Friday, June 27, 2025

Domenic Priore: One-On-One

An Uncommon Conversation: Phil Miglioratti and Domenic Priore


* Look! ~ Listen! ~ Vibrate! ~ SMiLE! *

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* Brian WIlson*  Curt Boettcher * David Leaf * Byron Preiss * Julies SIegel * Paul WIlliams * Andy Paley * Mark Linett *Mike Love * Al Jardine*

*Crawdaddy * Hit Parader * Luau *

 

 

DOMINIC>>> Hello Domenic, this is Phil (I go by my middle name but nice to see our names together!) . . . 

 

PHIL>>>  Brian Wilson's passing is still fresh in our minds ... What did his passing mean to you personally? To the music world?


 

DOMENIC >>>

As Brian Wilson said at the press conference when Dennis had passed away... "I Don't Want to Talk About It."  Really, I was silent.  I wanted to observe what other people were saying around the world, in the press, on TV etc., people's general reactions.  



Domenic Priore alongside an actual "Malibu Sunset."

I would say now he is remembered as the guy who did "Pet Sounds" and "Smile" and many other Beach Boys hits, rather than the other way around or, as it would have been in earlier years, "Smile" wouldn't even have been mentioned, and in many cases not "Pet Sounds" either.  The larger public dialog about who Brian Wilson was has changed into that, and I think that is the best thing possible, to be appreciated for the wider breadth of your music rather than just as hitmakers.  This carried a lot of emotion for very many people, for all the right reasons.

 

PHIL>>>You were a huge factor in fueling my relentless search for SMiLE that began in late 1966 and early 1967. After you released the seminal “Look! Liste!, Vibrate! Smile!” in the late 80’s I reached out to you by (snail) mail and you connected me to a bootleg tape of the songs. (Thank you; saved my life!)

Of course, I have several questions about that now legendarily book...


      *What prompted you to begin collecting articles, clippings, photos, anything! that related to or referred to SMiLE? >>> 

DOMENIC>>>
It's funny that you mentioned sending a tape, of course, I did not charge you anything for it, that's for sure.  I was not one of "those."  Some of the material may have appeared on bootlegs, but my source was none other than Curt Boettcher.  That's why I had a lot of this stuff early.  He had been previously sharing them with Lindsey Buckingham the whole time Fleetwood Mac was about to make "Tusk" back in the late '70s.  

The other early tape that leaked was given by The Beach Boys to author Byron Preiss (late '70s) for "The Beach Boys: The Authorized Biography of America's Greatest Rock and Roll Band!"  That had "Do You Like Worms" on it, the most complete version of it that Brian had done in 1966.  

These tape leaks made it easy for the (very few, in those days) collectors to share them.  I'd met Curt in the early '80s, when I was working with a used record dealer in Hollywood named Christopher Peake, who used to sell records at The Ash Grove.  Then I also played that early compilation that I'd sent to you of "Smile" on KFOG in San Francisco in 1989.  Then later (1996) I played it on WFMU in New York.  I may have done it on KXLU in L.A. earlier than those.  So the idea was to get the concept of the music out there, Brian's original concept with Van Dyke Parks doing the lyrics.  They did something that had meaning and I wanted to know what the meaning of it all was.  


Then I found "Goodbye, Surfing, Hello God" from Cheetah (by Jules Siegel) and Paul Williams' story in Crawdaddy, where he interviewed David Anderle about "Smile."  I coupled those in a loose-leaf binder, and started the whole binder out with a Teen Set article I'd had around here for years called "Smile: Brian, and Pull Those Strings."  I'd had that since I first started collecting The Beach Boys in the late '70s, and I think I got it from Paula Perrin of Beach Boys Freaks United, which I was a member of.  The Trading Post of that was where I found a lot of the original albums and the people who sold them to you, wind up being your friend, too.  That was a great experience.  

