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when u like a character for their potential to be interesting and complex more than how they’re actually written

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It's niche shit like this, that I always will give Tumblr its due

Kudos!

more melodramatic concorde picmixs,,,,

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my favorite part of beach boys lore is that the beatles are the villains

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There's peak on the menu!!!!!

the beach boys if they were written by vivziepop

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The Emergence of the 1960s Counter-Culture, Part 1: The Beach Boys

If you ask me, The Beach Boys are the quintessential mid-century America band. The image was aggressively upbeat and wholesome, and the music was still innovative, technically impressive, and unique. And of course, all of it belied immense suffering of behalf of the members of the band.

(little note: it is fucking IMPOSSIBLE to write a succinct summary of the story of The Beach Boys so there is an absolute fuckload I am going to have to leave out)

World War II brought manufacturing jobs to beachy states like Florida, Hawaii, and California (all perfect for launching war ships from), and things like land drainage, water re-direction, hurricane and earthquake-proofing, mosquito control, AIR CONDITIONING, and improvements in air travel meant that more people were accessing the beach than ever before. If you couldn't get to the beach, swimming pools were becoming a regular sight in the ever-expanding suburbs.

Wholesome beach party movies became an entire sub-genre in movies, (often starring the likes of Elvis, Frankie Avalon, or Anette Funicello). They cashed in on a new teen trend, and were able to add the titillation of girls in bikinis and shirtless hunks on surfboards without causing a moral backlash.

The band was made up of brothers Brian, Carl, and Dennis Wilson, along with cousin Mike Love and family friend Al Jardine. What started out as family harmonizing and playing around with guitars turned into finding a record deal. Naturally, they wrote about what they thought would sell: surfing.

In lesser hands, The Beach Boys may have been a novelty act of a very specific moment in time. With Brian Wilson's brilliance for song writing, and Mike Love's eye for commercial success, they managed to be an incredibly dynamic act, to turn out unique hit after hit, and not fade away.

Famously, Dennis was the only member of the band who actually surfed. The rest were indoors-y types who were more focused on making music. However, they were able to match the aesthetic by wearing what surfers wore: board shirts made by Pendleton Woolen Mills. In fact, the band's name was originally The Pendletones, but their label changed it to The Beach Boys.

Other times, they wore clean, tidy suits and neatly-combed hair. Respectable young gentlemen for an era of wholesome entertainment. Watching them perform, it strikes me nobody in the band really sticks out very much on his own; they operate together as a whole, where everyone knows their part and plays that part perfectly.

Now, if I were going to get into the whole story of The Beach Boys, we'd be here all day, so instead I'm going to just focus on Dennis.

The middle brother between Bryan and Carl, Dennis was the sex symbol of the group, eliciting the most screams whenever the camera cut to him on Ed Sullivan. Dennis had always been somewhat overshadowed by his brothers. He always kind of stayed in the background and just did as he was told until 1965 when he started writing his own songs. And they were good songs! This disrupted Brian's place as the musical genius of the family, and caused a ton of jealousy and conflict within the band. In the end, Dennis still ended up playing second fiddle to his older brother, with his music being overlooked and under-sold.

As much as The Beach Boys had defined the culture of the early 60s, they were struggling to keep up as the 60s pressed on. Their career was one of hits and misses. The unique, innovative, and emotionally dark Pet Sounds garnered immense critical praise, but failed to see commercially. They managed to bounce back with the psychedelics-tinged single "Good Vibrations" becoming their best-selling single ever.

In 1966, Brian Wilson undertook making Smile, which he called "a teenage symphony to God," which was his most ambitious project yet, and would be come a fucking trainwreck of epic proportions.. In 1967, they released a much scaled-back version of the album, Smiley Smile, which was roundly criticized as their worst album.

The struggle to adapt to the late 60s reflected in how they dressed. Rather than perfectly neat and tidy, the band members now sported longer hair and looser clothes in bright colors that stopped short of going full hippie. It shows a band struggling to have it both ways: to be hip to the times and creatively uninhibited, while at the same time keeping their wholesome and cheerful vibe.

