Part 6 of the Adult/Child saga.
As ambassadors of the American Dream, The Beach Boys discovered that having all your dreams come true before your brain has emerged from the shadow of puberty can quickly turn into your worst nightmares. Just think of how haunted you’d be if you remembered all your teenage dreams upon waking, then never were able to escape them. Would the highest of highs ever make it worth suffering the lowest of lows?
The harmony stack that made The Beach Boys tower above all other vocal groups was built up from the depths of Hell like a ziggurat; finally reaching all the way to the heavens, it gives the damned a pathway upward, to be reconciled with the divine. But the trauma of descending to hell is something that can’t help but break the builders by the time their labors are complete. Their only hope is for a divine reckoning that sees their efforts favorably.
As a skillful cook says with regard to a dish in which already a great many ingredients are mingled: “It needs still just a little pinch of cinnamon” (and we perhaps could hardly tell by the taste that this little pinch of spice had entered into it, but she knew precisely why and precisely how it affected the taste of the whole mixture); as an artist says with a view to the color effect of a whole painting which is composed of many, many colors: “There and there, at that little point, there must be applied a little touch of red” (and we perhaps could hardly even discover that the red is there, so carefully has the artist suppressed it, although he knows exactly why it should be introduced). So it is with Governance.
Oh, the Governance of the world is an immense housekeeping and a grandiose painting. Yet He, the Master, God in heaven, behaves like the cook and the artist. He says: “Now there must be introduced a little pinch of spice, a little touch of red.” We do not comprehend why, we are hardly aware of it, since that little bit is so thoroughly absorbed in the whole. But God knows why.
A little pinch of spice! That is to say: Here a man must be sacrificed, he is needed to impart a particular taste to the rest… Humanly speaking, what a painful thing thus to be sacrificed, to be the little pinch of spice! But, on the other hand, God knows well him whom He elects to use in this way, and then He knows also how, in the inward understanding of it, to make it so blessed a thing for him to be sacrificed, that among the thousands of divers voices which express, each in its own way, the same thing, his also will be heard, and perhaps especially his which is truly de profundis, proclaiming: God is love. The birds on the branches, the lilies in the field, the deer in the forest, the fishes in the sea, countless hosts of happy men exultantly proclaim: God is love. But beneath all these sopranos, supporting them as it were, as the bass part does, is audible the de profundis which issues from the sacrificed one: God is love.
– Soren Kierkegaard, The Journals
Creation is an act of divine passion. Creation is an act of divine yearning. The Love by which God creates is a passionate love, a yearning love…
God’s yearning isn’t like our yearning. He doesn’t long for what He lacks; His longing is the longing of infinite fullness, undiluted joy, sheer bliss. His longing isn’t the longing to have what is absent, but to share what is superabundantly present.
God creates the world because He yearns in the Spirit for what did not yet have being, and His yearning brings into existence the object of His desire. Make it personal: Long before I existed, He yearned for me. He yearned for you. God created the world because He longed for you to exist.
– Peter Leithart, Act of Divine Passion
1972’s Carl and the Passions: So Tough! put the soulful baby brother and his passionate yearning front and center in the incredibly confusing album title, emphasizing the period of transition for the group in a way that seems more liminal than conclusive. The toughest bit was selling the Beach Boys as anything contemporary audiences wanted to hear, which wasn’t helped by bundling a reissue of Pet Sounds with the album. This only highlights how Brian’s appearance is more negligible than ever, but to make up for it we’ve got two more songwriters in the fold thanks to the addition of Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar.
Their band, The Flame, had come from South Africa to American to tour with The Beach Boys and record an album with Carl as their producer in 1970. Unfortunately, the album failed to catch on when it was released, despite having a fresh, contemporary sound. When the other members tired of living in the U.S.A., they split up and Blondie and Ricky joined the Beach Boys, coming in handy when Dennis Wilson’s broken hand required a new drummer for their tour.
In a reflection of his diminished skin-beating condition, Dennis’s numbers on the album are percussion-less, meandering orchestral pieces, the richness of their backing tracks contrasted by the rawness of his vocal delivery. They are an acquired taste, a kind of tender brutalism that you have to be in the right mood for.
Meanwhile, Carl, Mike and Al wrote the album’s softest centerpiece together, the meditative “All This is That”, a total surrender of self to some of the lushest harmonies the group would ever record. As the central mantra “I am that, thou art that, all this that” is repeated during the extended fade, Carl adds his own falsetto “Jai guru dev” to drift across the rolling waves of bliss. Namaste, dear brother.