Because I'd been into The Beach Boys anyway since 1962.  I still have my sisters' "Surfin' Safari" and "Ten Little Indians" 45s, and then she also had the "Surfin' U.S.A." and "Surfer Girl" albums, plus Dick Dale, The Lively Ones and all of that.  Stuff that later wound up on the "Pulp Fiction" soundtrack.  Always been into Surf music, anyway, being a kid from L.A. during the early '60s.



      *Did you have any communication with Brian or other Beach Boys during/after the collecting/writing process? After publication >>> 

DOMENIC>>>
There was a bit of contact with Brian Wilson, through Andy Paley, for "Look! Listen! Vibrate! SMILE!" during 1987 and 1988.  Brian would talk about things at songwriting sessions with Andy, and it wound up on tape.  I'd then ask Andy to ask Brian something and I'd hear Brian talking about it to Andy, not me, but I got the relay information that way.  But it was all in the game at the time because this was also the first time the "Smile" tapes were to be exhumed since 1972.  

Mark Linett, who was engineering the 1988 "Brian Wilson" album also wanted more information.  I knew what questions to ask, is all, and then we all shared the information, that is Mark, Andy and I, and whoever was on Brian's team, should they need it.  Mark did come up with a compilation tape around that time, a rough sketch, you could say, and it was under the name Brian Wilson, not The Beach Boys (a Landy thing).  

This is why I was invited to a "Rio Grande" session in 1988, because they wanted help in figuring out what is now known as "Heroes and Villains Part 1," where that fit in.  In the end, the 45 rpm of "Heroes and Villains Part 1" and "Heroes and Villains Part 2" inside Capitol Records box set "The Smile Sessions" became that, through that, and my also getting confirmation about this from the original engineer Chuck Britz.  I told Capitol Records "This is the follow-up to 'Good Vibrations,' nothing less."  Coming to that session in 1988, lead to that happening.  

Plus, I had the original 45 sleeve, the Capitol U.S.A. ones that were shipped to Sweden.  We used that, too. Going back to 1988, one of the best examples of Brian's "participation" in "Look! Listen! Vibrate! SMILE!," if you read my "review" of "Rio Grande" on one of the last pages of of the book, that is really Andy transcribing Brian's meaning behind the song... and all of its sections.  It's Brian, through Andy, to me and to print.  

So when it came to the "Smile" research process, not only did we have TONS of interviews with Brian from 1966 and 1967 where he talks about what he was trying to do with "Smile," there was also the studio chatter that helped immensely.  You could tell what Brian's intentions were for "Smile," for most of the songs.  He talked about them in 1966 and 1967.  Now, if there was anything I needed to know, I could just have Andy ask Brian for me, in that brief moment of time. 

Later on, after the book had been out for a while, I was asked to do a story for L.A. Weekly on the "Orange Crate Art" album by Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson.  I also did a sidebar for Tower Records' "Pulse!" magazine; the "Weekly" piece wound up in Kingsley Abbott's "Back to the Beach: A Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys Reader."  

Because of the L.A. Weekly commission, I came down to L.A. from San Francisco (where I was living at the time) to interview Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson in their respective homes.  I cut the interview with Brian short after 20 minutes of an intended 30... because I really wasn't getting anything good out of him... real softballs.  So I went to the other room where Melinda was, and told her, sorry, I'm done, I'm just not getting anything good out of him, and I have enough softballs to fill the curve of the story.  

Melinda went to Brian and asked him to go with me into his office, and there we could continue in a more private setting.  He became lucid and forward with answering questions at that point, but he just didn't want that kind of stuff to go on tape.  So I had to turn off the tape deck when I asked him things about "Wind Chimes" being part of the "Air" in the Elements suite... things like that... that it had been described by Brian previously as a "lovely piano instrumental, we never finished that."  

