Some Ruminations on the New Beach Boys Documentary
….and the Twilight of America’s Band
Judged solely by what it attempts to be, Thom Zimny and Frank Marshall’s new Beach Boys doc on Disney Plus is a masterpiece. The Disneyfied/California Dream/America’s Family Band angle is perhaps the most obvious narrative with which to tell the Beach Boys’ sixty-plus year story as it sits now, and as reductive as it can sometimes be, it matches the tone of the early BBs songs that still exemplify the band to most of their casual fans. In the end, it should be no surprise that Disney made an enjoyable film for families to sit around and watch together, as opposed to something to appeals more to critical record nerds such as myself.
As watchable as the film is, the timing of the release seems off. It comes across like a documentary about World War II that is released in March, 1945, when the end of the war is in sight but nothing is assured, and also chooses not go into any detail about what happened after D-Day. Not at all in terms of subject matter, obviously (except for the beach part, I guess), but it seems frustratingly premature, as the men involved are in the December of their years (it’s actually Brian’s 82nd birthday as I write this), and coming up with a definitive thesis about them is impossible while they are involved with the end product.
The overly reductive, but still not entirely un-true, story put forward by the film is that brothers Brian, Carl, and Dennis Wilson, along with cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine, were obsessed with boogie-woogie piano, early rock’n’roll, folk music, elaborate barbershop harmonies, and eventually instrumental surf music. Their very early stuff is a combination of Chuck Berry, Dick Dale, and the Four Freshmen, with lyrics about late ’50s/early ’60s southern California youth culture, particularly surfing, girls, and cars. Bassist Brian quickly becomes the mastermind of the group, emulating producers like Phil Spector, and the band becomes insanely prolific and popular. In this early period, Brian has a close, symbiotic artistic collaboration with Mike, who writes the majority of the lyrics.
One of the possible revisionisms in the film is the narrative that Al Jardine quit the group after their first single “Surfin’” but before their first album Surfin’ Safari in order to attend dental school. Commentators have stated that there is no evidence that Al ever enrolled in dental school, and that he instead simply lost interest in the group and wanted to play folk music. I haven’t taken the time to dig through early ’60s college transcripts to confirm or deny this, but in any case there still seems to be something mysterious about Jardine’s departure just as things were getting going. David Marks, a friend of Carl’s a few years younger than even the other very young guys in the band, took Al’s place as a rhythm guitarist, but did not join in on the vocal harmonies, on their next four albums. David later comes in and out of the story and has very Zen attitude about his Pete Best-like status in the Beach Boys camp. His autobiography, 2007’s The Lost Beach Boy is possibly the best BBs memoir thus far, although his time with the band is just one portion of what is covered. The time-frame gets jumbled here, but within a very short period, Brian quits the touring group, Al rejoins in his place on bass, Murray kicks out David, Brian returns, Al goes back to rhythm guitar, Brian quits again following a mental breakdown, the band ditches Murray as their manager, future country great Glen Campbell replaces Brian in the touring group, and following Glen’s pivot to solo-stardom, Bruce Johnston takes his spot and eventually becomes a permanent member. Note that Bruce would leave in the early ’70s and rejoin later in the decade, but one wouldn’t know that from watching the doc.
During this time, from 1962–1966, the band weathers the British Invasion and enters a mutually appreciative rivalry with the Beatles, especially Paul McCartney. As Brian focuses on production and songwriting, the band tours constantly, which means that Brian and Mike are not often in the same place at the same time, so Brian starts working with other lyricists. While the dwindling of their songwriting partnership may have happened naturally even outside of these circumstances, it is a convenient narrative to downplay the idea that the cousins were artistically at odds at this time. Also due to the constant touring, Brian relies on session musicians from the Wrecking Crew (where they would initially meet Glen Campbell), and the musicians in the band, which the exception of lead guitarist Carl, no longer contribute musically in studio for the next few years.
Under this arrangement, the band gradually transitions from their feel-good early work to a much more intricate, emotional approach, culminating in the unsurpassed Pet Sounds. Continuing this momentum, they realize the all-time classic single “Good Vibrations,” but the planned follow-up Smile is left unfinished due to Brian’s mental and substance abuse issues. Meanwhile, the rest of the band members step up in Brian’s absence and make some often enjoyable and occasionally brilliant music that they release on a series of albums that are underwhelming only by comparison with what could have been.
