by Lewis Shiner
“No, it was just an impulse kind of thing.”
“Okay, well, because Bones has the Turtles in there, and, you know, I guess I could…”
“I just wanted to listen to some stuff.”
“You could have Studio Four.”
Brian looked like he was about to have a temper tantrum. I couldn’t tell if he was kidding, or it really made him that mad not to have the studio he wanted any time he wanted it. Maybe Brian wasn’t sure if he was really mad himself.
The guy with the clipboard unlocked the vault, which was just an air-conditioned room lined with steel shelves. There were labels on the shelves with the names of record companies. Over the Capitol label was a big stack of Scotch quarter-inch tape boxes. Lettering ran vertically down the side of the box: a three-digit number, then a one-digit number, then BEACH BOYS, then sometimes an album title. Some were labeled SMILE and some DUMB ANGEL. Brian grabbed a handful of boxes and carried them into the control room of Studio 4.
I could see the studio itself through the glass: walnut paneling, a carpet stained from years of beer and Coca-Cola. A couple of people at most could squeeze in there for vocals or overdubs. There was a music stand, and a guitar baffle covered in ugly light-green fabric. There were quilted movers’ blankets on the floor and more of them thrown in the corner.
Brian put on a pair of black-framed reading glasses and threaded one of the tapes. It was “George Fell into His French Horn.” As the liner notes on one of my bootlegs say, it’s the answer to a trivia question: what Beach Boys song contains the lyric “stick your horn up your ass and shove it”? It also features laughing brass and session musicians talking through their mouthpieces, sounding like muffled Stan Freberg. It was definitely the single weirdest thing I’d heard from the Smile sessions.
As soon as it was finished Brian was going to ask what I thought. I remembered all the stories I’d heard about how he’d scrap entire songs when people weren’t enthusiastic enough. Why couldn’t he have played me “Wonderful” or “Surf’s Up”? Why did he have to play the one song that was genuinely crazy?
It went on for more than five minutes. Finally the tape ran out and Brian said, “Well?”
“I really like the part with the horns laughing. I mean, it does just what you said, it makes you smile.”
“And the rest of it?”
He didn’t seem to be freaking out. “I’m not sure exactly. It’s hard to see where it fits into the whole album.”
“That’s the thing, see.” He spun around in his chair. The glasses somehow made him look younger instead of older, like they were only for pretend. “I don’t know where it fits in. You know what Desputols are? They’re speed. I’ve been taking handfuls of them. I get all these great ideas, only they don’t really fit together. One day I think I’ve got it, the next day I’ve got a better idea. The ideas just come so fast.” He stopped spinning and his eyes went out of focus. “Sometimes the whole thing feels like it’s out of control.”
“Maybe you could split it up,” I said. “Like the horns are an audience for the rest of the album.”
“Oh wow,” Brian said, “That’s really cool.”
Sure it is, I thought, realizing I’d stolen the idea from Sgt. Pepper.
Brian said, “Let’s nip outside for a smoke.”
I recognized two of the guys in the hallway. They were Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, lead singers of the Turtles, who would later tour with Zappa, and on their own, as Flo and Eddie. Howard would end up as Graham’s silent partner in Carnival Dog Records. His hair was still black and he was fairly slim and clean-shaven. Mark’s hair was all over the place and he was heavy, though not like he would be in a few years. They were both in Hawaiian shirts and jeans. Howard shook his finger at Brian. “Naughty naughty, Mr. Wilson. I know that fiendish look in your eye. You’re headed for the alley with some of that mind-altering substance. You shouldn’t be doing that, you know. Not without us you shouldn’t.”
We slipped out to the alley and everybody got stoned. Mark talked about the mix down they’d just done for “Can I Get to Know You Better,” which they hoped to hell would be a hit. “Everything since ‘You Baby’ has stiffed. It’s desperate, man, we got to do something.”
Brian said, “I don’t care about hits anymore. I want to do albums.”
“Easy for you to say,” Mark said. “‘Good Vibrations’ is number two in the fucking country.”
