People who are long term Beach zbs and Brian Wilson fans tend to focus on the artistic side of things Beach Boy, and forget that American Entertainment was a BUSINESS employing an entire family. These 3 brothers, their cousin, and Al were all sustained by a recording contract and personal appearances. Their father and mother published their songs. Brian was fairly avant garde in his commercial instincts, and also SOLD records. What I love about Jules Siegel's piece from 1968 is he recognizes this immediately. He talks about GENIUSES, people who are hip, avant garde, and who sell records.
Brian had an idea. He wanted to take the Beach Boys into fm album recording. He saw it coming, correctly intuited that albums would be the new sales vehicle for music in the late 60s, and did Pet Sounds. He came up with an idea to do an album on humor and music to God. He called it Dumb Angel. He conceived it in movements. He engaged Van Dyke Parks to help write lyrics. Van Dyke introduced the idea of a theme of moving across America from Plymouth Rock to Hawaii. The theme of Americana was born.
Brian was deeply concerned with his family and how they interacted. He saw the insanity first hand and recognized it as such. He also was impressed by how some families could function "normally" and be loving, and how some were like his...he saw how from generation to generation how things such as mental illness and chemical dependency get passed down. He wanted to change his family's manner of interacting...in his generation. He wanted his kids to grow up feeling loved unconditionally. This is one factor in how how Smile's Cycle of Life came into creation.
The Elements was more troublesome, and how to express that feeling of spiritual searching and spiritual thirst quenching was more difficult. There is a reason it was not done. In early December buildings burned down in Hollywood, and in Brian's amphetamine influenced mind, that meant he felt he was involved with primal spiritual forces he had no business pursuing. Scratch the Elements.
Van Dyke Parks helped Brian in writing lyrics and also recording Smile songs, but did not remember any session for The Elements except Mrs. O'Leary's Cow. That would make sense if Brian scratched the Elements. That Van Dyke would not necessarily know possible sequences is plausible. Brian as a producer often kept these options close to himself for fear of his ideas being copied. I don't think he mistrusted Van, but I don't think he trusted some others that Van knew.
The American Entertainment business meetings were not recorded. The votes are in the memories of those who were there. Several people have described the meetings of American Entertainment (AEI) to me as "brutal." Before he passed away a few years ago, I had the chance to interview Michael Vosse, who described the group's business meetings as "argumentative." Some other sources describe the meetings after Pet Sounds did not supposedly "sell" as "especially brutal." There was a struggle for the direction of the family business. Brian lost.
Brian then, as a family business member, tried to go on as best he could, feeling uncertain of his Smile decisions, partially unsupported, obsessively confused, exhausted, and isolated. Whether those feelings were what actually happened, they were his perceptions and his reality, and he acted on them. The Beach Boys did not realize the seriousness of his auditory cross-talk, his growing untreated mental illness, or his sensitivity to their "minor course corrections" that were instituted. In his mental state at the end of the Smile Sessions, Brian possibly saw other AEI Board Members as having staged a coup d'etat. Yet, conversely, in some major way, he was relieved to collaborate on producing records with Carl, and his instincts regarding Carl were right on the mark.
The group's trouble playing some of the more elaborate productions Brian did caused them to express the need to ask Brian to produce in a manner that allowed the live Beach Boys' touring group to sound more like the record they were playing live. To be fair to the touring group, there were several press articles that derisively criticized the touring Beach Boys as "Brian's puppets."
As time went on, Brian's condition both improved and worsened. As do many chemically dependent families, some of the Beach Boys thought by going along (smoking pot or hash with him) they could modify his behavior. Thousands of families do this every day. The result was more addled confusion, and a stoner's masterpiece Zen flavored album, Smiley Smile.
