The Beach Boys Dean Anthony First Published: HB. 1985. Crescent Books, New York. This Edition: First Edition Crescent Books’ The Beach Boys has the outward appearance of a children’s annual and the journalistic substance of the back of a baseball card. It took me a long time to track down a copy of this slim tome, since very few copies seem to have washed up on the shores of England despite our fairly fervent appetite for the group. That said there are always scores of copies to be under for under $5 on eBay in the US, albeit with eye-watering international postage. Finally getting my hands on a copy could only really ever result in disappointment. To be fair, I knew this was a light book, and although the text is brief, I did expect a bit more of it. Dean Anthony provides a brisk narrative taking us from the group’s early formation through to 1985 and rumours of the band’s imminent return with what would be their self-titled album. Anthony barely scratches the surface and there is
Heroes and Villains: The True Story of The Beach Boys Steven Gaines First Published: HB. 1986. New American Library, New York. This Edition: HB. 1986. Macmillan, London. Who are the Heroes and who are the Villains? Steven Gaines wisely avoids calling the shots, but few come out of this book unblemished. Choosing to revel in the groups’ dirty laundry, Gaines tells an astonishing roller-coaster story of domestic abuse, mental illness, drug abuse, backstabbing, lies, infidelity and death. The backdrop is the incredible rise of the Beach Boys; a tale of unbridled excess left unchecked in the face of massive commercial success en route to becoming one of the world’s most financially successful bands. The book has a reputation for being gossipy and some fans look down upon its gutter-sniping. David Leaf had consciously glossed over the “often-embarrassing specifics” in his book, in which the band had criticised their characterisation. Ironically, they come off looking far, far worse in thi