“Number one come Friday,” Brian said. He looked at me and winked. “Wait and see. Right, Ray?”
“Anything you say, Brian.” It was true. I would have done anything for him at that moment, jumped off a cliff if he’d asked me to. It could have been the hash but I don’t think so.
We ended up at a party in Bel Air that Mark knew about. Lou Adler was there, and John and Michelle Phillips. I wandered into a paneled den where joints were going around. It felt like high school again, me out of place and a little desperate, too self-conscious to do anything but nod and smile to the beautiful blonde with the ironed hair ahead of me in the circle. At one point she took my left hand and flirtatiously pretended to look at my wedding ring. “Married,” she said. “Too bad.”
“Not really,” I said. I took the ring off and put it in my pocket. Elizabeth was somewhere else, in another reality, and it had been a long, long time. “I was just keeping it for somebody.”
She laughed and shook her head. “Nice try. Married guys will say anything to score. When it comes down to it, you always end up protecting your marriage.”
Jim Morrison would have known what to do. He would have swaggered and smoldered until he got his way, then he would have gone cold and pulled his leathers on and walked off into the night. Me, I said, “But I’m not married. Not really.”
“Right,” she said, and laughed and turned away.
The dope was weak, compared to what would be around in twenty years. I remember thinking it wasn’t doing anything to me, shortly before I passed out in one of the bedrooms under a pile of coats.
When I came to it was four in the morning. The house was dead quiet. It occurred to me that Brian could have gone home without me. No reason not to, he didn’t owe me anything. I wandered down a long shag-carpeted hall to the living room, with its plaid Early American furniture, its console TV with the nearly circular picture tube, its rows of empty beer cans and overflowing ashtrays. There was only a single lamp lit. I didn’t recognize the woman asleep on the couch, though she was pretty enough to have been an actress. Abandoned here like the other empties.
I went back down the hall. Three of the four bedrooms were occupied, one by a couple thrashing drunkenly under the covers. None of them had bothered to close the door. I didn’t see Brian.
I found my way outside. There was a moon, and a few stars had burned their way through the haze. The grass had gone white with tiny droplets of mist. Somewhere in the distance a big diesel rig sounded its air horn as it passed. I wondered what I was going to do. Go back into the bedroom with the coats, maybe, sleep it off. Walk or hitch to Brian’s in the morning and hope Marilyn would let me in.
I felt impossibly far from home. I wondered what was happening in 1989, if my body was still there, if the police were searching for me. I wondered what I would do if I never made it back. I wondered if I woke up the woman on the couch if she would let me hold her for a while, just until the sun came up. I started to shiver and I thought I might be close to coming apart.
There was a hand on my shoulder. I turned around and it was Brian. “Hey, Ray,” he said. His eyes shone. “I been trying to find you, man, where’d you go?”
I shrugged. Even though he was tripping like a bastard he’d still been looking for me. I was so glad to see him it made my throat tight and my eyes hurt.
“I been thinking about all the stuff you said to me,” Brian said. “About my father and the album and all. And it’s like…it’s all so clear. It all fits together so perfect. God is in the music, man, and God is the Father, you see? It’s
so fucking simple, so beautiful, man.”
“Anything you say, Brian. I think the car is over this way.”
He left his hand on my shoulder and we staggered off together.
At one the next afternoon I was wandering around Brian’s house, needing to borrow some clothes or at least get a ride into town to buy some. I was about to walk into the kitchen when I heard voices and held up.
The first one belonged to David Anderle. “…is this guy? I mean, what does he want?”
Brian said, “He wants me to finish the album. Same as everybody else does. Only he’s got good ideas and he doesn’t think I’m crazy.”
“That’s great,” Anderle said. “Some nut case walks in off the street and as long as he tells you what you want to hear, you trust him totally.”
“I’ve got a good feeling about him.”
“Shit, Brian.”
“Give me till Friday. Wait and see if ‘Good Vibrations’ goes number one.”
