Customer Reviews

Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am a big fan of the music of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. I had listened to Peter Carlin discuss the book with Bob Edwards on XMPR radio and thought it sounded really interesting (particularly his discussion of his meetings with The Wondermints and the creation of the Smile CD two years ago) despite the fact that so much has already been written about Brian.

On the pro side, I thought this was a very well-written book that carries the reader along quickly and enjoyably. Carlin has taken a clear-headed approach and avoids getting mired in the grotesque stories of Murray Wilson's alleged abuse (though he doesn't stray from discussions of Murray either). Further, although I suspect Mike Love might disagree, I think he gives the reader a fair amount of insight in to the frustrations that the other members of the band may have experienced in dealing with Brian after he stopped touring (and especially from Pet Sounds on) and how that impacted their relationships.

However, on the con side: I think the book really doesn't spend nearly enough time detailing the "Fall, and Redemption" of Brian. Though he mentions some incidents on airplanes in the early/mid 1960s, the bizarre behavior in the decades thereafter, and some of the behavior of "Dr." Landy, I don't feel like it was detailed enough for me to get much insight into what caused the breakdowns and fall (and what the fall really entailed) and whether the redemption was truly a redemption (his descriptions of a waxy Brian performing make me question whether he has returned to health).

Further, although I appreciate Carlin's skeptical eye regarding past Beach Boys biographies, interviews and other writings, I feel like the book is somewhat too reliant on them and that there are too few new revelations in the reporting.

I recognize that it is difficult to encapsulate an approximately 45 year career and 60 year life into 300 pages, but I feel like the net result was less meaty than I had hoped.

This is a beautifully written book about a highly gifted artist. When I had to put "Catch A Wave" down to get some work done, I'd put on whatever Beach Boy song I had been reading about while I worked, including "Pet Sounds Sessions." I also felt complelled to listened to my old Three Dog Night Album not knowing why until I read page 130. Along with the insight into Brian's life, this book stirred up a lot of memories, creative juices and deep intuition. Thank you Peter Ames Carlin for a great read on my favorite musician and for the energy of Catch A Wave.

Brian Wilson remains one of the most gifted and innovative American writers and producers. He paid the price. David Leaf's masterwork The Beach Boys and The California Myth (1977) gave us a glimpse of the tortured artist. Wilson's own autobiography Wouldn't it Be Nice (My own story-1991)was tainted with Eugene Landy's own summarizations. Tim Whites 1996 Biopic The Nearest Farthest Away Place was also fresh and revealing.
The Book does not offer any new material to ponder, but a rather the repaved thoroughfare of the Brian Wilson looking glass. Everything is researched thoroughly and correctly, but bares nothing that a bonofide Brain Wilson fan wouldn't have already known.
I think there is plenty of existing literature available now or otherwise. Brian Wilson Biopics are always a good reads, however one tends to wanna quench his or her need to search each subsequent bookwork for saucier detailing on Wilson's personal traumas in lieu of his personal triumphs.

If you are reading this review, you have probably already read Tim White, Brian, Priore, Paul Williams, Tobler, Granata, and anything else you can get your hands on about our hero, Brian Wilson, and are wondering if anything new could help you get inside his life and times. Well, don't hesitate, buy this book. Not only do you get new details on the final redemption story climaxing in Smile, Carlin's interviews with scores of participants fill in lots of white space in the old familiar tales. More importantly he provides a unique perspective on the music and all of the major turning points in the Beach Boys' career, allowing you to understand why Brian has triumphed, while Mike and AL are bitter old farts who think they got screwed. The new standard in Beach Boys history.