It was in 1968 that Dennis picked up two female hitch-hikers by the name of Ella Jo Bailey and Patricia Krenwinkle. Dennis mentioned his time with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (who I am going to place at about a 3 on the 1-10 scale of 20th century religious grifters, and man, there is a LOT I could write about him), and the girls mentioned they had their own guru, a guy named Charlie. Dennis brought them back to his place, and they invited their friends.

Patricia "Katie" Krenwinkle and Ella Jo "Yeller" Bailey

Charlie brought his guitar and played a few songs. Dennis liked them well enough that he introduced Charlie to Terry Milcher, the Hollywood nepo baby music producer who often acted as the arbiter between the moneyed but terribly square executives of the record companies and the penniless but incredibly cool hippie musicians in LA.

The extent of that story is for another post.

In the meantime, the Manson Family over ran Dennis's house, keeping him happy with sex, drugs, and all the attention and affection an overlooked middle child could need. They ended up stealing his gold records and wrecking his Mercedes. In the end, they drained him of over $100,000.

In his memoir, Mike Love writes, "Dennis was the perfect mark – a famous, well-connected entertainer who could help a musical neophyte get discovered. Dennis lived in a luxurious house, on three acres, with a swimming pool and plenty of guest rooms. Guileless about others, indifferent about his own possessions, Dennis was all too happy to allow Manson and his girls to move in, use his charge cards, take his clothes, eat his food, even drive his Mercedes."

Eventually, he kicked them out. The house was so wrecked that Dennis just moved to another, smaller home. If the story ended here, The Family would be just a sad, small blip in Dennis's story. But they weren't.

The Beach Boys used one of Charlie's songs as a b-side on one of their singles, with Dennis credited as the writer. According to Dennis, Charlie had handed off the publishing rights in exchange for some cash and a motorcycle.

It was published with a an arrangement different from Charlie's, and with some changes to the lyrics, which Charlie, who imagined himself something of a poet, had forbidden. This enraged Charlie. Allegedly, he sent Dennis a single bullet with a threatening message. But they seemed to be out of Dennis's life, at least until August 9, 1969.

When the trials were underway, Dennis was interviewed by lead prosecutor Vince Bugliosi, but his testimony was deemed inessential. He was one of the first in the series of dominoes that would lead to the Tate-Labianca murders, and he had no way of knowing what his brief association would lead to.

It would be narratively convenient to say that the Manson murders were the thing that set off the decline that eventually lead to his death in 1984, but it would be factually incorrect.

The Beach Boys continued to turn out music, to diminishing returns, but still remained an extremely popular band.

In 1970, he played a starring role in the movie Two Lane Blacktop, an existential road movie about drag racers making a cross-country road trip. It's kind of a blatant rip-off of Easy Rider, but it got generally positive reviews, and has gained status as a cult classic in the decades following.

In 1974, The Beach Boys released a greatest hits album called Endless Summer, which was a massive hit, but a double-edged sword. People were only interested in their old music. They had a robust touring career, but it was on the nostalgia circuit.

In 1977, he released a solo album, Pacific Ocean Blue, a collection of all the songs The Beach Boys had rejected, and a huge fuck it to the music industry. Dennis just wanted to make his music, for once. The result was distinctly different than The Beach Boys. While the themes of beach life were still woven through, the songs weren't the cheerful lyrics of Mike Love or the elaborate compositions of Brian Wilson. It was minimalistic, contemplative, and tinged with deep melancholy. Today, people call it a masterpiece.

Through all of this, his personal life was a mess.

In 1971, a hand injury stopped him from drumming. "I walked into the house, threw off my wife's clothes, ripped off mine. It was cold, and I went to slam the door, only we'd just moved and I'd forgotten that the door was made of glass, and I put my hand right through it," he explained. Once an energetic and aggressive performer, he was forced to stand there awkwardly on stage. This further strained his relationship with the rest of the band, quitting then joining and quitting and joining, over and over again.

In 1976, he began living full-time on a boat called the Harmony. It is from here, upon divorcing wife, Karen Lamm, in 1980, that he threw all of her belongings into the water off Marina Del Rey.

In 1978, Dennis was arrested for sharing drugs and alcohol with a 16-year-old girl in his hotel room.