“Of course it’s going to go number one. It doesn’t take a psychic to figure that out. It’s a brilliant goddamn song.”
I knocked quietly on the doorframe. Anderle and Brian were sitting at the table with Marilyn and a guy I thought might be Jules Siegel, the music critic for the Saturday Evening Post who had come to interview Brian and become part of the entourage. Anderle turned, saw me, and looked away.
“Come on in,” Brian said. He had a can of Reddi Wip and every few seconds he would uneasily squirt a dab onto his tongue. I sat down at the kitchen table, not knowing what to do. Marilyn brought me a cup of coffee and I smiled at her with spaniel-like gratitude. I felt guilty because Anderle didn’t trust me, as if his opinion was more important than my own.
Anderle said, “I think you need to get the rest of the guys in tonight, listen to the tapes, talk about finishing them up. What do you think?”
Brian looked at me. I looked at the coffee cup. Brian said, “There’s still some stuff I want to…”
“There’s always going to be stuff you want to do.” He clearly didn’t like the way that sounded. “This isn’t anything final, just a kind of strategy session, a chance to get everybody rolling behind the album.”
“I don’t know…”
“Brian, you’ve got to do it sometime. Sooner or later they’ve got to hear what you’re up to.”
I wanted Brian to stop looking at me. “He’s right,” I said. “You can’t keep them away forever. You might as well get it over with.”
“Okay,” Brian said. “About eight? Here?”
“Okay.”
“I’ll stop by the studio and get the rough mixes.”
“I’ll do it. You’d never figure out what was what.”
“Brian…”
“I swear, I’ll do it.”
“Let’s go now, then. Both of us.”
Brian nodded. “Okay.”
I felt Anderle’s weariness. He’d been pushing Brian uphill much longer than me, had sat through every kind of craziness along the way, had rolled around on the floor of the studio grunting like an animal, had played his dinner plate with his silverware. He turned to me and said, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Sure.”
I followed him out to the front driveway.
“I don’t know what you’re up to,” he said, “or what you want from Brian. But if you hurt him, I…” He shrugged and looked like he wanted to cry. “He’s just a big kid, for God’s sake. He’s a genius, a sweet, generous, crazy genius and the world needs the music he’s got inside him. I can’t threaten you, I don’t do that kind of thing. All I can do is beg you, don’t fuck this up.”
“I don’t want to fuck it up. I want the record as much as you do. I know that’s hard for you to believe, but it’s true.”
“Will you tell me who you are?”
“My name is Ray Shackleford. I come from Austin, Texas. I fix stereos.”
Anderle walked away. He had both hands in the air, turning them, like he wanted to find something to hold on to. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “Jesus Christ.”
He got something out of the trunk of his car and came back up the sidewalk. It was a fancy shopping bag from the Broadway department store. “Brian said to bring you some clothes, said you were about my size. I hope they fit.”
“Thanks,” I said, stunned.
“Don’t mention it.” He started back toward his car. “Please. Don’t ever mention it. And if you see Brian, tell him to hurry up.”
I showered and put on clean clothes for the first time in days. I sat in my room and looked out at the city until Brian got back, and then we played pinball all afternoon. He wouldn’t talk about the album. I could see how nervous he was by how much he ate. At seven he sent Marilyn off in the Rolls to get hamburgers from Dolores’ Drive-In. Mike Love showed up at seven-thirty.
I had always pictured him as small because Brian was so much taller, but he was my height, over six feet. He and Brian hugged and it was obvious that whatever else was wrong between them, they were still family and Mike really cared about him. Marilyn came in with the food and we all ate at the kitchen table. Mike and Brian made stupid puns through the entire meal and ended up throwing French fries at each other.
Al Jardine and Carl showed up together just before eight, with Anderle right behind. Carl was baby-faced and heavy, only nineteen and a year out of high school. Bruce Johnston, who replaced Brian in the touring band, rang the doorbell at eight o’clock sharp, ever the professional. By eight-fifteen Van Dyke and Durry Parks were there and everybody decided not to wait for Dennis.
