Episode #47 | 12.17.19
The Beach Boys (Part 1): An Endless Summer, LSD, Orgies, Charles Manson and a Steve McQueen Man-Crush
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In this episode
In the summer of 1968, the Beach Boys’ drummer Dennis Wilson invited a hippie guru and his grungy harem to squat in his Pacific Palisades home. Dennis was the handsome California surfer that his brother Brian wrote all those hit songs about, while the hippie cult would soon be infamous the world over as the Manson Family. What happened when the Wilsons met the Mansons would forever change Dennis, the band, and American history itself.
Sources
Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, by Peter Ames Carlin
Dennis Wilson: The Real Beach Boy, by Jon Stebbins
Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy, by Mike Love
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders, by Vincent Bugliosi
Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, by Tom O’Neill
Inside the Manson Family’s Wild Summer at Beach Boys’ Drummer Dennis Wilson’s House, by Katie Serena
Hitchhiking with Evil: The Beach Boys’ Surreal Relationship with Charles Manson, by Dan Caffrey
How Charles Manson Ruined Dennis Wilson’s Life, by Jacob Shelton
How a Stolen Beach Boys Song Helped Lead to Charles Manson’s Murderous Path, by Daniel Kreps:
How the Beach Boys Ended Up Recording a Song Written by Charles Manson, by Katie Dowd
Bobby Beausoleil interview, Hinman account:
Manson and Cielo Drive:
Cielodrive (1)
New York Times (1)
New York Times (2)
Cielodrive (2)
Disgraceland is a podcast about musicians getting away with murder and behaving very badly. It melds music history, true crime and transgressive fiction. Disgraceland is not journalism. Disgraceland is entertainment. Entertainment inspired by true events. However, certain scenes, characters and names are sometimes fictionalized for dramatic purposes.
Music
Score by Jake Brennan.
Mixed and Engineered by Sean Cahalin.
Disgraceland theme song, "Crenshaw Space Boogie" written and produced by Jake Brennan. Performed by Jake Brennan, Bryce Kanzer, Jay Cannava and Evan Kenney. Mixed and engineered by Adam Taylor.
*illustrations by Avi Spivak @avispivak