Posted on 02/21/2024 1:25:00 PM PST by Duke C.
“He openly declared that acid messed up his mind. He said he was never the same after”
Yes, he certainly said that. The truth of the statement, on the other hand, is anyone’s guess. Whether it really was the acid or the high-grade hash or the amphetamines or, later, the cocaine... who really knows? He’s an enigma. He could tell you that he did acid in 1965 and destroyed his mind, and then you listen to tapes from him in the studio from 1966 or interviews from 1967 or 1968, and he’s completely cogent and articulate and certainly doesn’t sound like someone with a destroyed mind. And then someone will say, well, he cracked up in 1969 and went to a mental hospital and maybe did shock treatement for depression and was never the same again. Maybe. But then someone pulls out a radio interview from 1972 or something, and there he is again completely cogent and articulate and certainly not sounding like someone with a destroyed mind.
At what point did he really become severely impaired? It seems like it happened in the ‘80s, under Gene Landy. Landy got him off overeating and recreational drugs but he also pumped him so full of psychotropic meds that that’s when he started slurring his speech and acting confused. But who knows...
He was dosed up big time with prescription drugs also, by unethical doctors. They had him perpetually zombied in the 80’s, while taking advantage of him.
There’s kind of an interesting sidebar with that with regards to publishing rights or song royalties. How much credit do session musicians get towards making a top 10 hit? Oftentimes they came up with catchy fills and riffs and that sort of thing. But I think legally speaking they just get paid regular scale or union wage. Now it’s also true some performers recognize their contributions and are grateful enough to give them a percentage of their royalties.
I’ve read that he and Paul McCartney can visualize a song and play the musical instruments independently & put together a song.
There’s an online story about Wilson talking to Alice Cooper and asking him to introduce him to John Lennon, which Alice did. Lennon told Alice later he had met Brian dozens of times over the years.
I don’t believe LSD fits into the known causative pathways to dementia. It can, however, be connected to some of the schizoaffective symptoms: that is common.
Yeah, he was really messed up. BUT, the catalog, the branding, the band, they were still worth a lot of money. So they weren’t going to let him go anywhere. Just transparent as hell. The music biz can be pretty dirty, sometimes.
At one point he was a virtual recluse, he would be wearing a bathrobe if he was sighted in public. His daughter said he believed that Phil Spector produced “Be My Baby” was the best tune in history, containing the secrets to the universe.
He had it dubbed onto a continuous tape loop and would play it over and over till he went into a trance. Every day, over and over. (I bet his daughter just changes the station if it comes on the radio).
Yeah by the 80s he was being cutoff from everyone, and drugs. Sometimes he would sneak out and try and get drugs while hitchhiking and things like that. One time he ended up in a …. Questionable bar playing piano for drinks, things like that. Very sad what happened to him.
Looked at objectively, in the 1960s a type of chemical warfare was being waged on America. They all thought back then they were the vanguards of a new way of thinking, and knew better on how to run the world. Listen to the interviews from back then, the way the “young people” were framed in the press, it was the “Age of Aquarius” brought to you by Time-Life and Sandoz laboratories.
Yes, the early “researchers” (See Eye Yay) seemed to think it mimicked Schizophrenia in otherwise healthy adults fairly closely. They had little success on actual Schizophrenics, on whom it was said it had little effect.
In the earliest years, from the 1940s to early 1950s, the thinking was this was LSD was great stuff, so great that it should only be administered to the real movers and shakers in society. You know, the “Elite”. I guess they changed their mind, and by the late 1950s thru 1960s decided California was a good place for deployment.
“I was over at his house 6 months ago”
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Well they dosed him up with prescription meds to try and make him halfway coherent after taking all those unprescription drugs. Peter Green, of early Fleetwood Mac fame, attended a party with the rest of the band at some castle or something over in some You’re a Peein’ country and got dosed, and never really came down, if his band mates can be believed. It was all sort of sketchy, with rumors of this and that. There’s a couple of YT videos that delve into it.
Brian was a musical genius, no doubt. And I’d even concede that a little something now and then - whether alcohol, or weed or whatever, might help a player loosen up or get the creative juices flowing.
But like the commercial says “For A Limited Time Only”. These guys were very young and never had any money. All of a sudden they are getting $100,000 advance record contracts, a lot of money in those days, and now every day is a vacation. Permanent Vacation. They got so wacked out in the head, they just blew it, or very very erratic at best. I always laugh when a band or performer goes to re-hab and gets cleaned up. “We’re working on a new album. We think it’s some of our best stuff ever”.
You know it won’t be any good. I can only think of one exception off the top of my head - Aerosmith disintegrated at one point, and at the time I didn’t understand. While their new and improved comeback stuff in the 1990s wasn’t really my style it wasn’t too bad and I was really really happy to see them back in the limelight and making some money.
The Beach Boys’ first public performance seems to have been on Dec. 23, 1961 at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa, Newport Beach CA. They were an intermission act playing two songs, with Dick Dale & the Deltones (”Miserlou”) the headliner.
Good old Dick Dale. Have lots of his songs. Thanks for the additional info. 🙂 👍
Actually not. On August 17, 1960, the Beatles played their first live performance at the Indra Club in Hamburg’s red light district. I’m sure that was an interesting venue. But they were real close to the same time, but the Beatles were out there for a year. 😋 👍 I think they both started seeing their music careers blossom about the same time though.
Paul McCartney was born pretty close in age to Brian Wilson, June 18th, 1942, while John Lennon was born Oct. 8th, 1940.
Parallels what happened with XTC's Andy Partridge.
Here’s a link to a thorough review of the Beach Boys early concert dates and by extension lots of Dick Dale dates. This site says the 1st Beach Boys “public” date was 9/23/1961.
https://kimsloans.wordpress.com/beach-boys-venues-1961-1963/
My best friend’s family in those days was caretaker for Dick Dale’s big black Morgan horse. My friend & I would both take it out for rides in the local oil field, and on occasion around the nearby housing tract to get the attention of of the girls from our school.
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