Brian, slowly was getting more and more chemically dependent and mentally off kilter, and, to some degree, he gave up trying to work producing The Beach Boys, because in his mind, the touring Beach Boys got more and more demanding, and controlling, which is usually characteristic of family members with chemically dependent relatives. In the substance abuse field, we call this behavior "co-dependence." When the AEI group members tried to control his output, while he tried to produce Redwood, Brian was angry. He was cut off financially, from using AEI money to produce acts outside the Beach Boys, and Brian in turn stopped producing Wild Honey, including several works in progress, like Can't Wait Too Long and Cool Cool Water. Carl stepped in and helped finish the album.
Probably to reduce family tension, Brian came back to try one more album with the group, Friends, (which is why it is titled that title), and actually did a few tracks, with Carl again finishing what Brian had leftvastated. undone. By this time Brian had less of an attention span. His ability to focus was impaired, and his ability to concentrate was reduced. After Friends was released, Brian's obsession with the song known as Old Man River frustrated the rest of the Beach Boys. Brian was devestated. He broke down emotionally, and was hospitalized due to the mental illness he was experiencing. The psychotropics began. He was misdiagnosed as being paranoic and schizophrenic when he was in fact schizo-affective and severely depressed and anxious. The Beach Boys had a tour with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi that was expensive to stage, and the Maharishi left the tour early on, and the Beach Boys were on the hook for tour expenses that dwindled because, right or wrong, the group was no longer considered "hip" by the rock music press and the fans who once had followed their every move.
From there, things went down the toilet, because Brian did not always stay on the meds he was prescribed, correctly perceiving they were not helping, and in fact were causing serious side effects due to misdiagnosis. Instead, he began to experiment with going out and scoring cocaine, which would let him feel normal for 30 minutes until that feeling went away. Brian got the reputation of not being able to finish anything musically. This is because when the cocaine wore off the horrible, crippling feelings of depression and the voices from his schizo-affective disorder returned. In my opinion, that's where Til I Die came from.
As is customary with symptoms of chemical dependence, Brian's use began to change from using small doses of stimulants to mood alter to larger and larger amounts of stimulants as his body habituated to them. His time in the "bedroom" was largely to isolate from his family, who were getting more and more worried about his health. He would conversely leave the Bellagio home to score stimulants and depressants, trying to self-medicate.
Four events seem to have hastened this rapid exacerbation of Brian's mental health and chemical dependence. First, Brian preferred to spend time with people who had the stimulants his chemical dependence demanded, leading to larger and more dangerous chemical ingestion, supplied by people who were also chemically dependent. Second, Brian appeared to have had very mixed feelings about his affiliation with AEI and The Beach Boys, hence in 1971 and 1972, he named his "group" as American Spring in a few interviews. He did not seem to want the pressure and burden of composing and occasionally producing The Beach Boys. Third, my friend Jasper Dailey, was at the ceremony where Brian was to sign with other group members the new extended recording contract between Brother Records and Reprise Records and witnessed Brian crying about having to be the subject of a clause in the Reprise contract requiring that he write and/or produce a certain percentage of each album in the Reprise contract.
Perhaps most telling, and the fourth and most conflicted reason was that Murry Wilson died suddenly of heart failure at his home in Whittier. Brian, like many first sons, had wanted to have the approval and respect that defines father/son relationships that are healthy and emotionally supportive. The suddenness of Murry's death caught Brian by surprise, and sent him into such deeper despair and grief that he would not emerge from until he was legally detached from Eugene Landy, and found a woman who fulfilled all of the needs Brian did not have after his first hospitalization in 1968.
This is not a criticism of any of the family members who loved Brian throughout his descent into serious mental illness and chemical dependence. Brian is a master at deflecting interactions with persons he perceives as demanding something from him he does not want to do. Second, the field of dually-diagnosed chemical dependence and serious mental illness was in it's infancy when Brian needed help. It would be the mid Eighties before any cogent form of dual diagnosis treatment would become accepted.
Brian's separation from Landy was essential to his survival. A number of Brian's friends and admirers facilitated his transition from Landy to an unconditionally supportive environment in which his music has been once again a gift from himself to the world-at-large. With a correct psychiatric dignosis and the right medications for that diagnosis, he has responded to the love in ways no one would have ever imagined. Since 1993, he has shared his music with the world, which is a development no one could have ever anticipated.