The final album of this early 70’s era, Holland, presents a harder side to Carl’s contemplation on the song “Trader”. Picking up from where the discarded Smile lament “bicycle rider, see see what you’ve done to the church of the American Indian” left off, Carl and lyricist Jack Rieley cast their gaze back to the first arrival of the “Trader” (traitor?) to this land of plenty, who writes back to send help to tame the land, “signed sincerely”… Long story short, the trader is the colonizer, a conqueror and enslaver.
By the end of the first half of the song the narrative resembles “Run For the Hills”, with the natives mercilessly driven from their lands, “and so sincerely” they cry out… The shift that follows this desperate cry is a remarkable transformation from the brutal bounce that brought settlement to the continent in the song’s first half. As the survivors withdraw and nurse their wounds, the music itself becomes tender and caring instead of brash and arrogant. The lyrics follow this transformation: “embracing together, like the merging streams, crying dreams, making it full. Begging intently for a slight reprieve, a night of ease, hands to touch, beyond the sorrow”…
By the time the band delivered Adult/Child 4 years later, finding that tender touch was harder than ever, with every Wilson brother’s marriage in a free-fall, if not already ending. The final rejection came from the record label itself. Some dispute the claim that shelving the album was Reprise’s call, that it was Mike and Al saying how are we gonna take this on the road and not get laughed off the stage? This wasn’t the fun fun fun folks wanted, this was a weird hybrid of minimalist slices of life and a handful of big band swinging crooner tunes – in other words, stuff *and* nonsense. The band/label may have been right to reject it, but it was a huge loss for us cultists.
Thankfully, the album has long circulated in a hissy bootleg, so those in the know were able to track it down fairly easily. I first became aware of its existence thanks to Mark Prindle’s cult-classic record review site. Much like Adult/Child, Prindle’s (now retired) style rested somewhere between earnest and wide open love of music and life and a juvenile desire to to blow farts all over both and/or make a huge nonsensical joke out of everything, with the line between often incredibly blurry. As such, he gets down to the essence of the album in a nutshell, particularly the line I’ve highlighted in his review:
“Don’t sit around on your ass – smokin’ grass. That stuff went out a long time ago!” That is the SECOND LINE on this LP. This REJECTED LP. This BRILLIANT, HILARIOUS, MORONIC REJECTED LP. Don’t think I’m trying to be hipster by giving a rejected album a 9. But also don’t think that this is a serious album to be seriously hunted down and listened to with serious ears like (I Don’t Wanna Be Buried In A) Pet Sounds (-atary). This is mid-70s Brian Wilson we’re discussing. He was a loon, see. But a FUN loon! A fun loon out to make himself and others as happy as possible under the sad circumstances. And the person who can listen to any given 10 seconds of this album without getting a big mocking grin on their face is an unpleasant, hurtful person who should be framed for murder and hung from the injection chair. Here’s why:
It’s a full-blown Vegas extravaganza! A musical festival of overblown show tunes with violins and horn sections for dancing with a cane and crooning in a tux! Cover tunes include “Deep Purple,” “On Broadway” and “Shortening Bread,” all performed with complete tongue-in-cheek sincerity (if that’s possible. If not, shut it).
Originals… include “Life Is For Living” (the one that mentions doobs), “Help Is On The Way,” (with its uproariously phrased opening verse, “Stark naked in front of my mirror/A pudgy person somehow did appear/Seems lately all I’ve eatin’s sugar and fat/It’s gettin’ obvious that’s not where it’s at!”), the sickeningly sexist “Hey Tomboy,” in which the band converts a tomboy into a GIRL (“Okay, put on a little lipstick, let’s see what it looks like” – “Now let’s put on a dress and some makeup!” – “Okay, now shave your legs for the first time!”), the out-and-out PATHETIC “Games Two Can Play” (in which Brian, in all seriousness, recites the verse “Joe South was singing `Games People Play’/ And I like to play games that two can play!”) and “Still I Dream Of It,” an honestly beautiful old person-style ballad he wrote in hopes that Sinatra or Davis Jr. would sing it. Neither would – THEIR LOSS. Fantastic song! And, like every other track on here, impossible to hear without imagining overweight bearded Brian standing on stage in a lounge, walking back and forth in front of the orchestra with mic in hand, singing with an eye on the stars, mesmerizing the audience with his dapper moves and manly yet sensitive delivery.