In his life, he was married five times. His final wife, Shawn Marie Harris, was the illegitimate daughter of Mike Love. When they met, he was thirty-six, and she was sixteen. It was a fight with Harris that sent him to the detox center center at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica. After two days, he checked himself out, got into a fight, got kicked out of another hospital, and then ended up staying with a friend on a yacht called the Emerald.

As he drank and reminisced with his friend, he suddenly remembered the things he had thrown into the marina, and began diving in to retrieve them. Eventually, he stopped coming up. He had died at the age of 39. The Beach Boys paused their shows for a month, but then kept touring.

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Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys

gm_petsounds

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I had always loved the Beach Boys music, but I had only really started diving deeper into their discography and their story over the past few years. I knew he wasn't going to be around forever, still when I first heard the news about his passing, I felt at pit at the bottom of my stomach.

The Beach Boys have become such a huge part of me. When I listened to Pet Sounds all the way through for the first time, it changed my life. Brian Wilson's brilliance as a writer and composer is undeniable, he was years ahead of his time. There will never be another mind like his. Though he is no longer physically with us anymore, his music and his memory will live on forever. With the amount he suffered throughout his life, I sincerely hope he was able to find peace in the end...

Thank you for the music, Brian. Rest in peace, you've absolutely earned it...

💛💚💛💚💛💚💛

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The Beach Boys - In My Room [Acappella Version]

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just heard that BRIAN WILSON has left this timeline and dang it hits hard. there are so many thoughts trotting through my mind, but id like to take a moment to talk about my personal connection to this and what brian wilsons music meant to me, so bear with me buckaroos.

back when i married sweet barbara i was lucky enough to gain a family member who we will call TOM. tom was a spirit with a trot unlike anyone i have ever known. he was born into a body that they said would likely not live past his youth, but he kept on TROTTIN into old age.

eventually however, tom fell. he was declared to be in a vegetative state with little hope of waking. it was devastating for sweet barbara and for me. visiting him in the hospital taught me a lot of things, and it has always stuck with me that you can learn from someone AFTER they have left too 

anyway, toms favorite band was THE BEACH BOYS so what i did a few times is id go to the hospital with two pairs of headphones and put them on him and me and listen to those sweet harmonies for a while. i tried to stay away from the sad songs but theyd slip in. id cry.

i knew it didnt really matter because he was gone, this was just his body, but i did it anyway and SOMETHING about that made me feel guilty, like i was REALLY doing this for me. HOW DARE I? eventually he was taken off life support and i still think about those trips whenever i hear the beach boys

eventually i started to understand something about not just dying, but living. grief is a process and journey for someone else AND for us, and also, ITS OKAY TO JUST BE THERE. we are always trotting out rituals, and the fact they are just rituals does not take away from them.

there is a theme in BURY YOUR GAYS about art not really belonging to anyone, how it weaves through time. upcoming book FABULOUS BODIES is even MORE about the events im discussing. BOTH these books are a tether from brian wilson recording sloop john b, to tom in the hospital, to me, and then to you

so we are left with this chain of CREATION AND LOVE that we will never know. brian wilson had no idea sitting at that piano how far every note would resonate through time, BUT THEY DO RESONATE AND THEY CARRY LOVE SO SO FAR. my point in all of this is to say never forget how far YOUR notes resonate

we are creating every moment as solo performers, AND as a choir. so i want to say a profound and sincere THANK YOU for all the moments that you have made, and to brian wilson specifically for ‘god only knows.’ me and tom had a blast listening to it for one last spin. enjoy the next timeline brian

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♫ R.I.P. Brian Wilson ♫

Yesterday brought the sad, but not unexpected news of the death of Beach Boys co-founder, Brian Wilson. According to People magazine … Together with his brothers Dennis and Carl, his cousin Love and friend Jardine, Brian formed the Beach Boys, serving as a songwriter, vocalist, bassist and keyboardist for the group. Their first single, “Surfin,” was recorded in 1961 and earned the group a…

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was listening to pet sounds by the beach boys today in uni and a girl asked me why i was listening to "animal sounds"

she truly thought i was listening to a cow mooing or some shit