Dennis and Chris

[michelej1]

Dennis Wilson Loves Christine McVie
Richard Williams
Melody Maker, March 24, 1979

The Beach Boys love good karma

HOLD PAGE nine! Rock 'n' roll's newest woosome twosome is – and you're not gonna guess it! – DENNIS WILSON AND CHRISTINE McVIE!

Yes indeed, the Beach Boys' all-American surfin', draggin', bikin' drummer is more than "just good friends" with the English blues thrush who went to California and found a crock of platinum at the end of the rainbow!

Nevertheless, the man from the Daily Mail is not impressed.

"They didn't have much to say," he confides, in the hotel bar. "The pix won't be much good, either. She grabbed his balls once, but the photographer wasn't ready."

Grabbed his balls?

The Beach Boys' image as goody-goodies, which persisted (to their detriment) through the era of drugs and filth, was destroyed, in the music industry, by a tale which went around a few years ago.

While in London, the story goes, one member of the group (not Dennis, as it happens) was found in bed by an executive of their record company. With the executive's wife. (Industry buffs go on to relate that the executive was ordered to forget the incident, so as not to upset the company's relationship with the group; the tale is used as a kind of musicbiz parable.)

Dennis, of course, has never been a goody-goody. Why, back in 1965, on the sleeve of Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!!), he wrote: "I love summertime most because we can get around to all the towns and I can meet all the girls."

Apparently he's requested my presence in order to tell me that, for Christine and himself, this is The Real Thing.

I am more interested in talking about disco records. About, in fact, the Beach Boys' new single, which is a full-blown disco version of their old album track, 'Here Comes The Night'.

Dennis, who has a disconcertingly oblique way of reaching the point, responds thus: "You really want to know about the disco community? Well, the gay community has made a tremendous mistake. Just like Hitler used Wagner, it's unfair to take an art-form and use it...what do you think?"

I fumble for a cigarette and mutter that a disenfranchised minority surely has a right to raise a flag for itself through the appropriation of...

"But some of your best friends are gay," says Christine to Dennis. From the look on his, face, it seems unlikely.

His further responses to questioning along this line are somewhat confused.

"I'm honoured to perform disco," he says. "On stage I translate the percussion into a Puerto Rican or Latin flavour...but I can't stand regimentation or formula or planned obsolescence. I'm not into disco."

Then: "I'm not on the disco record. I don't perform on it. I'm honoured that it's part of...it's nice to hear it. But you're talking about one of the finest groups in the world. 'Good Vibrations'...'God Only Knows'...Brian Wilson...it reminds me of the 'busy' signal on the telephone line."

Whatever Dennis Wilson is doing in London, he will not be promoting 'Here Comes The Night'.

HE PLAYS me a cassette of the new album, fiddling with the fast-forward and rewind switches, looking for a particular track. He can't find it.

"Cocksucker!" he shouts, apparently to the machine. Then: "Don't write that down!"

Christine giggles. "You get used to it," she says. "He said it in front of my father the other day!"

Dennis finds the track, 'Going South'. His brother Brian's voice comes in, above a whisper of harmonies.

Dennis bursts into tears.

He goes to the bathroom to clear his head, and returns after a couple of minutes with watery eyes and a red nose.

He tells me that he plans to put together all the film he has made of the group since 1964: "Every live performance we've ever done. I filmed it all. It could be a TV series – I might give it to CBS."

CBS, as well as being one of the three major American TV networks, is also the group's new record company, and Dennis launches into an unsolicited testimonial.

"I want to support that company. They're the hippest ****ing corporation on the planet. The chemistry is alive again between CBS and the Beach Boys. It's the same chemistry that Christine has with Warner Brothers. You're looking at history there" – he indicates Ms McVie – "to move that number of records without a movie, without a John Travolta. It's as historical as...as...as Admiral Lemnitz!"

Yeah! Right!

Sorry, what was that again?

I ASK him to tell me about his solo album, the thoroughly outstanding Pacific Ocean Blue, which appeared a couple of years ago to an unjustifiably cool response.

"It was a self-indulgent one-man-band thing, and I had fun doing it," he replies. "I was waiting for the Beach Boys to come down to Brother Studio and make an album. I'm there in this beautiful studio which Al and Mike and Brian tell me is losing money...so I used it. I kept it alive."

He tells me that the studio has been sold, its equipment – which was originally transported across the Atlantic to make the Holland album, before being shipped back to Brother Studio – now in the possession of saxophonist Tom Scott.

I asked him about their final release on Warner Brothers, The MIU Album, named for the Maharishi Institute University.

"They told me they were going to build a studio there, so I quit the group. I don't believe in that album.

"I sang a song on it, which my dear brother Brian wrote about Diane Rovelle," – Brian's sister-in-law, in case you wondered – "but I feel that the album...well, I hope that the karma will **** up Mike Love's meditation forever. That album is an embarrassment to my life. It should self-destruct."

Whew! Thank goodness I gave it a bad review!

So why did he return to the fold for the latest piece of product, which is rather tweely titled The Beach Boys' L.A. (Light Album)?

"Because I stood in a room with my family, around the piano, and we shared something together. That brotherhood is so loving and important that I'll stand behind this album with my absolute being. And God bless the Beach Boys. And I've done talking."

WELL, NOT quite. He tells me that the group runs democratically, which means that all five members have a vote, and that Brian's vote had been given to his wife, Marilyn, when she took over his power of attorney a year or so back. She had, apparently, voted with Love and Al Jardine against Carl and Dennis on a couple of crucial occasions.

But then Dennis says: "Look out for Brian Wilson!" He seems to be on the brink of selling me the standard Brian's-on-the-mend line when the telephone rings.

It's Brian, calling from Hollywood.

The karma, folks!

Dennis goes to the phone.

"Brian! I just want to tell you that I love you and I miss you. Brian...and tell Carl he's a ****-head!...and tell the rest of the guys to start supporting each other!"

He bursts into tears again.

"Why don't you come over to England, Brian?" he enquires through the sniffles. "I'll send you a ticket! Hey, Christine, Brian wants to talk to you!"

Christine takes the receiver, while Dennis returns to his chair and tells me that Brian just loves Christine. He never liked Karen, Dennis's last wife...wouldn't talk to her. Dennis seems to think that this is significant.

And then, quite suddenly, he declares that the interview is over.

WE ALL get up to leave, Dennis and Christine taking an elevator to their room, me taking another one to the ground floor.

The last thing I hear, as the elevator doors close, is Dennis's voice: "Hey, baby, those jeans make your butt look flat!"

I could tell that they're ascloseasthis, but I didn't have the courage to ask if they're infanticipating.