Those kind of things, I could ask Brian, but not for publication, it seems.  Things I wanted clarified about the sequence of "Smile."  Of course, we never knew until 2004 that "Surf's Up" actually went in the middle of the album, not the end, so there were still things Brian knew that we didn't, even if we did figure out most of the sequence pretty much correctly.  For the most part, that's how you hear it on The Beach Boys "Smile Sessions" box set.


      *Please describe your process, explain how you were able to access so many sources in the pre-internet era, get permissions for publication… 

DOMENIC>>> 
Most of that had to do with Greg Shaw, who ran Bomp Records, and at the time Voxx Records, where a lot of my favorite bands from that time recorded.  Anyway, Greg had put me in touch with Andy Paley, but he also had this incredible magazine archive, including all the issues of England's top Pop newspaper The New Musical Express from 1963 all the way to 1977.  

What was best in those, came by way of the paper's L.A. correspondent, London Mod girl Tracy Thomas.  She was reporting Pop news back to London every week, and Brian Wilson was the hottest thing going in England circa late 1966.  So the depth of Greg's archive revealed all of this kind of thing, the minutiae, that clarified most of the mysteries surrounding "Smile."  He had all the Crawdaddy issues, all the Hit Parader magazines, any issue of Life or Look or Saturday Evening Post that had something about Rock 'n' Roll or the influence of Psychedelia on the Pop World during the '60s.  Anything Teen, Go Go, those magazines were in Greg's archive.  I did a thorough search for the years 1965, 1966, 1967 and tried to find anything on "Pet Sounds" or "Smile" that I could, and then I'd do a photo copy print or a scan of the photos.  

Later on I repeated this process for David Leaf's documentary "Beautiful Dreamer," original "Smile"-era news print was seen from Greg Shaw's collection in that film.  

Peter Reum, who at that time had the greatest Beach Boys private collection ever known, invited me to come do research with his materials in Colorado.  From there, I came back with copies of things Capitol Records was throwing away... like the mock-up of the "Smile" front and back cover (the back cover photo I scanned from Peter, is now also on the officially-released Capitol "Smile," ironically).  Peter had other inside stuff like the hand-written list of "Smile" songs to be put on the back of the LP cover.  Billy Miller and Miriam Linna from Kicks magazine and Norton Records in New York were also a big help, supplying their local "Go" magazine material and other rare things. 


Anyway, I took all those photocopies and just did a sequential collage, if you will, of the stories, with all those Brian Wilson interviews from 1966, which are there for you to read.  Again it was sharing the information so that people would wake up and "Smile" would get done.  

That's also why "Look! Listen! Vibrate! SMILE!" resonated with the Alt Rock crowd of the '90s, it was the full inspection from then, not me telling anyone, just providing connective text to the sequence of print media imagery.  You could feel the real '60s in that book,  a true "Time Tunnel" effect. 
 

 

 

PHIL>>>  David Leaf called out your name recently as you were in the audience during his UCLA SMiLE interview with several of Brian’s band members. It seems any discussion of SMiLE at some point identifies the important role of your book. Did that respect happen immediately? Over decades? How does that "status" feel for you as the author/curator? 
 
DOMENIC>>>
Well, I had honestly always hoped to work on a "Smile Sessions" box set.  You can see it on a 1988 episode of "Art Fein's Poker Party" with myself, David Leaf and Paul Williams of Crawdaddy magazine.  Paul had the first-hand experience of smoking his first marijuana cigarette inside the Meditation Tent at Brian's house in December of 1966... the same one the group took pictures in with Banana, Brian's dog.  

Paul said it best that, "if you just took what Brian had cut by December of 1966 and released THAT, it would have been better than most of the stuff coming out at the time, and MAJOR stuff was coming out, like 'Revolver, The Jimi Hendrix Experience... stuff with sauce."  Paul got it right (pretty much), and "Heroes," "Vegetables" and the water stuff hadn't even been cut yet. 