I didn’t intend to quote 3/4 of Prindle’s review, but it’s so on point I don’t know how I could write my own without directly ripping it off. I might as well quote the conclusion while I’m at it:
But the record company rejected it. A friend of mine suggested that they probably just didn’t want to follow up the goofy children’s songs of Love You with an equally bizarre attempt to convert America’s Favorite Beach Music Nostalgia Guys into “Bri Wilson and the Big Beach Band – Live! At the Palamino Club. NUDE WOMEN! LIVE SEX SHOWS!” If that’s the case, the record company can take a cue from Rick Dees and “Eat My Shorts.”
It’s impossible to believe even for a second that the album wouldn’t have bombed miserably and been ripped apart by critics had it seen official release at the time. But 25 years on, this stuff sounds really really REALLY good. No fears or worries, no anxiety or terrorism. No hateful, evil Palestinians and Iraqis spreading fear and pain around the globe while George Bush’s America waves banners of peace, sends over airplanes filled with emissaries of hope, and works day and night to create a global community of togetherness and understanding for all of humanity. Just straight, obvious, bullshit entertainment for old people like me, I’m 29.
It’s almost 25 years later and we’re at war for peace in the middle east again. And this album still sounds really really REALLY good. Double plus double plus good.
Dennis summed up the weird but good vibrations in a contemporary interview, still promoting it as the next album by the band while on the promotional tour for his own record, highlighting Brian’s return to the leadership position of the band:
The new album, his Adult/Child album… strangest album I’ve ever heard. And his vocals are the best I’ve ever heard him. I’m really elated with the new album, it’s really gonna be a surprise. I don’t know where it’s coming from, but it’s positive, again.”
The subsequent loss of Adult/Child has become a kind of reverie-inspiring north star to the Beach Boys fanatic. Adrian Denning, someone who was like a yang to Prindle’s yin in the old web reviewing community, summed up his reaction to the tracks on the band’s 1993 box set:
Four songs are featured from 15 Big Ones, a forced Brian production, and the worst four songs here. Compare them to ‘It’s Over Now’ and ‘Still I Dream Of It’, two songs from a ballad and string Sinatra styled unreleased Brian Wilson solo album. But, what’s this? His seventies nicotine fueled cracked voice is replaced by beautiful, deep voiced singing that breaks my heart. Brian reportedly wrote ‘Still I Dream Of It’ with the hope Frank Sinatra would cover the song. Then again, the lyrics kind of distance this from Frank Sinatra material; this one song will come to be seen as truly representative of Brian, his heart and soul, when he’s no longer with us. Trust me on that, this is glorious, beautiful stuff, the lyrics are so full of pain, heartbreaking passion, regret yet infused with hope. I identify with this so hugely, and the lyrics are at once funny and romantic, lonely and lovely. Til then I’m just a dreamer, I’m convinced of it.
Adult/Child came to a surreal but haunting conclusion with that attempt to write a song for Frank Sinatra. Much like Randy Newman similarly writing the lament “It’s Lonely At the Top” for the famous crooner, Old Blue Eyes failed to see the appeal, and so it fell to the song’s author to deliver it in his most compellingly sincere tongue-in-cheek performance. “Still I dream of it, of that happy day when I can say I’ve fallen in love”, he craggily croons between drags on his cigarette, like the drunk superstar of the local karaoke bar, “and it haunts me so, like a dream that’s somehow linked to all the stars above.”
God only knew how, but he was gonna find a love that outshone those stars, and find the ground beneath his feet again. “I’ll find my world, someday I’ll find my world, woah oh, yeah yeah yeah.” Here’s hoping that positive affirmation pays off. In the meantime, somebody get this man another drink!
Unfortunately, finding that solid ground in an often insane, chaotic world isn’t always so simple. Mark Prindle was the one who let a lot people know the news of Denning’s tragic passing via his Facebook page, and re-reading his site makes it feel like a gut punch all over again. He was a writer who put his whole self into his writing, and it could be just a bit too much – like Brian Wilson’s undying devotion to Phil Spector, sometimes you just wanted Da Do Run Run away from such a full bore, echo-chambered wall of emotion. But that dreamer’s heart was something he shared with Brian Wilson.
Life is for the living, they say. What about the other side of that equation? Infinite conundrums require infinite lines of exploration, and that’s a bit outside the limits of this here finite realm of existence. Whatever lies beyond this moment remains to reveal itself. Til then, we’re just dreamers…
Once Adult/Child became a ghost, the positive feeling within The Beach Boys was gone forever, replaced by a grief-infused malaise. Every attempt at a comeback would seem to be snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. With Landy departed, Brian ballooned to 300 pounds, his cocaine habit unable to burn off his Wellesian beef intake. Carl was little help at this point, his own crumbling marriage and addictions making him almost as much of an enabler as Dennis was as the decade closed.