The most obvious editorial choice in the film, which is affective for the run-time they accomplished, is to end the story of the Beach Boys as a creative concern in the mid ’70s after their brilliant Holland album with new members Blondie Chaplain and Ricky Fataar had flopped around the same time the compilation Endless Summer was a massive hit, propelling them forever toward the oldie’s circuit. Despite the fact that they continued to release occasional albums, including the retroactively celebrated Love You and the massive hit single “Kokomo” years later, the rest of their career would be dedicated to nostalgia, with Brian occasionally drifting in and out of the band’s orbit, and even Carl and Dennis taking brief breaks from the road.
The years of sniping back and forth over legal, musical, and personal issues as glossed over with a few exceptions, and as the film winds down, everyone seems to be in a conciliatory mood, no one more than Mike Love, who up until now has had the prickliest reputation in the group. As the end credits roll, Mike earnestly sums up his feelings about the band, especially his love for his cousin Brian. Finally, the surviving major players gather together at the site of their first album cover photograph, toasting one another. Before the end credits roll we are told that Dennis passed away in 1983 and Carl in 1998.
My Pollyanna take on the documentary isn’t to say that the film deliberately glosses over all troubling issues in the history of the group. The group’s bizarre association with the Manson Family is discussed in a fair way that seems to mostly add up: troubled Dennis gets briefly intrigued by the free-love aspects of the cult, convinces the group to record a Manson song that he took credit for, and then once he realizes how sinister the situation is getting, he cut ties. The fact that he put Manson in touch with Beach Boys associate, Doris Day’s son, and Bruce Johnston’s BFF Terry Melcher, and that the Tait murders took place in Melcher’s former home seems to lead to a lifetime of guilt for Dennis, culminating in his drowning death in 1983. Regarding Manson, the doc surprisingly leaves out the anecdote from Mike Love’s memoir Good Vibrations about divorcing one of his many ex-wives when he finds out that she hired one of the Manson girls to babysit their kids.
In addition, the “give credit where credit is due” approach to the Wilsons’ abusive, egomaniacal father Murray is surprisingly balanced in an age where the word “toxic” is thrown around loosely to discredit people who are far less problematic than group’s absolutely bonkers manager/father. The consensus is that without Murray Wilson’s single-minded assistance in the early years, the group would never have made it, and that it is equally true that he was abusive to his kids, especially Dennis and Brian, and made terrible financial decisions on the group’s behalf. David Marks, who was personally fired from the group as a teenager by Murray, as well as Brian’s first wife Marilyn, surprisingly have nice things to say, and reading between the lines, one can see Murray as an analogue for what could have happened to Brian if circumstances had turned out differently. But even if one can overlook the ’50s era attitude of hitting one’s kids and giving one of them permanent hearing damage, it’s still difficult to forgive Murray’s decision to sell off the Beach Boys song royalties for a fraction of what they were worth without consulting the members of the band. In addition, the film, through Mike’s talking head interviews, places this as the catalyst that forced Mike to take his cousin to court, since the royalties were, according to Mike and confirmed by various court rulings, erroneously assigned fully to Brian in cases when Mike was a legitimate co-writer. Mike implies, not unfairly, that because Brian was too fragile to rectify this on his own, Mike was forced to sue him, which led to decades of litigation that teetered between “just business” and undeniably personal.
What’s next?
Footage from this well-produced documentary, especially the final portion, will hopefully be brought more fully to life as a portion of a future Beatles Anthology-like, warts and all, multi-part Ken Burns-level series that does not shy away from the more complicated aspects of the group. Combined with the very good but now strangely unavailable Endless Harmony documentary, the Classic Albums making-of Pet Sounds, and presumably footage from all these projects that was left on the cutting room floor, a truer, more definitive picture of America’s band will surely do them justice.
Hopefully in the following years, the mostly silent Al and Bruce choose to write autobiographies to fill in the gaps in the story that has often been portrayed as simply Team Mike versus Team Brian. Mike’s memoir is interesting and not nearly as self-serving as one might expect, but Brian’s two autobiographies — the first being spearheaded by Eugene Landy, who is for better or worse absent from the movie– seem to me to be so heavily ghostwritten that they don’t add much to the story. Thankfully, Peter Ames Carlin’s Catch a Wave, the basis for the excellent biopic Love & Mercy, tells Brian’s story much better than Brian ever could.