Beach Boys fans read this excellent book at their peril. There are a very few good vibrations in the story of Brian Wilson and his group, but there's no shortage of extremely bad vibrations. By the end of the book you may feel you're heartily sick of each and every drug-addled, money-obsessed, talentless washed-out Beach Boy with the exception of Brian himself. These days they're a living, breathing embarrassment. They sue each other perpetually, and Al Jardine and Mike Love now tour America with rival bands claiming to be the Beach Boys.
Pity rich pop star Brian Wilson. First he was bullied and humiliated by his father, the repulsive Murray Wilson. Later he was bullied and harrassed by Mike Love. Years after that he was taken prisoner by a deranged psychiatrist who bullied him 24 hours a day. What all these people wanted was - more hit songs! More! Another million seller! Now!
The exhilaration of making hit record after hit record quickly became a relentless treadmill. Brian was the sole creative force in the group. By the age of 22 he was composer, lead singer, bass player, arranger and producer. After two years of that he had his first breakdown and quit touring. The wave crested in 1965 when everything was working out - they'd fired Murray as manager, Brian stayed home and wrote more hits and the group toured. But then he began to change. Within three years there was "Pet Sounds", the still astonishing single "Good Vibrations", and then the disaster of "Smile", Brian's increasing psychological problems, and by 1968 the Beach Boys were pulling crowds of 200, hopelessly out of fashion. The 1960s was a very fast decade.
During the next 20 years (!) Brian was not a functioning human being. His colossal intake of drugs and food was in inverse proportion to his tiny output of songs. The whole sorry saga makes for gruesome reading. "As Carnie remembers, her father began most of his days with a dozen eggs and an entire loaf of bread" and for dinner "he'd eat his entire steak in two bites". From the late 60s to the mid-80s the other Beach Boys were perpetually dancing around trying to get Brian to lay more golden eggs for them. They tried anything they could think of, including tough love (pretending to fire him from the group). They ended up hiring a 24-hour-a-day showbiz psychiatrist to rescue him, Dr Eugene Landy. And before you could say "medical ethics" Brian had started writing songs again but they were credited to "Wilson/Landy". So the Beach Boys sued the psychiatrist.
The grim story does have a kind of happy ending though - after trudging through this (always well-written and readable) catalogue of unhappiness we arrive at the year 2001 when Brian, now married to Melinda Ledbetter (who sounds like one of the few really nice people in the whole book), finally - 34 years later! - finishes "Smile" and even performs it live on stage to universal acclaim. As you finish the book you think "Enough - I don't ever want to read another word about these horrible people or about poor tormented Brian - I just want to listen to their beautiful music". And in some ways I'm sorry I did read this book. It's strange to admire the Beach Boys' great mass of brilliant music so much but to dislike them all as human beings, except Brian of course. You don't dislike him, but you do pity him. I don't believe the author intended to perform hatchet jobs on all these people, he just let the awful facts speak for themselves. And now I'm hoping the remaining Beach Boys won't sue me for this review.

This is a terrific book--well-researched, well-written, and in my opinion the best book on the subject since David Leaf's The Beach Boys and the California Myth. Both the 1978 and 1985 editions of Leaf's book are long out of print (dammit); however, Leaf gives Carlin a generous assessment, as do I. Carlin's use of personal anecdotes is judicious and satisfying, and I found virtually no factual errors.

Carlin provides plenty of new material to satisfy those of us who already own (ahem) every book on the subject of Brian Wilson. If you're just starting to read about the BBs, Brian Wilson, or the Wilson-free Group Currently d/b/a the Beach Boys, this is a good place to start.

Having read many earlier Beach Boys biographies, I was looking for something new or different in this book. First off, the book is very well written and is not just a rehashing of earlier books. The period with the most new coverage is the 1970s and 1980s. Most books on the subject give detailed coverage of the 1960s and scrimp on the subsequent periods. This book covers the 1960s very well and then adds much more.

The author seems to have more insight into the effects of serious mental illness on Brian Wilson than do most authors.

I would highly recommended this book to anyone who seeks a more serious, informed, and sympathetic look at the Beach Boys and their leader Brian Wilson.

Even though the Beach Boys were a decade or so before my time, I was turned onto their music at a young age by my uncle so I grew up listening to any of the Beach Boys' albums I could get my hands on. I've since expanded my musical interests of course, but I still listen to the occasional Beach Boys tune and get a little nostalgic. When I saw that this biography of Brian Wilson had been released, I picked it up fairly quickly and started reading.

The book gives a good look into the life of Brian Wilson and how he often turned his inner turmoil and struggles into hit songs. As a fan, I definitely enjoyed this book and would recommend it to any other fans out there.