I think I started to feel that something was happening immediately because I published this myself.  I sold out of 2,000 copies in four months.  It took six months to sell out another 2,000.  Eventually I printed 7,000 by myself and then Last Gasp of San Francisco picked it up... by the time we decided to put it out of print, we'd sold 40,000 copies.  By that time I was living in San Francisco so I was able to monitor the sales and publicity of the book in their office once a week.  

But even in the first four months, like, I got a letter from the manager of the band XTC who ordered a copy for every member of the band; at the same time I'm getting a letter from London from the guy in Gaye Bykers on Acid, asking for the book.  People in all kinds of walks of life, and from all over the world, but a great deal of people younger than myself.  At the time, Peter Reum, one of the primary archivists that I called on for the book, had told me the max you could count on to sell to Beach Boys fans would be about 2,000 copies.  That's why I printed 2,000 copies.  

But obviously this went beyond the hardcore Beach Boys fan base, and that was kind of the point of the book too, to show that Brian Wilson had the same cache as a Syd Barrett, The Velvet Underground or some other such romantic/psychedelic cult hero.  It was also an important point to show this to The Beatle fans, who at the time ... most didn't have the same kind of respect for The Beach Boys as I'm sure they do now.   These were all  psychogeographics I put in there ahead of time, in hope of... well, more demand for "Smile" to actually happen.

 

 


PHIL>>>  The story of Brian’s unfinished/unreleased masterpiece unfolded from 1966 until 2004 when Brian and the band performed and then recorded the songs. From your perspective, is the real story of the music and the true history of what happened (and did not happen) correctly understood by most fans and critics or is there still myth or legend causing misperceptions?

 

DOMENIC>>>

It swings many ways, actually.  I personally think that "what would have happened" question isn't very interesting.  I don't think there is any doubt that "Good Vibrations" set a tone that "Heroes & Villains" could have followed very easily in the version finished on the first few days of March 1967.  Yes, the b-side had not been spliced together, but the parts were there.  Imagine if there is no lawsuit brought against Capitol in those very same early March days, and the single comes out as planned in March?  


People will be talking about it, that is for sure.  He goes in to the studio in April and does "Vegetables" as an independent.  That could have been edited and released shortly after "Heroes."  So their 45s were ready.  The album was almost completely recorded by June 7, 1967 (one section of the Water suite was finished in October '67).  


So really, it was a lot closer to being finished than has been advertised. There is no question that a 1967 LP with "Good Vibrations," "Heroes and Villains," "Vegetables," "Surf's Up," "Cabinessence" and "The Elements" on it gets ignored.  So all the hoo hah about that is just tiresome.

 

 

 

PHIL>>> If you were assembling a must-read list for fans who want to deep-dive into SMiLE, what books or resources, which authors would you recommend? 

 

DOMENIC>>>
Well, the two books from the '70s that set the stage for "Smile" were Byron Preiss' aforementioned official band biography and David Leaf's "The Beach Boys and The California Myth."  

I think one has to really search out an original Byron Preiss book, it is the last place for a while where the band talks openly and in good spirits about "Smile," the evidence in that the band provided him with a tape of out-takes, and he got to use the Frank Holmes drawings and lots of stuff from the Smile booklet and LP cover as well.  

The artworks for the other songs are amazing, and they are not in his later edition, get the one with the white cover, TOSS the one with the brown cover.  It's not the same experience.  "Look! Listen! Vibrate! SMILE!" has most of the original '60s articles but I think the one that got lost was Michael Vosse's interview for "Fusion" magazine in 1969... that's essential reading.  I didn't find that one in time for the book.  

Outside of that, the book I've enjoyed most is "Becoming The Beach Boys 1961-1963 by James B. Murphy.  I just got finished reading David Leaf's "Smile: The Rise, Fall and Resurrection of Brian Wilson" and it is best at showing how Brian revived the music with The Wondermints guys and the Brian Wilson Band.  


