A week ago, I emailed some friends furious about the latest shenanigans of Mike Love of the Beach Boys. Love had unceremoniously called an end to the Beach Boys’ 50th anniversary tour, pulling the plug on an experience that had surprisingly revitalized Brian Wilson and the crew and resulted in an actually pretty good album, “That’s Why God Made the Radio.” Wilson had been looking forward to continuing the tour, and even recording another new Beach Boys record. I couldn’t have been more thrilled — but now this was all off, because Love held the rights to the “Beach Boys” name, and planned to misappropriate that name by resuming his tour of truck stops and juke joints with Bruce Johnston. Here is the story I sent my friends; I’m still pretty animated about it, and was complaining about it against last night when I saw Peter Gabriel at the Hollywood Bowl with my wife and some friends.

Evidently, I’m not the only person who felt outraged, because Mike Love felt compelled to respond. This was in yesterday’s LA Times, which I hadn’t seen before foaming at the mouth about this issue last night. Here’s the piece.

It bears reading.

In Mike Love’s view, this contretemps seems mostly not about relationships or even the primacy of the progenitors. (He says in the end “The Beach Boys are bigger than those who created it,” which on the face of it seems true, but which also diminishes the roles of specific members of the band. If “those who created it” aren’t as important as “The Beach Boys,” then I suppose it’s perfectly acceptable to tour with one just one founding member and call it “The Beach Boys.” I look forward to Pete Best’s tour as the Beatles.) No, it’s mostly a business decision:

“Like any good party, no one wanted it [the tour] to end. However, that was impossible, given that we had already set up shows in smaller cities with a different configuration of the band — the configuration that had been touring together every year for the last 13 years. Brian and Al [Jardine] would not be joining us for these small market dates, as was long agreed upon.

“It is not feasible, both logistically and economically, for the 50th anniversary tour to play these markets. It’s vitally important for the smaller markets to experience our live shows, as this is how we’ve maintained a loyal fan base for 50 years. You can’t sustain a fan base on a great catalog alone. You must take your music directly to the people.”

In other words, if the Mystic Lake Casino Hotel in Prior Lake, MN, doesn’t get this performance by Mike & Bruce, the Beach Boys’ legacy will succumb.

Mike Love holds the license to the band name, so he can go out with just his baseball cap and a tambourine and call it “The Beach Boys” if he likes. Me, I’m just glad I got to see the real band in Dallas in April. It was a great show, and a cherished experience — and it doesn’t look like there’s going to be another one like it.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 7th, 2012 at 6:41 pm and is filed under Music, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.