THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 1, 1994 TAG: 9409010095
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY RICKEY WRIGHT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 100 lines
AFTER ALL these years, the Beach Boys can still be brought up short at how beloved they are.
Case in point: Their guest appearance on the first anniversary ``Late Show With David Letterman'' Tuesday night. Carl Wilson, Mike Love, Alan Jardine and Bruce Johnston were augmented by a fifth voice, Jardine's son Matthew, in a spoofy Top 10 list salute to the program's past year.
``It was as big a surprise to us as it was to the audience,'' Johnston said Wednesday morning in an interview from his New York hotel room. ``I know people like the band, but the response when we walked out was just great. It's gratifying, a nice boost.''
Johnston said the gig came about as a result of Beach Boys fan and ``Late Show'' bandleader Paul Shaffer's agitation on their behalf.
``He always comes to our concerts when we're in New York. For years, Paul said to Letterman, `Hey we should have these guys on.' So they said, wouldn't it be funny if we got them to come on and do this?
``You know what's really amazing to me? At 2 p.m., none of this was figured out. By 3 p.m., it was all figured out. We got together in a room - it was the head writer with the Top 10, Shaffer and our voices. They had a list of parody lyrics, and we went from there.''
The act has delivered about 70 concerts this year, Johnston said. They stop, appropriately, on the sand at Virginia Beach's American Music Festival at 1 p.m. Saturday.
``We did two in New York and one in New Jersey,'' Johnston noted, ``and about 3 million the rest of the year.''
He's kidding. But ``when our road manager says he's ready to go home, I know it's time to go home.''
Keeping the summer alive is but one aspect of the Beach Boys' mission, as Johnston, who joined the group in 1965, sees it. Saddled with a reputation as an oldies act since the success of the 1974 surf, cars and girls greatest-hits album ``Endless Summer,'' the group is edging toward recapturing some of its artistic footing with unplugged concert segments.
``We've got a toe in the water,'' said Johnston of the move. ``I talked it over with Mike (Love), and held onto one of his words. He said it was `low voltage, but not low energy.'
``Think about the Beach Boys' first unplugged album,'' he said, alluding to 1966's ``Beach Boys Party,'' which spawned their classic version of ``Barbara Ann.'' ``There's tons of energy, and there's nothing but acoustic instruments, except maybe an electric bass.''
Eventually, the live mini-sets could result in an unplugged disc, Johnston said.
``We'd like to do a show that would start out unplugged, then evolve into a symphony, and do the entire `Pet Sounds.' We might then release an unplugged album, and a separate `Pet Sounds' with the orchestra and Brian (Wilson). It had been suggested, `Why don't you invite (Brian's daughters and two-thirds of Wilson Phillips) Wendy and Carnie?' But it's all still being talked about.''
Brian, the Beach Boys' reclusive mastermind and recent target of a Love lawsuit concerning disputed songwriting credits, is reported to be preparing a solo album for producer Don Was' label Karambolage.
``I don't know,'' Johnston said. ``He always is working, for the past five years. Brian gets manipulated as a marketing tool a lot.''
He has high hopes for Wilson's involvement in any forthcoming Beach Boys venture.
``The first order of business is to include Brian, and to do a studio album before the unplugged stuff.''
While the ``low voltage'' approach allows for some offbeat song choices, Johnston said that a little is enough. He defended the hit-after-hit approach:
``I'm sure we could do a show that would dazzle the critics and bore the audience. I mean, that great little `Vegetables' track that wowed everybody back then wouldn't work. People yawn through it. We have an audience raised on `best-ofs' and commercials and usage in movies.''
The most recent repackage, 1993's ``Good Vibrations'' five-CD boxed set, has been certified gold. Johnston is candid about the group's dislike of it, however.
``The box is a couple CDs too long. We don't like the box. There's a lot of lame stuff included. I think the (a cappella) vocals of `All Summer Long' - Al pointed out to me - you listen to them, they're flat. It doesn't sound good. Anybody can drop out the instrumental track. That's not very creative.''
On the other hand, he praises the set's ``Sessions'' disc for its emphasis on lengthy excerpts of in-progress tapes.
``The whole evolving thing with `God Only Knows' - I took it into the studio to listen to it, to see if it really felt the way it did when we were doing it, and it did.''
Johnston allowed that ``working with Brian is like working with Rachmaninoff.'' But he denies the published claim that ``I Write the Songs'' - Johnston wrote the easy-listening classic during a time-out from the Beach Boys in the '70s - was inspired by Wilson.
``I never thought about any person specifically. That song is about where the spirit of creativity comes from. Look at the first line: `I've been alive forever.'
``I told Carl (Wilson), when we were riding in the car one day, working with Brian is the greatest thing I've ever gotten to do. But I'd never write a song about it.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
The Beach Boys appear at Virginia Beach's American Music Festival at
1 p.m. Saturday.
by CNB