The Guy Webster photo used for the Monterey Pop Festival program in 1967... in black 'n' white... which then became the cover image for "Smile: The Story of Brian Wilson's Lost Masterpiece" by Domenic Priore (forewords by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks).

Then there is my own "Smile: The Story of Brian Wilson's Lost Masterpiece" which has forewords by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks, and was done immediately after I'd seen the first two "Smile" concerts at Royal Festival Hall.  David's book covers the revival while "Lost Masterpiece" covers the making of the music during the '60s, with the revival at the end... so both of these nicely bookend each other, there isn't a lot of repetition between the two books. 

 

 

 

PHIL>>> There seems to be no doubt that even though The Beach Boys cooperated by contributing their unreproducible harmony and vocalizations, some band members were fearful of releasing these paradigm-shifting songs and sounds. Yet, they supported, even badgered Brian for, the inclusion of those very songs on subsequent albums: Smiley Smile, 20/20, Surf’s Up. Have we misinterpreted their uncertainty or the discomfort they expressed during the recording process? This seems like a contradiction ... 
 
DOMENIC>>>
You know, they had the "Smile" versions when they released "Smiley Smile."  They just did the cooled out versions instead.  "Wild Honey" was an attempt to get the playing band back together.  "Friends" was Brian saying "I'm bringing in studio musicians" one last time.  Then they have to go to the well to get "Cabinessence" and "Our Prayer" for "20/20" and by that time, the band could tell that not doing "Smile" had hurt them.  Carl and Dennis, mostly, lobbied for these songs to be finished and released.  And then "Cool, Cool Water" after that for the next album, which was added upon compared to how it sounded within "The Elements."  

Actually the 2004 concert set list for "Smile" cuts more than half of the "Water" part of "The Elements" out of the mix, and that full version is why we can say that "Cool, Cool Water" is a "Smile"-era composition.  

These and especially "Surf's Up" were put out to make up for what the band lost, by not releasing "Smile."  And the "Surf's Up" LP did finally get the band's new music on the F.M. underground radio stations that had become the rage and ultimately, the defining voice of "Rock" in the '70s after the original Rock 'n' Roll era of the '50s and '60s had vanished.  The band got airplay on F.M. for "Surf's Up," "Carl & the Passions" and "Holland" but that went away with "15 Big Ones" and the move toward nostalgia and ultimately, Adult Contemporary blandness.

 

 

 

PHIL>>>  How does SMiLE fit in The Beach Boys catalogue? Aberration? Missed opportunity? Power-struggled to its demise? Their G.O.A.T.?

 


DOMENIC>>> 
The Greatest Album of All Time in Their Catalog, which is saying something.  Missed Opportunity, for sure.  I'd sure like to hear it with a complete "Water" part, though.  Definitely my favorite versions are still the '60s "Smile" recordings, before re-mixing to match the 2004 concert.

 

 

 

PHIL>>>  The Beach Boys catalogue is deep but also wide. It utilizes many different genres and employs a variety of styles and themes. This has resulted in differing fan bases that isolate car songs, Brian's pet sounds, early 70's "FM," endless summer hits, the Love-Melcher era, and many others. What is your "career-spanning" description/analysis of their music?  

 


DOMENIC>>>

I don't care much about The Beach Boys recordings after "Adult/Child" was left in the can.  I'm not a much a fan of "15 Big Ones" but outside of that, all of their albums have great stuff on them up to "Adult/Child."  After that, you have to be an apologist, really.  Of course, "Pacific Ocean Blue," "Brian Wilson" and "Orange Crate Art" stand out, as does The Honeys' "It's Like Heaven" when you really think about it.  "A Post Card from California" (by Al) is good.  "Bamboo."

 

 

 

PHIL>>>  Give us a perspective on the present state of The Beach Boys. Brian has just passed. Mike and Bruce continue to tour. Al has scheduled a tour with Brian's band. Mike was recently inducted in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. 

