OS#85 Scenes from the Life of Brian

You have probably heard snips of “Surfin’ Safari” more in the past couple of weeks than at any time since it was released in October of 1962. That song, along with “Good Vibrations” and “Surfer Girl” highlight the fleeting media tributes to Brian Douglas Wilson (June 20, 1942 - June 11, 2025) the driving force behind The Beach Boys.

Luckily, Professor Mikey’s Old School goes a little longer and digs a little deeper than the usual media minute mourn. Still there isn’t enough time in one show to access the loss of an American rock n roll legend, who ruled the charts, the waves, the shoreline, and the hot California sand. But the attempt here will be to catch a wave and sit on top of the world.

Brian didn’t surf. He was a composer, a bandleader, a singer, a keyboard and bass player, a producer, and a mysterious and reclusive giant of the American music scene. He was also a son, a brother, a cousin, a father, a label founder, a confounding genius, and an introverted wizard.

There are tons of Brian Wilson stories and hopefully you will have time to hear them all. The tales of the Beach Boys are not all about the waves of Waimea and Malibu, bikinis and 409s. hallucinogens and cheese burgers, hot rod boys and surfer girls .

Rather than trying to reconstruct a bio, or review a musical output of six plus decades, or watch a video of someone professing to have never listened to a Beach Boys track until they hit it big on YouTube, I have sailed the Sloop John B in a different direction. Whats next is an unsolved puzzle pieced together like the band might have done with reel to reel 60s and 70s snippets in the Sunset Sound Recording Studios.

All the Wilson brothers are gone now. Dennis drowned in 1983 at Marina Del Ray about three weeks after his 39th birthday. Carl contracted lung cancer that moved to his brain and claimed him at 51 in 1998. Brian was 82.

Don’t Worry Baby, everything will turn out all right. And now let’s roll tape and do some beachcombing on Professor Mikey’s Old School # 85: “Scenes from The Life of Brian.”

Brian and Bob Dylan discuss the Changing of the Lifeguard.

“The past is a blast.”

Beach Boy fans! Enjoy the roaring shredding of underground surf tunes. Tune in to the MONSTERS!!🦖🦖🦖