I met Craig when I returned home from university to my small town. He’d taken over from my job at the local independent record shop so, obviously, we bonded over music. I even split up with my pretty girlfriend because I enjoyed sitting in his box room talking about record sleeves more than I enjoyed spending time with her. In hindsight this was madness but, quite apart from a lasting friendship, it left me with a deep love of Brian Wilson.
I’d grown up with cassettes of The Beach Boys in the car stereo as a child. I vaguely remember tuning out after the fun-times party vibe of ‘Barbara Ann’, or flipping the tape to go back to the surfing, cars and school stuff – some of the best pop music made in the 1960s. But that wasn’t the stuff Craig was obsessed with.
He was making his own copy of the, at that point unavailable, ‘Smile’ based on “Brian Wilson’s state of mind at the time he was recording it.” Brian’s state of mind was fragile on a good day. Craig was creating ‘Smile’ from a variety of bootlegs and reams of A4 printed out from early internet. It makes sense that the earliest music websites would be devoted to Brian Wilson and the lost ‘Smile’ album, so clouded as they were in myth and legend.
The legend had all started with Brian coming off the road, leaving the Boys to tour the hits while he went deep into the studio, even pushing past what his hero Phil Spector had achieved. ‘Pet Sounds’ was less a wall of sound and more a pop music orchestra, with texture and depth. The lyrics went just as far, with lyricist Tony Asher seemingly being able to unlock Brian’s inner feelings on tracks like ‘I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times’.
The Beach Boys weren’t impressed – pantomime villain Mike Love feeling strongly enough to re-write ‘Hang On To Your Ego’ as ‘I Know There’s An Answer’. “Don’t fuck with the formula,” he told Brian. Equally Capitol Records were so lacking in enthusiasm for the album that they released a Best Of at the same time, and an album recognised as one of the best of all time took 20 years to go platinum in the Beach Boys’ homeland. Without support Brian’s decline was swift, and the follow up to ‘Pet Sounds’, ‘Smile’, was not completed.
When he emerged from the decades of darkness, Brian Wilson returned to tour his magnum opus, ‘Pet Sounds’, a joyous experience for the band and audiences. And then something incredible happened. He kept touring, and he came to the UK to play ‘Smile’ for the first time ever since the sessions that drove him to the edge. Craig had flown in from Germany for the first ever performance of the album he’d spend months putting together and saw revered ‘Smile’ lyricist Van Dykes Park receive a standing ovation for taking his seat in the auditorium. That’s the level of love there was in the room.
I was there a few days later and as the band launched into ‘Surfer Girl’ I burst in to tears - not from the simple beauty of the song, but from the love projected at the stage, willing Brian on through what we all knew was a one of the most difficult things he’d ever attempt. At the end of the performance I clapped and carried on clapping until he reappeared for the encore, then clapped all the way through until I was sure he’d left the building. I clapped for 40 minutes without stopping. It was the only way to make sure he knew the love I had for him, a love developed from my friendship with Craig.