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 November 2006 Back to Table of Contents Back to Archives Main Page Section: Arts & Letters Damage and Beauty By Wendell Wild
The now-familiar plot elements are all here: the hardscrabble family making a go of it in working-class Hawthorne, California; the Wilson brothers (Carl was the third) at the mercy of their despotic father Murry; the agoraphobe’s vision of a car-and-surf utopia conjured by Brian’s string of hits during the early 60s; the artistic triumph and commercial failure of Pet Sounds; the soap opera of the long lost Smile album; Brian’s Lord Byron-on-acid retreat from reality in the 70s and early 80s; and his eventual return to mental health and musical legitimacy culminating in the release of a new and improved Smile in 2004. Along the way, Carlin, a former writer for People, sheds new light on previously traveled ground as well, including a surprisingly sympathetic take on the oft-villified Mike Love (and an equally critical one of the sainted Carl); a fascinating look at the Laurel Canyon demimonde swirling around Wilson during the late 60s; Brian’s crazy-like-a-fox complicity in taking advantage of the secondary gains attending his mental illness. And even some interesting new tidbits. Like Dennis’ new friend Charlie Manson hustling songs to Dennis and producer Terry Melcher (Doris Day’s son) at the Cielo Drive house where a year later Manson would murder Sharon Tate and friends; and a bizarre 1966 encounter between Brian and novelist Thomas Pynchon. Fodder for any self-respecting Beach Boys fan. But it’s what Carlin does not write very interestingly about — that is, the music itself — that leaves Catch a Wave feeling more than a little pedestrian. Though he’s been a Beach Boy’s fan since the early 70s, Carlin’s enthusiasm too often feels like that of the initiate, of someone who’s only recently made a place for the music in his life. His writing about the Beach Boy’s catalogue, for instance, is earnest and comprehensive but without nuance. He misses the boat entirely when trying to explain why, say, songs like “Surfer Girl” or “Don’t Worry, Baby” can be at once puerile and transcendent without the listener ever supposing there’s a difference. Or how “Please Let Me Wonder” from the Today album predicts so much of what would follow on Pet Sounds. Carlin’s like the journalism student in your dorm who was forever catching up to the stuff you’ve been listening to for years. What’s more, he’s guilty of saying nearly nothing about Wilson’s own musical idols, George Gershwin and Phil Spector. It’s the rare instance where you actually want the author of a music bio to be more of a rock snob than he already is. Disappointingly, though not surprisingly, what Catch a Wave provides almost none of is any sense of the man himself, of what makes Brian Wilson tick. This may have to do with the fact that Wilson has almost none of the qualities you’d ask for in the subject of a biography — and, well, ticking is not what he does, exactly. The mystery of what it is that has so hollowed Wilson out psychologically — some combination of bad genes, pathological perfectionism, substance abuse, and, according to Carlin, years of mismedication by the pernicious psychiatrist Eugene Landy — has rendered him nearly useless as a source of information: he’s self-involved, overly concrete in his thinking, both pretentious and naive. The evidence suggests that even on his best day — whenever that was — he probably never really had that much to say. However useful the concept of a savant may be, it probably applies to Brian Wilson at least as much as it does to, say, Glenn Gould or Lester Young. Once upon a time Wilson did one thing as well as it’s possible to do it: capture through popular music — in a chord change, a French horn phrase or a vocal texture — the damage and the beauty floating around inside his own head, and maybe in yours too. Read Catch a Wave if you get a chance. But listen to the music first. back to top back to table of contents Current Issue | About Forever Young | Where to Find | Advertise | Our Advertisers | Community Calendar | Contest | Clubs | Contact Us | Archives | Home |