Dennis, meanwhile, had gamely attempted a followup to Pacific Ocean Blue, but the half finished album would be cannibalized to fill out the Beach Boys CBS records debut, L.A. Light Album. True to its name, it saw the Beach Boys drifting into divorcee yacht rock territory, and I say that as someone who truly loves half the album. Brian didn’t even directly participate in its creation; instead he is represented by what many consider the true pre-Kokomo monstrosity in the band’s catalog, an 11 minute long disco remake of “Here Comes the Night”.
The worst albums of this post Adult/Child era were ironically the ones where Brian was “present” and “participating” in their creation, where one gets the feeling he doesn’t really want to be there. M.I.U. Album, recorded at the Maharishi International University in Iowa in an attempt to separate Brian from his L.A. drug sources, is a flaccid attempt at pop MOR that replaced Adult/Child as the Boys’ final Reprise LP, yet, perplexingly, included a remake of the goddamned monstrosity “Hey Little Tomboy” from that rejected release. Curses be damned! A fresh hell, indeed.
Carl and Dennis refused to go with the program of forced sobriety and only appear on two tracks on the album. The Dennis-sung Love You outtake “My Dianne”, a Spector-esque wall of sorrow, towers over every other song; it’s hard to imagine why it didn’t make the cut on either ’77 album, other than being too damn personal.
Dennis had this to say about M.I.U. a year after its release: “I hope that karma will fuck up Mike Love’s meditation forever. That album is an embarrassment to my life. It should self-destruct.” Unfortunately, it would be his own life which would almost immediately begin to self destruct, along with the band itself.
The final album to feature Dennis was the nadir of this era, Keeping the Summer Alive. The album cover features the Beach Boys performing in the opposite of a snow globe, with the summer they’re keeping alive just an artificial environment they’re encased in. The audience: a single arctic penguin and a polar bear. Bouncy pop-rockers co-written with Randy Bachman can’t overcome antiseptic production that makes it sound as if each vocal part has been recorded in its own booth on its own track, which was probably true. But the blend of voices was totally off, the chemistry of the Boys around one mic totally missing. It’s the worst the band would ever sound vocally until their 2012 auto-tuned swan song. Even the post-“Kokomo”, sans-Brian 80s-90s dreck sounded better than this from a vocal production standpoint.
Dennis didn’t even bother to try and contribute an original tune, although he had plenty socked away at that point after his album sessions collapsed. The band had sold their 70’s studio, and he was no longer free to come in and experiment on his own time. There was one last gasp of creative effort between him and Brian, recorded in an offhand fly-on-the-wall session called The Hamburger Sessions and/or The Cocaine Sessions, so named because those were the substances Dennis would use to motivate Brian to write. Most of these new songs reflect their origin, being pretty empty of substance but full of cholesterol.
The one transcendent moment is the truest sequel to “God Only Knows”, where Brian, somewhere far beyond the stars, gets down on his knees and begs his creator for mercy. “Dear Lord”, he pleads, “delight in me.” At least, that’s what his murmured prayer sounds like to these ears. He was certainly no longer capable of taking any delight in his own life. The fallen demi-god now admitted his mortal and moral frailty, begging his creator, his higher power, for forgiveness. It would come, in its way, someday, but not this day. And never for Dennis, at least not in this life…
If their father drove Brian towards achievement, and Carl towards cooperation, with Dennis it was pure chaotic defiance. I can imagine Murry beating the shit out of a young Dennis the Menace, and Denny just laughing and laughing the whole time, only making the old man hit him harder. It seems like there was a kind of joy he derived in provoking that reaction; his morale would improve when the beatings continued.
When he appears clean-shaven in photos the last couple years of his life, the decay is suddenly undeniable. It’s not just the self-inflicted damage of drink and drugs, but the actual beatings he continued to receive, even after Murry’s death. Maybe Dennis hoped they’d beat some sense into him as much as those who laid into him did, like cousin Stan Love, “morale officer” of the entourage. At some point it must have just become punishment for punishment’s sake.