 

DOMENIC>>>  I'm only really interested in what previously unreleased songs from 1960-1964 that we can find, like "Wich Stand" and things like that, "Malibu Sunset" should be out.  I haven't gone to see The Beach Boys in concert since the '80s, except for the reunion tour.  I saw Al play at The Roxy maybe 10 or so years back with Ed Carter... that was a really great show, and his solo album "A Post Card from California" is of the same quality that Dennis put into his work, and that Brian put into his in 1988.  I saw Al recently at Tiki Oasis, and they opened with "Luau" which was perfect.  Some of Brian's band folk were in Al's band so it sounded good.

 

 

 

Keith Moon was in a band prior to The Who; this is The Beachcombers, and example of how early Surf music from L.A. had an influence in England (another is the use of "Wipe Out" during the intro to the TV show "Ready, Steady, Go!").  Keith carried this energy with him into The Who.  There is something to be said about the primordial sound of the early Beach Boys records, and how they resonated with The Ramones and many other groups in the wake of the first Punk Rock explosion.


PHIL>>>  Look into the future. How will future generations view The Beach Boys story? Their music? The Brian vs. Mike versions? Their rivalry with The Beatles.

 

DOMENIC>>>
I don't think the rivalry with The Beatles will be as important, it isn't already, in fact, to people who pick up on Brian Wilson and what that's really about.  The Mike version doesn't stand a chance, I mean, come on.  Future generations, like the younger ones decade after decade, are more often going to find out about "Pet Sounds" and "Smile" because it is so much easier now.  

I think their early Rock 'n' Roll catalog will come to be appreciated more, as it does fit in with all that Ramones/Keith Moon kind of energy that a lot of the current fan base seems to miss.  Brian's more studio years will be the largest draw in time, but the surprise for a lot of people will be how great the earliest records were, the very thing that made them the most popular band in the U.S. during 1963.  I think there's a lot to say about that vitality, as well as "Pet Sounds" and "Smile."  Let's see how it all shakes out.

 

 




PHIL>>> Take us on a tour of "The Dumb Angel Gazette" (and why that name?)

DOMENIC>>>
Well, in 1987 when I did the first issue, I thought it was hilarious that The Four Seasons tried to do a psychedelic album in the wake of The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (called "Imitation Life Gazette") but then again, like, The Beach Boys and The Four Seasons in 1963 were quasi-"rivals" for lack of a better word.  

"Dumb Angel" being ... a psychedelic album by The Beach Boys... heck, in 1987 no one would even think such a thing existed, as it would have been with The Four Seasons.  In fact, their producer Bob Crewe did the amazing psychedelic soundtrack for "Barbarella" so maybe I'm missing something (or, maybe I'm not).

The "Dumb Angel Gazette" title is about being facetious, or, I really liked the book title "The Theater of the Absurd" by Martin Esslin (and yes, I have read the book).  Early Rock 'n' Roll was not devoid of... a brilliant sense of humor.  

This word, facetious, back when I was a kid growing up, we had that kind of humor, but we called it "bullshitting."  And Brian used to bullshit... a lot.  Facetiousness and Absurdity were a big part of presenting Brian Wilson in a context not only far different to what Mike Love was doing during the '80s (polishing up the band with Adult Contemporary sounds for the horrible Reagan era), but also far different to anything mainstream at all.  I wasn't "rooting for the band to have a hit."  


A sample of what you can expect to see when you go to The Dumb Angel Gazette website.


The whole point, unconsciously, was eventually what would be called Alternative or Indie, and that's what I was already way into by the second half of the '80s.  To me, that was the only option, because I wasn't going to be programmed to by "the man."  In 1976, I went to see two of the earliest Punk Rock bands in L.A., and by 1977 I was seeing all those groups who were forming and became more well known from the movie "Decline of Western Civilization" (which, it so happens, I wrote the booklet notes for Penelope Spheeris' box set of all three films a few years ago) and Brendan Mullen's book "We Got The Neutron Bomb."

