Beach Boys 1967

They're not everyone's cup of tea, but I have a fair degree of fascination with the Beach Boys' output during the "Pet Sounds" to "Surf's Up" era, so I was very pleased to stumble across this recording of a rehearsal from 1967. If I'm not mistaken, some of this has been issued previously, notably the acapella version of "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring," but hell, here it is and it's free, courtesy of the Internet Archive.

I particularly like the stripped-down version of "God Only Knows," the shambolic version of "The Letter" (recall that a young Alex Chilton apparently hung out with Dennis Wilson and met Charlie Manson in the wake of this song's success), "You're So Good to Me," and those moments where Dennis' harmonies take things to another level. His contribution has been consistently misunderestimated. On the less scintillating end of the spectrum is the gender-inverted version of "Help Me Rhonda," and the strange rendering of "Heroes and Villains," wherein arch twat Mike Love's commentary, presumably inaudible to the others at the time, reveals just what a short-sighted, money-grubbing dickwad he must have been. Not content just to be the least-talented member of one of the greatest musical enterprises of its age, or to have had a hand (however small) in the creation of some of the greatest music ever, he bitches about the lack of commercial success of Brian's recent output. Very revealing, very unappealing.