The Last Boys Standing

Saw the Beach Boys perform the other day — at least, what’s left of that legendary American rock band.

The show, staged at the Pablo Center in Eau Claire, proved that the group’s music has incredible staying power. The musicians that, originally and in the early years, comprised it — well, not so much.

The Beach Boys now consist of original member Mike Love — cousin to the Wilson brothers who made up half of the initial lineup —Bruce Johnston, a mid-1960s addition, and a bunch of much-younger guys. Carl and Dennis Wilson passed away decades ago; Brian Wilson, the most creative of the bunch, and the other original Boy, Al Jardine, are both legally members of the group, but don’t tour.

The current touring iteration put on a 1-hour, 45-minute excursion through the Beach Boys’ decades of hits — pedal to the metal, very few breaks between songs, which came at you hard, fast and loud. It was a bit overwhelming at times, not allowing for much reflection on songs that mostly take me back to people, places and times. The backdrop to the band was a large video screen that pretty much continuously ran images of the Boys back in their heyday, random surfers surfing, hot cars, etc.

The musicianship was pretty good, I would say, most of it provided by the younger instrumentalists. The drummer was almost worth the price of admission himself — demonstrative, drum-stick spinning and powerful, he is the alternate percussionist to “Full House” heartthrob John Stamos, who apparently had other things to do during this tour, but reportedly also puts on quite a show.

The crew also included a keyboard player (besides Johnston), rhythm and lead guitarists, a bass player and a saxophonist. One of the guitarists took over the lead vocals, particularly the high-octave stuff, from Love.

There was also an extra guitarist standing next to Love (whose voice is mostly gone), his presence seeming to be superfluous. Turns out he is Love’s son Christian, who took the high lead on a couple of the Boys’ classics. (Dad Love did a bit of family name-dropping, talking about his brother Stan, a former National Basketball Association player, and nephew Kevin Love, Stan’s son, who is still playing in the NBA.)

The elder Love definitely needed help with the vocals, and looked a bit unsteady on his feet. Johnston didn’t seem to add much to the music — which is odd, because he is a very talented multi-instrumentalist, sang vocals on a lot of BB tunes, and is also formerly a producer of note.

But one wonders how much longer there will be a touring Beach Boys with any early members left. Love just turned 84; Johnston is closing in on 83, as is Jardine. Brian Wilson is also coming up on 83, and has had mental-health issues over the years

Love has sued just about everybody in the group over a number of issues, and owns the rights to the name because of a court settlement years ago. So it seems unlikely that someone else will take the band out on the road.

Which is fine with me, I guess. The music was great to listen to — although you would think they’d give their aging audience an intermission — and the show was fun. But at some point, we’ll just be left with melodies and memories, regardless.

Life’s a Beach with the Boys

Struggling Weekly, May 1, 2014

a

            I received the news that the Beach Boys will perform at this year’s Ashley for the Arts festival with mixed emotions. While that California band has provided part of the sound track of more than a half-century of my life, the musicians that entertained me when I was young are looking, like me, rather — old, for the want of a better word.

            The Boys were one of the staples of the Top 40 AM radio that I began listening to in the early 1960s. But they were something more than just pop fare; the Beatles and the other English Invasion acts dominated the airwaves in the mid-1960s. The Beach Boys, though — along with the Byrds, Dylan and the Rascals — were the best answer Americans had back then. Those artists, and Motown, kept us from being totally overrun by the Limeys.

            The Boys started out as a “surf band,” which was kind of unfamiliar to those of us beached here in the Midwest. But it wasn’t long before they joined acts like Jan and Dean in celebrating the evolving American car culture, and car-crazy teens like myself, my older brother and our friends could better appreciate songs like “409,” “Little Deuce Coupe” and “Shut Down” (which also fed into our Chevy vs. the Other Guys biases).

            We didn’t have in-car CD players back then — it was even pre-eight-track tape — so we couldn’t pick our music when “cruising the Circuit” in Janesville. Odds were good, though, that we could hear “I Get Around” or “Be True to Your School” on the AM car radio at some point during the evening. And when I was manager on the high school basketball team, road trips featured repeated singing of “Barbara Ann” (and the Kingsmen’s “Jolly Green Giant”).

            The Beach Boys, though, like the Beatles and many of the other rock bands of the ’60s, started expanding their horizons in the second half of the decade. Not all the acts had the musical skills to go beyond the three-minute single and the 12-bar blues format; the Boys did.

            I picked up on that, nearly wearing out the grooves on my 45-rpm copy of “Heroes and Villains.” Albums like Pet Sounds took the Beach Boys in directions other than catching a wave or stoplight racing.

            Like a lot of the big-name acts of the ’60s and ’70s, the Boys foundered in subsequent decades, original members leaving over disagreements and personal problems. They remained popular, though, and never succumbed to the “super group” madness that saw bands breaking up and forming other combinations, often at the expense of the synergy and musical quality.

            The band that will be coming to Arcadia, though, will include only one of the original members. That’s not uncommon on what I call the “Geezer Circuit,” where a few surviving members from a group round up back-up musicians — often too young to remember the music the first time it came out — and start playing casinos (after the intra-band lawsuits get settled).

            The Beach Boys were basically a family act, consisting of brothers and cousins, a Love and the Wilsons. That was probably part of the reason for their success; like other great brother acts — the Everlys, the Louvins — the commonality of their voices helped make the sound.

            Two of the Wilson brothers, Carl and Dennis, are deceased. Most notably missing — as he has been for much of the last several decades — is the Wilson brother most responsible for writing the songs. Bob Dylan once said of Brian Wilson that “somebody ought to cut off his ear and put it in the Smithsonian,” or something to that effect — an acknowledgement of that Beach Boy’s genius from one of the other great songwriters of the modern era.

            So, no, it won’t be the people who performed that part of the soundtrack of my teens and 20s who will take to the Memorial Park stage in early August. But those guys created a musical legacy that will be on display — and that music was fun, and had the magic of eternal summer and youth about it.