Was there any way for The Beach Boys to remain relevant past 1966?

Cafe Society
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[quote=“Exapno_Mapcase, post:59, topic:787523”]

I agree with the body of your post but I have to nitpick. Both were New York bands who moved to Los Angeles. They were never San Francisco bands, even if you include John Phillips’ involvement in the Monterey Folk Festival
Thanks for the heads up. I forgot that bands moved around, moved around a lot. Also, what they’re famous for is not always indicative of where they came from. Boston’s virtual signature song Charlie On The MTA was “replaced”, as it were, by Dirty Water, which came from not a local group but the L.A. garage band The Standells.

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its Jupe!!! (my actual surf name…) busy weekend.

  1. Fantastic show, I’ve only been to 2 shows in twenty years, the other Robert Plant at the SB BOWL…(like seeing Led Zeppelin…10+) I’ll report a bit more later on the Pet Sounds show.) They closed with Good Vibrations…:smiley:

2.LOTS of young people who knew all the lyrics!! And of course every boomer from 100 miles…

  1. The Beach Boys appear to still be in 2 camps, Mike Love and his tour, and Brian
    Wilson. Im not sure who got the rights to the “Beach Boys” but thats what alot of the legal fights were about.

For those interested, there is quite a bit of info out there right now, as both Wilson and Love are publishing memoirs. I have Wilsons book, (accidentlaly received) and its kinda rambling. Almost like a verbal interview.
Loves book gets some interesting reviews, a bit of an axe grinder perhaps, but also trying to fix things abit with Brian. Might read that.

  1. I’d never heard of the Smile album, or anything surrounding it. Kinda weird story with that whole business too.

  2. I forgot about Feel Flows…what a great psychedelic surf song!!

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Interesting. Feel Flows is Carl’s song. Great to keep it alive. I think it was used in the credits of Almost Famous.

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[quote=“john_b_2, post:62, topic:787523”]

The Spoonful were Greenwich Village to their toenails. (John B: It was Monterey Pop, not folk.)

The SF sound was different from LA. It was kind of an insurgency of folk/psych and it was well known even before any records came out.

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[quote=“Section_Maker_Jupe, post:63, topic:787523”]

its Jupe!!! (my actual surf name…) busy weekend.
My bad - apologies. Can’t wait for the full report.

This thread has gotten various songs from Pet Sounds stuck in my head all weekend. Apparently, I’ve been humming and whistling snippets, so yesterday, in an apparent attempt to hear the songs on key for a change, SuperWife put the album on in the kitchen while we cooked and got ready for company. It’s really deserving of a dedicated listen if you haven’t played it all the way through.

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Heres Feel Flows from the SB show. c+ quality…Blondie Chapin singing.

You Tube is mess of pay streaming sites nowadays...

Lots of full concerts from 2017 though for anyone interested. The backup band Brian is using was fantastic. (studio guys can probably play any rock song from any band anytime they want!!) They really did a good job the “orchestral” aspects of some of the songs. Including a Theramin for Good Vibrations!!!

yeah Super Nelson, Ive got songs running through my head at work that wont leave.

Im not a big Beach Boys fan either, some songs yes…others? blechhhh… their sound is just something that has been present in least my life as a beach rat…its kinda like sand…:D:D

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and the last song of the night… Good Vibrations

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Great clip! I’m sure you already know this, but that’s Al Jardine’s son Matt in the black shirt behind Blondie.

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Yes, he was great!!..heres a recent clean studio set with Matt handling the lead. (a bit of Al and Brian discussing the song frist)

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They didn’t meet John Stamos soon enough.

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John Sebastian played harp (harmonica, not that angelic instrument) behind Fred Neil–folkie hipness at the corner of Bleecker & MacDougal. The scene that gave us the Holy Modal Rounders–who had a song on the* Easy Rider* soundtrack & helped start the Village Fugs. All of which I discovered through buying weird records & reading Hit Parader. The first rock & roll show I ever saw was the Beach Boys–with Glen Campbell taking Brian’s place. We actually went because opening bands were the Spoonful (my fave at the time) & Chad & Jeremy (my sister’s).

Once I aged out of teenybopper stuff, it was all about the 13th Floor Elevators. (Tommy James? Feh.) Apparently they taught some of the SF bands the importance of rocking, hard, on their visit to the city by the Bay. Then they returned to Texas & crashed & burned. Taking LSD every day & for every show (which they’d been doing before heading West) was not a way to ensure a long career. Their music remains influential.

The Beach Boys early stuff remains classic–and I obviously need to revisit their mixed later works. Jimi Hendrix said “you’ll never hear surf music again” but Dick Dale is still touring.

I like reading rock journalism but “relevance” is not that important to me. Is there really only one musical story of progress ascending to some ultimate hipness or is reality a shaggier thing? Last night I went to the Accordion Kings & Queens show–free at Hermann Park. Opening, The Moravians (warning, clicking the link will play Czech polka!). Followed by Cheryl Cormier & Cajuns Sounds and Step Rideau & the Zydeco Outlaws. Santiago Jimenez Jr played some traditional conjunto. Then Joe Nick Patoski introduced his brother Flaco playing with the Texas Tornados. Including Augie Meyer & Shawn Sahm, son of the late Doug. Soon Joe Nick will have the funding to cover musical rights & allow general release of Sir Doug & the Genuine Texas Cosmic Groove.

All of this is relevant* to me. * (Right now, Roger Waters is featured on Sunday Morning. Damn!)

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My first concert was the Beach Boys in 1967, backed by the Shondells and the Buckinghams. Your post made me wonder who was taking Brian’s place so I did some research and found that Bruce Johnston had been doing so since April 1965.

But that meant you couldn’t have seen him because the Spoonful and Chad & Jeremy toured as backups in 1966. Memories are tricky stuff. Something named Jim & Jean are credited for the concert I saw but I would have swore that no other backup groups appeared.

This site has a complete day by day, recording session by recording session, concert by concert listing of the Beach Boys. It’s incredible how many groups they used as backups. You could do a historiography of American (white) rock just from groups that played with them. Well, I found Stevie Wonder, Percy Sledge and the Marvelettes but they were at huge festival-type lineups.

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I think they tried in their middle period to switch from surf and girls to water and environment.

But in that era you needed top 10 singles to be heard and there was a long dry spell for that between “Good Vibrations” and “Kokomo”.

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But the cite says that Glen subbed for Bruce too on occasion.

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It says that on the 1965 page. I don’t find any mention of Campbell’s name on the 1966 and 1967 pages.

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Did you see them at the Hollywood Palladium in 4/73? That seems to be the only opportunity to see Brian playing stuff from Holland.

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I was at Ohio University (not Ohio State) and they were backed with Argent and the Incredible String Band. That’s not listed on the site. Think what you like but the odds of the site missing a concert is higher than the odds that I would hallucinate seeing the Incredible String Band. Who were quite good.

From a history of Ohio University

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OK, but by the same reasoning the site might not be completely accurate about Glen Campbell’s participation either. It looks like he was the first call for them when they needed a hand.

I wouldn’t question the concert, or the opener. But the site says that Brian never appeared at all outside CA for many many years.

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Yep, lots of things are possible and lots of information gets lost.