California Sons

At Variety, Chris Morris offers obituaries for Sly Stone and Brian Wilson.

David Bauder of the Associated Press makes the connection.

And Alexis Petridis at The Guardian writes appreciations.

"Still Making These Great Records That No One Paid Any Attention To"

"'Radio program directors were like, "I don't care how good the music is, I'm not playing these has-beens any more than I'm gonna be playing Jan & Dean,"' Linett says."

Mikael Wood at the Los Angeles Times revisits the Beach Boys' early-1970s albums.

And at Variety, Chris Willman interviews the archivists of the new Beach Boys box set.

The First Tycoon of Teen

"Spector cracked the top 20 in 1962 with the Crystals' 'There's No Other (Like My Baby)' and 'Uptown' but vaulted to No. 1 with the ode to teen outlawry 'He's a Rebel'—recorded with a then-background singer, Darlene Love of the Blossoms, on lead vocals, but released under the Crystals' name. By the time 'He's a Rebel' hit the apex, Spector had bought out Sill's interest in Philles and established his signature production sound—immense, percussive, densely orchestrated (usually by arranger Jack Nitzsche) and over-the-top." 

Chris Morris at Variety writes an obituary of Phil Spector.

And Chris Willman wrestles with Spector's legacy.

"For Those Who Believe That Brian Walks on Water, I Will Always Be the Antichrist"

"You don't get to that pinnacle without encountering a colorful cast of characters. For Love, the list is long and glittery and includes, but is not limited to, several presidents, many rock stars—including Marvin Gaye, Glen Campbell and multiple Beatles and Rolling Stones—Muhammad Ali, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (from whom he acquired a lifelong devotion to Transcendental Meditation) and, for those who may have forgotten the connection, briefly and awfully, Charles Manson."

Sarah Rodman in the Los Angeles Times reviews Mike Love and James S. Hirsch's Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy.

"The Element of Tragedy and Failed Promise Is a Crucial Factor"

"Wilson provides the link between pop and the undisputed greatness of Tin Pan Alley songwriters like George Gershwin, whom he idolised. The miracle of Brian's melodic gifts, like those of Lennon and McCartney, even prompts comparisons with Mozart and Schubert. As Tom Petty puts it in the documentary, 'I don't know if he's a genius or not, but I know that that music is probably as good a music as you can make... as you can write.' The particular appeal of his genius lies in the fact that the Beach Boys were the very obverse of hip - the unlikeliness of these songs growing out of disposable surf pop - and in the singular naivety and ingenuousness of his personality."

In a 1995 Independent article, Barney Hoskyns ponders Brian Wilson.

"It's Fans Doing the Show for the Fans"

"'As much as I'd like to sing "Surf's Up," my voice is pretty far from Wilsonesque,' says Steve Wynn of the Dream Syndicate. 'But I flashed back on my buddy [R.E.M. guitarist] Peter Buck enthusiastically handing me a cassette of "The Beach Boys Love You" when we first met in 1983. It was way off my radar, but it's a great album, and "Let Us Go on This Way" is right in my vocal wheelhouse.'"

Don Waller in the Glendale News-Press previews Wild Honey's upcoming Beach Boys tribute concert.

"His Lifelong Accumulation of Scars"

"Though they never dipped into the heavy stuff, the Beach Boys were a totemic influence on punk, particularly punk that hailed from their SoCal backyard. Their early work was the touchstone: compact rock and roll singles trafficking in teenage angst and idle pastimes. Surf-rock's instrumentalists summoned the sound of pipelines and breaks, influencing acts like the Slickee Boys and Agent Orange in the process. But the Beach Boys filled in the map. Possibly no one outside of hip-hop lodged so many place names on the charts: Rincon, Malibu, Huntington Beach, Laguna, La Jolla, Manhattan Beach, Doheny Beach, Tresle Beach. It didn't matter that Dennis Wilson was the only Beach Boy that surfed, nor that their choice of subject matter was often influenced by paterfamilias Murry Wilson. What mattered, as usual, are the songs.
"And the songs found true champions in the Ramones, whose Beach Boys fetish could be observed from Rocket To Russia's 'Rockaway Beach' all the way to Mondo Bizarro's 'Touring.'"

Brad Shoup at Stereogum explains "how Brian Wilson helped spawn punk."

Mike Love Not War

"Californians get tired of hearing their state described in dichotomous terms of sunshine and noir. But if there was ever a band with a stark contrast between clean-cut innocence and nasty stuff beneath the surface, it's these guys. Compared to them, the Stones are art-school poseurs dabbling in Satanic imagery.
"And if you look closely, you can see the weirdness from almost the very beginning."


Scott Timberg in Salon considers the Beach Boys.