Dennis was a disaster, a nightmare even, but it was never intentional. When he shows up, it’s directly in your face and larger than life, or clambering to collapse at your feet and look up like a lost puppy dog. There is never a sense of steady balance, only constant motion. Tellingly, the most grounded he would ever feel was aboard a sailboat. His life was driven by trickster forces, but his whole-hearted, eager charisma begs you to come with him on what is bound to be a chaotic misadventure. Just ask Christine McVie’s ghost…. the combination of soulmate-grade kismet and pharmaceutical-grade cocaine that fueled their passionate romance at the end of the 70’s was so intense it’s a miracle the pair even survived to see the birth of the 80’s. If they’d remained together she probably would have gone under with him, but then, like her band mate Stevie Nicks sang, “drowning in a sea of love” is “where everyone would love to be drowning”… Eventually we all look for a house we can call home, and that’s just something that Dennis never could build for himself.
Anyhow, speaking of Stevie… the final Brian Wilson song to be properly recorded with Dennis co-producing was a slight but delightful minor key bounce dedicated to Ms. Nicks. “I have adored you for so long, and the vibrations are so strong,” he yearningly declares, “you make me feel like I belong.” It was a wishful act of projection more than a true vibration, which, to be fare, is basically all the Beach Boys were at this point as recording artists. They wouldn’t release a new album for 4 more years. “Stevie”, although recently leaked in pristine form, remains officially in the can; Brian was still too embarrassed by it to authorize its release on the 2012 box set.
Christine McVie, meanwhile, subtly but unmistakably appears in the background of one of Dennis’s last released songs with The Beach Boys, 1979’s “Love Surrounds Me”, where he repeatedly declares, despite love all around him, “there’s no love of my own.” Somewhere between McVie’s distant, ghostly oohs and what sounds like the screech of a parrot, you sense he may never find it again.
A string of failed romances would follow, with his final moments spent diving for things he’d thrown off his old boat in the drunken dissolution of one of those crumbled bids for intimacy. At some point in the hunt for his souvenirs, the sea of lost love surrounded the truest Beach Boy and claimed him for its own. I can picture him consciously reaching a moment of surrender sitting at the bottom of Marina Del Rey, looking at a discarded photograph or memento. Fuck it. What was left to come up for? He curled up in a fetal ball and took his last breath, and in that moment the Beach Boy and the ocean became forever united. Maybe that’s when he finally felt it: welcome home...
Ronald Reagan, in his assumption of the Godhead of western civilization, decreed that Dennis would never again be anchored to land – he would be afforded the military honor of a burial at sea. It’s too bad they couldn’t have gone all out and given him a proper flaming burial aboard his beloved sailboat, The Harmony, but that would be something beyond the kind of God and country Reagan represented.
The important thing is, the ocean is vast, and Dennis is a part of that vastness. His spirit is no longer consigned to a solid form… he’s with the waves now, untold generations of sea creatures consuming and consumed and shit back out until where Dennis ended and the ocean began is impossible to distinguish. He never came as a messiah to walk on water, he was far too dense for that, for lack of better word. Dense, but porous, the ocean of love pouring through him, but never fully soaking in. As man in god form, he discovered the depths of vanity but never found the truth of his own holiness. Only in complete surrender could the sea of love be consumed by the man, so that the man became the sea of love. Perhaps all we can do now is reach out towards communion with that sea and ask it to give us a wave we can learn to ride, recognizing every beloved ancestor is there with us, helping to shape the waves that lift us up… or perhaps it’s all just meaningless chaos that we have to somehow navigate through, but might just drown us no matter how hard we try. Either way… surf’s up!
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, depression, or thoughts of self-harm, please know that you don’t have to carry that weight alone.
- In the US & Canada: Call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline—free, confidential, and available 24/7. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with the Crisis Text Line.
- In the UK: Call 116 123 to talk to the Samaritans.
- In Australia: Call 13 11 14 for Lifeline.
Love and Mercy, friends.
Dennis Wilson
Pacific Ocean Blue ( 1977 )
The solo career of Dennis was long overdue in arriving. He’d cut a couple of things in the early Seventies, but continuing hassles within The Beach Boys camp and blood-ties, kept him within the fold. His songs were removed from the boys 1971 album Surfs Up after arguments with Carl concerning the running order. And this is after Dennis had been the main creative force on that most blissful of collaborative Beach Boys albums Sunflower the previous year. Dennis threw his heart, soul and very being into his songs and loved getting a response to his music.
Back in 1965 when thrust forwards to sing ‘Do You Wanna Dance’, a rare moment in the spotlight for Dennis – the girls would crowd to the front to catch a glimpse of the genuine Beach Boy, the one who really did live the life. A true heart-throb and a born star, although his talents were never really appreciated by the rest of the group. Audrey, the boys mother, had to beg Brian and Carl to even let the (then) non-singing ‘drummer’ join the group in the first place, back in 1961!