Copyright 2017 by Peter Reum -- All Rights Reserved
Brian had an idea. He wanted to take the Beach Boys into fm album recording. He saw it coming, correctly intuited that albums would be the new sales vehicle for music in the late 60s, and did Pet Sounds. He came up with an idea to do an album on humor and music to God. He called it Dumb Angel. He conceived it in movements. He engaged Van Dyke Parks to help write lyrics. Van Dyke introduced the idea of a theme of moving across America from Plymouth Rock to Hawaii. The theme of Americana was born.
Brian was deeply concerned with his family and how they interacted. He saw the insanity first hand and recognized it as such. He also was impressed by how some families could function "normally" and be loving, and how some were like his...he saw how from generation to generation how things such as mental illness and chemical dependency get passed down. He wanted to change his family's manner of interacting...in his generation. He wanted his kids to grow up feeling loved unconditionally. This is one factor in how how Smile's Cycle of Life came into creation.
The Elements was more troublesome, and how to express that feeling of spiritual searching and spiritual thirst quenching was more difficult. There is a reason it was not done. In early December buildings burned down in Hollywood, and in Brian's amphetamine influenced mind, that meant he felt he was involved with primal spiritual forces he had no business pursuing. Scratch the Elements.
Van Dyke Parks helped Brian in writing lyrics and also recording Smile songs, but did not remember any session for The Elements except Mrs. O'Leary's Cow. That would make sense if Brian scratched the Elements. That Van Dyke would not necessarily know possible sequences is plausible. Brian as a producer often kept these options close to himself for fear of his ideas being copied. I don't think he mistrusted Van, but I don't think he trusted some others that Van knew.
The American Entertainment business meetings were not recorded. The votes are in the memories of those who were there. Several people have described the meetings of American Entertainment (AEI) to me as "brutal." Before he passed away a few years ago, I had the chance to interview Michael Vosse, who described the group's business meetings as "argumentative." Some other sources describe the meetings after Pet Sounds did not supposedly "sell" as "especially brutal." There was a struggle for the direction of the family business. Brian lost.
Brian then, as a family business member, tried to go on as best he could, feeling uncertain of his Smile decisions, partially unsupported, obsessively confused, exhausted, and isolated. Whether those feelings were what actually happened, they were his perceptions and his reality, and he acted on them. The Beach Boys did not realize the seriousness of his auditory cross-talk, his growing untreated mental illness, or his sensitivity to their "minor course corrections" that were instituted. In his mental state at the end of the Smile Sessions, Brian possibly saw other AEI Board Members as having staged a coup d'etat. Yet, conversely, in some major way, he was relieved to collaborate on producing records with Carl, and his instincts regarding Carl were right on the mark.
The group's trouble playing some of the more elaborate productions Brian did caused them to express the need to ask Brian to produce in a manner that allowed the live Beach Boys' touring group to sound more like the record they were playing live. To be fair to the touring group, there were several press articles that derisively criticized the touring Beach Boys as "Brian's puppets."
As time went on, Brian's condition both improved and worsened. As do many chemically dependent families, some of the Beach Boys thought by going along (smoking pot or hash with him) they could modify his behavior. Thousands of families do this every day. The result was more addled confusion, and a stoner's masterpiece Zen flavored album, Smiley Smile.
Brian, slowly was getting more and more chemically dependent and mentally off kilter, and, to some degree, he gave up trying to work producing The Beach Boys, because in his mind, the touring Beach Boys got more and more demanding, and controlling, which is usually characteristic of family members with chemically dependent relatives. In the substance abuse field, we call this behavior "co-dependence." When the AEI group members tried to control his output, while he tried to produce Redwood, Brian was angry. He was cut off financially, from using AEI money to produce acts outside the Beach Boys, and Brian in turn stopped producing Wild Honey, including several works in progress, like Can't Wait Too Long and Cool Cool Water. Carl stepped in and helped finish the album.
