Product Description

Everyone knows the music. No band sells 100 million albums and remains adored for more than four decades without making an impact on the world. So why hasn?t anyone got round to telling the real story? Because, as Catch a Wave will prove, the story of the Beach Boys is about the way the American dream filters through popular culture and how the American appetite (for money and success) can destroy it. And in Catch a Wave the entire tale comes straight from the people who actually lived it. Written with the active cooperation of Brian Wilson, the book includes exclusive interviews with surviving Beach Boys Mike Love and Al Jardine, many of Wilson?s childhood friends and schoolmates, a rich variety of family members, all of his surviving collaborators and a vast array of other witnesses. As such, it will be the definitive book on the life and career of Brian Wilson.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #321068 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-16
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

Q Magazine
"ticks the boxes of all the best biographies - sex,
drugs, rock 'n' roll, violence, madness, vegetable obsessions[...]"

About the Author
Peter Ames Carlin is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, American Heritage and the Los Angles Times Magazine. Previously a senior writer for People in New York, he is currently a television critic and makes regular appearances on radio to discuss developments in popular culture.

Customer Reviews

California Saga retold with added context
The story of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys..their journey from teen idols, to outrunning The Beatles as the epitome of psychedelic cool....to utter drug-addled weirdness, financial,physical and mental collapse, mayhem, appalling business decisions, Hawaiian shirts and the nostalgia circuit (which they still occupy without Brian) and Brians own return to public life, is a fascinating story. Its also rather bleak, sometimes disturbing, sometimes very funny story and it is very well told by Peter Ames Carlin here.

He explores not just how, but *why* it all went so wrong so many times. He adds useful context about the history; and the driving forces, for better or worse, that influenced how the band conducted its affairs.

The Wilson brothers each deserve a Biog their own, here the author concentrates on the pivotal Brian, his story being the most extraordinary of all. This isn't an 'authorised' biog as such but appears to have the thumbs up from Brian's 'people'. Brian apparently has disowned his ghost-written "Autobiography" of a few years back, the author is sceptical of it to say the least, so perhaps this is as close as you'll get to the truth for now.

This is very measured, balanced, sober account of the rather less than sober individuals involved. He sticks to the facts, and hence this is a far cry from the sensational story in Stephen Gaines classic "Heroes and Villains" (which easily sits alongside Motley Crue's as one of the more hair-raising rock stories) but the writer doesn't shy from the more grim aspects of the story and is no less readable or entertaining.
Similarly, die hard fans may not learn much they don't know but will enjoy this approach and angle to the story. Ames-Carlin clearly loves the music and writes in depth about each of the Beach Boys and Brian Solo albums (something always lacking in other Biogs of the band). Its the kind of writing that should inspire fans to dig out those overlooked late 70s LPs again or hopefully encourage new listeners to seek out Surfs Up, Sunflower, Holland, So Tough et al, and discover the world beyond Pet Sounds and Smile.

An Excellent, well researched book, and a worthwhile purchase for both die hard fans and newcomers alike.

Augmented minor chords?????
This book combines an up-to-date biography with detailed musical assessments of the Beach Boys' output, both collectively and individually. I thought it was good, readable, thorough and (as far as I could judge) accurate, except for one thing.

Some of the musical assessments are complete gibberish.

For instance, on p.24 we're told about voices "sliding from one augmented minor chord to the next". This sounds very impressive, but there's no such thing as an augmented minor chord (an augmented chord has a sharpened 5th: e.g. an E major comprises the notes EG#B, and an E augmented chord is thus [enharmonically] EG#C. But since E minor consists of EGB, E minor augmented -- if it existed -- would consist of EGC, which is merely an inversion of C major).

Likewise, on p. 30 we hear about a "major seventh triad chant". Unfortunately, a chord may be either a major seventh or a triad, but not both.

On p.79 we learn that "God Only Knows" has harmonic counterpoint and inverted bass patterns. "Sloop John B" is described as a sea shanty. In short, I was unable to distinguish the author from a total musical illiterate trying to pretend otherwise.

To be sure, these blemishes only form a tiny part of the whole, but they did make me wonder about the accuracy of the rest of it.

The best so far?
This book is a welcome addition to the Wilsonian universe and like all good books has filled in a few more pieces of this labyrinth jigsaw (which is forever expanding anyhow and may never be complete!). The book is very detailed and weighs in heavily with a sympathetic although not totally uncritical treatment of Brian's artistic struggle with the band, and the resulting tensions thereafter. We will never know (in this universe at any rate) what would have happened had Pet Sounds and Smile both been critically acclaimed and popular ahead of Sgt Peppers, where would brian have gone to then? Unfortunately we are left with a glimpse perhaps of what might have or could have been from a great (THE great to me and many others)artist who has rightly already secured his place in popular musical history. Surf's Up indeed!