Brian herded us all into the dining room. There was a massive Spanish table there, big enough to seat twenty. He’d had headphone jacks installed into the edge of the table and there were headphones like place settings in front of ten of the chairs. Marilyn brought out beer and cokes and coffee.
Once we were settled Brian started the tape. First it was “Do Ya Dig Worms” with the chant, “Rock, rock, roll, Plymouth Rock roll over.” It went from that into the bicycle rider theme, then a weird kind of Hawaiian chant, punctuated with kettledrums. I started to feel like I did in the studio when I listened to “George Fell into His French Horn,” only worse. The album seemed totally crazy. There was no way it would work. I looked at Mike Love. His face was completely rigid, expressionless.
Brian put on “Cabinessence” which, at least, had a more obvious melody. Not that it mattered. I already knew what was about to happen. Mike took a ballpoint pen out of his shirt pocket and made notes on a napkin. By halfway through “Surf’s Up” he was shaking his head. Brian saw it and jumped up and shut off the tape.
We all took off our headphones.
“Mike?” Brian said. “Is something wrong?”
Mike took a second or two to get cranked up, then he let fly. “What is this shit? It’s crazy. Why can’t you write songs like you used to?”
Brian said, “Cars and girls and surfing.”
“What’s wrong with that? It’s what people want to hear. You don’t need other people to write lyrics for you that nobody can understand.” I saw Van Dyke flinch; Mike acted like he wasn’t there. “You’re going to blow it, Brian. Stick to the old stuff. Don’t fuck with the formula.”
“I like those lyrics,” Brian said. He said it with a hesitant defiance, like he expected Mike to jump over the table and hit him for it. I suddenly thought of Jim Morrison and police nightsticks, of me facing my father.
Mike looked down at his napkin. “‘Crow cries uncover the cornfield’? Those are the lyrics you like? What the hell is ‘crow cries uncover the cornfield’ supposed to mean?”
He looked up at Brian, who didn’t answer him, then back at the napkin. “How about this one? ‘Colonnaded ruins domino.’ You want to tell me what you love about that line?”
“Columnated,” Van Dyke said.
He finally looked at Van Dyke. “‘Columnated’? What the hell kind of word is ‘columnated’? Would you care to explain this song to me?”
“Just tell me what the hell the song is supposed to be about.”
“I don’t know what the songs are about. They’re about whatever you feel when you listen to them.” Over by the tape machine Brian nodded.
“What I feel is a headache. How am I supposed to sing lyrics nobody understands? This is gibberish, and it’s going to destroy the group.”
Van Dyke stood up. Durry looked at him with alarm. At that point Dennis strolled in with a lit joint in one hand and an open beer in the other. His hair was past his collar and his eyes were bloodshot. He wore a pink T-shirt, jeans, and no shoes. From what I’d read I’d expected him to be damaged goods, mindless and out of control. Instead he projected a kind of innocence and vulnerability. Which was maybe why women found him so hard to resist. “Hey everybody,” he said. “What’s happening?”
Van Dyke said, “I guess I’m just leaving.” He stood behind Durry’s chair while she got up. He looked at Brian and Brian wouldn’t meet his eyes. Van Dyke and Durry went out and I heard the front door slam.
Dennis looked confused. “Something wrong?” He nodded to Brian. “Hey, Bri. This the new record?”
Brian nodded. Dennis took a chair and said, “What are we waiting for? Let’s hear the goddamned thing.” He put the headphones on and Brian restarted the tape. Nobody else made a move for their headphones. We all just looked at each other. Dennis bobbed his head to the music, completely unselfconscious. Then he leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. After a minute or so I saw a tear run down his face.
The tape ran out and clattered around the end of the reel. Dennis took his headphones off and said, “It’s fucking brilliant, Bri. No shit.”
Mike looked at him with disgust, then turned on Brian again. “Have you played any of this garbage for Capitol?”
Anderle cleared his throat. “We’ve got that lawsuit with Capitol. They don’t get to hear anything until that’s settled.”