Probably to reduce family tension, Brian came back to try one more album with the group, Friends, (which is why it is titled that title), and actually did a few tracks, with Carl again finishing what Brian had leftvastated. undone. By this time Brian had less of an attention span. His ability to focus was impaired, and his ability to concentrate was reduced. After Friends was released, Brian's obsession with the song known as Old Man River frustrated the rest of the Beach Boys. Brian was devestated. He broke down emotionally, and was hospitalized due to the mental illness he was experiencing. The psychotropics began. He was misdiagnosed as being paranoic and schizophrenic when he was in fact schizo-affective and severely depressed and anxious. The Beach Boys had a tour with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi that was expensive to stage, and the Maharishi left the tour early on, and the Beach Boys were on the hook for tour expenses that dwindled because, right or wrong, the group was no longer considered "hip" by the rock music press and the fans who once had followed their every move.
From there, things went down the toilet, because Brian did not always stay on the meds he was prescribed, correctly perceiving they were not helping, and in fact were causing serious side effects due to misdiagnosis. Instead, he began to experiment with going out and scoring cocaine, which would let him feel normal for 30 minutes until that feeling went away. Brian got the reputation of not being able to finish anything musically. This is because when the cocaine wore off the horrible, crippling feelings of depression and the voices from his schizo-affective disorder returned. In my opinion, that's where Til I Die came from.
As is customary with symptoms of chemical dependence, Brian's use began to change from using small doses of stimulants to mood alter to larger and larger amounts of stimulants as his body habituated to them. His time in the "bedroom" was largely to isolate from his family, who were getting more and more worried about his health. He would conversely leave the Bellagio home to score stimulants and depressants, trying to self-medicate.
Four events seem to have hastened this rapid exacerbation of Brian's mental health and chemical dependence. First, Brian preferred to spend time with people who had the stimulants his chemical dependence demanded, leading to larger and more dangerous chemical ingestion, supplied by people who were also chemically dependent. Second, Brian appeared to have had very mixed feelings about his affiliation with AEI and The Beach Boys, hence in 1971 and 1972, he named his "group" as American Spring in a few interviews. He did not seem to want the pressure and burden of composing and occasionally producing The Beach Boys. Third, my friend Jasper Dailey, was at the ceremony where Brian was to sign with other group members the new extended recording contract between Brother Records and Reprise Records and witnessed Brian crying about having to be the subject of a clause in the Reprise contract requiring that he write and/or produce a certain percentage of each album in the Reprise contract.
Perhaps most telling, and the fourth and most conflicted reason was that Murry Wilson died suddenly of heart failure at his home in Whittier. Brian, like many first sons, had wanted to have the approval and respect that defines father/son relationships that are healthy and emotionally supportive. The suddenness of Murry's death caught Brian by surprise, and sent him into such deeper despair and grief that he would not emerge from until he was legally detached from Eugene Landy, and found a woman who fulfilled all of the needs Brian did not have after his first hospitalization in 1968.
This is not a criticism of any of the family members who loved Brian throughout his descent into serious mental illness and chemical dependence. Brian is a master at deflecting interactions with persons he perceives as demanding something from him he does not want to do. Second, the field of dually-diagnosed chemical dependence and serious mental illness was in it's infancy when Brian needed help. It would be the mid Eighties before any cogent form of dual diagnosis treatment would become accepted.
Brian's separation from Landy was essential to his survival. A number of Brian's friends and admirers facilitated his transition from Landy to an unconditionally supportive environment in which his music has been once again a gift from himself to the world-at-large. With a correct psychiatric dignosis and the right medications for that diagnosis, he has responded to the love in ways no one would have ever imagined. Since 1993, he has shared his music with the world, which is a development no one could have ever anticipated.
Copyright 2017 by Peter Reum -- All Rights Reserved
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