The Beach Boys Byron Preiss First Published: PB. 1979. Ballantine Books, New York. This Edition: 1st Edition This is the first authorized biography of the band, an obvious response to David Leaf’s The Beach Boys and the California Myth , presenting a more savoury, somewhat sanitized narrative of a united group. Even just reading the foreword, Preiss thanks nearly everyone who had written a notable article on the band to date, with Leaf’s name conspicuous by its absence. So, there’s more than a bit of a whiff of an agenda at play throughout this book, but that’s always to be expected from any band looking to control its own narrative. One of the big plusses of this book is the access the author had to the band, and hence it’s littered with great quotes, many of which I’ve not read elsewhere. He was also given access to unheard music (which was later leaked and came to be known as “The Preiss Tape”, the basis for the first Smile bootlegs) and the book speaks tantalizingly of Smile mate
Don't forget about the library like you told your old man, now.