As Dennis developed and began writing songs of his own, the first of which appeared on the 1968 Friends album, Brian for one took note… Through the years Dennis had steadfastly supported his brother Brian. During the Smile sessions, it was Dennis who had said to the press “It makes ‘Pet Sounds stink, that’s how good it is”, whilst Mike reputedly put down the material as crazy demented shit.
So forward to 1977, and a time when Dennis had pretty much been extricated from The Beach Boys by the Mike Love and Al Jardine camps in particular…. Dennis was allowed to finally make his solo record… Whilst 15 Big Ones was a terrible nostalgia fest for the most part, Dennis produces an utterly commercial and contemporary sounding Rock album that deserved to be a far bigger seller than it was.
Contemporary? Well, The Beach Boys seemed permanently rooted in the Sixties whilst here Dennis displays evidence that he actually knew what was going on! Both ‘Friday Night’ and ‘Dreamer’ are songs with funky bass-lines that recall mid to late Seventies Pink Floyd. The latter song is a great combination of things, actually. Midway through the track quietens to allow Dennis to play piano and bare his soul before reverting to funk and brass parts. These types of songs are nice, but where Dennis really excelled was the ballads.
Before I get to those however, ‘River Song’ deserves an extra special mention. God, ‘River Song’ is great! The voice of Dennis Wilson, a voice lacking the dexterity and grace of his brothers – yet able to reach for the heart – ploughs straight into a gospel choir. ‘River Song’ is undulating and absolutely glorious as the gospel choir rise to surround Dennis moaning and praying his way through the song. Very spiritual, very exciting Rock n Roll at the same time. The low backing vocals “rollin, rollin on, river” is an excellent touch and shows that Dennis had learnt well from his brother Brian.
Moving through the album, we reach ‘Moonshine’ a gorgeous Dennis ballad utilising his technique of producing very full orchestral sounding tracks through both strings and keyboard lines. Dennis pleading for love, and the harmonies are truly beautiful here… Dennis could sing, and play Piano – that’s all he really needed. The songs stand up on their own. Not that ‘Pacific Ocean Blue’ is overproduced, I don’t want you to draw that conclusion, because it isn’t overproduced at all. Dennis did like surrounding his voice in orchestration, romantic orchestration to help draw out or reinforce the message of his songs.
In this vein is the heartbreaking ‘Time’. Dennis sounds weary and his vocal here is effective in particular… Where some singers can sing “I love you” and it sounds like a commercial ploy and nothing more, Dennis sings “I love you”, and it sounds like he really loves you. And, that’s something special… The closing song is a classic Dennis Wilson ballad, ‘End Of The Road’, and you worry and believe him. You want to hold him. ‘End Of The Road’ is a shared grief out of which ultimately arises light and triumph as the song reaches it’s conclusion.
20 May 2024: It’s now 3 years since (4 days after his birthday) Adrian was taken from us, but his words still live on in his reviews… May 16th would have been his 50th birthday.
29 Sep 2023: My brother Adrian Denning started his album review site http://adriandenning.co.uk/albums.html back in 2001 as a project to keep him sane from the monotony of life. Over the years he had built up quite a community of visitors / contributors to his review site, not just in the UK, but seemingly across the world.
In May 2021, just a few days after his birthday, he was killed in a tragic bizarre act of nature. I wont go into details, but bees are no longer my friends. I managed to obtain his login details to where he hosts this website, so I can maintain it in his memory until it becomes impractical to do so. I also have access to the email account linked to it and often still get emails from people who used and still use his reviews to guide them when they want to find something new (to them) to listen to. It appears he opened up a lot of people to genres of music or different bans / artists they would never have otherwise thought to do so.
I have found it a struggle to keep it going at times if I’m honest, the hosting costs of the site on top of the time it takes sometimes get on top of me. I am asking for anyone that might help out with the costs to do so if they can.
Our thanks
Adrian’s family
6 Feb 2023: It is on days like today that I’m again looking for something different to listen to. I wonder what Adrian would have been about to spin… or even review and share his thoughts with us. I suppose we will never know. I’ll instead find something he liked on here and crank that up! It’s good to know I’m not alone in this… there have been many reach out to say they still use this… and that’s wonderful. Thanks All
– Phil (Adrian’s brother)
Leave a Reply