CATCH A WAVE: The Rise, Fall and Redemption of the "Beach Boys'" Brian Wilson [Paperback]

If you read enough rock bios of one group or artist, you tend to become a bit punch-drunk. Several books about Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys are endless elaborations on a theme which could be summed up in two words: "Brian's weird". This book is like a breath of fresh air. Carlin has clearly been a BB nut ever since, as a schoolboy in 1976, he met Dennis Wilson by chance just before a BB concert, but this doesn't cloud his judgment one bit. For example, he describes the "MIU album" as "maybe one of the worst records ever made by a great rock band".
As Mick Brown did in the Spector bio "Tearing down the walls of sound", Carlin has dug back to his subject's schooldays more than any previous author I've read. Most of us have heard of the tyranny of Murry Wilson, but Carlin fills out the picture of how Brian dealt with it; for example, how he would often go to the house of his friend Robin Hood (!) on the major public holidays which, usually, "families tend to spend together". Carlin also gives Murry credit for his childhood role in protecting the rest of his family from his physically abusive father, Buddy (obviously a repeated pattern here).
Carlin makes the assertion - obvious when you think about it, but not all of us have - that Brian took to the Eugene Landy regimen so readily because he had grown up with a control freak (Murry) running his life, and was well used to the pattern.
There is a wealth of fascinating detail, e.g. the suggestion that "Caroline No" was originally "Carol, I know" (i.e. using Carol Mountain's actual name).
There is also a continuing analysis of Beach Boy politics, which started as an attempt by (particularly) Mike Love to get Brian back to writing hits ("don't **** with the formula") and ended with the bizarre three-way split we have today. Mike Love comes off fairly badly; for example, he is quoted as saying there was "a streak of insanity" in the Wilson family - which he is part of - and is seen backstage concealing the beer which he, as an avowed teetotaller, can't be seen to drink. (Perhaps Carlin should write a bio of Love - that would be a good read - but perhaps he doesn't fancy the lawsuits.)
But for a British fan, it is refreshing to read an American bio which recognises the British loyalty to the archetypal "American Band", and the importance of the British market to the group at times when, in their homeland, the Beach Boys couldn't catch a cold.

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.

I am providing a more cautious approach to Catch A Wave as i myself purchased this book on the strength of the hyperbolic 5 star reviews.A good biography can be just as artistically valid as a work of fiction Peter Cook by Harry Thompson,Life And Death Of Peter Sellers,John Belushi bio Wired by Bob Woodward most recently John Frenchs bio of Captain Beefheart are great examples of biography where you come away feeling a strong sense of the subject.Catch A Wave is certainly well written,author Curin is clearly a fan but i finished the book not knowing much more then i already know.And boy the story of the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson is a biggie factoring complex emotional family issues,massive success,drugs,breakdowns,law suits,death...you name it its there.But here its all kind of told in a rather pedestrian fashion,never really stracthing the surface.What is abundantly clear is the AWFUL treatment of Brian Wilson,shocking unethical stuff.Really gross.Mike Love emerges as a grade one fool.I mean i am not a massive Beach Boys fan but i believe it was Brians band.Full stop.I respect the bands work but do not share the looming reverence here.One thing i detest is when an author spends CHAPTERS describing every sound,nook and cranny of album tracks.Its repetitive disrupting the narrative,the author literally writes "drums go...bbbbbrm".But then writes 2 paragraphs on the death of Dennis Wilson.A more big,definitive work is needed 300 or so pages do not cover it.So the book does fill a niche and is worth reading i suppose till a more weighty tome emerges.