'Til I Die

Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys, The Beach and Me

Brian Wilson, who was the principal songwriter of The Beach Boys, didn't actually surf even though he was from the South Bay. Well, Hawthorne, California to be more specific, which is a hop skip and a jump away from Manhattan Beach. I too am from the South Bay, and I don’t surf either. For me, the beach is less about the thrill of the wave, although I wouldn't be against surfing, it’s more about how inspiring, soothing and spiritual the ocean can be. I think, like me, Brian didn’t need to catch waves to understand how magical the Pacific Ocean is and he conveyed that not just with his lyrics, but with his music which, like the ocean, is refreshing, light and beautiful, but also deep, dense and occasionally emotionally overwhelming. I think that wonder and awe of the ocean and that shared Southern California air he was breathing in that he conveyed on record is how I really got to not just listen to, but to feel Brian’s music. 

I've known who The Beach Boys were my entire life. In the '80s and early 90s, they were in their legacy era, by playing state fairs and doing cameos on sitcoms like Full House. (Aside: It took many years to discover “Forever” by Jesse & The Rippers was actually a song Dennis Wilson wrote with Brian for The Beach Boys) Their music was very ubiquitous it seemed to exemplify the “Southern California” sound for everyone that followed, including the easy breezy 70’s song writer era with The Eagles, and later their punk rock neighbors, Descendents. It was as if their music was the blood that flowed through the freeway veins of Los Angeles for decades. (I would argue Brian’s successor to the mantle of the So Cal sound is Dr. Dre. Since The Chronic, the sound of So Cal hasn’t been the same, but I digress.) When I was a kid, K-Earth Oldies Radio would play “I Get Around” and “California Girls” all of the time, so up until I was a late teen, I knew their music as just that; Fun, but kinda fuddy-duddy songs about girls at the beach. I should have known better. 

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It wasn’t until I was working at Tower Records in Torrance, when I really HEARD The Beach Boys for the first time. I was starting to dive deep into Pet Sounds, as any young budding musician with a curious ear does, and my co-worker friend Rob made me a cassette of Smile. This wasn’t their late 60’s thrown together Smiley Smile, this was the often circulated bootleg of the classic lost album that Brian never got to finish, and one that made him “lose it.” It blew my mind. I couldn’t comprehend how this music was even thought of, let alone performed. The songs swung wildly from genre to genre, with lyrics about Miss O’Leary’s Cow and eating vegetables and of course the patented complex harmony arrangements to tie it all together made it the most chaotic, but cohesive record I’d heard up to that point in my life. It was playful, strange, sweet and I was obsessed. It changed what I thought making music could be, because at the time my bands were trying to find fun ways to build our musical palates and The Beatles could only take us so far. 

(Me at Tower Records with my Brian Wilson hair, circa 2002?)

My band E>K>U>K would incorporate many harmonies very reminiscent of the Beach Boys in our loud, raucous rock music and when we would play in clubs, especially on tour, we would have the sound person pump Our Prayer before we went on. My other band at the time, Vaudeville, would dive more into the strange instrumentation and vibes from Brian’s arrangements, even writing a song called Jungle Beach that's inspired by both Pet Sounds and The Jungle Book. Needless to say, those formative years of exploration were soundtracked by A LOT of The Beach Boys and I think they still live in a crevice of my creative brain forever. Even as I listen to my drumming now, it's clear that Hal Blaine, who played on those Beach Boys records, made an impact on me in many ways, which of course also makes sense because he played drums on all of the great Phil Spector Girl Group records. 

(Around the time Vaudeville were writing Jungle Beach, with more Brian Wilson hair)

Back to Smile. Around the time I became obsessed with the Smile bootleg, it turned out that Brian and his current touring band featuring members of L.A. ’s The Wondermints were going to re-record Smile in its intended form. At the time, all of the aspects and pieces from Smile spread out amongst four or five different Beach Boys records, including “Smiley Smile”, “Friends”, “20/20” and “Surf's Up”, so to have all the songs re-recorded in one place with the intended track listing seemed like a dream come true. What was more of a dream come true though, is that they performed the full thing for the first time live in Los Angeles at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and I got to go. Literally in the last row, but dead center, I sat through the whole show at the edge of my chair, soaking it all in like the sponge I was and it was the first concert I had been to where I had wept. It was an incredibly emotional and dare I say, spiritual experience. I know that sounds hyperbolic, but my friends who were there could attest that I was a mess. Whatever musical journey Brian Wilson was trying to share with us, I was all in and I felt that I got it on a level that I hadn’t before. He said Smile was supposed to be a “Teenage Symphony to God” and whatever god is or isn't, he wasn’t wrong. For a romantic, earnest, semi serious suburban boy from The South Bay, Smile and of course Pet Sounds didn’t just speak to me, they SCREAMED at me. 

Over the years, I dove pretty far into their catalog and I still get chills listening to some of his songs because that aforementioned dichotomy of density and beauty in his music allows for the listener to hear something new with every re-visit. I have a drawing of The Beach Boys above my desk and as I type this, I am listening to them and it’s like a warm, comforting blanket. With what is happening in the world, and specifically, our beloved city of Los Angeles, his music gives me a brief respite from the chaos. 

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Beyond devouring the music, I read both of Brian’s autobiographies, the first one, which is hard to find, but also fascinating, when he was under the spell of Dr Landy and the second which came out recently and feels a bit more rote. I've seen the documentaries and I've seen him live a ton of times. When I got to know Andy Paley, who worked with and wrote songs with Brian in the 1990’s, he had so many amazing stories about Brian, specifically one, in which Brian met Bono of U2. (I won't do it service by sharing it here, because the story is better with Andy’s Brian impression.)

I guess this is all to say that Brian Wilson has loomed large in my life and will continue to. I always thought that if I had a kid, it would be Pet Sounds that I would want to play all the time in the house. I would say that Ray Davies and Pete Townshend might be my two favorite songwriters, but there's a bit of British cynicism that sometimes doesn't work for me, so there's something about the earnestness and authenticity that I relate to with Brian Wilson that makes him unmatched. 

(Brian and Andy)

When I am sad or need to be brought down to earth, or need a place to take a truly deep breath, there are two things I like to do: Go to the beach and listen to The Beach Boys and sometimes both at the same time. I would like to think that Brian saw the beach as a place of solace, grandeur and inspiration and as an over-thinker, would go to the beach to cry and think and be in the moment. His music does that for me so I can’t see how he could have thought of it any other way. 

Knowing Brian isn’t here anymore leaves a gaping hole in not just musical history, but Los Angeles history. If it wasn’t so late and I wasn’t so tired, I’d drive to the beach right now and blast “Summer Days (And Summer Nights)” like my Dad said he would do when he was a teenager. Rest In Peace, Brian.

Thanks for reading.

For my paid subscribers, I’ll be making my own Beach Boys/Brian Wilson Greatest Hits playlist and sharing that in a later post. If you wanna get in on it, please consider being a paid subscriber, eh?