I only have two minor complaints. First, the book jumps back and forth chronologically, which wouldn't be nearly as much of a problem for me if the author had given a better indication of dates to indicate when certain events happened. A statement would be made that "this happened on December 13", but the year would not be given. Second, the author gives several excellent descriptions of songs written by Brian Wilson and explains how they expressed Wilson's emotions at the time. These descriptions included not just the lyrics, but the melody and chord changes and vocals. Some of the songs are well known enough that readers might be able to hear the songs in their minds as the author talks about them, but other songs are much more obscure so that only the most hard-core of fans would remember them. It would have been really nice to have an accompaniment CD available with all the songs that are discussed in detail. It would have added more to the cost of the book, but I would have appreciated the option of being able to purchase it with or without a CD. I'm thinking of going back downloading the songs that I don't have and re-reading the descriptions of them so I can have a better appreciation of what the author is talking about.

These gripes aside, the book is still well-written and an interesting read.

Like most of the other reviewers, I am a Brian Wilson/Beach Boys junkie. If you fit this drescription, you will relish this detailed, well written biography. How Brian Wilson manages to even sit on the stage is amazing, much less making a credible performance for a 65 year old man whose body and brain have been ravaged. Mike Love would surely be selling used cars in LA if if were not for Brian.

When will anyone start to realize that true creative genius only has a three year life span whether it is Dylan, McCartney, Lennon ot whoever. The public, the artist and their hanger ons never learn.

I am headed out to see the mini Pet Sounds tour next month and I will now appreciate Brian's genius and survival skills even more than ever.

Peter Ames Carlin has won awards for his media coverage of Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys. He is clearly an unabashed fan of the man and the band. Thus, his examination of Brian in the new Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall and Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson should have been a slam-dunk of a book.

Tracing the band by focusing on Brian from the early days in the 1960s to 2005, Carlin does tread familiar territory. It's impossible not to, given the fame of Wilson and the Beach Boys, not to mention the infamy of Wilson's dad Murry and the years Brian spent in the clutches of the controversial Dr. Eugene E. Landy. These two characters formed Brian's life as surely as his DNA did.

For years, Brian Wilson has been the subject of many a curious eye. Carlin attempts to get behind all of that and show us the truth.

It's a noble effort. However, for all but the most die-hard of Beach Boys fans, I'm afraid it falls short in a number of ways. This doesn't make it a fatal book for the casual fan; rather, it makes it a harder book.

For instance, most nonfiction narratives are written in a linear fashion. This happened, then that, and this was the result. However, Catch a Wave deviates from that pattern every so often. It's not uncommon for references to past events to return, leaving the reader wondering, "Hey, why wasn't this brought up back when the rest of the issue was explained?" It creates a confusion of time, so that readers are left uncertain of when things happen. One of the biggest areas of confusion, in fact, revolves around the release of the Smile album. I closed the book wondering if it had been released twice. Certainly, there being two albums with similar names -- Smile and Smiley Smile -- doesn't help the matter any, although that's obviously not Carlin's fault. He only reports on the band.

Reporting on the band is exactly what Carlin does, in fact. He handles the who, what, where, when, how, and why as deftly as you'd expect, given his resume. His narrative, other than being time-confused, reads quite nicely. Yet there is a distance from the people Carlin is speaking about; this either works for the reader or it doesn't. Me, I'd have preferred a more in-depth character, so that I felt as though I know them, especially given how odd Brian Wilson's behaviors often are.

If there is one area in which Carlin deserves high praise, it is his ability to remain neutral about what transpires among the band and within Wilson's life. Yes, you'd expect that of a seasoned journalist, yet Carlin is an unabashed fan, even going so far as to insert his own meetings with the band into his narrative. This sort of adoration often allows for judgments to be passed, particularly concerning the controversy surrounding so much of Brian Wilson's life. Certainly, as I read, I wanted to know how these people could keep making the same mistakes so many times. Yet Carlin avoids this question because to acknowledge it involves him standing on his opinions.

Overall, this is a worthy companion for a devoted Beach Boys fan. Keeping the focus on Brian Wilson and the way he engages and retreats from the band he made famous makes for a fascinating portrait. Tracing his spirals in and out of musical genius is a compelling subject.

But for a new or merely casual fan who wants to learn about this iconic band, there are better books for dipping your toes into the surf