As for what might happen in the next ten or so years as the last of the Beach Boys retire from performing (granted I can easily see Mike, Al, Bruce, Blondie, and David happily performing in Beach Boys related projects as long as they are physically able, it wouldn’t surprise me for veterans of the Mike Love-led group to continue on in some official capacity, as well as Brian and Al’s touring band made of members of the Wondermints, and also, Al’s Endless Summer band, featuring his and Brian’s kids and veteran members of the Beach Boys touring heyday. There is already no shortage of great Beach Boys tribute bands, including many that who have members who have played with the different official BBs configurations. Seeing what Ronnie James Dio, Kiss, and the Grateful Dead are starting to do with their legacies demonstrates just some of the possibilities. While doing a live avatar version of the Beatles strikes me as sacrilegious, doing the same with the Beach Boys doesn’t bother me one bit, as corniness has always been an unavoidable part of their brand and they’ve long ago splintered into so many groups, no one has a clear monology on their legacy at this point.
Lingering questions:
· Who are the real Beach Boys? It’s obvious that the documentary focused on the original five, Brian, Carl, Dennis, Mike, and Al, with Bruce lumped in with them most of the time due to his long tenure with the group and his artistic contributions in the late ‘60s/early ’70s, but where does David Marks fit in? At times, like right after Carl died and later when the 2012 reunion took place, David was trotted out as an equal, only later to vanish from the narrative again. And what about the two South African guys, Blondie Chaplain and Ricky Fataar, who were official members for a few years in the early ’70s and made massive contributions to two of the band’s most adventurous albums? In addition, a core group of musicians joined the touring group in the late ’60s and have been associated ever since — the late Billy Hinshche, Ed Carter, and Bobby Figueroa. These huge parts of the story are barely mentioned in the film, which I understand, but was left craving more info.
· Not acknowledged in the film, but in other sources, Al Jardine and Mike Love seem to be on the same page throughout the ’70s, being clean-living TM adherents as opposed to the hard-partying Wilson Bros., including St. Carl. At one point in the early ’90s (not featured in the film), Mike unilaterally kicked Al out of the band for at least one concert due to having a “bad attitude.” After Carl’s death when the united incarnation of the Beach Boys broke apart and Mike eventually got the exclusive license to tour under the name with Bruce, Mike had a lot of very negative things to say about the seemingly well-liked Al, who rarely publicly denigratesd Mike. While everyone is on their best behavior lately, I am curious what was behind this rupture and how it was resolved.
Some observations:
· No one in the world seems to have a bad thing to say about Carl Wilson (except Brian Wilson in his first autobiography Wouldn’t It Be Nice, which was entirely ghostwritten by Gene Landy, who is such an obvious villain that Murray Wilson seems like a saint by comparison).
· It’s miraculous how well Al Jardine can sing at his age. And his son Matt is phenomenal.
· “I’m president of the Brian Wilson fan club,” — Bruce Johnston. This is the consensus by everyone throughout the story. Even when frustrated by Brian’s behavior, everyone appreciates him and realizes that they would be nowhere without him.
· Even the best Brian Wilson performances in recent years have been tainted by the impression that he’s often not enjoying himself. Combined with the fact that he openly hated touring during the prime of his life, it never totally made sense that he would take to the stage again for lengthy tours when his health was so obviously failing, unless it was out of obligation. I say that with no judgement toward his late wife/manager Melinda or to Al Jardine and the folks who have toured with him, who by all accounts care deeply about him. I saw him about ten years ago on a Pet Sounds tour and he was engaged about half the time, and saw him on his final tour with Chicago, where his presence was strictly ceremonial. I like to think it was a Bruce Willis-like situation where he insisted on working in order to raise more money for his family, and that he was not put up to it by outside parties.
· After the fallout from the acrimonious end of the 2012 reunion tour subsided, the main parties all seem to have mellowed out and only have nice things to say about one another. Brian, Al, and Blondie teamed up for multiple tours and the ever-mysterious David Marks flitted between those guys as well as the Mike/Bruce configuration, sometimes not being heard from publicly for years at a time. All the guys who are active on social media unfailingly wish their comrades sincere happy birthdays, and the documentary ending with a tearing eyed Mike Love speaking of his love from his cousin and then the group getting together, possibly for the very last time, on the beach at the site of their Surfin’ Safarialbum shoot is a fine final look (for now) on their career. Let’s hope for no more internecine litigation or crap-talking for the remainder of these guys’ lives.
Do you have any lingering questions or observations about the Beach Boy’s new documentary on Disney Plus, or just about the winding-down of their long saga? Please let me know in the comments.