125: The Beach Boys - All Summer Long (1964) & Sunflower (1970)

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“The Beach Boys are not a superstar group. The music is the superstar of the group.”

—Dennis Wilson

It's Discord & Rhyme's 125th episode, and we are marking the occasion with one of our favorite recording strategies: tackling a famous band by discussing two of their albums while making an end-run around their most critically acclaimed period. In this episode, Ben talks about the 1964 Beach Boys album All Summer Long, where the band really shifted into second gear, while John talks about the 1970 Beach Boys album Sunflower, a beautiful album released during a period when very few people had any time to add the Beach Boys to their day. Rich and Phil join Ben and John to share their thoughts on these two lesser-known albums from one of the greatest (and secretly weirdest) bands one can find in this whole world, and spoiler alert, everybody here agrees that the Beach Boys are terrific (except maybe when Uncle Jesse is prominently involved). It's about time we got around to this band, but we promise this episode will put a smile on your face.

Miscellany

• For more information on the Beach Boys, we recommend Peter Ames Carlin’s 2006 biography Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson [Amazon affiliate link]. The book focuses primarily on Brian Wilson, but there’s plenty of information about the rest of the band, and the book is a well-rounded summary of the Beach Boys’ career in general.

• The clip before the theme is from a TV special titled The Beach Boys: It's O.K., broadcast on NBC in 1976, at the height of the Beach Boys comeback. The special was produced by Lorne Michaels of Saturday Night Live, and the sketch in question featured Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi as California Highway Patrol officers issuing Brian Wilson a citation for failing to surf.

• John didn’t mention it in the episode, but one of his favorite bit of Beach Boys-related media is a comedy web series from 2000 called “Murry Wilson: Rock n Roll Dad,” which runs about 12 minutes across 4 episodes. 

• The page John created about the Beach Boys for his website, back in 2015 and 2016, is actually his personal choice for his favorite page he’s written.

• Ben’s Smash Mouth joke was recorded several days before the death of their frontman, Steve Harwell. We’re leaving it in because the gag was self-deprecating, and we still think it was funny.

• Many years ago, Ben tried to convert Amanda to Beach Boys fandom by making a mix CD of deep cuts across their whole career. We’ve recreated it on Spotify, because it totally worked and we want you all to hear it.  

Other links 

• The official Beach Boys website (thebeachboys.com)

• "Beach Boy Huddle!" (YouTube)

• John's reviews of The Beach Boys (johnmcferrinmusicreviews.org)

• Article about "It's About Time" and Bob Burchman (medium.com)

• “All Summer Long” on The Simpsons (YouTube)

• The Hidden Beach Boys by Mixmaster Ben Marlin (Spotify)

• Discord & Rhyme’s All Summer Long/Sunflower playlist (Spotify)

• Discord & Rhyme’s merch store (TeePublic)

• Discord & Rhyme’s Patreon

Discord & Rhyme Roll Call 

• Ben Marlin (All Summer Long host)

• John McFerrin (Sunflower host)

• Phil Maddox (moderator)

• Rich Bunnell

All Summer Long tracklist 

1. I Get Around

2. All Summer Long

3. Hushabye

4. Little Honda

5. We’ll Run Away

6. Carl’s Big Chance

7. Wendy

8. Do You Remember?

9. Girls on the Beach

10. Drive-In

11. Our Favorite Recording Sessions

12. Don’t Back Down

Sunflower tracklist 

1. Slip On Through

2. This Whole World

3. Add Some Music to Your Day

4. Got to Know the Woman

5. Deirdre

6. It’s About Time

7. Tears in the Morning

8. All I Wanna Do

9. Forever

10. Our Sweet Love

11. At My Window

12. Cool, Cool Water 

Other clips used

The Beach Boys:

• Kokomo

• When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)

• Custom Machine

• Good Vibrations

• Catch a Wave

• Surfin'

• Surfin' U.S.A.

• I Know There's an Answer

• She's Goin' Bald

• Never Learn Not to Love

• Be True to Your School

• Don't Worry Baby

• Our Car Club

• Chug-A-Lug

• Be with Me

• Let’s Go Trippin’

• Why Do Fools Fall in Love?

• 409

• We'll Run Away (1st vocal/overdub)

• Disney Girls (1957)

• Endless Harmony

• Misirlou

• Wouldn't It Be Nice

• Rock and Roll Music

• All I Wanna Do (a capella)

• Forever (a capella)

• Forever (Summer in Paradise version)

• Our New Home

• God Only Knows

• "Cassius" Love vs. "Sonny" Wilson

• Winds of Change

• Help Me, Rhonda

• Mama Said

• Vegetables

• Our Prayer

• Cabinessence

• Surf's Up

• Surfin' Safari

• Shut Down

• Little Deuce Coupe

• Be True to Your School (single version)

• In My Room

• Fun, Fun, Fun

• Little Saint Nick

• Solar System

• Meant for You

• Transcendental Meditation

• Feel Flows

• Do You Wanna Dance

• No-Go Showboat

• All This Is That

• Darlin'

• Darlin’ (Stack-O-Tracks version) 

Others:

• The Four Freshmen - It's a Blue World

• The Moody Blues - So Deep Within You

• The Mystics - Hushabye

• The Hondells - Little Honda

• Yo La Tengo - Little Honda

• Hirokazu Tanaka - Cave of the Past

• Toby "Radiation" Fox - Amalgam

• Bruce Johnston - Deirdre

• Barry Manilow - I Write the Songs

• Santana - Waiting

• Laura Nyro - Eli's Comin'

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - String Quartet No. 19 in C "Dissonance": I. Adagio; Allegro

• Descendents - Wendy

• Sheryl Crow - All I Wanna Do

• Slowdive - Alison

• Beach House - Lazuli

• The Donnas - Drive-In

• The Monkees - Zilch

• The Queers - Don't Back Down

• Brian Wilson - In Blue Hawaii

• Dennis Wilson - River Song

Band/album personnel 

All Summer Long:

• Al Jardine – harmony and backing vocals; bass guitar; electric rhythm guitar

• Mike Love – lead and bass vocal

• Brian Wilson – lead, harmony and backing vocals; piano; electric piano, harpsichord; Hammond B3 organ; xylophones or marimba

• Carl Wilson – harmony and backing vocals, lead and rhythm guitars

• Dennis Wilson – lead, harmony and backing vocals; drums; brushed drums; percussion; “Go!” (4)

• Hal Blaine – timbales with brush, rim with thin stick, drums

• Glen Campbell – 6-string electric bass guitar

• Steve Douglas – tenor saxophone

• Jay Migliori – baritone saxophone; piccolo or fife

• Ray Pohlman – 6-string electric bass guitar

• Bob (surname unknown) – engineer (9)

• Chuck Britz – engineer

Sunflower:

• Al Jardine – vocals, guitar, finger snaps

• Bruce Johnston – vocals, bass, Rocksichord, piano, finger snaps

• Mike Love – vocals; finger snaps

• Brian Wilson – vocals, piano, Rocksichord, toy piano, organ, Moog synthesizer, finger snaps

• Carl Wilson – vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, Chamberlin, bass, Rocksichord, electric sitar, clavinet, finger snaps, additional percussion

• Dennis Wilson – vocals, piano, guitar, drums, bongos, finger snaps, cowbell, tambourine

• Carnie Wilson – background voice (11)

• Julia Tillman – backing vocals

• Carolyn Willis – backing vocals

• Edna Wright – backing vocals

• David Cohen – guitar

• Jerry Cole – guitar

• Al Casey – guitar

• Ronald Benson – guitar, mandolin

• Mike Anthony – electric guitar

• James Burton – acoustic guitar

• Jack Conrad – guitar, bass

• Ray Pohlman – six-string bass, bass

• Joe Osborn – bass

• Jimmy Bond – double bass, electric bass

• Lyle Ritz – bass

• Mort Klanfer – bass

• Larry Knechtel – piano

• Mike Melvoin – piano

• Gene Estes – drums, chimes, glockenspiel, shaker

• John Guerin – drums

• Earl Palmer – drums

• Hal Blaine – drums

• Frank Capp – tambourine, tympani

• Stan Levey – bass drum, cowbell

• John Audino – trumpet

• Tony Terran – trumpet

• Carl Fortina – French concertina

• Igor Horoshevsky – cello

• Orville “Red” Rhodes – pedal steel guitar

• Paul Beaver – Moog synthesizer

• Jay Migliori – flute

• David Sherr – flute

• Bernard Krause – Moog synthesizer

• Anatol Kaminsky – violin

• Sam Freed – violin

• Marvin Limonick – violin

• David Frisina – violin

• George Kast – violin

• Nathan Kaproff – violin

• Alexander Murray – violin

• Dorothy Wade – violin

• Spiro Stamos – violin

• Roy Tanabe – violin

• Shari Zippert – violin

• Jay Rosen – violin

• Virginia Majewski – viola

• Robert Ostrowsky – viola

• Alvin Dinkin – viola

• Allan Harstian – viola

• Edgar Lustgarten – cello

• Abe Luboff – arco double bass

• Stephen Desper – chief engineer and mixer, Moog synthesizer, wave effects, additional vocals

• Bill Lazarus – additional engineer (4)

• Doc Siegel – additional engineer (5, 8-9)

• Jim Lockert – additional engineer (12)

• Bill Halverson – additional engineer (12)

Credits 

“Discord & Rhyme (theme),” composed by the Other Leading Brand, contains elements of: 

• Duran Duran - Hungry Like the Wolf

• Amon Düül II - Dehypnotized Toothpaste

• The Dukes of Stratosphear - What in the World?? ...

• Faith No More - Midlife Crisis

• Herbie Hancock - Hornets

• Kraftwerk - Autobahn

• Talking Heads - Seen and Not Seen

• The Beach Boys - Cool, Cool Water (this episode only) 

You can buy or stream All Summer Long, Sunflower, and other albums by the Beach Boys at your local record store, or the usual suspects such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and Amazon. Follow Discord & Rhyme on Twitter and Instagram @DiscordPod for news, updates, and other random stuff. Editing is by Rich Bunnell, and special thanks to our own Mike DeFabio, the Other Leading Brand, for production and original music. See you next album, and keep as cool as you can.