impossible to find anywhere else legally.
To take these in order, the covers of both the fab four's 'With A Little Help' and The Box Tops' 'The Letter' date from the band's return to the live stage in 1967 and were cut during a much-bootlegged rehearsal in Hawaii in an attempt to add something new to the set listing. Neither song is exactly essential, although Brian is having great fun on the latter, turning in one of his best post-'Smile' vocals and re-arranging the song to the point where it really does sound like a Beatles track. 'With A Little Help', meanwhile, just sounds weird: the band have defended it by saying they were playing around with the tape, singing slow deliberately so that they could speed it up later and see what it sounds like. Alas Capitol didn't know that when they compiled this set so the result is...peculiar. The other rare songs are live versions of 'What'd I Say' from the band's Australian tour of 1964 with what sounds like Carl singing - almost a year before his first vocal on record - and a live version of Dennis' 'All I Really Want To Do' from the London Palldium in 1968 with Mike turning an even rawer vocal than on the '20/20' record. For some reason, though, the compilation cuts this version of the song down to just 90 seconds - it should run to 150 given the version that leaked out later on bootleg. The biggest surprise, though, is a rather tuneless a capella Four Freshman-like rendition of 'The Lord's Prayer' originally released as the B-side of 'Little Saint Nick' in 1963 but only available very briefly on the first 1990 CD of the 'Christmas' album before that version got deleted in favour of the 'Christmas compilations' later in the decade. In case you hadn't already noticed, all of these have been dealt with already in this book under their respective 'eras'.
Other 'rarities' include a different take of Stevie Wonder's 'I Was Made To Love Her' which isn't very different from the version on 'Wild Honey', B-side 'You're Welcome' (since available on the 'Smiley Smile' CD), flop single 'Bluebirds Over The Mountain', The B-side of 'Break Away' 'Celebrate The News' (available on the 20/20' CD re-issue), fun 'Surfin' Safari' outtake 'Land Ahoy' (available on that album's CD re-issue), the German-language version of 'In My Room' (available on the 'Surfer Girl' CD), the top 20 UK hit 'Cottonfields', a remix of 'Auld Lang Syne' from the Beach Boys Christmas record with Dennis' 'festive message' removed so you can hear the band's a capella rendition properly (now included on most of the Beach Boys 'Christmas compilations') and, err, worldwide number one hit 'Good Vibrations' (to be fair this is the single mix rather than the one on 'Smiley Smile' often used on compilations but the differences are minimal anyway). If only Capitol had done the job properly we could have all of those classy 'two-for-one' bonus tracks gathered together in one handy place, but never mind. 'The Beach Boys Rarities' didn't really sell and despite not containing all that many rarities has now became one of the rarest records associated with the band - which is somehow rather fitting.
"Made In The USA"
(Capitol, July 7th 1986)
Surfin' Safari/409/Surfin' USA/Be True To Your School/Surfer Girl/Dance Dance Dance/Fun Fun Fun//I Get Around/Help Me, Rhonda/Don't Worry Baby/California Girls/When I Grow Up (To Be A Man)/Barbara Ann//Good Vibrations/Heroes and Villains/Wouldn't It Be Nice?/Sloop John B/God Only Knows/Caroline, No//Do It Again/Rock and Roll Music/Come Go With Me/Getcha Back/Rock and Roll To The Rescue!/California Dreamin'
With The Beach Boys now back on Capitol records, their first act was to remind the public about their past with yet another compilation of oldies but mouldies. Yawn, eyes glaze over, turn the page...but hold it! 'Made In The USA' is the first Beach Boys compilation to secure the rights to two eras, Capitol regaining the use of tracks from the '15 Big Ones' LP of 1976 through to 'The Beach Boys' album of 1985. On paper this means that they get to use the great songs from 'L A Light Album' and the I-don't-know-if-they're-words-of-genius-or-madness of 'Beach Boys Love You'. But no: we get the rather dull selection of 'Rock and Roll Music' 'Come Go With Me' and 'Getcha Back', which were all hits (of a sort) but only because the general public didn't know that better material was lurking on the band's later albums. The selection from the 1960s is pretty good though I have to say: my 'benchmarks' of a good Beach Boys compilation ('Don't Worry Baby' 'Dance Dance Dance' and 'When I Grow Up (To Be A Man)' are all there, with no obvious gaps.
The set then ends by looking to the future with two brand new recordings. To take these in order 'Rock and Roll To The Rescue' is a truly awful Mike Love co-write with Byrds producer Terry Melcher which seems to delight in giving a clearly unhappy Brian most of the limelight on a sappy, soppy song that helps bury rock and roll in a coffin, not come to it's rescue. The cover of the best Californian-themed-song-the-band-never-recorded 'California Dreamin' is much better - writer 'Papa' John Phillips is even on hand to see that the band up their game and producer Melcher manages to get hold of Roger McGuinn to provide the atmospheric Rickenbacker guitar-work over the top. Al Jardine shines too on a song that sounds like one of his: a hymn to the homeland with an ecological slant. The result is the single best Beach Boys recording of the 1980s (not their best decade by any means, but still): sincere, focussed and with the right mix of 'past' and 'present' in the production. Luckily you don't have to fork out for this set to hear it: a lot of the next batch of compilations will also end with this track and the band sensibly included it on their 'Made In California' box set in 2013. 'Rock and Roll To The Rescue, however, will only be re-issued once, as the B-side to the next single 'Still Cruisin', which deservedly sinks without trace. The first Beach Boys compilation to be released on CD, it's far from the worst but there have been better ones since.
Other Beach Boys articles from this website you can read:
'Surfin' USA' (1963) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-beach-boys-surfin-usa-1963.html
'Surfer Girl' (1963) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/the-beach-boys-surfer-girl-1963.html
'Little Deuce Coupe' (1963) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.nl/2016/09/the-beach-boys-little-deuce-coupe-1963.html
'Shut Down Volume Two' (1964) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/the-beach-boys-shut-down-volume-two-1964.html
‘All Summer Long’ (1964) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-beach-boys-all-summer-long-1964.html
'Beach Boys Christmas' (1964) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/xmas-bumper-issue-revised-beach-boys.html
'Party!' (1965) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/the-beach-boys-party-1965.html
'Pet Sounds' (1966) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-beach-boys-pet-sounds-1966.html
'Surf's Up' (1971) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/the-beach-boys-surfs-up-1971-album.html
’15 Big Ones’ (1976) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/the-beach-boys-15-big-ones-1976.html
'Keeping The Summer Alive' (1980) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/the-beach-boys-keeping-summer-alive-1980.html
'The Beach Boys' (1985) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/the-beach-boys-1985.html
'Still Cruisin' (1989) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-beach-boys-still-cruisin-1989.html
'That's Why God Made The Radio' (2012) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/the-beach-boys-thats-why-god-made-radio.html
The Best Unreleased Beach Boys Recordings http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/the-beach-boys-unreleased-songs-top.html
A Complete (ish) Guide To The Beach Boys' Surviving TV Clips http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/the-beach-boys-complete-ish-guide-to.html
Solo/Live/Compilation/Rarities Albums Part One 1962-86 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/beach-boys-sololivecompilationunrelease.html
Solo/Live/Compilation/Rarities Albums Part Two 1988-2014 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/beach-boys-sololivecompilationunrelease_25.html
Non-Album Songs Part One 1962-1969 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/beach-boys-non-album-songs-part-one.html
Non-Album Songs Part Two 1970-2012 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/beach-boys-non-album-songs-part-two.html