I went to see The Jam in '78 and The Clash in '79, along with many other Punk groups from all over, as well as Bob Marley & the Wailers, Peter Tosh, Burning Spear... that kind of thing was to the Punk era what Soul had been to the '60s and what Jump Blues/R&B Vocal Groups were to the '50s.  At the time I fully re-discovered The Beach Boys, I hated the kind of crap Classic Rock radio was shoving down the throats of teenagers... HATED it... and in those days, I was an actual teenager, rejecting what they were spoon-feeding everyone else.  I didn't want to hear Ted Nugent, Kiss, Foreigner, Styx, Boston or any of their waffle-iron Corporate Rock shite, it was almost like a full-time job rejecting the popular music of the second half of the '70s and the '80s, and instead get very involved with the Punk Rock underground, and what grew out of it (which would include Lounge, Swing, Rockabilly, Mod, '60s Garage, Tiki, Burlesque and Surf Instrumental later on).  

These were the reasons "Look! Listen! Vibrate! SMILE!" resonated with the Gen X audience of the '90s, who were basically Punk Rockers with a wider range of appreciation than just music to Pogo by.  The Dumb Angel Gazette website is there now for people to really discover the history behind what made L.A. music tick during the '50s and '60s (a lot of which is covered by my follow-up to LLVS, "Riot on Sunset Strip: Rock 'n' Roll's Last Stand in Hollywood.") 


This poster for Bruce Brown's second film "Surf Crazy" shows that an early appearance by The Beach Boys accompanied this particular screening of the film... a great example of Surf culture during the early '60s.  By 1965 Bruce Brown would release "The Endless Summer" movie, which in turn was an influence on D.A. Pennebaker when he filmed "Monterey Pop."  

There are promotional films that cover the history of Surf Music, Exotica, The Beach Boys (best work) and also Phil Spector, Jack Nitzsche and that whole Wall of Sound thing that was a tremendous influence on Brian Wilson, of course.  

In a way, it is as much about the culture in which this type of music came from, so for example, a complete look at what Huntington Beach was like during the '60s, I mean back then is really when it was "Surf City," so to speak, though Jan & Dean's promotional film for that song was actually shot at Malibu.  The culture in which The Beach Boys came from during the '50s and '60s, and the music that surrounded them, and
inspired them, to me is more important
than following a lame version of the brand name.

* * * * * * * * * *

Tom Nolan's story from The Los Angeles Times WEST magazine, late 1966,

 (reprinted in LLVS in B&W)  



Tom Nolan's "The Frenzied Frontier of Rock" from The Los Angeles Times' WEST, during 1966-1972 a brilliant Sunday magazine supplement headed up by Ferus Gallery people.  This article is from November 27, 1966.  Tom Nolan later wrote a definitive story on The Beach Boys for Rolling Stone in 1971, "The Beach Boys: A California Saga" that can be found on the DVD-Rom "Rolling Stone: 40 Years of Rolling Stone Magazine on 3 Searchable DVD-Roms" or in the sheet music book from 1973 "The Beach Boys Complete."  Both stories were early catalysts for the eventual re-discovery of "Smile."

* * * * * * * * * *


PHIL>>> One more comment you want to make ...

 

DOMENIC>>>
"Ding Witty Pearl Hang Ten... I didn't know that language."  - Van Dyke Parks


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3 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:24 PM

    Thanks, That was VERY enjoyable!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tom Smucker7:33 AM

    Brilliant stuff as usual. Thanks to all invovled

    ReplyDelete
  3. ‘Music Commentary: Analyzing the Greatness of Brian Wilson’s ‘God Only Knows’”

    https://artsfuse.org/313378/music-commentary-analyzing-the-greatness-of-brian-wilsons-god-only-knows/

    ReplyDelete