"The Howard Hughes of Rock & Roll"

"'He was so innocent and bizarre and so truthful,' Hutton said of Wilson in the 1995 documentary, I Just Wasn't Made for These Times. 'He would frighten people. I took him to a party at Alice Cooper's and, afterwards, Alice, Iggy Pop and me went to his house to write something. There was a certain point of the night where Iggy said, "I'm leaving! This guy's nuts!" He had us singing "Short'nin' Bread" in parts.'"


Brian Chidester in the LA Weekly discusses Brian Wilson's unreleased "Bedroom Tapes."

"It Wasn't Joe Cocker"

"Beach Boys biographer Jon Stebbins tells the tale of the song in his Web site's FAQ. It seems that Preston and Wilson were at a party late one night fumbling with songs, and Wilson helped him complete it. If you check out Wilson's solo work, you can hear where Wilson's mind took over 'Beautiful.' Wilson never pressed the issue, and let Preston have the cut and the royalties."

Craig Hlavaty in a 2012 Houston Press article explores the "Secret History of 'You Are So Beautiful'."

Heroes and Villains

"These twin legacies each have their own protagonist, and the Beach Boys’ mythology naturally pits them against each other. It goes like this: Wilson, the childlike Icarus, had his artistic wings clipped by the lead singer Mike Love, his cocksure cousin, who wanted to stick with the proven formula of singing about girls and cars, fun and surf. Wilson then withdrew, crestfallen, into a self-imposed exile and battles with personal demons and drugs. Love, meanwhile, led an increasingly ersatz Beach Boys on a long strange trip that culminated in playing the private 2008 Romney 'campaign reunion' event in Houston that doubled as a John McCain fundraiser. (McCain had the chance that night to sing his own foreign policy faux pas parody of the Beach Boys’ classic 'Barbara Ann'—'Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran.')
"Taken further, you might say that the Beach Boys’ long history of feuds, friendships and lawsuits exemplifies two sides of the American character. On the Brian side we have an uncompromising blue-state idealism, and on the Mike side we have red-state utility and sticking with the formula. If you buy into the Beach Boys’ myth, no analogy seems too highfalutin. We’re talking Jefferson versus Hamilton, Buckley versus Vidal, Gore v. Bush, Occupy Wall Street versus Tea Partiers. It should only take a few seconds to contrive your own parallels."

Daniel Nester in The New York Times explores the politics of the Beach Boys.

"The Next Time You Listen to Some of Your Favorite Groups from the ’60s, Please Don’t Be Upset"

"The Wrecking Crew was not supposed to attract attention. Groups like the Beach Boys, the Byrds, the Monkees and many others didn’t care to point out why they sounded so much better on records than on the road. But Wrecking Crew members could work miracles, like the time when, with only three minutes’ worth of studio time allotted them, they played a first-take, no-glitch version of 'The Little Old Lady From Pasadena.' As Roy Halee, Simon and Garfunkel’s engineer and co-producer, once said of a top Wrecking Crew bassist: 'You never have to stop the tape because of a mistake by Joe Osborn. There just aren’t any.'"

Janet Maslin in The New York Times reviews Kent Hartman's The Wrecking Crew: The Inside Story of Rock and Roll's Best-Kept Secret.

"Individual Freedom Cannot Exist without Economic Security and Independence"

"The Rooseveltian liberal preference for public jobs over cash grants for the poor was shared by the patron saint of natural rights liberalism, John Locke, who in the 1690s proposed that the deserving poor be employed at public expense. Will and Voegeli to the contrary, liberals in the Rooseveltian tradition have always favored public work programs like Roosevelt's Works Projects Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps and Johnson's Job Corps and Volunteers in Service to America as an alternative to welfare payments to poor people able to work. It is conservatives who have consistently opposed public work programs. When FDR's National Resources Planning Board in 1943 proposed using a permanent public works program as an alternative to cash relief after the war, conservatives in Congress killed the agency and buried the report. In 1984, when Congress, led by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, created the American Conservation Corps, modeled on the Depression-era CCC, President Ronald Reagan vetoed the bill."

Michael Lind in Salon refutes George Will, William Voegeli, and "Straussian falsehoods about American liberalism."

"Newly Discovered Recordings Reveal Beatles Actually Terrible Group"

"In reaction to the discovery, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys has shown dramatic signs of improved mental health."

From The Onion.

"I'm a Genius Too, You Know!"

Via YouTube, animator Peter Bagge presents The Murry Wilson Show.

Look, Listen, Vibrate...

"Smile, an album that became a pop music myth largely because it was never released, is finally finished. Its completion validates the album's complex history, and convincingly reaffirms Wilson's originality and musical genius."

Scott Staton evaluates Beach Boy Brian Wilson in The New York Review of Books.

Addition: The Los Angeles Times runs an obit for Eugene Landy, Wilson's one-time therapist who died on March 22, 2006.