Beach Boys Books

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...

The Beach Boys: Silver Anniversary John Milward First Published: PB. 1985. Doubleday/Dolphin Books, New York. This Edition: First Edition Reading about this book online, with its slick, lifestyle-type cover, ‘Silver Anniversary’ title and all-around professional design, I assumed this was an officially endorsed publication to tie in with the Beach Boys’ big birthday celebrations. However, it does not take John Milward long to establish that he’s not in the service – nor much in awe – of the contemporary version of the band. He sets out his stall early into his introduction, taking a “Leafian” stance, hanging his head in shame with a quietly burning disdain as he laments the state of Brian Wilson in the touring line-up of 1984: “Brian made me squirm with his one hoarse verse of ‘Surfer Girl’ and Mike Love made me angry with his patronizing introduction of the man who made him famous…” So, if not an official tome celebrating 25 wondrous years of everyone’s favourite 5-part harmony rock n...

The Beach Boys David Leaf First Published: PB. 1979. Ballantine Books, New York. This Edition: PB. 1980. Wilhelm Hayne Verlag, München. This is a just a short supplementary post to my previous one looking at the 1985 edition of David Leaf's tremendous book. This edition was actually published before the 1985 update, and is quite commonly found for sale online at low, low prices. I took a chance on an eBay listing that had no photos hoping it might be the original 1979 paperback, but alas this is what arrived! Kind of redundant since I don't speak German, but as a Beach Boys book collector it's kind of a cool little addition to the shelf. This was published in the Heyne Discothek series, which also included books on the likes of David Bowie, The Who, Dire Straits as well as German stars Nina Hagen and Udo Lindberg.  The book was translated by Dr. Bukhard Busse and when I posted the chapter headings on Instagram a few German speakers commented that the translation of headings...

The Beach Boys David Leaf First Published (as The Beach Boys and the California Myth ): PB. 1978. Grosset & Dunlap, New York. This Edition: HB. 1985. Courage Books, Philadelphia. I waited many, many long years to read this book – a book that has reached almost mythical status. This is the 1985 revised edition, adding significant new content, published in time to act as a counter-balance to the groups' authorised  (and slightly premature)  The Beach Boys Silver Anniversary . It was long rumoured that further reprinting of this book had been blocked by a certain individual, but that didn’t stop me when I was working in the publishing world from badgering our non-fiction editors about it! Although that didn’t result in the desired reprint (which has now been addressed!) it seemed to bring about the  I Am Brian Wilson  autobiography, by karmic intervention. So, I am at least cosmically responsible in some small part for that one! But more about that another time. Whi...