Episode #48 | 12.19.19
The Beach Boys (Part 2): An Endless Bummer, More Manson, Hollywood Paranoia, On Stage Fist Fights, Incest, Cocaine and the Pacific Ocean Blue
Amazon Music | iHeart | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify
In this episode
In the aftermath of the Manson Family murders, Hollywood was gripped with fear. Various investigations stitched together a deluded White Album-inspired explanation of the killing spree. But Dennis Wilson knew the truth; that he had made a terrible, irreversible mistake and that now, the sunny dream of the sixties was over and the nightmare it brought about, haunted him to his final days.
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